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
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. This is only minor hyperbole.
This is exactly what I feared, direction-wise. I dislike this. I dislike this a LOT. But it is also not a surprising direction, and I believe that there are quite a lot of people who really enjoy this type of gameplay, and I am happy for those people, I can only hope that you also manage to fit the other aspects of their desires, but this has hit precisely none of mine.
What are your thoughts regarding the Tank abilities shown in the January livestream?
Dislike. Greatly. Too much CC, too long CC, RNG chance of resistance on CC... Aegis looks and feels mechanically stupid to me in a game where you don't have to commit to anything positionally, and I feel it's fair to give feedback on that now. I know I'm generally negative toward Split Body, but I can deal with it. What I can't deal with is 'abilities designed poorly relative to having it as part of the flow'. Definitely an almost entirely negative experience, and I doubt my group's Tank is going to be even remotely happy with any of the abilities shown this time around.
What are your thoughts regarding the Warhammer & shield, and 2H sword shown in the January livestream?
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Tank updates?
The Warhammer looked too large for what it was supposed to be, giving me that aesthetic feel of WoW. I know that since many of the team are fans of that, maybe that should be expected, I'm not a fan, but more importantly, with the fast animations, the 'weight' is there, the 'impact' is both desynced and somewhat 'unnecessary' sort of? The whole point, for me, is that I am either imagining the impact (when I know that the game can't perfectly simulate it) and therefore it should be minimal, or it has to be very very good, which this was not.
The 2H Sword got even bigger I feel. I don't necessarily hate this, but at the risk of being 'that person', I like TL's better. I still like the animations for it, though, they're quite good, so I am still enjoying that, it just feels too large for that in general.
The Active Blocking feels like it should absolutely not 'keep hate'. I would very much prefer that Active Blocking be a thing where you use it to prevent a big hit and then it ends up LOSING hate. This is basically the exact thing that people have been complaining about, that mobs are 'not going to be intelligent enough because threat is oversimplistic'. So I would give the feedback that Active Blocking should cause holding hate to be more difficult, rather than less.
Other
Difficulty and actual skill requirement seems quite low, synergy seems more like it would be impossible OR overpowered... All these things are subject to tuning, so I don't want to go too deep into feedback now, but if this is a 'general direction', like, if this is 'meant to show what the game will feel like' and not 'well we don't have time enough to make it feel different yet', then I'm quite disappointed, if I compare it to the Alpha-1 experience.
Also the complete lack of true feeling of ecology, and somehow, I've finally reached the point of 'I don't like the feeling/visual design'. That could be just 'negative bias toward this showcase in general', or 'comparison to something I like better that I have been consuming a lot of content for lately.
But I definitely hope that people who see this as good will highly enjoy it. Because mostly, what I see is not 'this game is bad, fix it', just 'this game is very much not for me, wow'. A disappointing thing, given the number of underlying systems I feel positive toward, but as noted many times by Steven himself, if you don't like the combat design, you're just not going to stick.
I wish Intrepid the best of fortune with this, and I don't consider this to be particularly useful feedback, since the direction is clearly moving away from what I'd like. If I'm wrong about that, and it's just that things are unfinished and unpolished, I'll definitely be around to give lots of feedback on it, but hopefully those who like this style of game will be clear and encouraging with their feedback and y'all at Intrepid will proceed to great success in a way that brings joy to those people.
1.) most of the Virtual effects were too flashy and poorly focused (perhaps due to the poor quality of Twitch)
edit:after rewatching on yt: virtual effects looks better.
2.) as for the tank as such, for me, as expected: mitigation, holding agro, party leadership, active blocking is immersive.
3.) about warhammer attack : it looks nice, but the attack speed was too fast and the attack damage was too low.
As in the beginning the attackspeed was very slow, in the middle very fast and at the end very slow again. if you know what I mean. (maybe it's just that the character doesn't look natural when he swings his weapon so quickly in some situations, as you can see in this clip during the downswing (third attack):
Youtube clip Downswing
if threat is going to be a mechanic, then the UI needs to represent that to the players. Related - How does a tank affect the party? How does a tank affect the encounter? - Beyond threat.
animations seem to disregard the shield as a defensive item (on some attacks the shield was just wildly swinging around)
I love the idea of the Courage mechanic. Maybe it could be used offensively as well? Have an attack that consumes some stacks for increased damage/threat, etc. Or even just leave the stacks up passively for another kind of bonus. Get deep with it and allow for some real skill expression.
Also really like the synergy between Courage, Grit, and Aegis. Seems like it will be possible to provide a lot of group mitigation with the right setup (stack Courage very high, activate Grit and then immediately Aegis, profit!)
What is the difference/purpose for mitigation skills like Grit versus actively blocking with a shield? I'm picturing the shield being used for normal attacks (or even physical projectiles like arrows, stones, etc) while the skills are for AoE attacks, magic damage, or otherwise large damage that wouldn't make sense to simply block with a shield.
general feedback:
the game is super pleasing to the eye. the environment as a whole looks amazing - everything blends together and is very believable as a real place.
really love how skills have physics interactions with foliage/the environment. makes everything feel more alive.
player names should have a different color than monster names, and elite/boss monsters should be easy to identify
IMO, future class streams should be more focused on the new skills and abilities, and less on an "adventure." I'd like to see the skills used individually, to see/read the tool tips, and for any potential interactions or additional passive mechanics to be shown or discussed. After that showcase, then maybe a little bit of real combat.
1. This looks extremely similar to WoW combat to me. It's a big turn off. However I had an open mind given it's alpha, but more details following up made it clearer to me that I am pretty sure this is definitely in a similar vein of combat philosophy.
