Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
General Comments:
-As much UI customization as possible would be great, no addons/mods would be nice.
- Crafting being actually impactful in end-game gameplay is super exciting. It's so disheartening to make stuff that gets relegated to alt boosting gear. Having crafting actually be sought after and integral to relevant content sounds great.
- Character customization sliders, yes please! So tired of games seeking a superficial appeasement of the vocal minority. I play games for fun and seeing a bunch of sexy girls and big brawny guys in a game is enjoyable. There's a reason people dress like they do in real life at the beach, it's enjoyable and a healthy part of human nature!
- Weather effects being on a 2 or 3 week cycle seems better to me. 1 weeks seems too short to have a substantial impact on the in-game systems, but not knowing what they are I might be wrong.
Combat Video Feedback
Pros:
- Animation vfx, weightiness, and movement all look and feel great.
- Floating numbers looked great, especially with the ability to customize them.
- Having as many mobs blended into the setting as possible is a great goal. It's always weird to see random mobs just standing around in an environment. Maybe could have had 1-2 rock golems wandering around to indicate that's an area with them present.
- Love the side effects of weapon/ability usage of wind movement, ground marking, and other effects. Really makes the combat seem more connected. Can't wait to see how magic will impact things!
Cons:
- The sound is overall good, but lacks a certain kinetic crunch feel to the impact for the 2H weapon. You mentioned your end goal is kinetic impactful combat so this feedback might be superfluous.
- The daggers second slash basic attack ends with the daggers to the side, which to me felt out of line with the attack movement.
Some of the sideway movement when swinging the weapon looks a bit off (to me), as the character seems to just be sliding sideways - you can see an example of this roughly about 6 Minutes and 25 seconds into this video. And sometimes they feel out of sync with the rest of the body as well.
Video is timestamped to 6 Minutes 25 Seconds, shortly before the Character slides sideways, which looks a bit off
https://youtube.com/watch?v=t3LydR8VssY&t=385s
Regarding the Daggers: You don't double dagger overhand block a downward attack. You would die.
When it comes the hybrid system of action-tab I would argue that melee should be action while casters tab (or at least give us the option to build our characters in that direction) People will argue that casters having auto hits due to tab is unfair, well make it so that melee-action does more damage when hitting other players but the trade off is that it takes more skill.
A lot of people backed this game with the promise that tab people would have a home, if I wanted an all action based game I would play a shooter, All I play are casters, predominately healers (heal main) and I would be pissed if I had to aim my heals or holy offensive spells.
Overall great stream and I am glad that the tank/fighters/rogue players are happy about the direction of the melee classes.
P.S., will the people upset/confused that the dagger or 2h sword using the same hammer skill is weird or the dagger having the same sword spin hurricane as the 2h is weird; please understand that is wasn't a weapon skill be a class skill. Anyone can use any weapon in the game, so even someone with an orb or spell book could use those if they are that class.
A wizard is never late, he arrives precisely when he means to.
member of Gray Sentinels
Personally, I liked B&S and AA semi-tab combat the most. B&S combo system was top, AA open world pvp was best, BDO pve was OK but nothing much because it was boring and simple, and pvp was never synchronized due to differences in ping, but you know that well.
your video demonstration was good and the auto-attack as such looked good, I'm just worried about the quality of the pvp experience that I've mainly experienced in tab target and semi-tab target games. Pure action combat is only good for PVE. That's my opinion
PS: I know you mentioned that the tab-target still remains and the video was focused on auto-attack, just please be careful not to slip into the idea of pure action combat.
What I mean by that is - allow attacks to occur where you stay stationary - no forced 'lunge'...
