Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
[Feedback Request] Cyclops Combat Preview Shown in May Livestream
Hello glorious community,
We’d like your feedback on the Alpha Two Cyclops Combat Preview shown during the May 2023 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters you can choose from:
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, June 16 2023, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
We’d like your feedback on the Alpha Two Cyclops Combat Preview shown during the May 2023 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters you can choose from:
- How do you feel about the combat preview featuring the Cyclops? Do you like the mechanics, multi-group gameplay, and boss phases?
- What are your favorite open-world raid bosses, or world bosses? Please provide examples when applicable.
- Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cyclops Combat Preview?
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, June 16 2023, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
2
Comments
Gonna rewatch the fight later and look out for other POVs to see if anything else stands out. But overall, if this is a somewhat basic open world boss rather than a super unique one - this is great. But if this is supposed to be a unique boss with very good drops and rare respawn - I'd definitely want him to be way harder and have more intricate mechanics.
edit: I rewatched the showcase and one of the devs said that this was a simple boss meant to mainly show the interaction of big creatures with their surroundings. I can accept this kind of encounter in that context, but this then leads me to two pieces of feedback:
- tell us about these details in the Steven's preface, because it's easier to understand that info w/o a boss fight happening on the screen that you're trying to pay way more attention to
- show us the pvx side of the game if you decide to show us easy pve
The first point is kinda self-explanatory. The second point mainly addresses the claims of "we'll have pve that only <10% of the playerbase will be able to clear". I'm assuming that this kind of pve will only get shown when Intrepid get to developing their AI, because w/o that there can be no hardcore pve.Until then we'll most likely get the easy kind of encounters like this boss was. But as a pvx game, the difficulty of this easy encounter will increase, because there'll always be a threat of pvp looming over you. So what I suggest is to just tune down the boss/mobs and to split those two groups into "farmers" and "aggressors".
This way not only will you show exactly the kind of gameplay that players would expect to see in the game, but the pve content itself will be put into proper context. A ton of people have never even attempted an open world boss in an open world pvp game. PvX showcases would be perfect to show them how the game will be played on release.
"What was the point of showing this particular one?"
It was basic, as I'm sure was intended. It was zergable almost certainly, but that doesn't matter. It had incredibly simplistic mechanics and didn't really require any obvious coordination (nothing was mentioned, at least).
I can't understand what the point of this showcase was other than as a conversation starter. By contrast, for example, the old Alpha-1 pair were massively more interesting and more useful. I could give better feedback on those than this.
So... what do you actually want here? Should I just rant and theoryraid? I doubt it will be helpful because this is a feedback thread.
But I also don't feel like I can advance any other topics either. I gained nothing. I'm happy to fill that void with my own thoughts, but yeah... good job to Doug and Jason on making a basic Big Boi to impress some people, but I kinda feel empty now.
Can we harvest the wood from the trees the Cyclops knocks down?
Would also love to see more of the Aggro mechanic.
Thanks!
1. No one was dodging.
2. Combat looks rooted, very Throne & Liberty…
3. When ogre is slamming ground sending out shockwaves, that should force people to block to not get knocked over. Missed mechanic opportunity here.
4. Needed some sort of effect for when you receive reward. A chest appearing or some glowing light over the boss. Just something.
~Boss sliding while walking.
~The echo sounds were not sounding too good in the current iteration.
~Player models and animations look a bit small, fragile, thin, and wonky.
~The cyclops eye looked a bit too contrasting from the model.
~The looting of the boss seemed anti-climatic.
~Attacks were hard to read the AoE area.
~And probably the biggest issue I see is that players mostly stand around pressing a button or two. AoC to this point seems like a nearly completely tab target game, which is not as fun after playing more action based MMOs.
The cyclops can knock down trees and turn obelisks to rubble but it doesn't seem to be capable of throwing, picking up or knocking people back at distance.
Do you like the mechanics, multi-group gameplay, and boss phases?
The enrage was good, however, enrages often kill a whole raid - the point is to prevent the enrage. I wonder if later bosses have an enrage timer, if they do, its bad habit teaching lower levels to ignore an enrage.
What are your favorite open-world raid bosses, or world bosses? Please provide examples when applicable.
I preferred the alpha 1 bosses, they threw people about - even onto the beach and that was awesome. I feel the team didn't need to dodge, block or even avoid the mechanics. My favourite world boss dug into sand, swallowed players, spit players out and wrapped around whole raids. I think there should be more interaction between the static players and the world boss.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cyclops Combat Preview?