2. Javelin having a miss chance feels awful. Wow. I knew you all were very into RNG but nothing can feel worse than a Tank pull ability outright missing. I have played games with this set up before and they never feel good.
3. Hard CC skills. Hard CC skills everywhere. I'm glad people are getting a more traditional WoW like mmo, but there was a reason I avoided it like the plague. The skill floor looked very straightforward with very little need to think or choose based on the over all ability mix. Thinking about how it will feel in PvP just makes me even more certain the game isn't for me.
4. Active blocking.... Why can you move that fast while blocking? Out of all the things that make me feel you went the wrong way relative to rooted vs nonrooted combat, this sticks out like a sore thumb. It should at LEAST slow down your walk speed much more noticeably.
5. At first I was really liking the damage numbers given and taken. Then I remembered that they were under geared. That made me go 'ugh, but hey it's still pretty close'. Then they told me that this was an 8 man area. If the general gist of what you guys are aiming for in terms of speed and flow of PvE are at all tuned to be faster/quicker/easier than what you showed I definitely wouldn't like that.
6. The visual design also feels like it changed in a subtle way. It feels a lot closer to WoW as well. The recent camera work, lighting, design of weapons and armor all contribute to this.
7. When I think of the PvP implications of the current tank kit, I can only help but feel... Idk. Nothing? A lot of the kit seems geared to either be somewhat ineffectual outside the tanks core cc abilities, or overpowered with skilled enough team work.
Had it been clearer to me that Steven wanted WoW combat I don't think I would have taken any interest in this game. I'm very well accustomed to what this over all combat design entails. That being said, I wish you all luck who like this kind of game. No sarc.
Edit: After watching the second video none of my opinions or initial reactions have changed. Glad there was still a balance of fun/rp and professionalism/focus in it.
I’ll start right on.
Todays stream was kinda disappointed, not in a bad way but in a way that in my opinion you guys need the help and the feedback of your community now more than ever before.
Let’s start.
1). Steven , you should have started the stream with a tanky armour and a shield. There was no point starting with a GS. You are trying to show us the tank class, the one that holds aggro on mobs, not the tank that does damage and leeches the party (joking).
2) Weapons feels weightless. The great sword holding animation feels like the character is holding flowers.
Also there’s not weight in auto attacks .
Auto attacks are way too fast for every weapon and do a small gap closer which idk how I am feeling about it.
3) Skills now. Every skill has not more than 2 sec cast time/ hit time. There’s no counter attack if you can cast anything insta.
Also , Steven you’ve been casting Shield Assault since the beginning of the stream without even having a shield equipped. Bruh!
You tried to show us the tank gameplay and tank mobs without any aggression skills on the tank. You can’t create threat without aggression skills. You played Lineage 2 your whole life, you know that.
You just had offensive skills, gap closers and ultimate defence skills .
4)Too many effects, to fast gameplay , even the mobs attack so fast for some reason, there is no weight behind the gameplay .
IMO effects need a tune down idk.
5) Add an indicator, when the tank has the mob/ boss aggro to be shown somewhere.
Other than those things, the game looks optically amazing. We know you guys working hard of the game and you got our full support. Hope this helps and the rest of the feedback from our community!
Cheers !
I have a feeling of relief, especially as he talked after the showcase about there being PvE chaos and good AI planned so that the tank will not be able to control as simply like mmo's of the past, great!
How do you feel about the direction the Tank archetype is taking, based on what we shared during the January Development Update?
What are your thoughts regarding the Tank abilities shown in the January livestream?
I like the mechanics of the skills e.g. the protection zone behind the tank - very cool and makes sense the way it is designed. Also the idea of not only having threat generation but AoE damage mitigation is great for PvP but at least from the skills shown, it would either require more of those or more CC opportunities for the tank (even against a more mobile targets) for them to become a heavy threat in PvP, so I'll be looking forward to seeing that with the remaining abilities.
All things considered I am very satisfied with the direction the design is taking and I appreciate Stevens idea to have the AI of mobs not always focus on the tank to introduce a bit of chaos.
My biggest point of contention would probably be the resources. To be honest, I don't like physical classes primarily using mana as primary resource, I'd rather see them rely more on stamina, maybe even have the option to dip into their health a bit to make up for a lack of stamina. I know - to some its just a changed color in the bar and changed calculation to determine the pool size, but since I hope to see stamina be a thing in general for movement on the battlefield (climbing, jumping, etc) I think having different battle resources share different crossovers with other mechanics in the game is important to add a feeling of uniqueness to a class, secondary resources like conviction or courage alone don't translate that feeling for me.
So mana - or Essence - might be a thing a tank could use but I would want to see them not rely on it as their primary resource. If that's not going to change - please give us the option to change the color of the bar to yellow so I can have my huff of copium there XD
What are your thoughts regarding the Warhammer & shield, and 2H sword shown in the January livestream?
The active blocking is still something I would want to see some work on. A buff that absorbs more damage right after one raises the shield and reduces fast (but not to zero) with continuous raising of the shield would be a very easy mechanic to actually get players to not hide behind it. Rewarding players who master this by giving it +10% in the first half second of the shield being raised and putting those who raise it too long at a disadvantage of -20% of the base block value of the shield seems fair to me without breaking new players back.
