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Embers Adrift

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New user impressions and feedback

Or log off and don't play again, go afk til light, or log off and wait til it's playable. I mean those are the most likely options people are going to take.
I mean there's a lot of games that are hard but people still play them and enjoy them. Just like Dark Souls will have it's kind of players other players wouldn't like it for how brutally hard it is. I don't like to say "go play another game then," I just think there is a larger selection of games where day/night cycle means absolutely nothing that it's refreshing to see one that is focusing on it. Why take that away from the only MMO that has this mechanic?
 
Having played EQ when it first came out I found leveling pretty fast. It took very little time to get to level 4 even with knowing nothing and spending 10 minutes changing various settings.

I played a necro which, without a pet and using only the level 1 dd spell, was essentially a wizard. Id like to see more significant class differneces than that. The necro also seemed a bit high in hp and ac for what should be a pure caster. I was able to tank same level mobs with no points in melee or defnse.

Int buff is way over powered. It raised my mana from around 300 max to 1600 max at level 4. It makes putting points into int rather useless.

Is ther a way to increase the dialog box font? Its completely unreadable on 4k settings. Also is there a way to play the game in a maximised window?

No lag, no interface issues or game bugs. No issue with logging in. No disconects.

Rewards for minor quests also seem a bit much.

Is there a way to create an exe icon on my home screen? I have to open the folder to start the game.

Loved my firt hour or so playing.
Are you talking about Embers Adrift or another game you tested? Embers doesn't have a necro class, magic spells or Int as a stat. Quests are really implemented yet either.
 
Are you talking about Embers Adrift or another game you tested? Embers doesn't have a necro class, magic spells or Int as a stat. Quests are really implemented yet either.
Yeah sounds like a diff game, INT buff and mana etc.
 
They're just using EQ as an example I think, saying that EA early leveling is relatively quick compared to EQ. I can do another EQ example. I had an EQ character of a race that had no "night vision" and a class that had to "night vision" assisting spells. And it was pretty awful. :)

But here we have torches. So that's good!

There were a few tutorialish popups at the beginning. I suggest perhaps things would be smoother for newbies if we had one explaining in detail how torches work (and where to get them). "Hey Newbie! It gets dark at night! Be sure you have torches in case the sun goes down on you! Buy them here! Use them thusly!"

...and brighten up the newbie zone! Teehee!
 
They're just using EQ as an example I think, saying that EA early leveling is relatively quick compared to EQ. I can do another EQ example. I had an EQ character of a race that had no "night vision" and a class that had to "night vision" assisting spells. And it was pretty awful. :)

But here we have torches. So that's good!

There were a few tutorialish popups at the beginning. I suggest perhaps things would be smoother for newbies if we had one explaining in detail how torches work (and where to get them). "Hey Newbie! It gets dark at night! Be sure you have torches in case the sun goes down on you! Buy them here! Use them thusly!"

...and brighten up the newbie zone! Teehee!
You could say they were left "in the dark."
I mean I Just like an adventure game where you don't plan anything, you go out there make mistakes, stumble upon stuff.
 
Hey everyone. Wanted to drop in and say that the Waifu and I enjoyed the Worldbreaker event. She's been going through chemotherapy for Leukemia and it was nice to see her get so into a game again.

We both played FFXI back in the day, which was heavily inspired by classic EQ. (When we met we started talking b/c she mentioned playing the game XD). We have been looking for an MMO like this for a while now, and hope that the game keeps improving into something great for launch. I wanted to give some of our initial thoughts about the game. I know a lot of these things are likely still in development, but i'm not familiar with the roadmap/history or anything. I'm not a dev, so i don't know what's within the scope of possiblity or the vision for the game, so I say everything with a grain of salt!


I suppose I'll start off with one of of the two only real annoyances we had, directions. The map is somewhat detailed, but without a compass or marker to dictate where you are/ are heading, it isn't of much use. I understand that the design intends for navigation based on landmarks, which is absolutely fine, and in most places works. However, when fighting things it's easy to get turned around and have to spend a bit of time figuring out where you were heading. Nighttime makes this even worse. Navigating by landmarks isn't possible when you can't see further than a few feet. It's my understanding that development intends on putting in a detailed Skybox to assist with navigation, this will help alleviate the problem!



