March 18-20 Feedback

[Pelirow]

Bugs/Issues

Wall near Wolf Den in Meadows had a weird collision border that probably needs to be tweaked, I should have /reported but forgot:



Loot timers might need a tweak somehow, there were a number of times I was trying to examine loot to compare to my current gear and the timer dropped before I had a chance to finish. Maybe make it so that loot timers pause while the group is in combat, or add an "Extra time" button for those situations it's needed? I assume side-by-side loot vs equipped gear display option is on the list for down the road implementation.

Provisioners focusing on potions seem to get the short stick early game since they have to spend 20cp for a single bottle, which is not small amount right now. Maybe have them start with 10-20 unvendorable bottles to get some early help?

Have other people reported back any issues with the new reagent drop rate? I feel like it's too much too often now for exile tar flasks, but I did spend almost all my time fighting just exiles. I have over 300+ tar flasks now from the weekend of playing. I felt like somewhere between the current rate and the previous rates would be ideal, but my perception may be skewed due to the sheer volume of exiles I fought.

Gameplay feedback
I expressed some concerns last week that levelling might be a little too fast but it felt okay this weekend. Although, part of the reason is I spent a lot of my time with people 3-4 levels lower than me while group so my exp was a trickle even with 4 hours at the top of exile fort. Definitely will be keeping my eyes on this, but I was less worried I was growing too fast this weekend in roughly the same amount of time spent exping.

Are Nameds locational restricted at all, or are they still possible to spawn anywhere in a zone? I'm mainly thinking about Nameds that make sense to be somewhere in a location such as the Exile Fort behind Ravenrock, Wolf Den, Bear Den, Exile Fort in Meadows, etc. Spent 4+ hours crawling and clearing the upper Exile fort behind Ravenrock and not a single named popped, and only one quasi-named. Literal hundreds of exiles were killed and not a single named.

Marshall still feels good! Managed to get to level 14 and already having to make LAS decisions with that one extra skill and what to replace. Definitely going to force people to make decisions as long as all skills are useful depending on group comp and role.

Is Halt's root supposed to break on any damage or is there chance for it to not break? Several times I'd Halt a group, Threatening Strike on one of the halted mobs to pull it, and it wouldn't follow. Wasn't an archer. Also happened trying to auto-attack rooted mobs, or throwing kunai at them. Amusingly, Pursuit was the one ability that would guarantee unroot a mob to have them follow.

Halt new animation and icons whennnnnn?! Still having issues with people not noticing a rooted mob. can we just get a Tree icon over them for now?!

The rabbits in NNH have become a popular pull spot due to the total lack of social aggro, even with "aggressive quillbacks" abound. Probably should make the rabbits comparable to the rats. Social aggro in general needs a tweak; had far too many pulls in Exile fort where I'd pull a mob that would run right past another mob and the other mob wouldn't aggro. Sometimes even bumping into each other.

General feel is that mobs are somewhat tough but could be tougher. I wouldn't object to orange mobs being made a tad more deadly. I think improved social aggro as mentioned above may naturally make the world more dangerous as well.

It would really help to have the ability to read and understand what the bonuses to crafted gear provide in terms of net gains vs. dropped gear. Is my crafted tin sword with +7 PEN doing more damage than a statless polished tin sword that has a higher base dps over the course of a fight? We don't want our hands held, but it would help to understand how to identify the gains/losses when comparing weapons, especially if we're trying to test that gear is doing what SHS wants it to do.

 

[AdricLives]

Provisioners focusing on potions seem to get the short stick early game since they have to spend 20cp for a single bottle, which is not small amount right now. Maybe have them start with 10-20 unvendorable bottles to get some early help?

We wouldn't want any free bottles coming from picking up the profession since you can drop it and readd it at any time. There are plans to have costs of things like the bottles increase for higher level products, but has been low priority.

Are Nameds locational restricted at all

Spawns are intentionally obscure. And not every area has named, although I try to make sure most places have reasons for you to go there.

Is Halt's root supposed to break on any damage or is there chance for it to not break?

It should be any hit will break it. But I may have gave it 2 hits to break when using the dropped tar flasks as a bonus to using the reagent, it sounds like this is not universally seen as a benefit.

The rabbits in NNH have become a popular pull spot due to the total lack of social aggro

This is an obnoxious bug, they do have social aggro but something is broken here.

Stat tooltips hopefully will come after the stat update, but for now it's up to players to check the differences for themselves.

 

[Pelirow]

Spawns are intentionally obscure. And not every area has named, although I try to make sure most places have reasons for you to go there.