Regarding the weapons I can't say too much, they certainly looked nice, the mace seemed a bit too big IMO and some of the effects when hitting a target seemed a bit too flashy especially for a basic attack, I wouldn't mind seeing these get toned down a bit (maybe have something like a "pow" spiky ball pop up when the mace connects, have lines when swords connect, keep em white when they don't hit and make them red when they connect). My concern here would be with a basic group number of 8 that the basic attack effects alone would be so overwhelming on the screen that you would lose mobs in the storm of flashes - just from basic attacks alone.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Tank updates?
Concern: The Keep Area seems a bit easy though. Now of course balancing is not finalized and we don't exactly now how "beginner friendly" this area in particular is supposed to be, given that players probably will be supposed to learn about open world group areas somewhere, but it seemed a bit unrefined. For the group lacking half of the members they actually made some solid progress all things considered and it seemed to me it would have been possible to make it through without wipes rather easily - i guess I would have expected more mob groups and connected to that higher necessity for group coordination. Maybe that was due to the current development stage, I just hope to face off multiple enemies when I go into a group area.
The Echo's mechanics were very nice though, animation as noted were looking great - would be fun to see these guys get slight buffs during heavy rain or storms (like a chance for lightning to jump to an additional target, not major but a considerable change - a bit of chaos like Steven said).
Praise: What I enjoyed so much - once again - was the beautiful landscapes and ambient sound the team designed, I instantly felt like this would be the appropriate place to not run and just walk. Absolutely gorgeous, great job!
To me this was a good kickoff into the year and I'm curious about the pieces you will show before we come to see the Raid Boss.
- For the most part, I don't enjoy the style of animations this game seems to be going for player-character wise. Though, I particularly enjoy the pose hold on the hammer. For my dislike: Overall the animations feel too rigid/inhuman and very fast. For example with the Warhammer, the "transitions" between the pose holds don't seem quite right to me. Too fast. Applies to the Greatsword too. I wouldn't say they are bad, but I seem to crave a more realistic style where I can see the characters going through their movements. I'm not saying they should be grandpas swinging a blade, just a more believable motion.
What are your thoughts regarding threat management shown in the January livestream?
- Perhaps it was just Steven's professional gameplay (lol), but It seems too difficult to acquire aggro. Ideally, the other party members shouldn't have to stop dealing damage in order to allow the tank to grab aggro. Even at a low level, tanks should be able to at least grab and hold aggro.
What are your thoughts regarding the Tank abilities shown in the January livestream?
- The pull ability for the tank seemed too short range. By the time Steven was close enough to use it the enemies were already aggro-ing.
- Aegis needs some work. It's already hard to herd the cats that are other players into a small space behind me. I love the idea of the ability, I just have a hard time thinking it would be worth using in your average combat encounter. Perhaps if the boss was charging a massive AOE we could all hide behind my shield. That would be cool.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Tank updates?
-Respawn timers seem a bit too fast. I do realize this is alpha.
- Perfect block would make blocking with non-tank classes very enjoyable. Perhaps rouges have enhanced perfect blocking.
For my most divisive piece of feedback: I do enjoy active blocking. I love being able to hold up my shield and tank a Huge attack. But as others state, being able to just hold it up and hide behind it may not make for the best gameplay. Perhaps some stamina system that players can spec into if they want to be a shield wall rather than a mitigation tank.
Final bit of feedback: The video seemed too disorganized to be a true showcase. I do enjoy the loose and fun aspects of these videos, but I don't think this style is suited to educating people on topics. Disclaimer, I haven't seen the re-edited version that will be uploaded to youtube.
Edit: Watched Re-created video. Night and Day difference. I got a much better feel for the tank archetype since I understood what I was looking at. It didn't seem all that hard to grab aggro. Now that I know what courage is, maybe a UI element to better display it? Overall I am excited to be able to hold aggro and CC mobs for my group.
level 13 players fighting lvl 15 elites - I expect that shit not to hit often.
Q: How do you feel about the direction the Tank archetype is taking, based on what we shared during the January Development Update?
A: All in all, I like what I see. I am a bit concerned regarding the rest of the group so easily over-threatning the tank and I very much hope to see some abilities for DPSers to use in order to either faint their own threat gained, or to transfer parts of their threat gained to the tank. Otherwise, I fear we'll have the dreaded "wait 10 seconds while the tank get aggro"-type of game - and that will make pug:ing a nightmare for tanks and DPSers alike.
Q: What are your thoughts regarding the Tank abilities shown in the January livestream?
A: The grip ability seems like fun (or not fun in PvP xd ), but could use some animation/VFX work. The shout looked awesome when it blew the grass aside, but I certainly hope it is not a cone ability (my baby was crying at that section, so I did not catch all that was said). The shield-charge/slam was a little bit ... Underwhelming, imo. The active blocking seems interesting, and I really like the animation where they properly hide behind the shield. Those kind of indicators will be valuable in PvP. Also - I loved the protective cone ability (aegis?) - that was awesome!
Q: What are your thoughts regarding the Warhammer & shield, and 2H sword shown in the January livestream?
A: Warhammer and shield looked neat and clean. The 2h sword can use some work on its idle form (aka, being held right up in the air - it looks hilarious when out of combat), but the combat was... Okay, I guess.
Q: Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Tank updates?
A: I was a bit concerned about damage dealers and the healer overthreatning the tank so easily, and how much the tank was struggling to keep aggro on more than one mob. Also, the idle animation for the 2h sword - please don't have them holding it like that out of combat. x']
EDIT: The YouTube video was amazing! Well done, guys! I am very happy to see how quickly you met the feedback!
ART, ANIMATIONS AND VFX
I must say, I am impressed and would like to give a shoutout to the art and environment team, the world is looking great, Riverlands is beautiful and I can't wait to get to testing, I noticed there has been some talk about the VFX but I must say, this does come down to personal preference and I hope intrepid don't tune it down but instead allow everyone to tune it in settings the way they want!
