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
I´m not an expert by any means but I worked as a 3D-Artist for a few years (not with Unreal although I have some basic knowledge of environment art in Unreal) but maybe RVTs are possible to implement which would help blend a bit better between object meshes and environment.
For everyone not understanding what I´m talking about, you can watch the first minute of this video for example
And please don´t see this as an absolute beginner in environment art (which I am!!) trying to tell the team what to do better. Maybe it´s not even possible to implement with all the other systems in place or maybe it hasn´t been worked on yet. It´s just something I noticed
Maybe other 3D-Artists have a better understanding here if it´d be possible at all to implement.
Imo it´s just a bit immersion breaking (at least for me) whenever I see these "harsh" blends between objects and environment. And ofc I know it´s still Alpha and things will definitely be better in the final release. It´s just something that I´ve always wanted to mention
Other than that, I love what I saw in this months livestream!!
Merry Christmas and hope you have wonderful holidays everyone!
I am someone who mainly plays pvp in mmo's, and I have been for the last decade now. Most of my time spent has been on ESO, New World, and BDO. I primarily do solo/ small scale pvp, and I know this game will be balanced around group play, much like the rest of other mmo's, so take what I say with that context in mind. I first want to start off by saying the animation of the skills look amazing, and I can already see the flow of the class coming together, which from a combat pov of a pvp player is great to see. I love how the different arrow types and how they give different effects. These arrows allow for so many different uses of abilities with the different/ answers for situations. My only concern is that I did not see any sustain abilities. Will there be ways to get health, mana, etc back with abilities or combos? Will there be ways to buff the rangers evasion, accuracy, armor, info, etc? Will the ranger be able to spec into different ways to flow into melee vs ranged combat. Again I know I am looking at this from a solo/ small scale perspective, but I think it would be a shame if the ranger has zero sustain. Not just the ranger but other classes as well, I feel as this will ultimately just lend itself to being that you have to pick the cleric as a subclass on every class in order to get sustain. Before anyone says well this game is built around group, again I know that, however you will not have a cleric with you all the time. So whats the answer if I want to do pve content or pvp, and my one friend who is the cleric is not able to get on, will I simply just not be able to heal? Will I be forced to go cleric subclass on all of characters to get any form of healing if I choose to play small scale or want to do content alone.
My second point I would like to ask if what will the ranger provide benefit wise to a group? I think it would be awesome if the range provided accuracy and evasion to a group to allow the class to be more valuable. I guess we really need an in depth stream on subclasses before my questions get answered. I will 100% be giving feedback related to pvp from A2 going on forward.
Thank you again for creating such an amazing game, and I am looking forward to getting into this alpha 2 and play testing! I am so excited to see how this game will come to full form in the months and years to come!
can we get:
> ultimates like in lost ark for each class?
> what if I want to role/ -play a "Dark Ranger" (for example Sylvanas from WOW) is there a chance to get modifications down, for "black-shadowy" arrows instead of red/blue/green ones/abilities, or is that what augements are for?
> would love to see even more "umphs" behinde the abilities -> see lost ark
what I didn't like:
> the kinda curvy arrow shots (the blue one, and even the headshot?)
> steven was fighitn a spider/mushroom and the target enemy was besides/almost behind him and he even tho he didn't look in its direction the arrows still hit the target -looked weird...?
I liked the marks, traps, disengage, and the different shot abilities. Can Rangers imbue ammo with different types of damage ie poison, disease, or elemental? Is there a talent to allow for more marks to be placed on a single target? Are there any plans for marks to be able to go on multiple targets?
Overall very impressive for Alpha.
What primarily concerns me with the ranger (and probably AoC combat as a whole) is the lack of impact, or hit feedback.
What I mean by this is (if you watch back the showcase and npc pve fights) there were few visual and audio cues of a target getting hit. To clarify- I know you have audio and visual cues already implemented, but I wish they were more pronounced/obvious. I think a part of the issue is the effects of the abilities compound visual and audio effects which makes the hit indicators (audio+visual) less noticeable.
Here is an example of how the impact/feedback (audio/visual) looks:
*note: please excuse the lack of audio- the forums limit the upload size, so I had to sacrifice audio- there are plenty of examples on youtube if necessary*
Here is an example of impactful combat we often hear about, from many combat enthusiasts. Black Desert Online has been (sometimes tirelessly) referenced as "satisfying combat". Why? Why do people say that? I think it's a few of these:
(audio link):
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7kzjuuos8vA&ab_channel=BlackDesertOnline
Here is another example we often hear praise regarding combat. Elden Ring has become the new gold standard for many people when it comes to satisfying combat, often referenced as "rewarding skilled combat play". I think it's because:
Again, this showcase looks like the team made amazing progress. I just think adding more weighted impact to the combat feedback, across the board, would just be a giant boon to the game- overall. So many people, Steven included, have stated how important combat "feel" was. Just wanted to give my (hopefully constructive) feedback. Hope this helps. Keep up the great work!
