Goblin Squad Member
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My experience was overall good.
A few bugs I got were:
- ocasionally respawned dead and had to relog and fix it
- hex boundaries show up as flashy white broken lines in the grass occasionally
- impossible to read tooltips for feats as they hide behind feat window rather than being in foregraound
- at one stage trainer took my XP and removed feats from available to train but i never got them.
Other comments
- lack of a NPC store makes playing in quiet periods difficult as no-one to trade with ... almost no-one around at all in aussie time zone
- no idea how to talk to other characters directly :D
- clerics suck bigtime at present (unlike WoW style healing dispensers, D&D clerics have traditionally been awesome fighting machines in their own right, not so here)
positive aspects
- overall the game runs well and looks good
- the choices available are meaningful
- the D&D/pathfinder feel is still there despite the radically different skill system
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Tooltips on Feats before you purchase and slot them has to be part of MVP, don't you think?
I think this is essentially mandatory. For alpha, this is frustrating but for MVP I'd hope that there is a help system to explain game mechanics better. Guessing what something may do based on a name is frustrating. Better tooltips as well would help those like me who have no idea what something like
Apprentice's Charged Staff (2)
Tier 1 charged staff: grants keywords based on upgrade: Arcane (0), Expansive (+1), Volatile (+2), Explosive (+3)
actually means and even less idea how Wondrous Items effect/apply. e.g. what does Lesser Token of Awareness actually do? What does activates a Tier 1 token with speed 0.6, stamina 6, standard effects: Aware (1 Rd) to Self mean? Do I have to activate it? Is it automatic? What is a tier 1 token anyway?
Now, this was my first weekend to test play in Alpha. Overall it was just very very different. It was honestly very overwhelming trying to sort out what it means to "gain a level" and quite frustrating not being able to determine how a feat/skill was useful or needed. Used the Introductory guide to just blindly build characters. And this ties directly into the tooltips not being very informative for a new player.
Also couldn't tell from the character sheet what the stats actually are .. is 11 actually 11 or 11.9? Only way I found to "see" the actual stat was by finding something that I didn't meet the pre-req and looking at what it reported (assuming it didn't just say "must train pre-req". Then having to use another site to determine which feat added to which stat as opposed to a tooltip that helped ...
As for hardware, I ran graphics from Fastest to Fanstastic. My somewhat minimal system is I5-2500K, 8Gb mem, Radeon HD 6700 .. I did overheat the cpu which locked it up when using the Fantastic graphic setting. Not sure why the system and auxiliary fans couldn't keep the cpu cool for that particular setting. Dropped back to Good and didn't have any issues.
Above is not meant to be a rant .. overall I enjoyed the weekend alpha and look forward to the next build's improvements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that the "stumbling" block (for me) was that there are different types of feats. You can't use them all at the same time. You need to slot them in certain places, some on the action bar and some on the paper doll. Some, actually, need not be slotted.
Now there is much running back and forth, training this so that you can train that. That is really only a problem for a newb (myself) with a large pool of exp that I have all at once. There will be much more thinking/research time when we are earning exp slowly.
This is something that really annoyed me about other games with an XP system similar to PFO. You start off with tons of XP when you know absolutely nothing about the game. You either do a ton of research or you make mistakes. Then the XP just trickles in from there. Players shouldn't start a game with such a detailed character development system having to make critical decisions off the bat. You should start with very little XP and the flow should remain the same from the start as it will be later. Unfortunately I don't see any way they could change this now, but I think it's a mistake.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Seems like a good place to also add my experience. :)
Played less than 2:30 hours on Thursday 8/22/14; Alpha Build 6.
Selected a male fighter to start with.
Logged in to game with absolutely no problem (thank the heavens!), proceeded to run around Seoni statue and get bonus XP (as per Alpha Instruction doc). Spent 15-20 minutes learning how to move and understand GUI.
Did some training, OVERWHELMEND with choices and FUSTRATED at lack of information/tool tips (I had a Tablet open to TEO Cheatles Guide, and I still couldn't figure things out).
