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.
Feedback Thread - August 20 Play Test
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
- I would say that all weapons seem to do to much damage except for the scepter.
- stamina is way to low and every action costs to much. Almost all of my fights had either my opponent, me or both of us waiting for stamina to Regen to hit each other again.resulting in us doing a little jig together.
- at times it seems the right click zoom for the bow and tome take an extra second or two to actually start.
Other than the above it was great. Can't wait to see more from IS.
I loved the way the bows had high skillcaps vs. high damage so that it actually becomes a skill to shoot a bow and not just an OP aspect of ranged combat
I did have a hard time with the amount of item/weapon slots the game has. I know it makes for smoother gameplay and more versatile combat situations, but it felt like 3 weapon slots and 2 potion-only slots would suffice.
The tomes were amazing to play with, felt very smooth and powerful to cast the big meteor storm on an unsuspecting player, i just didn't like the ability to scope with it, just seems like a reach to me.
I didnt really understand half the abilities i was given upon picking up items, and i really would've wanted a mouse-over interface where the abilities are explained. Same goes for equippable armour.
User interface
This is the thing that has haunted me while playing this game. The interface design is VERY outdated and feels like i'm playing a student's first project. I don't really understand how you can come up with such amazing graphics and then not have anyone that has an idea of UI/UX design. Please fix this, because as a graphic designer this is ruining the experience for me.
Client & server performance
I joined 7 games in a span of 2 hours (between 3PM and 5PM) and 6 out of 7 games froze up at random times, sometimes after 5 minutes, the other when i faced off against the only other person left in the game. The screen and my character froze, but the trees, grass etc. were still moving. After waiting for 2 minutes i got kicked out, back to the lobby, or i had to hardquit the game by pressing ALT+F4.
I don't know how many people were playing at a time, but i seemed to have a constant 60-250 ping on the EU servers (im from the Netherlands). On other games i have around 9 ping.
Overall i'm very hyped for the MMO part of this game, as long as the interface gets an update and they keep optimizing parts of the game. I understand that this was a beta test, and i'm happy for the devs that their game is finally getting close to releasing. Keep up the good work! I'll see you guys when the MMO beta releases!
Beside few crashes, game didn't run that bad for me on my medicore PC. Game was running great on my GTX 1660ti with AMD ryzen 5 2600x. So I can't really complain about the stability of the game, I understand it was an test, so freezes and such is normal thing to happen.
Weapon & ability balance:
I have a feeling like the weapons consume too much stamina, but maybe I am just too bad and need to be more careful with the usage of stamina.
Another thing are ranged weapons... Sometimes, it's seriously hard to see from where we got hit, especially from the wands.
From all my matches, I couldn't really find an overpowered weapon, maybe two-hand weapons need a little nerf, but just little. And the weapon that needs an buff/change on ability is as someone said above- AXE. Couldn't really find situation where axe was usefull.
That's it from my small feedback. It was my first time playing it, so it was more like learning the game tbh.
1- The game unfortunately felt a little clunkier compared to the last test, even laggy perhaps. Despite the fact I had 130 FPS with 9 ms, I could feel the delay and clunkiness. Especially melee attacks - 50% of the time attacks either didn't register or there was a lag spike.
2- Constant crushes and freezes. This happened quite often for many people tho Intrepid did a good job by informing players in-game about the issues and that they were working on them.
Although this particular test wasn't the best experience for me, I still loved the idea of such an action combat and general gameplay of APOC being available in the MMORPG as that would be truly revolutionary for the genre.
I had to reset my inputs to default to get access to my flying mount deployment and as noted the remapping screen wasn't lined up properly.
From a weapons and equipment standpoint the hit box registering hits seems slightly delayed or at least the animations seem a fraction of a second off. This is most obvious in the lobby when you are free to hit others and can notice the delay.
Destructible items seem to sometimes not register being hit. Ive noticed multiple times the two story shack house with a stove next to the internal staircase will have items behind the staircase and its a crap shoot if you can destroy the stairs or not depending on if you find the sweet spot.
I agree with the claims that stamina usage and regen might need tweaking. Unsure in which manner the tweaking takes place. i almost feel there should be a touch more punishment for spam swinging your weapon and missing.
Time to live in melee seems super short. If this is by design for a battle royal then please address time to live for the mmo. Something seems too quick about a 4 hit death burst. With only rudimentary blocking and dodging the whole ordeal doesn't last long unless someone has a fleeing power mid fight.
