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First Impression - Prepare To Gimp YourselfAs I have been playing for 1 whole day now, this is a first impressions post.
The thing that strikes me the most (after the horrendous tutorial that literally forces you to run in circles) is how needlessly difficult it is to plan your character. Let me say that having experience with other systems that use archetypes (notably City of Heroes) I know that the tradeoff of using an archetype system is that you take some customization options out of the hands of the player while forcing them to think of them building their character in terms of taking on a role, so that they won't gimp themselves. Both SB and CoH remedy the problem that all characters are the same by letting you customize what sigils (or enhancements) you put into your skills. However, SB goes one step further by including attributes, which is not a bad idea, but this is where Spellborn goes horribly wrong.
You only have so many attribute points to spend, and not only is it hard to figure out wth attributes even do without some research, you have no idea which skills (and consequently, which attributes) you'll be using later in the game, so you have no idea how not to gimp yourself. This goes against the fundamental principles of the entire character creation process.
So now as a new player I find myself having to pick whether I want to level up a gimped character just so I can delete and recreate the exact same character once I know what I'm doing, or spend hours reading through forums posts reviewing all the skills and planning a build based on what proportion I want to assign skill points to attributes. I'm sure as heck not going to do the former, but the latter option is offputting, because, quite frankly, sometimes you just want to play.
In short, the underlying principles of the game system are designed, at least philosophically, to help new players jump right into the game, but the details make it totally impossible for a new player to do just that without realized they're gimped and getting frustrated at some point later on down the line.
There is a simple fix that can be implemented short of redesigning the entire character system, and I hope somebody takes note of this for the redesign. If characters were able to reallocate their attribute points on a limited basis (ie limited total number of times, money cost, only available at certain levels, etc.) this would allow players the freedom to make mistakes. It would also add more depth to character planning: I have seen a post where someone said they wished they didn't put points into mind because they stopped using mind skills after a certain level. Well, now you can plan to use the mind skills up to a certain point but then switch to focus when you decide you want those skills instead. It's ridiculous to expect someone in that situation to just not use any mind skills (effectively) because they know they're going to need focus later so they don't want to gimp their end game. Doing so is a recipe for frustration and getting players to quit.