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Improvement on Mechanics
Jamation
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
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!
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!
2
Comments
1) I loved the visual quality and artistic skill in making them, however the dragons seemed easy to kill. But I guess during the siege there will be PvP involved, which will make things more complicated. Personally I dont mind at all. But why use dragons? You made them less epic for other encounters. "Ye I zerged 3 dragons last Sunday with a bit of PvP in the mix, what other?"
Why would dragons give a damn about mortals sieging a castle. Is this League of Legends? Get the dragon buffs?
I think it's disrespectful to such powerful beings and will weaken the excitment of encountering them in more natural environments. They would make for better stories if they were in a frozen mountain peak, a volcano or a patch of blight land.
Why do they have to be present at every siege just to serve as a power-struggle mechanic/buff for the attackers and defenders.
Why not something else? Using many epic concepts in every chance possible, makes them all less epic.
Video games in general have moved away from nice telegraphs, which indicate that the next attack will hit hard or affect a large area.
We are full of ugly red and green circles dictating where to stand. We look for them instead of looking at the raid boss. We need to return to beautiful animations instead of HUD UI colorful indicators.
There is a problem however. If our screens are clusterf***ed by massive, player cast AoE spells, then there is no way to be able to see the raidboss (or any other npc) and we will be forever forced to play with red and green circle indicators.
In those games I didnt mind the mechanics.
But why would a dragon have to resort to trickery and like some naruto character duplicate itself? Hey dragon, you are a dragon. Do dragon stuff. Claw bite smash blast. Use your breath use your claws and jaws, use your wings and tail. You are physically stronger than anything and can shoot stuff from your mouth. Why do ninja stuff? Sometimes simplicity is more beautiful. Like a diamond.
No disrespect to the developers. You create things that none of us can ever do without the painstaking training you have been through. Just some critisism.
Trickery is a Dragon trait?
The Dragons just happen to be nearby - especially for this Alpha test.
They aren't really helping with the Castle siege. AFAIK
If I'm not mistaken they mentioned in the livestream that this is simply for the sieges of alpha 1 in order to give the players an experience of a siege. Steven said this isn't the end goal for sieges, but it's a representation of the core mechanics.
As for why dragons, it may simply be because that was something they'd already been building and felt like it was okay to share compared to something they might want to be a surprise. As it's only alpha 1 they might not have what they intend to use prepared and polished compared to these NPCs. Most people know what a dragon is and what it can do so it's not a huge spoiler if it shoots fire from its mouth, etc. But who knows, we'll have to see later if it's changed.
The mirror images was one of the mechanics I actually really enjoyed seeing because it's not something you'd expect. I love seeing cool and unique mechanics for bosses that are supposed to be extremely powerful. I mean, sure the dragon is big and if it wanted to could just lift it's foot and squish us instantly killing every player, but that's no fun. We saw plenty of claw swipes, breath attacks, and bites from the dragons they got physically close to. I'd bet if they walked to the fire dragon it would have similar basic attacks. I like that even though they were each dragons, they all required a different way to fight against them. One of the most disappointing things is to realize that the ice dragon is the same thing as a fire dragon with a different skin. However, this is a magical fantasy creature, I'm all for it having some cool abilities. If every creature acted exactly how it was "supposed" to it'd make boss fights just like any other normal mob with a bigger health pool.