Feedback May 14th low lvl stuff

[Grue]

Hi,

I'm enjoying myself so far. The population is crazy low right now and was only able to find one other person to group with for a while around south newhaven. looking forward to future changes and seeing stuff past the south newhaven gate.


General
- Noticed smuggler archer AI makes them walk backwards forever... Maybe have them switch to melee after a bit or stop moving backwards or something... or at least move backwards in a logical way, like so they always try to keep facing their target. It seemed like they just moved straight backwards (regardless of what angle I am at) when approaching melee range making them incredibly tedious to kill.
- Bag locking. Perhaps just have the contents drop on the ground. Had an issue Sunday where I couldn't trade with someone who hadn't collected their bag yet, so I couldn't give them anything to help... I didn't have anything super awesome for them at that point, just some cloth armour drops, but in the future it might make a difference helping someone get their stuff back.
- Death punishment. I appreciate the "corpse run" and I can accept the financial penalty to repair my gear for my own failure to git gud... but sitting for that long to heal wounds is annoying. By all means, force us to find a fire to make that wounds debuff go away, that seems fair, however the time to heal wounds is too long imo.
- Combat logging, or API for DPS/Heal parsing.... Ooooh... if you could throw the combat log into a DB format like sqlite, or mysql so I don't have to write a text parser. Me love you short time.
- Can I have more than one trade skill at the beginning? Lvling prospecting to 6 before I can get a trade skill to make something with the ingots I've been smelting is making me not want to do any TS.
- I personally am not fond of node based resources. I find it becomes a solo task that you have to grind separately. No one wants to follow you around finding nodes, groups wanna go do content; not search for copper or wood... I suppose one could say that of trade skills in any MMO. Resources are always a drag to collect. Changing resource collection to mob drops would be a different kind of solo grind that might also affect lower level players negatively if mobs are monopolized... I don't have anything helpful... However, it doesn't change I'm still not fond of resource nodes. lol.
- Mobs sometimes move very close to you when in combat, sometimes so far into you as to cause a not facing target message dealio.
- First aid range feels short for a heal, also has a long recast time. Oh poo moments are not recoverable with healing spam and getting off a quick heal on a retreating ally is not possible.


UI
- Pressing escape when a window is open will clear your targets before closing the window. Should be closing/clearing everything Esc can close/clear in reverse order as it was added to the stack.
- Some kind of cancel cast button (or at least the option to set one) that doesn't involve jumping (which uses sta) or pressing esc (which clears a target).
- Keep the loot roll window up a bit longer while there are still group members who have not selected a need/greed/pass. When grouped I missed so many rolls just because I was looking at mobs and party life bar and not at the loot window. Does the loot window remember your loot preference for each item type? I didn't remember to check that.
- More chat windows. I want to be able to put group in one window, ooc in another, general in another, guild in another, etc...
- Enabling/Disabling reagents is not obvious in the UI. If there was a tooltip, or tutorial message about it, I missed it.


Movement and other Control
Obviously coming from many years of EQ I have a way I am expecting an MMO to feel as far as controls and movement go... While that sounds like old man Grue complaining about why everything doesn't work like stuff from the old days does, I'd like to point out that the EQ control and movement feel is also the same type feel of other tab target MMOs. WoW, KoToR, EQ2, etc...

- Movement. Make the bound keys for turn left and right, turn the toon as expected, unless right mouse is held, then they become strafe left and strafe right?
- Increase tab and mouse targeting range?
- Is combat stance required? I haven't played all the roles yet, so it might be important in some fashion... but right now it just feels like one more button press to remember after I'm done killing something.
- Turn off auto attack when the mob your targeting dies. Remembering the button presses after combat feels like I have to tidy up after playing with my legos...

 

[MrDDT]

Great post, almost all feeling I share.
Few I do not.

Movement - I found it fine, if you want to change it to how you like, you can do that in the key binds. The mouse + key = strafe is not common in MMO's at all and I think its a minor thing they can add but very few people would use it.

Combat Stance - This is fine to me also, you can just sit down if you want after combat. Being in stance only slows your movement anyways so this is important if you want to be auto attacking or not. It's great at higher level when CC matters. Sounds like just a learning curve thing and I don't see the issue with it.