I have nothing to complain about VFX, they look amazing, really good quality, tuning it down should be done through Settings for those who want it and not something you should do by default! I want to have the same high vfx shown in the live stream when recording footage but maybe not for Arena PvP, same for audio, but everything is looking and sounding absolutely amazing!
I found the vfx from the NPC attacks, the lighting, the vfx when hitting mobs and from player skills Amazing, and I would love to record footage for content creation with ultra settings, but occasionally when I'm out doing some mass PvP I would turn in down a bit to help with visibility, so I hope we get both options.
I also hope you do a different type of Hit vfx for NPCs we land a critical hit, I would like if you tuned down the ones you did bit, and used them as you've shown as well as some new ones with blood splatters or blood ground decals for creatures when getting a crit, with a good sound crack, like the blood vfx fighter has on the spinning skill but for basic attacks crit hits, please, look at Tera they did this great, It felt Really good I hope you can look at that.
I Love the mob flinching animation when getting hit it's really really good, I love the way he is flinching but recovers when he is doing an attack animation, and then goes back to flinch when getting hit, this is what I was hoping for! It makes you know when you are hitting him but does not prevent you from seeing the animation! amazing
The UI is looking good, it finally looks like an actual modern MMORPG, it's getting close to what I'd expect to see in a launch build, very well done! keep this style, I love the new Quest log, inventory, minimap, and especially the pop-up message when you change zones is great! I also love the new class icons, and can't wait to see the work they do with the nameplates, hopefully, target of target will be included.
COMBAT AND GAMEPLAY
As for the combat, this was a Great improvement from the last live stream, and I think one of the reasons was because they added hit animations for NPCs, and this made combat a lot more responsive - as this was a general complaint during past videos... and now I didn't see anyone complaining about it (vocal minority ofc, because all people that are happy don't bother to come here and say they like it)
We really enjoyed the long TTK and harder content, hopefully, with 8 players this remains challenging because they were doing it with 4 man and I feel that level of difficulty should remain if you do it with 8, we hate melting through enemies that die with only a few hits and want this slower content that takes time and leave us on our toes! Hopefully, TTK for players also is on the longer side
Weapon animations are looking good, we liked especially the 1H hammer/mace animation being so snappy same style as the greatsword, the attack speed is also good! looks awesome, good direction and I hope you don't change it!
as for the Tank, It's hard to give feedback without seeing a more complex class kit and testing, but what you showed is OK, hopefully, we get more CCs and multiple target grabs and dashes so it's viable on PvP as an initiator as well, we want Tanks to be useful in PvP, hopefully, threat skills will act as Taunts for PvP, and we will get reflect damage skills and stuff like that
as for active blocking, I made an extensive post about it in the past that you can see Here, I believe It's really important to make Active blocking meaningful, having a shorter use with a stamina break and cooldown but allowing the tank to use it more effectively than other archetypes for example if the tank has the resource Courage, allow him to spend the stacks to block all 100% of inc damage until it breaks, so it can actually be used Only on certain situations and not keeping it up all the time, please read my feedback post if you haven't
I already gave feedback on the Tank specifically, but I'd like to say I enjoyed what I see, as a main tank I happy because it seems Grit and Courage will make the tank "tanky" enough, but I will have to get to testing to see about that, I did notice the tank had the same HP as other classes, this is a big no-no, tank needs higher base HP from passives and stats but I believe that will change.
MY CONCERNS
now, a concern I have, is in regards to NPC AI, the aggro is way too short, you can be standing sooo close and they don't aggro, this needs to change it is Wayyy to easy to just run pass mobs, I also think every mob group needs to have some CC to prevent people from just running away, and if you don't want to do that or it's too much work for now, please look at how WoW does it and when you get hit from behind you should get slowed for a few seconds, allowing the mobs to catch up, consider either that or adding more CCs to mobs and making them aggro from twice as far.
the content we saw would be Perfect... if it was designed for 4 man groups, but it is for 8 man, it would be extremely easy to do as an 8 man group, and that's not good, it needs to be tuned up in difficulty, doing it as a 4 man should be extremely difficult even if played well, and during this second video, there was only 1 Death and the final boss was no challenge at all for 4 players, an 8 man group would melt through it.
and a Huge concern of mine, is TTK for PvP... it seems that a player with 750 HP would be killed in like 5 basic attacks or 3 skills, please, please, this is my biggest request, please tune the damage dealt in players down by a LOT... if there is going to be PvP as early as level 5 or 10, we NEED a minimum of 30s to 60s TTK as said before, otherwise it will feel extremely bad to me melted by a mage and a ranger charging up their big damage attacks, this was terrible in Alpha 1, good PvP needs to have reaction time and good fights are long fights so please, take this into consideration, as early as level 1 do not let people kill each other in 3 to 5 seconds like it was in Alpha 1, do a basic balancing pass on this before Alpha testing starts, if I had to ask just one thing, this would be it (and maybe ask for duels enabled at the beginning of Alpha 2 so we can do proper testing and content creation, if you can't do duels, at least have an open arena inside nodes like BDO has in the open world, that when you walk in players can kill each other with no penalties and insta rez to practice pvp)
talking about PvP, something I was a bit disappointed there weren't any skills to initiate PvP combat, Shield assault has too much of short range to be useful, The Tank needs a longer charge like a jump and a stun or a jump and an AoE that pulled targets to him, I was hoping to see something like this.
