Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
What I loved
With the redo giving me more context for the abilities rather than trying to explain things 'in the heat of the moment', I really appreciated quite a few things
- I like the concepts around AE threats and control - the attack ability that threats in an arc and the ground stomp are huge. I'm planning to be a Spellshield [/Mage] with Ice Augments, so that area control is important to me. Seeing these more clearly I could see how they could be tweaked with augments to align with my class fantasy.
- I liked the party protection aspect of Aegis. I really liked the discussion during the remake about protecting the party and how in PvP threat means nothing. I hope this can be expanded even more - especially on class kits like the Paladin [/Cleric] or Keeper [/Summoner]
- I really liked the 'old school' flavour of this now. The careful pulling and the fact that the Ranger was always the one in dire need of healing. Very true to form!
What gives me pause
I hope not too many open-world areas are focused on the 8 man group. Most open world general levelling activities should be 3-5 people. That's what winds up being mustered in general contexts and informal things (especially if you play at odd hours). 8 man groups require a lot of pre-planning and a huge time commitment and fall apart really easily if the run goes long.
I also noted that when you Active blocked the lightning bolts they dealt 59 damage whereas without active blocking it's 61. Hardly effective. I recognize that's a balance/tweak issue.
What I'd like to suggest
In the discussion as to whether Active Block uses Stamina or Mana - why not both? Tanks and Fighters can use stamina and have stamina management tools, wheras mages can have a shield type that uses mana instead (I'm planning on using a shield with my Battlemage [Mage/Fighter]). Clerics can pick one of the other.
There was an often overlooked trick in New World with the Ice Gauntlet. It had a passive that allowed you to greatly reduce the stamina costs for blocking and instead use a small amount of mana. There were often times in PvP where I'd have several melee players try to take me down, and I could hold them all off a lot better with the Ice Gauntlet wheras my stamina would have broken with the shield. The downside is the Ice Gauntlet doesn't block ranged attacks.
Anyway, I like what I see in the redo stream. Please keep up the good work and take more care and pride in your showcases!
I've decided that I'm okay with active blocking provided there is a parry stance for tanks who use 2handed weapons.
Perfect block - I don't think this is necessary at all. "Too many cooks will spoil the broth" the class features version.
Party Shield ability - This strikes me as the perfect off tank ability and further justifies working an off tank in any given raid. In FFXIV usually raid wides are mitigated by pressing a single button
and that's it. However, this ability is more about strategizing and positioning. I love it. Look forward to seeing how you balance this with different class versions.
Weapon Animations - They look good and they look like they feel good. I would invest in randomizing the attack animations order and maybe add a 4th string. I think it'll help ease the visual monotony that accompanies simplistic action games.
Overall I think the foundation is there and headed in the right direction. I can see myself playing this for hours on end with the aforementioned taken into account.
What would be good is that they reengage if encountering combat on their return to spawn point.
After rewatching the video, I regret to say that it feels like it devolves into a JRPG with all those effects. It's way too much for my liking, and it reminds me more of Final Fantasy than a classic fantasy setting. But it's a personal preference. Flashy animations with each action are more in tune with a mobile game. I'd prefer to see lighting animations with extremely mighty actions rather than every time I toast with a jug of ale or bind my shoes or take a dump. You get my meaning. I see four characters + one mob and it feels like being in a LOL game jungling.
I think overall the abilities showcased were fine, when utilizing the intended combo it seems like the tank could hold agro fine, and the fact that it wasnt all that flashy of gameplay makes sense given that its only lvl 15 gameplay and a first look.
The world was also looking amazing as usual.
A couple of things bother me about the showcase though.
I think the vfx for basic attack especially are WAY over the top. With even just 4 people its already pretty much impossible to tell whats going on. I know this is an early itteration but i do believe this needs a lot of work.
I also am not a huge fan of the itteration of the active blocking that was showcased.
Im not opposed to active blocking at all, but i think it should be used way more reactively / situationally.
Holding block should not be the a huge part of the tanking experience, its just not very fun or interactive.
Lastly, i think it would work a lot better if these showcases were split up into smaller parts. Its hard to keep peoples attention for 1 hour. Maybe do a part where you showcase the abilities and another part where you pull one of the boss enemies together with a couple of adds. I think something like that will give us the same amount of information, a better viewer experience and allows you guys to much better curate what you show.
Keep up the great work, cant wait for alpha 2!
Completely agree here. We live in a time where TikTok content is what engages people and get people interested. Curating your content by editing it to make more sense and being more straight to the point and clear is key here. Less confusion.
Increasing the time in between attacks will also allow designers to make more impactful looking animations instead of being locked into trying to fit a 1 second animation into .25 seconds
In addition I think percentage based damage reductions are incredibly dangerous for balancing a game and can get out of hand quickly when you stack similar mechanics. My proposition is a flat amount of damage being blocked based on gear and character stats + Passives. So a tank using block while built into blocking might block 3k damage. While a dps using a block while not speced into it might only block 500. This also allows for things like a passive that gives a dps player an enhance block every X seconds that blocks 5000 damage. Utilizing this enchanced block properly is a high skill cap move and does not result in damage dealers having to spam blocking to stay alive.
I am typically fairly negative myself in the discord, so I will try to provide more positive feedback here.
-Perfect Block seems to be a great example of improving the games skill ceiling and I welcome more features like this.
-Shield Assault is an interesting one and seems fun, I would be careful on how many frames of endlag you give to moves that are designed to be 'short ranged mobility'. You run the risk of it not actually being a practically useful ability. Consider slightly increasing the range or reducing endlag frames.