First combat with Goblins wasn't very ....heroic... killed them after lots of trial and error.
Learned to gather nodes, type in chat (thanks Nihimon!), read the map, and to stealth pass zombies ...err... enemies.
First Impression: the roads are INFESETED with enemies, and that wasn't even inside escalation hexes.
First Death: Got killed by a God-Mode-On immortal teleporting/phasing wolf that hit me 10 times for every 1 hit I got in, it had 1% HP left, I swear it was a messenger of death!
Bug: Changed the settings from Fastest to Fast, screen got all messed up, would not switch back to previous settings.
Overall: Did not actually have fun, felt more like work, was unable to slot feats that I purchased, I understand its Alpha, really looking forward to builds 7 and 8!
This was almost exactly my experience. I will add:
-Combat is clunky and unresponsive
-Names not being over players' and npcs' heads is very annoying. I don't want to have to click a million trainers just to figure out what they train.
-Clicking monsters seems somewhat bugged, used tab to get around this.
-It's difficult to understand if you are flagged or not. Apparently I attacked a fellow player in town and the guards kept killing me over and over until I logged out.
-Training and leveling up is very, very, VERY cryptic. Allowing "classes" to train at all class trainers promotes confusion. Perhaps color coding things per class or disallowing training that "makes no sense" would be a good step. ***this was the most frustrating issue and led me to eventually log out unhappily.
OVERALL I honestly did not enjoy my experience and in my opinion September for EE (unless these next 2 Alphas are God incarnate) seems very premature. I just don't see the current features providing an interesting gaming experience. I'm a tough critic, sorry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is something that really annoyed me about other games with an XP system similar to PFO. You start off with tons of XP when you know absolutely nothing about the game. You either do a ton of research or you make mistakes. Then the XP just trickles in from there. Players shouldn't start a game with such a detailed character development system having to make critical decisions off the bat. You should start with very little XP and the flow should remain the same from the start as it will be later. Unfortunately I don't see any way they could change this now, but I think it's a mistake.I think that the "stumbling" block (for me) was that there are different types of feats. You can't use them all at the same time. You need to slot them in certain places, some on the action bar and some on the paper doll. Some, actually, need not be slotted.
Now there is much running back and forth, training this so that you can train that. That is really only a problem for a newb (myself) with a large pool of exp that I have all at once. There will be much more thinking/research time when we are earning exp slowly.
This is just for alpha. When we go live and persistant (crosses fingers), you will start with 1000 exp. That is in EE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
-Training and leveling up is very, very, VERY cryptic. Allowing "classes" to train at all class trainers promotes confusion. Perhaps color coding things per class or disallowing training that "makes no sense" would be a good step.
I think color-coding things by class, and having a online training guide - that uses the same color coding - might be very helpful. Where a type of training is for more than one class, show the different colors.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is just for alpha. When we go live and persistant (crosses fingers), you will start with 1000 exp. That is in EE.This is something that really annoyed me about other games with an XP system similar to PFO. You start off with tons of XP when you know absolutely nothing about the game. You either do a ton of research or you make mistakes. Then the XP just trickles in from there. Players shouldn't start a game with such a detailed character development system having to make critical decisions off the bat. You should start with very little XP and the flow should remain the same from the start as it will be later. Unfortunately I don't see any way they could change this now, but I think it's a mistake.I think that the "stumbling" block (for me) was that there are different types of feats. You can't use them all at the same time. You need to slot them in certain places, some on the action bar and some on the paper doll. Some, actually, need not be slotted.
Now there is much running back and forth, training this so that you can train that. That is really only a problem for a newb (myself) with a large pool of exp that I have all at once. There will be much more thinking/research time when we are earning exp slowly.
Ah ok. I thought the xp persistence was from the start (including Alpha). So there will be a reset on 9/15? And how much xp did you start with in Alpha? How long will it take to earn 1000 xp normally? Thanks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ah ok. I thought the xp persistence was from the start (including Alpha). So there will be a reset on 9/15? And how much xp did you start with in Alpha? How long will it take to earn 1000 xp normally? Thanks.