The other major gripe was the various quirks of mobs. Initially, it took a couple hours to figure out what was within our capability to fight, but the 3 arrow system works pretty well. Perhaps there is a way to quickly tell new players this information with a popup or something later down the line. If it was in the NPC text dump at the start, my apologies for not reading through it XD. The system feels like when you had to /check mobs in FFXI to see if they were easy prey or an even match.

Leashing on mobs is a bit inconsistent from our experience. some higher tier mobs will stop following much sooner than lower tier ones. (talking about humanoids around points of interest mostly). the Bears near the cave don't ever seem to stop following you and link or aggro from miles away XD. These and the Rats that would aggro from far away through the walls of ruins were the only ones that really felt like BS though... Humanoids shouting for help can be a bit much with the range, but i did notice that if you don't attack the Links they tend to lose interest more quickly than the target. then again these are probably meant more for 3+ players, not 2.

Oh and the Bear's Roar move that prevents actions... this needs some sort of diminishing returns or internal cooldown on your character. With how badly they link in that area, you can spend 30+ seconds fully unable to do anything except auto attack. the move works fine in theory with most cooldowns being 10-20+ seconds, but 8seconds of AOE silence over and over is awful.

Targeting is decent, but the lady was mentioning that it was annoying that she had to be looking at me to heal me. she got that rare quarterstaff, so she was attacking from the front with me. when positioned like that the mobs tend to get too close to me, so i have to back up a bit, making them move and it puts me behind her character. this was a lot worse when we were swapping threat. Perhaps a bit of a buffer on the hitboxes of mobs, the player, or something could help make this not feel as wonky.

Archers are a nightmare to fight when solo, in a duo, or a full group. Perhaps the provoke change will make it easier, but the way threat works and them constantly moving to distance you is counterintuitive. They stay at range from the threat target, but to build threat you need to be in range to hit them.

Threat is a bit all over the place. Weapon damage seems to outweigh the fact that tank skills have bonus threat. The Lady picked up that rare quarterstaff and after that point there was nothing i could do to keep threat off of her. eventually i tried the copper mace, which has +5 damage from the front. this allowed me to hold threat for a while longer, but i would still lose it if she healed me more than once. with any other weapon she would pull threat after an auto attack and damage skill. When in a group it just seemed like the tank class with the strongest weapon/highest level was the main tank.

I'm sure there will be methods to get gear implemented into the game beyond just drops from group mobs and crafting, but it was very rough playing for an extended period with starter equipment. heck, neither one of us got a body upgrade the whole time we played.

I was reading that there is some trouble figuring out the balance between dropped gear and crafted gear. I had a SUGGESTION: Maybe there is a way you can incorporate dropped gear into crafting recipes. Either break it down into mats to make the strongest items, or take the base drop and improve upon it with crafting. Perhaps let crafters alter the damage types of a drop or the directional bonuses. I'm not sure if level requirements are much of a thing, but alternating the craft/drop intervals on gear would also keep both types desirable. Or heck, have a quest that requires both dropped and crafted gear and it gives you a stronger piece. I'm not sure what is viable, I'm just spitballing.


My last point is a question about longevity for the game. It seems we have all played old school MMOs that require groups of people to get anything done. While playing through the Worldbreaker i noticed that on the second day the starting area was almost empty. With the number of players currently in the beta and open tests, the majority of players are all clumped into the high end of character level. After the initial launch of the game, when new players slow down, how will the world be for them? the game is clearly designed for 3-6 player groups. It is unfortunate, but I feel like this will be a high barrier to entry for many players. I know this is a niche MMO design, but it leads me to believe that the distribution of players will be at endgame after the initial wave with very few new players making their way there without a group of friends or extensive in game help from the community. I've seen how devastating this can be for an MMO server when New World locked the ability to make new characters on the majority of servers. Even back in FFXI, if there were no parties in the Dunes, you weren't getting that level that night XD. Just some food for thought.