-Tremoring Bellow the concept of combining players CC abilities together is another great way to improve the skill cap of the game while promoting teamwork. I welcome this type of ability, although the range seems extremely small. Maybe make this wider or longer, potentially making the startup frames slightly
longer to compensate.
-Mob AI is still looking rather primitive and clunky.
-Visual and Sound Effects are both shaping up very nicely. I really enjoy the art style that you guys are going for.
-Thank you for showing off more than 3-4 abilities this time. I enjoyed it.
Warhammer looks great but the shield block animations and audio needs to be improved so you actually feel the force you block with amazing DONK! audio's and animations which automatically feels rewarding to actually block stuff.
To the concerning part as a professional tank gamer your job is to have everything under control and observe the bigger picture e.g. (patrols,mana,group positioning,incoming AI animations/abilities,manage own abilities,aggro etc.) but here it comes. From what i've seen the colorful rainbow animation overload in this game is progressing towards a very confusing level and prevent you to have a clear view on the whole situation. With a little larger group it will be impossible to see what is happening around you and i've not even mentioned raid or castle siege amount of players and if the only solution to this issue will be opt. out animations it would make a lot of players very sad including me. So you guys really need to think very carefully about the styleguide for animations throughout the game. I know it's a tough balance act but i believe you find a great solution.
Keep up the great work.
-From what was shown i liked the direction. We saw most mechanics that should be in a tank kit. Damage, increase threat(needs some work tho), combos, CC, self and party mitigation.
What are your thoughts regarding the Tank abilities shown in the January livestream?
-It was a good base set of skills. Aegis for most pve encounters will feel weird. It doesn't feel like your typical aoe mitigation skill since most encounters the tank wants to face the target away from the group. It will have it's uses when players know certain aoes are not dodgeable. But it doesn't look like your "go to" general party mitigation skill. Which is fine if there will be more party mitigation skills!
What are your thoughts regarding the Warhammer & shield, and 2H sword shown in the January livestream?
-Nothing much to say, in general it was satisfying.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Tank updates?
-I'm concerned with 2 things:
1. RNG based CC. During the stream, the grapple was resisted one the 1st use vs a minotaur. I've played tons of L2 and i've experienced it a lot. I'm not sure how i feel about single target cc in a modern game being rng... Seems kinda unfair. But also in the context of AOE, 100% CC sounds a bit scary. Not sure if the best approach to CC stats is RNG(resistance and increased chance shown as guild passive skills in Alpha1, in tier 3 or 4, can't remember
2. Active Blocking. In my opinion, the way it was demonstrated(no cd AND resourceless ) or the idea of it being mana based are boring. If there is going to be Active Blocking it should be where you build towards it or there's a separate resource to limit it's use during a certain amount of time. Skill rotation should be encouraged. It will be really depressing if the optimal tank gameplay loop in a group is: pull, generate threat, block while the mobs are being killed. My stance is either no Active Blocking and let the stats do its job or very limited Active Blocking but rewarding. A better Active Blocking approach would be for example to have 100 stamina. Costs 50 stamina to use block. One block can be performed up to X seconds. Takes Y seconds to recover said 50 stamina.
Current version of block reminds me of ramattra from overwatch
7/10 it's a preview after all
How do you feel about the direction the Tank archetype is taking, based on what we shared during the January Development Update?
So far it seems to be heading in the right direction. You are making a threat system that doesn't seem to be a simple tank and spank system which is good. You're attempting to give tank its own resource mechanics which should help switch up tank play a bit if implemented well. Keep creating a unique tank experience while staying true to the spirit of tank gameplay.
What are your thoughts regarding the Tank abilities shown in the January livestream?
Im happy with them for the most part. I enjoy the courage concept with grit, and the give and take that comes with activating that mitigation.
Shield assault is pretty cool, but I'd take the charge away maybe, and add a separate charge ability or augment for it called something like "sentinel assault" where(with a shield) you can use courage to charge an enemy attacking one of your party members, transferring a percentage of damage done to that party member by that target to yourself instead, while also slighty increasing the amount of damage you take from that creature directly for the duration of that effect. Also the ability doesn't generate threat, it's just a gap closer to get to you teammate, you'd need to utilize other abilities to aggro.
Everything else looks pretty solid in concept, I can't wait to test it all.
What are your thoughts regarding the Warhammer & shield, and 2H sword shown in the January livestream?
Attacks are a bit fast across the board for my taste, while the actual pacing of combat is pretty good. But the impact seems to look good. The sounds aren't horrible but honestly it sounds like you are hitting anvils or concrete rather than crushing armor or bodies. Even the bow is a bit exaggerated.
Shield looks good. Definitely need a limiter like stamina or maybe your courage to be able to active block. It'd likely be better to use courage so you have to choose between active blocking or using other abilities to add risk of choice.
Two handed weapon gameplay could be a build option for making a more aggressive brawler tank at the sacrifice of a substantial amount of defense. This could make tank PvP more viable and even off tank dps. Just don't enable it to be on par with what a fighter can deliver with damage as a brawler. In the end tanks should be doing less damage and more mitigation/controlling the battlefield.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Tank updates?
I am most excited to see what you implement with courage and how you utilize it. I want to see what sorts of give-and-take/risk vs reward you infuse into the core design of the tank utilizing damage control/mitigation vs attempting to damage and CC on the battlefield in a healthy balance.
