Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, 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.
A lot of different overall feedback.
keyframe
Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
~Warning Long~
Hello all, this is just going to be me listing a lot of things I think that need some improvement, general ideas, or giving voice to certain aspects of interactions I've had with the various systems. I'm well aware these will probably change, are actively being worked on, or will be worked on in the future. The devs have done great work so far, and the intent here is to help give them feedback for the various aspects of the game that feel off or things I'd just like to see. Though I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on the topics broached. (Note all feedback is based on phase 2 of the alpha, and in no particular order)
General
Bring the Player Not the Class / Secondary Archetypes Are Toppings
Since this isn't in the game yet I'll keep this (somewhat)short, as I have a lot to say on the topic. I'm very worried about secondary archetypes only adding toppings, to the main scoop of a primary class, instead of adding a second scoop. For those that aren't aware a secondary archetype will only be tweaking abilities and adding flavor to them instead of changing an ability. I'm worried about this for a wide variety of reasons but more recently and relevantly the sheer amount of LFG's in global chat. Early on Ashes stated that they care about player choice, and that in general people should bring the player and not the class when grouping. Though through the Alpha, albeit anecdotal, the amount of players looking for specific classes doesn't bode well, especially when more and more players get added to the game, as well as, more of the map is introduced. Again it's still early and things change but overall I'd like to see secondary archetypes allow for the changing of the primary archetypes role, and for the secondary archetype in general have more influence then adding flavor. I understand not wanting to make a full 64 different kits, but I'd like to see the secondary archetype maybe give a passive or two and 3-5 skills from the selected archetype (that can't be augmented), and 1-3 unique skills for the class based on what route they wanted to go down (Teleport / Elemental were given as examples for the mage as a secondary). These would be used to help give each class uniqueness, and also help solve the issue of bringing the player and not the class.
Marketplace
The current iteration of the Marketplace UI is far too cumbersome to use. I think I see the intent, attempting to emulate the feel of looking through different stalls without having to physically go to every one. However with the current UI it takes far too much time to go through and click every single storefront, then peruse, just to maybe find something you're looking for, or a good deal. Not to mention that I missed the multiple tabs part of the UI for a bit and thought some of the market stalls were just empty (I wasn't looking to hard, just trying to click through each). With the stall count in Joeva being over 70 pages, that's a LOT of clicking and scrolling to go through every one, especially if you're looking for something specific or just looking and want to view both Items and Materials tabs. This needs to be updated in a way that reduces the total amount of clicks / time taken to peruse the various storefronts. That said, I love the feeling of finding a great deal on a random storefront because it's not as convenient to compare prices or it's on page 41/60 and no one else bothered to look that far in. (I didn't bring it up because I can't make up my mind if I love that the search function is based on stall description or abhor it for not showing me every stall with what I asked for) Besides that here's a few thoughts on the current marketplace:
Nodes
Action Combat Mode
So a lot of people have talked about the various ways the actual action part of the action combat mode works (and I'll have a point or two on that) but I wanted to say a few things on the overall flow and general feel. As right now the action combat mode doesn't feel as natural to use as tab (I'm taking into account that I'm more used to tab targeting, there's just a lot of small things that need to be tweaked to get the user experience (not the actual combat portion) to feel really good.
