Takeaways from Hogwarts Legacy

So Hogwarts Legacy is incredible. It has a 9/10 rating on Steam and a 95% Google users rating. It's objectively loved by millions. It would be a huge oversight to NOT analyze what things Ashes can takeaway from HL. I understand they are two different genres, but what things do you love about HL that you'd like to see Ashes take inspiration from?

My thoughts:
1. Combat feels great and snappy. Animations look nice, they're impactful, but are not over the top.
2. Graphics & animations look all around amazing. If AoC comes anywhere near this level of fidelity I'd be so happy.
3. Spell bar / pages is designed to work well for console players. I know Ashes isn't targeting console, but something to throw in the back pocket just in case?
4. The attention to detail in the explorable world is top tier. Just running around exploring is immersive.

If it were up to me, I'd give the whole staff a 3 day gamecation and make Hogwarts Legacy "required reading"

What are your takeaways from HL?

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Mag7spy

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

What does this have to do with ashes of creation and a mmorpg?

I think this is a bit of a silly take. Inspiration and design considerations can be collected from a wide range of sources. I think it is a bit churlish to say that nothing can be learned from what is objectively a very good game. The world-building and interiors are excellent and whilst the graphical fidelity is above that expected in an MMO, the ambiance and mood achieved by the developers are admirable.

Other systems in the game like the UI, menu and quest logs are also really nice. I like what we are seeing with the direction of Ashes UI so far, but I do hope that it keeps some of that RPG, magical, old-school adventurer charm that I feel is lacking in the likes of New World.

Audio queues are S-tier in Hogwarts as well. Having impactful little audio queues to match with specific actions are great (if not over done)

Debatable, your experience with a game doesn't mean it is shared, I'm not a fan.

1. Combat feels great and snappy. Animations look nice, they're impactful, but are not over the top.
2. Graphics & animations look all around amazing. If AoC comes anywhere near this level of fidelity I'd be so happy.
3. Spell bar / pages is designed to work well for console players. I know Ashes isn't targeting console, but something to throw in the back pocket just in case?
4. The attention to detail in the explorable world is top tier. Just running around exploring is immersive.

These points talking about combat to spell bar, to things working on console. As well as honeymoon phase of exploring just cause its a new open world game... Not for me and not a fan. My opinion isn't silly.

Mag7spy

NishUK wrote: »

superhero6785 wrote: »

So Hogwarts Legacy is incredible.

Ok...

superhero6785 wrote: »

It has a 9/10 rating on Steam and a 95% Google users rating. It's objectively loved by millions.

Only 80,000 people on steam have reviewed Hogwarts on Steam and it's at 93% and anyone on Google is allowed to review Hogwarts Legacy without needing the game. The game is not really catering to extreme biases and there are a lot of mad Harry Potter fans, so the high google review is of no surprise, also bearing in mind most users reviewing it will likely be younger than 25 with quite a small catalogue of gaming experience.
In contrast Terraria is reviewed by 900k people on Steam with a 97% review but I see no thread calling for inspiration from this game.

superhero6785 wrote: »

My thoughts:
1. Combat feels great and snappy. Animations look nice, they're impactful, but are not over the top.
2. Graphics & animations look all around amazing. If AoC comes anywhere near this level of fidelity I'd be so happy.
3. Spell bar / pages is designed to work well for console players. I know Ashes isn't targeting console, but something to throw in the back pocket just in case?
4. The attention to detail in the explorable world is top tier. Just running around exploring is immersive.

1. "Wand Slinging" and spell casting has very high attack speed which quite easily makes the user feel overpowered, even more so infinite mana and only very minor cooldowns.
It's fast food/cheap thrills entertainment, pretty good but it doesn't break any boundaries for depth of gameplay and reward for skilled management. There are no charging attacks in the game, quite unimpressive for a Wizard/casting game.
2. Graphics wise it's pretty decent for a high budget game, floor tiles looking very nice with shine/rtx but otherwise nothing we haven't seen before.
3. "Feels good with pad" gameplay is expected for a high budget games that focus on consoles at launch. There have been more gameplay mechanical options from other games such as Devil May Cry and Tekken though.
4. Attention to detail in the world is top tier? The outside is everything you would expect from a fresh british forest with hills and mountains included so that's good to a degree. What does "Top tier" mean though, just purely the amount of assets used? How does that translate into interactions exactly, in Breathe of the wild you can chop tree's, cook, hunt animals and use many rocks and tree's for advantages for combat and life benefits.

