Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Live Stream Feedback
New to the community here. I pledged a good while back when the project was first announced and have dipped in to check the progress from time to time. I was notified about the live stream and thought I'd give it a good look. There seems to be a lot of progress made since the last game play reveal a good while ago now.
Now to begin with I fully understand how early in development the game is and I fully expect the developers to make further iterations over and over in the near future, but I thought i'd give my feedback and opinions based on the Live stream I have just watched.
A little context, I have worked in the gaming / cgi industry the past 3 years professionally and more like 6+ personally, in the art department, working with animation, modelling, texturing, rigging, you name it. I currently work as an Architecture Visualiser within 3DS Max. Whether or not any of that impacts my feedback for you, that is entirely subjective. So let us begin.
I won't be pointing out the obvious things or things I know will be changed. This was all from the live stream so the time stamps will be referring to their upload on youtube of the event.
Feedback:
- Ice skating. There seems so be some inconsistencies between character animation and directional motion. The jogging animation seems to be alright, it's when you sprint or strafe. The animation seems to be out of sync with how fast the character is moving in the environment. This gives an ice skating kind of effect where the ground and feet of the character don't quite match or slide about. Ways to remedy would be to adjust either the directional speed, or the animation playback.
- Scale. Over the years I have played many MMOs and a good majority of them all suffer from the same problem. The scale of the world. They usually have the same mindset, in where they set out to create this huge open world, but then overestimate the sizing and often have large open areas and try to fill it with oversized objects in an attempt to fill the void. This often leaves the player character feeling rather small and out of proportion. Now in general you have done a really good job at tackling this. Where it may be more obvious is in open areas filled with not much detail. See 20:30 or 24:00 for the sizing of the foliage and rock outcrops. The flower petals being the size of the characters head for example. Now yes you may argue these plants are alien to our world and can grow to huge sizes. Just a thought to bare in mind, I have noticed this quite a few times especially with planting, everything being rather large. What I tend to do is add a custom people marker at average height in the scene and scatter it around to see what sticks out as being incorrectly scaled.
- Animation. Here will likely be a few points. One of which I noticed there seems to be an absence of any turning animation. Whether that be head or torso only. Without one, it looks as if it adopts an early 2000s game where the character pivots on the spot. This is seen quite clearly at 15:10 and appears quite jarring. I think this will help in the overall making it feel less static. Reactions. For example being hit, taking damage, landing from a jump, running out of mana or stamina etc. There needs to be more fluidity to reacting with the world, whether that's being hit in the face, is your character going to slightly flinch to feel the impact or tank it and not even move? Or walking near or into walls, is your character going to react when a new collision is put up in their face, as seen at 8:50? Or is the running animation going to continue to loop as they ram their foreheads into the wall. There needs to be further interaction with the world so that it grounds us in the environment, without this it feels all a bit floaty and static. You have touched upon animations being changed around so I won't go too much further into this point.
- Spell Casting. For the most part the particles and animations look great, the charge up animations could maybe use a little dramatic flair. The main point I noticed was the spell circles. Someone on the youtube comment has touched upon their transparency and could maybe use a lil dial back as to not obstruct the players. My point however is when they are being cast, as seen at 8:55. The purple spell here is not being aligned with the local rotation of the geometry below. You have achieved this with the targeting circle being projected onto the ground. But for some reason this is not being done for the large purple spell circle in this instance. It is clipping with the slanted ground and masking a good portion of it. I am all about the subtleties and how it can benefit the quality of life aspects of the game. Another example is at 13:50, the ice walking ability. How it is not gradually appearing as the character steps forward, it is however suddenly overlaying the ice texture without any fade in of the opacity. This feels a little quick, maybe animating the scale of the alpha / opacity map to make it feel like the ice is actually growing under you.
- Combat. I don't want to touch upon this too much as I am seeing a lot of comments about the hit registration and how it all feels a little floaty at the moment. I personally feel the combat in a game like this is key. I would prioritise getting this down before anything else. The combat in a game can almost carry the success on it's own. Take Black Desert Online for example. Great combat, 0 plot. Although the success was short lived, I feel the combat would be the foundations. The points above about the animations should help this a bit. I know you are going for a hybrid system between real time action and tab targeting which may or may not work. One example was the archer, I noticed there was no aiming reticle and that the attacks were hitting the monster regardless of where you were looking. This felt a little jarring to me.
I tried to keep it as short as I could, but I felt I might bring up some of the less talked about points from my perspective. I could probably add more if I really went and inspected the stream or played it for myself. Unfortunately I did not have time to test the gameplay for myself as I was working and this was entirely based off of the Live Stream. I hope this was in anyway useful. If not, then it sounds like you've got it all under wraps
Keep up the good work. I have been itching for a decent MMO, there just hasn't been anything decent in a good while now and i'm hoping you can fill that void for me.