I understand wanting to hide the info, I only wanted to know if they are intended to be in a general location or select locations or can literally be anywhere in the zone.

It should be any hit will break it. But I may have gave it 2 hits to break when using the dropped tar flasks as a bonus to using the reagent, it sounds like this is not universally seen as a benefit.

Oh I didn't notice that. If it is based on reagent then that's different. I thought the tar flask reagent only extended the root time so this looks like player error. This would be a good example of reagent choices, maybe split the "roots for longer" and "roots even if hit X times" into separate reagent options and see if people use the latter? In tight spaces I could see how some people would like the idea of being able to root and get in a few whacks safely against a longer root. Or just keep them together aand players using flasks need to decide to take them off the bar or just know extra hits are needed to split. Tough choices are good!

Stat tooltips hopefully will come after the stat update, but for now it's up to players to check the differences for themselves.

My question is: how do we check the differences? I'm not even sure whacking a target dummy would adequately show us the difference between a 1.25dps sword with +7 PEN vs a 1.40 dps sword with no stats. We love the min-max and player choice options, but it'd be helpful to understand when PEN is more valuable than dps and whatnot. We still have no clue exactly what it does in relation to damage output. Is +7 pen better against armored humanoids, but the higher base dps better against unarmored wild creatures? Stuff like that.

 

[Rev]

Maybe make it so that loot timers pause while the group is in combat,

Should be a general rule that you don't loot during combat to give everyone equal time to roll. The only thing I can think of would be to allow the "party leader" to enable a party setting so only the leader (or designated looter?) can click the loot (not loot the items, but start the loot roll process).

 

[AdricLives]

I understand wanting to hide the info, I only wanted to know if they are intended to be in a general location or select locations or can literally be anywhere in the zone.

Yes

 

[AdricLives]

My question is: how do we check the differences? I'm not even sure whacking a target dummy would adequately show us the difference between a 1.25dps sword with +7 PEN vs a 1.40 dps sword with no stats. We love the min-max and player choice options, but it'd be helpful to understand when PEN is more valuable than dps and whatnot. We still have no clue exactly what it does in relation to damage output. Is +7 pen better against armored humanoids, but the higher base dps better against unarmored wild creatures? Stuff like that.

I'm not sure I have an answer that will make you happy here. We aren't going to share the detailed calculations used or when and where we suspect one stat might be better than another. Beyond this information it sounds like simply knowing what the stat does wouldn't answer your question: Is 7 PEN better than 12% more damage? Even sharing that penetration reduces the target's armor for your own damage vs absorb calculations, obviously 7% of 100 armor vs 7% of 1000 armor is a big difference, and we don't share how armor calculates DR so I feel like this line of questioning just leads to more questions that we don't want to answer.

 

[Randy Magnum]

I have spent a lot of time on target dummies testing PEN vs Dmg on different weapons...and I Don't Want to Share Either!!!! MUhAUhAUhAuhaaaauhauhauauhaaua

jk, but not on forums. and not Allakhazam level testing where I ran for an hour to have 1000 of each. Also, target dummies have lower armor than a lvl 10 deer. Maybe we can get one that is armored up. Not sure if results will change for PEN because is PEN 7 or 7%

 

[Pelirow]

I'm not sure I have an answer that will make you happy here. We aren't going to share the detailed calculations used or when and where we suspect one stat might be better than another. Beyond this information it sounds like simply knowing what the stat does wouldn't answer your question: Is 7 PEN better than 12% more damage? Even sharing that penetration reduces the target's armor for your own damage vs absorb calculations, obviously 7% of 100 armor vs 7% of 1000 armor is a big difference, and we don't share how armor calculates DR so I feel like this line of questioning just leads to more questions that we don't want to answer.

Undone gave a helpfulish answer already: The more penetration you have the less damage the opponent absorbs. As for how much PEN= less absorb, I at least know what I can look for while hitting a dummy, and see if I can notice any difference. But like you said 7% vs 100 Armor compared to 7% vs. 1000 of armor is a big difference, so I may just be wasting my time.

I guess what I'm getting at is, just be aware with the way the current system is set up I worry when the game goes live it will lead to a lot of frustration and confusion by new players trying to understand whether or not an item is an upgrade. And one of the biggest aspects of MMORPGs is the gear progression and the excitement of getting stronger. Right now there's a lot more confusion than excitement, at least with regards to weapons.

