[Alpha 2] General Suggestions

Silynx

Hi,

After playing during the new test for about 8 hours, here are some issues I ran into which are not really bugs but seem to be mechanics that might need to get addressed:

1. Movement

1.1 Click to Move
Currently movement is done by left-clicking on an empty space on the map and the character moves to that selected tile. Since left-click also is used to harvest plants, pickup stones, etc. it happens frequently enough that the character ends up picking something up (I mostly keep clicking on trees) instead of moving when using the click-to-move option. It makes the overall movement feel rather clunky in this game.
When generally moving with the left-mouse pressed, this obviously gets better but can still be somewhat frustrating in more dense areas with items.
This gets much worse in a combat situation. Left-click, just like right-click on a creature causes the character to attack. In a crowded field of monsters, there might not even be much open space and players start to lose the option to move period. Especially, when thinking about a crowded PVP situation.

My suggestion: Make left-click a move only button. You want to attack? Then right-click. This allows in all situations to at least not lose mobility completely. To avoid the occasional item pickup while out of combat maybe move all pickup options to shift left-click or as a ctrl+left-click? I do overall like the easy item pickup per left-click but it just overall feels clunky as it is.

1.2 Click to move targets corpses for looting instead of allowing movement
This kind of plays into the paragraph above. When fighting groups of creatures (spiders with their hatchlings mostly), the corpses don't allow easy character movement anymore since a left click would try to loot the corpse and in case of many small trash monsters cause the "no loot" popup. It either way blocks movement. Especially when scaling monster pack sized up, this becomes a real issue.

My suggestion: Make the corpse loot a shift+left click command to keep right-click for basic attacks and left-click for free movement available at all times.

1.3 Toggleable Movement Lock
There have been many complaints in world chat and I would echo those as my own complaint as well. Moving long distances while having to press a mouse button the entire time seems a little rough. Maybe just add caps-lock to make the character automatically move towards the cursor. Making this a toggleable button seems to make the most sense.

2.Combat

2.1 Basic attacks, abilities blocked by shrubs and trees
This appears to be somewhat of a bug but I'm not sure if this doesn't qualify as a feature at this time. When fighting creatures and using a basic attack (right-click) or any ability, trees and other plants/bushes appear to sometimes be selected as the target. This happens mostly when creatures run through trees or bushes. I have certainly send a lot of fire bolts and generic attacks into random trees and certainly not at the creature I aimed to hit.

My suggestion: Disable all trees as targetable during combat. Not sure what to do about the out-of-combat situation when trees/bushes need to be targetable for harvesting but combat initiation should be available as well. Maybe move to a ctrl + left click for object interaction. Again, this becomes a much more problematic thing which is easily exploited in PvP by standing under trees to avoid enemies to target your own character.

2.2 Enemy targeting
Looking at a group of zombies, it is almost impossible to target any specific monster. While this may not seem as important when a horde is of the same monster type, it becomes vastly important when fighting mixed groups. It may be important to kill the ranged unit first, that does good damage to your character while kiting and ignoring some melee units. But when they stand close to one another, it is practically impossible to target a specific enemy.
Since movement is only controlled by your mouse, spending time to precisely target a specific enemy is not possible either.

Suggestion: Add a target-lock and make tab toggle through valid enemies. Not sure how else to solve that. Would love to hear ideas.

3. Item Pickup

3.1 Some pickups cannot be interrupted
When harvesting plants like Bitterleaf, the harvesting cannot be interrupted. Other plant harvests with progression bars seem to be interruptable though. I would like them all to be interruptable - I feel that would add to the overall flow of the game.

3.2 Moving items between containers with single click
Currently if I want to move an item from my inventory into a chest or so, I need to drag and drop. When looting corpses it's just a simple right click. Could you add a ctrl+left-click as a quick option to move the item from one container to the other (chest to inventory or reverse).
Also a "loot all" option would be greatly appreciated.