Professions
I have quite a few things I'd like to bring up on this topic but the one I really want to expand on is the recent patch that took away the ability to use mixed rarities of resources to craft. By that I mean using maybe 4 rare flax and 1 uncommon grem skin to make a Rare quality piece of equipment. I very much liked this mechanic and am quite sad to see it go. I thought it added a nice bit of flexibility to crafting overall. Even more so since getting those higher rarity resources is luck based. Really hoping some form of this gets reimplemented down the road. ((And by this I mean PLEASE please please add this back)) Besides that I've got a few other thoughts on crafting:
Weapons
So overall I like how weapons in general are progressing. The trees are nice, and while some of the passive talents are a bit boring / repetitive (the various damage talents for finishers/extended/deadly specifically), I like the direction they are headed. I've got one minor nitpick and an issue with weapons in general with the current systems involved. First the nitpick being that names for finishers/extended/deadly are way too wordy and renaming should be considered, along with visual cues to show when these happen. The main issue I have with the system as it is, consists of having ranged and melee weapons. As a melee class you use ranged weapons to help pull, or get some dps in while on the move/away from your target. More importantly you can do so with a weapon that makes use of the stats you've cultivated (Bow). As a caster you don't really have any reason to be using melee at all, on top of that, even if you wanted to there's no melee weapon that makes use of caster stats (this is different from giving caster stats). Making melee pretty useless overall for a caster. This isn't even bringing the weapon trees into account. Why have a tree, or why care about about a tree and where to put points when doing so does absolutely nothing for the player? Why should I care where my sword point go when I'm never going to be using it? I'd like to see a few things, first being spell variants of weapons drawing from spell stats when attacking to make all weapons viable. Or I'd like to both tree's applying their talents to whatever weapon you're currently using. That way there's a bit more purpose behind choosing the weapons you wield, while also giving the players more choice at the same time. With the current system it doesn't really feel like a choice but, instead just another "number go up". While I do enjoy numbers going up, there is significant room for improvement here. As the current iteration feels like you have 1 usable weapon and a stat stick / occasional mob puller. So I hope this gets some love going forward.
Hello all, this is just going to be me listing a lot of things I think that need some improvement, general ideas, or giving voice to certain aspects of interactions I've had with the various systems. I'm well aware these will probably change, are actively being worked on, or will be worked on in the future. The devs have done great work so far, and the intent here is to help give them feedback for the various aspects of the game that feel off or things I'd just like to see. Though I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on the topics broached. (Note all feedback is based on phase 2 of the alpha, and in no particular order)
General
- The night is still far too bright, definitely would like to see it a bit darker.
- Not always (or nearly always) getting some kind of loot drop doesn't feel as good. Even if you have to reduce the amount of loot dropped per mob I'd personally like to see it happening more frequently.
- The death penalty (pve) feels absolutely awful when you die to something out of your control. I'm all for death meaning something but dam does it really suck / make me want to step away and not play for a while when I loose a lot of stuff to something I had nothing to do with. (I'm counting me being stupid or just bad as something I had to do with)
- Base low tier/rarity mounts NEED a boost in speed. At the very least around ~15% added to the current 135%. With the rest of the mounts being adjusted accordingly. While I'm at it, I'm sure it will added later, mount rarity adjusting speed levels while I'm here on the topic.
- Shrines should have some sort of PvP protection, no matter the situation. Guild wars, node wars, and just general flagging shouldn't allow spawn camping. Especially with how harsh death is in this game.
- Node and Guild war declarations that directly impact the player, and that they have missed while offline, should be prominently re-displayed for them upon login.
Bring the Player Not the Class / Secondary Archetypes Are Toppings
Since this isn't in the game yet I'll keep this (somewhat)short, as I have a lot to say on the topic. I'm very worried about secondary archetypes only adding toppings, to the main scoop of a primary class, instead of adding a second scoop. For those that aren't aware a secondary archetype will only be tweaking abilities and adding flavor to them instead of changing an ability. I'm worried about this for a wide variety of reasons but more recently and relevantly the sheer amount of LFG's in global chat. Early on Ashes stated that they care about player choice, and that in general people should bring the player and not the class when grouping. Though through the Alpha, albeit anecdotal, the amount of players looking for specific classes doesn't bode well, especially when more and more players get added to the game, as well as, more of the map is introduced. Again it's still early and things change but overall I'd like to see secondary archetypes allow for the changing of the primary archetypes role, and for the secondary archetype in general have more influence then adding flavor. I understand not wanting to make a full 64 different kits, but I'd like to see the secondary archetype maybe give a passive or two and 3-5 skills from the selected archetype (that can't be augmented), and 1-3 unique skills for the class based on what route they wanted to go down (Teleport / Elemental were given as examples for the mage as a secondary). These would be used to help give each class uniqueness, and also help solve the issue of bringing the player and not the class.