While perhaps not needed after a couple rounds. A tool tip on what each power does would be helpful.
I didn’t like the floaty combat. I couldn’t tell exactly how far my melee attack reached. I couldn’t tell exactly when the animation connected with the opponent. I also wasn’t a fan of the animation locks. WoW level of fluidity is what I’m hoping for and I hope that over time Ashes gets there. The other design choice I didn’t like was the lack of health bars and name plates. In my opinion it doesn’t feel good to not know how much health my opponent has. It’s a big strategic piece of information in any MMO I’ve ever played. It also didn’t feel good to not know who I’m fighting and interacting with.
I hope that you guys succeed in your project because I would love to see Ashes become what you set out to make it.
P.S horses really need some way to them since the drift when you want to turn right or lift.
Overall the game played pretty well though!
GPU gtx 1080ti
Ram 16gb gskill
SSD samsunge 950 evo nVME
Acer predator 144hz 1440p
Game played @1440p epic settings no MBlur
The visual assets looked great this time. I highly enjoyed the lighting effects especially on the pickups. Very well done
The game felt a lot more colorful on this playtest which is always a great thing. More color rich games are much easier to consume. Assets like grass and foliage were extremely vibrant. A+ to the environment team/art team/whoever does shaders and lighting team.
Cape physics were great, if a tad too fluid (it feels more like light silk than thick cotton). I caught an instance where rapidly rotating my character made the cape fold on itself and actually got stuck on itself. *amazing*. Costume physics are going to be awesome if these are the kinds of parameters you guys can push.
Lighting effects on assets were greatly improved. Very shiny.
Perfomance seemed fairly good for a side game still deep in development on full Epic settings @1440p. Things were choppy in some areas, sometimes in a match, but overall performance seemed to be going in the right direction. These things take time and are not easy to nail down.
New animations on combat were definitely a step in the right direction. Hit reg seemed to be pretty good, but my test time was unfortunately cut a little bit short. Unable to accurately assess combats finer details to a fuller extent, such as weapon collisions and hitbox accuracy.
Combat still feels off however.
Jumping is a tad floaty and could deal with maybe a 15% increase in fall speed. Height seemed ok however.
The camera should not lock during certain actions, such as dodging or lunging. The camera should always be free to move even if the character model is locked to a certain axis for a while.
The lunge attack is very over the top. Distance covered is too far, especially with 2h weapons. It is an excellent movement ability and makes the BR fun, but removes an element of immersion, and shouldn't be present in the MMO.
Combat and movement both need more punch and weight, without making movement overly cumbersome. I understand as this is early pass things aren't final, but it should be kept in mind. Reference games like dead or alive and or darksouls 3. The combat felt deliberate in each of these games and carried a lot of weight. Darksouls was more weighty on the attacker side and the movement carried weight as well, and DoA was weighty on combat, particularly with victim reactions. Yes DOA is a fighting game on consoles, however taking hints from animations/sounds and victim reactions can provide a greater overall feeling to a combat system. Black Desert Online also provided a pretty great combat system in regards to combos, however some characters carried more combat weight than others. Movement was pretty well done in that game overall, if a tad unpolished in some areas.
UI was a lot better this time but still felt flat. Aesthetic improvements can always be done in the future, but it is definitely missing some flair.
Overall this playtest was great for the short amount of time I got in. Didnt enjoy getting two shot by someone with a red grade 2h when I had armor on two seconds into a match, but eh. Things happen. Came second place only because I dropped my weapon. Oof.
1080Ti cannot maintain a fluid 60 FPS environment.
Pros: Animations are better and smoother, graphics look more detailed. It's nice that there are tips for this test and hopefully, that will carry onto the MMO.
Cons:
1. The entire time I tried to play the APOC testing session on August 20th, I had a problem with cursor alignment where it was not possible for me to change settings or open up certain menu options. I couldn't fix the issue despite changing resolutions.
2. Game still crashes irregularly on start up of the game
3. I also felt like there was something off with the stamina compared to previous tests where it seemed like the stamina cost is higher and it might feel a bit too punishing.
4. Two handed weapons are two handed weapons, that I understand, but I felt like they got a bit too buffed for this build
Those are the thing I've observed during my playtest of the recent session. Hope this helps, guys!
