Alpha 2 Testing Feedback and Notes

[M1ckGO]

In every game I have the opportunity to test or play I ask one primary question in situations I encounter:
If this were real would it happen that way?
I feel this is a vital and important question for every tester, developer and would-be or current game designer.
I, and would think many others, look for a game that gives us our escape from day-to-day doldrum. We look for immersive game play that mirrors how we expect interaction to occur in the real world. Obviously, forgoing notice of the needed or added anachronisms.

Difficult does not mean simple obstructions or tedium to push continued play time and growth. If a game has great mechanics, background and interaction it does not need the easy way out by adding an undue process or time-sinks. I do understand some time-sinks are needed to limit availability or to increase rarity. However, those reasons should be the only use for it. If you have a good game, people will want to play and keep playing. A great game creates addicts. I do believe we have a few new Fractured addicts here all ready.

The 'Learning instead of Leveling' principle is one I have longed for! I was amazed by the minimal grind for reward vs. massive PitA grind for levels.
A character gathered a new resource - you learned something.
A character went somewhere new - you learned something.
A character faced a mob and fought it several times you increased your knowledge. You were able to fight more effectively against that monster.
You did not go there, grab this or beat that just to get the next level. You had a purpose. You wanted to learn a new spell or gather a resource not found elsewhere.

It is a Point of Interest [PoI] system that is actually a PoI to the character. It is not some artist or design guy thinking, "This will look awesome!"but in actuality it serves no other purpose to the player except wasting time for xp. I am sure many enjoy the visage, but due to optical complications I could care less.

The loot system that makes sense! A spider did not drop 2M coins and "GodSlayer +1k". The spider dropped webbing, eyes and such. Items used in possibly crafting that "GodSlayer +1k" [ Hint Hint Hoping to craft this (or the closest best thing) for the next time we have to defeat Arcahem and his Dark Convergence!]

Life and death were not a simple matter. OK. It never really is, but in most games...eh, yeah, it is. In fractured there are stages to your demise. You do not just keep going to the next big thing after being knocked-down or dying. You suffer effects until you recuperate at an inn. If you decide not to do so, well, you suffer for it. You get exhausted. Eventually, that exhaustion knocks you back down and possibly kills you. It is a Gibbs' slap upside yer head wake-up call. And one I found frustrating as all get out. That is until I learned to manage it properly.

An economy that was indeed decentralized. Localized even. The items banked in Suntown were not available in Braavos or Promo.Nor were they available for other toons. Coin if deposited in the global bank [not in a holding space] was available elsewhere. I thought of this like olden "notes of reserve." In home chests seem to afford players the opportunity to exchange items between characters for those curios.

In game mail system was not available during this test. However, it did not seem to offer an attachment possibility. I hope this holds true. The function of attachments can in so many ways destroy a player based economy. No other in-game mechanic has been exploited more than a mail system with attachments.

Kudos to all that worked on this game, helping to create and further its development! On very few occasions did I have to answer 'No' to my primary question. I was quite pleased, and honestly surprised, that by the end of this recent test I was truly not bothered by my 'No' answers. Yes, a few of those 'No' answers lingered, but only a few. I am excited to continue my journey in Fractured!

I hope to join-in on the ride to see the team's vision of the game to fruition.
A special 'Thank you!' to Lunoshi for stopping in our stream [several times during our 30+ live hours of Fractured Alpha] and chatting w/ us for a good bit of time. Appreciate it, mate!
-MickGO
twitch.tv/banorgaming

Here are my condensed notes from the Alpha Test 02/04/22 - 02/06/2022.

Biggest 'No' I could not get over was the FoV limitation.

• I would like to see a slightly larger FoV with resolution limitation or matching.
• Current limitation would give undue and unfair advantage to players at certain angles.
• Various monitor resolutions give different (sometimes larger) side to side FOV.
• If not, allow LoS markers on mini-map for Mobs to be encountered or passed. [You would be able to see and bypass if thought of as FPFoV or RL]
• off-screen aggro range reduced.

Character Creation:

• More options for character appearance would be welcome.
• Female form: Several of the faces too manly.
• Female form suffers from "Secretary Arse" [Flat like someone has spent their entire life on it.]
• Male form: Ape Index appears off balance.
• Overall both bodies look mishappened/wonky . Unattractive.
• Mouse over descriptions/tool-tips for attributes

UI:

• Better highlighting or feedback of choice or active buttons.
• Too drab and shadowing too close to shade. Issues for those with colourblindness or poor monitor quality.
• Moveable UI elements [health bar, spell bar, map]
• Mini-map zoom should center on the player or be moveable by mouse.

Starter Areas:

• Location markers for building types.
• Noninventory crafting tutorial with a touch more help about drop-down upgrades.

Chat:

• No pause when page up scrolling. You cannot read passed chat due to new chat messages.
• Messages disappear too quickly.
• Whisper/tell system needed.
• Resizable chat would be nice.

Graphics:

• Several obvious and very noticeable tears and missed aligned planes [4099w,134n is one example]
• Nvidia DLSS or AMD FSR support?
• Landscape interaction: small bumps halt character from forward or side movement trapping them. Have to back-track and go around a pebble.
• Perceived passages on the map, not passable at location. Perhaps changing colours / shades on the map to make such things better seen?

Sound:

• Game music is too sleepy. [Comment about music from the viewer. I do not have game music on ever...however, let it play on stream during breaks.]
• Crafting sound effects too loud. Overwhelm other wanted sounds.