Marketplace
The current iteration of the Marketplace UI is far too cumbersome to use. I think I see the intent, attempting to emulate the feel of looking through different stalls without having to physically go to every one. However with the current UI it takes far too much time to go through and click every single storefront, then peruse, just to maybe find something you're looking for, or a good deal. Not to mention that I missed the multiple tabs part of the UI for a bit and thought some of the market stalls were just empty (I wasn't looking to hard, just trying to click through each). With the stall count in Joeva being over 70 pages, that's a LOT of clicking and scrolling to go through every one, especially if you're looking for something specific or just looking and want to view both Items and Materials tabs. This needs to be updated in a way that reduces the total amount of clicks / time taken to peruse the various storefronts. That said, I love the feeling of finding a great deal on a random storefront because it's not as convenient to compare prices or it's on page 41/60 and no one else bothered to look that far in. (I didn't bring it up because I can't make up my mind if I love that the search function is based on stall description or abhor it for not showing me every stall with what I asked for) Besides that here's a few thoughts on the current marketplace:
- The storefronts that haven't been purchased from recently should be sent further down the page list.
- Instead of a scrollable list I'd like to have more of them across the page, with more info on the store, like their first 3 listed items or the highest priced / lowest priced one in each stall. Something that will allow players to stand out amongst their peers. As right now you just have to hope someone happens to click on your storefront or search the same term you used in your description.
- Allow a players buy cart to move between storefronts, but don't reserve the items. Show a list of items that were already bought up on checkout instead. Trying to find the best price is a giant pain. Especially when attempting to find the item you passed up earlier in hopes of finding a better price, only to need to go back and look for it again. Truly awful.
Nodes
- Probably happening later but figured I'd say it anyway. Node XP requirements to level up need to be drastically increased.
- Hovering over a Node, or even in the node banner icon, on the map needs to show a lot more info, in a more readable fashion than it currently does. I'd like to see what buildings have been constructed, the current mayor, the state of the node (at war / with whom), tax rate, and other commons things I'd rather not have to dig into the node menu for. Looking for what node has the workshop you want is a big pain at the moment.
- While I'm at it the node page in general needs a bit of an overhaul. The default page should be a summary page of the node where I don't have to click into anything to see the info, and said info is just there and reader friendly. As 99% of players don't really need to access this menu beyond basic info, voting, and taxes. Everything else should be a secondary concern, and there if someone is inclined to look into it, but not the main focus.
- Who the mayor is, a list of actions said mayor has taken (along with times), other events and their outcomes (wars ect...) that have happened during their term, and the next voting period should be it's own tab on the node menu.
- This one is planned on in the future I'd assume: Node transition between levels is a bit of a mess at the moment. (Personally experienced the Joeva node through all but the founding transition) There's wildly different terrain based on the level the node is at. If it's intentional some sort of continuity is required. Was weird to feel like I had no idea where I was after the transition. While I'm at it the countdown to transition needs to be a LOT longer to give players the change to get out of the area they are in / get somewhere safe. As mobs automatically spawn the the transition.
- Level of mobs being tied to the node only seems to be directly linked to the mobs right outside the walls. I'd like to see this more over the entire ZOI that the node controls, with exceptions for places like the Steelbloom Citadel and the like.
- A list of the various prices each commodity might go for at each should be displayed somewhere upon hover or while buying.
Action Combat Mode
So a lot of people have talked about the various ways the actual action part of the action combat mode works (and I'll have a point or two on that) but I wanted to say a few things on the overall flow and general feel. As right now the action combat mode doesn't feel as natural to use as tab (I'm taking into account that I'm more used to tab targeting, there's just a lot of small things that need to be tweaked to get the user experience (not the actual combat portion) to feel really good.
- Right now opening a menu doesn't bring your cursor up, you have to manually switch to tab target mode and then use your mouse and then switch back. (If adopted there should be a button on each window to ignore this)
- When mounting up the camera should still behave as if it was in action combat mode, instead of it defaulting to tab/having to right click to change direction.
- Transitioning between targets, or having multiple targets around seems a bit clunky at times. I find myself attacking a target I never intended to.
- There's been a lot of feedback how action is better on melee than ranged so I won't add much beyond agreeing.
