Indie action RPG design checklist: what players punish in Steam reviews
Answer 28 questions about your own indie action RPG. Of the 59 checklist items, 22 block a release.
The 6 ways indie action RPGs become flawed hits
A flawed hit sold well and still ended up with a mixed review score. Post-mortems of 10 of them show the same combinations of failures recurring. If a game fits one of these, that is the thing to fix first.
The Diablo-like that runs out
Looks like Wolcen, Dragonkin and Van Helsing III.
- D1 Several clearly different builds can finish the hardest content.
- D4 Loot produces felt upgrades at a steady rate, and the best items enable builds.
- F1 There is something worth doing after the credits, or the game is sold as a finite campaign.
The live-service indie
Looks like SpiritVale, Hero Siege and Wolcen.
- K1 Servers hold at launch and at every season start.
- G3 After launch, the game is supported and never taken away.
- K2 Every permanent ban is reviewed by a person and can be appealed.
- K3 The economy is protected before launch, not by removing features after.
Hard, but not fair
Looks like Eldest Souls and Dungeons of Sundaria.
- C2 Hitboxes match what is drawn, for the player's attacks and the enemies'.
- C3 Defensive tools are reliable.
- E1 Higher difficulty adds mechanics, not health.
- E2 Every death is readable.
Mislabelled
Looks like Eldest Souls, Zengeon and Lichdom.
- F2 Variety lasts as long as the playtime you advertise.
- L1 The store page and tags name the genre you actually made.
- L3 Marketing numbers are true in play.
The smaller sequel
Looks like Van Helsing III and Hero Siege.
- L2 A sequel or a big update keeps what people bought, or says loudly that it does not: character import, depth of skill trees, level cap, the feel of the original.
- D1 Several clearly different builds can finish the hardest content.
- F5 It feels finished.
Padding as content
Looks like Dragonkin, Relic Hunters Legend and Lichdom.
- D6 The grind is not the content.
- F3 Levels respect the player's time.
- F4 No filler quest types.
Full Action RPG (indie) genre report
- What players complain about, ask for and love, ranked, with quotes from 4,490 reviews of 12 games
- Post-mortems of 10 flawed hits: what each was bought for, what sank it, and what doing it right looks like
- Why players quit in the first two hours versus what veterans criticise
- The complete checklist with every item's evidence, ready to print
One-time payment, no account needed to buy. 30-day money-back guarantee: if the report is no use to you, reply to your receipt for a full refund, no questions asked.
It documents what players punished. It is not a forecast for your game.
What players hate in indie action RPGs, from 4,490 Steam reviews
These are the first 10 of the 25 complaint themes ranked in the full report, in the report's order. The order combines how many games a theme appears in, how many reviewers raise it and how severe the complaints are, so a row can sit above one with more reviewers.
| # | Complaint theme | Reviewers | Games (of 12) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Progression and grind | 133 | 12 |
| 2 | Difficulty balance | 110 | 12 |
| 3 | Build variety | 113 | 12 |
| 4 | Combat feel | 107 | 11 |
| 5 | Enemy and boss design | 90 | 12 |
| 6 | Combat feels unresponsive and clunky | 83 | 10 |
| 7 | Bugs and crashes | 80 | 11 |
| 8 | Loot and itemization | 78 | 11 |
| 9 | Interface and menus (UI/UX) | 127 | 12 |
| 10 | Developer support and updates59% of all developer-support complaints come from one game. | 62 | 8 |
The 22 things that block release
These are the items the checklist marks Critical: they separate well-rated from poorly rated games, drive early quits or refunds, or sank several flawed hits.
- A1
Fighting feels good, moment to moment.
Combat feel is praised by 1,011 reviewers, with the joint-highest praise severity (3.6/5), and complained about by 774. No single game is above 21% of those complaints.
the combat is clunky and floaty
- A2
Build choices are real.
Build variety is praised by 516 reviewers and complained about by 425 (9.5%), both in 12 of 12 games.