Combat still looks too static. I still feel there should be more reason to block/dodge and more reason to move around. The whole combat scenario seemed detached between the players and the boss - the players just nuked the boss and there seemed little in the way to stop the nukes. Even the boss damage was too low.
Great. Although the 3D Assets in other MMOs look a bit higher fidelity, with the overall animations, effects and transitions inbetween them, you are setting new standards for the genre.
Mechanics
Altough we have seen some creative mechanics like the tree stump/healing mechanic and trees getting knocked over by the cyclops, i feel like there was hardly any strategy involved in slaying the cyclops.
-Staple raid mechanics, especially from a tab target combat perspective were missing
-Players had were hardly reacting to the raid mechanics that were present. I think it was hard to see when the mechanics started
-Players spammed their abilities, without much thinking and dodging involved.
Sounds
Liked everything, expect the tree sounds.
They sounded like they were recording from a distance, while emulating the distance of the player towards ingame tree on top of that. Dunno... they pretty much lacked what New World trees had.
Overall
The overall impression was very good though.
A lot of improvements.
- Really like the more immersive aggro mechanic
- It would be cool if animals and other enemy npc's would not just simply walk around on their spots but behave immersively. (Running along, Hiding in Bushes or Burrows)
On the Boss:
- It would be cool if the raid boss would also collide with smaller bushes
- The boss should also have special aggro mechanic where he warns players to go away audibly as long as they don't attack them.
- Can high level players just solo the boss?
- Bosses should also have some voice callouts. (Thx for answering this question during the stream.)
- A cool idea would be if bosses would get visibly damaged/hurt the more health they loose. (Simply using some decals on the texture)
- Same would also be cool for player characters. Not necessarily by health but their armour getting dirty/damaged during a fight.
How do you feel about the combat preview featuring the Cyclops? Do you like the mechanics, multi-group gameplay, and boss phases?
I feel nothing. It's the equivalent of a single standard enemy in games I actually enjoy.
What are your favorite open-world raid bosses, or world bosses? Please provide examples when applicable.
I don't like these in games generally. I can absolutely imagine them being done correctly such that I would enjoy them, but no game has ever done so without being a purely PvE game so nothing applies. Other than that, y'all know where my TheoryRaids are I guess.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cyclops Combat Preview?
It seems poorly designed for what Ashes is, given what we know about classes now, or even basic extrapolations of what classes and Archetypes would be like. But it's so basic that I figure any feedback I give will just be countered by 'Obviously they will make it more interesting or better!'.and derail feedback.
Overall though, it's like... it's just emptiness. I'd rather play almost anything else than bother with it, as shown. If somehow this is the type of raiding flow the game is supposed to have in general, then {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass}.
Not even the PvP around this would be enjoyable (extrapolating here, people, if you think I'm wrong because of something that we have not seen yet then great but I'm giving feedback based on what I saw).
Mechanics seemed solid, really enjoy the idea of destroying his weapon making him rage and unable to heal ut hit harder or not destroy the weapon and make the fight take longer but a bit safer.
My all time favorite open-world "boss" is not even a boss, It's just a max level MASSIVE robot that walks around a leveling zone called Hellfire peninsula. Yes the Fel Reaver. that noice and screen shakes gave players PTSD. I would love to see something similar in Ashes where you would come back to an area waaay below your level to slay this one type of enemy.
Just overall it is looking promising, I was worried about the no footprint in the snow from the cyclops but that was just turned off for the test so no worries, amazing work on the falling trees as he walks by, maybe even implement that he might stomp smaller mobs if they happen to be in his path? just by randomly walking over a spider and it squishes.
I only have a Problem with the fact that its a ''Lvl 30'' so will he be needless if i get over the Level Steven talked about ?
- I would hope for some special Craftsman drops like (Cyclops Eye or a piece of his Totem) so he is still essential for Players lvl 35+
Aoe Indicators maybe ? some Aoe spells from the Cyclops were like instant maybe give a short Aoe Circle to show where his Spells hit.
Maybe give the Tank more responsibility like: The Tanks NEEDS to pull him aways from the Mushrooms or the Totem so he doesnt get a Buff or if you pull him away he wont stomp the Mushrooms
BDO: Equally interesting as Quint or Muraka which are both super boring and yet still take longer to kill. I'd give it to BDO in a 'you must play one of these'.
FFXI: No contest, don't even wanna talk about it.
MineCraft: About as thought provoking as the Wither (which is to say not at all) and the Ender Dragon has better mechanics. I'd rather fight the Wither than this
Modded MineCraft: Better bosses in WynnCraft.