It looks okay. Nothing too fancy, but that's not what I'm hoping for when I check in on a showcase of what is still fundamentally an indie MMORPG.
A lot of what I'd comment on is stuff that would only be showcased in next LiveStream (Raid/Group PvP) or a more 'challenging' PvE/PvX showcase. It's hard to infer much from what was shown beyond the basics without making a ton of assumptions. Therefore everything past this point is making those assumptions, and should just be ignored whenever the assumption's wrong, ofc.
Assumption #1: Since Snipe and Headshot are functionally 'Tab Targeted' abilities, they could miss a highly evasive character such as an Evasion Tank.
I don't know what to make of this, on the one hand if we're keeping the 'Evasion Tank' concept, this somewhat has to be true, because even with 'Everyone has a CC Cleanse if they want', a group of Rangers right now would still achieve massive Area Denial and damage at the same time. If Evasive Characters can just rush them down anyway without instantly dying, great, if not, Ranger Wars?
If buffing Evasion can get you through even these skills, then I'm interested, but concerned about the 'battles of statistics' that are likely to pop up based on the fact that healing doesn't miss. That's the standard for the genre, though, so mostly, it comes off as, in a very roundabout way, less of a commitment to any form of Hybrid Combat.
Assumption #2: Since Disengage isn't required to actually be a Disengage and Air Strike has huge range and Air Control, Fighters have even more than this.
When I say 'even more' I include 'having much shorter cooldowns', but this isn't often 'enough'. Ranger now has the most CC we've technically seen so far, like if you took every Carry in Predecessor and made one character that could do all of it. SkillTrees notwithstanding, I foresee a lot of spec into CC resistance. I kind of like this approach depending on how much Evasion is weighted. Can you cleanse a Mark off someone? Does it count primarily as a Debuff? Based on my L2 understanding, it will.
Assumption #3: 'Boss' combat mobility requirements will be lower, or we'll be expected to maintain 'perimeters'.
Even considering the fact that some of this CC 'shouldn't even be working' (obv it had to be shown off, I understand this), it's hard to imagine a situation where 'the reason you didn't just bring a lot of Rangers to help you steal a boss kill' isn't just 'well people will stay Green so the Rangers can't CC them at critical moments'. I'm interested to know from some future showcase which direction the team generally wants to go, with this.
Assumption #4: Attack Speed is meta/capped/not even a buildable stat mostly.
Balance is obviously not in place yet, but the counterplay to that rate of fire from the Ranger definitely seems more like a 'character skill' which brings us back to the Evasion/Block Chance component. But I still have 'fears' based on games that easily let you ramp your attack speed higher than your animations could even keep up with, and while that's not technically 'Animation Canceling', it has similar problems, in my opinion, to having it. I'd therefore assume it's not a thing at all.
So, with all those assumptions made, everything looks absolutely fantastic. Literally everything. I believe in that Winter Riverlands. I absolutely loved the spiders, and the ravens, despite them being so squishy (for context in case you somehow don't already have this data, for me, even the most normal mob in my preferred games is at least as strong as the Named/Elite Spider).
The skills are about what I'd expect to see from Ranger in Ashes. Not my thing, either as a player or as a game experience, but that's why I don't want to throw out too much feedback. I don't like Ashes combat much yet, but this stream definitely stayed true to what I understand Ashes combat to be and didn't feel like a drop in quality relative to that. So while I don't expect to love it, I also don't expect any pain points beyond the generality of 'it's not my style of gameplay'.
In case my group's Ranger doesn't get around to expanding on it, his feedback was basically:
"Gatdamn, the short bow is fast"
"Okay, the Marks concept definitely leans into that animal spirit blessing/aid which I want from my Ranger/Druid"
"The imbue effects are very useful"
"Ranger definitely looks fun".
skills looked great, of course, its hard to judge the combat when you have a 5 second TTK, and this is a strong, strong opinion I have even for now, for testing, if you are going to show PvP next month, please for the love of God reduce all damage done by players for like 60% and go from there, dont need to worry about balancing but when we are able to melt someone in 5s instead of being close to the 30~60s that is intended it can showcase poorly and misrepresent the goals, plus make the combat look worse and get everyone talking about how unbalanced it is, just do a very simple pass and reduce player skills dmg or boost defense stats/HP for all players or something, that's my main feedback point for Jan stream!
