Best Of

So we had a few Alphas now, with loads more info out there.

Taking how you felt, what 6 or 7 years ago, when this game was still in its infancy, how do you feel now about it?

For me, there’s a lot I don’t like anymore, but will leave that open.
I do think this game will end up with a very niche player base.

But more than happy to be proven wrong.

Love the focus on specific topics with guests!

I'm a little confused about the direction of crafting/economy. Is the goal to have a deep player driven economy? Or to allow players choose how they want to acquire their gear?

I'm mostly ok with extremely low chances for full gear drops from difficult enemies, but when they mentioned unlocking node vendors for the low grade gear, it made me worry. If players can just buy gear from a developed node, what happens to the low grade gear market? All the crafters who got in the market early get to benefit from selling their services to all the new players, while any new comers just get to craft items to be thrown away.

Would it be possible to have the best of both worlds? Could these node vendors buy player made gear to keep their stock of items up? This introduces a way for players interested in crafting to have a way to earn some money while leveling; rather than just crafting junk items for the exp. This also helps give crafters more of an identity and gameplay loop.

I put 24 hours in the game and was level 20, CO has a lto of good elements (ignoring the people trying to hate train the game) combat motions felt good a nd fun, the mounts felt really good as well. They were a bit clunky in a good way on feeling like you were not riding on something static.

Though it isn't as easily to just simply implement that kind of movement and control. Though if they had that level of quality to all their unique mounts in AoC it be pretty huge and add tot he fact of people wanting to collect them and have fun with each one.

Movement in games is extremely important and something i feel Dev's take for granted. Part of the reason BDO or some of these kr games feel good or people talk about the combat is really the mobility and feeling. Where a lot of western mmorpgs are more static and/or rooted.

Including weight of the mount turning, strafing movements, etc, in contrast tot he normal the basic wasd instant turning of mounts and skipping a lot of those small animations and feeling of riding a horse or whatever type of creation.

Stream was good. I appreciate that you take the time to inform your testers.

Two things were not so great imo.

1. I like the idea of roadmaps, knowing whats ahead in the next 6 months has a high value for the community imo.

But i dont like the communication around the roadmap right now. This livestream was designed to inform on the scope of the phase 3 launch and a lot of systems of the phase 2 roadmap didnt make the cut.
This is perfectly fine, plans are expected to change!
What i dislike is giving out information and then having loose ends that are unanswered ... it gives off the impression of sidestepping the topic... completely unnecessary. You had a livestream of 2,5 hours, taking 1 minute on the roadmap should have been in the scope.

2. I love the idea around the dynamic lawless POI system.
But i was a bit surprised to hear how its supposed to work.
The biggest concern players have, is a big mindless zerg that is dominating these zones.
The way you said you want to set it up " on a rotating schedule", "zone after zone", is very conducive to these zergs. There is a lot of ways to set that up, but you chose to use the 2 magic words every zerg wants to hear.

This is something i made a post about too! I love the idea! Please devs, this is 100% good for the game.. mounts feel horrible

Would also be cool to get some running momentum when the horse is summoned and you automatically grabs the reigns to instantly get into the riding direction of your camera

Ludullu wrote: »

Now, I know that AoC's current mounts are a first pass, work in progress, unfinished, barely done, not even close to complete, super basic, far from over - overall shit.

"Barely done" is the best way to describe it, when i have to witness against my Will how slow a "Horse" is and how short the Boost/Sprint of it is.

What makes me cringe deep within me even more, is when i have to see Mounts like Bears, Lizards, or "Cats" being faster than Horses. I mean i entrust Cats WITHOUT A RIDER ontop of them to overstep and succeed the Speed of Horses,

but Bears ? Or Lizards who remind more on how Crocodiles move ? Ooooff. EXP-Punishment when being killed is not the only Punishment in the Game. Sometimes my Eyes are tortured just because.

For the love of god, don't add gamba to quests rewards. I already went through that in L2. It is never fun, it is never good, and we already have gamba with mob loot - that's more than enough gamba for your progress.

Or, at the VEEERY LEAST, do this as an option. You need 20 items for a full quest reward? Have the option of turning in 5 items for a chance at gamba, but you'd need to redo the quest if you wanted to get another reward.

Some good points here, especially on movement and customization. Being able to tweak keybinds and improve mount strafe control would definitely make the experience smoother and more personal.

That said, I wouldn't support automatic mounting the moment the summon key is pressed. The current system, where you have to choose to mount after summoning, actually adds meaningful decision-making. It prevents players from just hitting and running for fun, and encourages commitment, if you're going to fight, fight; if you're going to run, take the time to do it.

It’s a small delay, but it adds weight to the choice. So while smoother animations are welcome, instant mounting could hurt PvP balance and immersion.

PD: Remember that we are in Alpha