A: I see the potential! I plan to play tank when alpha 2 enters testing, and this was the type of gameplay I want to play and role in the party I wanted to fulfill. I really feel that Tank, DPS and Healer should really be playing 3 different mini-games in an MMO. Tanks use threat and damage mitigation to keep the party safe at the cost of movement hence the word "TANK". DPS try to do as much damage as possible. Healers are basically playing whack-a-mole. They all play these mini-games next to the normal mechanics and all at the same time. I feel that the current course fulfills that desire for tank.
Let's talk aggro: I think it does a good job. It was lvl 15 gameplay so it is a bit harder to judge aggro but it looked ok. I feel that as a tank if you manage your aggro correctly you eneable your dps to do as much damage as they can. Meaning if you have a a bad tank and good dps players the dps players won't be able to perform as well as they could. And if you have a good tank and good dps the tank will make sure that the dps can do as much damage as possible (all other cases just lead to lower damage or a wipe). So continue like this in my opinion!
Q: What are your thoughts regarding the Tank abilities shown in the January livestream?
A: Let's go by each ability:
Shield Bash: Good, maybe a bit further but not a must.
Cross Slash: Ability Idea is good, just feels a bit funny swinging the greatsword that fast.
Tremor Shout: 10/10
Courageous Aura: Good ability but really needs to show how many stacks you still have when you use the ability. And maybe you could use these stacks for other abilities too.
Aegis Shield: So this ability looks AWESOME, but I do feel that it needs some changes. This ability forces other player to reposition. This is something players only want to do if there is serious danger e.g. a boss AOE. As such you need to make it as worthwhile as something like that. So I would suggest you make the ability block a lot more damage and make it harder to use for example slowing you by a lot and giving it a long cooldown. Cause I would love to see a dragon do like a big AOE breath and the whole party needs to hide behind the tank.
Arcanic grapple: It needs to be longer. A couple times steven tried to use it but was basically only 10 cm away from just body pulling the mob.
Q: What are your thoughts regarding the Warhammer & shield, and 2H sword shown in the January livestream?
A:
Lets start with the 2H sword. I wouldn't change a thing it looks correct just like dark souls and elden ring do it.
Then the warhammer: So the warhammer I think the combo is nice, it is a longer combo than the greatsword which shows its more of a mobile weapon(warhammer 4, greatsword 3) but I just feel the strikes are wrong. The first strike is a jumping overhand strike that starts right top and ends left bottom(good). Then it is followed by a upwards side strike from left mid bottom to the right mid top(pretty good fits the speed!). Then we get bottom right upwards strike to the left top(This one doesn't fit, its too fast compared to the others and starts in a weird position). and finally it finishes with ANOTHER upwards strike from left bottom to right top(Better as it is slower than the 3rd attack). This makes 3/4 attacks upwards with a weapon which cannot slice and benefits greatly from gravity it needs to replace one upwards slash with a downwards one. The swings itself also felt super fast because of the vfx, kinda like a anime ninja/samurai where you can only see a flash and then you are already dead, instead of a buff tank hitting you with his giant hammer.
Finally the shield/active blocking: Lets start with the looks of the shield 10/10 looks nice! Blocking animation is nice and clear also 10/10. Then the active blocking itself, I think it is a good mechanic. However I do feel that it will be hard to balance, I personally would not want to or see other people "Turtle Up" behind their shield in PvE or PvP. In order to do this the blocking should give diminishing returns (doesn't matter how) and make you move slower and to keep it realistic directional (not sure if it was on stream). So that you cant just hide behind it and it rewards skillful use of it (It kinda already does as you can't keep aggro if you don't attack but there is no aggro meter in PvP).
Q: Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Tank updates?
A: The TTK: Like they said themselves in the youtube edit they enjoyed the pace of the encounter and I totally agree with that. But if we take into consideration that they all had common gear (All 750 HP and 1000 mana) with no stats or bonuses for what we could see AND it was meant for 8 players I feel the TTK for the 4 man party was way too fast. It should be as challenging as Steven and the others had (when playing with 8) and a true test of skill if you are playing with only 4.
The Enemies behavior: Ok so I see alot of people wanting more indicators ranging from aggro, to attack or even spell indicators. I say keep it like this, I personally like to learn the mobs attack moves and when it does what, such that you have to react based on the animations. It adds to the immersion. Then the AI, normal "filler" mobs are fine if they are as dumb as a rock but the elites felt like they didn't really have anything they just stood there and got attacked and the party just stood still and attacked too. If someone plays carelessly they should take a lot of damage.
The Showcase: I enjoyed watching the showcase but it was hard to analyze it. I watched both the livestream and the youtube edit. The youtube edit was much better but when I was trying to check out the auto attacks of the hammer it got very difficult. They should really do a clean combo the moment they showed the weapon cause it was only on enemies and with vfx particles of the other party members. Concerning the vfx they looked nice however I wouldn't like to play as they are now. I would really appreciate the option of turning them lower as they were too bright and big for my taste.
None of this is Tank related. My first post still stands. I am not reviewing this as a tank design but as a game design.
The ease of how a 4 man group completed a 8man content is very disappointing and the mere fact you acknowledge that and advocated it is concerning. Yes you get bonus XP for a full man but you still get bonus XP as a 4 man, not as much as 8 but the execution and the current speed is probably efficient to be a 4-6 man.
Even in EQ, the bonus XP - doing the math had a sweet spot. 4 players is better than a full 6 man.
