QA August 2023

[Undone]

Can you separate elk and stags? They are pretty distinct in what they drop and where they spawn.

But the skills that they use are similar enough to lump them in. The only reason the Does are separate is because of the stun that they do - so we wanted to offer stun resist, which would be useless against the stags/elks.

1) Remove the final two tiers and have it cap at 2000. This provides room for 3 stat and 4 titles rewards.
2) One to One ratio of stat to mob type. There are currently 30 stats in your character screen. Tie one of them to each mob type. If there are more interesting mob types coming in the future, I would remove some of the more obscure mob types like frogs. I haven't fought a frog since level 20.
3) Make the stats permanently passive on your character forever. With reducing to 3 stat rewards you can make more useful stats like 1h rewards be 1, 1, 2. A total of 4 weapon dmg is a bump but not game breaking. Haste could be 1,2,2. Resists could be 1, 2, 3. Etc. This is like having an augment on...something most players do not maximize anyway.

While I don't entirely dislike the idea - it's not flexible enough for the future of the game. Tying each mob type to one stat is very limiting in that if we want to introduce new mob types in the future then there will eventually be an overlap, which in turn will lead to power issues and certain meta games that we don't really want to encourage. And moving the stat from one creature to another is not a viable solution in my opinion and creates inconsistencies (i.e. why do some mobs count for the hunting log while others do not? I'm at 1500 frogs and suddenly the kill target for that stat changed because they introduced a new creature?). This would also shift the player's choice from "which stat do I want to take" to "which creature do I want to kill". And in my opinion would be very limiting to players working to min/max their character. For example - we could put one of the more desirable stats on the most hated creature and now players have to kill thousands of a creature they don't enjoy fighting to achieve that "must have" global benefit.

The hunting log only providing stats against the specific mob makes it entirely worthless/trivial and entirely removes any/all drive to even engage in that system.

I just went from being excited to have new grind goals/ways to improve my character to now being massively disappointed and feeling like it's wasted dev time....
Hopefully this gets changed before making it to live.

I get the sense that this is an issue because we were not tracking any of your kills up until this point. If this were in place back at launch would having minor stat perks against specific creatures be such a bad thing?

The hunting log was never meant to act as an alternate-advancement system to bring back old players for "the grind". The initial conception was mini-achievements for folks who killed a lot of creatures. We thought it would be a bit more interesting if we expanded that functionality to allow the player to make some choices along the way rather than just giving everyone the same thing. Then we thought we could add a bit more interest by offering minor stat perks along with titles - the main inspiration here was something like the bear who stuns, or the bats who confuse; thematically we really liked the idea of "I have killed a ton of bears so I am more resistant to their dazes" etc.

 

[MarcusFromOz]

I think the August 8th changes overall are very good, but I don't like the 1 second execution times returning.
While I understand the berserker issue, I don't think the fix feels right.

Having said that, if possible, I'd love to see another QA build with the times reduced as below.

• Execution times on attacks have been adjusted to be a flat 1.5s reduction from the current live values. No abilities have jumped from 2s->0s as the previous QA patch (Perforate, Bash, Precision Strike, Pressure, Chaotic Strike, Hidden Strike, Combined Strike have all become a 0.5s execution time)

It just felt right with 0.0 second execution times.
As someone who has played games a lot with 200-350 ping the execution time feels like lag to me.

Anyway, that's my opinion, if it's a trivial change I'd love to test the above.

 

[Colanius]

Please you already make a step in the right direction, let instants be instants. Stop with the cast/execution bar nonsense.

Again, stop listening to the few ultra hardcore fans, they will not keep your game alive in the long run alone.

 

[Undone]

Please you already make a step in the right direction, let instants be instants. Stop with the cast/execution bar nonsense.

Hi Colanius welcome to QA. This is a place for us to iterate throughout the month based on feedback from testers (both internal and external).

Again, stop listening to the few ultra hardcore fans, they will not keep your game alive in the long run alone.

We listen to everyone. Listening however, does not constitute blindly doing as they ask.

 

[Oran1Plays]

Just wanted to say this is a good change and i do hope its true what you say that you don't just listen to those who post here or play the QA as this does not represent the whole community and some good or bad ideas could be taken as such.