Auto attack off after mob dead- I feel like this is the other way, If you soloing, this isn't even a problem. It's only an issue with CC. I found that I want to change targets often and attack while in combat.

ESC Cancel casting - I agree and disagree with this 1) ESC does not clear targets or close windows IF you are casting. However, if you are not then it does both. So a little bit of wrong info here but all in all I agree, can we just get a bindable key for stopping an attack/action/cast etc.

All the rest is very spot on, I totally agree with it. Kinda sucks because I see feedback like this which has a lot (TONS) of good points but because there is no many in 1 post, I feel like they kinda get lost in the topics.

 

[Grue]

Thank you for your feedback. Much appreciated.

Movement - I found it fine, if you want to change it to how you like, you can do that in the key binds. The mouse + key = strafe is not common in MMO's at all and I think its a minor thing they can add but very few people would use it.

Yeah, I get that I can change the 'a' and 'd' from strafe to turn, which I did. That's where I noted the hold right mouse button to strafe was not there.

For Tab target MMOs it certainly is common, not all MMOs for sure, just tab target MMOs. I would bet my fancy hat and monocle, that if you fired up WoW, EQ, EQ2, Vanguard, or ToR... maybe LoTRO, not sure about that one, been a while... Anywho, the turn keys and right mouse button would behave as I said.

Its hardly game breaking, but if the target demographic is old school EQ and WoW style players then making the movement controls easy to slip into like an old pair of high tops wouldn't hurt.

Combat Stance - This is fine to me also, you can just sit down if you want after combat. Being in stance only slows your movement anyways so this is important if you want to be auto attacking or not. It's great at higher level when CC matters. Sounds like just a learning curve thing and I don't see the issue with it.

The issue is, it just seems like another button to press for no reason, learning to press 'z' after combat is not a problem. But, does the combat stance mechanic serve a purpose? Can't they just tie combat movement speed penalty to auto attack?

Honestly, I say remove the combat movement speed penalty altogether unless there is some kind of bonus to being in combat stance, like increased mitigation or something.

Auto attack off after mob dead- I feel like this is the other way, If you soloing, this isn't even a problem. It's only an issue with CC. I found that I want to change targets often and attack while in combat.

I guess this kind of ties into the combat stance as well. I feel like after combat I have to clean up after myself with button presses. I agree auto attack should not turn off when changing targets, however I feel it should turn off when the mob you currently have targeted dies. It just feels right.

I'll speak more to it as I progress, perhaps later in the game it makes more sense, but right now I'm not seeing the benefits of keeping auto attack on after your target dies.


Just overall I find the combat stance and auto attack to feel off.

ESC Cancel casting - I agree and disagree with this 1) ESC does not clear targets or close windows IF you are casting. However, if you are not then it does both. So a little bit of wrong info here but all in all I agree, can we just get a bindable key for stopping an attack/action/cast etc.

Fair enough, I probably remembered incorrectly and mixed it up with the weird close/clear stack order for the Esc key.


Cheers! Thanks for your feedback on my feedback. [insert Yo Dawg I Heard You Like Feedback meme]

 

[Undone]

Hi,

I'm enjoying myself so far. The population is crazy low right now and was only able to find one other person to group with for a while around south newhaven. looking forward to future changes and seeing stuff past the south newhaven gate.

Thanks for the feedback Grue! I'll attempt to address a few points below.

- Noticed smuggler archer AI makes them walk backwards forever... Maybe have them switch to melee after a bit or stop moving backwards or something... or at least move backwards in a logical way, like so they always try to keep facing their target. It seemed like they just moved straight backwards (regardless of what angle I am at) when approaching melee range making them incredibly tedious to kill.

These NPCs typically require a different strategy for groups to take out. However, we recognize that these ranged npcs can be quite annoying at times so we are actively looking to improve the AI.

- Bag locking. Perhaps just have the contents drop on the ground. Had an issue Sunday where I couldn't trade with someone who hadn't collected their bag yet, so I couldn't give them anything to help... I didn't have anything super awesome for them at that point, just some cloth armour drops, but in the future it might make a difference helping someone get their stuff back.

After you lose your bag all interactions are blocked - this design serves as incentive for players to retrieve their belongings. If they don't want to retrieve it, players may forfeit the contents of their bag at any time.

