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Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
The floodgates are open. Let the feedback commence!
Vaknar
6
Re: healers in open world
At least in Alpha One cleric had some dps abilities, you can still find info about them on the wiki, there was a whip and spear like attacks. I have to say I haven't seen them in the recent footage, but then you can select specific abilities for your build. So far bard looks the weakest from the perspective of doing damage, it seems to be too one themed...pun intended.
Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
For my group in general, expect great negativity.
For us, at least the presentation of this content was absolutely terrible.
Not negative on everything, obviously, but there's so much of it that we're briefly 'assigning each person their subsection' to prevent too much repetition and limit the 'dogpile'.
@SongRune will be in charge of praising Bucky and questioning the immersion/lore of the Citadel (including some issues of the fights going into it)
@JustVine will probably be mentioning the good parts about the story arc, but also the parts that really mess with the open world feelings and disruption
@GrandSerpent will be alternately praising and complaining about visuals and visual design
@GrilledCheeseMojito will at some point talk about the dragon fight itself, tanking, tactics, etc
@SunScript will question all the various things related to the potential PvP around this boss
@SpaceWolf will probably give the perspectives of someone who doesn't actually track much outside of being told when to watch these streams.
As for me, I should probably stay out of it this time. I didn't like anything about this, but I don't know how to properly convey it while being positive about it from a development perspective, I'd end up over-comparing it to stuff I like a lot more.
I can say that this fight does not interest me in any form, I would almost certainly only engage with this to support Firebrand. And I hope that's what the designers wish, with their design. If you want 'dragon disciple' Players to show up and help Firebrand out, then it's looking decent, because my thoughts turn to actual tactics of how to synergize with Firebrand, and actually have a meaningful experience.
Keep working hard as best you can, team. I'm still working on figuring out if the issue with these is presentation or the base gameplay, but for me, this ain't it...
For us, at least the presentation of this content was absolutely terrible.
Not negative on everything, obviously, but there's so much of it that we're briefly 'assigning each person their subsection' to prevent too much repetition and limit the 'dogpile'.
@SongRune will be in charge of praising Bucky and questioning the immersion/lore of the Citadel (including some issues of the fights going into it)
@JustVine will probably be mentioning the good parts about the story arc, but also the parts that really mess with the open world feelings and disruption
@GrandSerpent will be alternately praising and complaining about visuals and visual design
@GrilledCheeseMojito will at some point talk about the dragon fight itself, tanking, tactics, etc
@SunScript will question all the various things related to the potential PvP around this boss
@SpaceWolf will probably give the perspectives of someone who doesn't actually track much outside of being told when to watch these streams.
As for me, I should probably stay out of it this time. I didn't like anything about this, but I don't know how to properly convey it while being positive about it from a development perspective, I'd end up over-comparing it to stuff I like a lot more.
I can say that this fight does not interest me in any form, I would almost certainly only engage with this to support Firebrand. And I hope that's what the designers wish, with their design. If you want 'dragon disciple' Players to show up and help Firebrand out, then it's looking decent, because my thoughts turn to actual tactics of how to synergize with Firebrand, and actually have a meaningful experience.
Keep working hard as best you can, team. I'm still working on figuring out if the issue with these is presentation or the base gameplay, but for me, this ain't it...
Azherae
2
Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
For my group in general, expect great negativity.
@GrandSerpent will be alternately praising and complaining about visuals and visual design
First, a few things I'd like to highlight as positives:
So far, the environment art look good. I particularly like the material work on the various stone textures, and the overall density of the foliage. The various patches of ivy, overgrown planters, and grass growing up from gaps in the stone are very effective at making the area appear dilapidated and disused.
I liked the VFX work on the fire dragon. The breath attack was very satisfying, and I liked the gradient from blue to orange flame, and the heat distortion effect. It reminded me a jet engine with afterburners on.
Lighting looks good, especially in shadowed areas which are illuminated by bounce light. I'm assuming this is using Lumen in UE5?
And a few points of critique:
While the volumetric haze effect looks good, right now it's quite strong, and I am finding that it's obscuring some environment details, and hurting readability of the scene. I think this could be more effective if the strength of this effect was tied to time of day (representing early morning mist), or tied to weather or other temporary environmental effects, rather than being always present.
While ability VFX in general look good individually, many of these are flashy, bright, and highly saturated. When many different abilities are being used at once, it makes the battle status hard to parse visually. This was especially true in the confined gatehouse environment towards the beginning of the stream.
Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
The Citadel's appearance should reflect the kind of event currently ongoing. It looked far to lush and grown over despite the fact that flame based enemies were wandering around within- creating a disparity between location and event. Immersiveness would be drastically increased if the location matched the appearances of the hostiles, or vice versa.
The Dragon encounter was enjoyable, and no doubt would have gone differently if the players were forced to fight in more cramped areas. Making some parts of the encounter area provide a slowing effect due to the mud and muck- or having more above ground protrusions would provide more substance to the 'arena' that you would fight the dragon within.
