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Embers Adrift

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BigDamage said:
Did you start today?

What do you think of the game?
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I have only played the game for about 3 - 4 hours, so I don't have a lot of experience with the game. However, after that short time I actually uninstalled. I just can't seem to get into the game. I understand that grouping is a core part of it, so I joined a group, and we started tackling the quests together. One person was nice and showed me the ropes (helped me find the beginner quests, choose a gathering skill, etc). However, while in the group, it felt like I didn't have time to stop and read the quest text, which also made me feel 100% clueless. I followed the others around (I guess they can read a lot faster than me) but it was far from engaging. I also didn't want to drop the group to have more time for quest reading, because I couldn't kill half of those enemies by myself. I don't know if that is because I am a support character or I am just super weak.

After a solid 3 - 4 hours of killing enemies nearly non-stop (beast kill quest, running around killing bandits or whatever to find the missing boy, etc) I only gained a single level. Yes, one single level (1 - 2) in about 4 hours of constant killing... while in a group. That's when I decided I just don't think this is for me. I honestly would have welcomed the long grind if the combat just didn't feel so bad and clunky. At level 2 I unlocked a healing ability and it felt extremely awkward to use most of the time. It felt like the support was designed to be doing damage while healing, but swapping back and forth between allies and enemies didn't feel good or fluid. If the combat just felt better, I would have probably stuck around.

I did really enjoy the community (everyone in world chat was friendly) and I did like going on an adventure with my party. I just couldn't shake the fact that the combat system didn't feel good and that made the grind not feel good. It also felt bad working so hard to earn a single level (mostly to get my heal ability so I could help my party) just to find out that the heal is extremely awkward to use, doubly so if you are actually trying to deal damage while healing.

I really want to like what this game is trying to be, but I think the execution of the combat system just really holds it back. It just needs to be reworked so it feels more fluid and less clunky.

I am really glad they had this free weekend so I could at least give it a try, but I honestly don't see a majority of the people sticking around with the game being so grindy and the combat feeling so antiquated.

I'm sorry that my only post on here kind of a negative review, but you did seem to want to know how new players felt. I can't speak for everyone, but this is how I feel. Maybe I will try the game again since I really do want to like it, but I have a strong feeling that I will never be able to fully get use to the clunky combat long enough to get enough skills to see how it really works long-term.
 
I've experienced the Go-Go-Group thing, too. Even with extra Cheese to skip as much content as humanely possible even through exploits. I'll never understand the point.

A note about healing; you have two targets so there is no need to swap back and forth, your heal target gets heals etc. Just gotta worry about range and distance.
 
I am a Marshall lvl 7 atm. I am really enjoying the old school feel of the game. Love having to read quests and use landmarks and a basic map to get lost or occasionally know where im actually at :p. I also do love the armour weight system. Only being able to equip so many pieces of armor at a time is genius. IMHO. I can and do appreciate the interdependence of having to grp to be successful. I do see what you are trying to accomplish here and I hope you are successful. While I have not done much grouping I look forward to seeing how the groups gave to combine their kits to tackle problems in a dungeon scenario.

Although, I kind of agree a bit of what Strawhat says about combat. While I like the slow grind and the time to kill, the empty space of waiting for cool downs is a little meh. Sure im only level 7 so I hope this improves as I continue. But right now I only have 2 damage skills a taunt, armour buff and a aoe root. The root is definitely situational. I use it more for oh shit moments when I/we need to run away. Armour buff has a minute cool down. I use mostly for bigger mobs ofc. If I solo or duo I dont really need the taunt. Not to mention the range on the taunt for pulling is shit. I body pull more often than able to engage with the taunt. That only leave my two meager attack abilities that I weave with my auto attack and both have a 10 sec CD. I find myself purposfully spacing them out so one or the other are up every 5 seconds just so I have something to do. So yeah there feels like some dead space there where I just watch my auto attack CD waiting for my two abilities to be used. Again I caveat this with the facts that I barely have a kit at level 7 and have barely done any real grouping.