- Death punishment. I appreciate the "corpse run" and I can accept the financial penalty to repair my gear for my own failure to git gud... but sitting for that long to heal wounds is annoying. By all means, force us to find a fire to make that wounds debuff go away, that seems fair, however the time to heal wounds is too long imo.

We feel that the wounds system is an integral part of the game loop. They impose a penalty to death that is outside of the realm of quick fixes like repairs etc.

- Can I have more than one trade skill at the beginning? Lvling prospecting to 6 before I can get a trade skill to make something with the ingots I've been smelting is making me not want to do any TS.

We do not want to overwhelm new players by giving them too many options right out of the gate. At the same time, we also want you to earn that second profession, which right now is done via level gating. At some point we could maybe do it via quest gating, but in the end it would have a similar effect.

- Mobs sometimes move very close to you when in combat, sometimes so far into you as to cause a not facing target message dealio.

Yea npcs are not always respecting their buffer zones and weapon distances. Something I am actively investigating.

- First aid range feels short for a heal, also has a long recast time. Oh poo moments are not recoverable with healing spam and getting off a quick heal on a retreating ally is not possible.

We feel that healing range is in a pretty good spot right now. We like to imagine supporters more as battle medics rather than traditional MMO casters - so it does require a bit of moving around and positioning to keep your group topped off. Different specs (at level 6) gain different heals for different situations which might suit your play style a bit more than the initial first aid skill.

- Pressing escape when a window is open will clear your targets before closing the window. Should be closing/clearing everything Esc can close/clear in reverse order as it was added to the stack.

The UI window "stack" is separate from targeting. Right now the game checks chat --> skills --> targeting --> UI window stack. Are you suggesting that all UI windows in the stack should be closed before it clears your target? In that case you could never leave windows up without locking them, which to me feels a bit odd? I guess the argument could be made from either angle.

- Some kind of cancel cast button (or at least the option to set one) that doesn't involve jumping (which uses sta) or pressing esc (which clears a target).

Escape should not clear your target if you are in the middle of an execution.

- Keep the loot roll window up a bit longer while there are still group members who have not selected a need/greed/pass. When grouped I missed so many rolls just because I was looking at mobs and party life bar and not at the loot window. Does the loot window remember your loot preference for each item type? I didn't remember to check that.

I can extend the time a bit, but if we extend the time too far then it takes even longer for items to clear from the queue when someone is afk or not answering. The loot roll window does not remember any selections, it only presents them to you. There is an option to auto-greed or auto-pass in your group window though.

- More chat windows. I want to be able to put group in one window, ooc in another, general in another, guild in another, etc...

This one is a bit higher on the priority list for sure.

- Enabling/Disabling reagents is not obvious in the UI. If there was a tooltip, or tutorial message about it, I missed it.

Gotcha, any thoughts on how to make this more obvious?

- Movement. Make the bound keys for turn left and right, turn the toon as expected, unless right mouse is held, then they become strafe left and strafe right?

Do you have a game to direct me to in which it is like this as an example? To me our third person setup feels very intuitive.

- Increase tab and mouse targeting range?

How far are you looking to tab target something? The current distance is quite far - I think 40m which is well outside of any maximum weapon range. We purposely limit your targeting range & nameplate visibility range as a sort of "fog of war".

- Is combat stance required? I haven't played all the roles yet, so it might be important in some fashion... but right now it just feels like one more button press to remember after I'm done killing something.

While not in combat stance you move quicker, cannot actively defend (no avoid, block, parry, riposte), and suffer an armor class penalty. So combat stance provides numerous defensive benefits while imposing a small movement penalty that can be negated by equipment.

- Turn off auto attack when the mob your targeting dies. Remembering the button presses after combat feels like I have to tidy up after playing with my legos...

There have been many thoughts on this - to me it feels wrong to make decisions for you based on the world state - but next patch I am adding a toggle for this as it seems to be a reoccurring critique.

 

[MrDDT]

Great replies Undone thanks for looking into so much stuff.

I would like to make a comment about part of it, is that please do not make the timer longer for group rolling on loot. It's already super long and you can't skin mobs until everyone rolls on loot.
If that skinning option was an option even while loot is still being rolled, I'm fine with it being longer.

 

[Undone]

Great replies Undone thanks for looking into so much stuff.