Now to begin with I fully understand how early in development the game is and I fully expect the developers to make further iterations over and over in the near future, but I thought i'd give my feedback and opinions based on the Live stream I have just watched.
A little context, I have worked in the gaming / cgi industry the past 3 years professionally and more like 6+ personally, in the art department, working with animation, modelling, texturing, rigging, you name it. I currently work as an Architecture Visualiser within 3DS Max. Whether or not any of that impacts my feedback for you, that is entirely subjective. So let us begin.
I won't be pointing out the obvious things or things I know will be changed. This was all from the live stream so the time stamps will be referring to their upload on youtube of the event.
Feedback:
- Ice skating. There seems so be some inconsistencies between character animation and directional motion. The jogging animation seems to be alright, it's when you sprint or strafe. The animation seems to be out of sync with how fast the character is moving in the environment. This gives an ice skating kind of effect where the ground and feet of the character don't quite match or slide about. Ways to remedy would be to adjust either the directional speed, or the animation playback.
- Scale. Over the years I have played many MMOs and a good majority of them all suffer from the same problem. The scale of the world. They usually have the same mindset, in where they set out to create this huge open world, but then overestimate the sizing and often have large open areas and try to fill it with oversized objects in an attempt to fill the void. This often leaves the player character feeling rather small and out of proportion. Now in general you have done a really good job at tackling this. Where it may be more obvious is in open areas filled with not much detail. See 20:30 or 24:00 for the sizing of the foliage and rock outcrops. The flower petals being the size of the characters head for example. Now yes you may argue these plants are alien to our world and can grow to huge sizes. Just a thought to bare in mind, I have noticed this quite a few times especially with planting, everything being rather large. What I tend to do is add a custom people marker at average height in the scene and scatter it around to see what sticks out as being incorrectly scaled.
- Animation. Here will likely be a few points. One of which I noticed there seems to be an absence of any turning animation. Whether that be head or torso only. Without one, it looks as if it adopts an early 2000s game where the character pivots on the spot. This is seen quite clearly at 15:10 and appears quite jarring. I think this will help in the overall making it feel less static. Reactions. For example being hit, taking damage, landing from a jump, running out of mana or stamina etc. There needs to be more fluidity to reacting with the world, whether that's being hit in the face, is your character going to slightly flinch to feel the impact or tank it and not even move? Or walking near or into walls, is your character going to react when a new collision is put up in their face, as seen at 8:50? Or is the running animation going to continue to loop as they ram their foreheads into the wall. There needs to be further interaction with the world so that it grounds us in the environment, without this it feels all a bit floaty and static. You have touched upon animations being changed around so I won't go too much further into this point.
- Spell Casting. For the most part the particles and animations look great, the charge up animations could maybe use a little dramatic flair. The main point I noticed was the spell circles. Someone on the youtube comment has touched upon their transparency and could maybe use a lil dial back as to not obstruct the players. My point however is when they are being cast, as seen at 8:55. The purple spell here is not being aligned with the local rotation of the geometry below. You have achieved this with the targeting circle being projected onto the ground. But for some reason this is not being done for the large purple spell circle in this instance. It is clipping with the slanted ground and masking a good portion of it. I am all about the subtleties and how it can benefit the quality of life aspects of the game. Another example is at 13:50, the ice walking ability. How it is not gradually appearing as the character steps forward, it is however suddenly overlaying the ice texture without any fade in of the opacity. This feels a little quick, maybe animating the scale of the alpha / opacity map to make it feel like the ice is actually growing under you.
- Combat. I don't want to touch upon this too much as I am seeing a lot of comments about the hit registration and how it all feels a little floaty at the moment. I personally feel the combat in a game like this is key. I would prioritise getting this down before anything else. The combat in a game can almost carry the success on it's own. Take Black Desert Online for example. Great combat, 0 plot. Although the success was short lived, I feel the combat would be the foundations. The points above about the animations should help this a bit. I know you are going for a hybrid system between real time action and tab targeting which may or may not work. One example was the archer, I noticed there was no aiming reticle and that the attacks were hitting the monster regardless of where you were looking. This felt a little jarring to me.
I tried to keep it as short as I could, but I felt I might bring up some of the less talked about points from my perspective. I could probably add more if I really went and inspected the stream or played it for myself. Unfortunately I did not have time to test the gameplay for myself as I was working and this was entirely based off of the Live Stream. I hope this was in anyway useful. If not, then it sounds like you've got it all under wraps
Keep up the good work. I have been itching for a decent MMO, there just hasn't been anything decent in a good while now and i'm hoping you can fill that void for me.
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Comments
You mean spam AoEs untill you get a kill?
Way to set the bar low.
Honestly though the combat in BDO is not the best example to give 'w'