Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III 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.
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III 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.
Combat Visual Indicators, Pocket Dungeon Feedback, Misc.
Lark Wyll
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I was in a group grinding a pocket dungeon in the Tropics last night. A problem I encountered while playing Ranger w/Short bow was that there weren't sufficient visual indicators in combat to respond timely and do the correct actions.
One type of mob at the lighthouse in the Tropics uses a reflect skill. This skill is very punishing to Ranger's, especially ones using short bow, as your fire rate is very fast and the ability reflects the damage so that you can very quickly and easily kill yourself via auto-attacks. There is no clear animation or visual clue that the mob has used the ability and has it active. You only know because you instantly start killing yourself. I'm not a fan of relying on tiny (I mean 2mm by 2mm) UI buff/debuff bar below an enemy to tell what the hell they have active that I need to be aware of. When the game is available again I plan on looking to see if I can adjust the UI buff/debuff bar for AI mobs, but I'm unsure if it's possible to enlarge these drastically.
Either way my suggestion is instead of this lazy reliance on looking at a buff bar, make this action combat friendly to and give each mob an animation and visual indication on their person to display that they are using a reflect skill or given ability, that way combat is more intuitive. It's not very interesting to do combat with no visual indicators and die because you didn't read some tiny buff/debuff square that you can barely see on your screen in the heat of combat in large pulls.
Another issue we had with these flame goblins/summoners on the lighthouse island is that even when our group would cleanse the Reflect skill the mobs would nearly immediately re-apply them making it often impossible to attack them without killing ourselves as Ranger's. I'm all for more pve interesting mechanics for ranged roles, but this isn't a good one as currently designed. Please give these mobs some form of obvious visual indicator that they have this reflect skill used and all other abilities active or being used.
There was another type of mob on this Tropics lighthouse island, I forget its name. Stabber, or something like that. This mob has an invisible ranged attack with a very long range that plinks you for massive damage. Okay, that's not necessarily an issue. The issue is it goes through walls, has an incredibly long range, and is invisible (no animation you're being attacked).
Please add animations to combat so we can tell what is going on. My feedback is to make combat intelligible for players that want to play action combat. We don't want to stop and magnify a buff/debuff bar to identify what is going on and read two sentences. We want visual animations and clues to provide instant information so we can adjust on the fly to the player or mob we're fighting in real time. Being killed by attacks we can't see, have no animation, have very extended range makes combat unintelligible.
Last feedback regarding Pocket Dungeons themselves:
-Too much of a reliance on 3rd party websites to find gear grind locations of named bosses for gear progression. Players that don't utilize Ashes Codex are screwed. I like sandbox, I dislike the massive advantage that third party websites provide players in gaining large advantages over players that don't utilize them. And frankly a much smoother experience playing the game compared to players who don't know where gear/loot drops from, where the best farm spots are, gatherable nodes, etc.
-Pocket Dungeons are in general a nice addition to the game. I like the exploration aspect. Now just give us all flying mounts to skip the 30 minute treks to get to them (I kid, (not really)).
Tropics look and feel:
-Water looks incredible.
-I dig the undulation in the water. It's a little mesmerizing. Add in waves on the beach with good audio of them crashing and lapping and it will be 10/10.
-Skybox and environment while out in the water looks nice, well done.
-The moons look rough.
-The volcano island in Tropics is the most enjoyable pve farm spot I've played in your game. This is because you can do large pulls, maneuver freely, and use all of your aoe and movement abilities making the feel of the combat much more action oriented and frenetic. The boring stand rooted in one spot spamming the same attacks for hours is exhausting and mind-numbing. Please make more combat like the volcano island loop around the lower perimeter where its large pulls of non-damage sponge mobs in more open environments that you can move around in like this island.
One type of mob at the lighthouse in the Tropics uses a reflect skill. This skill is very punishing to Ranger's, especially ones using short bow, as your fire rate is very fast and the ability reflects the damage so that you can very quickly and easily kill yourself via auto-attacks. There is no clear animation or visual clue that the mob has used the ability and has it active. You only know because you instantly start killing yourself. I'm not a fan of relying on tiny (I mean 2mm by 2mm) UI buff/debuff bar below an enemy to tell what the hell they have active that I need to be aware of. When the game is available again I plan on looking to see if I can adjust the UI buff/debuff bar for AI mobs, but I'm unsure if it's possible to enlarge these drastically.
Either way my suggestion is instead of this lazy reliance on looking at a buff bar, make this action combat friendly to and give each mob an animation and visual indication on their person to display that they are using a reflect skill or given ability, that way combat is more intuitive. It's not very interesting to do combat with no visual indicators and die because you didn't read some tiny buff/debuff square that you can barely see on your screen in the heat of combat in large pulls.
Another issue we had with these flame goblins/summoners on the lighthouse island is that even when our group would cleanse the Reflect skill the mobs would nearly immediately re-apply them making it often impossible to attack them without killing ourselves as Ranger's. I'm all for more pve interesting mechanics for ranged roles, but this isn't a good one as currently designed. Please give these mobs some form of obvious visual indicator that they have this reflect skill used and all other abilities active or being used.
There was another type of mob on this Tropics lighthouse island, I forget its name. Stabber, or something like that. This mob has an invisible ranged attack with a very long range that plinks you for massive damage. Okay, that's not necessarily an issue. The issue is it goes through walls, has an incredibly long range, and is invisible (no animation you're being attacked).
Please add animations to combat so we can tell what is going on. My feedback is to make combat intelligible for players that want to play action combat. We don't want to stop and magnify a buff/debuff bar to identify what is going on and read two sentences. We want visual animations and clues to provide instant information so we can adjust on the fly to the player or mob we're fighting in real time. Being killed by attacks we can't see, have no animation, have very extended range makes combat unintelligible.
Last feedback regarding Pocket Dungeons themselves:
-Too much of a reliance on 3rd party websites to find gear grind locations of named bosses for gear progression. Players that don't utilize Ashes Codex are screwed. I like sandbox, I dislike the massive advantage that third party websites provide players in gaining large advantages over players that don't utilize them. And frankly a much smoother experience playing the game compared to players who don't know where gear/loot drops from, where the best farm spots are, gatherable nodes, etc.
-Pocket Dungeons are in general a nice addition to the game. I like the exploration aspect. Now just give us all flying mounts to skip the 30 minute treks to get to them (I kid, (not really)).
Tropics look and feel:
-Water looks incredible.
-I dig the undulation in the water. It's a little mesmerizing. Add in waves on the beach with good audio of them crashing and lapping and it will be 10/10.
-Skybox and environment while out in the water looks nice, well done.
-The moons look rough.
-The volcano island in Tropics is the most enjoyable pve farm spot I've played in your game. This is because you can do large pulls, maneuver freely, and use all of your aoe and movement abilities making the feel of the combat much more action oriented and frenetic. The boring stand rooted in one spot spamming the same attacks for hours is exhausting and mind-numbing. Please make more combat like the volcano island loop around the lower perimeter where its large pulls of non-damage sponge mobs in more open environments that you can move around in like this island.
0