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
This looks like Steven just used his dev perks to ignore cd and costs for the purposes of showing the boss and additionally keeping all the alpha 1 testers in the fight. Keep in mind they are respecting OUR time of the viewers. if they failed to kill it in the first play through and had to repeat it multiple times it would make the showcase too long. they clearly wanted to tease some of the loot. Steven also had God mode on for his character so that they could have a consistent camera lens on the fight, and so that steven could totally stress free troll the team of course. lol
1.The fire within the fire pits looks too intense for the slight wind being shown.
2. The fire on the fire elementals looks non existent, looking like floating rocks.
3. The tanks blue flag ability needs to be dimmed down, can bearly see past it.
4. Aggro ranges seemed almost non existent.
5. Firebrands entrance was underwhelming, no fire? But also he just sat their, movement around the area would make it feel a whole lot better.
6. His body disappeared so quickly after.
7. Walking up and down stairs near the entrance, the camera tracking looked a bit clunky.
The fight music put me to sleep.
The overall sound design of attacks / dragon wings flapping / charging , was severely lacking impact
The fight itself, the mechanics are enough for a campaign entry level world boss.
(most people here expected a 40 man raid dungeon boss with full scale mechanics )
However it did not feel "epic" to watch.
The tuning was off (dmg/healing/endless ressing) and the dragon itself felt spongy (lack of soundeffects, lack of animations)
5/10 First impression.
Secondly, combat looked too static from Cleric PoV. I wish it was ranger or warrior PoV for longer times.
Other than above I have below points:
1. Elites did not feel elite while watching those earlier fights. Those monsters felts like their attack/ability movement is at half speed or low frames. I expects mobs to be more pro-active/reactive.
2. When dragon spawns, it just felt weird that it was just sitting there in a docile way waiting for people to group up get ready for raid, instead being pissed that its egg is stolen. Like it should stay in the sky roaming trying to search for limited range/roaring/blowing random fire showing rage , forcing players to build groups for raid far away.
3. As dragon blows fire, it should have some left over fire decals in the external part of the battle area, makes it feel real battlefield OR have a fire ring around the battle area so people have some jeopardy to kill the dragon and not just flee the PoI.
4.Under certain conditions like less than 50% health on frontline/tanks/warriors, dragon tail/claw swipe should knock them back in the air or flying air if they tail/claw swipe connect with the player.
5. I liked the mechanics of the dragon when health dropped below 20%/. I just wish those mechanics started earlier like around 75% or 50%.
6. I thought there was going to be a Dragon form change, based on steven's twitter post.
7. Include particle effect/environment effects , like skybox changes, surrounding Fire effects as the raid phases progress. Similar to how environment change when tower of Carphin story arc started. Even the particle effects of the dragon fight in A1 with small cinders would look good or occasional steam like effect to show a hot location.
8. Potentially culling particle effects on ability animations. For example, that overhead blue sheild of tank, is too opaque to see any players below it.
9. Boss background music should change intensity according to the phases, get more intense when we are closer to killing the boss.
That's all for now.
Regards,
Hrykaan
Pros
- I think Visuals looked good for the State the Game is in also we could not see perfectly because of the Suny time of Day ( The Bloom is mayby a little too much).
- I think Combat also is showing a lot of Progress and i like where its heading.
- The Story seems cool for the Dungeon
- Including multiple POVs in the Video
So now what i think needs work
Cons
- Some of the Ability Sounds seemed very Loud and anoying for example this wierd zirkle steven put down numerous times in the Dungeon. (I understand that some Abiliies carry impact with them and therefore the Sound like the Hammer Ability but for the Zirkle it seemed not right.
- I think the Cidadell was a little bit to Short. It was basically a 10min Fight to get to the Real Fight wich was the World boss.
- What i like to see would be a little more Mechanics for the Dungeon for example everyone move in this Circle so the Ghost-Lady doesnt fear u into a big Pack of Mobs for Example. I think it was long Fight just Fighting Trashmobs.
- I would love to see more Challange in the Fights for the Citadell and the World Boss. Steven was basically hard AFK the whole Time and u manged to do the Dungeon just fine with just Off-Heals i believe. But i dont know how this is supposed to scale since it was only lvl 20 i think and also i dont have any Idea how good the Gear was u Guys was wearing. But my Impression was it was a little to easy and short.