Why? because of the animation locking. Being locked into animations and not being able to move or turn the camera until after the attack or roll animation felt horrible. The only weapon where being unable to move felt somewhat okay was with The Silencer, because that thing hit hard.
I liked the new animations, but not the animation locking.
The horse controls were very clunky and summoning the horse after a heroic leap and landing with a gryphon took a really long time. Also summoning the gryphon when jumping off a building or a cliff didn't work, only worked after a heroic leap.
The Environment looked much better with low graphics and the updated spell effects were very nice. Really liked the changes to darkness where you can now see around you instead of it being pitch black. Being hit with the wand of light Q ability felt like my character turned into the sun and almost blinded me.
Heroic leap was ok, blocking felt a little weird, ui looked better and being able to see the damage and stamina cost when hovering over an item was a nice addition.
Suggestions
- Remove animation locking you in place or atleast add the ability to turn the camera when attacking/rolling
- Have item names show up on your bar (had it in previous versions)
- Control horse with movement keys, camera with mouse
- Add numeric countdown to ablity and item cooldowns
- Make pressing ctrl or attack dismount you
- Bring autosprint back
When moving on the eastern beach, on foot or on horse, I sometimes was blocked by what appeared to be minor texture changes, or the frame rate studdered my character's position and I had difficulty moving.
Weapon & ability balance:
Perhaps undeservedly, the wands were regarded by everyone I spoke with as an inferior weapon to any equal rarity alternative.
Melee hit detection did feel off, however. It did not feel as consistent or reliable as it did in the previous tests. This along with the occasional freezing and hiccups made things feel much more clunky than they could have been.
Server stability felt alright after the initial hiccups. Player replication still feels very lurchy and jumpy, but I believe this will improve with time.
Keep up the good work!
Performance wise - I had no major issues. I froze temporarily for about 2 seconds two different times in two different matches out of the 6. One freeze was when I had opened a Chest and the other just in combat quickly turning my camera view around. Other than that Gameplay was smooth, although swinging the polearm or long spear seemed a bit too fast when turning to attack. My fps ranged between 58-80
Weapons:
*wand - The Projectiles seem to be completely invisible or extremely hard to see when firing.
*Bow - For some reason there seemed to be a very slight delay between Clicking to fire the arrow and the
arrow's release.
*L. spear - Swinging while turning felt a little overly unnatural. I'm definitely okay with fast attacks and fantasy
type swings, however swinging while moving quickly just didn't feel right.
User Interface:
After finding and acquiring a horse, the button to summon it appeared, however it did not summon the horse when selected while having full stamina. The horse UI button did grey out into a CD, but the horse was never summoned. It wasn't the "delay while summoning a horse" issue from the KNOWN ISSUES. It's that the horse never was summoned.
Overall, I enjoyed the testing and really enjoyed the environment, However I am curious on what was accomplished within the 6 months of work above what I already noticed. TL;DR : Again, to reiterate the gameplay was smooth, and the animations for skills has improved since the last BR test. Thanks again I.S. team. Keep up the good work!
Optimization in this department would help greatly. Aside from that, though, I enjoyed the hell out of this playtest. Can't wait for the next one!
When I closed the game the game was still running in the background so I had to close the game using the windows task manager. I was unsure if it was my PC so I rebooted it and tried it a gene several times and it still gave the same problem.
I hope this will improve the gameplay and many people will like it, if not entire BR players of the AOC!
User interface: There was way to many skill to use. If it stays like this, high aiming players will definitely need some 10+ button mouse to be able to make use of all the necessary skills. Most of the players (including me) were only using the actual weapon and the skills bound to "Q" and "E" buttons.
Otherwise the interface was well put together.
Visual quality of the game was captivating. Much has improved compared to last test session. Was playing on a R2600/16GB/RX580 at 1680x1050 with everything left on highest setting, and had 60+ fps with occasional slight drops during duels, and bigger drop during the battle start, but the game was running smooth.
Client & server performance: Sadly during the first hours of the testing after a few minutes I got randomly frozen and put back to the character menu. Running the game in fullscreen seemed to hasten the freezing. In the morning (was playing from Europe) after the stability patch the game ran without any problem.
Just want to say thank you for your hard work before i get into the depth of things. I would also like to apologize for any topics here that aren't related to the thread. Now for the few things I've noticed during the 12 Hours of game-play . . .
