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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.
Feedback: Cleric Perspective
Leukael
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I wanted to provide some notes and feedback from my experience playing this weekend. I'll break it down between Grind/World, Class, Artisan, Dungeon, and PvP feedback.
Grind/World
I played with a group that kept at a decent size (8ish) for the first night. I noticed the last two levels (weapon and class) before getting Refreshing Follow Through and Blessed Weapon that I was so mana hungry that it did not feel good, I felt slow, and it made me think Bard's were tuned a little too far down on Resonant Weapon. Also, I have a great deal of experience playing efficiently in many other mmos, so I'm confident I am not being irresponsible.
I enjoyed the variety of places I found I could grind for a variety of reasons. I do worry players that are not paying attention will dismiss this game as having too little content because they just go to their map and say "me go marker, marker where content lives." However, I love the nuance where you can choose to grind based on your level, what you want from the grind, and who you have with you.
I would like to know if the population density during peak times (played on Resna) was representative the ultimate design goal? If we divided the intended full server pop evenly through every 5 nodes was peak Resna indicative of that goal or were we a little population heavy? The reason I ask is because when a large group of my friends got together and we wanted to do something larger (like a POI dungeon) we found they were already full of multiple different large groups contesting each. I understand the design is to have some friction and fighting. However, it felt like a constant blender of pvp rather than a few decisive battles from time to time to secure your objective.
TLDR Alpha servers felt overly crowded for POIs.
World events near where you are grinding were rewarding enough to pull me from the content I was currently consuming. Commissions still are lacking something in terms of rewards by comparison.
Class
I really enjoyed cleric. I can tell a difference in mana regen this build and the only pain point was the last level or two before Refreshing Follow Through and Bless Weapon. Otherwise, playing a cleric felt in a somewhat healthy place where playing efficiently felt challenging but rewarding. I think now that I've had a chance to experience this I do think I'd like to see some sort of mana reward for some tools in the Cleric's kit.
The place I would add a layer of depth would be Defiant Light. I feel like something should happen if you don't consume the death prevention proc like partial mana return or a cooldown reduction. I lean toward mana return when considering the PvP dimension of this spell. It could also provide bonus Divine Power if the death prevention is not consumed but that feels less exciting to me.
I would like to see Soothing Glow's current additional talent feature where you can stack it should be baked together into the base ability. The second talent should provide a buff to the target's magical defense. This would compliment the tank and help fill a normal logical gap in their usual gear sets.
The two fronts where Clerics absolutely fall short is mobility and a little on CC. I like Wings of Salvation but I want some more choices. On the CC front, I would like to see something that is a bit more in vein for area denial (something like an aura that significantly slowing enemies around the cleric or a knockback.) I think the conflagerate requirement on Condemn, cast time, and length of cooldown feels like one too many a limiter or all are too severe for this CC to be reasonably useful in a PvP environment.
Artisan
On the gathering front, I noticed mining node variety in Winstead (Saturday AM) lacked Ruby. Unsure as to the cause but my guess is the chances of a mining node to change to another type or tier of material might need looking at in the future. Gathering a node without gathering gear/buffs still feel just a little bit too long for my liking. I like the snag something as I adventure and it was just a little too long for me to sneak in as a healer.
On crafting, Farming and how it works with Cooking felt a little long. For reference, Inscription and Alchemy felt good and snappy enough that I was not deterred from continuing to pursue those artisan play loops. Also, unsure as to what is going on with enchanting items above a +3 but it does not work. Sometimes I would start to enchant something and the cast time bar would fill but would not complete. Unsure what is going on. Possibly a bug or I need to build my skill/certificate.
Dungeon
I love having different entrances and hidden rooms. I like that they're big enough to allow for different groups to farm. I like that there are multiple different bosses and even dungeon level monsters outside the dungeon itself for people to do as well (the otters and minotaurs outside Ursine for example.)
PvP Feedback
First, not sure if this is the designed intention but I noticed several people deflagging mid combat and I hope those people report that feature. I also did not create a bug report because there's some split second situations where maybe they were just out of combat again and deflagged. But it felt like people were changing their flag up while in combat which felt like a cheesy way to corrupt someone when you knew you were going to die. Really sucks the fun out of pvp. Otherwise, I am enjoying it thus far and will have more feedback in the future as I continue to play.
Not wiping helps to build experience in this regard FYI.
Misc
Home Emberspring should be kept in. In other games when you don't provide that it can cause players to get stuck in places in which they have no ability to get out of themselves. It puts designers in a spot where it would be hard to ensure to design the game to mitigate that risk. Also, having immunity when loading in both after death and into the game would be greatly appreciated.
I'll post more as it occurs to me. Thanks!
