Check Arcahem answer here.
https://forum.fracturedmmo.com/topic/15385/website-relaunch/22
Our foundations level and all associated rewards are still valid, we simply cannot see them at the moment.
Check Arcahem answer here.
https://forum.fracturedmmo.com/topic/15385/website-relaunch/22
Our foundations level and all associated rewards are still valid, we simply cannot see them at the moment.
Welcome to the another feedback discussion thread!.
Usual introduction and disclaimer:
Each of these threads is related to a specific feedback/idea that the game's GM and Mods have collected in DIscord or in game and that has been forwarded to the developers. The aim of these threads is to discuss this feedback, to better understand how much interest the community shows toward it, if it has any critics or alternative ideas. So let us know what you think about it! Even just a +1 or -1 to the thread will be enough to understand how many players are for it or against it.
Note: The fact that a feedback is presented in this thread does not mean that it will be implemented, it could be refused by devs for mutiple reasons (technical feasibility, excessive effort, against the game's vision...), but the amount of support that a feedback receives will surely be a factor.
Today's Topic
Today's topic starts from the feedback expressed in this thread https://forum.fracturedmmo.com/topic/15409/the-evil-of-cotton-balls
and wants to create a discussion around the various materials that our crafting system features. In particular, which ones are lacking a niche of use and which ones instead are too good and overshadow other choices.
We will discuss this over multiple threads, one for each category. Today we start from Linen materials for Light armors.
Just to remind everyone which are the current effects of those materials and how they are procured, I will give a summary here:
Given this list and your experience, what would you change?
@Prometheus I actually posted that because Ace can't log on the forum
But since you asked, I feel like the bigger reward from legends are actually their legendary reagents. The pages are not that important, the world of Syndesia alone gives you all the KP you could ever wish for.
This is the reason why I also opened a separate thread on balancing the reagent aspects https://forum.fracturedonline.com/topic/15363/updating-the-enchant-aspects/2?_=1662356519026.
Right now the "profitability" of a legend is tied a lot to the aspects of its legendary reagent, and those aspects are wildly unbalanced.
Crimson Claw reagent for example has a "Destroy" aspect. Destroy is used in a grand total of ZERO combinations, so his reagent has actually only 2 aspects.
I could see some NPCs in towns randomly going around, and performing some (fake) activities, just to lesser the "ghost town" feeling of cities when players are not around.
I would like to avoid though having NPCs with actual active roles.
Yesterday there was the AMA session with Jacopo Galelli, CEO of Dynamight Studios, which answered many of the questions presented by the community.
I took some notes during it, so I will try to provide here a short summary.
NOTE: I may have missed details, so if you are particularly interested in one of those questions, please check the video.
So, here is the list:
Question: When will the third crop be introduced?
Answer: Third crop will have to wait a bit more. It will be part of a larger farming update which also introduces stuff like personal farming plots and effects of temperature.
Question: When will the stargates be introduced?
Answer: The team is aiming to deploy them next week.
Question: Which kind of malus will Wildfolks suffer while on Syndesia?
Answer: None, but Syndesia lacks the resources which allow them to transform, so they may came already "loaded" with a transformation but after using that they can't transform until they go back to Arboreus. They may also bring Primal crystals with them as a backup transformation battery.
Question: Will there be additional architectural styles?
Answer: One per planet.
Question: How many other wipes are planned?
Answer: Only one, at release.
Question: When will animal taming be introduced?
Answer: As with all kickstarter stretchgoals, animal taming will be introduced after the release.
Question: Will we be able to switch left and right mouse click?
Answer: The team is working on a series of QoL and UI customizations. WASD moving is not in these, but swapping left and right mouse click is. Other customizations include showing or not the nameplates, or changes to the chat, or being able to whisp or mute players.
Question: What will be done to improve the new player experience?
Answer: The current tutorial is going to be changed into the so called "Journey System". This will be a series of "Quests" which will gradually introduce the player to all the functions of the game. These can provide rewards to players, like maybe a weak mount, but the rewards will be available only once per account.
Question: Other than the current 4, are we going to get additional backgrounds?
Answer: Definitely. The aim is to have a long list of possible backgrounds. This may also include having backgrounds based on your planet/continent of origin. More backgrounds will be made available when the skill level up system will be implemented, which will allow more skill variations and so more possible starting combinations.
Question: Race specific backgrounds?
