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.
Fighter Specific Feedback
Ghostgg
Member, Alpha Two
Overall:
Overall the fighter felt very fitting, rewarding, and deep. The visuals and sound design were both top notch and in general I had such a good time testing it along with every class to level 5 that I decided to main it at least until the first wipe. There were some small hiccups regarding the action camera and some skill balances but overall was a very satisfying class.
TLDR
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Details for each bullet:
Melee Range: Not a lot to go into extra here, but for pvp where latency is going to be a thing I think an increased melee range will greatly improve the feel of any melee class. I don't think client side hit detection is an option since that will likely cause more issues, so a more forgiving range should be adopted. WoW is a prime example of a healthy melee range, which is probably about twice the current AoC range.
2 Baseline Skills: The fighter gets the least baseline skills of any class by far, which is surprising since it's one of the earlier classes to my knowledge. I think the prime candidate for moving an existing skill tree node to baseline is Raging Blitz. Raging Blitz makes Blitz feel complete as an opener and a single use of it allows for other combat momentum spenders at least once -- please please do this. For a 4th (I think 4 is the minimum each class should have so look at bard as well) Brutal Cleave could be a good option, this would round out the baseline kit and give a solid foundation for speccing your fighter from there.
Blitz Issues: I think this could just be servers, but it's worth mentioning. If server performance improvements doesn't help this, consider making this less of a physical interaction in the world and more about placing the character next to the target (assuming line of sight and all that is good).
Lunging Assault: I think the concept of the skill is good, I just think it needs a slight buff. A bit further range would be my preferred since you could then spend a limited resource to move around the battlefield (very thematic) but you'd have a careful balance of using it for other purposes, so you can't just blow everything all the time. Alternatively you could make apply bleed, which I'll discuss more in the bleeding section, but this would give it a definitive purpose in the kit.
Consuming Lethal Blow: This passive used while solo grinding means you never need to stop. This is a little too powerful. Conversely, when in a party, it's so difficult to land the well timed blow you need to maximize mana/health return that it becomes far less impactful, almost to obscurity. Solution: Change the passive something along the lines of: "When Lethal Blow strikes a target below 25% health you are granted health and mana regeneration for 3% physical power per second for x seconds (5?)" I don't have the alpha in front of me during a week day so tune the numbers of course, but the design here is you can use it solo and it'll provide the same effect, but less than timing a 20% heal and 30% mana regen every 12 seconds, while being a reliable source in party play as well.
Combat Momentum Generation: Wallop specifically seems to want to incentivize building and spending combat momentum as fast as you can for large consistent hits. From my testing you just can't generate enough momentum to use it on CD. Adding a passive skill to increase combat momentum generation would allow a playstyle more around Wallop/Lunging Assault. Some Ideas: "Brutal Cleave/Overpower generate 10 more combat momentum" or "Melee attacks generate an additional combat momentum".
Bleed Interactions: Rupture, Lethal Blow, and Blood Fusion all interact with bleed but fighter must either play in Form of Ferocity or rely on a random proc to apply it. This seems counter intuitive to the concept of picking the right stance for the right situation. Solution: Decouple reliable bleeds from Form of Ferocity, replace with either Shaken or Snare, and put bleed application other locations. Some ideas: have Lunging Assault apply bleeding, let Overpower/Brutal Cleave apply bleeding baseline, a passive which causes your melee weapon critical strikes apply bleeding.
Form of Ferocity: I don't think from a balance perspective this needs to happen, but adding a minor secondary effect for this stance would feel more appropriate since all the other forms have it. Something minor like increased stamina regeneration since this is already the best form for party play in my opinion.
Overall the fighter felt very fitting, rewarding, and deep. The visuals and sound design were both top notch and in general I had such a good time testing it along with every class to level 5 that I decided to main it at least until the first wipe. There were some small hiccups regarding the action camera and some skill balances but overall was a very satisfying class.
