Feedback: Sprinting, nameplates, gathering + combat

Yoho

Hi guys,
I know things like UI etc... are placeholder at the moment so these are more of a 'concern' than an issue if its not something that is planned to be addressed.

Sprinting
For me this just needs to be removed from the game. The visual effect ruins the immersion, the speed bonus is negligible, its just using a key bind that could be used for something else - and its redundant once you get a mount. Generally run/walk is all that should suffice. I know this is a feature from Archeage which Steven takes some of his inspiration from but I felt it was a bad feature in Archeage too.

Nameplates
I've been playing as a tank, so as a melee class when I am cleaving multiple enemies - not knowing the hp/status of every mob around me is a concern. Only having the hp of the mob that I have targeted limits the amount of information I have - e.g.
Can I kill all these mobs before I die?! Adding health bars to nameplates (when in combat) would help greatly in that regard.

Combat
This is me speaking purely from a melee perspective as I haven't tried the other classes. Between action and tab targetting for a melee class, action combat feels more natural. I think this is partly down to the fact you guys dont have an auto attack, so attacking with left mouse feels better than attacking with a bound key.
I've spoken previously about my dislike of the animation locking and lack of lateral movement and this still stands. The number of times I am effectively circling a bunch of mobs instead of cleaving on them is way to many. It feels really counter intuitive. If you are going to keep the forward 'weight' of attacks I think this motion needs to be reduced by at least half so you dont end up flying past a mob if you are not directly colliding with hits hitbox.
As for spell casting requiring a target to be selected, this then makes it more of a tab combat. If we are pushing for a full action combat mode then the skills need to either be ground targetable or have some kind of double tap target lock (tap spell once to initiate targeting, tap again when mouse is over the target to cast).

Gathering
We all know that finding resources can be a bit of a pain, particularly because they are not easily visible and there is no tracking on the minimap.
This one is more of a suggestion. As I understand it scientific nodes and scribes can document resource locations; however I was wondering if this was the only way to be able to 'track' resources on a map. I was thinking you could maybe follow the route Star wars Galaxies made in regards to its resource tracking system - whereby you would ride out to a location, use a tool that will search the area - and feedback %rates of what resources where in the immediate vicinity - you would then follow these graphs until you found an area with high density and extract the resources there.
Tying this into mechanics within Ashes you could have professions that can make tools that could help locate these resources in a set area around you. For example:

Fishing
* While fishing, small % chance to catch a Conch
* Listen to the Conch too to detect fish nearby (highlighted as waypoint on the minimap)
Herbalism
* Animal Husbandry - breed insects/bees that are attracted to herbalism plants (tiered/bred for certain plants/planttypes)
* The insect checks the air and if it finds something will fly in that direction and you can follow it
Lumberjacking
* Animal Husbandry - breed hawks to find certain types of trees (tiered/bred for certain trees)
* Hawk flies high into the air to look for gatherable trees, if it finds one it will be marked on the minimap and the hawk will fly to the tree as a guide
Mining
* Jewelcrafting - Certain jewels will contain a resonance that matches certain elements to be found in the world
* Adding this jewel to some kind of seismic detector will highlight nearby resources (highlighted as waypoint on the minimap)

Markune

I personally like the way the resource node identification is set up. It's subtle in most cases (other than your massive glowing field of half dozen herbs) and still efficient. I prefer the nodes not be present on the map for example, and I'm not sure how i feel about a "Radar type" function to find them. A little effort in this regards is a good thing in my opinion, but this also does require that crafting has value to justify the extra effort. We will see how that shakes out.

The only real complaint i have about the Alpha state of resource nodes is the fact that some obviously have a much larger share of the total count (Herbs) than others (Wood). They addressed some of this in the latest patch so we'll see where that goes.

Captain Camo

Yea the action combat system needs work, I was hoping for more apocalypse-style action combat. It just feels like a sluggish confused mixture of action and tab combat and it doesn't really know what it is.

Khronus

Your combat feedback is spot on imo. The lack of an auto attack does not feel right for this game and the forced positioning makes melee combat not fun for me.

As for gathering, I like how things look currently. Maybe less of the sparkle would be even better as I want every aspect of the game to be more difficult. I will say that the way professions are currently playing out is really the opposite of what I expected when first learning about the game. I REALLY hope every profession is not a simple.....go buy tool, go hit that tools node, get better tool. This would be a huge miss on Intrepids part.

Nameplates are not needed. I am kind of excited for less battlefield information. I want nameplates with helath bars because it feels natural to see them but I am 100% of without them. Target of target though needs to be a thing haha.

The sprint is bad and I can't stand the animation your whole screen does when using it. Once you buy a mount, I haven't found myself sprinting ever. You can't spring during combat so you are correct, it is useless and needs to be removed.