Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
The OP (Good job with the video btw, I have watched several of your videos) is 100% accurate, and IMO actually is far more forgiving than he should have been. A mini-game, floating needle, 5 year olds gross motor skill required, sweet spot bar is not how you "make mmos great again". This dude above me that says you don't have to use the bar. You just wont be "as effective" if you don't. Has never played an mmo....ever. Whether or not you personally strive to achieve a high level of game-play. YOU WILL BE JUDGED BY OTHERS. If you are not as "effective" as others, you will not get groups, or raids etc. You can use words like elitist, or hard-core, end-game, perfectionist....whatever. If you want to play at the highest level you can. You do not want to have to stare are a moving needle on a bar at the bottom of your screen. It does not matter if it is movable or customizable, saying it is distracting is honestly too nice and basic-bitch speak. The truth is that it is stupid A.F.
Now giving the devs the benefit of the doubt. I hope this bar is just a placeholder saying (some system that adds extra damage for a player reaction timed event).
Can the spirit of the bar be implemented in a way that isn't kindergarten level intelligence? Of course. You could use an audible(crescendo/decrescendo) or peripherally visual cue(low key screen flicker, tunnel-vision effect, fish-eye effect, zoom effect) This literally took me 10 seconds to think of several ways to implement this feature. ALL of which are better than staring at stupid needle bar.
In summation. Blue screen of death KERNEL ERROR Xyzpdq101. Brings out more emotion in me than this needle bar.
An old video of the Wildstar Engineer rotation. Most attacks cause a 1.25 second global cooldown, some cause a .5 second one. You'll see each of those animated on the skill buttons.
Which is a different mechanic than a (individual) "cooldown" - the mechanic in this discussion.
Actually, people who got to play it at PAX enjoyed it it for the most part. Needs some tweaks and polish obviously. Watch Aggelos newest dungeon crawler podcast #20. They got to play it and heard from a lot of people at pax. Some disliked the idea ibefore playing and changed their mind after actually trying it.
Most of the complaints Ive seen are from people who only watched a video and had unrealistic expectations or dont have a basic understanding of development.
Manual mode VS Auto mode
Auto mode: 70 or 80% of the value per attack
While Manual mode can get up to 100% (Full value)
But it's Content & Livelihood is 100% dependent that same community and future-community-members. It's also dependent on the Number of Subscriptions they have per month.
And " that Sub-Count " ... is based on the Content they release
(i.e. Will the Community like it ? or will they not ? )
Nevertheless, community is not the #1 deciding factor when it comes to game design.
The devs will tweak some stuff based on feedback.
Plenty of successful dev teams/games choose to "divide the community" - the Ashes devs have chosen not to - regardless of what some players might want.
Plenty of successful dev teams/games choose to add guns to their fantasy MMORPG - the Ashes devs have chosen not to - regardless of what some players might want.
Returning to the context of the discussion.
The Ashes devs have chosen to add a QTE with a random sweet spot, regardless of what some players might want.
The devs are already going to tweak the initial implementation. And they will also allow players to tweak the UI elements for the feature.
But, they aren't going to overhaul the design based on the input of players who have merely watched a vid of the gameplay with no hands-on experience.
Especially, since the feedback of those who have hands-on experience was overwhelmingly positive... cosmetics being the primary criticism rather than the mechanics.
Regardless, What you " think " is completely different as to ... " how things are " - it was never up for debate nor a matter of POV:
- Subscription/ Memberships = Maintaining P2P Model. And those subscriptions are based on Devs giving Players a reason to continue payments. And " that " is based on the Content they have. ( They are connected )
- That's the " Bottom-Line "
So if Intrepid wants to sustain that P2P Model, what they present in their Alphas & Betas - more importantly the Finished Product ( ... Deja Vu ? ) will reflect them listening to (some of) the Community.Because I've seen what happens when Devs ignore their Community for Years ... they usually change to F2P with more emphasis on Cash Shop items.
In short, I'm trying to emphasis to you how critically important the Community are in MMOs ; how " unstable " it is to easily mess-up on one thing ... leading into a disaster - potentially the end of this MMO if that route is taken.
If anything i was actually kinda worried that the Release Date for Alpha Zero was so soon ... but its not Alpha Phase 1 (
( Hopefully there's a distinct difference )
I already know how important the community is.