There will actually be a reset this week. All the existing Alpha characters will be wiped (I think) for the next build, and we will be facing the EE conditions of 1000 XP at kickoff and 100/hour. Choices will be much more meaningful. The 100k XP bonus was just a test-run so we could try out some of the higher level escalations, harvesting, and crafting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another annoying UI issue: When I'm looking at a list (at a trainer, for instance, or in my inventory), if the list is long enough to need a scroll bar, then I wish the scroll wheel on my trackball/imouse would move the list up and down. Right now, only clicking on the scroll edge or dragging the scroll indicator moves the list.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I personally think the combat needs some work - both how smoothly it is implemented; and what system is being sought in the first place.
Combat is the core of a MMO gameplay experience. It is something that you do a lot of. It may be people that keep you playing, but combat is a core activity.
I play from Australia so there could be a ping issue that makes my experience different from others.
The actual combat experience is fairly clunky right now, as you would expect: close gap when you see micro "too far away message", strafing for good position has clumsy animations, mash buttons for abilities and see floating numbers. Animation polishing and better strafing visuals would, for me, improve the feeling of combat a lot. It will, of course, come in time andwill be much appreciated when it does.
However, perhaps a bigger issue is what is being sought.
I played ArcheAge beta this weekend also. It reminded me that hotkey ability combat is not something I enjoyed. It lacks soul. The contrast is more active movement and positioning. You get this in, say, DDO (an old game, which has a form of autoattack via mouse on a combat chain so it doesn't look like 'poke poke poke') or in Wildstar, which is quite engaging although technicolour with the telegraphs.
Do you want to positioning to matter, to charge, visually dodge, visually back out of combat etc?
I have tried to push for a DDO style combat as it truly captures the essence of D&D combat with flanking bonuses and sneak attacks. I truly think the problem here is the dev`s have not even played DDO. This is kinda like a director in a movie remake not watching the original. Also wish there were polls taken when a game element is up for `crowd forgeing`but then maby it`s only crowd funding...
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Goblin Squad Member
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-Training and leveling up is very, very, VERY cryptic.
Well said, Saiph. I hope that, by 15 September, an external guide will no longer be needed for a *basic* understanding of spending XP.
Tooltips and some sort of intuitive-ness will be vital, as we can't expect everyone to be as dedicated as our Alphas have been. They taught me a lot in a couple of hours my first night, and I came back the next day to try again on my own, checking my understanding.
With GW's Quick Start PDF, Cheatle's guide, and Nihimon's spreadsheets I was able to feel more comfortable with developing my character up to the Cleric Level 7 achievement, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I shouldn't've needed so much help from non-GW sources. Part of the solution will come in the Cold Start, as we won't have 42 days'-worth of XP to spend at once.
I created a Cleric, and decided to see what I could do with his magical abilities on the offence. After several minutes of searching just south of Sotterhill, I'd not found a spawn with fewer than five skeletons in it, so I decided to start there.
Thank goodness for leashing. I wasn't able, with magic alone, to do any significant damage, and, in real-time, I wasn't able to tell what else I was accomplishing in its absence.
I didn't know how to tell whether these were the basic baby monsters that'll be near Sotterhill in the Cold Start, or the beefed-up ones introduced for the higher-power Alpha testing, but my ego hopes they were the latter.
I look forward to trying the Cold Start, as the advanced start was pretty unpleasant, mostly due to frustration. I know I could've asked for help and had it in moments, but there'll be lots of players on 15 September who don't know the community and may be unable or unwilling to ask; at least some will be wanting--or insisting--on learning for themselves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think color-coding things by class, and having a online training guide - that uses the same color coding - might be very helpful. Where a type of training is for more than one class, show the different colors.