Actual Numbers:
1 characters - 1x
2 characters - 1.58x
3 characters - 1.92x
4 characters - 2.22x
5 characters - 2.5x
6 characters - 2.56x
you actually end up losing a bit of XP in the XP split with 5 or 6 players. I am assuming and expecting that to be true in AoC until proven incorrectly.
Last Boss in the 2nd video on YT
You accidently pulled Boss + 1 add. 3 man handle the add then the group defeated the boss.
The party overall had 80% hp and 75% mana.
The Mana management is still atrocious. There is no sense of danger or urgency for the cleric as he can constantly spam heal and regen mana like it's nothing. In the video you also mention potions to help clear this area easier for smaller groups. So I am now thinking geee - if the cleric ever goes below 50% mana, boom pot up, issue is resolve.
The pacing of the entire area is for a 4 man is way too fast, when it needs to be slower imo. The regen of hp and mp needs to be slower imo.
You also mentions - ohh maybe the area has other players taking on other adds that are not along the path of the bosses - why would they even be there. With "Boss" design in mind - people will want to camp a boss vs an add. Players wont be caring for adds in a corner section if it's not needed. If you put rewards and emphasis on bosses - then those are the priority targets. Spread the "loot" and remove the notion of bosses and require the area to be cleared should THEN be rewarded. Or at the least, the boss has a shout and calls nearby adds that weren't cleared, to encourage clearing.
The Aegis ability needs to be useful against AOE abilities as well, it forces the defending party to group up so AOE will be hyper effective, so for the shield to have a practical purpose for a team instead of just the tank then the ability needs to scale based on the people behind it.
A potential solution would be to have the ability cast take into account the number of people behind the shield when cast, the greater the number the greater the % decrease in damage. For example 1 person "behind" you gives 25% reduction, 7 behind you and its 65% the color of the shield ought to reflect the % in this case. For example light blue is 25% changing hue until orange at max % reduction.
Additionally you should also consider allowing tanks to chain Aegis together to create larger more effective shields instead of just individual shielding cast by individual tanks. For example a raid of 40 has 4 tanks, if all 4 tanks have Aegis activated and are within a required radius X of each other then Aegis instead activates a bubble and slows enemies within the shield, in addition to the scaling damage reduction based on the total number of Aegis activated up to Y% reduction.
Don’t give us a new player persona. We’re not newbies. Explain the content thoroughly, give us clear visual displays, but don’t put on a persona. We’re all hardcore mmo players. That seems to be your target audience, after all. We generally know how these games work. We want to know how YOUR version works.
Tank Feedback
Abilities:
- Shield Assault -
The status effect “shaken” sounds a little strange. Doesn’t exactly sound dramatic enough to be a combat debuff. Maybe “dazed” would be a more impactful term without going all the way to “stunned”?
Animation and VFX look good.
- Inciting Strikes -
Animation and vfx look great, option for AOE aggro is good.
- Tremoring Bellow -
Staggered condition? How does that differ from shaken or stunned? How does snared differ from any of those? I think we need to get a list in the next combat showcase that thoroughly explains what all of these effects do.
To “trip” an enemy should instead be referred to as a “knock down”. Tripping sounds a bit juvenile, like you stuck your foot out while they were walking or held out a rope for them to trip over. Same problem as “shaken”, it’s not verbally impactful enough.
Ground crack animation for Tremoring Bellow should travel forward in a cone, currently it looks like the tank is destabilizing himself more than his opponent. It should roughly match the cone produced by the ability when it interacts with the grass, with a smooth transition as it reaches the edge of the cone.
- Grit -
I like that grit builds in power over time after use. Forces tanks to be a little predictive by using it slightly ahead of when the biggest damage will come out.
- Aegis -
This ability should require a shield, almost like you’re using magic to enhance your equipment. Having a purely magic shield cast on yourself while you’re still fighting puts it more into the realm of cleric / mage / summoner kits in my opinion.
With that in mind, the player should be holding up their shield throughout its duration (the times during the showcase where Steven active blocked and used aegis at the same time looked just about perfect) but still be able to use their main-hand weapon basic attacks and abilities at a slower pace.
For this reason, I feel that Aegis would be a more appropriate ability to induce slowed attack speed and movement speed than Grit. Grit should make you feel more capable of enduring damage without being as effected. Grit totally burns through your courage reserves, I feel like that’s enough of a cost. Thematically, if Aegis makes you put up a shield and absorb multiple other people’s damage, that should be far more detrimental to movement speed, damage, and attack speed than Grit.
If this change were made, the ability should be toggle-able, not a fixed duration. Player presses key to activate, start draining mana, press again to deactivate, initiate cooldown. Having abilities that buff / protect in exchange for movement and attack speed / damage while giving you control over how long you want to make the trade-off for are way more satisfying and engaging than a bunch of fixed-rate spells and abilities.
All together, those changes would make Aegis an awesome ability that would feel much more appropriate for a tank, would satisfy the “equipment first, magic second” role that melee characters should abide by, and would make the ability a much fairer trade off while producing more realistic side effects and giving the player agency over how long they want to sacrifice their power for.
Visual effects are good, just needs to be shared with a shield. Maybe have the glow emanating from the shield as it’s being held in front of the player.
- Grapple -
The animation for this ability needs major work, can’t tell what’s going on there at all. Doesn’t look like anything’s leaving the players hand, enemies look like they’re stuttering /teleporting directly in front of the user.