Sitting there staring at 2 weapons being unsure which is better for an hour is fun for me to try to unravel but I can see other people getting cranky over it, doubly so because with extremely limited bag space, there isn't a comfortable way to hold onto items to later find a dummy to test and compare on, assuming people are even willing to try to use a dummy to figure out which one they prefer.

I like the varied stats and the varied options, but if they're all "generally the same with minor differences" then the question becomes: what's the point? And if they're not "generally the same with minor differences" and the differences should be noticeable then the question becomes: are you giving players the tools to identify those differences and make the proper choice in terms of what is an upgrade?

Maybe it'll be easier after the stat refresh, but I have not met a single person in-game who can say whether a crafted sword with "max" stats or a polished tin sword drop is better or worse.

 

[AdricLives]

We are digging into the nuance of two lvl 1 items, I think there's a huge magnifying glass on something that is normally ignored outside of typical MMO end-game min/maxxing. Like a sword with 1.2 DPS and +1 str and 1.3 DPS and +1 dex in another game, which is better? You could parse out the difference, but it would take you longer than leveling and getting a new weapon. And players absolutely like digging into the nuances and finding their own truths. I would rather not even give you the DPS number as its misleading itself, but that's just me.

At low levels differences are always going to be minimal because we need room to grow.

Also if you really want to parse differences the flanking bonuses on in the order of 20-30 from lvl 1.

 

[Kittik]

Should be a general rule that you don't loot during combat to give everyone equal time to roll. The only thing I can think of would be to allow the "party leader" to enable a party setting so only the leader (or designated looter?) can click the loot (not loot the items, but start the loot roll process).

I agree with this. No need for mechanical intervention. Just start educating members of your group to not do that. Maybe if, in the chat window, it says. Rev Looted an exile corpse. Then we'd all know who to yell at. If it doesn't say who opened it, people will keep doing it and claiming it wasn't them.

 

[Kittik]

General feel is that mobs are somewhat tough but could be tougher. I wouldn't object to orange mobs being made a tad more deadly. I think improved social aggro as mentioned above may naturally make the world more dangerous as well.

Fur sur! People hunt oranges because it's as easy of a kill as yellows and whites. So why not get the extra exp. Oranges should be much harder.

 

[Pelirow]

We are digging into the nuance of two lvl 1 items, I think there's a huge magnifying glass on something that is normally ignored outside of typical MMO end-game min/maxxing. Like a sword with 1.2 DPS and +1 str and 1.3 DPS and +1 dex in another game, which is better? You could parse out the difference, but it would take you longer than leveling and getting a new weapon. And players absolutely like digging into the nuances and finding their own truths. I would rather not even give you the DPS number as its misleading itself, but that's just me.

At low levels differences are always going to be minimal because we need room to grow.

Also if you really want to parse differences the flanking bonuses on in the order of 20-30 from lvl 1.

Level one is a bit of a stretch; tin is level 10-20 and that's not a small levelling range. In this game with very slow levelling being an emphasis, having the best tin weapon figured out is absolutely a priority because the trek from level 10 to 20 isn't going to happen in a matter of days unless nolifing it. Knowing you're maximizing your gear even at low levels is definitely a thing, and moreso in a game where the levelling is the central focus of the game.

I'm not sure there's an easy answer, I'm just pointing out that at least starting at level 10, people are going to care about those stats and every extra point of damage, defense, or whatever other benefit. And with the way the game is designed, I think they should. So the question again is: are players going to be able to identify the value of one item against another? Right now, no. If you and Undone don't think Players ever should be able to draw clear lines between two items, then I believe that is going to lead to a number of frustrated players.

 

[Rev]

Y'all makin my head hurt with all this min/max, calculating, hitting dummies, this v that stuff. Just pick up something and hit em! If you win, then it works.

I have no idea if it is better to use the 2h stick or the sword and flag, but after trying both, I feel sword and flag is better so that's what I roll with. Both killed stuff fine, just went with what I felt. (that and 1hd animations are better)

 

[Kittik]

Y'all makin my head hurt with all this min/max, calculating, hitting dummies, this v that stuff. Just pick up something and hit em! If you win, then it works.

I have no idea if it is better to use the 2h stick or the sword and flag, but after trying both, I feel sword and flag is better so that's what I roll with. Both killed stuff fine, just went with what I felt. (that and 1hd animations are better)

A lot of people enjoy the puzzle of figuring out min/max stuff.

 

[Nfab35]

I just pay attention to what seems to put mobs down faster when I solo. But regardless I prefer crafted over dropped weapons with no stats. Stats are always beneficial.

 

[Kittik]

Sword of Destruction.
+4 Str
+12 Dex
-400 per hit to users health.

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