I believe there should also be, eventually, extensive sorting or filtering available:
.- If you know, for example, that your friend has many Feats that introduce the Distressed Effect, you should have a way, in the interface, to find those abilities you can learn that'll take advantage of the Effect he's set up for you.
- If you want to concentrate on finding just the right Feat for Action Bar slots 4-6, you should be able to filter out the slot 1-3 Feats.
- If you know that you're 0.4 points of Personality short of qualifying for the next level of whatever-it-is, there should be a way to know "go see the [XXX] Trainer or the [YYY] Trainer, and learn [ZZZ] or [AAA]".
- If you don't want to confuse yourself by loading up on Active Feats to choose among--especially those outside your chosen Role--you should be able to see at a glance which are Passive.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All of that info should be available. It doesn't necessarily need to be in game. For example, I would expect to be able to filter my trained attacks by primary vs secondary, but I would not expect to be able to filter for Distressed- that level of data control is something I'd expect on an external Zam-type site.
The in game interface definitely needs improvement, but there's a happy medium somewhere between what we have now and an intelligent agent that parses natural language requests into SQL queries.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I played the Cold Start on Friday before the servers opened for Alpha. (yes, I played an Alpha of the Alpha!). It was awesome, hard, and a bit terrifying. I'm going to write up my thoughts for this week's blog.
I tried doing that tonight, by limiting myself to just 1000 xp to spend. I also tried to avoid the Achievement that grants 40 points towards the roles, but I could not.
Unfortunately, the escalations around Sodderhill are very advanced.
I'm looking forward to the very meager start next week as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Cold start will be fun.
Having 100,000 XP to spend on feats which you had no idea what they did or even how to activate them once you had them was an exercise in frustration.
Hopefully starting from scratch will give more time to developing actual tactics as opposed to "choose between a) target from a distance and click madly or b) run up next to and click madly or c) boldly run away" .
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I played the alpha last night thanks to an old landrush-buddy, thank you so much, CB! :)
The game is going to be so deep.... loving the crafting, resource-system, keyword system. It is also very clear to me that it will be tough choice between dedication to a (crafter) role or spreading it out a little bit, at least at the start.
Just talking about crafting, the player interdependency will be tremendous: a total 180 as to where MMO's have been heading with this in the past years. This will be a huge draw for more old school players; others will feel stunted in their development, trying desperately to reach some level of self sufficiency in a crafting role.
This is why I think the decision to put in Marketplaces as soon as possible is crucial, and very wise. Crafters/refiners *need* to be able to get their hands on resources, and adventurers need a way to quickly dispose of them. Refiners must be able to put up their refined products too so crafters do not feel the need to do every step themselves.
I voted 1st for caravans in the Crowdforging Survey: I think this will be very important so that these markets can start to cross-seed. The depth of this part of the game will increase so much once resources truly start to "get around", both raw and refined. Since I think the caravan system will cost a lot of development time, it may be better to start implementing a few Fast Travel routes (scripted ponyrides as in DAoC and LOTRO) so towns can start to trade and cross-seed the markets. SADding may have to wait since that is such a complicated feature too. Maybe a simple iteration of it at first, as to make fast travel not totally safe.
My crowdforging list for the MVP:
1) UI, UI and UI; I think the lack of tutorial tips and feedback from the UI is going to be the number 1 complaint from newcomers. I think a(nother) dev dedicated to this would be great but that is probably impossible.
- Tooltips
- Sorting
- Filtering
- Color coding
- Tutorial pop-ups, especially for the keyword system
- Icons
2) Marketplaces, Fast Travel for getting resources around;
Not for MVP but very important for later on, for the overall look of the game:
3) A way for Settlements to create or buy(MTX store?) different Building-styles for their (training) buildings. Barbarian, Eastern, whatever. I am not sure how much freedom the PF licences can give you in this, when it comes to the River Kingdoms though. Also props like Waterwells, small windmill, old_shack_in_ruins, statues, Pigeonhouse and such.