- Active Blocking -
Active blocking needs to have a limited capacity dependent on multiple factors. The shield itself should provide specific amounts of damage mitigation per active block depending on shield quality, while the player archetype and their skill tree point allocation should dictate how long they can active block for. The resource for it should be a moveable bar that quickly ticks down to zero while holding up the shield. The size of the bar (or speed at which the bar ticks down) is what’s changed by skill point allocation and archetype. Once the shield is dropped back to neutral, the bar slowly regains charge (again, influenced by archetype and skill point allocation). I don’t think this resource should be coupled with anything else.
VFX Feedback:
- Ability VFX size / intensity are fine, but there’s a lot of super bright light. This makes sense for the cleric and sword flashes, but I’d hope to see more grounded, rich, dark colors from naturalists and magic users like rangers, rogues, mages, summoners, etc. The showcase combo of abilities was very flashy and bright looking.
One ability that caught my eye was the cleric’s mass heal. I really think it should have a less opaque effect. It’s a bit blinding and distracting seeing these glitchy columns of white and washed out yellows flashing on screen. I think the team should try more of a transparent “holy glow” that gets brighter towards the top of the light column, well above the players heads, rather than a blinding flash of near-opaque light across the screen. Less of a quick, anxious, flashy vibe, more ethereal, soothing, and regenerative.
- This next bit goes for every character using a melee weapon any heavier than a dagger: The basic weapon attacks are happing far too quickly at peak swing. They feel awfully glitchy and choppy, like the weapons are stuttering / teleporting from one end of the players body to the other. The new “rest” period between strikes looks good, but otherwise it looks like a bit of a mess. I should be able to see these weapons moving through the air from start to finish.
- Grass effect needs to either flatten for a longer time, or have a less intense rustle effect for a briefer time. Radius needs to be tightened a bit or smoothed better around the edges into a gentle rustle before reaching the edge of the effect.
- The magic tree VFX were cool, but the actual texture / form of the tree should be fairly different from the others. Kind of just looks like a big oak tree with a light effect slapped onto it.
- Lightning effects from the baddies looked awesome, good work.
Other thoughts:
- The armor set Steven equipped at the end is totally awesome, but it’s so shiny in the light, I can barely see it. Similar problem goes for the cleric armor. It all looks like it just came off the smith’s bench freshly polished. This incredibly low level of roughness should either be a diminishing visual effect that can be gussied up after a few weeks worth of combat with some craftable armor polish or it needs to be toned down if armor appearances can only be static. If you go with a diminishing shine effect, perhaps leather and cloth can slowly lose their saturation and be restored with their own similar craftable items so that plate wearers aren’t the only ones who have to deal with it.
- I like that players have to vote on loot rule changes.
- The difficulty of this zone honestly struck me as something four coordinated players should be able to do just fine. If this team was actually congregating behind Steven’s aegis or if he was moving to protect them with it, and they gave him decent time to get aggro, the level of difficulty seen in the second video is about what I would expect from leveling content. Eight players would absolutely steamroll this place.
Thanks for taking the time to give us a second video, it came out much better and gave me much more information to provide feedback on.
Gonna start with abilities. I felt like the sounds (and this could be adjustable for preference already, or mixed down for the recording) for the tank abilities were lacking bass and a bit of mid range thump. Every class so far has a distinct sound profile we can use for threat assessment or battlefield awareness and it's kind of amazing. I'd like to see tank feel a bit more beefy in the sounds.
As for the abilities themselves, I like the approach that's being taken at this time. Obviously the total amount of control/threat abilities will increase as they're developed/levelling up blah blah. From what I've seen there's soft CC and hard CC, hard CC generally needing more than one ability to trigger. I like this approach. It allows players to react and potentially dodge the stun.. which has the same tradeoff of lowering DPS at that time. I would however like to see wider AOE for threat generation. Currently it looks like either the teamwork was lacking (too busy talking features or not enough time to get the hang of it before recording) Or, the range is too short for it to be effective.
NPC Patrols - good that they cause aggro, I'd like to see wider, more chaotic patrolling that feels more alive and less mechanical. Yes this is a game and this is a dungeon, but even the chance for a boss to wander from time to time would make scouting meaningful, cautious behavior pay off, and every dungeon delve unique.
Mace attack patterns looked really good, the removal of spinning does the trick. I look forward to seeing the momentum become more polished like the greatsword.
Environment - The zone was absolutely gorgeous. During the stream I didn't have brainspace to notice it, but I watched the updated tank video and felt blown away. I want to get hit by a truck and isekai'd to Verra so I can open a coffee food truck in this dungeon.
Last thing - this stream felt the most alive. Having the four classes, the fleshed out dungeon, the loot, everything makes the game feel like it's getting close to ALPHA 2 WHEN?
LET ME INNNNNN!!!
How do you feel about the direction the Tank archetype is taking, based on what we shared during the January Development Update?
Not a fan at all really. This has less to do with the class design and more of the overall archetype system. Its always said how we get to play how we want but Tank minded players are restricted to a single primary class. What if we do not enjoy or find the "Tank" Toolkit exciting?. in a game with 64 class combinations, Being restricted to a mere 8 of them is really upsetting. I feel for healers as well as they are in a similar boat. You should HEAVILY consider expanding the spread of tanking and healing classes.
Some of us dont care about dps and I think we should be considered in the design process at least to a minor extent.
What are your thoughts regarding the Tank abilities shown in the January livestream?