I would like to make a comment about part of it, is that please do not make the timer longer for group rolling on loot. It's already super long and you can't skin mobs until everyone rolls on loot.
If that skinning option was an option even while loot is still being rolled, I'm fine with it being longer.

No can do without some major reworking of the loot system. Right now it's set at 30s which should be long enough for most items. However, one of the things that could help reduce the time needed for players is a comparative tooltip for things they have equipped which is on my shortlist of things to do, or try to do

 

[Grue]

Obviously this is your world, I'm just here for the pixels and to avoid talking to real life people. Also hoping I can get in on some ground floor exploits, for fun and profit.

After you lose your bag all interactions are blocked - this design serves as incentive for players to retrieve their belongings. If they don't want to retrieve it, players may forfeit the contents of their bag at any time.

Absolutely make them go pick up their stuff for being bad at video games, I'd just like to be able to help... but not actually walk with them all the way back to their corpse, that would be inconvenient to say the least. Couple of potions, some food/drink if they dont' have any. You don't have to give an answer now... stew on it... have a nap... let the boss know I told you to take the day off, you deserve it.

We feel that the wounds system is an integral part of the game loop. They impose a penalty to death that is outside of the realm of quick fixes like repairs etc.

For sure, I get it. Not saying get rid of wounds, or the need to the find a fire to recover... Punish me for being a bad player, I'm in to that kind of thing. I just felt recovery time was long.

The UI window "stack" is separate from targeting. Right now the game checks chat --> skills --> targeting --> UI window stack. Are you suggesting that all UI windows in the stack should be closed before it clears your target? In that case you could never leave windows up without locking them, which to me feels a bit odd? I guess the argument could be made from either angle.

I can see the other side of the argument as well. I think my biggest concern is the Options overlay was not closed first when Esc is pressed. The rest is probably fine... If you did add window locking, well, that'd be just swell.

Gotcha, any thoughts on how to make this more obvious?

Obnoxious pop up tutorial window when you pick up your first class usable reagent followed by making relevant parts of the UI flash? Honestly, I have no great ideas for that right now.

Do you have a game to direct me to in which it is like this as an example? To me our third person setup feels very intuitive.

100% sure EQ, EQ2, WoW; its been a while but I'm like 90% sure Vanguard and SWTOR as well.

It makes sense, if I'm using mouse look, I'm going to be turning left and right with the mouse, so switching turn to strafe feels good. Real good.

Not saying switch from your default strafe key bind, it'd just be nice when turn left and turn right are bound, have them behave like other tab target mmos when right mouse is held for mouse look.

How far are you looking to tab target something? The current distance is quite far - I think 40m which is well outside of any maximum weapon range. We purposely limit your targeting range & nameplate visibility range as a sort of "fog of war".

If the point is fog of war, then keep it the way it is... I felt partially blind not being able to tab through or click on mobs at further distances, so mission accomplished. /highfive

While not in combat stance you move quicker, cannot actively defend (no avoid, block, parry, riposte), and suffer an armor class penalty. So combat stance provides numerous defensive benefits while imposing a small movement penalty that can be negated by equipment.

Very good. If it serves a purpose other than movement penalties, then I shall embrace the combat stance.

There have been many thoughts on this - to me it feels wrong to make decisions for you based on the world state - but next patch I am adding a toggle for this as it seems to be a reoccurring critique.

Thanks. I'll think you every time I don't press ` when a mob dies.




When are you adding dwarves?

 

[Undone]

Obviously this is your world, I'm just here for the pixels and to avoid talking to real life people. Also hoping I can get in on some ground floor exploits, for fun and profit.

lol thank you for giving me a chuckle with your answers.

Absolutely make them go pick up their stuff for being bad at video games, I'd just like to be able to help... but not actually walk with them all the way back to their corpse, that would be inconvenient to say the least. Couple of potions, some food/drink if they dont' have any. You don't have to give an answer now... stew on it... have a nap... let the boss know I told you to take the day off, you deserve it.

Yea this is quite tricky due to how the inventory and trade system is designed. We would basically only be able to let you trade them consumables or reagents, but with how trade checks for "room" this would take a decent amount of work to adjust. Likely something we can address later down the road as a QoL improvement.