I can live with the featureless landscape, but seeing the samish towns everywhere in the world (give or take a few buildings, depending on development and choices) will be a pity.
4) I hope the same can be done for PoI's and outposts(different styles) at some point. I think the PoIs and Outpost will go a long way in livening up the now rather featureless landscape, and when there are different styles to choose this will make a great difference.
I think the above points (3 and 4) would be the best and cheapest way to create more variation in the land, and liven up the world, without having to minutely landscape every corner of the world (which is impossible in a game like this). And it could be a nice way for GW to earn a few bucks with the MTX store. I do not think anyone would oppose to such cosmetic items in the store.
As a last note: at this point it looks like Crafters will need to take a few Adventurer-type skills, and vice versa, in order to raise abilities high enough so that they can buy more skills in their skill-line of choice. That is fine, but I do hope that at higher levels, this requirement becomes less and less.
Anyway, exited!
Also: WTS 5 steel Ingots!
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Goblin Squad Member
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-Names not being over players' and npcs' heads is very annoying. I don't want to have to click a million trainers just to figure out what they train.
You will quickly learn who trains what and your settlement will surely place related trainers near to one another so there is less running clear across town to train a related feat.
Having name tags over the heads of players would be very annoying to me. Bad enough that you can click on them and see it together with their reputation icon, but at least if I'm in the distance you won't be able to identify immediately whether I am red or blue and I have at least a chance to escape notice if you're hostile, so long as we don't get so close that the minimap gives away my position.
Putting a big sign over your head should only happen at the airport.
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Goblin Squad Member
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-Names not being over players' and npcs' heads is very annoying. I don't want to have to click a million trainers just to figure out what they train.You will quickly learn who trains what and your settlement will surely place related trainers near to one another so there is less running clear across town to train a related feat.
Having name tags over the heads of players would be very annoying to me. Bad enough that you can click on them and see it together with their reputation icon, but at least if I'm in the distance you won't be able to identify immediately whether I am red or blue and I have at least a chance to escape notice if you're hostile, so long as we don't get so close that the minimap gives away my position.
Putting a big sign over your head should only happen at the airport.
I wouldn't mind having names over just the heads of NPCs.
EDIT: If they do decide to not show names of players I hope there will be some sort of character customization (guild tabards) so deciphering an enemy in a huge battle doesn't become a clicking/tabbing cluster f***.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Overview > Minimap (hard to do an overview in this type of game)
Need work on targeting players
Of course, descriptions of skills would be good.
Move on from DX9 please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Went from 1500 rep to -6500 in just one kill... That pretty well removes PVP from the table.
Melee needs real help. Its almost useless to train, then again I didnt get to try it much... Made a fighter to try. I was attacked by a wizard in town, the wizard won easily. Then I pulled out my barely trained bow and killed him 5 times before he gave up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Xeen toward the end of the new Gobbocast 18 Bob Settles references significant changes to combat in the future.
I hope that eventually the minimap will not display the location of successfully stealthed characters (and mobs for that matter) until the player detects them. Gives a reason to train perception.
Also regarding the viability of PvP I suspect that factions will open the potential of viable PvP once more without all the investment of influence and the like.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Finally got in yesterday and had a full experience with the Alpha. Quick thoughts:
- I love the escalations. I mean I really love the escalations. The rhyme and reason to monsters populating the map + the way that "level zones" can be anywhere different on a different day and then I can't wait to see what happens when these escalations start doing weird things like blending into each other.
- The crafting system is going to be very pleasing to crafters and it's already pretty darn functional. Compared to the state of PvP, I'd say the early goings of this game are going to be much more Minecraft than Darkfall.
- The leveling and GUI need work, but those are the easiest things to fix.
- Targeting is awful. Tab targeting works well enough against mobs, but is useless in PvP. Clicking doesn't work well against anybody. Combat as a whole needs work, especially melee.
Overall I have to say I am very pleased. One day in alpha and you get a great feel for the direction and potential of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Agree with Xeen on all counts. Ranged combat is the only combat needed and quite honestly if you have no range you are practically useless.