These are just my initial thoughts. I do plan to play as much as I am able these next three weeks to get a good feel of the game. I will make a decision then on whether to buy or not.
 
20 hours played. Level 10 now. Few more skills. Combat is a lot more fun. Grp of 3 of us did spider cave into spider dungeon. Couple bag runs. All in all a good fun. Cannot say that the level 10 gear that dropped is anything to write home about. Seems like the quest gear you get is better than dropped loot. Not a fan of that. Other than that I am really enjoying the game so far. Still looking forward to what comes next. Only major issue I have seen while grouping is the "not facing target" stuff. Seems real bad to be a healer and have to deal with that a lot. A /face command/macro would help a lot in this regard. Are there macros? /face /assist /follow?

I am not sure how in depth the crafting tutorials are. Some tool tips to help giving direction on where some materials can be found would be nice. Vagueness is okay. Like mushrooms can be found through out the forest. But having tool tips on which vendors carry what could help. Like I am having trouble finding heads for making new tools. Are those crafted from another profession? Are they vendor bought. I cannot seem to find any info for that. Sure I could just ask someone, but who was the first person to find it out? How did they find it?

I do understand that this is a game in teh veins of old school MMOs and I enjoy that. Some simple QoL would be nice for some of the pain points.
Thank you for reading my manic wall of text.
 
There's a lot that I like about it. Leveling being treated as important rather than an annoying slog you have to suffer through to get to the "real" game, a focus on community, the gear system being more granular (I've wanted every game to let me mix'n'match my pauldrons since I played Morrowind for the first time), the commitment to making it feel like an actual world and not a themepark series of loosely connected quest hubs, etc. I'm still low enough level for it to be fine but I've read that solo leveling is basically impossible, and that seems like pretty much the only design philosophy that I vehemently disagree with.

MMOs are social games and that's why I love them, but I'm also autistic and introverted and, for me, being social isn't purely actively interacting with people - just being around them is also social. Seeing people adventuring, reading chat; the social aspect of the game is being part of a living, breathing, interconnected world as much as it is getting a group to find a lost apprentice. Its knowing that everyone I see is a real person, regardless of whether or not I speak to or play with them.

To be clear, I'm not saying I should be able to do anything and everything without a group, nor am I saying this clearly very niche game needs to cater to me specifically. I'm just saying that, while I can obviously only speak for myself, I'm sure I'm hardly the only person who feels this way, and I think the hardline stance toward solo play is a more significant barrier to entry than maybe many people would think.

I'm not a game designer but I'd have to imagine that there's plenty of ways to let people make meaningful progress solo without killing the need or incentive to group. I'd also have to imagine that it'd be worthwhile; you might not always really notice players like me (and that's usually how we like it), but we're in the economy, you see us standing in town going through our bags, out in the world adventuring or gathering, sometimes we're in chat, and sometimes we're in your guilds and groups. We fill out the world and make it more lively. We help turn it into a living, breathing, thing. We're cozy MMO background noise, and I'd also imagine that the silence gets pretty noticeable without us.

Not everything is for everybody so maybe EA isn't for me, but I'd like it to be. This is the first MMO in a long while to give me a sense of genuine adventure instead of devolving into rote checklist hunting straight away.
 
Having no markers on where I am on the map is just a pain. I played like 2 hours now and the starting experience is bad. Like you spawn in do a quest and spend 30 mins to only kill 20 mobs. And the whole sitting down to recover is just weird. Then you have to move on to another location and then the gathering i mean why do I have to run across the map just to find some mushrooms or some ore? I don’t see a reason why to keep playing when none of this things improve the actual gaming experience they just make it harder and more annoying.
 
New player here. I played for about 9 hours today and got to level 7 as Warlord.

The game is tough and confusing. I got lost many times. I died a lot and I enjoyed every moment of it.

I miss this feeling of exploration in MMOs. The lack of a minimap, quest markers and NPCs holding your hand gets me engaged.

My only feedback to the devs would be to implement a proper ingame compass. I'm not a fan of having to rely on blupiter. It'd be useful for navigating dungeons too. Even older MMOs have ingame compasses.
 
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