TLDR
- Not fighter specific - The melee range in the game is likely a little too short, I'm not trying to come at this from a balance perspective but from a frustration viewpoint. I didn't get many pvp battles, 5-7 or so (Nov 11 edit: I've been in a lot, the range is okay with better server performance but I'd still make it a bit larger), but I could already feel that times when I felt like I should be hitting the enemy player I wasn't.
- The fighter only learns 2 skills/passives by default, the next lowest is the bard at 3, who is really an outlier himself with most classes having 4, or 5 in the rangers case. New ones should be introduced or existing skills/passives should be moved baseline.
- Blitz as a travel skill is pretty unreliable. Getting stuck on terrain is very common and generally seems buggy, sometimes hitting the attack but putting my character too far away to feel like the skill did what it was supposed to.
- Lunging Assault felt pretty lackluster. It doesn't move you far enough to be a travel skill, it does weak damage, and costs a very valuable resource (combat momentum).
- Consuming Lethal Blow felt overpowered in solo settings and underpowered in a party. Some ideas below in the detailed section. Nov 12 update: later game I think it's fine and in party play blood fusion fixes the issue.
- It feels like the skill tree wants to push you toward a combat momentum builder/spender playstyle, but there isn't enough support for generation. An extra passive for building more combat momentum would open a new playstyle.
- Bleeding has several interactions in the skill tree, but only 2 ways for a fighter to apply: random deadly finisher procs or being in Form of Ferocity. Thoughts on how to improve this in the detailed section below.
- Form of Ferocity is the only form without a second passive effect, consider adding stamina regeneration or combat momentum generation to make it feel more balanced.
- Wallop is terrible, like really terrible. The animation feels very slow, it does mediocre damage at max momentum, and drains momentum significantly. This ability first and foremost should be fast, like Overpower fast. From there we can evaluate if it is still trash. Also change the SFX and visual, it feels like an auto attack.
- Battle Cry should be instant like Blood Fusion so it doesn't interrupt things like Whirlwind. Same for Berserk though it may already be (can't remember).
- Whirlwind is too weak and requires too many points. A lot of players think it's good because number keeps going up and it seems like you're doing 7k dmg, but in reality you'll do way more DPS just using brutal cleave (in AOE, WW is turbo bad in ST). Extending it promotes a braindead playstyle even if it is strong because you eventually hit a target amount to spin infinitely. I'd make it a high level node, greatly buff it, change cd to 60s and last 5 seconds. Something comparable to blizzard. It could even serve as a momentum generator as a way to quickly build momentum on a longer CD, or extend a berserk window.
- One more addition: it's weird that Brutal cleave, the AOE version, has more damage than Overpower. Later on when you get blood fusion mana isn't a problem so there becomes no reason to use Overpower ever. I think every other AoE vs ST option in the game has the ST option as the higher damage option, Overpower should probably get a damage buff.
***********************************************************************
Details for each bullet:
Melee Range: Not a lot to go into extra here, but for pvp where latency is going to be a thing I think an increased melee range will greatly improve the feel of any melee class. I don't think client side hit detection is an option since that will likely cause more issues, so a more forgiving range should be adopted. WoW is a prime example of a healthy melee range, which is probably about twice the current AoC range.
2 Baseline Skills: The fighter gets the least baseline skills of any class by far, which is surprising since it's one of the earlier classes to my knowledge. I think the prime candidate for moving an existing skill tree node to baseline is Raging Blitz. Raging Blitz makes Blitz feel complete as an opener and a single use of it allows for other combat momentum spenders at least once -- please please do this. For a 4th (I think 4 is the minimum each class should have so look at bard as well) Brutal Cleave could be a good option, this would round out the baseline kit and give a solid foundation for speccing your fighter from there.
Blitz Issues: I think this could just be servers, but it's worth mentioning. If server performance improvements doesn't help this, consider making this less of a physical interaction in the world and more about placing the character next to the target (assuming line of sight and all that is good).
Lunging Assault: I think the concept of the skill is good, I just think it needs a slight buff. A bit further range would be my preferred since you could then spend a limited resource to move around the battlefield (very thematic) but you'd have a careful balance of using it for other purposes, so you can't just blow everything all the time. Alternatively you could make apply bleed, which I'll discuss more in the bleeding section, but this would give it a definitive purpose in the kit.