Targeting is terrible for PvP. Difficult to target when you want to, sometimes target when you don't, inexplicable loss of target when you have established it.
Reputation loss for a single kill (loss of 4000+ each), pretty much limits PvP to throw away alts. War of Towers, while it will be the only PvP for some time, will be difficult to garner participation beyond local limits. Settlements will maintain their six, plus perhaps a few more in adjacent hexes. Very few settlements will see their local six contested.
I do not expect more than 5% of the total population in EE do very much but gather and craft at a feverish pace. Since the only way to get recipes is to PvE against mobs, that will be the secondary focus of all settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Will you try to exploit weaknesses in other characters to take from them by force the fruits of their labor?
I hope this means that SAD will be available with Cold Start. If not then it means a whole lot of not much.
@Being, yeah I know faction warfare will be in eventually. That does not solve a stack of issues though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Agree with Xeen on all counts. Ranged combat is the only combat needed and quite honestly if you have no range you are practically useless.
Targeting is terrible for PvP. Difficult to target when you want to, sometimes target when you don't, inexplicable loss of target when you have established it.
Reputation loss for a single kill (loss of 4000+ each), pretty much limits PvP to throw away alts. War of Towers, while it will be the only PvP for some time, will be difficult to garner participation beyond local limits. Settlements will maintain their six, plus perhaps a few more in adjacent hexes. Very few settlements will see their local six contested.
I do not expect more than 5% of the total population in EE do very much but gather and craft at a feverish pace. Since the only way to get recipes is to PvE against mobs, that will be the secondary focus of all settlements.
Reputation is really all or nothing at this point. If you kill somebody hostile or low rep you stay 100% clean, kill somebody not hostile/high rep you go to -7,500 in about 10 seconds. During last night's rumble, I got to "player killer 6" in about 20 mins of FFA with sparkling reputation. Then I killed somebody, don't know who, and I was -7,500 at the snap of the fingers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Reputation is really all or nothing at this point. If you kill somebody hostile or low rep you stay 100% clean, kill somebody not hostile/high rep you go to -7,500 in about 10 seconds. During last night's rumble, I got to "player killer 6" in about 20 mins of FFA with sparkling reputation. Then I killed somebody, don't know who, and I was -7,500 at the snap of the fingers.
In EE you will not find anyone low rep, because no one will be willing to tank that toon for weeks of game play.
That leaves, "hostility", again there are no systems that will produce hostility unless one person is willing to tank their toon for weeks.
War of Towers can easily be avoided, and I do not believe WoT will generate the interest in PvP, over the interest in gathering, finding recipes and crafting.
Any settlement or company that does not focus their first few months on gathering, recipes and crafting will be setting their settlements up for a real struggle. A settlement with only six towers and access to tier 2 equipment will be better off than a settlement with higher potential (controlled more towers) but fewer resources (can't build the structures to reach that potential).
Conclusion, PvP will be a waste of time until more systems supporting it are in place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In EE you will not find anyone low rep, because no one will be willing to tank that toon for weeks of game play.
That leaves, "hostility", again there are no systems that will produce hostility unless one person is willing to tank their toon for weeks.
War of Towers can easily be avoided, and I do not believe WoT will generate the interest in PvP, over the interest in gathering, finding recipes and crafting.
Any settlement or company that does not focus their first few months on gathering, recipes and crafting will be setting their settlements up for a real struggle. A settlement with only six towers and access to tier 2 equipment will be better off than a settlement with higher potential (controlled more towers) but fewer resources (can't build the structures to reach that potential).
Conclusion, PvP will be a waste of time until more systems supporting it are in place.
I don't expect the current state of reputation to be what we will play under anymore than I expect the PvP to be as raw as it is now. They have always said they are going to start the game with strict restrictions on PvP and then loosen it up as they go.
Right now PvP just isn't ready, with or without the rep hit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I received my Alpha invite this weekend(Thanks, Caliphis!)and I thought I'd add my comments to the list.
