Posts made by Tuoni

@spoletta I do not disagree, but has devs said that their goal is neutral gameplay?

Ihmo it is not reasonable to examine current situation and make changes based on that. The eyes should be in the future and what Syndesia will eventually be.

Sieges are PvP end-game and Asteroids are marketed as PvP end-game as well. If Legends will be mainly PvP hotspot, what Syndesia will offer to PvE players end-game wise? When considering end-game content the scale is heavily on PvP side... And should actually be more balanced towards PvX. Therefore, I hope Legends will not turn to PvP hotspots and Asteroids will take somehow consideration PvE players as well.

Neutral alignment feels problematic in general but I think that is because most of the players prefers to play either good or evil. I would actually like to know that how many players would like to play as neutral. Because if the number is low then implementing forced neutral content would not be that smart. If the number is high then some neutral content should be available more for sure.

I think that the neutral alignment is hard to get work because most of the players choose to play either good or evil. It is also hard to give neutral players benefits without taking away from others.

I think the AMA sessions needs some improvement. Like mentioned before why arrange a stream if there won't be any interaction with the audience? Therefore, answering questions from live chat or with player representative would be nice add.

AMA = Ask Me Anything

What is the point if people asks anything but they are not answered? I understand that some questions can be irrelevant or even hostile toned but that typically is a result of frustration related to the question. In my opinion people should at least try to mold their questions more neutral way because that will increase chances that their questions will be answered.

However, should questions been left out if the questions are not mold perfectly or the topic itself is hard? I would say, no! AMA arrangers should try to find the point and seed of the question and still give some kind of answer. Moreover, I understand the temptation to select the "easy" questions, but dodging the hard topics just irritates people even more. Typically rationalized answers will calm down even the hot topics if just the players understands the motivations behind certain choices.

@LordSkykal said in "Fight the good fight!":

@Tuoni You have to keep in mind that there are sync problems at the moment, which according to dynamight should be fixed in further patches and that many players play with too high a latency, which affects this.
In the final game, combat will play much more smoothly.

It is true that there is sync problems like there is other lag issues and ping differencies as well. Those things makes the current situation even worse. However, the core problem is in the combat itself like @Vortech mentioned, especially in the ranged play. It is the use of mouse where you need to constantly jump between moving and shooting which makes e.g. kiting clunky and unpleasent. It does not need to be this way, it can be better.

@GamerSeuss If that current clumsy and clunky click combat is intentional and best what they can do... that is just so disapointing. Anyhow, I am not taking your word about it what is intentional and what is not. The game is also still in development and it would be really odd if alpha combat build is the best that we can get for the release.

@Vortech said in "Fight the good fight!":

The first step to fixing ranged is homing auto attacks like AO. Rangers for example, feel pretty awful in pvp and their potential is limited by this clunky implementation. Save the skillshots for the abilities..

@spoletta said in "Fight the good fight!":

Auto targeting for ranged: This would go against the intention of the devs. It is intended that you need to manually aim the target.

A bit excessive.. Allowing homing auto attacks within a reasonable cone doesn't take anything away from requiring skill shots on all abilities. It just fixes the clunk/jank ranged users have to deal with trying to land chip damage and move around.

Agreed. Making basic attacks work more like autoattacks in Albion would only make the combat less clunky. The fights are not win with the basic attacks anyway... Those are rather mainly used as fillers between skills.

@GamerSeuss said in "Fight the good fight!":

@Tuoni The Devs want combat to be Click intensive and Target uncertain. That is why they are using the combat system they are using. If you made it auto-attack/auto-target, then you would free your mouse up to do other things and leave the character on autopilot...instead of having to choose when you stop clicking attacks to do something else with your mouse.

This is all 100% intentional, so they aren't going to add in any systems that take away from that combat experience.

It will not leave the character to autopilot in any way, just makes the combat smoother. Mouse will be still used for moving and switching the target. That would just take away the current clumsy mouse use especially when kiting. Test Albion combat and you understand what I mean. Even the current system would be 100% intentional it does not make it automatically good design. And I am not sure how you know devs will not make changes or improvements to the combat system?

True but that takes just away one part of the problem. Still the constant clicking between moving and targeting feels bad and clumsy, and does not help for ping and lag issues for example.

Tbh the combat has been in general clunky from the beginning and not changed much during the test periods. Everytime a new test starts I hope it would be developed further but still mainly the same. Combat is important to get as good as possible or it can ruin the whole game. At the moment the combat is decent, if being generious. Imo aiming to make the combat more fluid and smooth would be good direction.