Also allow the play to use directions while attacking to 'lunge' forward - spin laterally/cross slash (side step attacks) - and use backstep + attack as a 'parry/riposte' mechanic so that you can punish hyper aggressive attackers with a well timed counter. Somethings like:
Attack Only: Stationary swing - normal combo
Attack + Forward: Lunge step + attack - normal combo while progressing forward
Attack + Strafe (left/right): Spin/Cross slash - attacks while moving laterally
Attack + Back: A swipe animation that represents a parry/riposte - slow retreat with 'counter frames' to block and trigger attack of opportunity of some sort
With action combat - there needs to be tactical counterplay, but someone can't just go 'all defense' - so would need some attacks that are counters to block/parry/riposte.... rock/paper/scissor style mechanics.
Basic weapon attacks should be the simplest parts of combat. My assumption is that these
basic melee attacks will be the most used animations in combat compared to other abilities.
It would be my preference that these attacks have very minor graphical effects and clear animations that show what stage of the attack chain your character is in. This should be consistent across small scale and large scale battles. I do not want to be lost in a sea of over the top animations and graphical effects originating from basic weapon attacks in group battles.
Also, there should be contrast between the graphical effects of basic weapon melee attacks and class abilities. Basic melee weapon attacks should be on the low end of graphical effects while class abilities on the mid to high end.
Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
No.
Are there types of basic melee weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
New World and Elden Ring. I enjoyed the clarity of the animations and speed of the animations. It never felt
like basic melee attacks were a distraction during combat and it was very easy to follow the animations and attack chains.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
I enjoyed the variety of weapon swing animations and the varying speed of the animations. The powerful parts of the attack chains were very clear and looked satisfying to use. I also liked how the movement of your character changed depending on how the character was attacking.
The trailing/flashing yellow graphical effect for the greatsword and the black/grey trailing/flashing effect for
the daggers is very distracting. For me personally, it would be unpleasant to have to constantly see these effects during combat and extremely unpleasant during group content and group pvp battles. I could probably see myself getting a headache after a long gaming session.
Edit: It seemed like the dagger and some of the greatsword animations were too fast? It is hard to tell from the video footage how fast these animations are but maybe the speed of the animations could be slowed slightly.
Also, I wouldn't mind seeing a stab animation as part of the attack chain with the daggers instead of all slashes. However, if a stab ability is planned for the rogue, that is fine for me.
Light: A flurry of small attacks, with skills set on critical hits or even faster attacks.
Medium: A mix of fast attacks with either a hard hitting finisher or a cleave,
Heavy: Setup, Anticipation, Delivery-. Slow attacks which all follow this principle. If they are too fast, you don't get the fantasy.
Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
Greatsword. First the weapon seems heavy, then during the swing it becomes air, then gets heavy again. Heavy weapons thrive on setup, anticipation and delivery, that is why the spectral hammer skill has a good feel to it, but the basic attacks are robbed of this because of how fast the "cutting" animations are, they lack anticipation.
Daggers. Look fine to me.
Are there types of basic melee weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
For tab target basic attacks WoW did a fine job.
For action based Tera used to have a great system set up.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
Excited: The animations are taking shape and improving greatly, really like the compromise with the slowed movement during attacks, and it's what i hoped for.
Concern: The attacks are too fast overall for my taste.
Looks really good though!
I like the active blocking and the stats that will go well with it. I think if there are parry skills the effects should be impactful and would be great to see if such things were added. With the blocking I think rather then being in a static position there should be more of a reaction when a move is successfully blocked. Which a change in the hold direction could be used to enhance that moment, as blocking in one direction isn't how a fight would normally go.
Design note
Like everyone I 100% think its in the right direction though this note is more for the dodge in the combat. Unsure if that is linked to being an ability or what is going to be replacing the roll. If it is more akin to the dodge roll that might feel very powerful as I'm unsure if that counts as a iframe or not? Some characters maybe can have a much faster sprint movement and such for a dodge or a quick step (mini leap). Wont say much more on this until more things are shown though.
Looks awesome and looking forward to seeing more action combat
I liked the sword, any chance for a even bigger massive two handed sword haha.
The one small complaint I have is I think the sword needs to be put back in a scabbard while running. I think it looks kind of goofy running holding a sword in front of the character
Yes.