Overall a W Showcase in my Opinion more of that pls.
If anyone from the Ashes Team actually Read this thank u for listening. If u just type a single letter under this i would be very happy.
Have a good Day
First, a few things I'd like to highlight as positives:
So far, the environment art look good. I particularly like the material work on the various stone textures, and the overall density of the foliage. The various patches of ivy, overgrown planters, and grass growing up from gaps in the stone are very effective at making the area appear dilapidated and disused.
I liked the VFX work on the fire dragon. The breath attack was very satisfying, and I liked the gradient from blue to orange flame, and the heat distortion effect. It reminded me a jet engine with afterburners on.
Lighting looks good, especially in shadowed areas which are illuminated by bounce light. I'm assuming this is using Lumen in UE5?
And a few points of critique:
While the volumetric haze effect looks good, right now it's quite strong, and I am finding that it's obscuring some environment details, and hurting readability of the scene. I think this could be more effective if the strength of this effect was tied to time of day (representing early morning mist), or tied to weather or other temporary environmental effects, rather than being always present.
While ability VFX in general look good individually, many of these are flashy, bright, and highly saturated. When many different abilities are being used at once, it makes the battle status hard to parse visually. This was especially true in the confined gatehouse environment towards the beginning of the stream.
I think it would be cool if upon the dragons death, when the corpse falls to the group it could do damage to anyone under it. The Dragon really was an awesome sight, and I feel like this would be a good way to give it more weight.
A part of me also feels like there could be some kind of knockback to the people closest to it when doing its tail/claw sweep. Especially if those attack patterns are determined by the number of people that have gather around it.
I would have to re-watch closely in order to give feedback on mechanics, etc.
I would like to see more of a material drop from Dragons than ready made equipment. It would be great if RAID bosses like Dragons would contribute to the player economy and would funnel into receipes which could make those items. If not outright all, it would be great to have at least some special matrerial dropping like a scale maybe
The lighting still needs a lot of work. Specifically, how it interacts with the volumetric fog and godrays. For much of the stream I was straining my eyes to see what was going on behind the sun brightened fog. Simply turning down the intensity of those effects should help greatly.
There are still quite a few abilities that are just too bright and I'm hoping we see tuned down brightness values soon as I know this feedback has been given many times before.
The overgrown nature of the citadel looked fantastic. In the area where the lady channeled it was very plain and unfinished. A lot of places looked far too clean for a structure that has been around for many many years.
The dragon visuals were fantastic. Fire was a little too fast in some instances but overall really impressive visually.
GAMEPLAY FEEDBACK
The citadel portion of the steam/questline was far too rushed. We're talking about summoning an end game world boss here, not some small side quest. Walking in the front door and doing a couple quick wave events that offered no challenge at all is far from rewarding.
The mobs in the citadel seemed to be no challenge at all. Their AI needs work and reactivity to getting hit etc needs to be increased greatly. The overall threat of 2+ star mobs needs to be upped a lot.
During the summoning ritual there was little threat imposed on the summoning lady. All mob aggro should be focused on her and it should be up to the players to displace them and kill them before she dies.
Combat resurrection needs a massive nerf. Makes fights like these far too easy.
Overall the dragon boss fight seems like a pretty solid introductory raid. There are a good amount of mechanics to learn and some required teamplay. I feel like with a couple good healers this raid would be a breeze.
My most important feedback for the dragon fight is this:
1. There absolutely needs to be more character reactivity to the dragon's tail and paw swipes. Just seeing his tail and claws go straight through people without knocking them down or throwing them backwards feels and looks terrible. This is a giant immensely strong dragon. Getting hit by him in any way should cause catastrophic effects.
2. I saw a wide variety of mechanics which is a fantastic thing, but many of them were only used once or twice during the entire fight. Increase the frequency of usage for all mechanics to bring more variety to the fight.
Overall a good stream. Just a little rushed. Dragon looked cool and the small part of Steel Bloom we saw was pretty visually interested. Just a bit too clean in some places.