This is all I have for now. I will keep editing this list and add posts below with new finds, if any to keep this hopefully somewhat organized.

Let me know if you have any other suggestions or don't feel like any of the things above are relevant issues.

Best,
Silynx

r6G4596Y7G9AwD0TzJTxFSZx

Ran into everything you did, Silynx, and more. Completely agree with all of your experiences, suggestions, and opinions.

Here's my notes from my intial playthrough:
...

launcher music is very loud, can't change it.
character creation: colors don't match selections. in particular, skin color, hair color are just very subtle. tints.
Choose a non human race is not possible. Humans only. No body sliders for height, weight, no customization beyond skin color.
underwear color doesn't match the selection. As in, the blue selection box doesn't make the underwear color blue, it makes it white. choosing grey makes it blue.
similarly, hair color of black or red doesn't make the hair black or red (for either gender) it just makes it a darker shade of blonde.
3 hairstyles. 3 faces. beards don't match faces, they look prosthetic.
And still through char creation, music is blaring / super loud, and volume can't be adjusted.
two backgrounds? where are the races described in the wiki? Where are the human & beastman variants?
there's no customization? oh, it's already done. You can't adjust attributes. There are widgets to the right of each attribute, but they do nothing. The left widgets are off the screen [this also happens in windowed mode, eventually, BUG]
I guess the modifiers displayed are just for show, because you can't change anything.
the 'Backgrounds' choices are off the screen to the left.
If you choose Gladiator, you get 6 INT, but if you choose Arcanist, nothing is below 10. Given the wiki statement that any stat below 10 is a serious problem, this seems unfortunate. If adjustment of attributes was a thing, it might be possible to compensate?
It says test starts at 10am ET, yet, it's 10:21ET, and no access. Oh well.
no right click context menu to adjust graphics, audio, or anything like that. continuous ear splitting music, still. Eventually just had to mute it in sound mixer.
... on the character creation, it seems like you're supposed to be able to maybe reduce certain attributes, but because the widgets to adjust attributes is off the screen, you can't actually reduce them.
Single character names are permitted. single numeric digit names are permitted.
max 5 characters per server/worlds/whole game/account.
can't use tab to move between fields in character select.
Most recently played character is not highlighted or moved to the top of the list.
won't accept arabic, hebrew, latin, greek letters. won't accept accented european letters.
0 o <- allowed as a name!
GPU usage is at 100% during character creation. GPU temp is at 77'C. CPU usage is at 5-6% of one core. GPU fan is running at 75% because of no throttling.
there is no way to exit character creation. There's no widget to close the screen, and no option to make it windowed to get screen widgets.
Character creation consumes 2.7GB of RAM, UnitClient@Windows.exe
had to manually kill the process in task manager.
for reference, my desktop resolution is 1920x1200.
again, their Alpha 2 launch date/time of 20200325, 5 PM CET is not 10am Eastern Time. It's 10 am Mountain time.. That's two time zones off. (eastern, central, mountain).
at launch, client consumed 6.7GB of RAM, triggered 'low on memory' from windows, crashed client on initial load. second load worked ok. [had to adjust the client video options to get RAM to a reasonable amount]
click-to-move UI, can't adjust camera, can't adjust tilt or zoom or rotation. Fixed camera 3rd person isometric, only, despite the Unity engine offering many other options. [See Legends of Aria, which is essentially the same as Fractured, but permits rotation]
right click attacks by default. left click moves. if you hold right click and change window focus it ... continuously attacks?
if you hold right click and move the mouse around, it changes the direction you attack.
can't adjust text box/chat window. all options fixed, unchangeable, not persistent.
plus and minus widgets on (M)ap zoom don't work. [BUG] have to use the elevator widget in the zoom slider, only.
characters warp continuously, as they are moving through the world. The client is rendering them as teleporting/sliding. Happens all the time watching other players move around. Seeing characters moving/running in place. Default Unity does this constantly.
Characters are always in a combat stance. You can't not be in a combat stance.
Once in game, FPS shows 60, latency shows 60-83ms, typically. GPU usage is at 85-90%. Memory footprint is at 6.3GB.