Game Mechanics:

• Active Casting timer/notification. Encountered some odd delay to certain spells. Those spells got cancelled due to casting of another spell while active casting was going on.
• Passive active spells should not be toggled off automatically except by death. Mounting a horse or other simple actions disrupted and turned off passive spells.
• Answers to every Mob for every playstyle. [Earth Elementals seem resistant to arrows, but maybe not certain arrow types or imbued/enchanted arrows.] Don't demand players change their character playstyle in order to fight something. Demand they get the right gear to fight that critter.- Exhaustion timing seems to pulse too quickly. [If this were to be realistic, it would take days of exertion to die of exhaustion. So more than 10mins would be appreciated]
• Timer on corpse decay too long.
• Timer on lost character bodies available to loot after certain time frame.

Towns:

• Allow for a Lock Box so citizens may deposit coin instead of gathering resources to help town grow. Some people are more interested in farming coin than rocks.
• Crafting in towns; allow players to lock a station in use by them. Not everyone wants a house or to build their own stations. As donating citizens they should have access to stations and not have items sniped out from under them by some poorly raised griefer!

[OlivePit]

Mob bosses and world bosses do drop higher tier imbuing components for adding custom bonusses to any weapon or armor you put the gem into and is a major facet of the game that has barely been touched. Every item (even the stone and rock weapon you make) has one socket, enchanting items add sockets, using these sockets with top tier imbued gems is how you get to the point of being able to solo dragon and other bosses. Sadly most do not have the patience to gather the materials, and play with the imbuing system to create the desired results. I hope that some players will love this puzzle and make lots of money selling gems on the markets.

Mail system is only for text messages and notifications of triggered sales or purchases in markets, so you know to go back there and get your item. There is no indication that there will be any 'mailing' of items.

The FoV limitation has been argued over for some time. If it is too large then ranged players have the advantage and can kite melee forever, if it is too small then ranged combat is meaningless. I am on the 'it is too close' camp, but the devs have shown no desire to expand it and seem to be happy as it is. More complaints are welcome !

Attacking / ambushing from the south was regularly used by pvp gankers and players in the big test with pvp. It is anoying. Supposidly this is countered by playing in bigger groups or using allies to watch the edges... how? i'm not sure.

I think the big issue is that they dont want to make some sort of active fog of war and that the limited FoV works instead.

Any player can add gold coins or food bags at the town hall to aid the town growth.
Locking a public crafting station has lots of issues, at the moment many of them can be used simultaneously without interference. The exceptions are tanning tubs and smelters, and there is really no answer to that problem. It has been attempted multiple times and each time there was an exploit or problem. Bigger guilds accepted that they have to restrict access to the town chests and crafting things to only the trusted higher rank people in the town, which is time consuming and can be frustrating but at least greatly eliminates the griefing thieves who take your ingots and put them up for auction at your own market for 4k each. In a real game there should be enough ingots and tanned leather that a player who refuses to buy a house can still have access to the materials from the market. The scarcity in this test was mostly due to the low population. Try putting in some buy orders in the future.

[M1ckGO]

Thanks for the reply and input!

@OlivePit said in Alpha 2 Testing Feedback and Notes:

Mob bosses and world bosses do drop higher tier imbuing components for adding custom bonusses to any weapon or armor you put the gem into and is a major facet of the game that has barely been touched. Every item (even the stone and rock weapon you make) has one socket, enchanting items add sockets, using these sockets with top tier imbued gems is how you get to the point of being able to solo dragon and other bosses. Sadly most do not have the patience to gather the materials, and play with the imbuing system to create the desired results. I hope that some players will love this puzzle and make lots of money selling gems on the markets.

I love the loot/craft system. It is one of the biggest selling points to me. Sadly, this test was just not long enough for me to get to everything. I set goals to tried and test different things throughout the weekend stream. I did not get to imbuing 'til Sunday. Then, it was too late. I put the collected items in the station to see the gold chat text about the impending 'Dark Convergence'.

The FoV limitation has been argued over for some time. If it is too large then ranged players have the advantage and can kite melee forever, if it is too small then ranged combat is meaningless. I am on the 'it is too close' camp, but the devs have shown no desire to expand it and seem to be happy as it is. More complaints are welcome !

Several of the viewers in and out of stream complained. It kind of kept driving the annoyance of it home.

Attacking / ambushing from the south was regularly used by pvp gankers and players in the big test with pvp. It is annoying. Supposedly this is countered by playing in bigger groups or using allies to watch the edges... how? i'm not sure.

I think the big issue is that they don't want to make some sort of active fog of war and that the limited FoV works instead.

Interesting choice. I can see points to their side, just think there are more solutions to be looked at. Shadowbane (old game of the same style) was limited FoV in first stages of Alpha and Beta. They ended up changing it to a wider FOV w/ rotating camera angles. But top down, limited FOV was the snapto after rotating to look around.

Any player can add gold coins or food bags at the town hall to aid the town growth.
I could not find a way. Damn. Next time will have to make sure to find it! Thank you!

Locking a public crafting station has lots of issues, at the moment many of them can be used simultaneously without interference. The exceptions are tanning tubs and smelters, and there is really no answer to that problem. It has been attempted multiple times and each time there was an exploit or problem. Bigger guilds accepted that they have to restrict access to the town chests and crafting things to only the trusted higher rank people in the town, which is time consuming and can be frustrating but at least greatly eliminates the griefing thieves who take your ingots and put them up for auction at your own market for 4k each. In a real game there should be enough ingots and tanned leather that a player who refuses to buy a house can still have access to the materials from the market. The scarcity in this test was mostly due to the low population. Try putting in some buy orders in the future.

Fair enough. I think I was just overly peeved at someone's poor form action! And will consider the buy order!

--MickGO
AKA: TheWorse [Shadowbane's only unsacked city owner]
M1ckGO of BanorGaming (twitch.tv/banorgaming)