Now for the feedback on “on the Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview”
Feedback on: “on the Citadel of the Steel Bloom”:
-At the point where the battle is over and the Lady of the Rose appears, it would be nice if she just didn't just appear automaticly but player had to do an interaction, such as a joint summon.
-During the two (“Lady of the Rose” & “He-Who-Beguiles) channeling, I would apprecheatel if there was a reason for them to just stand around, outside of the channeling. Maybe have a shield appear around them so it's clear why they're can't be attacked or something.
Otherways the goal of the event could be to kill the channeling deamon (He-Who-Beguiles) and untill u have not done this more mob waves will apear.
Feedback on: “ Firebrand Preview”:
- At the beginning when the dragon appears, it would be cool if it didn't just stand around, but actively attacked the players coming out of the “Citadel of the Steel Bloom”, they stole its egg after all.
- During the fight, the dragon often repeated the same attacks one after the other. The attack in which the dragon flies upwards and breathes fire would also be a lot more impressive if it didn't always fly in a straight line. I also think the fire jet can be a bit bigger, compared to the one it spits on the ground, the one from the air is a bit puny. Also the Fire on the ground can be a bit bigger.
-The dagron also could knock people over when he is ranning over them, i mean he is huge!
- The dragon looks a bit stiff, maybe you could add extra movements between the attacks to give the impression that it's more of a wild animal in a rage.
1. It's just Alpha, so I'm sure this will be added later, but it needed more AFK motion. Most of the time before engaging the fight, it just sat there, until Steven got closer and it started chomping the air like a dramatic hungry cat lol Not complaining, was funny lol and people always compare Dragons to cats. It just felt very.. out of place sitting there unmoving.
2. I'd love to see the enemy show damage on the model. Example, when you had the dragon down to 60k health, it should show maybe torn wings, or blood. Something. When the Dragon was defeated, it looked the exact same as when it arrived. I get it's not like that in all mmos, just a thing I noticed and always wanted.
3. Oh and not really about the dragon or citadel, but I loved how the resurrection looked. Maybe we'll see cosmetics in the shop that can enhance them...? lol
If you want to hunt Pirates and make some money defending the innocent on the open seas, send me a message.
First off, The Lighting is kinda overbearing and annoying. Steven starting into the sun and dust for the first 5 minutes was not a good idea to show off the visual appeal of the game. Just getting that nitpick out of the way. (After watching the rest, lighting looked much better.)
Sadly, the beginning section of the showcase, inside the fortress, felt a little generic. For two reasons:
There's a Bunch of Lore, but none of it is interesting or matters in any way. It was implied that a story arc is in effect, but we do not get to see that at all. Just looks like a normal quest through a small section of a fortress. (The fortress looks dope though.) But I'm sure some of that feeling is because I don't know any of the connecting lore/relevance of the area. Maybe the lore/quest/story will be more compelling in-game/in-context.
There's no excuse for The Trash-Mob Gameplay though. Y'all start by pulling 4 mobs at a time with 2 clerics, but take hardly any damage, even with Steven (Cleric) ignoring the combat half the time. No threat at all, just a bunch of trash mob damage sponges that take a long time to kill. Then the "defend" event starts, but it's more of the same. The "ancient" big bad guy just appears with no fanfare, and you kill even more damage sponges. The only threat seems to be the poorly-visible fire puddles? (Truly a staple of generic MMOs). Basically the whole thing can be boiled down to "The group killed 10 waves of mobs, and almost died to fire once or twice." Nothing else caught my attention.
Edit: On second watch, it seems there were some mobs doing targetted attacks that chunked people to low HP. So at least the healer had something to do. Clearly I'm being a little too harsh on this section, but idk.
Edit 2: Maybe what I'm trying to say is that the mob mechanics (if they existed), like interrupts or dodge-able charge attacks, were not telegraphed well enough to notice. And the damage from them (while high in some cases) was ultimately non-lethal, despite the chaos. So I have trouble imagining that a coordinated group would struggle with it at all.
In the end, it doesn't super matter. It's fine if some of the PvE content is generic hack-and-slash. As long as the basic class gameplay is fun, and the content is part of something much more interesting, like the build up to a raid encounter. Which was true in this case. Okay no more edits.
On to some more positive feedback...
The UI continues to look better and better. Kudos on the raid frames in particular. If the parties were sorted by archetype it would be perfect.