Professions
I have quite a few things I'd like to bring up on this topic but the one I really want to expand on is the recent patch that took away the ability to use mixed rarities of resources to craft. By that I mean using maybe 4 rare flax and 1 uncommon grem skin to make a Rare quality piece of equipment. I very much liked this mechanic and am quite sad to see it go. I thought it added a nice bit of flexibility to crafting overall. Even more so since getting those higher rarity resources is luck based. Really hoping some form of this gets reimplemented down the road. ((And by this I mean PLEASE please please add this back)) Besides that I've got a few other thoughts on crafting:
- If the above does get introduced again, I'd love for higher tier fuels to be counted as part of the rarity equation.
- T1 resources, especially mining resources, are incredibly scare. I have only found ~6 copper and a few more zinc over the entire period (Dec 20th - Jan 5th). The amount of granite and basalt seems to have increased between the first weekend and recently. Though I'm unsure if that's due to people just not mining it anymore or if the resource spawn times themselves were upped. Regardless I simply cannot find larger quantities of copper and zinc. I've been sitting on the commission board quests for mining mats alone since the node was established at the start of the phase.
- If stuff like copper and zinc (or whatever resource you're looking for) are meant to be found in a different zone then the one you're currently in I'd like to maybe have the guards of nodes talk about where different supplies have been coming from. That way there's an in game idea of where to go, without giving away the exploration and specifics of doing so.
- I would like to see the basic crafting stations organized a bit better, or put into a single crafting hall, with the more advanced stations retaining their own spaces/buildings.
- Amount of materials gathered to get to level 10 in a single gathering profession doesn't really get you that far into the processing profession, let alone crafting. Overall I think this is fine, but right now I think the balance is a touch too far into the grindy direction with how scare resources are.
- Profession experience should be proportional to the number of mats used. Yes, at the moment you get a bit more experience for items that use more mats but it isn't proportionate. Tailoring something using 4 thread does not give twice the experience crafting something with 2 thread does (assuming all other mats are equal). Please please don't make us only craft belts to feel efficient with the materials while attempting to grind levels. I absolutely hated that in other games.
- This is related but vendor prices for the goods aren't equal either while on the topic.
- Increased level experience for gathering, processing, and crafting. Would like to see an increase to these as it seems a bit negligible at the moment.
- With the recent crafting gear nerf I've seen pieces of gear that go up a level but have zero statistical difference between the pieces. Unsure if bug or intentional for lower level crafted gear, but either way, I'd expect some kind of stat increase for going up a rarity. Maybe a bit of an overcorrection here.
Weapons
So overall I like how weapons in general are progressing. The trees are nice, and while some of the passive talents are a bit boring / repetitive (the various damage talents for finishers/extended/deadly specifically), I like the direction they are headed. I've got one minor nitpick and an issue with weapons in general with the current systems involved. First the nitpick being that names for finishers/extended/deadly are way too wordy and renaming should be considered, along with visual cues to show when these happen. The main issue I have with the system as it is, consists of having ranged and melee weapons. As a melee class you use ranged weapons to help pull, or get some dps in while on the move/away from your target. More importantly you can do so with a weapon that makes use of the stats you've cultivated (Bow). As a caster you don't really have any reason to be using melee at all, on top of that, even if you wanted to there's no melee weapon that makes use of caster stats (this is different from giving caster stats). Making melee pretty useless overall for a caster. This isn't even bringing the weapon trees into account. Why have a tree, or why care about about a tree and where to put points when doing so does absolutely nothing for the player? Why should I care where my sword point go when I'm never going to be using it? I'd like to see a few things, first being spell variants of weapons drawing from spell stats when attacking to make all weapons viable. Or I'd like to both tree's applying their talents to whatever weapon you're currently using. That way there's a bit more purpose behind choosing the weapons you wield, while also giving the players more choice at the same time. With the current system it doesn't really feel like a choice but, instead just another "number go up". While I do enjoy numbers going up, there is significant room for improvement here. As the current iteration feels like you have 1 usable weapon and a stat stick / occasional mob puller. So I hope this gets some love going forward.
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