Consuming Lethal Blow: This passive used while solo grinding means you never need to stop. This is a little too powerful. Conversely, when in a party, it's so difficult to land the well timed blow you need to maximize mana/health return that it becomes far less impactful, almost to obscurity. Solution: Change the passive something along the lines of: "When Lethal Blow strikes a target below 25% health you are granted health and mana regeneration for 3% physical power per second for x seconds (5?)" I don't have the alpha in front of me during a week day so tune the numbers of course, but the design here is you can use it solo and it'll provide the same effect, but less than timing a 20% heal and 30% mana regen every 12 seconds, while being a reliable source in party play as well.
Combat Momentum Generation: Wallop specifically seems to want to incentivize building and spending combat momentum as fast as you can for large consistent hits. From my testing you just can't generate enough momentum to use it on CD. Adding a passive skill to increase combat momentum generation would allow a playstyle more around Wallop/Lunging Assault. Some Ideas: "Brutal Cleave/Overpower generate 10 more combat momentum" or "Melee attacks generate an additional combat momentum".
Bleed Interactions: Rupture, Lethal Blow, and Blood Fusion all interact with bleed but fighter must either play in Form of Ferocity or rely on a random proc to apply it. This seems counter intuitive to the concept of picking the right stance for the right situation. Solution: Decouple reliable bleeds from Form of Ferocity, replace with either Shaken or Snare, and put bleed application other locations. Some ideas: have Lunging Assault apply bleeding, let Overpower/Brutal Cleave apply bleeding baseline, a passive which causes your melee weapon critical strikes apply bleeding.
Form of Ferocity: I don't think from a balance perspective this needs to happen, but adding a minor secondary effect for this stance would feel more appropriate since all the other forms have it. Something minor like increased stamina regeneration since this is already the best form for party play in my opinion.
8
Comments
I felt like it was fine, it's not a big buff, but honestly neither are the buffs from the other 2 forms though I didn't play with the mana regen one much. That could be because probably 75% of the time I was solo using consuming lethal blow to keep topped up and the parties I joined had solid healing. Having said that this weekend I'll abuse consuming lethal blow a little less and see if I still feel this way, you could be right.
Combat Momentum- drops to fast I feel out of combat
The forms need more punch- Most fighters stick with the default weapon speed form. Not sure how to buff the other forms but sure there are a variety of ways to go about it.
Lunging Assault needs to work off mana not momentum.
Fighter needs more access to snares. In the chaos of pvp I as well had a hard time sticking onto players. Perhaps slightly longer melee range would help but I feel additional snares would go a long way. Maybe tie a snare to one of the forms.
Yeah, Lethal blow is great, but If you actually look at the numbers on Regenerative, its really really low. at 1400 hp at 100 combat momentum (which I think is max) you get 14 hp regen per second which is really really bad. Thats at max momentum. If you are at 50 you are getting 7 hp regen per second. For a skill point investment Its a very weak ability.
Everything else I stated in OP I think still holds true
God forbid the enemy is wearing leather and is a mage or anything with healing you can just forget about it. u wont do enough damage to even be a threat what so ever.
also PvP is not possible with the current corruption system people are too afraid to pvp in any capacity
Form of Celerity procs stagger on Overpower, which you can use Crippling Blow to Proc a Trip, into Maim (gains bonus damage against Tripped foes), into execute (which will gain crit chance against bleeding enemies which is proc'd from your great sword finisher). You're going to kill just about anything. Also Berserk makes you CC immune. and blood infusion gives 100% leech.... Plus, Form of Celerity gives you movement speed and take the sprint modifiers and dodge modifiers to reduce cc duration while sprinting and increase your dodge distance to chase people down.
You just like every melee class in every game need gear. Go farm your Highwaymen to get your Sons of Fortune heavy set and Sons of Fortune Weapons (227 Phys power each) and watch what happens. The fighter is going to be just fine lads, just get to level 12 and get your blood fusion if you are struggling. hang in there!