My first impression was the same as most: No tooltips, tutorials, and an overwhelmingly large number of choices for spending XP with next to no in-game information. Add in tool-tips, have the boxes pop-up in front of open windows showing needed/required prerequisites, and skill info, along with color-coding to separate the different skills into their respective categories, and a way to separate skills into primary/secondary/defensive/reactive/etc. categories.
My second impression was how difficult it was to target outside of using the tab key.
My next overall awakening came as I was randomly attacked in town by a PC Wizard(who happened to be "nude"). I had just freshly leveled the rogue toon I was experimenting with to just shy of Level 8, focusing solely on ranged combat and the prerequisite rogue talents to reach Rogue 7. I was, however, equipped only with the equipment I spawned with. Despite using my hardest hitting skill(which I found later could nearly one-shot an Alpha Wolf, and did one-shot a bandit with later) I did ABSOLUTELY NO discernible DAMAGE to my Wizard attacker. I assume that he was categorically not much higher in level, and was at least not wearing any clothing type gear. I recall a blog quite awhile back that said that power creep was going to be negligible. and like leveled characters should have an equal chance to win in a fight(it mentioned a group of level ones having the ability to take down a Level 20 toon if they fought in coordination), but there wasn't any thing like that here. Either his other equipped gear outstripped mine to such an egregious extent as to offer him juggernaut status, or the wizard class is exceptionally overpowered.
Stealth- I like the way it is implemented; the detached wig floating through the forest is slightly humorous, but even at the highest skill I was able to achieve(Stealth 8, Scout 8, 18 Dex; Stealth skill at 101)I was never able to approach closer than range 15-20. I'm sure there may be other factors at play, but I believe that approaching standard mobs(or PC's with low Perception) from behind, with ~maxed out Stealth, a PC should be able to get into melee range.
Overall, I really enjoyed myself! Once I burnt though a month and a half's worth of xp(using outside resources to guide me through), and I got out in the thick of things, I could tell the game is headed in a great direction. Combat is still a bit clunky, and navigating Character Training is a nightmare, but overall, thank you Goblinworks!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I received my Alpha invite this weekend(Thanks, Caliphis!)and I thought I'd add my comments to the list.
My first impression was the same as most: No tooltips, tutorials, and an overwhelmingly large number of choices for spending XP with next to no in-game information. Add in tool-tips, have the boxes pop-up in front of open windows showing needed/required prerequisites, and skill info, along with color-coding to separate the different skills into their respective categories, and a way to separate skills into primary/secondary/defensive/reactive/etc. categories.
My second impression was how difficult it was to target outside of using the tab key.
My next overall awakening came as I was randomly attacked in town by a PC Wizard(who happened to be "nude"). I had just freshly leveled the rogue toon I was experimenting with to just shy of Level 8, focusing solely on ranged combat and the prerequisite rogue talents to reach Rogue 7. I was, however, equipped only with the equipment I spawned with. Despite using my hardest hitting skill(which I found later could nearly one-shot an Alpha Wolf, and did one-shot a bandit with later) I did ABSOLUTELY NO discernible DAMAGE to my Wizard attacker. I assume that he was categorically not much higher in level, and was at least not wearing any clothing type gear. I recall a blog quite awhile back that said that power creep was going to be negligible. and like leveled characters should have an equal chance to win in a fight(it mentioned a group of level ones having the ability to take down a Level 20 toon if they fought in coordination), but there wasn't any thing like that here. Either his other equipped gear outstripped mine to such an egregious extent as to offer him juggernaut status, or the wizard class is exceptionally overpowered.
Stealth- I like the way it is implemented; the detached wig floating through the forest is slightly humorous, but even at the highest skill I was able to achieve(Stealth 8, Scout 8, 18 Dex; Stealth skill at 101)I was never able to...
Good review !
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe that approaching standard mobs(or PC's with low Perception) from behind, with ~maxed out Stealth, a PC should be able to get into melee range.
