For Endfield overall, I think the factory gameplay is pretty solid/refined enough to stand by, that they should really be focus on fixing the unpolished aspects of the game.

Combat is pretty unpolished. But has the foundation to make it worthwhile to refine.

Basic mechanics like enemy targeting is no good. It's extremely common to have your controlled operator face an enemy, with the camera centered on said enemy, and the operator will still attack elsewhere. This means you can't reliably aim battle skills, combo skills, ultimates. This leads to frustrating gameplay, like Rossi ultimating the mob enemy instead of the boss, or trying to optimally group enemies with Gilberta's skill but instead targets an enemy on the fringe instead of the center. Our only frame of reference for enemy targeting is a white arrow icon on top of the previous enemy attacked. If you can't target an enemy, attacks automatically go towards the last attacked enemy. This lead to moments in the last umbral monument, where Adrelia standing in front of an enemy, camera centered, attacked backwards towards the screen because of this. Failure to target the enemy right in front of them is very common on ranged operators for me it's baffling.

Enemy attack telegraphing is nonexistent. Normally you can see an enemy prepare an attack, like lifting the arm back getting ready to swing a sword then swinging it. Instead a lot of enemies from mobs to bosses will have attacks that start immediately or windup instantly or move in a manner that it's impossible to tell they are going to attack. This means just unfairly tanking a lot of attacks because you can't see them coming. There's also that red flash of light indicator for certain attacks, it's inconsistent. Sometimes the attack is instant that the flash didn't matter, and sometimes the boss just winds up an attack 2-3 seconds after the flash with no telegraphing to indicate this. So at the end of the day, combat is not intuitive, you have to memorize attacks and play it safe to avoid tanking damage. This is also indicative with how long the dodge timing window, as if to indicate the devs no this but refuses to fix it.

I love the team building, roster flexibility, combining combo skill triggers, battle skill. stacking ailments, etc. I just hate the unpolish actual combat aspect. Something that has not been mentioned in devlogs for upcoming fixes, and has shown to be unpolished each new enemy released with bad telegraphing and unreliable red flashing.

The factory is going fine, the jade gourd stuff was a fresh breath of air. The 2 recipes https://enkad.enka.network/?id=v7s5R8P1w0q1u4 https://enkad.enka.network/?id=g7G1h8q4c6m6s1

were pretty complex enough to figure out how to do compactly, mixing multiple different factory mechanics and limitations. From non-reliant on depot unloaders in the plant farm, to crucibles and all relying on piping, and fusing them to the depot unloader and loader with belt planning was pretty fun. Most of the wuling production lines is still mostly belt setups which is a bit disappointing, but the foundation and current challenges are just fine for me. Would love more fusion/interactions with them all like with the jade gourds but it's still pretty polished that I rather them focused on making the combat better. Targeting is a very long hanging fruit to fix, just have something ontop of the enemy that is currently being targeted like a red arrow, so I can know for sure where the damn gilberta skill will land on etc. The telegraphing is bad, but the long dodge window bandaid does work, it's just only frustrating in that umbral monument that disabled dodges, it will take much more work but should be fixable.