For sure, I get it. Not saying get rid of wounds, or the need to the find a fire to recover... Punish me for being a bad player, I'm in to that kind of thing. I just felt recovery time was long.

Gotcha, fair enough concern. We will continue evaluating wound heal times as the game progresses. One of the things we don't currently take full advantage of is that some ember rings can heal faster than others - I think right now they're all about the same.

I can see the other side of the argument as well. I think my biggest concern is the Options overlay was not closed first when Esc is pressed. The rest is probably fine... If you did add window locking, well, that'd be just swell.

Ah yes, that makes sense. I'll look into closing the options menu & overlay BEFORE everything else, basically treat them as something separate from the other UI stack. Window locking is implemented for "most" windows! Check in the upper right corner for a little lock icon.

Obnoxious pop up tutorial window when you pick up your first class usable reagent followed by making relevant parts of the UI flash? Honestly, I have no great ideas for that right now.

Gotcha, we have a lot of tutorial work to do for sure.

100% sure EQ, EQ2, WoW; its been a while but I'm like 90% sure Vanguard and SWTOR as well.

It makes sense, if I'm using mouse look, I'm going to be turning left and right with the mouse, so switching turn to strafe feels good. Real good.

Not saying switch from your default strafe key bind, it'd just be nice when turn left and turn right are bound, have them behave like other tab target mmos when right mouse is held for mouse look.

Hrm I'll have to poke my head back into WoW and see how they handle this. To me everything feels on point as to what it "should" be. I wouldn't really classify EQ as a gold standard here though as their third person camera was kind of an afterthought and was super janky.

When are you adding dwarves?

Ha! Our character creator allows you to change your appearance at any time from the character selection screen. We don't have dwarves, but you can make a small stumpy character that resembles a dwarf!

 

[GeneralK]

Hi Grue, I like your posts so don't take this personally.

Love how it's like "I want to help but I'm not going to go on a bag run (corpse run) with this guy Pfft" LOL. If their bag is in a location that has agro mobs that they can't defeat then they Should have to ask for help to retrieve it and next time take a (better) group with them for that area.

Wound heal times feel worse when the population is low and there aren't alot of lvl 1-9 but imagine it more like several players sitting around it at once, be it your group and or otherwise, with socialization potential. It ties in to the above corpse run mechanics too, meeting strangers at an Ember ring and making friends. "Hey are you in a group? I need some help, where is your bag?" or like "I saw your group run by me earlier, can I tag along behind you to get my bag or do you have room?". If I can heal my wounds in a few seconds like Fatigue, then I won't still be sitting there when you stagger over...

First Aid comments. I've enjoyed the aspect of managing cooldowns and prefer to have these choices matter of when to cast and on whom, rather than be able to spam. Not sure how that plays out with a full kit at 50 but with limited hotkey slots hopefully is still meaningful.

Strafing in mouselook: Ugh I can't get this straight. I think it's because I remember what you are talking about but maybe those had 1st person too? I give up lol.
Paying attention to it testing tonight I think it felt correct.
I've felt like the controls are good but would request that up/down/left/right arrows are default mapped as secondary keys for WASD

Edit meant to comment on target distance:
When I first started I felt like it was short and I kept falling back to my spamming tab to gain situational awareness of mobs around me when it did no good.

Since the last increase to the range I think it is a pretty good spot. I get a good idea of anything that's a threat, without having free reign without any movement required to see everything around me.

 

[Battlestorm]

Thought I might necro-rez this post to contribute my shared thoughts. Although I think the controls are quite smooth, I have to agree that they're a little off for me in the same way they were for @Grue.

I think that the actions for "A" and "D" should be to turn left/right. However, when you right-click, those same two keys should turn into strafe left and right. I played WoW in this fashion and it just had a perfect control flow to it. My wife tried this game's controls and immediately said "oh no, no way" until I changed "A" and "D" to turn left right for her by re-binding. She quickly then discovered that she needed to hit "Q" and "E" to strafe (newly binded by me, after re-assigning "A" and "D").

I think this is a more important issue than it might seem since it's is something players have to use just about every second of the game. Even a minor issue here can lead to a "no" from some players...and I'd like to hope that it isn't a game-breaking/altering adjustment (or option) - though perhaps time consuming to provide.