A2 Week(ends) 5/6 Feedback

Kiwi_ · December 5

Here's another feedback collection I gathered throughout last weeks testing.
Continuing just like the previous feedback lists - details are put in spoilers.
Feel free to agree/disagree/add!

PvE Combat & Ablities

- make it so that enemy mechanics can't be canceled by aggo-switches

By this I mean mechanics but also key attacks/patterns like the spin from berserkers/flayers, I noticed a lot of key abilities or mechanics from enemies are currently dodgable by doing an aggro-switch. I have personally made really bad experiences in other games when pve combat design stuck to this kind of programming as it can easily lead to entire boss mechanics being skippable by forcing aggro-switches. I would very much prefer the attack just changing direction, as this can either be played well or result in chaos

- please make mechanics & key abilities of enemies HP%-based and not time-based

Did some testing on this during the week and I couldn't find any enemy abilities/mechs (don't know how it's with bosses like firebrand though) that weren't time based. Time based mech/ability triggers always means it can be out-dps'd which imo defeats the entire encounter design. I personally feel that mechanics should always be dangerous and needing to be played.

- Cleric advantage over other classes in PvE

I feel like most people have noticed this already, I still wanted to put it here. With how the game design currently is, Cleric has a huge advantage over other classes when it comes to solo/duo gameplay. Yes it's doable with other classes but it's a huge gap. I know things are not nearly balanced or finished but I just wanted to put here that I personally feel other classes should at least get some form of more self sustainability to make the solo/duo gameplay a little more even.

- Ability procs + status effects + crits for damage/heal over time

I'm going to use a cleric ability to explain: Soothing Glow (HoT) So I noticed something that might be intended? It feels so off for me personally though that I wanted to give feedback on it. I noticed that some abilities like soothing glow only check for procs and status effects once, when it's being cast. So what I mean by that is, if you cast soothing glow on a target and it crits, the entire ability will crit, every tick, if it doesn't crit, no healing tick will. Now this is something I could get used to, however, it's the same with status effects on the target. If you cast soothing glow on a target and the target has a healing blocking or reducing debuff on them, it will count for the entire duration of soothing glow, even if the debuff is removed or maybe even stacked higher. This not only means, that if you extend soothing glow's duration b4 it ends after it was cast on a target with a healing-blocking debuff, it will never heal again unless you let the soothing glow effect end, it also means that if you cast soothing glow on a target and AFTER that cast it gets a healing debuff, soothing glow will continue to heal for the full amount ignoring all debuffs, just counting those that were on the target the second of the cast. Now again, I don't know if this is inteded or not, but it feels reaaaally wrong to me personally.

Hunting
I think hunting is basically still a placeholder in it's current form? The feedback points are not referring to the hunting process though, so I think the feedback is hopefully still somewhat usefull.

- hunting rarity is bugged?

I've seen some other people reporting this as well, and I've spoke to a lot of people to make sure this is not just me, but hunting rarity ratings seem to be completely bugged. I'm hunting journeyman and have seen a single heroic drop ever since a2 started, no epic, no legendary and that one drop I got even b4 I got gear and a better hunting bow with more rarity rating.

- hunting mats needed in recipes vs amount of animals in the world

So I know this has been quietly adjusted already at least for a little bit, now not all recipes need otter hide anymore, but it's still not balanced well imo. Like there's still too many recipes needing the same animals, while others are basically useless and wasted time to even hunt.

- mount/carcass ratio is not good imo

So the way it currently is doing some hunting you will end up with countless animals that can be used for the animal husbandry station but it's way more than needed, while on the other hand, hunting animals that can have a husbandry drop sometimes drop way too few carcasses especially compared to the ones that don't have a second drop option.

- hunting pylons should have a shorter CD/higher range

Right now from what I've seen all pylons have the same uptime and cooldown, but some professions benefit from them way more than others. You can for example make use of the full duration for fishing but for hunting especially you can only hunt very few animals as they won't respawn and you will have to leave the area after collecting 3-5 animals if you're lucky so they're basically useless atm (+ bugged rarity anyways)

Crafting

- some recipes can be dropped & bought, why?

I feel this is kind of self explaining, but why can you drop some recipes around the world while you can simply buy them at the NPCs? Either/or would make much more sense

- why gain more exp with higher gathering tools&gear?