I was also hoping to see a skill like the Grapple pull multiple targets together, or a skill that reflects inc damage, these are really important to make him viable in PvP, his kit right now makes him ignorable, maybe Taunt?
another concern is that everyone on the demonstration had the same HP, please, the tank needs to be by far the class with Most HP and defensive stats, this needs to be done to ensure this class is playable, since it's kit is already low damage, tanks need to Tank in all senses
also, Aegis is a skill I'd never spend points on, it's really bad, for PvE we want to tank in the opposite direction where our DPS and healers are, so it's useless, and in PvP we would get melted by inc AoEs, it's a bad concept and we don't like position based skills like that for the tank, I'd say scrap that skill and give the tank Reflect inc Damage back to the attacker
the last thing I'd like to add, is that I was Not happy hearing the devs talk about a perfect block, that has no place in an MMO where people often have higher latency, this would have to be EXTREMELY forgiving in order to work, I'd rather you didn't do it.
What I liked from what I saw:
Tanks are not 1 button aggro machines. I love Final Fantasy 14 and playing a tank in the game is relaxing for me but there's nothing challenging about agro management, it's just a DPS that uses some time-sensitive mitigation.
Teamwork gameplay. The directional aegis is in my opinion a very good example of how tanks should work, It takes a bit of strategy/skill but that sort of skill can save team members while making the tank do its job at absorbing the damage.
Threat vs Defense. It sounds counter productive to demand threat generation while also lessening it as you invoke more defensive playstyle, but that's sort of the challenge of being a really good tank imo. Your role is to keep your team safe while giving them all the time you can possibly afford them to do their absolute best, so that means you have to be expected to perform better too and keep the enemy on you.
What I disliked from what I saw:
It's fairly standard. Not a gigantic complaint especially since this is early level pre-augmented and alpha, but as a tank main I do hope to play a more tactical role. Skills/abilities that not only draw enemies toward you but continue to drag them in for several seconds even if they try to run away, like a harpoon gun reeling in multiple targets, or maybe abilities that actually manage the threat of allies. We have zero context as to what sort of skills each class will have/augment so for all we know the Shadowshield can shroud all nearby allies from being targeted and turns off all their threat generation for 4 seconds. Tanks may be a class that will only truly feel powerful/unique after a secondary class.
Active blocking needs to be something special for tanks. I don't especially hate the idea that you can sit there and block all day, especially since you will lose threat and endanger your own team if you do it too much, but as a tank, it should not feel STANDARD to block. Every class can block, and I think they should, but if a cleric can sit there, regen, and active block just as good as a tank AND heal at the same time, then why have a tank? To fix this, and assuming we incorporate a stamina system, then tank primaries (and maybe secondaries to a lesser degree) can have a special "extra" bit of stamina, and when you are actively blocking within that sweet spot of stamina then your active blocks will be more potent and have special effects depending on your class (as thematic as possible, from countering every melee hit as a dreadnaught to increasing your defense considerably as a guardian). However if your stamina is LOWER than that sweet spot, then it will be a fairly standard active block. This will encourage players to limit how much they actively block and when, lest they lose out on some big benefits that would otherwise make a big difference.
Reliance on shield. I understand that the shield is a staple of many tanks in many games and historically, but I feel it would pigeonhole many players and FORCE them to forgo two handed weapons for the sake of meta and to carry around a big clunky slab of metal. Hopefully tanks can operate equally as well with or without a shield, even if it takes some asymmetrical balance.
Side thought:
Certain (elite) mobs will need to be more than just tank and spank as the levels go forward. If the game is always the same "run up and hit dumb NPCs" then it can feel unrewarding. Maybe mobs will polymorph the tank into a sheep and lose all agro if their spells don't get interrupted or maybe dogs will leap onto players and pin them down and bite at them until they take enough damage or get stunned/tripped/knocked backwards etc. If players can pull enemies with magical grappling hooks why can't enemies do the same to players? This will provide more rewarding challenges to players and test them after more experience with the game.
Overall it's a good start, but until we learn more about the class system and see just what you have in mind for many of the augments and what skills we are expected to see and how they change every class, it's hard to definitively say what works and what doesn't. I do believe we NEED A STAMINA SYSTEM or some kind of resource/energy system for active blocking, and that tanks are the best at buffing/using that. Probably something that regens and goes down the more hits or damage the player takes/mitigates.
it just looked like a huge cluster with no real tank gameplay, the mobs were running everywhere, the entire party was pulling aggro, and now im a little worried as we have seen just 4 classes out of 64
Agree, slow is boring
Accidentally pulling mobs, rangers/warriors randomly coming into the foreground and initiating combat for no reason. Why was the healer on push to talk when he was expected to answer questions?
Why was the showcase filmed in an elite mob area? The showcase should have been like 10 minutes long - show a lone tank player fighting against normal low level mobs. Reading the abilities one by one and explaining their use and then showing them against a mob. Even against a fighting dummy!
Why was the tank not equipped with gear and a shield in the beginning of the video? What purpose did making us wait so long serve. It seems like the product itself is really high quality but the showcasing is so messy.
The whole time I was squinting trying to make out what I was seeing and covering my ears.
The rest of the party was not only was tanking the mobs themselves but were also stealing the limelight and focus of the video because the spell effects were so blinding and the noise was so loud.
It's clear that other people know the showcase didn't do a good job of showing the tank because it's being reshot. Why show us something that you are going to reshoot?
Again - I am absolutely not a hater or a troll. I'm a big big fan. Please understand there's no malice or anger in my comment.
I disagree. Found the animations quite nice. And atk speed felt appropriate for a hybrid game in 2020+.