The skill trees have been significantly dumbed down
- B1
Combat feels right within the first ten minutes, with the starting kit, before any upgrade.
Combat feel is a much larger share of complaints from players with under two hours played than from players past ten hours. The figures are in the source checklist, in its introduction to this section.
Player movement feels slow and sluggish.
- B2
Controls and camera work on the first try, on both keyboard-and-mouse and controller.
Controls are 9.2% of the complaints written by players with under two hours played.
The controls are VERY awkward and ignoring the weird laggy/stutter effect and yanky controls, it makes the game difficult.
- B4
It runs and does not break in the first session on ordinary hardware.
The source gives no separate count for the first session. It refers to its technical section, where bugs and crashes are counted from recent reviews.
it crashes every 15 minutes
- C1
Inputs are answered immediately.
"Combat feels unresponsive and clunky" is the single biggest complaint theme (83 reviewers, 10 games).
Like you need to wait 1-2 second until the damage registered
- C2
Hitboxes match what is drawn, for the player's attacks and the enemies'.
Inconsistent hitboxes: 80 reviewers across 6 games, but one game is 82% of those.
A boss can be facing one direction and swinging straight ahead, yet still hit you when you're clearly outside the attack animation.
- C3
Defensive tools are reliable.
Unreliable dodge: 30 reviewers across 6 games.
Not being able to dodge through bosses, having dodges on cooldown
- D1
Several clearly different builds can finish the hardest content.
Few viable builds at the top end: 6/10 flawed hits.
they're just nerfing the the few viable builds on endgame
- D4
Loot produces felt upgrades at a steady rate, and the best items enable builds.
Loot complaints come from 7.7% of reviewers at severity 3.4, and only 41% of them come from players who still recommend the game, so it costs recommendations.
every item in the game is a BORING stat-stick
- D5
Levelling up makes the player stronger relative to the world.
Progression and grind complaints come from 8.6% of reviewers.
level-scaling system that actually makes you WEAKER
- E1
Higher difficulty adds mechanics, not health.
"Enemies have too much health" comes from 60 reviewers across 5 games, and 77% of them are from one game.
Higher difficulty means enemies take longer to kill
- E2
Every death is readable.
The source names Eldest Souls, Dragonkin and Dungeons of Sundaria.
Not being able to dodge through bosses, having dodges on cooldown and unpredictable attack patterns
- F1
There is something worth doing after the credits, or the game is sold as a finite campaign.
Seen in 9/10 flawed hits.
- G3
After launch, the game is supported and never taken away.
Developer-support complaints have the second-highest severity of any category (3.9/5). 59% of them come from one game.
Every time they do a big update, you lose your progress.
- H1
Progress is never lost.
Save-system complaints are few (1.8% of reviewers) but severe (3.5/5).
Every time they do a big update, you lose your progress.
- H2
No frequent crashes or blocked quests.
Bugs are raised by 11.3% of reviewers, in 12 of 12 games.
it crashes every 15 minutes
- K1
Servers hold at launch and at every season start.
Servers are down multiple times per day for multiple hours
- K2
Every permanent ban is reviewed by a person and can be appealed.
Wrongful-ban themes: 55 reviewers across 2 games, plus further single-game themes.
his account was suddenly banned for allegedly using a bot
- K3
The economy is protected before launch, not by removing features after.
Player trading has been disabled with no ETA
- L1
The store page and tags name the genre you actually made.
Said of Eldest Souls, which was sold under a soulslike label.
This is a boss rush game, where you travel through an empty world from one boss fight to the next
- L2
A sequel or a big update keeps what people bought, or says loudly that it does not: character import, depth of skill trees, level cap, the feel of the original.
Said of Van Helsing III.
Between VH1 and 2 you could import characters. They removed that from VH3.
What players ask for
Not requirements. These are the recurring wishes, mostly written inside positive reviews, and they are not part of the check.
- More of it: more content, updates, DLC or a sequel (wishes across 9 games).
