Lack of focus in this livestream

I am not quite sure how to feel about this livestream. There were some key things that were intended to be showed off but weren't really. We barely saw the use of the 2 new melee weapons (you have to find it in a fairly long video), I guess it's not a big part of cleric gameplay(?). Blocking occurred literally once. Constellations were not explained in the slightest... like actually though. The cleric skills weren't explained too much. The synergy and stun mechanic was explained well although repeatedly lol. There was also nice information on conviction (the class specific resource for clerics) which was exciting to learn about. It was a 40 minute video...

It felt like more of a livestream intended for someone to see how the game plays and show off visuals instead of communicating and showcasing some specific things. It could have been much shorter and focused. This is the first video I've seen that didn't feel focused and that Steven+devs were so concerned with 'playing' that they didn't even showcase the key points. You saw nice environments and many many fights with 2-3 mob types but I mean, you could have had just a handful of packs to fight and called it a day. I much prefer the god power streams where the focus is on communication and showcasing new developments than general gameplay. Like if you want to showcase mace and staff combat: zoom in and move the camera around, turn on god mode so you don't die and just hit the mobs for a minute or two.

I don't know, maybe I'm alone on this.

Edit: to clarify, I am happy if people enjoyed the stream. I having nothing but compliments for Steven and the dev team and this is literally the first dev update I've had any of these issues with, this is just meant to be constructive feedback. That being said, liking the video because it showed the 'feeling of gameplay', as valid as it is, does not negate how little information was provided. You can simultaneously like seeing the feeling of gameplay and dislike the lack of information on key things mentioned during the stream, those two things are not mutually exclusive. In a 40 minute video, both could easily be accomplished.

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StewBad

NishUK wrote:

The gameplay was very bland mechanically, much like New World and we can only hope these are very low level characters

Steven did say they were level 15, or around there at least.

I don't know why everyone forgets that this is very much a work in progress, even when Steven prefaces every single video by reminding us that. Of course it looks bland, it isn't even close to finished yet. These videos are not a representation of a finished product, rather a glimpse into the progress that has been made.

Dygz

Fantmx wrote: »

It is nice to have something fresh to look at but having twelve a year means we get people complaining when one is not as "good" as the others. I am a fan of the unknown. I have more interest in a game when I don't know everything about that game two years in advance. EQ beta, EQ2 beta, WoW beta, Vanguard beta, all of these were extremely pleasurable experiences because we knew very little before getting in to test. A more modern example is Crowfall. They had frequent updates and once they went live with alpha never took the game down. Does anyone remember the fanfare for reaching beta? How about launch? I doubt it because very few people cared after seeing everything there was to see about Crowfall over a 3 to 4 year period beforehand. And now they have closed down to reevaluate their approach.

In short, I am appreciative of them doing this but I do think there is a very careful balance to be had and we as consumers should be very mindful of that.

I see your point, but...even with that in mind... it's still better to show us Summoner and probably Bard.
We haven't seen Rogue, yet, either, but... we pretty much understand how a Rogue is likely to function.
Prior to Alpha 2, we should see some demos of augments - we have an understanding of Active Skills from the Alpha 1 demos.

Also... we shoul probably at least have the last two articles for Know Your Nodes poste some time soon.
In addition to...
NODES 3

Liniker

StewBad wrote: »

Steven did say they were level 15, or around there at least.

i think the issue was, that Steven made it look like level 2 gameplay

Okeydoke

The live stream seemed a little rambling to me, to the OP's point. But I didn't think it was bad. I've watched every live stream for over two years now, so it's good to see a little change of pace. And I think Steven does a good job in general on the streams.

If I'm being picky, whether this live stream showcase or a showcase from a year ago...there does seem to be something just kind of missing. Like an element that could make them better, that'd bring them from an A to an A+. No idea what it is though.

Could just be the never ending desire to want more info, to see more. Either way, live streams in general are already an A, and far better than what any other company I can think of does.

Arya_Yeshe

yesterday stream was fine, today stream was fine

grow up

Mopy King

Seems unnecessarily nitpicky..
Personally I really enjoyed this one with everyone having fun playing the game while showing some skills. I prefer they keep it fun even if it makes longer streams with the same amount of info, not turn streams into some PowerPoint presentation meant for a board meeting of execs.

FuryBladeborne

NishUK wrote: »

SupremeKnight wrote: »

I apologize for this but I thought the livestream was awesome - especially the combat and the graphics, which literally blows everything else I've ever seen out of the water (I've seen alot).

I apologize but your view spurs my imagination of some guy taking a hot steaming dump right in front of me.

@neuroguy the gameplay demo was unprofessional and they should reconsider both not releasing a video every single month and for Steven to commentate on it only and not play.

NishUK wrote: »

The gameplay was very bland mechanically, much like New World and we can only hope these are very low level characters and yes @Dygz we did have an understanding of all 3 classes shown and their syngergy together was extremely bare bones.
Intreprid should care more about showing off classes and syngergies as this means so much to people gameplay wise and it was frustrating to watch such a relaxed demo with little on offer.

