Feedback after this week-end of open beta

[Klimt]

Hi,

Before starting, thank you for this week-end, I really enjoyed discovering an old-school MMO with challenge, group-based gameplay and exploration oriented.

Graphics​

- It seems that the engine is requiring a lot of ressources (especially lights and reflects) ; I have a good computer so that wasn't a big issue but some people asked me to not use my lantern because of freezing issues...!
- Environnement, lights, trees, mountains: it's beautiful, immersive, no problem ;
- Bear's eyes: there is a problem guys
- Animations: moving, running, everyting out of combat is ok but while in combat, it gets worse (I'm not talking about bugs like when you switch from bow to melee) : special abilities are too "soft", sometimes it looks like my Berserker is caressing the ennemy, they lack a feeling of strong hit ; due to this I never had the feeling the fights were "epic" ;
- Could be great to have different handling animations depending on the weapon (atleast for 2handed): you generally don't handle a 2 handed axe the same way you handle a 2 handed sword ;

Sounds​

- Music is immersive, seems ok but honestly didn't took too much attention ;
- Combat sounds are ok ;
- Interface sounds are ok ;
- Jump sounds: sometimes my dude had a female voiceline ;

Gameplay​

Classes & Weapons:​

This is a personnal opinion but limiting classes on certain weapons is not a good idea.
Everybody of the same class looks the same, less personalisation is possible.
Maybe allowing some specs to use new weapons could be nice (for example a tank to two handed swords, or a support to bucklers).

Crafting:​

Basic but efficient. I've heard that was going to change.
Let's hope that players will still need each others to craft stuff.

Quests:​

I really like the fact that there's no quest journal (I don't know if one will be available on the future, giving an interface of the /listobjectives command).
That you have to speak to all NPCs to check what they have to say, trully read the dialogues, etc...
I would love that no quest journal exists or a very summary one with possibility to write personal notes for each quests.

Orientation:​

I really like the fact that there's no indicator on map to see where you are, you have to discover the zone and get lost at the beginning before knowing perfectly the place.
However, allowing the player to buy a compass later, or maybe craft with some high level craft recipe, could be nice.

Areas:​

The first zone is really nice, plenty of things to see, multiples quests, all good.
But the second area seems way more empty of interresting stuff to see (but I have not explored more so can't say too much about that).
Same thing for dungeons, for what I've seen (the Crystal Veins in 1st area and the... Crystal Veins in 2nd area - with spiders and sort of blobs).
The first dungeon is great, plenty of mobs, of nameds, etc... But the second dungeon seems to have less interresting stuff, did not see any nameds and it's pretty much only a big grotto.

Experience gains:​

Risking his life in hard fights versus strong mobs do not rewards us in term of experience gains.
For exemple when adventuring alone, killing 2^ mobs doesn't give much more xp than a 1^ blue mob.
So when adventuring alone, I found the fastest way to get XP was just killing easy 1^ blue mobs (~2% per mob at lvl 10).
We tried, with a dude, to kill some red 1^ mobs and they gave us same XP as blue mobs.
Even being in a party killing 3^ mobs isn't faster.
IMO this should be changed to reward challenge and grouping.


I think that's all I had in mind.
I hope that the game will stay assisting-less on lot of things (map, quests, absence of auction house, etc...)
There's clearly still work to do but everything seems promising !
Can't wait to explore more of this world.

Good luck for the rest of the development !

 

[Elloa]

Thank you so much @Klimt for your feedback!

I will just react to this point

For exemple when adventuring alone, killing 2^ mobs doesn't give much more xp than a 1^ blue mob.

While soloing, you will gain most experience by killing 1 chev mob of your lvl (yellow, white and blue. However yellow are more difficult)
2 chev are aimed for smallgroup of 2 or 3 players. And 3 chev are aimed for full group of 4 to 6 players.
Red and green give less experience.

 

[Klimt]

While soloing, you will gain most experience by killing 1 chev mob of your lvl (yellow, white and blue. However yellow are more difficult)
2 chev are aimed for smallgroup of 2 or 3 players. And 3 chev are aimed for full group of 4 to 6 players.
Red and green give less experience.

That's what I meant : killing stronger mobs doesn't rewards in term of XP (2chev / 3chev alone for example).
Which means a solo player will have no interest to search for challenge (in term of XP) and imo chain-killing easy mobs isn't very funny.

 

[Undone]

That's what I meant : killing stronger mobs doesn't rewards in term of XP (2chev / 3chev alone for example).
Which means a solo player will have no interest to search for challenge (in term of XP) and imo chain-killing easy mobs isn't very funny.

Killing a 2^ or a 3^ solo most certainly does reward more XP than an equal level 1^ mob. There are two different things at play here: # of chevrons which tells you if the mob is tuned for a solo/small/large group, and color of the chevrons which tells you the mob's level compared to your level. If you kill a yellow (slightly higher) mob then you will get more xp than a white, but if you kill a red mob then you will get less than if it were a white. This is to encourage you to fight mobs of roughly equal level (as per the design) and also prevent rampant power leveling.

Even if we were to reward you with full xp for a red that is just over your limit then it would not be that much more than a white. At the end of the day we feel that fighting reds to level up faster is actually less efficient than fighting whites due to the longer downtimes associated. That's not to say that you cannot fight reds, we are just actively discouraging it because that content is not designed for that level range.

 

[Klimt]

Ok thank you for the informations.
I've certainly not paid enough attention to XP difference between mobs of different chevrons then!

I'll have to try that during an other beta week-end...