Overall: ... Disappointed.
For me, these ow RBs dont need more mechanics. Their role is to provide huge xp, lots of mats, possible whole items and conflict of interests.
Not story telling of instanced "stage" gameplay.
Not a fan of the need greed pass mechanic.
Is this a placeholder or your feedback?
I seriously wanna know if to like the post.
This is a pretty basic open world boss in L2. Add an aoe and a tree to hit and you got yourself the Cyclops from the showcase. It's a cute backdrop for pvp, but nothing much outside of that.
It has basic buffs, a stun and a buff cancel.
The point of this post is this. If Cyclops is a boss like that - just a strolling boy that you can kill every 1-2 days - that's great. But if it's supposed to be a unique low lvl raid boss, I'd definitely want way more than what was shown.
Here's a mid-lvl unique raid-size boss. She tps you under her feet. Her adds and she herself constantly paralyze players and they all have a ton of hp, which is why the raid is so damn huge (the buffs at that lvl are also limited, which is a pretty big factor).
In my arrogance, I believe you value my input/opinion enough that you might care to know why I'm not engaging with this thread.
glhf.
And with the announcement of alpha2 sales closing soon I'm now really doubting myself whether I wanna buy in before it does or whether I just wait till the release. Things are getting complicated, especially cause I see this sales closing in a really negative light, due to my own pessimism and jadedness.
It's a subtle feedback thing but seeing the Tank get laid out was a great and readable way to communicate fight state.
Additional examples could be sending players flying outwards on charge, or crouching or flinching at the giant AoE shockwaves.
Also active blocking AoE and boss mechanics to alleviate healing needs is GOATED, more of this please.
Also a side note, but before the fight, all players can be seen fidgeting side to side with little in the way of smoothing or natural movement. It's a super small polish but I would love to see the character articulation in this game more polished and pleasant to look at.
It also felt like every role was represented. It's hard to know for sure since you are watching instead of playing, but it seemed like the healers were kept busy, the dps genuinely needed to burn the boss and the adds down in order to prevent things from escalating and it seemed like the tanks had to work to maintain control of the fight.
It you can, please stick to the concept of tailoring the boss mechanics to its theme. The cyclops carried around a large tree and was a large angry creature and both of those things dictated how he fought. There was no random magic super power that we had no way of predicting or didn't make any sense (FFXIV does that a lot).
How do you feel about the combat preview featuring the Cyclops? Do you like the mechanics, multi-group game-play, and boss phases?
The themed mechanics were fantastic. Everything the boss did, made sense for its character and back story. Always do that going forward if you can. The individual roles felt defined and busy, perfect.
What are your favorite open-world raid bosses, or world bosses? Please provide examples when applicable.
One that I loved was Bahamut in FFXIV. It was a longer fight and larger scale boss than what was presented here (as it should be since it was a major part of the plot) but it was a good example of how to make a boss fight engaging and challenging while still making sense. All of his abilities are things you would expect to see from a large powerful dragon do and were consistent with what they showed in much earlier cut scenes. He would wipe if you if didn't do everything correctly but you were also able to figure out what you needed to do from what was presented to you. Also, if you did wipe you had an idea of what happened so you could make corrections, that's not always the case for raid fights (some are designed in such a way that you almost need third party tools to tell you how you actually died).
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cyclops Combat Preview?
Sorry for being a broken record, but the theme of the boss matched the fight perfectly. All of his mechanics were things you could easily see him doing. Even the tree totem, while a surprise, still made sense. If you can continue to do this with all of your mobs (not just raid bosses) the entire game world will start to feel like a real, living a breathing place.
Edit: The only dislike i had was the wolves. They were these sort of ghost creatures, instead use Worgs or Goblins or some sort of thorned vine creature. Something to go along with the brutal/natural theme.
Needing how ever many were in that video (64?) would only gate keep the content. You would see this stuff wondering the world but unless you can organize a large scale, pre-planed and organized raid party you can't ever engage with it.
At the scale shown, a small guild, or group of friends, can easily get together and find others around to take it down. 64 (or similar) man bosses should existing for sure, however the open world wondering mobs like the cyclops should stay relatively accessible.
Ideas:
- It would be nice to see some seasonal design on the cyclops. Just some like snow on his totem or something. He looked like he was in spring surrounded by winter.