Thanks for the review Wyldethorne.
Are you coming from a background of playing other MMOs, playing tabletop Pathfinder, or both?I am intrigued by the different expectations for stealth between those comparing it to MMOs like WoW, and those comparing it to its use in tabletop RPGs like Pathfinder or D&D.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe that approaching standard mobs(or PC's with low Perception) from behind, with ~maxed out Stealth, a PC should be able to get into melee range.Thanks for the review Wyldethorne.
Are you coming from a background of playing other MMOs, playing tabletop Pathfinder, or both?I am intrigued by the different expectations for stealth between those comparing it to MMOs like WoW, and those comparing it to its use in tabletop RPGs like Pathfinder or D&D.
Both. A perfectly sneaky type should be able to ninja close enough in to get in a good backstab or sap.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In EE you will not find anyone low rep, because no one will be willing to tank that toon for weeks of game play.
That leaves, "hostility", again there are no systems that will produce hostility unless one person is willing to tank their toon for weeks.
War of Towers can easily be avoided, and I do not believe WoT will generate the interest in PvP, over the interest in gathering, finding recipes and crafting.
Any settlement or company that does not focus their first few months on gathering, recipes and crafting will be setting their settlements up for a real struggle. A settlement with only six towers and access to tier 2 equipment will be better off than a settlement with higher potential (controlled more towers) but fewer resources (can't build the structures to reach that potential).
Conclusion, PvP will be a waste of time until more systems supporting it are in place.
I don't expect the current state of reputation to be what we will play under anymore than I expect the PvP to be as raw as it is now. They have always said they are going to start the game with strict restrictions on PvP and then loosen it up as they go.
Right now PvP just isn't ready, with or without the rep hit.
You are right in that the PVP system is not ready, there are no rewards for it at this time. That is the major element missing at this point.
As I detailed above, even control of towers is not a significant reward if the time could have been spent on gathering, finding recipes and crafting.
Since, everyone is forced to expend xp on gathering and crafting skills, in order to increase attributes needed for the higher level combat roles, everyone will be a gather / crafter to a certain degree.
The other system that is a major part of PVP is the stealth system. This too needs much work, as it is almost completely useless other than needing stealth to unlock higher tier Rogue levels.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Both. A perfectly sneaky type should be able to ninja close enough in to get in a good backstab or sap.I believe that approaching standard mobs(or PC's with low Perception) from behind, with ~maxed out Stealth, a PC should be able to get into melee range.Thanks for the review Wyldethorne.
Are you coming from a background of playing other MMOs, playing tabletop Pathfinder, or both?I am intrigued by the different expectations for stealth between those comparing it to MMOs like WoW, and those comparing it to its use in tabletop RPGs like Pathfinder or D&D.
Current formulae is:
( (Perception - Stealth + 300) x 0.15% + 10% ) times normal viewing distance.
Note the +10% :D
Even if you have infinite stealth and the target has the perception of a lump of Goblin turd ... you will never get below 10% of normal viewing distance.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Current formulae is:( (Perception - Stealth + 300) x 0.15% + 10% ) times normal viewing distance.
Note the +10% :D
Even if you have infinite stealth and the target has the perception of a lump of Goblin turd ... you will never get below 10% of normal viewing distance.
If you are approaching a mob from his frontal arc, I can see the 10%, but the goblin turd being approached from the rear arc? I think the 10% should go away. My two pence worth, anyway.
I'm not so sure it is useless, Bludd. I was able to slip by some High level Usarlav(sp?) groups in chokepoints, using stealth that I'd otherwise had no way of slipping by without engaging them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ustalav, I think it is. If you like reading there are some very nice Pathfinder tales available, both here on Paizo's site and elsewhere. I've seen them on Amazon and on the shelves at Barnes & Noble. I've read Author Dave Gross, in particular, and he writes a good story. Some of his works address the Ustalavs (Prince of Wolves). There are other well-regarded authors whose works describe the River Kingdoms area.