even with using all lowest settings for graphics, GPU is still at 80%. Given other MMO's have reasonable GPU loads, with Unity, clearly there is something missing here.
There's no way to highlight objects for use except mouseover.
settings|controls is empty. no way to adjust bindings.
once in game, and logged into a character, you can finally turn down the deafening music.
went to harvest cotton.. it got stuck in a harvest loop infinitely. it didn't show there being anything wrong, it just keep showing the timer/bar for use, repeatedly. [This happens with almost any interactive object, randomly]
chat/UI setting of locked or unlocked is not persistently stored. You have to set/reset this every time you login or switch characters.
got the same infinite use/harvesting bug on attempting to gather wheat.
after turning down all the graphics, and logging out, then logging back in, GPU usage is still at 71%, but memory use is down to 4.3GB.
can't swim, can't go into deep water. Shallow water does nothing. No swimming.
manually drag looting of every item from a corpse? Right click does nothing [apparently it's supposed to loot, from what others have said, but this didn't work for me]
Corpse box randomly closes while looting.
corpse box location is fixed, even if you move it, it doesn't remember. randomly closes while not looting, too.
when attacking in combat, no difference between left-click and right click.
common corpse loot (meat, bones, etc) only stacks up into piles of 10. after that, have to consume another inventory slot.
because of the forced perspective, while walking near a vegetable / market stall, I was pushed up onto the top of the tent/awning. No way to get down, no way to jump. there is no jump. Had to logout and create a new character.
On the plus side, clicking really fast makes you attack faster. There is no auto attack. There is no attack mode. click MOAR!
music/audio settings do not apply until you're in the game, so every time you go through character select, you have to endure the incredibly loud music.
door state is not persistent/accurate. After a login, the door appears open, isn't open, you have to click in the door empty space (where the door would be) and then it really opens, server side, then you can go in the room or house.
if you click on a campfire to use it, and select the cooking icon, half the time it will move the character there, then do nothing.
If you repeat the action, it will sometimes open up the crafting interface. It seems that if movement is involved, it doesn't register the adjacency properly as the parent-vertex point is where the player must stand, but as there is no smart pathfinding, it will move the character to the edge of the object, rather than the home/parent-vertex point.
randomly, the campfire interface closes, while crafting.
no money, no significant gear, no direct player trading. (apparently)
some houses have an invisible movement blocker in the doorway, you can't get past it, after you open the door. again, probably door state problems as they are chronic in Unity default. No indication this is intended, or bugged, so it's just a mystery.
there is no window location persistence. not even for inventory, corpse, character, nothing.
the inventory window cannot be resized. The corpse window continues to close randomly.
when fighting near trees, bushes, shrubs, or any other interactive, attack clicks are superseded by interaction clicks. It means any time there are trees, you can't really fight under them, and this is made worse because you can't rotate, tilt, or zoom the camera. A perfect storm of intrusive UI. In some places in the world (Oakwynd Forest, in particular) you can't click (easily) on the ground to move. There are too many trees. Forget about fun and immersion, that's just broken.
randomly, the camera rapidly bobs up and down about 1 meter. (might be other players combat actions affecting all cameras within a wide radius)
randomly, the player gets stuck repeatedly performing the default combat melee animation, after combat, while doing nothing and or looting.
5 branches for one arrow shaft? that's horrendously punitive. It should produce more, not less. ah, it produces 100 arrows. ok, not so bad..
stacks are too small. Everything needs to stack up to 100, minimum. Stacks of 10 need to stop being a thing.
Also, the crafting interface needs to allow you to select a persistent amount, or all, and craft that amount or all, with one click. Otherwise, people are just macroing mouse clicks, and that's silly in 2020.
no death penalty, apparently no dying.
nothing drives players together that I saw, the world is mostly empty, just house lots in the middle of nowhere, very sparse animals. I traveled through half of the starting island, and saw no significant variation on this theme.