overall the kit looked solid, but we need to test, the direction is great tho, I love the interaction from hunts and marks and the visuals representing hunts, I like that the disengage can be swapped, it is absolutely awesome, I really wish the cleric had a skill like that to disengage/run away
hopefully, during the next showcase we can see and hear about the action camera and how it can be used with all these skills,
the decal effects were spot on! very very good job the game came a long way with how all the vfx are looking it went beyond my expectations,
I hope the skill trees, active skills and passives all have meaningful decisions behind it, I don't want to be able to pick all the skills we need decision making, each build should be different I feel like a ranger should have to spec into what kind of hunt they want to use and not have all of them available, the more specs you introduce the more build variety we will have, if an archetype has like 30 active skills, 20 passives and 10 weapon passives we should only be able to select half of each like 15 active skills, 10 passives and 5 weapon passives, that's how I'd envision the system,
I didn't like that we can swap weapons during combat, really hope this can only be done out of combat and ofc same for gear, giving me a bit of new world vibes with all these modern MMOs that you swap weapons, don't like it
You can also tell because of the CC cleanse I will get plenty of CC to do my job properly, to prevent a solo Ranger from escaping. And since rushing toward Rangers to do my job would put me in tons of risk, it's pretty clear the Rogue will have to be plenty evasive too. Otherwise it's not worth my time. In short, if you analyze things carefully, it's clear I get to do what I always love doing in games: eat ranged users for breakfast.
My one concern is Rogues ending up too 'sticky' due to all the CC and gap closing and then having to suffer through a continuous set of nerfs due to people whining. If that happens, then we'll all have to suffer through a Ranger dominated meta which is only fun for Rangers. Not to mention all of the readjusting I'd have to do.
Now for the problems. Wow, you really made ranged Khaimera, huh? I didn’t even know that was possible. To explain a bit, Khaimera was the unquestioned top tier of a MOBA called Paragon, who excelled at everything and had no real counter due to his excellent gap closing ability and massive regeneration. Even in the successor game, Predecessor, he still doesn’t have a true counter because of his CC cleanse ability. So here we have someone with an excellent engage *and* disengage game who can burst you into nothingness in one Lightning Reload sequence, and cleanse their way out of any consequences. That seems pretty wild, and giving everyone CC cleanse also leads to a frustrating game where you have to keep adding more CC options to everyone to keep up with the cleanses…
That said, maybe I am assuming a lot here, so I have a question. We’ve seen skills like Javelin from the Tank in past showcases that allow you to disrupt opponents by pulling them. Can you do this to a Ranger mid-Air Strike? Is Javelin purely a tab target skill that ignores verticality like that? Plus, if you do this, can the Ranger immediately CC cleanse upon touching the ground? It seems important to know whether Air Strike or high damage skills with a long channel like Snipe can be interrupted and put on cooldown with Tab Target.
Finally, does the cleanse only remove currently impacting CC, or does it also grant brief immunity? For example, if the Ranger is rooted, pops Call of the Wild, and then has another stun immediately landed on them like the Tank’s charging stun, would that land?
I guess I ended up also "needing to make assumptions to give feedback", so for now all I can say is that I'm tentatively optimistic, but that definitely looks like a Ranger! Good job to the visual design teams, good luck with your balance passes!
Class Tree
- visual representation of ability is good in my opinion (square active, circle passive)
- free form is a good idea currently
Weapon Tree
- linear choice pathing is good as it creates a visual bar graph representation for scaling and balance
- successful combo hit and procedural succession seems good
Marks and Huints
- overall in a good a direction
- good relative synergy ie (tiger + tiger = increased CHC and Crit Dmg)
Abilities
Scatter shot
- seems good especially with charge option.
Airstrike
- on the fence about being able to manoeuvre while in motion. Feels like one is flying/gliding. Reminds me of peter pan
- need to see more mobility of other archetypes to see if it's to counter their mobility or if this is just weird
- hope there is collision in air between other air strike players
Thundering shot
- not sure why people insist on naming electrical abilities after a sound from lightning. I clearly didn't hear much of trailing boom, nor is the ability sound related? Seems more like an explosive lightning ability rather than sound.
- could be interesting to see the explosion arcs tangible to targets nearby
- seems good other than the first point
Lightning reload
- good overall
Bear Trap
- good overall
- curious to if they will have some sort of mediocre visual camouflage to them based on environment/biome?