What was shown looks great, Would like to know more about using these base attacks in tab targeting mode. Will the character "drift" towards the target without wasd input? Will melee attacking also cause you to run forwards towards the target in tab targeting mode?
And how will an active block effect an incoming tab attack? Perhaps the block itself is a directional cone, so tab attacks from the front are effected by it but not tab attacks from behind?
I think there is a benefit to having a truly hybrid system. Switching to action when on the from line, and tab when supporting. And just allowing players to decide for themselves how to experience the game.
From what I saw, movement speed and weapon weight are correctly connected. Well done!
However, I absolutely AGREE with all these people who noted that the animations can be slowed down and made less flashy. AoC has a realistic art style, so there's no reason to go wild with basic attack animations. Please slow things down and save the fancy effects for fancy moves.
If everything is super, then nothing is.
ClintHardwood: the overhead swing feels too quick.
keyframe: the heavier weapon could use a tad more ease in /wind up before the swing
Saraphita: the combat looks a bit too fast
Omega_Contagion: Slow. It. Down.
Chumba Wumba: the 2 handed sword attacks seem a tad too fast
Dagnar: make the large weapons slower
Veeshan: it almost seems the sword teleports
SirChancelot: It looks a little fast
Thakkii: One of the combos for greatsword was too fast
Tryol: the animation was so quick that the weapon pretty much teleported
Mbeezy: The combat is to fast
Elflako: combat felt a bit too fast with both weapon especially the great sword
Mayhem: the animations seemed a little choppy
Fohlenbraten: dial the speed on the greatsword a little bit down
Rubycon: the combat looks a bit too fast
OakenBarrel: Some of the animations with the daggers seemed almost too quick
Vinny: slow the attack speed of the great sword
Baraz_Wolf: The movements felt a bit too fast for my taste
Daybreak: the daggers moved TOO fast
Altii: animations and movement looked choppy/not that smooth
HandOfUnity: daggers moved too fast
AustinLavelle: Careful with the combat speed.
Cevi: The Daggers are way too fast.
Arugan: Attack animation was too fast
JeanPhilippeQC: attacks are too quick
Izil: on release it seems a little too fast/choppy
Elfcheese: The speed for the 2H sword seemed a bit too fast
Ivory: the in between of the animation that feels unnaturally fast
Sengarden: The animations for both weapons, but especially those with the sword, seemed choppy
MrMelvin: the great sword was just a little too fast
AjexBlackwater: it seemed to be skipping during the animation
CastorThurston: the two-handed sword's attacks felt too fast
Wizard_Beard: greatsword seemed a little fast
Zenny9: you should not be able to get 3 swings in a second
Naxxaz: First the weapon seems heavy, then during the swing it becomes air
TheDarkSorcerer: Not a fan of the yellow sword light/particles from attacks. Just keep it more subtle
Vissox: Get rid of the yellow sword glint.
Saraphita: Some of the animations looked a tad too cartoonish
Omega_Contagion: Sword glow/glint was too bright.
Ashigaru: the size of the flash seems to be on the upper bound of what is appealing/reasonable
Boreales: (the wind/swoosh animation). In my opinion it looks kind of tacky
Tyrakkel: A strong yellow flash is out of place on a basic attack.
Falleni: Yellow light might be slightly too intrusive
Falleni: After effect of daggers is way too much in my opinion
Dawt: I feel giant effects to a weapon make It feel cheesy and not real and just cartoony.
Vinny: Yellow looks a bit weird
AntDawgThaBoss: Base attack effects seem like a bit too much
Altii: Sword yellow glint looks a bit off (a bit cartoonish)
Ael: And the « flashiness » definitely got in my way here.