The Raid Itself looks pretty fun. The damage and mechanics look threatening without being unfair. Almost everything is telegraphed well enough to allow some ability to dodge or mitigate damage, without being trivial. And there's a good variety of different boss moves. The side-to-side breath cone looked pretty dangerous, compared to the others. (It's high damage, and many ranged classes will have no way to avoid it, aside from dashing through to take 1 less tick of damage.) But I think that's good, to have one really scary attack that pressures the healers.
The only thing I would change about the fight is adding an explosion vfx to make it more clear when those bomb debuffs are blowing up and killing people. (Noticed it happening a lot, but had to rewatch to figure out why.)
And lastly, this is really unimportant, but The Stat Names on gear could use some work. Seeing "rating" at the end of every stat line on the loot was kinda ridiculous. I don't know how all the stats work, or what the character sheet looks like, but surely there's a better way to explain it without being so verbose.
Alright well, the good thing about my side of the feed back is that a lot of it is stuff you probably, as developers, want to do and haven't gotten to yet. Assume that while I might get a little harsh here, I know this is a work and progress and am mostly hoping I am aiding some of the designers here that wish they could put more sauce on this pasta.
Assume everything listed here is a positive thing I liked unless it has 'negative' or 'mixed' tagged in front of it:
History about the Forsaken Blade
The fact that being at the tail end of the story arc made an impregnable fortress open for infiltration. I like this detail.
The forsaken blades using the cultists. Potential ecological/socially dynamic interplay between various non-player actors and forces.
A vague tell of what the relic is by what benefit it is giving the entrenched residents of the fortress
Order of the Steelbloom and Lady of the Rose lore could be cool. I like most of the details given here. I also liked the quest structure - fight through to ghost spawn point, spawn ghost, that spawns insurgent waves of npc's trying to stop you, safely escort ghost, have ghost do something and support ghost while fending off waves. However this was probably the spot I had the most critique and concern on.
I really like the premise of this quest over all. I think there is a lot here story wise. I also think the ghost being helped is a really good premise for 'epic' tier missions where you learn more about the history of stuff through these 'echoes of the past' npc characters. I also think there is a lot of potential here from the 'cultist' and 'bad guy' side of things not touched on.
Getting the dragon egg and it having the immediate consequence of revealing your location to firebrand now that it has been removed from it's safe is great
Overall I had a hard time believing in the presentation this time for a very simple reason. There was no PvP and therefore this felt more like a table top session than what Ashes claims it's going to be. If you all believe in your PvP vision and think the fights are cool in the context of PvP you should maybe actually show us what big story pieces like this look in context of the actual intended gameplay. For now, I'll assume this was just the cinematic trailer rather than the gameplay trailer.
Before going out of dungeon, you could have used some sound design and use dragons roars to notify player that are about to engage the dragon or even better-Have him fly by above you.
Love the use of debris in boss fight. Knockbacks would have add more to a fight, especially when fighting boss as big as this one. Hell, even dragons fire should push you a bit.
I've always maintained that AoE's and lingering fire on the ground need to damage friendlies and this is a classic example of why, their is no reasonable way to distinquish fire that will burn you from fire that is 'friendly'.
It certainly did feel like their was no way to 'lose' this fight (to the dragon) given that ability. And that certainly looks like it will cheapen victory a lot if that is the norm.
That's unlikely, because other players who intend to assist Firebrand will be able to risk corruption to prevent raises happening at the preferred/good timings.
That would be one of their #1 priorities in the battle, actually, because they can rely on Firebrand to do the damage, and then move away (giving the attackers an opportunity to revive the fallen). They then have to be on point to prevent the resurrections, but they don't need to be in Firebrand's AoE at the previous part where people were actually dying.
Fights like this are supposed to be hard-fought between two groups of players. Making the resurrection too difficult would remove the entire challenge/interplay of the PvP.
Ok that just seems to be you agreeing with me that you can't lose "To the Dragon" only to other players. But you can lose to other player irregardless of the combat rezing, if the other group can kill you and not die themselves then they win even with zero rezing, and the time that rezing takes any competent group would never allow thouse rezes to complete.