Raining Death
- seems good overall
Disengage
- good overall
Ammo
- currently in a good direction
Additional Thoughts
- Gem springs seem interesting
- charge options for abilities seem pretty good
- curious of charge abilities will only be tier 1 and tier 2 or will they become more multi-tiered for different trigger allowances. Does it always have to go from start to finish or can it be tiered? potential design options down the road
- A special thanks for playing at low APM's so we can see the fidelity
Overall
- good direction for a ranger archetype baseline.
- augmentations should be very interesting for secondary archetype selection
- I imagine ranger players/fans probably listening to "marvin gaye - sexual healing" after seeing this lol
The showcase reminded me of how the bow is in new world, the single target abilities are great in pvp but when it comes to pve it falls really short of damage and isn't used at all for endgame dungeons.
The core premise of the Ranger we were given 'your lead Ranger' was that in other games lead Ranger has played Ranger tended to feel weak or limited, and that the Ranger we are presented with is a Ranger that strives to not have the problems they had in other games. This is unexpected to me because I have played many MMO's and try to keep up on ones that I do not play as I appreciate studying game design in other games. I cannot think of a single game where Ranger is 'weak' or 'bad' or 'limited' other than BDO. Rangers, in MY experience, are almost always 'top tier'. The ones that are 'mid' (with the exception of BDO's) BECOME mid because they started top tier and were severely over-tuned.
So I am not saying that 'lead Ranger is wrong' but I will say that this feels odd or limited in experience to say.
The reason for that is because being able to attack from range at all is a huge bonus. You are already safe. You already usually have a head start in the damage department against your opponent. Put some CC and 'fairly good mobility' on top of that and it's already a winning composition.
The Ranger in this has lot mobility but can't usually do a lot of damage at the same time (air strike excluded). This makes this archetype a 'binary' character, not a glass cannon. These are different concepts. A binary character is one that has an explicit win condition but cannot usually 'work towards it' at the same time as they can 'stay safe'. A glass cannon on the other hand is literally a high risk, high reward build. They CAN work towards their goal at the same time as they 'try to stay safe' but doing both at once lowers their effective output or survivability as a trade off.
So yes, I believe that the 'lead Ranger' has made some very honest upfront claims. I believe them when they say that this Ranger will not have any of the things that make Rangers normally feel unfun. I believe it looks fun, when they are winning. But I also think that they need to more firmly put Ranger in the position of 'glass cannon'.
In it's current form I feel like Ranger will not have as much fun when they are losing or not working towards their win, but that when opponents are fighting them and the Ranger is losing or not working towards winning that the opponents are probably NOT having fun. And that is the crux of 'aiming to balance for fun'. Think about fun wider.
Also the speed on this bow is immersion breaking and that the sound design direction for it is currently irritating and could use less conspicuous change of course. For a GOOD example of what is both not irritating sound design and what counts as fast but not immersion breaking. The character will go 'max speed' at about 28 seconds in. I recognize you want short bow and long bow to have a speed difference but I feel this should be closer to what the gap between the two should feel like. :
I will reserve my judgement regarding balance as you noted you are not interested in that feedback presently. However, I feel like the cone on these abilities has some definitive player feel issues, not just balance ones. The fact that the ability spread is so wide may seem like a problem for the people being attacked, but in my opinion it looks like it would much more hinder the Ranger instead. The spread lacks precision and can damage people you do not intend. And it looks like for some of these abilities a wider spread is actually making them wait longer on an ability they may not feel the need in most cases to have that much 'range' (particularly that ability that required a line up for a straight shot.)
Additionally, I will express that I thought the decal system was great. It made me consider that if you allow rng/bards to exchange damage for buffs/debuffs on the abilities, that this would be what I'd expect mobile support players to want in a class. If this isn't a consideration, maybe consider it.
The show case was probably my favorite so far.
One thing I noted right away, is that I hated the attack speed. It's unimmersively fast. I just sortof assumed that this was the shortbow, and I'm definitely a longbow type of gal, so I gave it a pass.
That said, my first real feeling as we got into the abilities was "This class feels 'designed around spam', which is no good to a sniper." Barrage certainly reinforced this, but hey, that ability's kindof 'required' right?
I remember my first time watching through this thinking that I know I like conceptually being able to debuff people, but the marks just didn't seem to interest me at all. I'm still not completely sure why, but...
On a personal level, I dislike the way marks are added to shots. While I understand the intent with having a mark be activated while your shot is starting up so that it doesn't cost you any time, I think I personally prefer them to be a zero-animation-time ability that applies to your NEXT shot. Literally just press the button 'before' instead of 'during'. I prefer when I'm shooting, for my focus to be on the shot. (Even if I'm in Tab-Target mode.) The 'setup' for a special shot... just goes before it, ya know?