Answer: Maybe.
Question: Support for Steam Deck?
Answer: Not in the plans.
Question: Which will be the benefits of the VIP subscription?
Answer: Still not completely defined, but they will be mostly cosmetic in nature with some time saving features. Nothing which will make your character stronger. Jacopo has been very categoric on this point.
Question: Are char names going to be unique?
Answer: It was not in the plans originally, except for the ones reserved. But they are reconsidering that, and will probably make them unique.
Question: How many character slots will be available at release?
Answer: Probably 3.
Question: Are we going to see a fog of war to limit the sight range of players with wide monitors?
Answer: No.
Question: Is the early game of melee characters getting improved?
Answer: The issue of melee builds is that their initial set of skills isn't as good or easy to use as the one of the other backgrounds. This will be changed.
Question: Are Carpenter NPC contracts still in the plans?
Answer: No, since house maintenance is no longer there. These perks will be replaced with something else.
Question: Can you give us some dates for the next updates?
Answer: Not possible to give dates, but demons and dungeons are among the priorities.
Question: Are we going to see a rebalancing in the number of INT skills compared to non-INT skills?
Answer: Yes. The next skills introduced will be more non-int than int.
Question: Which games have been the inspiration for Fractured?
Answer: Ultima online for sure. But some inspiration was also taken from Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies and clearly Dungeons & Dragons among others.
Question: Legends are currently not available on Arboreus, will legends on Syndesia be changed to be less pvp oriented due to this?
Answer: Legends on Arboreus are coming (including a legendary giant frog!). Changes to the legend ruleset on Syndesia are being discussed.
Question: How will the team manage eventual imbalances in the population of the 3 races?
Answer: Imbalances would be the result of certain builds being too good on one side or the other. As usual, balancing patches will take care of that.
Question: Are regional servers going to be introduced?
Answer: Will depend on the population of the game. An US and an EU server are planned for release, but an Asian one is also possible.
Question: The intro is nice but we don't need to see it everytime, can we auto skip it?
Answer: It is part of the planned QoL updates.
Question: Will the items crafted keep the name of the crafter?
Answer: Not in the plans.
Question: Can we lock the doors of our houses?
Answer: Eventually yes. Not a real "lock" per se, but probably only friends to the house will be able to interact with the door.
Question: Is the current talent tree going to be expanded?
Answer: There are plans for it, but it will depend on the resources they will have post release.
Question: Are controllers going to be supported?
Answer: No.
Question: Will the game be on G-Force?
Answer: Not in the plans.
Question: When will be able to reserve our names?
Answer: A few weeks before release.
Question: Can we get more slots in the hotbar?
Answer: No.
Question: Can we use skills from the drop down menu by clicking on it?
Answer: No. Having a passive skill or buff is meant to take the place of an active skill.
Question: Are we going to get KPs for completing crafts?
Answer: Maybe. Right now KPs are not tied to crafting, but it is possible that you will get KPs for mastering crafts and recipes will cost KP to be learned.
Question: Can we add custom markers to the map?
Answer: This is part of the QoL additions.
Question: Support for Linux and Mac?
Answer: Linux no. Mac is possible.
Question: When are we going to get the next 2 wildfolk races?
Answer: In the next months.
Question: Is a degradation system for horses planned?
Answer: Yes, horses will have a "durability" so that the horse market does not get saturated.
Question: Is a degradation system for recipes planned?
Answer: This is being discussed. Maybe.
Question: Will we get an in game button to report bugs?
Answer: Definitely, this has a high priority at the moment.
Question: Will we be able to test the contents of the kickstarter packs in beta?
Answer: No, they will be available only at release.
Question: Will Frenzy skill be usable even unarmed?
Answer: Is possible. It would make sense, but unarmed skills are very based on attack speed so it could cause balance issues.
Question: Are you going to organize a dev diary and present the rest of the team?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Are you going to add more KP sources to continents?
Answer: No, to the contrary the amount of KPs around are a lot more than needed.
Question: Are we going to get female wildfolks?
Answer: Probably not. Will depend on the resources available and if the artistic team manages to make someting apt for them.
Question: Are we getting server side improvements to reduce the latency?
Answer: Yes, this is in the works.
Question: Is the quality of crafted items going to impact the stats on them or only the durability?
Answer: Only the durability, but the enchanting system (+1/+2/+3...) adopted during the alpha is coming back with some improvements.