How about this, every time the Dragons kills a player (and perhapse devours the body in a sick animation) it heals a giant chunk. Now you can't just cheese the fight with endless rezing or throwing a zerg army at it. Players killed by other players have no effect, so they can fight over who gets to fight the dragon without directly healing it.
What I liked:
What could be improved (buckle in....)
I felt the citadel was lackluster, and frankly- a little disappointing for a dungeon...
-- The mobs, other than the golem, all looked too similar (they had minimal distinction between their presentation). I understand they are fire/lava baddies, but their models need to be more distinct, and their animations and move-sets need to make them visually unique- otherwise, they appear to be blobs of lava dudes mindlessly fighting the players- which is dull and boring. We've seen this a million times. (see image for reference)
-- The objectives of the Citadel seemed so 'dry'.
" Go to place X and kill Y "
Why aren't there any dungeon puzzles? hidden chests that players need to find? Jumping puzzles to utilize the verticality of the map/world and show off the dungeon design? It's 2024, I think we can get more creative than just killing X things in a dungeon. Most modern MMORPGs have that in an open-world cave.
Even the "guard" objective, with the queen spirit ( I think?), seemed so basic and boring. The bad guys just spawned out of the perimeter and mindlessly ran into the players. There were no avoidable mechanics, and little context as to why we needed to protect the spirit and ignore the giant evil-looking demon creature. And there was hardly any build-up that seemed meaningful. At the very least the bad guys could have made a better entrance, like they did with the dragon boss.
MASSIVE PVE (Raid boss fights) suggestion:
Please. PLease. PLEASE! Make the status effects on the players more identifiable. Even though they are nice little icons by the health bars, I am NOT focusing on THAT during combat. Can't we use effects and animations to signify status-effects like: Tripped, stunned, bleeding, burning, frozen, etc.? Many MOBAs already do this as a baseline since combat pacing is so fast, and people aren't always tracking their eyes back and forth across their monitors, constantly, for status information (especially if you are a support class).
Finally (maybe nitpicking here), Why doesn't the boss Dragon displace users? Why isn't the environment/setting playing a role in the battle? Seems pretty underwhelming that there's very little risk to fighting a Dragon in the OPEN FIELD, where you can't be trapped or hindered. It also doesn't allow players to use verticality to their advantage/disadvantage. There's fall risk to climbing up, but protects you from sneak attacks (PVP), etc. Why can't the dragon (upon entry) create a gigantic crater, where you fight? or how about the landing impact generates giant pillars of fire that trap the players into a fire colosseum of some sort? that would be so much more exciting than...."dragon fly in. dragon land and sits there waiting to be attacked...people attack it in the open...dragon then does moves..."
Overall, the update was nice. I would rate it a 6.5/10. There were moments of greatness (especially during the dragon fight), but there were many (more than usual) moments where I felt like the quality was rushed just to make it onto the stream. And because of this, it seemed very lackluster or even boring. These moments are not up to the quality I know the Intrepid team is capable of producing- especially if you have witnessed all the past streams as I have. I think when players think of modern dungeons, they expect more than just kill objectives. Adding a few puzzles or search quests would elevate and diversify the experiences, and would keep players engaged and cooperating outside of JUST combat. It would incentivize player parties to invite not just combat-skilled players, but perhaps other players that provide critical thinking, puzzle-solving, and perhaps mobility-skilled players etc.
Hopefully this feedback was constructive. I tried not to be overly "negative" but I believe the feedback is fair and hopefully it improves the game, somehow. Cheers. Keep up the great work, and thank you for keeping us updated!
-G
So here are things i think could have improvement.
World-aligned texture and normals.
on 11:00 and 11:26 in the preview video there are spells stretching vertical on to the walls.
having the textures/normal world-aligned would make it look better? or have it fade-out vertical to the world-aligning.
Fire pits
the fire animation looks good but copy/paste and have one play one 50% speed makes it looking more normal?
Target Icon
Maybe make an improved targeting system by having Target bucket system.
- number 1 is that red axe.
- number 2 is a second target icon.
- 3,4 enz are a small red dot too the other party/raid assigners (not visible to the rest of the party/raid).
- and automate the main target to the second when it dies.
- also have an icon for target of target on the nameplate so you can see where the leader is looking ad so hes able to explain things easily.