Desert789: the light flashing with each strike's path felt a bit much
Happymeal2415: the colour effects on the swings need to be more subtle
HandOfUnity: felt that the swing animations were a bit flashy
Shadowmunger: I think the blur could be turned down a bit
Aouine: yellow effects when swinging the sword, make it looks too fake
Izil: Give us option to toggle it off and/or give it to legendary weapons
Corpier: a bit too flashy for basic attacks
Starbuck: the effects are bit too high
Malek7: Basic melee weapon attacks should be on the low end of graphical effects
Like others have said, I think the particle effects on weapon movements are a bit much. I think they could either be toned down, or better yet an option for the player to turn them down or off would be cool.
ClintHardwood: The biggest problem I've seen is that neither the enemy nor the player gets staggered by large attacks.
iLangston: The main criticism I would give is that the impact looked missing or very weak.
GrappLr: Enemies don't flinch/react to strikes.
BeerBrats: I wish there were more visual indications that you were being hit or that a unit was being hit
Ashigaru: the receiving model can have a subtle flinch
Chumba Wumba: the main thing for me that feels lacking is impact
ultrared: Only suggestion would be more of an effect when your character is hit.
OakenBarrel: these need to have some stagger effect on enemies
JustVine: impact on hit felt a little lacking
Talents: models should "flinch" when attacked
Shoelid: The only thing missing that ive seen is in-depth animations. Animations for getting hit in different ways
Prezz: there should be stagger from enemy hard hits
Ryozo: Attacks should have an impact on monsters such as stagger, slight knockback idk
Gathoderiz: i think it would be great to have a " feedback " when you hit the ennemy
M4CZ: the mobs flinching when they are hit, this would be awesome for combat immersion
Emberstone: I would enjoy more feedback on the body of the opponent when it's getting hit.
Paradras: love to see the effects and the reaction you'd get when you hit a monster
Sengarden: attacks needs to stagger a little bit
Schema: would make it better is if the enemies had reactions to being hit
MrMelvin: the impact of weapons when you hit an enemy(the killing animation was great) needs to be there
Wizard_Beard: hits on the player and the mobs didn't seem to have "impact"
Arthus Dawnbreaker: Adding a shutter or slight shake to the enemies when they get hit would help add more impact
First the 2H:
- The idle animation gave the weapon gravity, it looked like the weapon had weight to both hold and heft - which lent some immersion points
- The weapon swings seemed smooth and well-animated (especially given this is alpha) and again also seemed to telegraph the weight of the sword in the direction of the attack
- The cadence of the attacks seemed ok. I’d like to get a feel for several slower attack speeds - I think there’s a better balance by slowing the heavy 2hnders down, which relatively speeds the daggers up (aka the daggers don’t need to be faster)
- The cleave attacks looked powerful, and appropriate
- The overhead active block looked neat, but I didn’t see it actively block anything (someone chime in if you did). Is that a 50% mitigation to block with a 2H?
- I’m not a fan of the golden swooshes, and hope these get toned down, they don’t lend anything functional over time, and if every attack has golden swooshes, they lose all significance and may as well not be there. So save the CPU effects for more powerful abilities
- I’m super curious to see other 2H basic animations now - especially for staves and polearms which have entire different attack patterns, but still have weight
Daggers:
- the speed felt felt right
- The character’s animations seemed too engaged. The advantage to fighting with knives is their non-committal nature. A full lunge is just silly with a knife.
- The dual attacks are good, though I would add more asymmetrical attacks, even reversing the grip on one of the knives which is a common tactic when fighting with two shorter bladed weapons because it gives you more options faster
- I’m super interested in seeing if there’s a difference in how a warrior with daggers may fight versus a rogue with daggers
- Also my comment above on the silver swoops applies to daggers as well. The swoops take away from how cool the animations can be - and I’d rather focus on my character’s ability to fight than swoopy BDO flash bangs.
Overall, I’m happy with what I saw. I just want to see more. Specifically, how an active cast ability blends with the basic animations. Is there a target lock (aka Witcher 3 or AC) or just an action soft lock to deliver casted / ranged attacks?
Nicely done, IS.