Maybe it's more a matter of wanting to choose my shot type and execute it, not start the breath required, then having to fiddle to modify it. "Bind Arrow" or "Piercing Shot" feels better than "'Standard Ability!" "Mark Modifier!". If you do the mode choice first, at least it just feels like "choosing the arrow or breath type for the shot".
I was disappointed by scattershot slightly. I loved the concept, but I totally expected the 'charge to narrow the cone' to allow me to focus on exactly the area I choose to. I was very disappointed when it seemed to actually be a binary 'wide' or 'narrow'. You implied during the Rain of Death section that that might just be an animation thing though, so I'll just hope I'm wrong. It'd be amazing to be able to decide exactly how much to concentrate or dilute my cone, but I'm wondering, from Rain of Death, if that's even what's going on.
Moving on, Air Strike is spectacular *_*. Air Striking up cliffs *_*. That said, I didn't expect the root. I'm not complaining, I guess? I don't feel like I really need it in that space, and intuitively, I'd expect it to end up somewhere else. My team has pointed out the safety of the ability in certain situations might be a little broken, though. I'll leave discussions of that to them.
Thundering Shot isn't really my style, personally. It feels strange, more like a mage type ability, to me. Arrows don't really do that, I guess?
One thing I really didn't like visually about it, though, is the arcing path that the arrows took when fired from above. They definitely made a 'homing spell' type arc that no actual arrow would, or even could ever take. I hope the team can smooth that out into more realistic arrow arcs when firing from the high ground in the future.
Otherwise, I really appreciate the shot color changing when I have imbues active. It makes it very easy to notice when I've run out.
That all said, I really hate the idea of 'everyone has a CC cleanse' because of what it means about how much CC you're going to flood the game with. I feel like I'd much rather not overflow with hard or 'firm' CC in that sense. You can solve the problem of "too much CC to still be fun" by letting everyone break out of CCs, but I'd really rather you solve it by reducing how many there are, and letting them be meaningful instead.
But seriously you guys are done. Move on to other things, share your skills, Ranger is amazing.
Obviously the dev who worked on it could have been a rocket scientist or brain surgeon but instead decided to create an epic MMO class. Just as worthy, and even more impressive given the results. Nothing i can say about it would improve the hard work that has obviously gone into it. The only way to know what could be changed at this point is to play the character in the game environment.
I will still compliment specifics though, cause it's earned.
First off, the ability effects. I previously thought that they were too opaque. I mean, honestly, if we even get 30v30 the field is going to be spammed with so many visuals you might not even be able to see the players anymore. Even so, effects are probably the most important thing you can see. It's a huge part of decision making. Having well defined and obvious ability effects helps players get a feel for the game, intuitively. Maybe losing sight of players due to abilities could be a tactic. lol
As for the playstyle, the way the shortbow and regular attack combos work as regular damage apart from the skills is a very engaging way to utilize skill downtime. I can see how the variety of attack speeds and combos from different weapon types (longbows etc.) could be coordinated with other players to find damage spikes and multiplayer synergies.
Also, the weapon skill trees don't really need to be that crazy. We don't need every system to be so complicated that our brains wear out and the game isn't fun. For things that we might be changing often, like weapons, simple is fine.
I love how the abilities create openings for interesting decisions while you are using them. Scattershot is an excellent example of this. AOEs and beam attacks are both useful to have, and they both have a similar function. Marrying the two and creating a conflict between them gives the player a natural choice and constraint at the same time. Such a nice way to build a character. All of the abilities have their own flavour of this, and in a tasteful way that doesn't feel gimmicky.
By the end of of the stream the ranger really felt complete. Looking forward to seeing how this gets balanced with the other archetypes.
Oh yeah, the other archetypes... I guess this dev still has a lot more work to do!
Well have a Merry Christmas, enjoy your holidays, and then get back at it because you guys are building something special here for sure.
I believe Steven mentioned something about Rangers being able to track things. Can they track animals? If they are able to do so are they going to be more fitted for the animal husbandry profession or possibly finding the animals for the breeders? Just curious on that one!
You guys killed it today keep on pushing!
I didn't see any snow physics if there was any, so I was hoped to get info on this, Thanks.
love the skills shown, some very creative, more of that si always welcome for all classes.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Ranger archetype?
If I am playing one probably doing combos that feel satisfaying if I interact with them probably having an ability like the summoners where a group of ranger can track bigger preys like world bosses on the map.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Ranger Archetype Update?
More utility skills would be nice thats all.