- and have the raid assistants/tanks color coded so there using other colors for marking.
personally, the target icon looks good but i think it can be better.and for the assigner himself a number (this way other assigners see a colored dot and know that target is already been taken care of).
Bye,
Things i would like to see :
-Add phase at 1/4 increments ie: 75%-50%-25% health. Maybe a little added spice to each mob phase , like different sweeping attack combos from the dragon at each increment, becoming increasingly difficult per 25%.
-You can also do soft enrage increments , say the Dragon absorbs 5 adds on the first wave it will make his fire nova ability tough to deal with and say the 2nd wave (50%) if he manages to absorb another 5 it will make it very tough to heal through his fire nova. Same with wave 3 (25%), but at this point, healing through his fire nova will mostly likely be a wipe or near impossible.
-Also I noticed someone stated the adds shouldn't be static , I agree but with the amount it would be hectic to tank them all. If this were the case maybe reduce the amount to 5 ? Which would make it 5 per tank. I also think there should be some sort of tank swap mechanics not to limit the tanks needed for fights.
-I feel like doing phases like this would avoid him just being a damage sponge. Just a thought !
Ohhh, and it would be cool if those fire pools would make the water boil and bubble if they are cast under the water.
I am also curious about how revives will work. Will these be limited? I do like the risk factor of only having so many. These should definitely be limited.
Mobs and boss look like target practice.
-Mobs stand on spot and do not have any activity, just idly being there, is there some purpose for them to be there? we have like 30 years of development of mob ai in single player games, can we get at least 5% of it into this? can they move around or do something
-Mobs are intentionally blind, like i get we dont want to pull whole castle of mobs but like at least give them viewing range and angle, you literally cut mob 10m in front of another and there is no reaction, even short sited fire demon would see that there is 8 people infront of him fighting
-what is the point to the mobs? why have fire monsters in green castle full of water? put skeletons there, this just feels so out of place and it is even harder to think of some idling animation for them or having them do some non combat animation since there is no reason for them to exist.. and if you have them in the castle at least have the walls chared or burn the green stuff, still in the first part of caste, based on environment skeletons would fit more
-boss is another static target; why was the dragon even there, it flew in, cool looking, but than just stands. I get that you want the player to start the fight ok, then have the dragon fly around and spit flames until player is ready to engage. And again why is it there, is it for the egg, then it should be pissed and do stuff and damage because it is pissed. Is it there because it just lives there, have him sleep or drink water or walk around, this just feel soooo, unrefined and "old".
My conclusion is, loved it but mobs AI felt like something from first WOW, no life, just target practice dummies.
FYI created account for this message.. Good luck, cant wait to play this game
Event feedback
The event felt a little simple. Hopefully it gets more fleshed out. One way I would like to see it is trough conflict. For instance there is a channeling battle that happens. I would hope that there would be some path that some players could take that in this event they would be sided with the acient, and not the ghost channeler (maybe some past quest or event decisions, or maybe enemy nodes don't want that channeling to succeed cause the event failing would cause more damage to their enemies)
Mob feedback
I like the TTK of elite mobs, I like that they are seemingly doing a decent amount of damage. I would like to see more mechanics out of the mob that make you move your character. The fights seems pretty static at this moment and most damage from the mobs seemed like unavoidable. Give some big damage abilities to the mbos that can be avoided with proper reaction (moving out of the way, interrupts, stunning the mobs, etc)
Boss feedback
I like that the boss makes an entrance. I would like to see it doing something and not just standing there wainting for a fight though. Maybe he torches the citadel looking for the person carrying the egg he's after. Maybe he starts attacking the players around the citadel trying to get the egg. Maybe he starts attacking the biggest node around. This way, you give incentives for random people around the area to join together and fight the boss instead of it being big guilds content only. You can even use that event mechanic that puts random people in groups and raids to help these random people deal with the dragon.
I think the fog was a bit too much in this showcase so it was hard to see the boss and the area around, but I think since the fight happens in a dusty pit and its a fire dragon, make the dust and soot and smoke build up making it harder to see as the fight drags longer.
I don't know what other circunstances you can summon this dragon, but if there is a chance you fight this or other dragons in their lair, consider adding lair actions in the encounter.