Resurrect is currently a spammable ability that is too easy to use. It was said that combat rez'ing is risky due to high mana cost, long cast time, resurrecting on death location and so forth.. but having it tied to the divine power or some other form of 'cost' beyond just mana.. or having a larger cooldown period, would balance it into being less of a get out of jail free card that it currently acts as.
The Dragon itself should have more dynamic uses for it's abilities- tail swipes that knockback, short range firebreath attacks for hitting melee fighters at it's feet, interrupt based long cast AOE attacks such as that shockwave attack, to make the fight more dangerous and tactical. Right now, it was a spam attack and heal boss fight. It required very little tactics to handle, much to the point that a random group not using comms was able to tackle it without issue. If the design of this boss is to be handled by multiple groups of separate teams, then instead it should focus on more telegraphed slow casted abilities that can be seen by everyone, that deal a dangerous effect or heightened amount of damage.
The ability to summon that Lady of the Rose should be based around finding items of attachment within the citadel, promoting exploration and a proper amount of investigation to make the entirety of the citadel put to use. Currently, only the entrance, courtyard and elite fight room are being used for this event. Put the entire Citadel to use to truly immerse the players within this specific POI.
Naming schemes need actual fantasy names. NOT 'Orb of Ultimate Essence'. 'Orb of Virulent Essence' or 'Vessel of Malignance'.. something similar to that. More fantasy! More creativity!
The Dragon encounter was enjoyable, and no doubt would have gone differently if the players were forced to fight in more cramped areas. Making some parts of the encounter area provide a slowing effect due to the mud and muck- or having more above ground protrusions would provide more substance to the 'arena' that you would fight the dragon within.
Resurrect is currently a spammable ability that is too easy to use. It was said that combat rez'ing is risky due to high mana cost, long cast time, resurrecting on death location and so forth.. but having it tied to the divine power or some other form of 'cost' beyond just mana.. or having a larger cooldown period, would balance it into being less of a get out of jail free card that it currently acts as.
The Dragon itself should have more dynamic uses for it's abilities- tail swipes that knockback, short range firebreath attacks for hitting melee fighters at it's feet, interrupt based long cast AOE attacks such as that shockwave attack, to make the fight more dangerous and tactical. Right now, it was a spam attack and heal boss fight. It required very little tactics to handle, much to the point that a random group not using comms was able to tackle it without issue. If the design of this boss is to be handled by multiple groups of separate teams, then instead it should focus on more telegraphed slow casted abilities that can be seen by everyone, that deal a dangerous effect or heightened amount of damage.
The ability to summon that Lady of the Rose should be based around finding items of attachment within the citadel, promoting exploration and a proper amount of investigation to make the entirety of the citadel put to use. Currently, only the entrance, courtyard and elite fight room are being used for this event. Put the entire Citadel to use to truly immerse the players within this specific POI.
Naming schemes need actual fantasy names. NOT 'Orb of Ultimate Essence'. 'Orb of Virulent Essence' or 'Vessel of Malignance'.. something similar to that. More fantasy! More creativity!
Neragov
2
Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
There are waaaaaayyyy too many combat resurrections. In combat res's should have like a 30 min CD, being able to spam resurrect mid raid is dumb an it cheapens the fight.
Vissox
6
Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
VISUAL FEEDBACK:
The lighting still needs a lot of work. Specifically, how it interacts with the volumetric fog and godrays. For much of the stream I was straining my eyes to see what was going on behind the sun brightened fog. Simply turning down the intensity of those effects should help greatly.
There are still quite a few abilities that are just too bright and I'm hoping we see tuned down brightness values soon as I know this feedback has been given many times before.
The overgrown nature of the citadel looked fantastic. In the area where the lady channeled it was very plain and unfinished. A lot of places looked far too clean for a structure that has been around for many many years.
The dragon visuals were fantastic. Fire was a little too fast in some instances but overall really impressive visually.
GAMEPLAY FEEDBACK
The citadel portion of the steam/questline was far too rushed. We're talking about summoning an end game world boss here, not some small side quest. Walking in the front door and doing a couple quick wave events that offered no challenge at all is far from rewarding.
The mobs in the citadel seemed to be no challenge at all. Their AI needs work and reactivity to getting hit etc needs to be increased greatly. The overall threat of 2+ star mobs needs to be upped a lot.
During the summoning ritual there was little threat imposed on the summoning lady. All mob aggro should be focused on her and it should be up to the players to displace them and kill them before she dies.
Combat resurrection needs a massive nerf. Makes fights like these far too easy.
Overall the dragon boss fight seems like a pretty solid introductory raid. There are a good amount of mechanics to learn and some required teamplay. I feel like with a couple good healers this raid would be a breeze.
