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Alpha-2 Combat Test Recruitment (involves being on a stream)
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
So, I was overhauling my team's stream content for our other genre, and realized that there are some changes to availability, lineup, and status of PCs/laptops that might be putting a dent in our intended Ashes content.
Therefore I'm asking for availability of people, both individuals and groups, for some PvP testing whenever Alpha-2 appears. Just getting as far ahead as possible, Content creation is NOT a place one wants to be scrambling to arrange things at the last minute.
Our intent is to test 8v8 and also to get as close to 'all 8 archetypes on each side' as possible, but there's a lot of coordination in terms of time, levels, etc. This is a lot of work, it's definitely not 'fun' nor is it particularly 'playing the game' in the way you might expect. It's analysis, but analysis requires that we match the game's intent.
From our side, we already have Tank, Fighter, maybe Rogue, probably Mage, Cleric, Summoner, Bard, and need a Ranger who is used to PvP or group dynamics and, quite frankly, willing to put up with 'taking specific instructions from me for upwards of 3 hours'.
Our Maybe-Rogue is also Maybe-Fighter and might be the 'lead' of the opposing test team, but that's still only 6 slots filled on one side and only one or two on the other.
Don't need to be FROM North America, but probably for simplicity might need to have a North America server account. Likeliest time for these would be 'when everyone on server gets boosted for Siege testing', so it involves also explicitly missing out on the Siege test for your server.
If interested, let me know your preferred times, and since Alpha-2 may be persistent, preferred days, too. I understand that for many this may be too early to be getting this set up, but it's easier for me to make plans around other things if I know what tests I can and cannot effectively run.
This situation requires being on a stream (visually ingame), and due to the way communication may need to be handled, a fair amount of talking in game chat. I doubt this will bother most people, but I want to be upfront about it, it's explicitly 'doing a lot of boring tests under precise direction, on a stream where you can look bad or mess it up'.
So now that I've scared off everyone possible... anyone in?
Therefore I'm asking for availability of people, both individuals and groups, for some PvP testing whenever Alpha-2 appears. Just getting as far ahead as possible, Content creation is NOT a place one wants to be scrambling to arrange things at the last minute.
Our intent is to test 8v8 and also to get as close to 'all 8 archetypes on each side' as possible, but there's a lot of coordination in terms of time, levels, etc. This is a lot of work, it's definitely not 'fun' nor is it particularly 'playing the game' in the way you might expect. It's analysis, but analysis requires that we match the game's intent.
From our side, we already have Tank, Fighter, maybe Rogue, probably Mage, Cleric, Summoner, Bard, and need a Ranger who is used to PvP or group dynamics and, quite frankly, willing to put up with 'taking specific instructions from me for upwards of 3 hours'.
Our Maybe-Rogue is also Maybe-Fighter and might be the 'lead' of the opposing test team, but that's still only 6 slots filled on one side and only one or two on the other.
Don't need to be FROM North America, but probably for simplicity might need to have a North America server account. Likeliest time for these would be 'when everyone on server gets boosted for Siege testing', so it involves also explicitly missing out on the Siege test for your server.
If interested, let me know your preferred times, and since Alpha-2 may be persistent, preferred days, too. I understand that for many this may be too early to be getting this set up, but it's easier for me to make plans around other things if I know what tests I can and cannot effectively run.
This situation requires being on a stream (visually ingame), and due to the way communication may need to be handled, a fair amount of talking in game chat. I doubt this will bother most people, but I want to be upfront about it, it's explicitly 'doing a lot of boring tests under precise direction, on a stream where you can look bad or mess it up'.
So now that I've scared off everyone possible... anyone in?
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
6
Comments
You can write me up as a potential participant, unless you get enough people from NA before alpha 2.
Thanks! You're not in my dataset for Class or Archetypes, so if you don't mind, do you plan to play any specific class?
I explicitly need some EU people to test some latency/netcode things as well, so it's actually somewhat preferable. Depending on the number of server resets and intensity of the test, if I get enough EU people, we can also do the test the other way, where we make the accounts on the EU server.
Thank you in advance for taking on some very hard but very necessary work.
What kind of combat scenarios do you plan on doing? 🤔
I figure we can handle all the basic stuff just within team, though I may need to pull CROW3 in due to having no Ranger and no one with Ranger instincts (our Ranger from older games has moved on with his life).
Once we're past the basics (rollback option selects, mutable hitbox and hurtbox interactions, frame data, edge-of-range spacing), it will depend heavily on what the Combat for the game is actually like.
But I have a knack for this, so even if you guys at Intrepid surprise me in overall design, I'll just come up with a new test suite.
Overall, it'll be synergy tests, though. Shuffling the two 8-person groups around to tweak the amounts of group synergy involved. Assuming that we get the same 'boosts and basic gear' for siege tests, then we can work from the 'intended baseline', too.
I guess this answer was moreso 'outlining plans in general for the purposes of the thread', but I figure the more people know about the goals, the easier it would be to decide if they want to commit to getting involved. I'll try to remember to update this thread if for some reason we receive any combat data before Alpha-2's actual release.
I am very curious about the proposed methodology of testing. Can you speak more specifically of what the actual process will look like?
Do you mean 'for the individual player being asked to do things', or the tests themselves? Which tools I use and which things I test will depend almost entirely on the combat system of the game, and afaik we don't know anything about it at all right now.
I can draw a parallel to the sort of thing we did for this test within Ashes, though.