@Mirgannel12 I agree that attacking with the basic attack is clumsy because you need to constantly click again the target, which itself is annoying. On top of that all those lags and pings takes care of that you can easily miss click the target and this turns the targeting to move towards the enemy. Albion has good system for this and you can auto-attack the chosen target, and even when you move you can just push the space-bar and your character attacks the selected target. That makes kiting smooth and takes away the ackward miss click possibility between attack and move.

Of course but adding just few more fights does not help much the defenders if the other side has better PvP team. Then conquere just takes some extra days but it will still happen. This is something that should be monitored unless it is a design choise just to make the process longer.

I am also interested that how is taken account that players and whole guilds continue to play after their city is conquered? It is nothing new that people quits the game at that point. Conquerable cities is of course a core feature but also a real challenge to tackle right.

I think that making the siege progressively harder (at least slightly) during the siege steps could be needed as well. Otherwise the attackers will most likely eventually succeed and new steps just makes it take a little bit longer.

@GamerSeuss said in My least favorite thing (after 50 hours):

Beta-testing rarely gets to test much end-game content, because your often not beta testing consecutively long enough to simulate end-game conditions, and because end game content is what gets added later (and often comes about as extra DLC content after release as more is needed)

I do not know what games you have tested but typically beta phase is about balancing, testing and polishing nearly finished product and therefore, including end-game content as well.

If we think especially of Fractured players are end-game ready inside a week so there is no possibility to leave centric content for upcoming DLCs or players do not have enough content to work with. Of course new content is needed as well but those comes on top of the basic game.

Anyhow, I have not seen any mention of Maze feature anymore which was meant to be an end-game PvE content, I wonder if that is cut off. Asteroids should come in summer patch and sieges hopefully starts to work at some point. Then there is lost tales and the end-game is pretty much there. All these features needs to be tested properly before launch so that there will not be any issues in time of release, especially major or critical bugs.

@Ablabla said in extra slots for healing and herbs:

@spoletta said in extra slots for healing and herbs:

I may agree, but in that case consumables from the inventory should not be usable, or you give a big advantage to macro users.

This is exactly what's happening right now, I personally know a few people who have already set up macros to use items in the inventory. I doubt anything will be done to stop this though.

True, and even if people would not use macros it would be simply bad designing if players can and should play inventory open to utilize multiple consumables. Anyhow, I do not think this is devs intention either and the current hotbar - inventory system is not yet updated... or at least I hope that pre-alpha implementation is not the final version.

It is true that after hitting 100% you start to avoid those specific mobs and animals especially if those will not drop anything you are interested. It would be easy to continue get XP especially if the progression would continue. If I remember right at some point there was an idea to implement 3 tiers to abilities as well. Even these tiers would be only a small power ups (and/or vertical augments) those could still be something what players can continue to work with, and the KP gain would make sense at the same time. I wonder what happened this plan anyway...

@StormBug I am not against this kind of system but I fear that it can be more a roleplaying thing rather than actually a working player-driven business. It is hard to say tbh and like you said it is just rough design at this point so it needs more flesh anyway.

However, perhaps the NPC-system would work better, and it could be part of the town tech as well, meaning that some kind of transport station needs to be build before transports can start or end to this specific town, and perhaps needs contracts agreed between towns as well.

Ashes of creation is creating a PvE - PvP system around wagons which are transporting players' goods from cities to another. Perhaps some ideas could be loaned there to develop this idea further.

I am personally fine with some fast travel mechanics but I would be careful to not add too much of them. It is okay if fast travel encourages players to explore and group up with friends for example. The system should not be benefical from trading point of view and the costs needs to scale with the value of items and resources that players carry. That being said, it is time to examine more closly OPs suggestion...

And yes, I am awaiting necromancy spells as well.

@Gruber12 Because abilities are unlocked via killing mobs and animals we could expect to get more abilities when Arboreus and Tartaros with new enemies will be implemented. According to roadmap, Arboreus patch coming during Summer and Tartaros in Autumn.

I do not think that we should have an option to use consumables from inventory because it enables possibility to utilize macros. When more consumables will be implemented then this will be even a bigger problem. Therefore, it would be clear if we would have for example two specific consumable slots. That would help with balance and encourage players to use two different consumables all the time, which is good for economy as well.

I am not sure should we have then 6, 7 or 8 ability slots available but the right balance will be found via testing for sure. Current hotbar system looks like what games use typically in pre-alpha and therefore, it should get some love and further designing. Additionally, it is nice to have total freedom with the abilities but in the other hand this might lead to severe balancing issues because there will be "infinite" number of combinations available.

IF balancing turns out to be nightmarish or even impossible then less ability slots helps with the pain.