My most important feedback for the dragon fight is this:
1. There absolutely needs to be more character reactivity to the dragon's tail and paw swipes. Just seeing his tail and claws go straight through people without knocking them down or throwing them backwards feels and looks terrible. This is a giant immensely strong dragon. Getting hit by him in any way should cause catastrophic effects.
2. I saw a wide variety of mechanics which is a fantastic thing, but many of them were only used once or twice during the entire fight. Increase the frequency of usage for all mechanics to bring more variety to the fight.
Overall a good stream. Just a little rushed. Dragon looked cool and the small part of Steel Bloom we saw was pretty visually interested. Just a bit too clean in some places.
The lighting still needs a lot of work. Specifically, how it interacts with the volumetric fog and godrays. For much of the stream I was straining my eyes to see what was going on behind the sun brightened fog. Simply turning down the intensity of those effects should help greatly.
There are still quite a few abilities that are just too bright and I'm hoping we see tuned down brightness values soon as I know this feedback has been given many times before.
The overgrown nature of the citadel looked fantastic. In the area where the lady channeled it was very plain and unfinished. A lot of places looked far too clean for a structure that has been around for many many years.
The dragon visuals were fantastic. Fire was a little too fast in some instances but overall really impressive visually.
GAMEPLAY FEEDBACK
The citadel portion of the steam/questline was far too rushed. We're talking about summoning an end game world boss here, not some small side quest. Walking in the front door and doing a couple quick wave events that offered no challenge at all is far from rewarding.
The mobs in the citadel seemed to be no challenge at all. Their AI needs work and reactivity to getting hit etc needs to be increased greatly. The overall threat of 2+ star mobs needs to be upped a lot.
During the summoning ritual there was little threat imposed on the summoning lady. All mob aggro should be focused on her and it should be up to the players to displace them and kill them before she dies.
Combat resurrection needs a massive nerf. Makes fights like these far too easy.
Overall the dragon boss fight seems like a pretty solid introductory raid. There are a good amount of mechanics to learn and some required teamplay. I feel like with a couple good healers this raid would be a breeze.
My most important feedback for the dragon fight is this:
1. There absolutely needs to be more character reactivity to the dragon's tail and paw swipes. Just seeing his tail and claws go straight through people without knocking them down or throwing them backwards feels and looks terrible. This is a giant immensely strong dragon. Getting hit by him in any way should cause catastrophic effects.
2. I saw a wide variety of mechanics which is a fantastic thing, but many of them were only used once or twice during the entire fight. Increase the frequency of usage for all mechanics to bring more variety to the fight.
Overall a good stream. Just a little rushed. Dragon looked cool and the small part of Steel Bloom we saw was pretty visually interested. Just a bit too clean in some places.
Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
The visual clutter is still very much an issue. The friendly fire from bard (and other abilities?) is indistinguishable from bad fire.
simpetar
2
Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
The fight and atmosphere were great overall! Definitely impressive.
As for feedback, I want to offer thoughts on bad luck protection on farming these bosses.
As we know, it's entirely possible, no, it is highly likely for people to go months on end before they get a specific item they want. Not only are they hoping for their item to drop by RNG, but also when it does drop, you have to get luckier than a bunch of other people who want the same exact item. It happens very often that over time people give up entirely.
My solution is simple, add a special item that everyone is guaranteed to loot from the boss, after you kill the boss a few items (3-5-7-10 times) you can go to a special vendor OR to a crafter and use those special items to craft or buy the specific item you want.
On another note, I want to add UI related feedback.
Many people are switching over to OLED displays, which are getting cheaper and cheaper now, and are frankly the best displays on the market for everything not work related. OLEDs do suffer from permanent burn in after thousands of hours of static content though.
My suggestion is simple: Add a simple, UI wide alpha slider, so we can turn the UI transparent. That's all. Ideally we'd have two sliders, out of combat and in combat UI alpha. This would help tremendously and should be super simple to implement hopefully.
As for feedback, I want to offer thoughts on bad luck protection on farming these bosses.
As we know, it's entirely possible, no, it is highly likely for people to go months on end before they get a specific item they want. Not only are they hoping for their item to drop by RNG, but also when it does drop, you have to get luckier than a bunch of other people who want the same exact item. It happens very often that over time people give up entirely.
My solution is simple, add a special item that everyone is guaranteed to loot from the boss, after you kill the boss a few items (3-5-7-10 times) you can go to a special vendor OR to a crafter and use those special items to craft or buy the specific item you want.
On another note, I want to add UI related feedback.
Many people are switching over to OLED displays, which are getting cheaper and cheaper now, and are frankly the best displays on the market for everything not work related. OLEDs do suffer from permanent burn in after thousands of hours of static content though.
My suggestion is simple: Add a simple, UI wide alpha slider, so we can turn the UI transparent. That's all. Ideally we'd have two sliders, out of combat and in combat UI alpha. This would help tremendously and should be super simple to implement hopefully.
Rym
1