Question: Are we going to be able to rotate the camera?
Answer: No.
Question: Will we get more items so that we don't all look the same?
Answer: Yes, more items are planned, like the tier 3. Also it is possible that dies for coloring the equipment will be added.
Question: Are we going to be able to zoom out more?
Answer: No.
Question: Will we get the possibility to roll for loot?
Answer: Not planned right now. Maybe in the future.
Question: Will we get the chance to make necklaces on Terra?
Answer: Yes, either we add those materials on Terra, or new necklaces will be made for the creatures found on Terra.
Question: Is the bug to the map that some users are experiencing going to be addressed?
Answer: The team is trying to reproduce the bug. It is not easy.
Ok, this is all from my notes.
If someone else which was following the AMA can add parts that I missed, I will edit them into this post.
Thanks.
@DarthJafo Aerhen was added 2 years after Myr
I wouldn't count on another Arboreus continent coming out any time soon. For sure the next continent is from Tartaros. Then maybe the fifth one will indeed be a second Arboreus continent.
Gamigo is no longer the publisher of the game. Glyph was the launcher of Gamigo games.
The system you are looking at right now is a highly accelerated up version of the previous one.
My personal opinion is that faster than this it would negatively impact the game economy.
Recipes have been an hot topic ever since their introduction, and they still are.
The community discussion mostly focuses on 4 perceived issues with them. In order of importance they are:
Excessively restrictive toward new players, especially for weapons. New players are stuck with primitive weapons for a very long time and this gets frustrating. This issue is even more perceived at the launch of the game when everyone is keeping recipes for himself/his guild and the few recipes being sold have huge prices. Armor sets are less of an issue, you can already craft the tier 1 version. It is fine to gatekeep the tier 2 version.
The recipes once used have no more purpose to exist for that player. With the passing of the days, the recipes go from extremely expensive to trash loot, simply because they saturate the market and no one requires them any more. There will be new players which need them, but the current drop rate of recipes in the game will more than overcompensate this recurring need.
A system based on crafting the same item multiple times to improve its quality is bad for the economy (flood of unwanted items) and not exactly fun or in line with the rest of the flow of the game. The durability gain is also not considered enough of a reward by many players, but at the same time this game can't exactly put vertical bonuses wherever it likes. Also, the fact that you de facto need maximum proficiency in primitive items before crafting the good ones to avoid "wasting xp" is kind of a noob trap.
It doesn't really make sense for a bear to keep accurate notes on how to build a bow.
Obviously the most critical issue is the first one. The first days of the game will have a large impact on the final success of it, so something that negatively impacts those very few hours has the highest importance. Fractured has an incredibly good crafting system, and many come try the game for it. Having these random piece of papers as showstoppers can leave a bitter taste.
Now, I would like to invite anyone to speak their mind about this topic. Provide feedback and potential changes that you would like.
Just as reminder though, consider that the more complex is the change you propose, the less likely it is to being taken in consideration by the devs.
I will start by presenting what I consider could be a potentially good solution to these issues.
It is a change with 3 possible levels of effort from the dev team.
Low effort solution: Remove the need for recipes on weapons, leave it only for tier 2 armor sets. This solves problem 1 but makes problem 2 more marked since the recipes will become even less useful in the long run. Still, it would save a lot of frustration to new players with very few changes.
Medium effort solution: Apply the previous change, and then remove the generical recipe drop that is currently present. In its place, increase the recipe drop from chests by a wide amount. This way we solve issue number 4 and at the same time we give a clear value to the treasure chests.
High effort: Apply the low effort solution and then use for recipes the same system that is currently in place for orbs. Weapons are unlocked by default (like plate mails and leather armor), while armor sets require to be unlocked. After the unlock, you can use recipes to increase the quality of that craft, identically to how you currently increase your level in a spell school with orbs. Crafting the item again and again will not provide "xp" to it. The higher the quality, the higher the number of recipes you need to use to increase it. This change has several advantages. If the increase in quality is put on a dropped item, its value will be determined by the market, so they will be priced according to the perceived gain of the increased durability instead of it being tied to a certain amount of resources and gold. Also, a single player will be able to benefit from many more copies of the same recipe, and so the influx of new players will be more likely to prevent the saturation of the market. In short, it will resolve issues 2 and 3. Recipes will gain long term value, without proving to be a showstopper in the first days of the game. Primitive items will keep the same current system, no one has issues with them.