What I said is that it is never #1 when it comes to game design.
I gave several examples to illustrate what I meant and you tried to reword what I wrote.
Your talk of subscriptions and what you claim is the bottom line really has nothing to do with anything I said, so I don't know why you are trying to connect them.
Also, QTE with a random sweet spot is redundant, the random sweet spot makes it a QTE. Its like saying PIN number or CAC card.
And, what Steven said specifically at PAX is that they're keeping the QTE because the feedback at PAX was overwhelmingly positive - they especially are not going to change the QTE based on negative feedback from people who have only watched the vids but not played the combat.
Steven has not said that they will remove the QTE or the random aspects of the QTE based on negative feedback.
None of the above means that that they won't make a variety of other changes to the QTE based on player feedback.
QTE with random sweet spot is not redundant - you could still have a quick-time event with a fixed sweet spot - there would simply be less of a chance of missing the sweet spot.
What makes it a QTE is the marker that travels down the length of the bar to indicate when to press the key.... pressing the key when the marker meets the sweet-spot.
Also, it is not redundant like PIN number or CAC card since QTE does not include the words random, sweet or spot.
Apologies if this sounds like a personal attack, but this statement (and others expounding upon it) is just ludicrous. Steven Sharif is not a game designer, he has zero experience and he is running the whole show. He is making core game design decisions. By your own logic he should not be.
Many, many times in interviews and live streams (including the very latest post PAX stream) all the devs have stated that they are being so open and transparent with the whole design process for the specific reason of receiving feedback. They want us to question what they are doing. The development team are seeking our feedback so we would be providing them with a disservice if we did what you are asking and not question design decisions.
As has been said before, the whole genre is littered with bad design decisions. Experienced designers on WoW made decisions for Warlords of Draenor that halved the subscription numbers. Maybe they should have listened to the overly negative feedback for those systems instead of powering ahead, sure cost Blizzard a lot of money.
I honestly don’t understand this stance. It doesn’t seem like simple fanboyism, it seems to be something different, but I find it disheartening that some people are discouraging feedback for whatever reason.
He has hired a team of highly experienced game designers and artists and devs.
He is not making core game design decisions by himself.
He tells the game designers and artists, etc, what he wants and they figure out whether what he wants is viable.
The devs are receiving feedback. No one has stated otherwise.
I am not discouraging feedback.
Design decisions for Warlords of Draenor isn't what halved subscription numbers.
What has halved WoW subscription numbers is trying to add expansions to an archaic MMORPG. They need to, instead, create a completely new version with a revolutionary game design rather than expand on the old design.
You don't have to understand the stance.
But, you seem to think I'm saying something other than what I've actually said.
Might be less confusing for you if you focused on the entire post rather than on the two sentences you cherry picked.
Nope. It is well known that Warlords of Draenor, and the atrocious design of that expansion, drove subs away in droves. I was one of the millions that dropped the expansion after a few months. Pretty commonly accepted knowledge. Your own bias against WoW aside, millions still do play and it is still the most successful MMO. They don’t release sub numbers anymore but the massive sub drop, and the reasons, in WoD is common knowledge. I came back for Legion and there are a lot more people back now, still not pre-WoD numbers but substantially more than when I left. It is old and tired, I’ll grant you that, which is why we are all here
I know that you are being contrary, but it is kind of an odd stance to be so facetious when we are all just trying to have a discussion. I shouldn’t have to quote an entire post if I am only responding to one sentence of that post. That is what is done by everyone on forums and in debates since time immemorial, including yourself in these very forums. I thought we were just having a discussion, but fair enough.
Sorry to go off-topic.
Millions are still playing WoW and millions are no longer player WoW.
Which has been an increasing trend since WotLK.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/08/25/one-gamers-perspective-on-why-activisions-world-of-warcraft-is-losing-subscribers/#ef583566f4c3
You probably should quote the entire section of people's statements since you talked about stuff I didn't say, but you thought I meant, rather than talking about what I did say and did mean.
That would help prevent you making the errors that you made in comprehension.
If you're only going to quote one sentence, you should be sure you understood what that one sentence means.
One classic example that comes to mind for me is the Fireball from fable. Where it slowly built up a charge, indicated by a small flash and a simple sound. It made it easy to keep track of how powerful your fire ball was, while never really taking you out of the fight.
