Its a rare occasion that i actually put stuff here but here you go undone.
- Did the performance adjustments made have an impact on your performance?
meh, besides the weird lag stuff (which i reported) not much change for me. got booted to log in screen multiple times, hard to say if it was my connection or the server connection, but this rarely happens to me even on the worst of internet days.
- Do you notice any visual quality difference from us lowering the quality of some post process effects, adjusting the shadow cascade distances, and adjusting zone fog quality?
fog in areas like mistcrawlers sucks during the day worse now than it was before its blinding and hurts my eyes. but i really like how it fades from the rest of the zone its much easier to see where im going now. i did notice some weird stuff with lighting like turn the camera one way its a little darker turn it the other way its bright again. some shadow flickering more than usual, people being naked, lot more people floating around, sliding across the ground and dipping into the ground than usual too. dont know if these are related or not but i noticed these things happening more than usual this week.
- Have you encountered NPC hard leashing? If so what are your thoughts?
i really like it. except when it comes to ember drifts or kiting longer distances (as expected) it can be a real pain in the ass in the larger zones. maybe consider adjusting leashes per zone? bigger leashes for bigger zones.
- Thoughts and comments on the crafting restructure?
crafting is super wonky, recipes not crafting what they are supposed to craft, materials not providing bonuses, crafting things with materials that shouldnt be able to be used... i like the new system, but it really needs a thorough pass to make sure
everything is working properly.
okay now the real reason im here to post.
Ember Ruptures. I spent quite a few hours this weekend messing with them.
the ruptures in meadowlands are quite hard to locate, they need to be brighter and bigger imo. im talking multiple day/night cycles to find one (with the exception of the ones you can see when you zone in from northreach) you can see a players torch long before you see the rupture. mobs there are so spread apart that it doesnt feel fun to spend the whole time running and kiting things on top of the new leash mechanic. it feels like a chore. have been a bit disappointed with these. so i had an idea, what if the creatures are attracted to the ember? thus making them wander closer to it and spawn a little faster in the area as well. this would add difficulty, fun and functionality. i also noticed that mobs bump down a couple levels when they turn ashen, i assume this is to avoid having them turn red but why cant they just stay the same level they were before? its quite frustrating when you have an ashen turn grey and get absolutely nothing for the work you just put in to kite it all the way to the rupture (sometimes taking 3-5 minutes just to get it close enough) and kill it.
ruptures in dryfoot do not have the tree things around them making them even harder to spot, oddly enough i still had an easier time finding these than the ones in meadowlands. PLEASE i beg you please add just ONE ashen variant mob in dryfoot before next weekend. took me 7 hours just to get from 35 essence to 51 in meadowlands because almost everything near the ruptures i was able to locate were grey with some green but most of the greens turned grey upon becoming ashen. feels bad man. need dryfoot mobs asap.
anyways enough of my ramblings. hope this is helpful. <3