What exactly is this game doing that is different that is worth discussing?

Well besides being a "typical" AAA game, that mainly focuses on being a "movie with selected interactions" + certain areas made for some pve action and mini games + decent voice acting, the only thing I can see to take from Hogwarts is the REPAIR SPELL (looks great seeing assets come back together!) and how that can be used in a game that focuses much more so on gameplay and co-op/online.

Maybe instead being over captivated by a fresh game you can start looking at things a bit more critically and start to appreciate gameplay features and mechanics from older games!

He is having honeymoon phase and is projecting this game on other games now.

ClintHardwood

I was skeptical of Hogwarts Legacy initially, but I agree that it's a really well-made game when it comes to environment, sound, and character interaction. The gameplay itself is a bit dull but that's not the goal of HL. It set out to immerse players in the world of Harry Potter, and that it does brilliantly.

Uboon

Voxtrium wrote: »

I don't think the details are what IS should pay attention to. It is how those details are delivered that is important. What went behind creating the feeling of immersion and interest to explore.

Exactly. Like the echoing sounds of distant players grunting, fighting, chopping trees. One good thing about New World.

novercalis

the only good thing about new world. Audio.

Sjelden

superhero6785 wrote: »

So Hogwarts Legacy is ...

... not an MMO.

Now, this may sound like a slapstick comment, but it really is not.

Hogwarts Legacy is a singleplayer game. From both a game development and technical point of view, there is a massive difference between developing a SP and an MMO.

Everything that is really really hard to solve, is tied in to the fact that it is a MMO.

While Hogwarts may be a good game, it really isn't innovating much.
Furthermore, the love for the game stems from the impact the IP had on young minds more than anything else.

That being said, there is nothing wrong in looking to other games for inspiration.
But asking a fairly ambitious MMO-development project to look to a singleplayer game for combat inspiration is ... well, there are few if any takeaways for the dev team.

It would be like comparing a picture to a working physical model.
Sure, the flying vehicle on the picture looks really good - but we cannot build it like that, because physics.

Sjelden

Liniker wrote: »

superhero6785 wrote: »

You don't think an MMO should ever be able to dynamically scale visual fidelity for when you are alone in a forest fighting monsters, and then seamlessly switch to performance visuals as more and more players enter the scene?

No, and I think this would be a terrible terrible idea, I've never seen anything similar to this in an MMORPG, I think people are misunderstanding what "default player appearance" is

they are basically doing what archeage has - your character skin changes, and that's it

automatically changing the graphics quality is not a thing, and shouldn't be a thing - AoC is an open world game, imagine every time a guild passes by with 100 people or every time you walk in a node your graphics changed, this would be a really bad experience

It is basically LOD for characters, a gameplay feature that has been around for decades.
Level of Detail (or LOD) is a solution to hardware tax in computer games with high fidelity graphics, where assets further away have a lower detail model to replace the high detail model.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_detail_(computer_graphics)

Lark Wyll

I liked how fluid mounting and dismounting the broom was.

Miminal loading screens exploring Hogwarts.

Exploration the open world was fun but only due to having flying mounts. We won't have them in AoC.

The quests, character development, build diversity and complexity all lacked depth. AoC should not replicate.

The puzzle spam in that game was abysmal. It was a very cheap mechanism to fill the world with clutter that slowed us down but didn't add to the game. I'd AoC goes the puzzle bloat game play route or loot box spam like New World did or Hogwarts Legacy did with Alohamora and their caves. The loot box rat game play is so stale imo.

HL rode the IP pretty hard as the game lacks depth but Hogwarts and Hogsmeade were done very well. They clearly spent the bulk of their development time on those areas to do right by Harry Potter which was smart for its style of game but it would not be appropriate for an mmo to release with so little game play or content.