So steven mentioned in the last live that people are still progressing too fast with the professions, but at the same time you have implemented exp bonuses on higher gathering tools etc, which completely defeats the point of needing more exp for each level. I reached Journeyman on some professions way faster than Apprentice because of this.

- why gain exp for novice crafts when trying to get to journeyman?

This kind of relates to the above point as well. Also if you removed exp gain for lower crafts/gathering than your current level it would also keep people from getting to profession levels that aren't even unlocked/implemented yet.

- higher quality material processing should reward more exp

Right now there is literally no reason to craft higher rarity armor for example to level up leatherworking, you just spam the lowest thing to get the most out of your cheapest materials, and those crafts are obviously useless so all you can do with them is to throw them into the vendor void.

- exp gain on crafting should depend on materials used

This is actually the case for some crafts like copper maces vs shields. But for things like leatherworking, all the armor pieces give different amounts of exp even though they need the same amount of materials, which makes gloves way more profitable in exp than other crafts in leatherworking.

- please add crafting time to gear/weapons

Imo it just doesn't make sense you have to spend all this time on gathering and processing materials only to be able to do the last step of putting everything together within a few seconds. Time is the most valuable resource in the game so just like with other professions, the crafting should have a time sink as well in my opinion. So maybe have it reward more exp to balance it, but spam crafting one item after the other definitely does not feel good.

- include more low materials in higher recipes

So I noticed that, asides from one single magic powder, I didn't touch any daffodils/snowdrops/flax every since I reached apprentice in most professions, and I personally think it would be nice to include more of the lower tier materials in higher tier crafting/processing to not make them redundant at some point.

- personally don't like the quality crafting bonuses on the gear

I know this one is already on the radar and being addressed, but I really think the bonus shouldn't go higher than one rarity level with the highest gear, I think being able to craft legendary items with just epics would be more than enough.

- all artisan gear should give the same combat/player stats

Such as crit or HP bonuses, I really think you shouldn't have to switch crafting gear for the right combat stats, it feels really off.

- artisan gear bonuses depending on the individual stage (novice/artisan/...)

So this one I think is interesting, because I feel it's in the game and I'm not sure it's intended, but I like the idea. I noticed that it seems like apprentice gear does only provide bonuses for apprentice gathering, but not novice gathering, for example with an apprentice sickle and clothing I feel like I get a bonus on flowers like Bluebells, but not on flowers like Snowdrops. Now again, I don't know if it's intended. But I really like the idea of artisan gear providing bonuses for the specific level only, like apprentice gathering gear only providing bonuses for apprentice gathering materials. So if this is intended - hell yea, please do this for all professions and all artisan gear. If it's not intended, please consider doing this!

- artisan gear bag

This could also just be a QoL suggestions, but I would love to see a tiny additional inventory just for artisan gear like gathering tools, shirts and skivvies.

Nodes

- make it possible to check on who's mayor of other nodes

Similar to when you're not citizen yet, a window where you can see who's mayor of what node would be great to be implemented.

- citizenship cd should be longer than voting period

If the mayoral elections totally take up 48h, I think that's also how long the cooldown on switching nodes should be at minimum. Reasons are obvious I think.

- node UI needs improvements

Especially when it comes to things like the cooldown on materials used for buy orders. Mayors should be able to see that the material will be undergoing a cd and the duration as well, before they start the buy order for example, this goes for a lot of node/mayoral things, it's mainly just lacking basic information on stuff.

QoL
I know QoL doesn't really matter yet, I still want to put things out here early and b4 I forget lol

- add short forms for chat commands like /invite -> /inv or /whisper -> /w
- add a loot setting option to only roll on gear

So this might be a personal thing, but especially when playing with friends, I really dislike having to roll on every rune and droppings, while I also would like for everybody to be able to take a look at dropped gear and roll for it.

- add party member dropped items to the chat

Just like you see the items you pick up yourself, I would personally like to be able to see what my party members pick up as well. Might be just personal preference

- material bags should fill up logically when trading and not just top to bottom
- a notification about reaching the 200g cap would be nice so your gold doesn't get voided when trading

Thank you for reading! Have an amazing next testing weekend!