Are there similar archetypes you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
Not really but I like this one so far.
Thank you for your hard work.
How do you feel about the Ranger Archetype Update?
Overall positive. Good approach in terms of kit. Nice blend of gap closers/creations. Agree with the approach to have rooted Snipe, headshot...Seems scatter shot and raining death also share root restriction, which is appropriate. I believe most of the ranger skills shoot be rooted, while the mobility damage skills should be restricted more to basic attacks, and lower damage filler skills. So far I don't think there are many negatives at all. Seems in a good place. Being a vet L2 player, the rooted element for these skills is appropriate, especially with the added element of gap creation and closing skills that we will have at our fingertips Although a couple of concerns, which will follow later on.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Ranger archetype?
The current kit looks and seems like it will feel well. Good restrictions, good movement amount, etc. Even though I doubt I'll play an archer during launch, I will definitely try all the classes during A2 and heavily looking forward to it.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Ranger Archetype Update?
I'll avoid talking about balance, as it was obviously heavy loaded in damage and not a balance pass yet. Few points I am worried about though.
A.
As much as I love the airstrike skill, I believe it might be better for the health of the character and kit balance to remove the root capability from it. Use it more as just a positional tool that has damage element if used aggressively. At most, if you have to have a cc element tied to it, a snare Instead would be much more appropriate. Instead, you can add a skill that has a mini jump back of a few feet, while shooting arrows in front of the archer at foot level, acting as a ankle snare that has a very small distal cone in front of the character allowing gap creation as well as a minor movement advantage.
B.
I'm extremely concerned on how action mode will play out. As I still believe there are advantages for tab target players. It's nice seeing the root based skills, and the movement penalty on certain skills while attacking. But considering the nature of forward movement being faster in general compared to backpedaling, it definitely leaves room for exploiting. This fact was emphasized in todays showcase, which showed mobs getting behind the archer, yet Barrage continues to fire behind the player into the giant mushroom. Considering higher ranks of this skill also reduce the movement speed penalty, is quite alarming. Here's a video below as an example...
This is a big concern I've brought up in the past before on these forums in feedback requests. The previous and current iteration solidifying my worries. You can easily run away from locked target, do a snap 180 (maybe even jump before doing so if it removes the backward moving penalty if not enforced in mid-air), cast barrage, turn camera back 180 and move forward, with no back movement penalty while barrage continues to fire behind you. Stack that with the weighted arrows, and you have a pretty exploitive combo. Even doing such without barrage and just jump normal attacking can be exploited in this fashion with the weighted arrows snare status. I can easily see this being a perma kite method when combined with non rooted skills, along with distance creation skills is just busted. Especially considering the shortbow shoots so many arrows as a basic attack....
Where as an action mode player on the other hand, will almost always be facing the target, and backpedaling, only turning said camera away from their target to not be penalized while trying to create distance. Eventually always looking back at the target to continue their damage, as their continued effort to aim is actually a downside and hindrance compared to the tab and lock approach.
As much as I'm an action advocate, I've put my bias away and understand the heavy lean towards a tab focus, as it's honestly more balanced/fair for other players who do not have snap reflexes and FPS capabilities. But in the current iteration, the hybrid approach is actually harmful to action players. So I plead to you...If you are 100% set on this approach, which I believe you are and it's completely justified as it can be more balanced and fair if executed appropriately...Please be aggressive in forward facing restrictions for attacks. If an enemy jumps behind you while using barrage or any other skill, even just auto attacks, cancel the attack with a "Not facing target" message, or something of the like. For at the moment, I can already see every single non rooted skill as exploitable in this manner. There is plenty of footage of skills/attacks hitting targets when you are turned 45-90 degrees away from said target....Which means those who run camera opposite of said target, with flick skill executing, are going to have a huge advantage in combat compared to action mode players. If the game was tab only, I wouldn't even bring this up, as everyone is on the same playing field, but considering you have the option for action mode, it needs to be more than just an afterthought in terms of balancing the two.
C.
In regards to the disengage skill. I was a bit confused on the explanation of opting to use it. Skill tree said 0, as the dev pointed out as well. Steven stated it being an ability option to choose, and it won't end up being in the skill tree. So a bit lost on how this will play out. I really do hope it's something to spec into, as I believe having it be free and left up to the player to choose which they want is not the best approach in terms of fair balancing. Being able to position your self and use the skill effectively is skill based if this opt in option doesn't exist. If the ability to use disengage more freely as a benefit exists, it should cost skill point or something of the like, allowing players who don't get this advantage have an additional point to spend somewhere else. As is, this skill alone in its improved state makes the previous look away attack method even more broken and enforces it further.