HL shared too much kid gameplay for pre-teens. A lot of it felt like I was playing the cartoon Disney collection game coming out in game content. They went overboard on the low quality content types. The game is enjoyable early on and dwindles pretty hard and has very little replay value.

Julixim

Talents wrote: »

Combat in HL was its weak point imo. Didn't care for it from beginning to end.

You can't copy a single player games graphics and just replicate it in an MMO. Hogwarts Legacy has 1 player it needs to render clothing and spells for and even then HL was quite laggy in terms of FPS drops for me and I have a 3080. Ashes is planning to have a minimum of 500 players in fights with the goal of 1000.

you are literally just hating all along. "combat was weak imo" but not stating why.
Guess you had to react too much hahaha and you rather like to spamm and turn your brain off as already stated below my discussion.

Also it was laggy not because of too high requirements but because of poor optimization.
Also imagine with UE 5.1 and its new render system.
But who am I, just keep hating all OP's with your nonsense.

TheDarkSorcerer

HL will be the game of the year, no doubt. And there is a reason for it. Not only does the franchise already have a huge fan base, but it has invited new (non HP fans) into the detailed and rich JK Rowling universe. The game is fun, and there's lots to do to keep you busy and entertained. I'm 50h+ deep into the game myself.

There are plenty of points AOC can draw inspiration from HL just like they have drawn inspo from 15 other games. Let's be real.

Some of ya'll just sound so miserable sometimes...

DarkTides

Just by watching the gameplay videos for Harry Potter, (FOR ME) I can tell how boring it would get after a very brief period of time. Seems like I'd be using the same spells over and over and it will get old.

The blocking with a magical barrier was probably the coolest looking....needs more pizazz.

If there was a way to emulate the wizards duel that took place between valdemort and dumbledore, where you draw magic from your opponents wand, send out a shockwave, shatter environmental objects such as glass, then throw that glass at your opponent who then defends themself by raising a magical conversion barrier, turning the glass into sand.... then Id be impressed...

Theres really only so much you can do with the limited number of spells provided...really need a deep spell tree.

TheDarkSorcerer

DarkTides wrote: »

Just by watching the gameplay videos for Harry Potter, (FOR ME) I can tell how boring it would get after a very brief period of time. Seems like I'd be using the same spells over and over and it will get old.

The blocking with a magical barrier was probably the coolest looking....needs more pizazz.

If there was a way to emulate the wizards duel that took place between valdemort and dumbledore, where you draw magic from your opponents wand, send out a shockwave, shatter environmental objects such as glass, then throw that glass at your opponent who then defends themself by raising a magical conversion barrier, turning the glass into sand.... then Id be impressed...

Theres really only so much you can do with the limited number of spells provided...really need a deep spell tree.

There's 27 spells in total. And you can put points into upgrading those spells. As you duel, you can pick up other objects with you wand and throw at opponent. If a troll is throwing something at you, you can block and throw it right back. And depending on the spells you use, you can create unique combos.

Mag7spy

Julixim wrote: »

Talents wrote: »

Combat in HL was its weak point imo. Didn't care for it from beginning to end.

You can't copy a single player games graphics and just replicate it in an MMO. Hogwarts Legacy has 1 player it needs to render clothing and spells for and even then HL was quite laggy in terms of FPS drops for me and I have a 3080. Ashes is planning to have a minimum of 500 players in fights with the goal of 1000.

you are literally just hating all along. "combat was weak imo" but not stating why.
Guess you had to react too much hahaha and you rather like to spamm and turn your brain off as already stated below my discussion.

Also it was laggy not because of too high requirements but because of poor optimization.
Also imagine with UE 5.1 and its new render system.
But who am I, just keep hating all OP's with your nonsense.

Combat is nothing special about the game, not the first time I've heard it. Everyone can have their opinions though, if you think the combat design and difficulty would being good mechanics to a mmorpg you are free to say why. I've also heard the game is dead easy, its designed as a casual game after all.

Songcaller

The combat is basic and the game is easy due to the thousands (millions?) Of children who play the game.

TheDarkSorcerer

Neurath wrote: »

The combat is basic and the game is easy due to the thousands (millions?) Of children who play the game.

Over 12 million copies sold the past two weeks and almost 900 million in revenue thanks to "children"... OK...

Child Item