Same as the first point. A different kind of tank that has a wide variety of abilities. At the end of the video, when the whole party played way better, mobs held their agro on the tank most of the time.
Tank shouldn't just be able to press one button and hold the agro indefinitely. That's boring as fuck.
Imo this was already more muted than most current games. And they've said in the past that they have overtuned effects on abilities, with the ability to decrease their visuals. And I already addressed the speed part.
I'd prefer if this indicator only worked on the tank's side, so that the group would have to rely on proper communication to play the most optimally.
Well. That was a curious stream lol. I think its pretty clear what worked and what didn't with the actual "showcase" of the archetype but, here's my thoughts anyways.
Aegis Shield – I like the concept of the skill, but agree with others that the arc on it is too aggressive. I feel this is an iteration on an early show ability of the yellow stone wall from years ago? A more straight across or at the very least a much less curved shield would be more utilized. Half the time the party didn’t even stand behind it anyhow. Its use should also either lock the tank in place, or heavily restrict movement. I feel this skill should be on a big cool down, and change how it works. I like the idea of steering away from the boring old concept of “tank turn the mob away from group” game play. Its a fun idea that I think many players will need to retrain their brains to get into. But with the shield so small, Melee party members really had to stick to that spot. I think refocus this as utility skill to be used in dire situations or to stop tank busters. Could see it being really handy when needing to res or saving the group from boss cone attacks etc, even against environmental traps could be cool. Obviously its up to the player to imagine how to use skills, but I think refocusing this skill into a more situational utility skill with long cool down would be better.
Other abilities were great though! The ground smash looked awesome had good feedback. The camera went to odd angles every time the chain pull was used, I don’t think there was an actual chain there? Behaved more like a teleport. The pull should have more animation frames in it. Combat over all though was far too flashy. The weapon trails are so bright and painful on the eyes. Do they really need to be there? Like at all? Why do games have them? Truly curious question. I’d love to see zero weapon trails, especially on the basic attack swings. Motion and animations were good, but I didn’t really see any impact like you guys were mentioning before the video.
Active blocking…that is a hot topic. My only real examples to pull from are ESO and New World. ESO lots of tanks just end up perma-blocking. That game has done it wrong. Taunt as many enemies as possible, AoE CC them, hold block. Boring. If you guys are convinced active blocking is the route to take, then balancing it will be tough. The stamina resource for all things involving sprinting/dodging/blocking is too generic. If you are going to have a block resource, it should be its own resource. Resilience or Rebuke or something. It should be tied directly to your characters STR and CON, And play between the two. Higher STR means you can mitigate more damage, but less hits before running out of resource. Higher CON would be more block sustain but less damage mitigated. A lot of fun could be had finding the balance for the perfect build in a system like that. Regen rate can either be fixed, or tied to dishing out damage perhaps. If you our out of block meter, it’ll tick back fairly quickly. But if you taunt something or use a damaging skill it’ll flow back even faster. Sort of like ESO stamina, but better because the resource is ONLY used for blocking.
But active blocking, I dunno. It stops all flow, and you lots of times you just can't choose to NOT do it if it's something you NEED to do. I much prefer the route of defensive cool downs myself than needing to use active block.
Do NOT add a tank aggro skill like FFXIV, please. That game does a lot of fun things for tanks, but the tank stance is so brainless and boring. Yes its highly approachable, but its ez mode. No fun.
Some final thoughts on the showcase, I think you know at Intrepid that this wasn’t a proper showing. I believe you are even going to be re-recording the showcase I heard somewhere? That would be a good idea. I think recording this a few hours before presenting it was the wrong choice for presenting something as important as an entire ROLE/Archetype of the game. As a fan of the game, I wanted to see something much more planned out to properly showcase the skills and mechanics. The combat of those enemies you fought was so frantic, and you were too weak as a team to handle it. So off the hop you were in a bad situation to showcase anything except grass and death. Starting without a shield was a really poor choice haha! It seemed that once Steven got that, he was able to actually gain/hold threat but even still…barely. I think going up against floaty ghosts was the wrong way to show it, especially when visually they were hard to tell apart from the ranger and cleric in the party.
I’m going to say this next part and I don't know how to phrase it any other way but…Someone who is more involved with the iteration and creation of the class needs to be at the helm when you showcase these things. More and More as the years go on and streams continue, it appears Steven is less informed on what he’s playing. To me, it seemed like maybe he got an email about what he was going to be doing the night before, he read it, learned the skill names and over view….but never actually played it until recording. Didn’t fully understand how to use the interplay of the skills and other classes. Being surprised and amazed the first time he Tripped/CC'd something is a prime example. That should have been something he KNEW was going to happen when he pushed that button. But I think that also goes to largely say that in general those things need tightening, which I understand is part of the iteration.
At this point, I can’t even say if this Tank is going in the right direction or not. There was so much that didn’t work, its impossible to even form an opinion if I like it or not. We shall see what the re-recording of it brings. Here’s hoping its up to the standards that Intrepid has set for them selves and until now has always achieved.
Overall, I think the direction for the archetype is fairly good.
What are your thoughts regarding the Tank abilities shown in the January livestream?
I liked the current selection of abilities. Having some more on hand would make gameplay more engaging, so hopefully these are just a handful of what will be available. One of my gripes with ESO and other games with limited ability bars is that there were so few abilities, most of combat was just spamming the same low-CD abilities or auto attacks until your high-CD abilities were available. There’s less opportunity for judging how to prioritize ability usage if you only have half a dozen at a time.