If anyone reads this, thanks for your time, and thanks for trying to develop a game where leveling feels rewarding again. watching the numbers go up gives my brain the happy chemicals. We are looking forward to checking the game out again the next time an open test is up or when the game launches. Money has been tight with the health issues, so we have to hold off on the beta stuff for now. Keep making the game great!
 
I honestly think the strongest duo party would be dps and support and that goes for most games really. Tanks are specifically useful in groups but in a duo not so much. DPS could put out enough damage to hold threat and eliminate enemies faster while support can keep them going. Games like DCUO made sense in that the tank was also the DPS and there was no specific dps role.

Hey everyone. Wanted to drop in and say that the Waifu and I enjoyed the Worldbreaker event. She's been going through chemotherapy for Leukemia and it was nice to see her get so into a game again.

We both played FFXI back in the day, which was heavily inspired by classic EQ. (When we met we started talking b/c she mentioned playing the game XD). We have been looking for an MMO like this for a while now, and hope that the game keeps improving into something great for launch. I wanted to give some of our initial thoughts about the game. I know a lot of these things are likely still in development, but i'm not familiar with the roadmap/history or anything. I'm not a dev, so i don't know what's within the scope of possiblity or the vision for the game, so I say everything with a grain of salt!


I suppose I'll start off with one of of the two only real annoyances we had, directions. The map is somewhat detailed, but without a compass or marker to dictate where you are/ are heading, it isn't of much use. I understand that the design intends for navigation based on landmarks, which is absolutely fine, and in most places works. However, when fighting things it's easy to get turned around and have to spend a bit of time figuring out where you were heading. Nighttime makes this even worse. Navigating by landmarks isn't possible when you can't see further than a few feet. It's my understanding that development intends on putting in a detailed Skybox to assist with navigation, this will help alleviate the problem!



The other major gripe was the various quirks of mobs. Initially, it took a couple hours to figure out what was within our capability to fight, but the 3 arrow system works pretty well. Perhaps there is a way to quickly tell new players this information with a popup or something later down the line. If it was in the NPC text dump at the start, my apologies for not reading through it XD. The system feels like when you had to /check mobs in FFXI to see if they were easy prey or an even match.

Leashing on mobs is a bit inconsistent from our experience. some higher tier mobs will stop following much sooner than lower tier ones. (talking about humanoids around points of interest mostly). the Bears near the cave don't ever seem to stop following you and link or aggro from miles away XD. These and the Rats that would aggro from far away through the walls of ruins were the only ones that really felt like BS though... Humanoids shouting for help can be a bit much with the range, but i did notice that if you don't attack the Links they tend to lose interest more quickly than the target. then again these are probably meant more for 3+ players, not 2.

Oh and the Bear's Roar move that prevents actions... this needs some sort of diminishing returns or internal cooldown on your character. With how badly they link in that area, you can spend 30+ seconds fully unable to do anything except auto attack. the move works fine in theory with most cooldowns being 10-20+ seconds, but 8seconds of AOE silence over and over is awful.

Targeting is decent, but the lady was mentioning that it was annoying that she had to be looking at me to heal me. she got that rare quarterstaff, so she was attacking from the front with me. when positioned like that the mobs tend to get too close to me, so i have to back up a bit, making them move and it puts me behind her character. this was a lot worse when we were swapping threat. Perhaps a bit of a buffer on the hitboxes of mobs, the player, or something could help make this not feel as wonky.

Archers are a nightmare to fight when solo, in a duo, or a full group. Perhaps the provoke change will make it easier, but the way threat works and them constantly moving to distance you is counterintuitive. They stay at range from the threat target, but to build threat you need to be in range to hit them.

Threat is a bit all over the place. Weapon damage seems to outweigh the fact that tank skills have bonus threat. The Lady picked up that rare quarterstaff and after that point there was nothing i could do to keep threat off of her. eventually i tried the copper mace, which has +5 damage from the front. this allowed me to hold threat for a while longer, but i would still lose it if she healed me more than once. with any other weapon she would pull threat after an auto attack and damage skill. When in a group it just seemed like the tank class with the strongest weapon/highest level was the main tank.

