General feedback

Roccandil

Talents

I really enjoyed the talent system! Gave me a good reason to go out doing everything different I could. I also felt like with talents, I was powerful enough to solo more content (notably wisps).

Suggestions on talents/knowledge:

Sixty talent points seem too few somehow!
Would be cool if crafting also provided knowledge.
I wish the base attributes were set via the talent system.

Roads

I enjoyed the paved road system, especially since I wound up running through a bunch of town centers simply because it was beneficial to do so.

The ninety degree turns in the middle of nowhere felt odd, but I'm assuming all of those were in potentially claimable town locations.

Player-made stone roads need the speed bonus!

Cities

The bank, tavern, and town hall are cool. I also liked the wood stacking system for the carpenter.

I'm not entirely sure, however, I like how much crafting content is gated to cities (even though it will pressure players to join cities, which will help me out as a governor).

As a neutral point, I didn't notice any difference between large and small towns, other than the number of possible house plots. City status descriptions were somewhat confusing.

The worst part for me may have been laying claim blueprints: they often didn't work, for no apparent reason, even when the color said they were placeable.

Suggestions on towns (obvious permission problems aside):

Would be very nice to have multiple bank tabs!
Quarries: we need a quarry building for mass stone block production!
Tree farms would also be a nice addition
When mass-placing claims (or anything else, like tubs), would be awesome if I could check a "repeat" box, so I didn't have to navigate the crafting interface just to select the same thing again
Are there going to be 5x5 or bigger house claims, so we can build the biggest houses?
Would love a way for citizens to leave messages for me in the Town Hall

Other pros

I liked seeing the endurance bar become prominent.

Gripes

I don't enjoy the randomness inherent to the enchanting system. I tolerate it, but it feels like a good concept dragged down.

Target selection is frustrating. The best spells for me are those that don't require a target, simply because I can reliably use them in a fight.

Mob sniping/stealing shouldn't be possible. If party A gets a mob down to 1% health, lone player B shouldn't be able to take the last hit and get all the knowledge and loot. A system that weighs the damage done by varying parties involved to determine who gets the kill would be very nice.

I don't enjoy gear permanently wearing out. Would be nice if we could at least repair it.

I don't enjoy the amount of hard CC in the game (even in PvE). CC basically takes me out of the game, and I've never found that enjoyable.

We really need party icons on the map!

Corben

I'm going to largely second a lot of what you touched on in this fantastic post.

TALENT SYSTEM

I like the system a LOT. I'm excited about the placeholders.

"Would be cool if crafting also provided knowledge." 2nded

As far as setting stats via the system, I disagree. With the memorization system allowing reallocation of knowledge points, one character could do everything.
While we're talking about stats, I think we could use a dialog box on character creation stressing how stats can only be added to, not modified. First time players with first time characters need to understand the gravity of stat selection.

ROADS

I think if you add the speed bonus to the less traveled paths, it could end the cries for horses. (Assuming at some point we get limited fast travel - even at road speeds, the map is an hour+ run, real life.

CITIES

"I'm not entirely sure, however, I like how much crafting content is gated to cities (even though it will pressure players to join cities, which will help me out as a governor)." 2nded.
This is obvious this Alpha with leather. I'm thinking material refinement can be done on a house plot, but the actual crafting tables could be in cities.

"Are there going to be 5x5 or bigger house claims, so we can build the biggest houses?" 2nded.
I chose to build on a 6x6 near town rather than settle for a smaller plot in town.

"Would love a way for citizens to leave messages for me in the Town Hall." 2nded
Bulletin boards and/or mailboxes.

*Other pros I liked seeing the endurance bar become prominent. YUP

Gripes

"I don't enjoy the randomness inherent to the enchanting system. I tolerate it, but it feels like a good concept dragged down."

I feel like this will get hammered out through the wiki on release, and I think it adds to the exploration of the game.

"Target selection is frustrating. The best spells for me are those that don't require a target, simply because I can reliably use them in a fight."

YUP. It's also frustrating targeting corpses to loot.

"I don't enjoy gear permanently wearing out. Would be nice if we could at least repair it."

YUP. Especially with the enchanting system looking like it will be part of the end game. I'd love to see the Life/Stamina system adapted to gear. It should wear out over time. The item "stamina" (condition) degrades during use. The "life" (durability) degrades every time it's repaired. When its condition goes to zero, it needs to get repaired (if not before). When durability goes to zero, it falls apart.

Housing

I'm assuming each plot costs 1000g right now. That's way too easy to earn, especially with the implementation of banks in towns,.
If not already planned, there should be an increasing cost proportional to plot size. (Are they all squares?) Something akin to:

3x3x100 = 900
4x4x200 = 3200
5x5x300 = 7500
6x6x400 = 14400

Already mentioned, but I think plot owners should be able to place material refinement stations. CRAFTING should be in cities, including enchanting.
Is there a plan to add more resolution to placing items? I'd like to center my items under windows, for example - can't do it.
Fences need gates.