This topic has been discussed already during an AMA. The devs are against adding consumable dedicated slots, having a consumable on the bar should come at the cost of a skill slot, which is why eventually bandages and similar items will be unable to be used from the inventory.
@drakelow this was once proposed and discussed, but the players were very against it.
I wholeheartedly approve of this.
A simple "+ Dazed" over the char would make wonders.
This issue gets discussed at regular intervals.
There is a need to vacate houses from no longer active players, but I have seen a few suggestions which can ease this on the players:
There have been plenty of discussions recently on the future of cities and their tech trees.
On one hand, you can't remove tech trees. They specialize a city, which creates treading opportunities between different cities, and also gives value to ranking up the city, which in turns creates a need for food and consequently opportunities for conflicts between cities (on Syndesia).
At the same time, we are getting close to the Steam Early access, and we can't ask for significant changes. Probably anything that isn't just a numerical change will not get to pass.
Let's analyze what we have, and look at what is and isn't working:
The last system of tech trees allows a city to craft advanced crafting items, and also improves their quality. This solution kind of works, but it also creates a double gate for advanced crafting, since you need both the recipe and a city with the related technology. For solo players this can be an issue. It also creates an issue where the biggest city has the biggest pull factor toward new residents, so all players tend to go to the same few cities.
In the last tests, the tech trees have been disabled and everyone could craft everything everywhere. This obviously had a specific reason to be, due to the nature of those tests, but it has also shown that this system isn't all bad. The obvious issue was that there was no reason to invest in a city (which requires a huge amount of resources).
In the older version of cities, only the citizens of the city got to get something out of the city, and only them could harvest the resources of the region. Now, this created a very intensive trading between cities, but clearly most players felt left out of a big portion of the game.
In none of the previous incarnations, there was an actual shortage of food, so no drive to raid other cities apart from getting into a fight for fun purposes.
This is the info on the results that we got from the tests so far.
What does this lead us to? I don't have a clear answer to this, but I got a potential proposal which with only minor changes could give us a system which learns from past lessons. The aim is always to have lots of trades, lots of fights and be as less impactful as possible on those players which don't want to interact with cities.
The tech tree
Don't have any gating on production given by the tech tree. Everyone can craft anything in their homes (as long as they have the recipe). Instead focus the tech tree on enchanting and resources. The tech tree allows players to use the enchanting table to increase the items to +1/+2/+3/+4 and part of the gold spent is sent to the city coffers. Players which want to craft those kind of items will find it easier to be near a town which has said tech, but will still feel a lot less restricted. The techs must be purchased for each single item you want to enchant, and the t2 version requires the tech in the t1 one.
Edit: Added an example image to make it more clear. These are leather armor, rogue armor and ranger armor. Each of these steps should cost 1 point.
In addition, the tech tree should focus on the resource part, which is normally what really characterizes a city. The size of the tree should be massive. With each resource having a specific tech i.e. bronze, mammoth hide, blazium oil. These techs unlock another craft to get those materials, which has slightly better returns, for example "Bulk Arboreal Dragon Leather" instead of tanning skins to leather in ratio of 5:5 in increments of 5, it instead works in increments of 10 and with a 10:11 ratio. Ingots could go from the 3+fuel : 2 to 15+5xfuel : 11. Oils from 2:5 to 4:11. These are simply additional crafts to make. Same items involved, probably same icon with just a "B" symbol on it. And it doesn't make any sense for a city to develop a tech which is not relevant in its location, so they will specialize. Going to the territory of another city to haul back minerals will yeld less final resources than a resident of that location doing it, so you are more likely to purchase them from that city. These techs should cost 2 points.
Edit: This is how the fabric part could look like.
With that said, how many points should a city get? Depends on the planet. Syndesia cities should get more points than Arboreus ones. The reason for that is that further down you will read that I'm proposing for Arboreus to produce more food, so Arboreus will have more city of high rank compared to Syndesia. Arboreus cities should get one point per Rank, so a max rank city gets to bulk produce 3 resources and enchant a t2 set and its t1 version to +4. A Syndesian city should get double that. Keeping together a city with scarcity of food and constant pvp threat should be rewarding.
City Progress
Let's not reinvent the wheel. The cities should follow the current 15 rank system based on prestige and food requirements that they currently have.
