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We are in the Alpha Two Phase II testing which will take place 5+ days each week.
Alpha Two testing is scheduled to happen daily until January 13, 2025 at 10PM PT. We will have periods of downtime for hotfixes and daily restarts happening at 2 AM PT for NA realms, and 2 CET for EU realms.
Starting next week, Alpha Two realms are scheduled to be online for 5+ days a week from Thursdays at 10 AM PT to Mondays at 10 PM PT. Alpha Two realms are planned to be down on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and for daily restarts. Alpha Two realms will also be brought down as updates and fixes are ready.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
We are in the Alpha Two Phase II testing which will take place 5+ days each week.
Alpha Two testing is scheduled to happen daily until January 13, 2025 at 10PM PT. We will have periods of downtime for hotfixes and daily restarts happening at 2 AM PT for NA realms, and 2 CET for EU realms.
Starting next week, Alpha Two realms are scheduled to be online for 5+ days a week from Thursdays at 10 AM PT to Mondays at 10 PM PT. Alpha Two realms are planned to be down on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and for daily restarts. Alpha Two realms will also be brought down as updates and fixes are ready.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Thoughts on melody mechanics (as of lvl 11)
Rojo_Loco
Member, Alpha Two
After getting my hands on bard this last weekend, i was blown away by the depth of skill expression and versatility this class has available. I had a lot of fun in groups of varying sizes as well as solo play. One thing that does bother me though is how compared to the rest of the ways your skills interact with themselves, melodies seem to feel like their mechanics need refinement. (AS OF LVL 11)
1) The tooltips:
-From a player that has had nearly 2 decades in various MMOs and RPGs, The way I interpreted the tooltips and the visual effects for the Melodies was not how they mechanically acted in game. Let's take pensive melody for example:
"2-3 second cast time, 20 second channel
Nearby party members gain Pensive Melody: Restores mana equal to 1+(1%) magical power every 2 seconds.
Melodies can be played concurrently with other abilities"
My assumption based on my experience in other games would be that the effect would take 2-3 seconds to activate, and then it will be active while it is in its channel duration, and then its effects would end.
-In reality the buff effects take effect after the initial cast time and then persists until you cancel it, cast a different melody, or die.
-The Melodies do interact with the weapon combos after LVL 5, so I may just be missing some additional other mechanic that better completes the Melody skills, as i am only LVL 11 and do not have access to the bard's full toolkit.
2) The channel duration:
-while very well telegraphed in it's duration with visual and audio queues, seems to do nothing mechanically that I can tell while playing.
-due to the buff not ending at the end of the channel duration, I don't actually understand what the CHANNEL is telegraphing, the buff seems to be in full effect from the moment your CAST time ends until you cancel the buff.
3) My experience in-game:
-The current state of these mechanics leads me to not really being incentivized to "Weave" Melodies, Most combats I end up just staying in whatever Melody of choice i have based on group composition (Usually Pensive or menacing in group-play, and cheerful in solo-play)
4) What I would change:
- I think that the Channel Times need a purpose that can be felt, either:
A- I would buff the Melodies during their channel duration (and nerf the passive buff that persists after) to encourage "Weaving a song" in battle
B- Allow previous Melody buffs to persist until the end of the channel (allowing for 2 buffs from one bard, and then nerf the effects) to again encourage "Weaving"
C- Have the effects of a melody end at the end of it's channel duration
D- remove the channel duration, and change the tooltip to better reflect that it is a persisting passive buff with a cast time to switch between them (Similar to Paladin auras in World of Warcraft, but with a cast time)
I understand that this may be a level of complexity that is unnecessary in an already more complex class and may be too heavy on cognitive load for the average player (or effectively nerf a very fun to play class), but with how all the other skills (so far) interact mechanically, and how well telegraphed the channel duration is, Melodies currently feel like they need refinement.
1) The tooltips:
-From a player that has had nearly 2 decades in various MMOs and RPGs, The way I interpreted the tooltips and the visual effects for the Melodies was not how they mechanically acted in game. Let's take pensive melody for example:
"2-3 second cast time, 20 second channel
Nearby party members gain Pensive Melody: Restores mana equal to 1+(1%) magical power every 2 seconds.
Melodies can be played concurrently with other abilities"
My assumption based on my experience in other games would be that the effect would take 2-3 seconds to activate, and then it will be active while it is in its channel duration, and then its effects would end.
-In reality the buff effects take effect after the initial cast time and then persists until you cancel it, cast a different melody, or die.
-The Melodies do interact with the weapon combos after LVL 5, so I may just be missing some additional other mechanic that better completes the Melody skills, as i am only LVL 11 and do not have access to the bard's full toolkit.
2) The channel duration:
-while very well telegraphed in it's duration with visual and audio queues, seems to do nothing mechanically that I can tell while playing.
-due to the buff not ending at the end of the channel duration, I don't actually understand what the CHANNEL is telegraphing, the buff seems to be in full effect from the moment your CAST time ends until you cancel the buff.
3) My experience in-game:
-The current state of these mechanics leads me to not really being incentivized to "Weave" Melodies, Most combats I end up just staying in whatever Melody of choice i have based on group composition (Usually Pensive or menacing in group-play, and cheerful in solo-play)
4) What I would change:
- I think that the Channel Times need a purpose that can be felt, either:
A- I would buff the Melodies during their channel duration (and nerf the passive buff that persists after) to encourage "Weaving a song" in battle
B- Allow previous Melody buffs to persist until the end of the channel (allowing for 2 buffs from one bard, and then nerf the effects) to again encourage "Weaving"
C- Have the effects of a melody end at the end of it's channel duration
D- remove the channel duration, and change the tooltip to better reflect that it is a persisting passive buff with a cast time to switch between them (Similar to Paladin auras in World of Warcraft, but with a cast time)
I understand that this may be a level of complexity that is unnecessary in an already more complex class and may be too heavy on cognitive load for the average player (or effectively nerf a very fun to play class), but with how all the other skills (so far) interact mechanically, and how well telegraphed the channel duration is, Melodies currently feel like they need refinement.
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Comments
On that point though, i do feel that it is non-intuitive how after playing somewhere between 10-15 hours, I still didn't understand what seems like it will be a pretty core mechanic (even if optional) for my class.