Quick preface: I'm writing with the notion that good game design makes the player want to continue playing and bad game design makes the player want to go do something else. I played a few weeks of the preview event and spent $5 on CE - at the time I purchased it I figured I'd probably spend another $5 to $10 before finishing my time with the game (either because I'd seen all there was to see or became interested in some other game), but at this point I'm nearly ready to let it go immediately.

All of these 'unfun' moments happened in Tier 2; the Tier 1 gameplay was lots of fun and I enjoyed slowly building up my 2-star equipment set and exploring the various themed dungeons as I prepared to advance to T2. I assumed T2 would just be an extension of T1 with monsters scaled up with my equipment and maybe some more interesting combinations/scenarios that played off my familiarity with the various creatures, but that doesn't always seem to be the case.

1. Getting quick-hit (lag-hit?) by lichen and poison devils. Most monsters seem to have a pretty good lead-in before doing their attack, but for whatever reason the lichen seem to have a somewhat spastic attack that hits at the same moment they *begin* to ready their attack with the red glow. In groups on my way through the Royal Jelly Palace they caused a couple deaths that felt arbitrary and unfair (as opposed to ones I felt I deserved by not playing smart enough). The poison devils seem to be in the same boat as they frequently seem to hit a full second or more after I've raised my shield (no other enemies were landing lag-hits though, only the poison devils).

   * Solution: Pretty simple, just give them similar red glow warning time as other monsters before their actual attack is supposed to hit. I'm not sure if this issue is mainly due to lag (it was happening when I had 3 bars, which seems normal and my internet connection is perfectly fine), but it only seemed to happen with these specific enemies.

2. Being incapable of doing anything productive in the spiked arena due to healer goblins camping on the spikes. In one of the spiked arenas, a couple healer goblins managed to plant themselves in the middle of the spikes with a team of higher level wolves acting as attackers. The spikes don't go down long enough to finish a 3-hit combo that would knock the casters out while still allowing enough time to pull myself away from the spikes and shield from the wolf attacks. In the end, I just wasn't able to do anything productive to actually chip away at their forces and spent a good four minutes (long time in an action game like this) running around rather bored trying to figure out what to do. Basically I couldn't hit them hard enough to be worth anything without critically injuring myself.

   * Solution: Also pretty simple, if monsters/enemies were just given the instructions to always run out of spike zones the battle could progress and be more fun. Boredom was the real enemy here - enemies on spikes frequently leave me twirling in circles just killing time waiting for the spikes to drop so I can continue playing the game. I understand that tweaking the spikes to add damage or otherwise influence enemies could affect play balance, but if spikes just had a 'soft' collision with enemies so they'd want to find the nearest non-spike tile asap, there would be fewer moments of bored waiting.

3. Instant spawn attacks from enemies. In an ice arena, I killed the final remaining gun puppy on the North side of the stage only to have a Trojan and several of the frost robots spawn and instant-freeze and smash me into near death without warning. Even if I knew the attack was coming, it happened fast enough that my shield wouldn't have been up in time to defend. It was made worse by the fact that every other hit seemed to cause freezing and they quickly surrounded me so I was incapable of moving away.

   * Solution: Enemies should spawn 'dumb' or unaware of their surroundings and need a second or so lead-in before attacking. In the same way the player has to take a sec to register which enemies just spawned, the enemies should have a short delay before attacking. The secondary issue of being simultaneously frozen and physically blocked in place by the enemies could also use some work - perhaps when the ice is broken it would give a slight push like a shield push or a weak combo-knockback?

4. Homing missile gun puppies. Seriously, which level designer thought putting 8 of these in an arena would ever make the game enjoyable? Two of these on their own is hard enough to deal with as their missiles don't seem to explode when they hit walls, they sap shields at an insane rate, and the puppies seem to shoot them at constant intervals rather than only being allowed to have one missile out at a time. Not to mention how crazy their tracking is and how much damage they do (both explosive and the leftover fire) when they connect. I frequently play solo or with one other friend, and the fact that the number of puppies spawned isn't tied to the number of players makes this even more insane.

   * Solution: The homing missile puppies need work, and there are other threads out there that bring this up. Either keep them overpowered and spawn two max or significantly nerf them. The fact that they spawn in addition to other enemies did make me quit the game after dying - it just wasn't any fun because because it presented a completely unsolvable challenge.

Those were the main moments that the game just stopped being any fun because it caused failure for what seemed like arbitrary reasons that I couldn't take steps to avoid. Additionally, some of the enemy combinations (like gun puppies, slimes, tree giants, and healing moths) spawned in a few of the tighter spaces (like some of the Royal Jelly Palace sections) present situations that are completely solvable but just not much fun because they require hit-and-run tactics that take excess time. Overall Tier 2 hasn't been as much fun as Tier 1, which makes me wonder if it just gets worse with T3 and if it's worth even staying on board. I had really been enjoying this game up to this point, which is why I'm bothering to write this, and I figure the game/level designers can't improve the game if players don't speak up.

Feel free to chime in, but I tried to keep this as constructive as possible - presenting problems alone is just complaining but proposing solutions presents the designers with a possible course of action they're so inclined.