Invisibility:
Whether this is a bug or just wasn't noticed, one of the Graphical Settings changes the way Invisibility is shown. I've caught this after a encounter with an enemy player who tracked me with precision after i went invisible. After I went ahead and lowered the graphics down to see if the game runs better, I've noticed that once i go invisible there's this white outline of my character. This is also true to any other enemy who are also invisible. This was a major issue as it made the Invisibility Ability almost non-usable.
Footstep Audio:
While walking on different types of ground, I feel as at times I hear more than 1 footstep audio. It makes me feel as if someones is constantly following me. It could be just me and that I need to get use to it or I don't know if it's possible that multiple environmental footstep audios are being played. This is especially true when I'm outside in grass/ Gravel/ Dirt.
Blocking:
This mechanic seems like it isn't being used quite as much or at all. Maybe it's due to the fact that it drains stamina. I think players find it more enticing to use stamina for melee swings rather than blocking. Unless there's something I've missed about blocking, like it giving back stamina on successful blocks or stuns opponents for a short duration.
Scouting your surroundings while on the move:
Not being able to free look while walking/running in the direction you want to go feels odd. A lot of other games have ways you can look left and right without your character's movement become static. This is especially painful while mounted on horse. Trying to look around only results in the horse running in that direction.
Ranged Zooming Feature:
The ranged weapon zooming feature should be adjustable like a scope almost. I find some of them to be insanely off putting when zoomed in. Maybe a 2x and 4x zoom toggle can help with aiming and precision. Of course that would also depend on the weapon.
Clouds when Dropping:
It's very hard to tell visually where you are unless you have the map open during drop. The clouds cover up most of the visual when up in the sky until you hit a certain altitude. This made dropping feel visually unpleasing as all your looking at is a portal surrounded by black/gray/red clouds.
Crouch walking:
While crouch walking I can still hear my own footsteps but at a lower rate. Is this true to the enemy as well or just on my end? If they can still hear me even when crouched then it would make the Catfall boot all that more superior.
The game launcher, when installed trough Steam, did not allow for me to link Steam and AoC accounts, but reinstalling the launcher directly worked from the first time.
Maybe I have missed it, but I was not able to find any UI scaling option in the game. Playing in 1920x1080, some of the text, options menu and spell/skill names in particular, were a bit too small, it would be nice to have the ability to adjust their size.
More on the UI, I would prefer having a skill/spell bar in the middle, instead of free floating icons on the right.
All in all, it still was fun to smash things and roll around pangolins
Clouds:
I think you already know about this but the moulds when you are dropping tend to obstruct the view and make it difficult to navigate to where you want to be
Academy Tower:
When dropping to the elf academy tower the tower itself has a bad habit of disappearing when you get close to it and not re-appearing until you are almost on top of it
Footsteps:
Sometimes, while running sideways or strafing, the sound of your own footsteps would sound like they were playing behind you and freaked me out LOL
All in all I had a blast during this test and will definitely be back for more
I had a lot of freezes where I could not move. I didn't really find a way out of it; sometimes I was able to move again, but have no idea why or how.
Dropping down from the sky always seemed to move diagonally back and forth across the same areas; would be nice to have more variety in map locations.
In a few games I was unable to leave; may be related to the freezes I was experiencing. I would like a note on the keybinds of how to get into Windows mode so I could close the client.
I wish my character animation would be pulled back a little farther where I could see my character's feet.
Looking forward to see what Intrepid brings to the next test cycle. Keep up the good work!
Formerly T-Elf
Other than that, great job Intrepid on improving the visuals/animations etc, looking forward to next tests.
Seemed reasonable, with the caveat that Ranged weapon accuracy seemed off somehow.
Why does Stamina regenerate the way it does? It feels really odd. Why not a continuous regeneration rate?
Heroic Leap is neat but I really hope this isn't a standard ability everyone will have in MMO... these are humanoid characters, not fleas.
[*] User interface
Not the best UI layout. The Item Load-out would frequently disappear for no reason. Some actions were not bound until after Restoring to Default despite not having ever changed any of the bindings. The main menu between matches is barely functional and gives off a slapped-together vibe of a home-programming project and not an actual real game.
[*] Client & server performance
I played with graphics set high and this bogged down performance dramatically. On the plus side, the textures are just beautiful and roaming around and just seeing what there is to see is pretty enjoyable. I was DC'd in the middle of matches several times but performance was otherwise okay.
Also, it needs to be said... the eye animations on both the human and griffon models is creepy as hell.