Verbal NDA lifted - Discussion thread

As Steven just announced he released testers from their verbal NDA (still no images)

Feel free to post your verbal descriptions of things and general impressions of the core systems

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chiefbird

Ive always longed for an mmo to have spears, now you have my attention, was it just spears or could there be a shield added on. I suppose im asking too early but one can hope

Shoelid

chiefbird wrote: »

Ive always longed for an mmo to have spears, now you have my attention, was it just spears or could there be a shield added on. I suppose im asking too early but one can hope

There were no shields in the game this weekend, so realistically your guess is as good as mine. Would be super cool though! I've always been a fan of shield builds too.

Vhaeyne

Shoelid wrote: »

There were no shields in the game this weekend, so realistically your guess is as good as mine. Would be super cool though! I've always been a fan of shield builds too.

I kept going back and forth in the weapons, and armor selections in Winstead hoping to see a shield myself.
The game said I was a cleric, but I was sure as hell trying to build myself to be a paladin.

halbarz

How many nodes did you have to upgrade in A1?

Vhaeyne

halbarz wrote: »

How many nodes did you have to upgrade in A1?

I think there was 6ish nodes on the map. I was able to stay in one and see it advance to a town. Over the weekend I seen some other nodes progress. I actually toured the map on both Saturday and Sunday on my mount, and did notice progress in the nodes I was not helping in.

halbarz

Vhaeyne wrote: »

halbarz wrote: »

How many nodes did you have to upgrade in A1?

I think there was 6ish nodes on the map. I was able to stay in one and see it advance to a town. Over the weekend I seen some other nodes progress. I actually toured the map on both Saturday and Sunday on my mount, and did notice progress in the nodes I was not helping in.

Awesome.

As a follow-up question, did you see any specific benefits to upgrading certain nodes? I ask because I am curious how nodes will be balanced so that not every node at the sea will be maxed out and the inland ones wouldn't be considered.

Vhaeyne

halbarz wrote: »

Awesome.

As a follow-up question, did you see any specific benefits to upgrading certain nodes? I ask because I am curious how nodes will be balanced so that not every node at the sea will be maxed out and the inland ones wouldn't be considered.

I did take the time to look for any differences in the nodes. I was specifically looking at vendor selection. I did not notice anything there I was mostly focused on plate though. The quests were similar between nodes, but different. There was just so much I wanted to do it was hard to take stock of everything.

I could have easily spent a week testing every little thing in the starting area, but sadly the servers were only up during the day. Maybe that is a good thing though because I got a lot of sleep this weekend. Something I was not expecting. The feels when you use sleep to time warp...

Diamaht

Between work I was only able to get in about 3 or 4 hours but the game looked and felt great. The art, music and environment were just as good live as they are in the videos so that was nice to see.

It would be hard for me to talk about combat since it was obvious the system was not in place for this test. One thing I did enjoy was the feel of character movement. It did not feel floaty, your character felt like it had real weight. That was another worry I had and it was assuaged.

I was skeptical about character collision being active in this game, but it actually seemed to add a realistic feel to large groups.

So far, so good. The game looks like it is taking shape to be exactly what was advertised. Now we just need to see, then break, then fix, then shatter, then repair the combat and crafting systems.

Sathrago

Vhaeyne wrote: »

The feels when you use sleep to time warp...

https://youtu.be/lTO5vhRFCv0

Ragecon

Diamaht wrote: »

Between work I was only able to get in about 3 or 4 hours but the game looked and felt great. The art, music and environment were just as good live as they are in the videos so that was nice to see.

It would be hard for me to talk about combat since it was obvious the system was not in place for this test. One thing I did enjoy was the feel of character movement. It did not feel floaty, your character felt like it had real weight. That was another worry I had and it was assuaged.

I was skeptical about character collision being active in this game, but it actually seemed to add a realistic feel to large groups.

So far, so good. The game looks like it is taking shape to be exactly what was advertised. Now we just need to see, then break, then fix, then shatter, then repair the combat and crafting systems.

Wonder what systems they will have to keep large toxic groups from surrounding a player so they can’t move anywhere 🤔

angelicshiya

I love the cave quest.
Hint: READ THE QUEST!

Sathrago

Ragecon wrote: »

Diamaht wrote: »

Between work I was only able to get in about 3 or 4 hours but the game looked and felt great. The art, music and environment were just as good live as they are in the videos so that was nice to see.

It would be hard for me to talk about combat since it was obvious the system was not in place for this test. One thing I did enjoy was the feel of character movement. It did not feel floaty, your character felt like it had real weight. That was another worry I had and it was assuaged.

I was skeptical about character collision being active in this game, but it actually seemed to add a realistic feel to large groups.

So far, so good. The game looks like it is taking shape to be exactly what was advertised. Now we just need to see, then break, then fix, then shatter, then repair the combat and crafting systems.

Wonder what systems they will have to keep large toxic groups from surrounding a player so they can’t move anywhere 🤔

I think this game has the best system already in place. Needing a social community. So if some group of toxic players start trying to circle you up and bully you around, you call in your friends and allies to deal with it. Create a place that is good to you and can protect you.

halbarz

Vhaeyne wrote: »

halbarz wrote: »

Awesome.

As a follow-up question, did you see any specific benefits to upgrading certain nodes? I ask because I am curious how nodes will be balanced so that not every node at the sea will be maxed out and the inland ones wouldn't be considered.

I did take the time to look for any differences in the nodes. I was specifically looking at vendor selection. I did not notice anything there I was mostly focused on plate though. The quests were similar between nodes, but different. There was just so much I wanted to do it was hard to take stock of everything.

I could have easily spent a week testing every little thing in the starting area, but sadly the servers were only up during the day. Maybe that is a good thing though because I got a lot of sleep this weekend. Something I was not expecting. The feels when you use sleep to time warp...