The worst thing from this gamestream was Steven annoucing during, that there will be active blocking+parrying for all classes but then the devs saying we're still deciding on a resource which for me brings into HUGE question the lack of care for gameplay fundamentals.
If they haven't decided on a feature that is going to be prevelant for all classes then I can see there efforts being a balancing nightmare for PvP and I can't stress enough how I hope they take gameplay more seriously otherwise I'm not looking forward to AoC for a competitive and rich PvE mechanical game.

@NishUK
If you return after Beta starts, the streams will probably be more to your taste since Beta is a complete game that is being put through the final polishing steps. This is a work in progress. They are not really focused on showing off. They are working through the problems of development in bringing their design to fruition and showing their progress along the way.

While IS does want feedback, asking for what sounds like a complete, organized, and flashy product simply cannot be provided yet as it does not exist.

akabear

Ah, alas, have a couple of more focussed streams, then when one is back to before.. then.. hmmm..

Prefer focussed but happy with whatever.

NishUK

@FuryBladeborne I really don't think you care about competitive gameplay.

Anyone with a decent brain after fully listening and watching this stream should know that gameplay and fundamentals have taken a back seat IE they don't have a committed team or just 1 staff member to making ideas in this area that only Steven signs off on.

If I was an employee tasked with complete oversee of classes, gameplay, fundamentals and user experience, I would of had active blocking and 'X' as a resource done EONS ago. Western development is lacking I'm sorry, they care more about a unique and fun experience, both ingame and out of game in their own working environment than they do GETTING TO WORK! Steven as the only real leader is clearly too soft!

I'll be dabbling in my Korean delights shortly, this western effort better get a damn grip of itself because I don't know what kind of fool would find it amusing to watch snail pace development and decision making that has actually been put on damn video!

AoC trends are literally a ghost town, both on youtube views and twitter likes. There needs to be decision makers in Intreprid that know what people want to hear and to do that in a far better manner than Steven's waffling.
Userbase in the early stages matter too, there are too little from the competitive background from games such as Lineage 2 and Archeage and these are the kind of players that will put any game through its paces unlike a lot of you from story focused games or games that had no potential to be massively popular but worked in their own cute charming way (like EQ bs).

Songcaller

Its a strange set of circumstances. Ashes is the first time I've watched dev updates for any MMO. Most of the time I've seen the end results and then bought into a particular game.

I don't understand what makes a good dev update for this reason. I never feel satisfied with any show cases because everything is subject to change.

I didn't like the conviction because it sounds like the old focus mechanism has returned. I liked the fact the hybrid gameplay still didn't return to a crosshair though.

I think the potential is present but I didn't come away with a sentiment of 'Cleric will be awesome'. I didn't come away with a sentiment of 'Cleric will be crap' either. I just saw the whole update as exploration and entertainment. I didn't see the update as a technical diorama like other updates have been.

akabear

Regardless, when they are ready, I would like to see a roll out of per class type 30sec showcase running through the various skills.Until all classes are showcased and then can be watched comparatively in isolation

Somewhat similar that was shown sometime ago for a couple of classes.

Merow

I don’t know, I kind of enjoyed this stream. It was a little bit of a stray from previous streams that are more focused on one specific facet of the development - but intentionally so. We were able to see day night cycles, constellations, group combat dynamics, a bit of a class show case, a new area, and essentially got a 40+ minute gameplay primer. I was thoroughly entertained and I’m not going to be playing a healer type.

I see a lot of comments on here talking about not getting exactly the class preview they wanted, or complaining about development speed and that seems unusual to me. Naturally every update isn’t going to speak to the exact area of the game that you’re most interested in. The development process and speed has been impressive since the unreal engine 5 and texture tool update.

I’m someone who can watch someone else’s gameplay and be entertained though.

Garrtok

And why the hell he had to go somewhere else to see a Constellation? That's not how stars work.

Manueljf

The livestream was great. It let us feel the ambience

neuroguy

@NishUK

Hard disagree on reconsidering the monthly livestreams. Many people enjoy the updates and seeing the world evolve, even if it's just showing off some mounts, as long as that's the expectation going in. Not having things like the blocking resource figured out may sound fundamentally concerning to you but it is also an extremely trivial thing to adjust and it WILL need to be adjusted for balance. When they don't have everything fleshed out 100% yet [probably why other archetypes are not shown yet @Dygz ], it's fine to leave things to later that are just tuning for the sake of balance. Trying to finalize things for balance now is a fool's errand and a waste of resources imo.

I care less about 'professionalism' and more about clarity and conciseness (which may be what you meant). Clarity is number one in my mind. Clarity includes setting expectations for the stream, identifying what will be showcased, which I think historically has been done very well. Clarity also includes identifying what information they still do not feel comfortable with sharing or want to keep from players, this has not been done quite as well as setting expectations but still well enough. For example, some people are claiming that Steven intentionally didn't reveal more about the constellation system which would be valid, but that needs to be communicated explicitly and not speculation by the viewers [ @Fantmx I agree with your post otherwise but their intentions need to be explicit about the amount of information they are sharing so we are not wondering if it was a botched script where more info was meant to be shared haha]

Gui10 wrote: »

This is very much different from the ranger showcase, where you were only showcasing skills one at a time. Here it was group mechanics, and therefore the party should be more organized, better positioning, etc. Things you need to do to stay alive.