I'm sure there will be methods to get gear implemented into the game beyond just drops from group mobs and crafting, but it was very rough playing for an extended period with starter equipment. heck, neither one of us got a body upgrade the whole time we played.

I was reading that there is some trouble figuring out the balance between dropped gear and crafted gear. I had a SUGGESTION: Maybe there is a way you can incorporate dropped gear into crafting recipes. Either break it down into mats to make the strongest items, or take the base drop and improve upon it with crafting. Perhaps let crafters alter the damage types of a drop or the directional bonuses. I'm not sure if level requirements are much of a thing, but alternating the craft/drop intervals on gear would also keep both types desirable. Or heck, have a quest that requires both dropped and crafted gear and it gives you a stronger piece. I'm not sure what is viable, I'm just spitballing.


My last point is a question about longevity for the game. It seems we have all played old school MMOs that require groups of people to get anything done. While playing through the Worldbreaker i noticed that on the second day the starting area was almost empty. With the number of players currently in the beta and open tests, the majority of players are all clumped into the high end of character level. After the initial launch of the game, when new players slow down, how will the world be for them? the game is clearly designed for 3-6 player groups. It is unfortunate, but I feel like this will be a high barrier to entry for many players. I know this is a niche MMO design, but it leads me to believe that the distribution of players will be at endgame after the initial wave with very few new players making their way there without a group of friends or extensive in game help from the community. I've seen how devastating this can be for an MMO server when New World locked the ability to make new characters on the majority of servers. Even back in FFXI, if there were no parties in the Dunes, you weren't getting that level that night XD. Just some food for thought.

If anyone reads this, thanks for your time, and thanks for trying to develop a game where leveling feels rewarding again. watching the numbers go up gives my brain the happy chemicals. We are looking forward to checking the game out again the next time an open test is up or when the game launches. Money has been tight with the health issues, so we have to hold off on the beta stuff for now. Keep making the game great!
The idea of handing in crafted gear and dropped gear for an upgraded gear sounds really cool and innovative. But I think crafted gear also dropping is kind of meh for me because that would really trivialize the craftsmen. Also I see crafting and gathering as sort of a solo activity, have to leave something for people that are soloing because they don't have a group at the moment or prefer soloing. So cheapening the value of their gear is something I can't agree on. But again about handing in both crafted gear and dropped gear, that is definitely a good idea, it would reward you for playing on different things.
 
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Hi all thanks for the feedback! I won't answer each individual post as a lot has changed in the past few weeks but if you have the opportunity please check out the most recent build. Some of the highlights are:
  • moon position is now static leading to more consistent night lighting
  • exposure adjustment slider added to the video options. a lot of the "darkness" problems we have had are derived from different monitor contrasts & calibrations so this slider should help you adjust your nights to be more in line with what they should be
  • new skybox added this week which greatly improves lighting (especially dawn/dusk) and clouds.
  • the crafting loop is still under heavy iteration so please see the "Works in Progress" section in the most recent patch notes for a summary of improvements coming down the line.
 
Love the concept of the game in almost all aspects except 1 the grind for xp is to slow as it is feels like a job more then a game. I made it to level 10 and idk if i want to go back. i play for enjoyment not to spend 6 or more hrs to get to the next level.
 
Love the concept of the game in almost all aspects except 1 the grind for xp is to slow as it is feels like a job more then a game. I made it to level 10 and idk if i want to go back. i play for enjoyment not to spend 6 or more hrs to get to the next level.
I wish it was easy for people to stop focusing on level and just enjoy being the level you are, but we have all been taught to think that way.
 
Love the concept of the game in almost all aspects except 1 the grind for xp is to slow as it is feels like a job more then a game. I made it to level 10 and idk if i want to go back. i play for enjoyment not to spend 6 or more hrs to get to the next level.
There are no raids or anything like that in the game currently, none of the mainstream MMO endgame components really exist as far as I’m aware so basically leveling (at least for now) pretty much is the game. There isn’t any reason to rush to max level that I know about, but then I only just started playing so am only going based on what I’ve heard from others.

What are you expecting to change once you’ve finished leveling?
 
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