Shoelid: too much AOE pulls you out of a fight
JeanPhilippeQC: Combat must not be brainless mob-pack bashing
Dark_Star: the wide range of cleave the daggers have
Elfcheese: the cone of attack seemed way too big
If a sword is swung down in a vertical chop, it should should hit a very small area. Smaller weapons (like daggers) should generally hit monsters in a smaller area.
An especially awkward example is at 13:42-13:43 when the character lunges to the right and somehow lights up a monster on his left.
At the moment of impact, with the weapon swings, the character animation COMPLETELY STOPS, then resumes 5-10 frames later, the character and weapon instantly teleport from where the froze in time, to where they would have arrived naturally had the animation played out smoothly. (The golden arcs created by the sword swings even show you where the sword would be swinging naturally, but is not.)
Moment of impact:
After impact animation resumes:
There is a 100% lack of fluidity between these 2 images, the jerky teleportation gives me flashbacks of my worst MMO games I've ever played.
You can visit any moment of combat in the video and watch this happen, and slow it down if you are having trouble seeing what I am saying, although it's not needed. This happens with the daggers as well, however it is much harder to notice due to the rapidly changing animations making it harder to detect.
I understand this must be a developers flavorful choice, their addition to this - but please it HEAVILY cheapens the image and overall aesthetic of the game with the combat looking / behaving this way.
For the love of god remove it, I know you will dip your toes in the waters of many other MMO's, pulling the best aspects of each into this one, to make the end all - be all MMO experience, but this aspect is not one of them. Leave it out.
I like the dagger weapon movement/blur animation, better then the sword. (Blurred weapon base color vs. non environmental color (yellow/gold) of the sword.
I liked the sword as a total package better.
I think the attack speed of daggers (high apm) vs the sword (lower apm) will lend to yet another reason to better identify with a class.
Thanks
I feel the same way. My initial thought when seeing this in the livestream was "wow this looks great", simply because of hype, which tbh it's completely normal because I want this game to succeed as much as the next guy.
However, I noticed something while rewatching the gameplay that occurs during the impact of the attacks with both weapons. While it is not as noticeable as much on the Daggers, the Greatsword swing animations seem to do some sort of frame skip during impact and towards the end of the weapon swing but somehow the golden effects seem to continue through the normal animation swing despite this, which makes the swings look like they get cut out.
Idk if this is by design (I hope not) or if it's because it's alpha, which could mean these kinds of issues have not been ironed out. As of right now though, it just looks like it's an attempt to make the combat more like BDO or any other Korean MMO with the freeze frames and animation skips during combat.
This, in a more cartoonish game, it wouldn't be as noticeable. It is far more jarring with realistic graphics like this however. My suggestion would be to just let the animations be what the golden effects are in each swing.
I'm still considering my thoughts on stagger and it doesn't sound like we were talking about quite the same solution in terms of impact. I was specifically referring to the attack lingering for a few frames on the enemy to simulate resistance on impact, not the enemy staggering for a little bit as a result of being hit, to clarify. So I'd like to be excluded from your list for now @Craiken if you don't mind.
Other than that, love it ❤️ Great work!
- So every weapon would feel different and have different animation that faithfully represents real weapon. Also, having more than 2 animations for swings. In RL you can attack with a sword in much more ways than most games shows.
Do you feel anything is missing from the basic melee weapon attacks we’ve shared so far?
- Hard to tell without actually playing.
Are there types of basic melee weapon attacks in other games that you feel are done well? If so, in what ways?
- Not in mmo's unfortunately, but I haven't playd that many.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with basic melee weapon attacks?
- It would be awesome if different races have unique battle stances and animated technique representing their culture. Also I'm a little bit concerned about types of swords. So far I've heard about one-handed and two-handed types when it comes for mechanics. But you have longswords too, so let me tell you something.
The are shortswords, longswords and greatswords, and longswords are something completely different than greatswords in the way they're used in battle.