Looking forward to this update

 

[Undone]

Just wanted to say this is a good change and i do hope its true what you say that you don't just listen to those who post here or play the QA as this does not represent the whole community and some good or bad ideas could be taken as such.

As clarification: WE make design choices we think will move the game in the right direction, then listen to feedback provided by all players (those who post here, and those who do not), and adjust things according to what WE feel is necessary. No one voice outside of our own internal discussions and goals is driving the design of this game. Changes made and shared on QA simply provide an opportunity for players to test upcoming changes and provide alternate perspectives for us to consider.

 

[MarcusFromOz]

Logged in to test the new changes, spawned into a group of slagjacks in FD.
Dead before I even saw the screen finish loading LOL.



Result:
- Forfeiting bag contents still works.

Having had that cathartic experience, it was time to try out combat.



- Changes to Hunting Log Stat display look good.

Did some testing of archery against mobs on the RS beach.
Still trying to get my head around a Bleeding Strike with my bow taking 1ish seconds, while a Venom Strike is almost instant, but hey, it still feels a lot better than on Live.

Did some testing of dual-wield melee combat on the RS beach.
It's not perfect yet, but it feels much better than on Live.

One early observation that I need to test further, 2 chev mobs feel significantly harder to kill than on Live.
This is without making any armour changes from Live and taking advantage of the extra armour weight, hence I need to test further.



Noice.



A little confused over the use of a checkbox for the Perk Selection when you can only choose one title at a time, but whatever.



This raised a question for me, would you ever reset your perks (including your stats perks), just to swap from Crocodile Hunter to Crocodile Stalker?
Yeh nah. (that's Australian for No).

But for the sake of testing:


Kills: 10 - correct
Tier Count - 0/10 - correct
Title Perks - reset correctly

However:



Crocodile Hunter title is still available after perk reset.

Exited to Selection
Logged back in on this character.



So only a timing issue.

Testing Summary
Just a short session, no major issues, one minor issue, combat feels better than on Live, but I still feel that execution times should be fired into Blupiter.
But that is something for a month's worth of Live Testing and the dev team to decide on, and who knows, maybe the Alchemy system will affect this.
Not sure if I will spend the time to kill 100 of something to test stats, would still like the first Stat tier to be 30 (or even 50).

--------------------

 

[Undone]

Thanks for the continued testing Marcus!

View attachment 3106

A little confused over the use of a checkbox for the Perk Selection when you can only choose one title at a time, but whatever.

The other gets grayed out when you select one. It's just easier to re-use existing checkboxes than work on new radial buttons (time).

Crocodile Hunter title is still available after perk reset.

I'll get that straightened out; thanks!

 

[XerWolf]

Difficult adjustments made to NPCs to compensate for execution time changes and general balance. Health, armor, and damage values of mobs have been increased. This is still being iterated on for balance and will likely result in some XP adjustments in the near future.

This felt better after testing tonight, but the damage output of mobs for orange and red seems to be tweaked higher than it needs to be. Fighting orange isnt something normally done already and the damage buff combined with damage boost they already naturally get seems too much in the situation that you happen to encounter one. Yellow 3^ special mobs like forsaken/named/redmane lurker also feel like they will be stronger than intended.

Further player ability animation improvements.

Really liked the animation of 2H axe on acid strike, Liked the animation for dual wield on bleeding strike (wish this was on advantage strike). Advantage strike dual weild animation feels plain.

Ashen creatures will now sound a bit different from their non-ashen counterparts

This grates on my ears. I will probably mute the game when I fight ashen creatures. This may just be some auditory thing going on with me as most people said it was fine.

 

[drekati]

Some feedback on QA:
I like the combat changes - much quicker and fluid.
Freehold seems to run better, but still low fps. Flooded Ruins has some low fps still, something about the water or particles cause slowdown
Despair Warlord skill feels like its doing lower overall damage. Was hitting pretty constantly over 100-150 on live server, but mostly 79-100 on test Was the damage nerfed here?

 

[AdricLives]

Despair Warlord skill feels like its doing lower overall damage. Was hitting pretty constantly over 100-150 on live server, but mostly 79-100 on test Was the damage nerfed here?

A couple mobs do have Mental Damage resistances so it may depend on what you are fighting. I don't think any changes to Despair's damage have been made.