Not my cup of tea but I can understand why some like them. I much prefer a VERY heavy support element to my tanking such as Blood tanking in The Secret World or Paladins in original Everquest. Seems the class itself is more modern DPS tanking which I can see the appeal of for some. Overall I would say Im Neutral on the class itself and negative on the role
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 animations look good, I look forward to seeing the actual skills attached to them
I had very mixed feelings about it because on one side I was happy to that teamplay was shown with a clear benefit but at the same time I a bit disappointed because I had hoped for something else. What was shown had in my personal opinion to little to do with risk vs reward.
For example: In a scenario in which a boss mob casts a large 'AoE' ability, lets even say liniear originatiing from the bosses current position, most players are encouraged to avoid that entirely either by:
walking out of the effective area stoping dps/heal
use a mobility spell if safety is not within walking distance depending on the time of impact
or not even being in that general area and thus having safety.
leaving the 'Aegis' mostly for the tank and other meele players purely as a benefit in case there is no other options (for example: meele's pathing is blocked by the general area, thus cant make it in time or is CCed) - so might as well take less damage. And for that mindset off 'I am a tank I stand in front of these guys who cant make it and use Aegis to reduce impact' its a good ability.
But that has nothing to do with formations in my mind at least. Should 'Aegis' or abilities like it go further into the term 'formation' then I would like to see things like in the paint job attached.
current form
Part A
From what I could see it only mattered that players where behind the shield not at a specific spot.
my hopes
Part B
to have a kind of graphically display of a formation on the ground and depending on how many people get on the right spot it increases the effect. Dont mind the numbers its about the mechanic, what came to mind when I first heard formations was two things.
a tank gains the ability to more actively guide and lead players in a fight by placing formations and if succesfully executed in time gains a nice bonus for everyone but all involved also pay the price of risk to gain reward. Specifically here lets say the tank 'Aegis' reduces damage by 20% and if 3 more people can execute the formation its increased to 60% now it becomes a group effort to decide is it worth it for 4 people to take damage they may be healable by a group heal or should only the tank take reduced damage. In bigger groups maybe theres an off tank and 2 barbarian types and therefore a necessatiy that frontlines work together...?or 2) that party leaders gain access to a few formation tools similar to abilities they can cast on the ground maybe kind of like 'aura' abilities would be cast with the key component being are people in a specific spot(small area) to gain the boost.
the dream - specifically for larger groups/raids
Part C
not only having defense formations for hunkering but also enable groups/raids to make decisions in the risk and reward category during fights. Do we line up a few mages to increase their output but should an 'add' spawn will it becomes troublesome bc damage taken is increased. Can we group up the healers to increase mana regen (maybe they passively inspire each other) but have the danger of random AoE messing things up.
so this has kind off been what I am thinking
Threat looked far too difficult to gain, even when the group wasn't really doing much.
Mitigation options looks quite interesting. Grit looks like a great ability to min-max, but at the same time if that's the tank's only survival tool it's a bit boring.
Aegis is a wonderful ability and helps with the above two issues to an extent, and the 20 second cooldown makes it flexible.
Grapple has some polishing issues and is definitely not something I'd have bound to 6, but seems like good utility.
Shield Assault looks better at 1.25x speed.
Inciting Strikes seems fine, but with how limited action bar space is I think it's a bit underwhelming.
Sword's reach seems too low, but cool otherwise.
Hammer and shield combo looked great; I especially loved the slicing swing animations and feedback from the hammer swings.
Mostly polish, to be honest. Grapple was a bit janky, mobs seems floaty, and mobs were pretty alpha/beta-esque...so for combat, just polish.
Would be interesting to see some hidden things in the world there, like treasure chests and such. Maybe a rare spawn or animal you can get something from.
Again though, mostly polish/afterthought things.
No offense to Steven, but I'd love to see more focused tanking gameplay to say much more. You guys all seemed tired and he appear to be zoning out a few times, lol.
Regarding the active shield blocking, I think it doesn't need to be as good as Valheim. If a player holds their shield up within 1 second of a mob attacking, just give a bonus to mitigation.
Also, Steven was blocking that lightning, but I still saw the damage numbers on him not change? Maybe I didn't see correctly. I'd love to see shields that specialize in magic blocking.
I did also leave a comment on the YT video, but these focused questions help.
I know this is personal preference but I have to express it strongly. I hate bulky, physically impossible, impractical weaponry.
Older iterations of the 2H sword seemed far more realistic compared to this fat cricket bat looking paddle.
The one handed Warhammer was far too big, it looked like the character was swinging a hollow mail box, rather than a dense metal.
The models themselves, and their textures look fine. its just the scale and proportions that are unbelievable.
Just running some back of envelope calculations on that hammer
The head of the hammer appears approximately:
15cm x 15 cm x 40cm = 9000 cubic centimetres
The density of steel is around 8 grams per cm^3
9000x8 /1000(grams to kilograms)
Hammer head = 72kg or 158.8lbs
Plus the disadvantaged leverage -- the shaft appears atleast 3 hands in length, 1 hand grip width = 3 to 1 ratio
To hold your arm straight by your side and this hammer's shaft straight and parallel to the ground would take a wrist radial deviation strength the equivalent of 216kg or 476.2lbs !!!
You can get away with a slighlty heavier looking hammer head on a 2 hander because the leverage there is better.
However for real world context, the weight of a real life sledgehammer head is around 5.45kg or 12lbs.
This 1 hander 72kg or 158.8lbs.
To some my above math may seem a bit pedantic, but there is a reason im going great lengths to paint a picture and its for this:
Humans are somewhat intuitive about objects they recognise, and movement patterns they recognise.