Grind/World
I played with a group that kept at a decent size (8ish) for the first night. I noticed the last two levels (weapon and class) before getting Refreshing Follow Through and Blessed Weapon that I was so mana hungry that it did not feel good, I felt slow, and it made me think Bard's were tuned a little too far down on Resonant Weapon. Also, I have a great deal of experience playing efficiently in many other mmos, so I'm confident I am not being irresponsible.
I enjoyed the variety of places I found I could grind for a variety of reasons. I do worry players that are not paying attention will dismiss this game as having too little content because they just go to their map and say "me go marker, marker where content lives." However, I love the nuance where you can choose to grind based on your level, what you want from the grind, and who you have with you.
I would like to know if the population density during peak times (played on Resna) was representative the ultimate design goal? If we divided the intended full server pop evenly through every 5 nodes was peak Resna indicative of that goal or were we a little population heavy? The reason I ask is because when a large group of my friends got together and we wanted to do something larger (like a POI dungeon) we found they were already full of multiple different large groups contesting each. I understand the design is to have some friction and fighting. However, it felt like a constant blender of pvp rather than a few decisive battles from time to time to secure your objective.
TLDR Alpha servers felt overly crowded for POIs.
World events near where you are grinding were rewarding enough to pull me from the content I was currently consuming. Commissions still are lacking something in terms of rewards by comparison.
Class
I really enjoyed cleric. I can tell a difference in mana regen this build and the only pain point was the last level or two before Refreshing Follow Through and Bless Weapon. Otherwise, playing a cleric felt in a somewhat healthy place where playing efficiently felt challenging but rewarding. I think now that I've had a chance to experience this I do think I'd like to see some sort of mana reward for some tools in the Cleric's kit.
The place I would add a layer of depth would be Defiant Light. I feel like something should happen if you don't consume the death prevention proc like partial mana return or a cooldown reduction. I lean toward mana return when considering the PvP dimension of this spell. It could also provide bonus Divine Power if the death prevention is not consumed but that feels less exciting to me.
I would like to see Soothing Glow's current additional talent feature where you can stack it should be baked together into the base ability. The second talent should provide a buff to the target's magical defense. This would compliment the tank and help fill a normal logical gap in their usual gear sets.
The two fronts where Clerics absolutely fall short is mobility and a little on CC. I like Wings of Salvation but I want some more choices. On the CC front, I would like to see something that is a bit more in vein for area denial (something like an aura that significantly slowing enemies around the cleric or a knockback.) I think the conflagerate requirement on Condemn, cast time, and length of cooldown feels like one too many a limiter or all are too severe for this CC to be reasonably useful in a PvP environment.
Artisan
On the gathering front, I noticed mining node variety in Winstead (Saturday AM) lacked Ruby. Unsure as to the cause but my guess is the chances of a mining node to change to another type or tier of material might need looking at in the future. Gathering a node without gathering gear/buffs still feel just a little bit too long for my liking. I like the snag something as I adventure and it was just a little too long for me to sneak in as a healer.
On crafting, Farming and how it works with Cooking felt a little long. For reference, Inscription and Alchemy felt good and snappy enough that I was not deterred from continuing to pursue those artisan play loops. Also, unsure as to what is going on with enchanting items above a +3 but it does not work. Sometimes I would start to enchant something and the cast time bar would fill but would not complete. Unsure what is going on. Possibly a bug or I need to build my skill/certificate.
Dungeon
I love having different entrances and hidden rooms. I like that they're big enough to allow for different groups to farm. I like that there are multiple different bosses and even dungeon level monsters outside the dungeon itself for people to do as well (the otters and minotaurs outside Ursine for example.)
PvP Feedback
First, not sure if this is the designed intention but I noticed several people deflagging mid combat and I hope those people report that feature. I also did not create a bug report because there's some split second situations where maybe they were just out of combat again and deflagged. But it felt like people were changing their flag up while in combat which felt like a cheesy way to corrupt someone when you knew you were going to die. Really sucks the fun out of pvp. Otherwise, I am enjoying it thus far and will have more feedback in the future as I continue to play.
Not wiping helps to build experience in this regard FYI.
Misc
Home Emberspring should be kept in. In other games when you don't provide that it can cause players to get stuck in places in which they have no ability to get out of themselves. It puts designers in a spot where it would be hard to ensure to design the game to mitigate that risk. Also, having immunity when loading in both after death and into the game would be greatly appreciated.
I'll post more as it occurs to me. Thanks!
1
Comments
I'm not strictly proposing a buff on tanks but rather a tuning of magical damage throughput on npcs in general but especially so sub level 15.
I would also like to see rations in loot tables for most monsters. It would probably be best if it was a separate chance to drop so it did not compete with other loot drops.
Knowing that Steven seems to be somewhat of a masochist, if they added an extra mechanic for not consuming the death prevention proc, it would be something more like you take additional damage or your next cast consumes more mana
That is hilarious. My only other thought is it could provide bonus divine energy.