Another thing I would like to see from mobs and bosses behaviors is switching between abilities depending on the scenarios. For instance if the players are all close around the dragon, he uses the rings of fire more often. If the players try to stay far away from the dragon, the dragon uses fire breath more often instead.
I would also like to see more cc abilities from the dragon. the tail swap knocking you down, a body slam stunning an area, a wing attack knocking back players, etc. Ideally these abilities would be telegraphed abilities that would allow players to dodge the incoming ability to avoid damage and cc therefore adding more movement in the overall encounter.
General combat feedback
I don't like the battle ressurection spam. I think ressurrection abilities should have really long cooldowns and be used as an emergency button and not as a main mechanic in combat.
I would also see more abilities from encounters in general that require you to react to these abilities to avoid either crowd control or big damage. I think there is an element of reactive gameplay missing in these showcases.
The environment is always pretty good and not an area of concern (from everything i've seen for the last several years). I feel the goal of variation, complexity & scale of the play spaces being of the upmost importance to making immersive and interesting environments is understood by the devs, so i'm not worried.
I find the colours overall to still feel washed out and bland. I've said before for an UE5 game, this doesn't look as impressive as pretty much all other UE5 games i've seen (and i watch in 4k on YT).
The spell effects still feel too overpowering; i will keep hammering on this point forever: tone it down a few notches & add spell visual progression so things only get messy in the late game (and hopefully only for really powerful spells!)
Fine details looked really good as usual so keep it up!
UI needs to be spiced up & given some flavour! it's a bit too minimalist - but it does look clean!
Gameplay
The group combat looks decent but animations looked choppy (I know you've acknowledges this being network related but still needs to be mentioned).
The mechanic for the Lady of the Rose event was extremely simplistic and uninspired, as are the names of many things i've seen in the game thus far. The quest should have involved more exploration of the space and not just running up the stairs a few yards ahead of where you summoned the Lady? Maybe you had to find clues or a relic within the Citadel that you had to bring somewhere to summon her.
This is being touted as a 'next generation' MMO and to me there are some non negotiables in relation to gameplay details that need to addressed: MOB AI needs to just be a lot better & more dynamic. Monsters just standing still is what you expect in an MMO from early 2000s; give them character and life! have them interact with one another and move around at least a bit if they aren't supposed to be patrolling. During combat have them CC intelligently and move around make tactical decisions so you actually have to pay attention and it doesn't become too mindless too soon. Each type of mob should have a distinctive personality ie. casters generally try and keep distance and maybe snare melee or players approaching them more often, while rogue-like mobs go for ranged players more often and have anti-mage spells.
Create challenge though complex & dynamic MOB AI and not just hp/dmg. Give them a good amount of different abilities (take some from the player abilities you dont have to make all brand new ones!) so they aren't just all damage sponges you afk dps. THAT is next generation enemy gameplay!
The Dragon visually was great and its abilities were a good start for an alpha. I think you guys can make the fight so much more intense and immersive and truly next generation by:
adding more abilities, especially ones that force non tanks to move around that aren't just circular wave AOEs from the boss
Making more use of the environment to truly immerse the player and the fantasy of the dragon: a dragon wing gust ability that knocks players/trees in its AOE way back would be amazing.
More phase transition abilities (every 25%) to make the fight harder with more interesting/complex (not contemporary WoW raiding complex where addons are necessary but more than what was shown) abilities.
Visual feedback as bosses transition to other phases; the dragon should run and cast abilities faster, maybe part of it catches fire as it becomes enraged or something. Its fire breath could get bigger/more intense.
I know its an MMO and you can't make Elden Ring bosses, but study their bosses and take inspiration from them because that's peak boss gameplay. Next generation means pushing the boundaries of what's been done before in a generation - show us!
Overall I thought this preview was okay (about 5/10).
I know its Alpha and the team is still being assembled in some sense, but IMO the above is what is absolutely necessary to create WHOA factor gameplay experiences that can truly be dubbed next gen. In terms of visual feedback from the environment and gameplay mechanics, I truly hope the goal before launch is to enhance everything a few fold to truly set it apart from MMOs that came out 20 years ago.
