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.