Something I feel pretty strongly about is that damage mitigation / redirection like what was shown with the big blue magic barrier ability shouldn’t be possible without a physical shield. That particular ability is the sort of thing I’d expect a mage or summoner to have, not a melee tank. If they want the power, they need to have the hardware. That’s kind of their shtick.
The long distance “lasso” mob pull ability animation needs to be way smoother and more detailed. It looked like the mob just stuttered for a split second and then teleported directly in front of Steven. I didn’t even really see anything project from his hand towards the mob.
What are your thoughts regarding the Warhammer & shield, and 2H sword shown in the January livestream?
The weapons looked great, but my biggest gripe with combat right now is that the attack animations are happening too quickly during contact. Daggers are fine obviously, those weigh a pound each, if even. Any other weapon should be moving a bit more slowly though. It looks like the weapons are just flashing across the enemy, disappearing from the player’s last ending position and reappearing on the other side of their body. The linger which was mentioned between attacks looked good, but those big weapons were moving at lightning speed during peak swing. Made everything feel a bit stuttery/choppy.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Tank updates?
To preface, I don’t know if this is possible, but I feel like it should be. I really liked how the mobs had realistically far aggro ranges, but it would be so much more immersive if those aggro ranges were affected by LoS. In other words, if every mob has an aggro circle around them, there should be a certain angle range of that circle within their actual field of view that extends a little bit further, while the range directly behind them is a little bit shorter. This would encourage players to not only consider which mobs to take out first in a dense area, but also time their approach so that they can try to sneak by certain enemies a little closer while they’re turned around. This would also encourage the level designers, animators, and programmers to design activity loops for NPCs so they aren’t just standing around or walking in pointless/predictable “patrol” loops unless they’re literally just a patrol guard or something similar.
Related, there could also be an ability for higher-authority mobs to “call in” nearby mobs within a radius. Take the final boss from the livestream for example. Obviously, the guys ended up pulling all those mobs because they got too close to them, but if they had tried to be sneaky, thinking they could take out the commander in broad daylight with a dozen underlings within the earshot of a battle horn or a commanding shout, they should be quickly reprimanded for that kind of careless behavior and have all the mobs they just barely skirted past come descending on them. Perhaps the horn could be an interruptible ability that the boss retries every 15-20 seconds or so?
Thoughts related to the content showcase recording process:
It always sounds nice getting an hour long gameplay video, but when a decent chunk of that is stuff that could be cut out and gaps between speaking, with the actual speaking being affected by what’s happening in-game, I think the recording and processing of these monthly videos needs a major rethink.
These should not be getting shot for the first time right before the livestream. This content should be run through once as a test so the involved “players” know what not to do and can make it as smooth of a run as possible. I understand Steven thinks we would like to watch the content as if we were playing through it for the first time ourselves, but this isn’t a finished product. This is pre-alpha 2 content. Personally, I would just like to see what you have so far being shown off as smoothly as possible. Wipe conditions and accidentally pulling mobs every 30 seconds are somewhat irrelevant to our impressions of the gameplay since the conditions for those things occurring will change / are dependent on the individual players engaging with the content. Most importantly, turn mob respawns off for these showcases, unless that’s specifically something related to what you’re showing. It’s completely unnecessary and only serves to complicate the showcase you’re trying to give.
I think the second “take” should be the actual recording, without making the designers talk about the game while they’re trying to deliver a good visual showcase. Talking about the game in depth while playing it obviously impacts the quality of both visual and informational content delivery. Just play the game, make it as smooth of a second run as possible, and do/show everything you want to talk about. After that smoother run has been recorded, you can get the relevant designers together to talk about what we’re seeing on screen as a voiceover. The visual showcase will be smoother, and the designers can actually focus on what they’re talking about while they’re talking without taking breaks to heal, DPS, and navigate terrain. It’ll be easier for you, more informative and enjoyable to watch, and will ultimately produce much better marketing content, the quality of which needs to be as smooth/clear as possible as greater audiences build around the game in anticipation for A2 and beyond.
Thoughts related to other content shown/discussed in this month’s livestream:
The grass knock back effect was awesome, but it looked a little too widespread. I think the radius of the effect should be tightened a little. Additionally, related abilities should either produce a gentler rustle instead of completely flattening for less time, or the grass should lay flat longer before coming back up. It just seemed a little odd that the grass was being totally flattened by every ability - but only for a brief moment.
The armor set Steven showed off at the end was awesome, but wow was it shiny. I think a really cool effect that could be given to metal armor is for the sheen to very slowly diminish as the player uses it in combat (to a certain threshold) with an alchemy-made item able to be purchased to shine it back up to its original glow. Same thing could be done for leather and cloth, maybe the colors on those items simply become slightly less saturated as they’re used in combat, and they each have their own craft able items that restore their original vibrancy.
I don’t think home quality should be static unless it’s an apartment. If I have the resources, I should be able to send in a request to the mayor for permission to remodel my home and then potentially resell it for a higher price if I decide to leave. The quality of furniture and objects I can place in my home should not be predicated on the build quality of the home I buy. The only restrictions on furniture placement I should have is expendable income, crafting skill, and placeable quantity based on the space available in the home.
Thanks!
Unfortunately just one more issue with the showcase. They prefixed stating that these elite mobs were intended for a full 8 man party and they only had 4. One more reason the showcase can't be taken seriously to form an honest opinion on the Tank gameplay as-is.
I feel like you are treating your aurdiance as they are a bunch of roleplayers who just wanna RP talk together.
This might come across very negatively but hear me out.