- I agree with not scaling content for the most part. That said, I don't look forward to the inevitable carries being sold and cheapening of the experience for people at the appropriate level. Some system in place to discourage this would be nice, many options for that. I will say though, I like the idea of scaling down to my friend's level to do lower content with them (Just don't care for scaling up lower level people), but I get people not wanting to feel "weaker" than their character is. Maybe it's an option when in party to scale or not? Maybe if you're in party you automatically scale down to your friend's level for certain content. Maybe you can one shot this guy if you're 60 and not partied with any lowbies.
- The only mechanic I found strange was the charge with the totem. It's hard to be certain about what was happening given our perspective, but he seemed to charge too far away from the group. It looked like there was some sort of punishment for being too close to him after the charge, but he charges so far that nobody would end up anywhere near him. I think the mechanic would be cleaner if the charge stopped a shorter distance after he runs through his target or targets. To be clear, I'm not trying to make the mechanic harder, just trying to make it feel smoother.
- It would be cool if his mechanics had a seasonal flare to them as well. Like for instance, his healing mushrooms have a spring/summer vibe in my mind. In winter/fall, might be cool to have the mushrooms not heal him and instead poison the raid. This doesn't make the encounter harder, just changes it in an environment related way. (His loot pool could be similarly impacted, as another idea.)
- Did we see him toss the totem? Let's have him chunk the totem at people lol. Would be epic to see that thing bouncing through your raid group tearing up the ground as it went. Again, not a difficulty changing mentality, just might be a "cool" mechanic.
- Maybe a Trophy of some sort could drop to be displayed in your freehold or the like. Maybe it's "achievement based", like the trophy only drops if you defeat this boss with this stipulation. (I only like that idea if max level players can't go back and one shot it for credit.)
Overall I think this is in a great spot. I'm a Pvper at heart, so I can't wait to crash someone's raid on this guy and steal their boss.
Katrell Highmountain
Future Dwarf hanging out in the mountains with other dwarves
But even outside of that. It's like I said, if this is in fact just a normal boi who's meant to be killed every day - yeah, it was kinda perfect. Just a cute backdrop for the potential pvp around him. But then we come to Azherae's question: why show this boss instead of anyone with better mechanics or a harder fight. Alpha1 already had a better boss in the Twins. People were tossed around, the ground had hazards, 2 bosses needed to be controlled.
In other words, it'd be great if Intrepid could clear up what this boss is meant to represent: one of hundreds of basic open world bosses or one of the more unique bosses with cool drops.
1.-For a beginning I liked it a lot
2.-The mechanics seemed interesting to me, a lot of sense with what a cyclops does considering the examples of movies , games ,etc.
3.-The phases seemed correct to me although I have a big doubt: What we hear in the fight against the cyclops is the music of the Stream and not the music that AoC will have for the cyclops phase, right?
So , the different phases will have different music to differentiate the phases or they will be the same ?
What are your favorite open-world raid bosses, or world bosses? Please provide examples when applicable.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cyclops Combat Preview?
Undoubtedly have consideration for all of them.
ELDEN RING
SEKIRO
Bloodborne
In some world bosses will there be mechanics or objects that can help the raid to fight them ?
For example in this video
the players have the help of ballista to fight the boss, in AoC there will be some bosses with some similar things ?
For example it would be interesting if in some bosses players have to fulfill situations to do extra damage to the boss with the help of the environment.
For example:
-If the boss is cornered to a specific zone in that zone if players hit "X" object/thing/terrain/etc that thing will produce an effect that damages the boss , lets say as an example players corner or take the boss to a mountain , some players could climb the mountain to summon some rocks to hit the boss or players could hit the mountain to make it drop a giant rock on the world boss.
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxsoj3D0aQ3qbHdKFjYGp6zqhqVD85mhfe
Things that make the boss fight more fun and not just a hit, hit, dodge, dodge, dodge but rather have secret mechanics to be able to fight them more effectively.
How do you feel about the combat preview featuring the Cyclops? Do you like the mechanics, multi-group gameplay, and boss phases?
A: Looks good. The range of attacks for his slams wasn't entirely straight forward, but its nice seeing boss fights go a different direction than large RED incoming damage zones telling us to vacate the area or stay at our own peril.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cyclops Combat Preview?
A: Melee users were having a much harder time using their kits vs the boss. This boss runs around a lot. The ranged advantage looks very strong. I'm concerned ranged players have too much range, and melee players not enough ways to navigate fights to get into striking range to maintain up-time on their attacks. It looked like melee did very little in comparison to ranged roles.
Will ranged roles be superior for DPS/support, everything except tank for pve? Even the distribution between ranged/mage/healers/ and melee users in the video was very slanted towards ranged roles.