- More weapons, skills and combinations (build variety: 87 reviewers, 11 games).
- Deeper combat options: animation cancelling, a perfect parry, more mechanics (4-5 games each).
- Endgame modes: boss rush, endless, New Game Plus.
- More difficulty settings, in both directions (6 games).
- More and better localisation (9 games).
Questions about the indie action RPG checklist
What do players complain about most in indie action RPGs?
In 4,490 Steam reviews of 12 recent indie action RPGs, the three highest-ranked complaint themes are: Progression and grind (133 reviewers across 12 games); Difficulty balance (110 reviewers across 12 games); Build variety (113 reviewers across 12 games). The ranking combines how many games a theme appears in, how many reviewers raise it and how severe the complaints are, so it is not a sort by reviewer count alone. Counts are reviewers, not players. The table on this page lists the first 10 of 25 ranked themes.
What makes an indie action RPG a flawed hit?
A flawed hit sold well and still ended up with a mixed review score. Post-mortems of 10 of them show 6 combinations of failures that keep recurring: "The Diablo-like that runs out" (Wolcen, Dragonkin and Van Helsing III); "The live-service indie" (SpiritVale, Hero Siege and Wolcen); "Hard, but not fair" (Eldest Souls and Dungeons of Sundaria); "Mislabelled" (Eldest Souls, Zengeon and Lichdom); "The smaller sequel" (Van Helsing III and Hero Siege); "Padding as content" (Dragonkin, Relic Hunters Legend and Lichdom). The games in brackets are the ones each pattern describes. The patterns come from reading the most helpful reviews of each game, so they are judgments, not counts.
How many questions are in the indie action RPG check?
The quick check is 28 questions and takes about five minutes. It covers all 22 release blockers on the checklist, plus the few other items the flawed-hit patterns depend on. Before the questions it asks "Will the game ship with online play or a shared economy (servers, accounts, trading between players)?", and a "no" skips the ones that would not apply. The full checklist has 59 items, and the deep check asks the rest. Every question is about something you observed in a playtest or a build, and "Not tested yet" is a valid answer.
Is the result a prediction of my Steam reviews?
No. The checklist says itself that its scoring thresholds have not been calibrated against real review scores, so the check never turns your answers into a predicted rating or a sales figure. It lists the release blockers you failed, the ones you have not tested yet, and any of the 6 flawed-hit patterns your answers match. Every game in the sample found an audience, so a clean result does not get a game noticed either.
What this checklist cannot tell you
It is not a forecast. Its own scoring thresholds have not been calibrated against real review scores, so this page never turns your answers into a predicted rating or a sales number. It tells you whether you are about to repeat a documented mistake, not whether the game is good.
- Built from 12 recent games plus 10 older flawed hits in one niche. The full watchlist (239 games, 468,000 reviews) is collected but not analysed yet; percentages will move when it is.
- The weak-versus-strong comparison rests on 6 weak and 2 strong games, and the strong two are both hard boss-focused games. Use it for direction only.
- The "Action RPG" tag is broad: top-down loot games, soulslikes, boss rushes, roguelites and an online grinder sit in the same sample. Items about loot and endgame matter less for a six-hour boss rush; mark them N/A rather than forcing a score.
- Launch-window reviews over-represent bugs, controls and price, and under-represent endgame, itemization and long-term balance. The flawed hits cover that gap, with judgments, not counts.
- Reviewers are not all players: they skew engaged and opinionated. Ranks are more trustworthy than absolute percentages.
- Survivorship: every game here reached an audience. A perfect score does not get a game noticed.
Other genres
Related
Flawed hits: Steam games that sold and still disappointed
The study behind the patterns on this page, and what those games' reviews have in common.
Steam Playtest or Demo?
The questions here ask what you saw in playtests. This helps you decide how to run one.
Steam Store Page Checklist
The same idea for the page that sells the game: capsule, screenshots, description, tags and trailer.
A game that avoids every mistake above still has to be found. Check the page that has to sell it.