D.
Also concerned about the weighted arrow and it's snare element. As I really do hope diminishing returns is heavily emphasized on said arrows, as nothing is more infuriating then not being able to approach a target do to constant roots/snares. I understand diminishing returns and balance isn't implemented yet, but I'll get into why I'm worried as it ties into previous experience below...
Are there similar archetypes you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
My biggest personal fav is Lineage 2. Loving the parallels between the two games in systems, as well as some similarities in the character and game approach. Really do hope we get some skill similarity between L2 and AoC's rogue. In regards to the archer though, was all about normal attacks, charge shots that were rooted, and proper positioning and kiting. Checking all the boxes and improving upon it with what you have going here. L2 was very basic in the skills, nice to see an evolution of it with very similar game system.
My biggest fear however, is this combat will emulate Aion a bit in terms of archer...Being an assassin was very painful dealing with their archer class. Rangers had stun/root/entangle/knockback/sleep arrows. Literally had the capability of rotating skills to the point you could not gap close against them, as they would finish with a sleep arrow, and their cd's would reset during this process to rinse and repeat. Even though I believe I heard knockback arrows would not be a thing for AoC, unless I heard mistakenly, just worried that AoC might delve into this territory, and really hope sleep, root, and knockback arrows do not get added. But I'm worried the amount of snare, roots, and gap creation skills might emulates the same elements in Aion that I despised. Such as the 3 second cooldown on weighted arrows is incredibly short. Watching the dev update, Steven was able to unload a weighted arrows with just full basic attacks, have the cooldown reset on the weighted arrows, and would of been able to queue it up once more, but opted to change into one of the other arrows and fire away, meanwhile the target was still under the influence of snare.
I know we haven't seen a balance past yet. We haven't seen diminishing returns which is on the docket, so I definitely have faith the approach you all will take will have common sense behind it. But I just really do hope we do not see sleep or knockback arrows...as dealing with a class that has insane range damage, along will a full closet of cc and distance skills can end up being one of those fun to play, not fun to play against classes. I get that enough already in League of Legends with all their broken and busted new champs over the past year. Also hoping that Diminishing returns is extremely heavy handed, to the point where shortly into a few weighted arrow shots, that snare becomes noneffective for a short while...
But overall....Definitely a major improvement over the previous showcase. Good job.
Previous comments already covered every positive aspect of the showcase, so i will offer some criticism.
Rangers should definitely not be strong vs Tanks for multiple reasons:
1. Ranger mobility and range already by its nature counter Tanks.
2. The idea that arrows fly through shield+full plate armor is heavily immersion and logic breaking.
3. If you insist on Ranger having armor penetration, it should be limited to the Longbow only.
This direction seems to heavily destroy the class fantasy of a Tank and it's usefulness in PVP.
Tanks should not be vulnerable to physical damage period. Only magic.
If a Tank can be killed in a matter of seconds from range in a PVX game, then no one will choose to play it.
This concludes my take on this showcase.
The "machine-gun" skill
The machine-gun-like speed was very immersion breaking, I hope it will be slowed down to 2-3 arrows per second max.
The trap
The trap was too big and visible. I think it'd be better to make it slightly smaller. Also, one interesting mechanic would be to make it less visible the further away you are from it, and after a certain distance fully invisible. This way it could be still dodge-able, but you'd have to pay extra attention. That fits my hunter trap fantasy better.
Thank you for the showcase of the Ranger.
Overall Design:
Looks good, however depending on how other classes are balanced later on it might need some changes especially to the tab targeting skills like Headshot and Snipe.
Ability Feedback:
Snipe and Headshot: Overall good idea, however both skills are basically the same animation with different color. Additionally as they are targeted, it is impossible to evade these in an open field fight as you have to break sight with the ranger to stop the damage. I would prefer it if these skills would work in a way that you can walk away from the direction that they are aimed in and thereby evade them without them always hitting you.
Thundering shot: Similar to Snipe and Headshot, I would prefer if you could evade it. To that end i would have like it to be an ability that can be aimed at a specific location on the ground with an indicator to aim roughly the size of the trap indicator. This would allow enemy players to evade it but allow for zoning with it as the explosion happens after the arrow lands on the ground.
Bear Trap: good overall, however it looks too large, maybe change the way it looks, and also make it a bit less visible for enemies.
Raining Death: Very nice design, love it.
Disengage: Good skill to get some distance, i like how it interacts with the environment.
Scatter shot: Very nice design, this allows enemy players to evade by moving out of the targeted area and allows the ranger to use it as large area or small area skill shot. Very good, this is the type of gameplay that makes the class interesting.