You noted that all the enemies present were two-stars or higher, definitely elite mobs, but they didn't seem to have any special mechanics. If they did, they didn't affect the group much other than one person getting occasionally blasted. Further, there wasn't much effort in terms of positioning, and even when Steven (a cleric) face pulled a bunch, they barely seemed to hurt him. Either the enemies are very underwhelming, or the party is too over leveled to show off this content - neither is a good look.
There was a lot of talk about the Lady of the Rose being a great warrior, but she kinda just stood there and channeled. I feel like this undersells her character as any kind of threat, and the same goes for the demon that spawned in the ritual - it seemed to not be much threat to her or anyone. It seems like there's no real commitment here to threat, if there's that many enemies around her with AOE attacks that close by, I would expect her to take more damage and be under real threat.
Speaking of which, no matter how much Steven or anyone else healed, the enemies didn't go after them, even though DPS+tank were not specifically pushing for it. Healing having no downside in a PVE environment makes combat stale and, again, either the party is too over leveled, or there's something fundamentally wrong about how Threat is being spread out, and neither option is a good look.
On to the dragon. Animations and model look great, SFX are pretty good. But actually fighting it...there was a push to talk about how this one would be different and more complex than what you would expect, and I feel like it didn't deliver. This is not more complex than the fire or poison dragons from Alpha 1 in any significant capacity, and I was hoping for something more after hearing Tradd and Chong talk it up so much. The rings in particular seemed underwhelming in terms of overall effect, as did the shockwaves. This is another case where I can't tell if the raid was over leveled or the dragon is underwhelming, but despite poor positioning, a lot of people definitely managed to not take much damage from these even with no Bard Shield.
You noted you had two dwarf tanks, but it was difficult to tell who, or what, the dragon was aiming for a lot of the time. The threat reactions from Firebrand are confusing and strange, and while the breath attacks and such make sense to aim with anti Zerg ideals in mind, his basic attacks didn't aim consistently in big contrast to the other enemies who were kind of stuck on certain people, and it concerns me.
Finally, if people who get up from Resurrection only have 50% HP as a downside, the cooldown is way too short. Given how long it takes Firebrand to take anyone down, if this is an expected level to fight Firebrand at, all you need to do is bring 4 or 5 clerics and nobody will ever stay dead, even if they don't have infinite health like Steven. This seems poorly structured and either the person getting up should suffer more consequences, or Resurrection should have a longer cooldown, because as it stands you're setting yourself up for some Zergimg the system despite anti-zerg measures implemented in Firebrand himself.
Overall: this was either poorly presented or there's some serious issues in PVE systems, and I'm really hoping it's the former.
- Unlike another user, I like raid loot, not personal loot
- Firebrand's flame breath vfx looked extremely cool, it reminded me of the dragon breath in Game of Thrones, or of a fairly accurate flamethrower.
- The tank's shield dome ability vfx pretty heavily obscured things
- I like that the dungeon's occupants can change depending on various factors
- I assume the citadel is considered a "pocket dungeon," and acknowledging that we didn't see the whole thing, I felt like there wasn't really a reward for what the party accomplished. Seeing the demon thing simply despawn after the wave event was a little anti-climactic
- Firebrand's mechanics are about what I'd expect from boss mechanics in this day and age, that is, they seemed pretty solid! I liked the part where the raid had to kill a bunch of adds in order to prevent rage stacks, and the fire breath sweep and strafes were super cool.
- Seeing basic glint as a raid-wide roll is a little uninspiring, and is a bit of an extra chore for the master looter to distribute.
- With 40 players on screen, the player health bars above their heads was a bit too obscuring
- The positioning of Firebrand's wings sometimes obscured the camera
- Given all the fire involved, maybe incorporating the big pools of water around the raid area into the mechanics could add an interesting layer. i.e. jump in the water to quench living bomb. Bosses that incorporate the environment in some way are more memorable, such as Heigan the Unclean's Naxxramas Safety Dance mechanic from WoW
- Firebrand's attacks made sounds, but we heard very little sound coming from Firebrand himself. I think dragons should be loud. Fire breath should be accompanied by a roar to really sell the threat. Another idea is that since he's trying to prove himself, maybe he could roar periodically while he's standing around waiting for a raid, audible in a very large area, essentially announcing to the zone that he's ready to fight.