Where instead there is a need to act is on the available quantity of food. Syndesia should feel properly starved, so that people contend with each other for food. Arboreus instead does not have city fights, so there is no reason to starve those cities, and it makes sense for Arboreus to be more fertile. You still want cities specialized in food that provide it to other cities though, because trading is fun.
The main way to realize this, is by simply the prestige value of fields to a negative value. This way it becomes impossible to have a big city and also have it sustain itself. You will never get to have both the necessary food and prestige. A city to reach max rank needs the support of other cities. The fertility of Arboreus should be such that one rank 9 city providing food is enough for another city to reach max rank.
On Syndesia you should need one and a half. So probably the fertility of Arboreus should be set to 150% and then the food requirements per rank of city should be rescaled appropriately. Naturally for a Syndesian city having a city from Arboreus supply you with food is a perfectly valid option.
As I previously said, for a guild keeping a city on Syndesia is a high risk high reward scenario. Harder to do, but also is worth double the techs.
Another important change to be made, is to lower the amount of players required to found a city. I would set it to 5. You want all cities taken. The cost of founding one isn't cheap, so if a group of players believe that he was what it takes to keep a city around, they should have the chance to try.
Tldr:
Techs less restrictive and more based on enchants and resource gathering. Massive tech tree with lots of very specific options to force cities in specializing. Less food on Syndesia, more on Arboreus. More techs on Syndesia, less on Arboreus. Easier to found cities.
After one month and half of test, a few issues which are limiting the viability of many builds have become apparent.
Going in order they would be:
The current thick skinned talent (reduce physical damage by 8/16/24/32) is applying to all kinds of damage. This means that if an archer hits with an arrow, it will take 32 from the arrow piercing damage, 32 from whatever elemental conversion the bow has and 32 more from the burning/chilling/acid arrow skill. This completely kills the damage capabilities of archers in pvp and also limits a lot the viability of mages.
Fighter builds scale a lot better than casting builds. This is caused by 2 factors. The first one is that fighters have many instant skills which also apply the weapon damage, which means that improving their weapon improves their overall damage by a lot. 2h users highlight this issue, since the instant skills allow them to apply their big weapon damage without being impaired by the usually slow attack speed. The second factor is that mages don't interact with their weapon, apart from gaining a mediocre auto attack. These combined mean that at mid-high equipment levels, casting builds have a huge handicap against fighter builds. This is aggravated by the next points.
Maxing evasion is way too easy. All builds can reach incredibly high levels of evasion (and usually some block on top of it).
Elemental Stacks don't really matter right now. The decay rate is too fast. There is no way to apply stacks with fist and arrow skills. A caster can throw a lot of spells at a target and never reap a real benefit from all the stacks. In general, stack decay needs to be a lot slower. Builds focused on elements are currently made unavailable by this.
Some set bonuses are clearly better than others. The weakest one is currently the scholar (and is probably the only one at the right power level for a set), while battlemage, slayer and warlock are dominating over the other ones. Hunter set is also incredibly powerful but due to the limited scope of it, it probably isn't an issue.
Strike wounds on arrows currently works only if you have an elemental arrow skill active. This hurts a lot the longbow builds and imposes a really steep mana cost on the shortbow builds.
Poisoner talent does not work on arrows, so if you wish to use poisons on archer builds, you have to face an impressive resource consumption.
Entangling web is a memory 1 skill, which means that it can be affected by Cantrip Expert. With this, the cooldown becomes lower than the duration, allowing a permanent snare of the victim. It should be a memory 2 skill considering how much better than entrapping net it is.
Poison is hugely OP but it is getting reworked so it isn't an issue.
Steel has 50% more durability than other materials, but boy does it cost.
Gold is not a material that you can use for weapons... for obvious reasons.
Wisps keep dodging every melee attack brought with a silver weapon.
I know that they have high evasion, but even after stunning them they keep dodging, so the silver effect is simply not working.
You may be glad to know that bloodthirst now has the lifesteal part even when the target isn't bleeding (it is still required for the bonus damage part of the buff).
The first thing you should do is go to the southern area of the Shadow Vale and kill a lot of Skeleton Archers.
They give you Acid Arrows and Double shoot which are the most important archer skills.
After that, the Goblin trappers give you the Net which is also quite useful.
That's the core. Apart from that you can customize as you like it.