If someone appears to labour lifting something, or they use leverage to raise it up, the object seems heavy. Similarly if the object can be swung fast and with ease it appears lighter.
This is the intuition people are often expressing when they say the combat looks "floaty" or the animations lack "weight". Our brains intuite things, and find some things unbelievable, like quickly accelerating a 72kg (158.8lbs) hammer head, back and forth, with no visible strain, or compensatory body movements that correspond with said weight.
Not that im looking for perfect realism, I want my magical warrior to perform some extra-human type feats. But for animations to look like they have weight they need to be in accordance with the size of the objects being moved by the person. If you make objects that are unrealisticly large and the human biomechanical movements you animated are unchanged, than all that animations work will be invalidated because it will never look believable.
If you want to make a Guts sword or a Buster sword, than you need to make it look appropriately heavy in your animation work.
I completely disagree about active blocking it makes the game feel more grounded, and a tank will not be active blocking all the time. But during heavy damage while using cooldowns to reduce as much damage as possible. Will never understand why people got so used to a game automatically doing this in the form of cosmetic effect giving a glow effect an illusion you're blocking and it just being an ability cooldown and your shield is just for looks I want to use that shield not have it just sitting there.
Also during the tank reveal, we got to see status effects as part of the ability description, I think it would be more UI friendly to have status effect colour coded so they stand out from the ability description and would be even more helpful if when hovered over with the cursor, gave a brief description of what the status effect does
Archetype icons are little bit overdone or say so fancy. Maybe should be more simple to avoid things like basic archetype icons are too fancy that makes class icons are not identical as it should be.
Personally like this one more, maybe it's because I’m old but it feels more classic and elegant to me.
Icons in red circles are good and easy to understand and should to use a simplified symbol to represent. Icons in blue circles are nice and beautiful. Icons in yellow circle not so good to me, maybe it because you need to consider to show the classes icon on raid UI(I prefer recognize the class by color like GRID addon in WOW, and I don't think you need 64 different colors, you only need 8 for the main archetypes), but still at least in a small team I prefer the classic style icon you use in ranger update video.
This pop out animation is nice, but I feel the gray fog effect can be reduced a little bit more to show the nice magic circle a little bit more, maybe the size or maybe the transparency.
Maybe should add an option for player to choose that weapon attacks like hammer with mobility able to dash around. Which is if you have a target you won’t move pass through your target with your weapon attacks, and if you don’t have a target then you will pass thorough anything that don’t have collision.
I feel hammer weapon attack animations are not good as 2H sword and dagger after watch tank update video few more times, you should make it not dashy like now and more like how you did 2H sword and dagger, you did 2H sword and dagger attack animations so good I believe you can do all weapon good as 2H sword and dagger.
I notice when using weapon attacks other skills on skill bar will become dark down, I guess it means you can’t use any other skills on skill bar to cancel weapon attack in the middle of the swing. I don’t think this is good, I prefer how GW2 did I can interrupt auto attack in the middle of the swing because they put a lot of break point in any skill(except instant cast skill) to allow player to cancel in the middle of swing/casting to provide a react chance to player for correct mistake or adjust the pace etc but if you don’t give the chance to player will make player reduce the will to use weapon attack because it’s an unable to cancel weak spot.
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxAY0WMbZz0mzgvYuOU6wl8S-45-MzRRXY
Should avoid one frame animation recover.
And should consider if using too much ground cracking effects to avoid higher level skill become too fancy then make effects too cheap and too much like FF14 did.
Sometimes the spark effect is too big, it’s barely okay when camera distance is far but it’s not good if using close camera. The effects should basically follow the weapon size, swing direction, power and speed the strike should present with.
In this case above, it should be reduce to blue range, and the spark should emphasize in horizontal more instead of vertical to make player feel the slash is powerful sharp and clean.
Greatsword swing effects feel not good too. It should be parallel and follow to the sword instead of vertical to the sword to show it’s a powerful sharp clean slash instead of a hit.
Whirlwind skill effect is the right direction compare to the greatsword basic attack. I not saying should be that big and much like whirlwind effect, what I mean is the effect should follow and parallel to the sword blade instead of vertical to the sword blade.
The vertical visual effect on hammer is good because it's a blunt weapon, the effect can be vertical maybe should be and can be a little bit wider than now. But sword is a a sharp edge weapon, should show people the sharpness the speed the flexibility than the pure power. If you really want to add some effect on the blade tip, you can refer how Monster Hunter did on the long sword effects.
Overall, I like how you did the sword swing visual effects better in:
It more clean straight forward and more common to apply, it's parallel and follow to the sword blade and white color is better to reflect the metal texture than yellow.
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxxnguJyj4lIKe0WJsWv5be11F9q0tVXMN
It’s hard to say the ground cracking effect while swing a hammer is good, personally think raising dust/snow etc depends on weather will be better instead of ground cracking effect.
From other’s view ranger’s snipe skill effect is not good, it’s more like a magic spell then a shot. It should be more narrow and sharp like a needle.
Personally think this is better, a simple line, effects don’t need to be that much and overdone otherwise you will end up with no visibility like FF14.
The sound effects are too loud and sounds like all the skill are from the tank. Should reduce the weapon and skills sound effect volume by 15~20% from other player at least, especially bow and arrow need to reduce by 60%, and all sound effect should automatically adjust itself depends on the direction/distance/obstruction etc. And if you can let player adjust the amount of visual and sound effects between player himself and teammates and others players individually will be better.