Overall, I understand some of the public design goals of this game, yet, many of the implemented goals are at odds with each other or in direct opposition. I also understand this is Alpha, yet, I don't see that as justification, reason, or an excuse.
It cost me 90 euros to test this, and I don't feel it's at the point where such a steep cost is justified. Personally, I wouldn't recommend anyone pay 90 euros to test this, now or in the future. Why not?

IMO:
In general, this appears to be a single player game with a shared communication interface. While it's true there may be aspects of the game that drive players together eventually, that's certainly not the case early in the game or initially. The lack of numeric levels and lack of numeric skill levels causes an inherent lack of progression, or lack of progression feel; specifically, aside from gaining skills I can't use, I'm not getting 'better'. This is amplified by the restrictive UI (8 hotbar slots) and shallow game loops.

Ultimately, this appears to be the consequence of a hybrid PvP system that kinda-sorta attempts to restrict PvP from destroying PvE, but not really, as if the wiki is to be believed, everyone will still open to PK'ing at any time, eventually. There doesn't appear to be a compelling PvE experience here beyond collecting enchanting items. What is described on the wiki is not in the game, at the moment. There are not three planets, there are not multiple races, none of what distinguishes the game, from a design perspective, is currently implemented in Alpha-2. I saw nothing in my first test that you could describe as new, fun, innovative or challenging from an MMO mechanic perspective. Essentially, as I mention above, the PVE experience is enchanting item collection, for the sake of upgrading gear that doesn't really matter because there is no death penalty, and if there is grouping-required content? I didn't see it.

Now, I realize a whole bunch of people (and likely the developers) are going to be offended by much of my opinions, but I no longer have the time or inclination to soften my words for the sake of hubris and ego. These are my opinions, and if they're inaccurate, then I'm wrong. I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again. However, I have been a developer myself for over 20 years, and I've been testing and playing MMO's for more than 20 years too. This isn't my first MMO.

While I appreciate the potential in Fractured Alpha 2, here's a list of suggestions that would, in my opinion, increase the attraction to the target demographic.

fix the UI and interface issues. This means persistent /remembered locations for all windows & widgets. Options stored and remembered. Loot all. Interactive highlights. Tilt, Zoom-out, and Rotate for the camera, at minimum. Expand the visible area of player visibility. Expand the hotbar. Permit changing audio, graphics, and similar options BEFORE character creation. Allow the client to be exited at any time, without having to manually kill it in task manager before character select.
Allow for keyboard movement. Click to move, only? It's insufficient, crude, clunky, and coupled with the incredibly narrow field of view, punishes the customer. I spent half my time fighting the UI in Fractured Alpha 2, and that needs to change. Just traveling any significant distance is a recipe for RSI.
combat needs some bug fixes. Getting stuck in animation loops, getting stuck harvesting while in combat, being unable to attack, trees and shrubs consuming clicks while in combat, 10 rounds of blocks or misses with no explanation, that all needs to be fixed. Poisons and bleeds are incredibly effective when used by creatures, but pointless when used by players. If you're going to force the player to jump through all the punitive hoops to get something, the reward better be pretty great, or people simply won't use it. Right now, some abilities and entire aspects of combat seem so imbalanced or under-powered and punitive, they seem broken or bugged. And yes, I understand Alpha is for testing, but your testers know that magic is incredibly overpowered. Clearly, it's been that way for years.
Currently, client input speed has some bearing on combat effectiveness. In short, the faster you click, the faster you attack. For many historically proven reasons, this is an exploitable design and implementation, and needs to change, if you want to have even an attempt at balance or fair play.
set some context and goals for your testing phases. There's no message, note, forum post, broadcast message, or overarching goal for alpha-2. If there is? I missed it, and I went looking. A post saying "there's a bunch of new stuff" is not a testing goal.
Each phase must have a specific set of goals that you want the testers to test and scenarios to accomplish. If you want players to play? Change nothing. But if you actually want testers testing, you need to tell them specifically what to test, and then poll them on the results, otherwise, you're just wasting everyone's time. Even currently, if the goal is to test the new player experience, then once that is done, inform the player so they can delete that character and start again, and try another scenario.

