Mechanics, Mechanics, Mechanics

A group in Australia have been the first to give the new version of the game a kick at the can and the feedback has been slowly tricking in. Here are some of the comments I got back:

1. The premise seems to be too dark. 
2. It does not appear to be a game for beginners, but instead a master class game for mature players.
3. There was some comparison to the feeling evoked by Robert E. Howard's or L. Carter's original Conan short stories.
4. d10 based system seemed to them to limit the range of possibilities too much, they requested a change to a d20 base.
5. In discussing character advancement there was concern that first level characters may be too strong and there was no way to advance Health Points, etc.
6. There were concerns around depleting Attribute Pools and that this could disincentivize players from taking risks.

As a result I've done the following:

1. I'm thinking about easing up on the mood.
2. I'm looking to reduce the instances of modifiers where possible
3. I've moved from a d10 only to a d10 and d20
4. I've changed the way attributes work. Instead of being a static value rolled once and never changing, now, characters generate attributes initially that would result in values < 10. Attributes can increase through the spending of experience points, just like any other skill. Health Points and Defence Ratings increase as Attributes increase (and of course, attribute points increase as well.)
5. There will be potions, spells and rest that can regenerate the points from an Attribute Pool.

The follow on to this is that in the end you may have characters that end up with the maximum attribute values (although I've made it quite expensive for Attributes to increase. The cost is exponential.) I may have characters also roll for their maximum attribute scores when they generate a character, but we'll see. 

I'm interested in hearing from the other designers the feedback they've received for their games and the modifications they've made as they went.