My experience so far

GhostwheeI

First time Apocalypse tester and long time hardcore MMO player here (Played everything from Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, to WoW, Archeage etc since the 90s). After talking to a couple AoC reps (thanks Shaze and Greypelt) on Discord it seems this version is testing out the twitchy Action combat. 2017 was testing out the Tab targeting combat (what a mmo usually is). So I'll have to hold out for both together and see how it plays. Otherwise, everything seems fluid. There's no clunky movement where you're stuck in odd animations fighting. Also very little rubberbanding (due to lag). Wasn't fighting against any poor "coding" or lag to fight others. It's definitely Vermintide style. Not my thing, but I do like the overall smoothness. Just not a fan of the Action combat in general(belongs in simpler MMOs or isometric styles). UI is pretty bad and everything is pretty unintuitive. Half of the buttons on the hotkey legend in game don't work. Armory says things are equipped and I clicked save(and save is always greyed out for some reason) but after asking around you don't actually get those weapons. Just access? You find them in the game world and pick them up like battle royale. So I'm not sure the point of the Armory. Also not sure of the point of the shop, adventure path, or quests. Nothings really explained. Do you keep things you buy in the shop for full release? Do you even get to use them in Apocalypse or do you have to find them and buying only allows you to equip them? Where are the quests in the game world? Anyway, just thinking out loud. Going to play a bit more and maybe update this.

Shoklen

So far I'm just not having fun.. Pretty sure BRs are not my thing; but I'm here for the MMO anyway.

A lot of the following feels exactly the same as last Fall...

• UI still feels clunky and cumbersome; my left hand need six extra fingers.
• Death is just 2 to 4 hits even with armor. I Might be missing something here.
• Ranged and Cat-Fall Boots are still gods. Though to be fair melee weapons seem not need any accuracy and all attacks are a full 180 frontal arch. I was watching one player and they didn't even bother to swing and just walked into people to kill them.
• Group and Solo are in the same match? I seem to see no one for minutes, then 3 guys jump me at once (clearly a team), then they all go their own way after my death. What fun is that?
• Animation-lock.. Animations felt slow to me, and locked till they finished momentary taking away control from my character. I should be able to interrupt an animation for another animation. Perhaps that's just a BR thing.

I'll keep throwing my body into the matches for test reasons. But fun I am not having... I'll reserve the right to add more feedback after further... deaths.. heh..

Again, Apoc just isn't the game for me.. Looking forward to the MMO though... Very much so. hopefully PvP in the MMO isn't as fast paced as Apoc. I'd like a battle to last more then 3 to 5 seconds.

[Side note: Game did run very smooth, even on my Potato. i5 3750, 32GB Mem, 240GB SSD, GF 760 2GB. Everything was very smooth and no issues with lag at all]

George_Black

Animation should only be cancelled for block, dodge or counterATK, as well as the imput/output of the ability.

Block dodge and counterATKs are reactive moves.
I am against animation cancelling for anything else except block dodge and counter atk.

lagz

I dont think many of us, if any wanted or expected a BR. But im sure many people, like me, dont want to miss the chance to test some sort of gameplay. I dont think its a bad BR but ill still never understand why this was the first thing they opened up to the public. I feel like this should have been the least of their concern and been on the back burner as something they developed for pvp players after the game was released.

As for the combat and the APOC testing.. I didnt think it was awful. There is definitely a lot of issues but I am a fan of action combat far more than anything else. I just find it more intricate and personal and thats certainly how this could be. But right now there are issues, which is to be expected. Its very clunky and glitchy. I mean there were a couple times where i was aiming at a person standing still (with a bow), hitting them dead on, and the attack not hitting.

And I also experienced some issues that OP mentioned with inventory items glitching. And then the constant crashing, although I think they fixed that in the later half of the testing session. Over all I had some fun but some aggravation as well. But at the end of the day this isnt what we want. We want an MMO. Like I said before, I think this should have been an after thought.

Also, its hard to not wonder how much time and resources were spent on apocalypse that could have been spent on making the actual mmo. Im sure someone has asked them this and probably got an answer but im still curious.