Airstrike: Very nice design, CD of 16 seconds as shown in the fight against the spiders might be a bit much, but this can be balanced later on. Otherwise this skill is great and i love to see more like it in the future.
Marks: Very nice idea to allow you to use different approaches on different enemy builds. Maybe give some additional sound effects on cast and change it from raven to something like hawk as ravens are not really predators of the sky.
Lastly, make it so that skills can only hit what is in front of the ranger, in the fights some arrows went behind steven when he moved, which looked bad and is also a bad design as it reduced counterplay as enemies will see you run away but then get damaged anyway even tho you are not facing them.
Thank you again for the nice showcase, I look forward to alpha 2 testing!
How do you feel about the Ranger Archetype Update?
Overall a good showcase. I'm aware that you're supposed to be level 7 so wouldn't have all these spells - but the toolkit looks good. What I would like to know is of all the spells available, how many could we potentially get towards max level? Are there certain combinations of spells you had which we couldn't have, or is it pretty flexible?
The combat actually looked more enjoyable. I'd like to give the enemies a bit more reliability with hitting their skills. For example, the Spider's web attack didn't look like it was consistently hitting, i.e. it was too easy to dodge. Maybe too big a ramp up time. You want the attacks to be challenging to avoid so that it feels rewarding when you do. Appreciate it's not an enemy AI showcase but figured i'd squeeze it in.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Ranger archetype?
If the classes are going to have varied toolkits, where you make different builds and see different variants of the Ranger - that is a pretty promising prospect. You don't want too much build diversity as it becomes hard to balance; but enough that we're not all pigeonholed into meta. Balance is for later, but I suppose we can talk about build quantity and build quality - find that balance.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Ranger Archetype Update?
Pros
I like how you're offering some talentable choices for quality of life. I.e. with disengage. Personally i'd like the challenge of learning to use Disengage with just the reverse jump similar to WoW - but being able to use a talent to make it more flexible/easy to use is interesting. Disengage looks a bit clunky of an animation, maybe the launch/landing needs to look a bit smoother but that'll come with Polish I hope.
Environment - I love jumping puzzles and vistas. Please continue to add these different paths which allow you to climb and leave a little tidbit - a great view, some lore or a small event. It will flesh out your world and reward curiosity.
Targeting zones - love the flexible targeting methods you have i.e. click for wide, hold to hone in. And it being client side, if that has positive performance implications that i've read from other users; then
Cons
The normal attacks are just too quick. I would even half the speed. You have an ability called Rapid Fire - save those bursty arrows for that; but i'd tone the normal attacks quite a bit. The effects are a bit much and it feels like an attack on the senses. I think you need to find that balance between "this is cool" and "my screen is blowing up with a million arrows from a Ranger Ambush). I couldn't tell the difference visually from the extra combo talents since it all just merged into a flurry.
If the long bow will have weighty 1.5-2s attack timers, then perhaps the shortbow can have one attack per 0.5s as a baseline. If you increase the combo to 6, squeeze 2 shots in that same 1.5-2s cycle. Accomplish the same thing without the chaos. Damage numbers won't also be nutty then!
Neutral
Got this section where it's more like I want more information.
Talent trees - good to finally see this. The design intent is there as you mentioned you don't want too much linearity i.e. just increasing dmg or reducing cooldowns. This is GOOD. The video didn't demonstrate very well how choice and limitation will work since it looked like he could access the whole tree eventually; I assume, and hope - this is not the case.
Weapon Trees - Even for rangers, I assume design will change, but I hope it looks more like a tree with the spread and choices that the class tree has. I suppose there has to be a balance between overcomplicating systems since combat is only starting to flesh out; but even if the choices aren't huge - just make sure there is choice and down the line, make sure MOST of them are viable. So many games have dead builds and often nerf, but rarely buff the weakest outliers - a massive flaw in modern balancing. Not a concern in Alpha - but please just have it in mind to think not only about the strong outliers, but the weak ones too.
Summary
I enjoyed the stream and learning more. I think what i'm interested in knowing going forward is how your netcode will handle the massive strain that A2 will no doubt put on your servers. Don't underestimate how freaking big the initial rush is going to be - you know your A2 sale numbers and i'm pretty sure A1 pales in comparison. I'd ramp up the spot testing numbers as high as you possible can before launching A2.
Edit: I want to piggyback from @Liniker 's comment about time to kill. Yes we are not thinking about balance, but the time to kill at least against players was VERY QUICK and I also hope for next month's showcase, that you tone it down to closer expected figures.