I think this encapsulates what a lot of people have eluded to in terms of the difficulty and competitiveness. I think this dev update pre-recorded video would have been best split in two. One part just explicitly showing off the new weapons, cleric skills, constellations + day/night. A second part with gameplay where they do not have to be burdened with explaining anything and could show off the zombies coming out of the ground, the ambience, the group mechanics and synergies and just show some organized party play + giving people a nice sense for the pacing/ambience/feel of the game. This would include going to the observation point and seeing the constellation.

neuroguy

StewBad wrote: »

Steven did say they were level 15, or around there at least.

I don't know why everyone forgets that this is very much a work in progress, even when Steven prefaces every single video by reminding us that. Of course it looks bland, it isn't even close to finished yet. These videos are not a representation of a finished product, rather a glimpse into the progress that has been made.

So personally, I am considering not just my personal take on the dev update but what other people may take away from it too. The target audience for the dev updates is mostly invested players who are knowledgable, but it is also the source material where content creators make this stuff more visible.

The pre-recorded videos are a slightly different story, they lend themselves to casual viewing much more readily due to the lack of updates and other ramblings that are only interesting to people closely following development. Look at the AoC youtube channel, the number of views for the pre-recorded standalone 4k videos vs the full dev livestreams (this update: 43k vs 17k; gathering: 91k vs 51k; ranger combat: 107k vs 51k; melee combat: 96k vs 60k; seasons: 76k vs 49k; character creator: 80k vs 51k... you get the picture). This is why Liniker 's point on showing cleric hybrid combat or Gui10 's comment on focusing on showing off group content or other people's arguments about seeing more skillful/difficult combat are important/valid . Also it's why I've never gotten annoyed at Steven saying this is early alpha footage subject to change, before during and after the videos lol.

Clarity in the pre-recorded videos is important and things shouldn't be left to speculation too much or require specific knowledge [what I was trying to say to Azherae]. Sure we have known the cleric stuff for a while now but it takes a minute or two to re-hash it. Yes we all know about hybrid combat but it takes a minute or two to just show it off for the cleric. It's a hard balance to strike, you don't want there to be zero overlap with previous videos/content/info but at the same time you shouldn't repeat the full description of nodes or hybrid combat every video either.

novercalis

NishUK wrote: »

@FuryBladeborne I really don't think you care about competitive gameplay.

Anyone with a decent brain after fully listening and watching this stream should know that gameplay and fundamentals have taken a back seat IE they don't have a committed team or just 1 staff member to making ideas in this area that only Steven signs off on.

If I was an employee tasked with complete oversee of classes, gameplay, fundamentals and user experience, I would of had active blocking and 'X' as a resource done EONS ago. Western development is lacking I'm sorry, they care more about a unique and fun experience, both ingame and out of game in their own working environment than they do GETTING TO WORK! Steven as the only real leader is clearly too soft!

I'll be dabbling in my Korean delights shortly, this western effort better get a damn grip of itself because I don't know what kind of fool would find it amusing to watch snail pace development and decision making that has actually been put on damn video!

AoC trends are literally a ghost town, both on youtube views and twitter likes. There needs to be decision makers in Intreprid that know what people want to hear and to do that in a far better manner than Steven's waffling.
Userbase in the early stages matter too, there are too little from the competitive background from games such as Lineage 2 and Archeage and these are the kind of players that will put any game through its paces unlike a lot of you from story focused games or games that had no potential to be massively popular but worked in their own cute charming way (like EQ bs).

lol go back to your korean fake mmo gacha bs

FuryBladeborne

@NishUK
I would just like to point out that the combat team was created earlier this year. Even though the game was started in before the Kickstarter (2017). I don't think either of us know enough about development cycles to state conclusively when a specific function should be completed. But I do know that what they are working on now is far from complete and I don't expect anything to look amazing yet. They are showing us the direction they are going and asking what we think about it.

You said:
" I don't know what kind of fool would find it amusing to watch snail pace development and decision making that has actually been put on damn video!"

That's fine. What is being done here is not what you are looking for. Since you seem interested in Ashes, come back during beta or around release. You will find much more of what you are looking for.

FuryBladeborne

Garrtok wrote: »

And why the hell he had to go somewhere else to see a Constellation? That's not how stars work.

I'm pretty sure the issues were a combination of clouds in the sky and the fact that they weren't even sure where to look to find the constellations. So, they went to an area where the clouds were not in the way while they took a look around.

Czeris

FuryBladeborne wrote: »

Garrtok wrote: »

And why the hell he had to go somewhere else to see a Constellation? That's not how stars work.

I'm pretty sure the issues were a combination of clouds in the sky and the fact that they weren't even sure where to look to find the constellations. So, they went to an area where the clouds were not in the way while they took a look around.

They were in a forest too, and went to find an open area where the trees weren't in the way.

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