Things I noticed so far

Some mobs just freeze and let you plunk them with a bow.
Carts have 2 levels of being filled. I love that. But, when you hitch up to it, the graphic goes back to being empty.

I love this latest alpha. The foundation of the game is getting there, and I'm really looking forward to more content in the future. Great work!

Roccandil

Couple more Gripes:

I really don't enjoy the aggro range on many mobs, especially when they come from off-screen.
I wish status effects displayed over my skill bar, instead of the upper left. Many times it feels like the game breaks, only I discover that it's a status effect I couldn't see go off because I'm paying attention to the combat. The effects that show up over my toon's head are nice, though.

GamerSeuss

The Talent Tree set to 60 points was a conscious decision the Devs have discussed before, and it gives a fairly good amount of customization to characters, especially when you consider you can set up 5 different Presets of these 60 points, any of which you can later delete and reset up. Combined with the 5 presets for skills, you have a powerful set of tools for creating the right character for most jobs, while still limiting a character a little bit so their choice of which character to play still has some meaning.
There may be other Talents added in, and the overall tree expanded as the game goes closer to release, and more and more knowledge points and mechanics become available that can be influenced by the Talent tree.
Totally agree, the Road system of enhanced movement on paved roads is great. As to expanding it to lesser roads, I feel this isn't needed. The Devs have stated that Fast Travel is something they purposely want to limit in the game in order to give the game more of a Merchant Caravan Economy feel to it. They already have plans for Mounts to come into the game and thus expand travel in several regards.
Equipment degrading to the point it needs to be replaced is an intentional feature of this game, not merely a limitation. This is to encourage the merchant economy as all equipment is player-crafted/enchanted in game. The Devs don't want players finding their perfect set of equipment for their build, then just making sure to keep it in good repair, they want to actively encourage players to make/purchase spare copies of the equipment they love so that it can be swapped out, also possibly encouraging later game players to try different enhanced gear instead of just resting on the same ole same ole load-out they have come to find works best for them. The game is meant to evolve and change over time, as well, and who knows, Repair capabilities might be in the plans, but during Alpha, that's just another mechanic that needs to take a step back until the meat and potatoes of the game are ironed out.
Totally agree about needing something to tell you where your party members are. An Arrow when their close on the outskirts of the mini-map would be fine. If within the mini-map's current field of range, then an Icon should show, and once they are in zoom out range to be seen, said icons/arrows can go away.
Bigger plots are current reserved for outside of City plots only, as really right now the only compensation for building outside. Within the city, the 4x4 is considered what most city civil engineers would allocate at most to any given structure, except maybe an official city building, which obviously could take up whatever space was needed to get the job done. Outside of a city, it is expected that a Player is going to need a bigger structure to hold some of the things the city services provide to the city dwellers, if nothing else, additional places for storage, as the hermit doesn't have a separate locked bank vault, like all city dwellers and even city visitors have.
Remember, this is an Alpha, and many things are going to change as the game progresses, our feedback is important in order to encourage that the game moves int eh direction the majority of the player base prefers, but always remember that the Developers have a plan that may not be always clear as of yet to that player base about what their final product is expected to look like and be able to evolve into.

I did not address your points in any sort of order, but rather as I thought about their answers, as I didn't have the original post at hand to reference.

Roccandil

@GamerSeuss said in General feedback:

Equipment degrading to the point it needs to be replaced is an intentional feature of this game, not merely a limitation. This is to encourage the merchant economy as all equipment is player-crafted/enchanted in game.

At least in my case, degradation doesn't encourage any kind of economy, but rather not using enchantments or gear at all. I'm just not excited by gear.

For economic stimulation, Albion's system of trashing gear when killed in PvP is a good one, perhaps the best I've seen. The dying player generally doesn't care that their gear trashed (they'd want it all to trash, if possible), while the killing player is happy to get any loot.

@GamerSeuss said in General feedback:

Bigger plots are current reserved for outside of City plots only, as really right now the only compensation for building outside.

That's arbitrary! I see no reason to limit the size of a house plot that I, as governor, can place in a city.

The primary point of a wilderness plot to me is tax avoidance.

Razvan

@Roccandil said in General feedback:

Albion's system of trashing gear when killed in PvP is a good one,

Agreed on this one! Some items also get "lost" when you sell them to the black market, so this also help in the sustainable economy goal. Black market in general is a cool feature because it allows mobs to drop some items while keeping the idea that everything is crafted by players.

The problem with Fractured is that there will be little PvP in Arboreus. My solution would be: items should be repairable, but unlike other planets, on Arboreus they'll also lose max durability (which can't be restored). Regardless, going through 3 spears in a night of farming is not reasonable.

Roccandil

@Razvan said in General feedback:

The problem with Fractured is that there will be little PvP in Arboreus. My solution would be: items should be repairable, but unlike other planets, on Arboreus they'll also lose max durability (which can't be restored). Regardless, going through 3 spears in a night of farming is not reasonable.

True enough. I'm hoping Fractured will have better PvE than the other worlds, though, and perhaps trashing gear for death in PvE on Arboreus would be good, if only in hardcore PvE areas.