Improvement on Mechanics
Finally finished my finals for the semester and managed to catch up on the last two months of streams and just wanted to say something, as I haven’t been able to be as active on the forum as I would’ve liked.
The first time I really began looking/comparing the mechanics of the bosses was from video footage with the fire dragon at the end of the dungeon in that lava field, and against the broodmother with the hot water splashes.
Seeing those I was hesitant, but hopeful that the team would move in the right direction.
With the recent streams, showing the various behaviors and mechanics that the dragon bosses have, I can say my hope was put into good hands.
One of my initial concerns was that some of the skills weren’t being presented as well as they could’ve been and might insta-kill players, leaving them feeling annoyed and blaming each other. But the animations on those dragons? They told a friggen story all by themselves. I think even if those red circles (in relation to where a poison poop would drop from the sky) weren’t there, the NPC displayed enough motion/emotion to express at least what attack is about to happen. I know we didn’t get to see the other dragons as closely or as a regular player would have seen it, so this is mainly focused on the first dragon.
While the telegraphs have seen marketable improvement over the months, the variety of mechanics was something I also worried about. But boy was I glad to see what I did. Although many of the mechanics weren’t exactly groundbreaking, there were a few that I was genuinely surprised to see. The variety was nice and they seemed to involve movement, team work, and good raid communication. I have no idea what mechanics are already in play with some of their creations, but I’d love to see some group cooperation type mechanics (such as sharing damage, taking over to be the ‘victim’, running away from the group, etc)
However, on the mechanics side of things, I began noticing this with one of the fights where Jeff made comments about it after the video, but having the designer/someone involved during the presentation of these bosses should be replicated as much as possible! As much as I love seeing the same friendly faces during the live streams, they each have their own responsibilities and might not know a lot of the nitty-gritty like another member of their team would. When the team member Chris J. (Wasn’t sure how to spell from the pronunciation) made comments about the fight like ‘It’ll happen 4 times and hit 16 people’ or ‘That’s an enrage mechanic that’ll one hit’ it enhanced the overall experience ten-fold for me. I know a lot of people might not want to be spoiled about stuff like that, but I know my experience would’ve been very different if I was only watching from Steven’s perspective and how the usual squad interpreted what was happening during the fight (aka panic and fear). This might just be my raid brain, but hearing the technicality behind a mechanic interests me as much as how pretty it looks when a dozen bodies die from a poison breath. Basically, with the crew getting back together soon (knock on wood) please try to include more people like Chris during the video recordings if at all possible!
I know this was long, but hey I’ve been away from a while. Basically, just wanted to come on here and say that I think many of the game’s systems have seen much improvement over the past few months and to continue doing a splendid job. Keep up the good work, and I know this team will continue to produce great things!
