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.
Continued Feedback
Cold 0ne FTB
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Round fifteen with the lifting of the NDA I thought it would be more apt to move my feedback to this part of the forums in case somebody without A1 access wants to add additional input. Overall A1 seems to be going well. I was expecting more backlash but the majority of responses I have seen were positive. I will be changing the focus to the next major milestone which is nailing the final nails in combat and having a strong core to build abilities, weapons and classes/archetypes.
Executive Summary:
- In general combat is in a pretty good spot. The key issue is the lack of depth. Right now combat consists of cycling q and using abilities off of cooldown. Add in the occasional dodge roll, some kitting and some utility abilities. Adding in active blocking will help. More needs to be done with q-attacks as you are doing a lot of cool things with them but I would like to see you develop them more. Right now this game is very much a tab target game with an action combat soft tab system. I like the style a lot.
Pros:
-The diversity and number of weapons is astonishing. Even if they end up sharing skills/passives the fact that they have different q attack animations adds a really interesting level to game play. It makes it so
-Active blocking. We haven't seen it yet but even if only specific classes get it, this is a really cool way of adding depth to combat. I have yet to play a MMO with active blocking and not like it.
-Roll dodge applying a buff gave it an actual use and was a really good change.
-I like how melee q attacks are aoe attacks.
-I love player collision.
-Ability casts feel really good. I like that Meteor Swarm roots you in place but having the ability to move during certain animations is also pretty awesome. Blink is my favorite skill to date.
-I really like how dynamic and insane some of the CCs are. I know some of them are pretty overtuned and will likely get toned down but I love throwing and being thrown around. It's really cool.
Cons:
-Currently the UI is a placeholder but it is really difficult at times to heal or applying positive spells to allies. More work needs to be down with this aspect of the game. I know this is likely on hold but this part of combat is directly tied into the UI.
-The weight for melee attacks feels nice but something needs to be added for when a melee character makes contact with an enemy so they don't walk past them.
Suggestions:
-Q cycling. I am not sure what the plan is with this mechanic but I like how weapons have different animations. What would be cool is if ability weaving was refined with q-cycling. Make it so while cycling if you cast an ability it would pause the q cycle but the moment after the animation was done the q-cycle could continue. This would be really cool because you could play with the different animations. Let's say you had an ability that made it so your next q attack applied a debuff to any enemy hit. What this would do is force players to think about how many/which enemies they want to debuff and then they can wait for the animation to apply it. I change like this would give you a lot of things to work with and would allow for a lot of depth to combat.
-CC counter play. In the past you have said that your intention is to create a diminishing return mechanic on CCs. My main concern with this is with the current TTK I am not sure how effective this will be at providing counter play. Currently you only need 2-3 ccs to completely destroy another player and tanks have three ccs in their kits. It's a big part of why they dominate dueling. Maybe this isn't the answer or maybe you need to look at shortening ccs in general? I am not really sure but this system will need rigorous testing.
-So far Mage is the only archetype that meets it's description. It's very elemental themed class, lots of damage, a little bit of mobility and sustain. However with Tanks some of the skills feel more akin to what I would expect a fighter to get. Weapon toss is a really good example. Clerics have been given a lot of love to the life side of things but we really haven't seen what their mastery of death is. Unless this is eluding to their ability to resurrect other players.
-I can't wait to see ranger. It will be interesting to see what some of the skills other classes will get. It will be interesting to see what skills fall under different classes. Like fighter is a master of fighting with different weapons. Does this mean they are masters at using weapons that are more traditional designed for other archetypes? Does that mean they are effective at using a wand, a spellbook or a bow? This archetype will be key because it will likely interact the most with different weapon types and as you build new actives/passives for weapons this will have a profound impact on this archetype.
-Not sure if you intend to add different energy systems for different classes/archetypes but personally I think mana is fine. I would add a stamina system in for sprinting, swimming and blocking but I don't know if you need it for abilities. Either way it would be cool.
Executive Summary:
- In general combat is in a pretty good spot. The key issue is the lack of depth. Right now combat consists of cycling q and using abilities off of cooldown. Add in the occasional dodge roll, some kitting and some utility abilities. Adding in active blocking will help. More needs to be done with q-attacks as you are doing a lot of cool things with them but I would like to see you develop them more. Right now this game is very much a tab target game with an action combat soft tab system. I like the style a lot.
Pros:
-The diversity and number of weapons is astonishing. Even if they end up sharing skills/passives the fact that they have different q attack animations adds a really interesting level to game play. It makes it so
-Active blocking. We haven't seen it yet but even if only specific classes get it, this is a really cool way of adding depth to combat. I have yet to play a MMO with active blocking and not like it.
-Roll dodge applying a buff gave it an actual use and was a really good change.
-I like how melee q attacks are aoe attacks.
-I love player collision.
-Ability casts feel really good. I like that Meteor Swarm roots you in place but having the ability to move during certain animations is also pretty awesome. Blink is my favorite skill to date.
-I really like how dynamic and insane some of the CCs are. I know some of them are pretty overtuned and will likely get toned down but I love throwing and being thrown around. It's really cool.
Cons:
-Currently the UI is a placeholder but it is really difficult at times to heal or applying positive spells to allies. More work needs to be down with this aspect of the game. I know this is likely on hold but this part of combat is directly tied into the UI.
-The weight for melee attacks feels nice but something needs to be added for when a melee character makes contact with an enemy so they don't walk past them.
Suggestions:
-Q cycling. I am not sure what the plan is with this mechanic but I like how weapons have different animations. What would be cool is if ability weaving was refined with q-cycling. Make it so while cycling if you cast an ability it would pause the q cycle but the moment after the animation was done the q-cycle could continue. This would be really cool because you could play with the different animations. Let's say you had an ability that made it so your next q attack applied a debuff to any enemy hit. What this would do is force players to think about how many/which enemies they want to debuff and then they can wait for the animation to apply it. I change like this would give you a lot of things to work with and would allow for a lot of depth to combat.
-CC counter play. In the past you have said that your intention is to create a diminishing return mechanic on CCs. My main concern with this is with the current TTK I am not sure how effective this will be at providing counter play. Currently you only need 2-3 ccs to completely destroy another player and tanks have three ccs in their kits. It's a big part of why they dominate dueling. Maybe this isn't the answer or maybe you need to look at shortening ccs in general? I am not really sure but this system will need rigorous testing.
-So far Mage is the only archetype that meets it's description. It's very elemental themed class, lots of damage, a little bit of mobility and sustain. However with Tanks some of the skills feel more akin to what I would expect a fighter to get. Weapon toss is a really good example. Clerics have been given a lot of love to the life side of things but we really haven't seen what their mastery of death is. Unless this is eluding to their ability to resurrect other players.
-I can't wait to see ranger. It will be interesting to see what some of the skills other classes will get. It will be interesting to see what skills fall under different classes. Like fighter is a master of fighting with different weapons. Does this mean they are masters at using weapons that are more traditional designed for other archetypes? Does that mean they are effective at using a wand, a spellbook or a bow? This archetype will be key because it will likely interact the most with different weapon types and as you build new actives/passives for weapons this will have a profound impact on this archetype.
-Not sure if you intend to add different energy systems for different classes/archetypes but personally I think mana is fine. I would add a stamina system in for sprinting, swimming and blocking but I don't know if you need it for abilities. Either way it would be cool.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
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