You are announcing a tank showcase that is supposed to get people excited about getting into the game and play the Taking role.
This is already the least popular role cross all Holy trinity MMORPGs
As audience we get shown 5 min of absolutely banter where steven is running around with a 2h sword unable to get any kind of agro on the mobs and basicly letting the archer tank the mobs.
I know "it's alpha, numbers need to be tuned ect" but come on for a monthly preview that you have planned you should "atleast" have the numbers corrected so it's not such a meme.
That all being said you can live with this.
The abillties was in general very vanilla and looked generally boring.
The grip ability was never shown, either because steven didn't know how to use it or because you cant use it after engaging in combat which would be a bad design.
There was no "taunt", no aoe pull or aoe aggro ability? no flashy ability aoe dmg, large cone dmg, or any other things that you might had hoped for.
A charged stun, some plain single target/frontal abillties and a buff/debuff.
I said this many times before and ill say it again.
Gameplay before anything. If its not fun to play the characters and press the abillties for 8 hours everyday the game can be as beautiful as anything but it wont be fun to play.
When i look at the last few previous updates, bar the Ranger one, i feel like you need to be alot more agressive making fun abillties to play with rather than the plain and simple ones.
You have to consider if people are to drop 1500-2000 hours per year on this game it has to be feeling great for every class to go out into the world and play the game. Pressing plain simple attacks will bore ppl very quickly.
(and yes i know its still in "alpha" but this is feedback to the devs rather than critic that the game is bad, better to give the feedback early in the process insted of when the game is close to done)
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I loved the forcefield ability and loved the shield dash (especially if the distance can be enlengthened through augments). Like that grapple can be resisted. Grit looked amazing visually.
Weapon animations looked nice. And I like the overall speed of combat. Liked that you have to sacrifice your dps (and potentially threat gen) if you want to properly protect yourself with the shield.
As for concerns, I mostly have general mob-related concerns, which would then be reflected on the tank gameplay, so w/o proper AI and deeper mob design I can't really say anything about tank design. But outside of those issues, the showcase looked like a good base for tank gameplay. Definitely hope that you can build upon that base.
WoW tried this its oldschool and players dont want it. Ask any WoW player if they rather move back to the old days where you missed 15% of the time and almost everything on high level mobs.
Noone wants this, just make stuff do less dmg if they are highlvl elites. so you cant kill them if you dont have the gear or aint on the right level.
Having a vital abillity miss because you are a level below or just random chance. yea thats not fun gameplay, never was.
I'm typically among the first to complain about action combat in MMORPGs when it's FPS speed (too fast).
The attack speed in this demo seemed perfect - probably about the same as NWO.
TTK might have been to fast, but... probably ideal for a demo - and can be adjusted during testing.
I'd still like to see a showcase demo for each archeytpe similar to the ones we had for the Alpha One previews.
We'd already seen Tank. I dunno why we're re-hashing what we've already played...unles we won't be seeing Alpha 2 before 2024.
And... I'm still waiting for Nodes 3.
And watching the entire clip, I have no sense on what a tanks two main functions will work like.
1) Threat management. What system is in place to track how much threat a entity has towards a player, and what its decision tree is in going after the tank or peeling off towards a DPS
2) Incoming damage mitigation. I mean, the blue shield is cool for what looks like redirecting damage to the tank, but what kind of skills can the tank use to reduce spike damage, coming in. Is active blocking the only thing, or will there be short duration long cooldown skills that mitigate some of the incoming damage? Maybe this idea of short term mitigation spells, like increased block chance, or 10% damage reduction for 5s will belong to the healer, and the healer has to be the one to pay attention to that? [Guild Wars 1 protection spells from like 30 years ago was the best healing experience I ever had in pvp by the way]
What I am afraid will happen, is that tanks will be a one trick pony, they press one button to taunt enemies, and spam that button every time its off cooldown and never have to think about agro.
What I am afraid of is that tanks wont have to pay attention to reduction of incoming damage and just press the block button.
Its 2023, I am afraid of seeing another game from the 2000s, so I was really hoping to see more information on core tank mechanics in a tank update livestream. These are design decisions I would hope are being talked about internally now, so that when the players start testing them in the alpha, there is time enough to make adjustments before the betas happen.
Its not all doom and gloom, everything looks very fluid, and the attacks look like they will be satisfying to play with.
You claim to be good at your own game and yet all 4 of you died in PvE. Why? Need 8 players? more gear? Nay. Look at the gameplay, you're just standing there and pressing buttons. The combat is lacking at counterplay potential and mobility. Are our feedbacks really necessary for you to figure that out?
Please just hire Korean/Japanese combat designers, and ditch tab-targeting all-together.
Visuals: Good direction so far. I wasn't able to tell what skills the tank was using besides the aegis ability. The blue aura was kinda the right direction but I couldn't see that when you were also using the big blue shield cd. Otherwise the melee looks a lot better.
Sound: Much better for the melee strikes, still need more oomph in the mace strikes though, since it got drowned out by everyone else's ability sounds. Maybe lower party member abilities and strikes so you can feel your own, but then big smash abilities from teammates could still be heard at a satisfying volume.
Gameplay/Animations: I feel like combat is far less complex than I'd personally enjoy. Enemies have very little mechanics besides auto attacks and some aoes and auto aim big hits. I believe this game would attain a lot of success if the enemies acted more like Wildstar or FFXIV mobs.
ex: At low levels the normal mobs have simple circles and lines. The boss mobs would be a little more complex and use smash and directional effects while you have to navigate away and out of them. And then the mobs would gain more abilities and complex mechanics as they improve via the node system.