Lots to love, lots to fix – Phase 3 impressions

Onlyace

Been here since Phase 1. I saw the game grow from the early Riverlands into this huge landmass we have now. I played more seriously in early Phase 2 for about two months, then stopped completely to let the game cook a bit, so I was absent for Phase 2.5.

Despite the negativity here, there’s been a lot to love about Phase 3. At least from my perspective, here are the pros and cons as someone who played early Phase 1 and early Phase 2:

Pros:

The minimap tracker for players finally works at all distances, same with quest/commission markers. Long gone are the days of zooming in just to find anything.

Mob training aggro is way better. It’s much harder now to train mobs onto people since they don’t leash as easily. Still possible, especially if you’re high level, but way harder.

The whole Anvils early game experience, while still needing polish, is a huge improvement over the confusing Riverlands. Good XP, good rewards, and just enough hand-holding to get players through the early phase.

The new crate system went in a great direction. Finally, a reason to interact with nodes and help them develop. I love physically building my own crates and carrying them around the world for some pocket change.

The engine upgrade from 5.3 to 5.6 is very noticeable, especially in performance and lighting.

Pocket dungeons are a nice break from old farming spots. Always fun to stumble upon something new that’s actually worth doing.

Gathering and commission rewards feel much better now. Before, chopping trees or mining felt pointless unless you were hardcore into artisanship. Now getting 250–350 XP per tree feels rewarding.

Mob balancing feels good this time. Big changes like goblin mages no longer spamming AoE, and nerfs to fire spellcasters that used to randomly kill you in 1–2 hits.

New weapons! Even if the weapon talent trees aren’t super diverse, it’s fun to get something you haven’t seen before and level it up. Always hits the dopamine.

Cons:

PvP was butchered. The old system just needed polish, but now people abuse default settings and bugs to force PvP flags. Makes no sense that you need to press a key to fight back or that Tab doesn’t target PvP players.

Mayoral commissions often make zero sense. They send you to kill mobs in areas where no mobs spawn. Would be better if they worked like normal commissions within the whole settlement region. Right now, 4–5 people wait around for one spawn.

Node development feels bad outside the Riverlands. Anvils, Desert, Jundark, and Tropics only have pocket dungeons, which isn’t enough. Despite the bigger world, 90% of your time is still spent in the Riverlands.

Speaking of which, outside the Riverlands the world feels copy-pasted with random mobs thrown around. Zones feel dull and uninteresting.

Core systems (node dev, caravans, questing) are barely explained. Most of what I know comes from trial and error. Feels bad.

Grinding still sucks. Outside of gathering and commissions, I don’t notice much improvement in the leveling experience.

Rewards for non-humanoid mobs are punishing. They design interesting NPCs that no one wants to interact with because only humanoids drop gear.

Gearing from 1–10 feels too punishing. I get they want to push crafting, but loot drops make the MMO “brain feel good.” Before the patch I think I got my first item drop at level 15 — and that’s including grays.

Named mobs and pocket dungeons aren’t rewarding long term. Drop rates feel like 10% with 15-min respawns, while nearby mobs drop next to nothing. Compare that to spots like Steelbloom, Sephillon, or Tower of Carphin — it’s night and day.

Lack of PvP options outside caravans, PvP zones, or events. At the very least, add duels. People want PvP, but right now there’s no real outlet.

Optimization and server issues are still rough. 5.6 helped a bit, but I expected a huge uplift with dynamic gridding. Servers sometimes feel worse than early Phase 2. I know parts of gridding are off right now, but we were promised the world with this tech and it’s nowhere close.

Menu options that don’t work. I get it’s alpha, but having core settings do nothing feels bad. V-Sync doesn’t work, so GPUs run at 100% unless you cap them manually. As a cleric, not being able to use the “hold to cast” options that replace holding down a key in favor of double-tapping a key to start and release spell is killing my hands.

Lack of endgame loop. Hoping November’s patch changes this, but right now the endgame is just Phase 1 all over again: hit 25, gear up, grief low levels. City PvP? No housing or city destruction, so nothing’s at stake. Mount collection or gathering money for the future? We all know wipe will be coming soon enough so hard to motivate in that direction. World bosses? Only 2. Caravans? Still impossible since nodes outside the Riverlands never hit level 3.

Overall, it’s been great fun, and I love the direction the game’s heading. But it still feels far from ready for a general public push, which it seems they’re gearing up for soon. Still, it’s been awesome being part of this community and watching it grow!

(TL;DR: Been here since Phase 1. Phase 3 has brought big improvements (better minimap, mob aggro, early game flow, gathering/commission rewards, pocket dungeons, engine upgrade, new weapons), but also big issues (PvP system feels broken, node dev outside Riverlands sucks, grind/rewards are punishing, endgame loop is missing, optimization/server problems, lots of systems unexplained, and many menu options still don’t work). Loving the direction, but it’s still far from ready for the wider audience.)