Thank you, for your insight

@all A1 Testers, what were some of the "worst" bugs you ran into?

Asgerr

I was reading some interesting feedback on the sub reddit as well.

I've got some questions about some of the points raised there:

Some said the combat was not fun at all at this time. What are your thoughts?
Some were talking about the open world dungeons and their size and mob variety
How was the experience of death like?

Dygz

Combat was OK for testing an Alpha.
Playing a Cleric had some attacks and some heals.
When I duoed with a Tank, he killed stuff way faster... as in, I barely had time to get in an attack before stuff our level was dead, so.. I ended up just healing. That felt like what I might expect a Tank and Cleric duo would play out. We were able to find a spot were mobs were 2-3 times our level and mow them down at a nice pace.

This Alpha was really for testing core systems, mostly networking and optimization. Combat was fine for that. The Level 15 raid that Steven led us on felt fun. I think we played it like a zerg - we didn't need strategies to survive - we had enough numbers.
But, having a bunch of people on mounts racing to the attack locations and pummeling the raid boss was fun.

Everything needs a lot more work, but that is to be expected for an Alpha.

Vhaeyne

Asgerr wrote: »

Some said the combat was not fun at all at this time. What are your thoughts?

I had fun with what was there. It was more fun for me with the spear, because I like to AOE grind. I went straight into grinding for the best gear the vendor would sell as soon as my node became a town. I was able to solo a elite with 50k hp once I got that gear. It took like 10 minutes of me spamming my swing and managing my mana carefully, but I did it. To me that is fun.

I like to grind mobs though. Lineage 2 and FFXI were some of my favorite games because of the grind. I like Ashes combat so far better than L2 or FFXI. I imagine if someone only plays the newest most polished games they would not have had the fun I had. Ashes does look like it is going to be highly polished in the future.

Asgerr wrote: »

Some were talking about the open world dungeons and their size and mob variety

Some of the dungeons are huge. I spent like a hour and a half in one just trying to get to the end and out. Once again very big Lineage 2 vibes with the open world dungeons. I checked out a handful of dungeons and they all seemed different enough. I did not find any bosses in the dungeons, just lots of elites. Some of the dungeons had more mob and scenery variety than others. The dungeons do look and feel great to be in. There was even one with pitfalls into the lower part of the dungeon like FFXI, but it was seamless instead of instanced.

Asgerr wrote: »

How was the experience of death like?

I did not really die until day three when I was being carless with a group. I did not study the XP debt well, but I did rack up a bill on day three. Grinded off some of the debt. It did not seem that bad to me.

On death you teleport to a respawn point. It seems to work as stated on the WIKI, but I am now realizing I could have looked harder at my XP bar and inventory to confirm correct functionality.

Asgerr

Vhaeyne wrote: »

Asgerr wrote: »

Some said the combat was not fun at all at this time. What are your thoughts?

I had fun with what was there. It was more fun for me with the spear, because I like to AOE grind. I went straight into grinding for the best gear the vendor would sell as soon as my node became a town. I was able to solo a elite with 50k hp once I got that gear. It took like 10 minutes of me spamming my swing and managing my mana carefully, but I did it. To me that is fun.

I like to grind mobs though. Lineage 2 and FFXI were some of my favorite games because of the grind. I like Ashes combat so far better than L2 or FFXI. I imagine if someone only plays the newest most polished games they would not have had the fun I had. Ashes does look like it is going to be highly polished in the future.

Asgerr wrote: »

Some were talking about the open world dungeons and their size and mob variety

Some of the dungeons are huge. I spent like a hour and a half in one just trying to get to the end and out. Once again very big Lineage 2 vibes with the open world dungeons. I checked out a handful of dungeons and they all seemed different enough. I did not find any bosses in the dungeons, just lots of elites. Some of the dungeons had more mob and scenery variety than others. The dungeons do look and feel great to be in. There was even one with pitfalls into the lower part of the dungeon like FFXI, but it was seamless instead of instanced.

Asgerr wrote: »

How was the experience of death like?

I did not really die until day three when I was being carless with a group. I did not study the XP debt well, but I did rack up a bill on day three. Grinded off some of the debt. It did not seem that bad to me.

On death you teleport to a respawn point. It seems to work as stated on the WIKI, but I am now realizing I could have looked harder at my XP bar and inventory to confirm correct functionality.

Awesome stuff. Thanks for answering in detail!

Dygz

I died once the second day. Seemed like I had accidentally killed a player and while I was mulling that over got one-shotted from behind.

Racked up a few deaths worth of xp debt trying to retrieve loot from my corpses being camped near a pack of higher level Bandits, but... felt fine working off the debt.
Combat is easy enough and streamlined for the Alpha that working off xp debt is not an issue.
Should feel like more of a pain when everything is balanced correctly. But, it's difficult to gauge now.

halbarz

Bit of a general question, if the A1 testers could point out one thing that they are most excited about after their experience during the last few days what would it be and why? If also you elaborate. This so us non-testers can get a bit more insight into your experiences

Dygz

It's an Alpha test, so nothing really exciting.
There weren't enough servers. There was a considerable amount of rubberbanding - especially in areas with a high population.

Other than that, it was fairly fun to test stuff out for hours at a time.
Most fun when we ran into people we know from forums and podcasts and APOC.
Getting messages about which Nodes had progressed to the nest Stage and which Nodes became vassals was fun. Getting an alert that the first vote for Mayor would take place in 15 minutes was kind of exciting in the moment because I was way across the opposite side of the map. Possible I could race to the Node in time to participate, but I missed it by a couple minutes.

I guess the exciting part is just seeing in person that they have some rudimentary features and mechanics implemented.

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