The fighter is the fastest class in the game, no mob should hit you if you have Form of Celerity and a longbow, same goes for PvP, no one should be able to outrun you.
This is pretty much how I feel, but that certainly doesn't mean it's perfect. Fighter for some reason has this bad rep that I can't understand. I'm regularly pulling threat from tanks if I don't tone dps down (which unless I generate extra threat I assume means I'm doing the most dps), I can become invincible every 30s, I have insane mobility(better learn roll jumps), and generally feel like a massive threat in pvp and pve.
I do think it's harder to play than mage/ranger (granted I only leveled them to 10ish) but that's not saying it's hard to play, at least not in pve.
Problem with having the bow equipped in offhand. There was times that I didn't understand why I switched from greatsword to bow mid fight. Was it something I fat fingered or is there something with auto attack that switches to bow when you doge roll to a further distance.
The melee range is definitely a problem where I thought I was in range and fired off a skill just to not connect. Although I was right in front of the mob.
Spent some time on gathering and crafting to put together a full set of five heavy and three mediums. Plus all jewelry. My lvl seven is fully equiped. But yet I feel no power, no ability to mitigate damage, and cannot even reliably attempt more than one mob at a time at my same level. My fighter is relegated to bottom feeding and fighting only lower level mobs to be reliable and keep up on health, stam, and mana.
One bright spot was the ability to either evade or to sprint away and get away from a threat before death. Problem is with some mobs, especially higher level mobs, the leash effect is non existent. Had one case where a level 13 skeleton chased me around the map for about :20 minutes. For maybe more than a mile, it was ridiculous. Also had a case where I got to a point on the edge of some rocks and there was no red dots, no combat indicator so thought I was safe to ration and rest. Just to have this mob suddenly appear, like teleport in, and strike me down.
It is rough being a gatherer/crafter and running around mostly evading and avoiding any combat. Because you get the resources, you can craft a few good items that should make you stronger, but you forgo earning any experience because you are not grinding the mobs. This lead me into situations where having a death and xp debt was really setting me back. I think I may have leveled either 5 or 6 probably twice because of the deaths and xp debts.
Fighter at these low levels just felt completely useless and lackluster to me. Only time I felt like a true fighter doing great damage and managing my resource pools what when I was fighting mobs two or three levels below me.
Are you using Consuming Lethal Blow? Try to get the enemy as low as possible before using Lethal Blow and you should get huge amounts of health/mana back. I don't think I've had to rest....ever on fighter.
Other times I do get it off and it looks good, get back some good health and mana. But most of the time either the mob is too low level for useful returns. Or I fire off the ability too early and it does not kill the mob, so no returns.
I am going to start this Friday with repec from the bleed back to wounding or snare. And work on my timing of when to use lethal blow. I guess the issue is my own because I have died enough times to get panicky that I am going to lose more xp or lose some rare material in my bag, that I hit the lethal blow too early. lol
Back to edit: this week is a lot better. The server tick is much better. Less desync and rations are actually worthwhile now. Most or all of what I had problems with are better now with this weeks patches.
I am really enjoying the fighter. Just grinding away now on a quest and gonna hit lvl 10 in soon.
I only made it to level 9 but I do feel the low level experience can be important as well.
While I get what you are saying I don't think the solution to a fighter melee class should be to use your bow. While some people may enjoy that playstyle and it does add some depth to gameplay. It just doesn't fit the fantasy for me personally if I am running around with a bow.
For PVP you're always going to be using your bow, you're a fighter not a swordsman. If you're charging into a massive group you're feeding. Your role is to ambush low health enemies and run, peel/protect your ranged, and look for targets of opportunity. Otherwise you're just shooting your bow looking for someone to pounce on. IF you don't like it then complain for huge durability buffs(unlikely), go play a ranged class, or play a tank if you want to be in melee always.
I’d be curious on how opposed people would be to shifting fighter towards more of a momentum play style of generate and spend instead of mana.
As for the PvP I was just thinking that if my play style ends up me auto attacking with a bow and rarely using my actual abilities something just feels wrong. I’m not opposed to using a bow and if that is their design of the fighter archetype maybe it should have some bow abilities as well.
