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.
End of first weekend
RogueOfEnnui
Member, Alpha Two
Loved the game so far and wanted to give some end of first weekend feedback. I played a mage and mostly focused on combat. I tried questing but many were still bugged, which was fine, it was literally the first week of alpha for me. I didn’t do many commissions but I think that was more me missing out on the boost. I did dabble in professions, and while I was intimidated at first, it clicked quickly and really isn’t too difficult.
Some specific feedback:
Mage combat: feels great. I need to vary my skills up to see more of it but the route I went down is great. I feel like I can stand alone, but more I feel like if I got in a good group I could synch with another mage well to spam combos. Gives me something to strive for.
Armor set bonuses: I’d love for these to be reconsidered. For a game so focused on freedom in weapon choice and how each weapon behaves, skills, so on, being made to wear all of a particular set to max its potential bugs me, and clashes with my hopes for my character. For instances, I’m really looking forward to making a necromancer, but I want him to be front line with a great sword. Y’all have spell swords, which is awesome! But the armor system encourages me to stick with one set which might not be completely well suited for me. Let me wear heavy grieves and gauntlets but a light chest piece because those individual pieces mix and match best together for my build. On top of this, it’ll bring variation to aesthetics for people and could make for some awesome designs, probably some goofy ones too but that’s great. I personally hate armor set bonuses, they restrict people so much and that seems contrary to the core philosophy that I’ve seen.
Sitting mechanic - I’ve seen people complaining about the sitting mechanic. I disagree. It could be a little faster maybe, but the game seems designed to for each class to shine in certain ways, and this is true not only in one battle but over the course of a session. Clerics need bards need tanks need mages and rangers and fighters need clerics. I did solo level and explore a bit, it’s doable, rations helped, maybe boost those a bit instead of the sitting b/c it took 3 or 4 to get sorted, but all in all I thought it was great. It gave my group time to rest and talk between long training stints when we finally ran down on resources, it encouraged me to group event with just 2 others, it was great.
XP sharing - I saw this critique as well and I have mixed feelings. In part I think it’s good to keep it separate, it makes groups avoid one another and prevents over crowding in xp farms such as highwayman hills. I don’t really want 3 other groups squeezing in on a kill to take xp. On the other hand, when the full map is in play and the server max capacity is spread over 85 nodes, I think this is going to be less of an issue. It might be good to share xp, but have a primary group and the secondary that’s kind of treated like “3rd class citizens” if you can, and a group who attacks gets a small bit of xp for helping but not as much as if they would if they’d go on their own.
PvP - I haven’t done this yet, but I’ve seen the discussions. I think this is another issue that will be very different when the full map is open. I would like to suggest one change in approach: make going into and out of PvP mode a longer process. I’ve seen a guild switch to pvp and kill another group and then immediately switch back, just blind siding them. I saw Asmon get hunted on videos. I’ve seen the increased punishments for PvP in response, and I think a 5 minute transition period would actually work better. If people want to PvP, they should have to commit, and be a continuous threat but also continuously vulnerable. Maybe make a difficult to obtain item that negates this for RP purposes, guilds would have to go out of their way to plan mid-city ambushes and commit resources. But otherwise, people see the “bandits” coming over the hill, and in turn the bandits are given a fair chance to… fulfill their role.
That’s it for now, love the game. Plan to play multiple classes and y’all have fulfilled a few desires of mine. I’ve wanted “high fantasy eve” for forever man if the alpha isn’t already scratching that itch. I’m not the chosen one of a million other chosen ones, just a character in a fantasy world living life and it’s awesome. Really admire the vision, the work, and the communication thus far, plan to be around for a long while.
Some specific feedback:
Mage combat: feels great. I need to vary my skills up to see more of it but the route I went down is great. I feel like I can stand alone, but more I feel like if I got in a good group I could synch with another mage well to spam combos. Gives me something to strive for.
Armor set bonuses: I’d love for these to be reconsidered. For a game so focused on freedom in weapon choice and how each weapon behaves, skills, so on, being made to wear all of a particular set to max its potential bugs me, and clashes with my hopes for my character. For instances, I’m really looking forward to making a necromancer, but I want him to be front line with a great sword. Y’all have spell swords, which is awesome! But the armor system encourages me to stick with one set which might not be completely well suited for me. Let me wear heavy grieves and gauntlets but a light chest piece because those individual pieces mix and match best together for my build. On top of this, it’ll bring variation to aesthetics for people and could make for some awesome designs, probably some goofy ones too but that’s great. I personally hate armor set bonuses, they restrict people so much and that seems contrary to the core philosophy that I’ve seen.
Sitting mechanic - I’ve seen people complaining about the sitting mechanic. I disagree. It could be a little faster maybe, but the game seems designed to for each class to shine in certain ways, and this is true not only in one battle but over the course of a session. Clerics need bards need tanks need mages and rangers and fighters need clerics. I did solo level and explore a bit, it’s doable, rations helped, maybe boost those a bit instead of the sitting b/c it took 3 or 4 to get sorted, but all in all I thought it was great. It gave my group time to rest and talk between long training stints when we finally ran down on resources, it encouraged me to group event with just 2 others, it was great.
XP sharing - I saw this critique as well and I have mixed feelings. In part I think it’s good to keep it separate, it makes groups avoid one another and prevents over crowding in xp farms such as highwayman hills. I don’t really want 3 other groups squeezing in on a kill to take xp. On the other hand, when the full map is in play and the server max capacity is spread over 85 nodes, I think this is going to be less of an issue. It might be good to share xp, but have a primary group and the secondary that’s kind of treated like “3rd class citizens” if you can, and a group who attacks gets a small bit of xp for helping but not as much as if they would if they’d go on their own.
PvP - I haven’t done this yet, but I’ve seen the discussions. I think this is another issue that will be very different when the full map is open. I would like to suggest one change in approach: make going into and out of PvP mode a longer process. I’ve seen a guild switch to pvp and kill another group and then immediately switch back, just blind siding them. I saw Asmon get hunted on videos. I’ve seen the increased punishments for PvP in response, and I think a 5 minute transition period would actually work better. If people want to PvP, they should have to commit, and be a continuous threat but also continuously vulnerable. Maybe make a difficult to obtain item that negates this for RP purposes, guilds would have to go out of their way to plan mid-city ambushes and commit resources. But otherwise, people see the “bandits” coming over the hill, and in turn the bandits are given a fair chance to… fulfill their role.
That’s it for now, love the game. Plan to play multiple classes and y’all have fulfilled a few desires of mine. I’ve wanted “high fantasy eve” for forever man if the alpha isn’t already scratching that itch. I’m not the chosen one of a million other chosen ones, just a character in a fantasy world living life and it’s awesome. Really admire the vision, the work, and the communication thus far, plan to be around for a long while.
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