Morridin

@r6G4596Y7G9AwD0TzJTxFSZx Just to note about many of your questions/ issues, this is still the ALPHA test. Lots of bugs is expected and the majority of content is yet to be implemented. It is by no means a finished game. So try to perhaps limit suggestions to tweaking or changing things already in the game? Or if there is a feature that you would love to see atleast make sure it’s not already planned and just not included yet.

Shivashanti

@r6G4596Y7G9AwD0TzJTxFSZx maybe you should do a bit of research what to expect from the tests and the known bugs/issues before you post this huge walls of text where you don't provide any constructive info but addressing all the things that are known for a while now. Atm we are just testing some core features to get the systems in place, the polish will come afterwards as you should know as dev

Kralith

@r6G4596Y7G9AwD0TzJTxFSZx said in [Alpha 2] General Suggestions:

Ran into

So many stuff, why you don't sort them and make separated, theme based Bug Reports?
But leave the real suggestions here.

There are many things you point out, that is something that will be made in Beta.
That starts from a detailled Charactercreation - thats not implemented yet - but does not stop at adding content and tweaking the client.

There are 3 Steps of Developing:

Make it work.
Make it right.
Make it nice.

We are literally at #1 as every Alpha should be.
Maybe with some steps into #2, but that will be mostly a part between Alpha and Beta. We aren't at this point yet.

As for this:

Now, I realize a whole bunch of people (and likely the developers) are going to be offended by much of my opinions, but I no longer have the time or inclination to soften my words for the sake of hubris and ego. These are my opinions, and if they're inaccurate, then I'm wrong. I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again. However, I have been a developer myself for over 20 years, and I've been testing and playing MMO's for more than 20 years too. This isn't my first MMO.

If i wanted to divide your sentences here, i would be able to check a list for every point about usual posting with a big overconfidence.

Where are the "so often words" you shared with us?
I do not have an idea, what Dynamight and we (the Community) did to you, to get in your 8th post this Assessment about us.

In my opinion your suggestions sounds quite harsch.
You don't suggest, you demand "now and immediately".
To be constructive is different than most of what you wrote.
If you wanna really help with your experience, make helpful and detailled Bug Reports.

PedroBillyMattos

@r6G4596Y7G9AwD0TzJTxFSZx hahaha Hey man at this point I'm not sure if you are a troll or just a hard person to deal with.

But assuming you have good intention behind you, please allow me to give you a sugestion that whould change the way you look at factured entirely. I'm not being mean nor I want to diss you. It's a humble sugestion from the bottom of my heart.

https://fracturedmmo.com/news/page/11/
Here you will open the main page of the game, more especificly on the oldest page of theAll news* TAB. Please read the journals. That will clarify a lot of the conception you have and don't have from the game.

Then in the videos tab if you're still interested, whatch the Q&A videos.

If you do that I GARANTEE you'll change your approach twards Fractured beacause you'll actually understand the project and it's current state wich is Alpha By the way.

Silynx

I updated the original post to the current alpha status.

Added sections:
1.3 toggleable movement lock
2.2 enemy targeting

Let me try to get the train back on the rail in this thread.

At this point in alpha, where PvP has become an option, I can only keep advocating for looking into the problems described especially in section 1 and 2. I would call this almost game-breaking at this point and important to sort out.

Maybe this sounds a little harsh, but I am not sure I would want to even test any further pvp mechanics without having a somewhat refined and not overly clunky movement system in place. The frustration of getting stuck on item pickups, corpses, bodies, enemies or such while trying to move is quite big.

Silynx