Mr_Mayhem

Onlyace wrote: »

Been here since Phase 1. I saw the game grow from the early Riverlands into this huge landmass we have now. I played more seriously in early Phase 2 for about two months, then stopped completely to let the game cook a bit, so I was absent for Phase 2.5.

Despite the negativity here, there’s been a lot to love about Phase 3. At least from my perspective, here are the pros and cons as someone who played early Phase 1 and early Phase 2:

Pros:

The minimap tracker for players finally works at all distances, same with quest/commission markers. Long gone are the days of zooming in just to find anything.

Mob training aggro is way better. It’s much harder now to train mobs onto people since they don’t leash as easily. Still possible, especially if you’re high level, but way harder.

The whole Anvils early game experience, while still needing polish, is a huge improvement over the confusing Riverlands. Good XP, good rewards, and just enough hand-holding to get players through the early phase.

The new crate system went in a great direction. Finally, a reason to interact with nodes and help them develop. I love physically building my own crates and carrying them around the world for some pocket change.

The engine upgrade from 5.3 to 5.6 is very noticeable, especially in performance and lighting.

Pocket dungeons are a nice break from old farming spots. Always fun to stumble upon something new that’s actually worth doing.

Gathering and commission rewards feel much better now. Before, chopping trees or mining felt pointless unless you were hardcore into artisanship. Now getting 250–350 XP per tree feels rewarding.

Mob balancing feels good this time. Big changes like goblin mages no longer spamming AoE, and nerfs to fire spellcasters that used to randomly kill you in 1–2 hits.

New weapons! Even if the weapon talent trees aren’t super diverse, it’s fun to get something you haven’t seen before and level it up. Always hits the dopamine.

Cons:

PvP was butchered. The old system just needed polish, but now people abuse default settings and bugs to force PvP flags. Makes no sense that you need to press a key to fight back or that Tab doesn’t target PvP players.

Mayoral commissions often make zero sense. They send you to kill mobs in areas where no mobs spawn. Would be better if they worked like normal commissions within the whole settlement region. Right now, 4–5 people wait around for one spawn.

Node development feels bad outside the Riverlands. Anvils, Desert, Jundark, and Tropics only have pocket dungeons, which isn’t enough. Despite the bigger world, 90% of your time is still spent in the Riverlands.

Speaking of which, outside the Riverlands the world feels copy-pasted with random mobs thrown around. Zones feel dull and uninteresting as a result, I like how the map design is shaping off though.

Core systems (node dev, caravans, questing) are barely explained. Most of what I know comes from trial and error. Feels bad.

Grinding still sucks. Outside of gathering and commissions, I don’t notice much improvement in the leveling experience.

Rewards for non-humanoid mobs are punishing. They design interesting NPCs that no one wants to interact with because only humanoids drop gear.

Gearing from 1–10 feels too punishing. I get they want to push crafting, but loot drops make the MMO “brain feel good.” Before the patch I think I got my first item drop at level 15 — and that’s including grays.

Named mobs and pocket dungeons aren’t rewarding long term. Drop rates feel like 10% with 15-min respawns, while nearby mobs drop next to nothing. Compare that to spots like Steelbloom, Sephillon, or Tower of Carphin — it’s night and day.

Lack of PvP options outside caravans, PvP zones, or events. At the very least, add duels. People want PvP, but right now there’s no real outlet.

Optimization and server issues are still rough. 5.6 helped a bit, but I expected a huge uplift with dynamic gridding. Servers sometimes feel worse than early Phase 2. I know parts of gridding are off right now, but we were promised the world with this tech and it’s nowhere close.

Menu options that don’t work. I get it’s alpha, but having core settings do nothing feels bad. V-Sync doesn’t work, so GPUs run at 100% unless you cap them manually. As a cleric, not being able to use the “hold to cast” options that replace holding down a key in favor of double-tapping a key to start and release spell is killing my hands.

Lack of endgame loop. Hoping November’s patch changes this, but right now the endgame is just Phase 1 all over again: hit 25, gear up, grief low levels. City PvP? No housing or city destruction, so nothing’s at stake. Mount collection or gathering money for the future? We all know wipe will be coming soon enough so hard to motivate in that direction. World bosses? Only 2. Caravans? Still impossible since nodes outside the Riverlands never hit level 3.

Overall, it’s been great fun, and I love the direction the game’s heading. But it still feels far from ready for a general public push, which it seems they’re gearing up for soon. Still, it’s been awesome being part of this community and watching it grow!

(TL;DR: Been here since Phase 1. Phase 3 has brought big improvements (better minimap, mob aggro, early game flow, gathering/commission rewards, pocket dungeons, engine upgrade, new weapons), but also big issues (PvP system feels broken, node dev outside Riverlands sucks, grind/rewards are punishing, endgame loop is missing, optimization/server problems, lots of systems unexplained, and many menu options still don’t work). Loving the direction, but it’s still far from ready for the wider audience.)

This post is pretty spot on. Its a shame this stuff didn't get smoothed out in the ptrs or before releasing phase 3. P3 should have been delayed.