I don't know how tank work through video, so I just leave thoughts about how the skills look.
Shield Assault: Good, hope it can have lower CD or longer range with further invest.
Inciting Strikes: I don’t know about this, simple visual effect but don’t scale with weapon size make the effect not cool, not good damage output only generate more threat. I can’t tell it good or not, what I can tell is the effect can be better.
Tremoring Bellow: Good. But the ground cracking effect should consider if it’s too much, and the terrain recover in 1 frame problem should be take care of.
Grit: Nice effect. But can’t tell it’s good or not.
Aegis: Personally don’t like this skill. It limit team position too much, hard to say it won’t limit the boss fight design in future. There are more alternatives.
Grapple: You can refer the Dragon Hunter F1 skill in GW2.
I believe that the Intrepid team is headed in the right direction. One thing that I suggest is that you guys take a look at how tanks are in Riot's League of Legends. I believe that LoL's tanks are perfect examples of what tanks should be (especially in PvP).
Tank showcase Feedback;
- I think the 1h and shield animations can be improved further, the shield should always be infront of the shield user. Attacks should be used in synergy with the shield and the shield user should always try to protect their body even while attacking.
- Grit is great, Shield Assault is also great, maybe it could use more range, Inciting Strikes is good, Tremoring Bellow is great, Aegis can use some tweaking, one thing I have against it is the sfx, Grapple needs more work.
- For a future iteration of grapple I believe it should be customizable by the player cosmetically, chain color and such.
- In World Of Warcraft, Intervene ( a warrior ability) is a good idea for tanks to utilize to defend specific party members.
General Feedback/Ideas- As for hit detection/animations I believe that a simple stagger is not enough as it messes with the npc's animated basic attacks and abilities. To solve that issue you can think about what enemies are you fighting, If it's a mage it can have a thin magic bubble around them that lights up slightly when you attack them maybe it lights up a little bit in spots the character swings at, If the enemy is heavily armored I expect it to not stagger as much except for criticals maybe. Basically hit detection based off of enemy class.
- SFX. Most spells, abilities and attacks are too bright and make a fight against one mob look like a firework show. Weapon attack arcs can be more low-key by increasing transparency and changing the color to a dark or light gray, same color as the wind.
- Skills and Abilities should be more distinct from each other, less flashy but still noticeable in a fast paced setting.
- My least favorite ability is that big bright hammer slam that the fighter has for some reason, It looks more like a paladin ability or something and it just feels out of place. Skills, abilities and spells should fit the theme of the class/archetype, every class shown does this well except that silly, gigantic, bright, slow hammer slam that the fighter uses. This is one thing I strongly recommend changing (idk it bothers me so much).
- Based off of where some loot has been picked up, for example; off of a zombie or old ghost knights, armor and weapons should have less shine and maybe a little corroded to increase immersion. It makes sense to me that if I find a piece of armor that's been sitting outside in a chest it shouldn't look factory new as if it was just crafted by the mob you killed.
- An Idea I have specifically for magic users is spell counter-play, some spells may have a start up time and during that time the spells should be able to be broken from time to time with other spells. rock paper scissors but don't make it possible to just cancel every ability out. Honestly I'm just thinking about WoW spell interrupts and such.
I believe that's all I wanted to share, thanks for reading!man I hate that big ass golden hammer ability. I apologize.
The boss and mob fights looked very basic and non-threatening, like they had nothing to them, no mechanics. The main boss only auto-attacked and did a sword spin which barely did any damage to the players standing in it. You should have to dodge or move out of that to survive if you're not a tank. Combat needs to be much more engaging. Every type of enemy should have special abilities related to their identity. So for example, ghosts could have fast movement, dashing attacks, turn invisible and reappear on other targets with a charge up attack that has visual/audio queues.
The VFX from attacks/abilities is painful to look at and that's only with 4 players, Imagine how ridiculous it will be with 40. You won't be able to see anything. You already can't see anything at times because of how bright and flashy it is. There should never be a time that normal effects are so bright that they blind you and prevent you from seeing other characters. There's no reason for basic attacks let alone melee attacks to have all these effects tied to them. This same feedback was given 7 months ago from a majority of the comments when you first showed the melee combat. Please fix it.
The abilities themselves seemed fine aside from the blinding VFX and a few outliers. Make the pull animation like scorpion's chain from mortal kombat and you have to aim it. I would change aegis to a channeled block ability requiring a shield that blocks all projectiles/melee attacks for you and allies behind you for a short time, similar to braum's from League of legends.
It's hard to give feedback on the threat system since I can't tell if Steven keeps losing agro because he doesn't know how to play the class or that is actually the intended design. It would have been nice if you explained how threat works in your game as opposed to others and what you were doing to maintain agro. It looks as though he just started playing the class the second they began recording the video. You should be more prepared to showcase your game or have someone play the character while you talk about it. These past 2 videos have been so disorganized and all over the place.
Therefore I am going to hold back on a detailed review because I still think talking about class design or abilities without having any augments in the discussion seems kind of pointless at the moment since all we are getting is a showcase of unflavored abilities.
However I will echo what I said on the cleric video, I do love the synergy effects of various CC and can't wait to see them in full effect from an 8 man party.
Something that I really found missing was visual indications for threat. I personally like the threat plates addon I had set up in wow. Where enemy name plates would change color based off of whether I was holding aggro, the other tank had agro, or a mob had gone off for someone else. I hope you have something like that in your huge lists of customization.