This one was fairly simple, and due to the short timeframe, entirely possible to do without any specific tools for monitoring other than simply recording footage, which is the general approach that we'll have to use due to not wanting to even go near the chance of being banned for botting or similar.
It only requires a system for measuring how many frames you have used an input, or on what frame relatively you issued the input, rather than controlling it.
So it's a matter of 'standing in a position, moving for X number of frames, pressing another input'. If you missed the timing, do it again. This isn't the level of thing I'd be asking of others for basic tests though, so I am not sure that's what you're asking about. Therefore, see below for further detail.
I expect the first group tests will be checking the burst-down TTK options on healers and mages, since the rest of the system will be fairly emergent. Then add the Tank and have the Tank attempt to protect the Healer or Mage. Then add the other (whichever isn't around) and try it again, to build up potential First Order strategies for bursting down either the Healer or Mage.
Once we've got the baseline FOOS inline, I'd start analysis on them, which abilities could reasonably be used to change this without compromising builds overly, etc. E.g. do the Fighter Augments add enough to a Tank that the burst-down TTK is significantly reduced, or is there no functional difference over Paladins, etc.
It will require people with the skill to reproduce their situations from starting positions with some accuracy, but the absolute synchronization of times won't be as important. I'll probably gather the latency data during that period too, so it won't be as necessary.
Next, once I have the latency data at least partially, we'll start testing rollback on ranged skills to complement whatever data I already have from intra-group testing. That's a lot of 'walking into range and having the opponent try to use Javelin' but fading back just at the edge of their range, to cause the rollback to have to decide if the Javelin press was out of range or not.
This sort of test is harder since both latency and average player reaction time matter, so I may need to get some reaction time tests for people, but internal team is basically all fighting game players with known ping to each other, so any tests that are inconclusive due to players not having consistent reaction times, will get shunted to internal. So no worries if you are below 217ms, and similarly, no worries if your ping is over 132. Especially if we get more EU players.
It will not be required to share your exact location with anyone, once I have a baseline, and a person's reaction time, I can probably work out 'distance to server' from there based on some baseline character interactions. This may be harder on the EU side, but one of our members is over there, and many of us work in networking and related tech at higher levels, so we can at least try to work out something.
The one thing to note is, of course... unfortunately...
Wi-Fi warriors may be relegated to backup tests. It's just not worth the stress on them or me. If you're familiar with networking but are still somehow locked on wi-fi connection, that might be HELPFUL since you'll be able to notice and report.
If the above essay wasn't what you wanted to know either, please let me know which parts of it were close to relevant so I can try to focus my answers more in that direction.
Are you going to be setting up a Discord channel for this, and prepping for it there?
Glad to help in any way that's needed. And thanks for putting the effort into organizing this!
o7
~War~
I'm not explicitly looking for EU players overall, just thankful if we get some. And we are definitely going to need two different Rangers, so, glad to have you.
A Discord channel will probably be made much further down the line, or we'll maybe get a sub one within the Intrepid one so that they can monitor and track more directly if they want to (always good to have explanations about why certain things happen so that people don't come to any incorrect conclusions, particularly during streamed content).
There may be some other minor issues that come up since the group I work with doesn't use Discord for most communication by default, but I'll probably be working out the logistics of that, a bit later.
Doesnt it also require 8 people of each class, as going 4 rangers 1 tank 1 healer 1 bard 1 fighter or even 8 rangers could end up synergizing the best?
We don't have sufficient data for any serious framework beyond what I've mentioned in a post above, so I have to start with what Intrepid 'intends' as the baseline', push that as 'far as possible', and then compare. Therefore must first 'get that to the highest levels we can manage'.
I'm confident that other groups will jump in happy to do tests with whatever they think is the best team composition, but my group is in the relatively unique position of having players that explicitly specialize in 6 of the 8 Archetypes Intrepid intends, having done so for years, and already being organized.
tl;dr we'll work on the potential meta-comps when we encounter them, I'm just trying to get two full 'intended comp' groups for initial practice and optimization.
I could go into massive detail on the frameworks we usually use for testing, but the short version is that anything you would expect of a full team in a MOBA testing a new game, would be a likely start, again, depending on the Combat system.
Thank you, I've added you to my data. You don't need to share your region info if you don't want to, but if you don't mind doing so, please do, even if you just PM me.
Scout - Ranger (Rogue)
I'm down to lend my time to the cause. I can do Rogue or Ranger, or any variation of.
Noted, thank you.
For those keeping track of this thread, while we did get a 'basic melee combat update', it didn't show any meaningful difference from the prior except the Magic Hammer.
We still don't know the target reticle lock system, the behaviours in Tab Target mode, or the current status of the waterfall stats. I sincerely thank you all for agreeing to be part of this with so little information. I know not everyone who says they will, might actually make it, but I'll plan as if you will.
That said, because things always can change, anyone else who is interested should still let me know, the 'worst' that would happen is that we'd get 3 teams instead of 2?
But don't we need to know when A2 is before I know what my availability is
I assure you that it will almost certainly not be fun.
Maybe if you're a programmer?
Sounded fun to me
I enjoy experimenting and testing
And would love to be in on the data gathering
Just wanted to update status as we go...
I am now the ecstatic owner of the Voyager Plus Pre-Order Pack .
Also, they will be changing package choices on 13 July and the item availably will be different. See you all in Verra!
o7
~War~