In addition for PVP, this also means you could potentially read your opponent more clearly, encouraging close attention at all times.
42 minutes in, question about the QTE. Long period of explanation. Bit about how everyone loves it. Some more talk about how they want feedback. 45:45 "I mean if everyone said 'Hey your combo system sucks', you know, I I think we would probably get rid of it"
QTEs started as a way to shoe horn interaction into cut scenes. They tested your reaction and your focus, because each cutscene would have a different point for QTEs and different QTEs would involve different buttons. The combo system isn't a QTE because it is a timed button press, plenty of games do that. Its a QTE because you can't know the timing of the button press in advance, so it tests your reaction and focus.
The fire starts off as a dull white, until it reaches its first stage, at which point it becomes brighter. At the second stage it lights on fire, indicating that it is ready to deal a moderate amount of damage. Then at last we have the third stage where the fire roars to life, to deal maximum damage and a healthy amount of aoe.
That would be the ideal for me, something clear and instructive, yet so subtle I might not fully appreciate the nuance until trying to break it down in a forum discussion years later.
I would like to see player feedback with UI QTE @ +100ping or for Australians +250ping
I grant you that it would not be so alleged high praise.
throwing in a random* element is so counter intuitive to a skilled combat system. might as well just have dice rolls on the side bar as a damage modifier and a roulette wheel dodge mechanic while we are at it.
Surely we have the tech, knowledge and experience to do better than QTE UI vestigial mechanics in this day and age.
Integrate the combo system directly into the actual* combat.
My points stand that the PAX feedback - from the people who actually played the combo- was overwhelmingly positive.
And, more importantly, getting rid of combo system is also different from keeping the system and allowing the players, like you, to design the "fix" for the system.
Specifically on topic...
What the devs want is a system that replaces auto-attacks and prevents button-mashing/spamming.
It might have been that so many people who played the PAX demo hated the mechanic the devs initially implemented that the devs would have decided to get rid of their combo system and use a different mechanic.
But, getting rid of the first pass solution doesn't mean that would derail them from pursuing the design goal of implementing a mechanic that gets rid of auto-attacks and prevents button-mashing/spamming. The devs would first implement different mechanics that achieve the same goal in the hopes that they could find a mechanic that meet their goals and which the majority of the players could tolerate.
Getting rid of the first design solution doesn't mean they would be accepting the (poor) designs of players with no game design experience, (like you) in order to reach their goal.
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So, again, what matters is what the devs want: a system that replaces auto-attack and prevents spamming/button-mashing.
They want player feedback and they want to make sure that the mechanic feels good for the player - but they are going to try as hard as they can to reach that design goal - regardless of those players who might want auto-attack and like spamming and who love having 4+ hotbars.
Because the feedback at PAX from the people who actually played the combat was overwhelmingly positive -Steven's words- they are keeping the combo system, the major changes to the mechanic will be cosmetic/UI.
What they won't be doing - also said at PAX by Steven and Jeff- is overhauling the design of the combo based on feedback from people who have only watched the combat, but haven't played it. The PAX reaction has convinced the devs that they are on the right path.
Give all the feedback you want!! Giving feedback is not the same thing as designing solutions for the devs' design goals.
In video games, a quick time event (QTE) is a method of context-sensitive gameplay in which the player performs actions on the control device shortly after the appearance of an on-screen instruction/prompt.
So... again, it's still a QTE, by definition, regardless of whether the sweet spot is fixed or random.
Your point that I was responding to was that they haven't said they would scrap the system. I sourced a quote that clearly says they would if there was enough negative feedback. Source your claim or stop moving goalposts and concede this point.
There is nothing about this design goal that requires a QTE. In fact, the QTE, with its random sweet spot, is more prone to button spamming than a fixed point somewhere in the middle of the bar. The fixed point would never be hit by button spamming, while the QTE will coincidentally be hit whenever it is randomly at the front.
By that definition, almost any on screen prompt would be a QTE. Like continuing a conversation, or moving out of a telegraphed attack. Actual QTEs are button prompts at unpredictable times to test your reaction speed and focus. These are the same things the random sweet spot is testing, which is why I call it a QTE. A fixed combo point is more about developing muscle memory and getting experience with where the combo point is, two things that wouldn't apply to an actual QTE.