Group PvP is always a whole different monster for melee vs ranged and I already know the play style is different. I am just saying as a melee in bigger PvP battles you do end up exposing yourself often in fights and having small melee hit boxes makes it even harder to land combos when you do decide to engage.
There are a few things I am only going to go off what I know because most of the skills I have not used yet i am only level 11.
To start with Lethal Blow To me the Cool down is a problem I think that it should be a little Lower and make the cost of the Ability a little lower also the consuming Lethal blow to me feels glitchy I find myself wondering why I get so much health back on one kill then on the other I get so little. I feel like that skill needs to be reworked and maybe give players back a percentage of their heath so that why it's more constant and you know what you're going to get back.
Playing a fighter is very dangerous in this game and it always feels like I'm dying more than the other architypes. Even though I am supposed to be a damage dealer architype the fighter does not do enough damage. Another point of this architype is sustainability there should be more abilities that mitigate damage for the player and lower-level skills that give back health. About combat momentum more skills need to react to combat momentum maybe giving more skills go off combat momentum and a damage increase the higher the combat momentum is. As far as the range of the fighter I believe the primary weapon of choice for the fighter are two handed heavy weapons I feel like the two-handed weapons like the great sword need a longer range so that we are not right on top of the enemy when fighting that's the whole point of a weapon that long in real life.
Overall, I love playing as a fighter it is very engaging and am loving the skills and the animation this is just alpha two, so I am expecting a little more love for this architype I really hope it is not forgotten about.
To me, ambushing low health players and running or looking for opportunistic opponents is the role of the Rogue. I want the Fighter to be able to get in there and cause some havoc. Right now Fighters struggle to do this, you just get burst down by Mages and Rangers. It's also quite difficult to stay on top of players and effectively do your job. Just kiting with a bow you're getting dropped by actual ranged classes and if I want to primarily play with a bow I'd choose a Ranger. I want to get stuck in, right now it's the weakest of the 3 DPS classes, imo.
That's fair, it does seem more like a rogues job. I wouldn't complain if I could be melee in a huge brawl, it's currently suicide though.
One more note, I don't like berserk being our CC break, we are the only class that can't just use ours and it hurts on a very vulnerable class. By vulnerable I mean in the large scale sense. Using lunging assault after a blitz before we build more momentum means we cannot use our CC break and it hurts. I'd really like those decoupled.
IMO the most important note
Why is fighter the literal most fun spec I think I've played in a class since BDO?
EVERYTHING flows (except wallop). EVERYTHING has a purpose (except wallop). The combos you do as fighter are so crisp. lunging assault > rupture > overpower > trip > maim > lethal blow comes out shockingly fast for so many skills and the animations are so smooth. Whatever you want to change for P2 keep this aspect of fighter up. It's the highest APM and skill ceiling class and my god is it addicting and deep. I only literally yesterday realized in aoe after every finisher reset I can hit lunging assault immediately before brutal cleave which instantly restores the lost momentum without berserk uptime loss was a thing. Literally got a 10-15% dmg increase. It's wild how much skill expression there is.
Thanks for the posts you've made on the Fighter, been really informative and interesting to read. I main Melee DPS in MMOs and was initially a bit underwhelmed by the Fighter having played all 3 DPS classes. But the more I've played it, the more i really really like it. It has loads of potential and I agree, it has a high skill ceiling which is a massive plus for me. Some of the combos are so satisfying and visceral it's really fun to pull them off.
I would echo some of the points made in this post and the OP.
Raging Blitz should be the default and a baseline skill. As a Fighter I want to get in and on top of opponents, this helps you do this from the get go.
I'd like to see Lunging Assault apply bleed so it could be better utilised in a bleed combo.
Knockout needs to be a hard stun. Although I have seen people use it well in 1v1s I just think the majority of the time a stun would be so much more useful.
Big change that I think should happen is the change to Berserk. We need a separate CC break skill, would make us much better in a variety of situations rather than burning Berserk.