Alpha Experience and Comments


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Goblin Squad Member

I agree that tooltips would be huge improvement in many areas.
I don't like that I can't tell what spells/feats do until I equip them in my quick bar and then hold my pointer over them. I also wish I knew what kind of stat boost I'm getting when I train feats.
NPC's could use an intro line describing what it is they are offering.
There's a lot of polish needed around combat sounds and animations, it's very rough right now. But I'm not complaining too much about that as long as it is addressed eventually.

Goblin Squad Member

It may be that some of those disconnects were exacerbated, if not caused by, Windows vulnerability updates that were pushed last night.

Goblin Squad Member

Not to mention you can't even tell what weapon it applies to so if you are trying to specialize good luck.

TOOLTIPS!!

Goblin Squad Member

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Posted this originally on Alpha Forums but thought I would post it here too.

First Impressions

Ok, last night was my first time in Alpha and then I played again for a half hour before heading for work this morning. These are my impressions after sleeping on it.

I used the New Quick Start Guide since I wanted a mage anyways. Did something wrong or something was left out of the guide because I didn't get Mage 1. Ran back and forth between all the folks trying to figure out what I did wrong but finally just took all the schools of magic listed and just as I was about done with getting them all, then I got Mage 1. I did the F11 thing to see what Mage 1 needed and I had all that stuff listed but still didn't have the achievement, was listed as still in progress, before I finally just started buying all the schools of magic.

Couldn't read the Thornguards names, that blue was too dark and lettering was too small. I was in the Windowed version of the game for ease of going back to the quick start guide. I'm going to try the full screen version at a lower resolution to see if more things are readable then tonight.

Confusing to have the Thornguards in red and the goblins outside of town in red as well. Kept getting turned around to head for a Thornguard when I wanted to go after a goblin. Any way of making the Thornguards, I don't know - blue?, on the map screen and then turn red if they hate you and will kill you if they can?

I absolutely did not see the new player trainers at the beginning of where I logged in for the first time until an hour or more into the game. Can you put a glowing arrow or something over their heads so new players know to go talk to them? Or maybe have them hold up and wave signs saying "Tutorial Here!"? I also made a cleric that I didn't do much with except move around a bit. So I will have him try to deal with these folks when I get on tonight.

Combat was cool and I happen to love tab targeting! Moving was easy though it was a bit dizzying to have my guy continue to turn for a split second longer than I had the turn button on but got used to it. The environment outside the town was nice. I've played other MMOs so I knew about the cooldown time on attacks, and knew to watch for the slots to brighten before using it again. Also loved how the slots brightened when you finally got into range for the spell or club.

The UI graying out when trying to slot weapons, armor and feats was very hard to see. Couldn't even read the words inside the slots until I increased screen size from default to large because they fade into the general color background.

The town needs a bit more color in it. The buildings kind of "blur" together when they are the same dull colors making it harder to figure out where to go. How about some color on the doors or window frames or eaves? Maybe a flower box or two?

Feats. Need to know what feats do before I buy them. My mage would really like to know what spells are single person and what spells are AOE BEFORE he buys them. He also needs to know if the spell is for staff or wand. Moving the cursor over the feats and getting that information before buying would be really really nice!

I got the staff first, last night, and had two spells I could use with it. Didn't get the wand until this morning after killing a few goblins before going to work [something I recommend to everyone. Start your workday by killing goblins before dealing with anyone else!]. I had bought a number of spells last night, guessing if they were single target spells from the little shield for each, which is what I was trying to get, and discovered I had six spells for the wand but still only had the two spells for my staff.

Also tried moving my spells around in the slots a bit in the order I would prefer casting them but ran into problems trying to put them back into their slots. I did this with the staff, and it kept telling me that the spell I wanted to slot didn't go into the staff even though it was there just a moment before. One spell I had in slot two I wanted in slot one. Moved it out, moved the spell from slot one to slot two and then tried putting the original spell into slot one and was told it wasn't for the staff. I went and bought more spells this morning and found I had bought two staff spells. Tried again to put my original spell into slot one but it wouldn't let me do it saying it wasn't for the staff but then would let me put it into slot four!?!?!? The two new spells went into slots one and three. Didn't have a chance to mess with the wand spell slots yet.

System crashed two or three times on me last night. No warning, no slowdown in movement, just BOOM!

Didn't have a chance to do any mining of nodes or trying to craft. Hope to do that tonight. Got all sorts of minor amulets from the goblins but have no clear idea what they do. Putting the cursor over them does give information but I don't know if it is a good thing for my character to wear or if I should wear one of the other minor amulets I got. Maybe later on, you could list something like "Good For General Use" or "Good for Magician Role" or "Good for Fighter Role" in the description of these things.

I would say as a new player walking into the Alpha, knowing only what I read on the forums and saw on the Twitch feeds, there were more pluses than minuses but there were a lot of minuses present that made it hard for me to enjoy my first taste of the game. The combat stuff outside of town was fun but the town experience as a whole wasn't.

Join Kabal!

Goblin Squad Member

Lam wrote:
There will be substantial transfer of coal and iron as the only place there are both reasonably local is OV. THe southeast has a substantial issue with supplies from plains and highland, but they do have the only local swamp and will have great trade there.

We have plains.

Goblin Squad Member

<kabal> Bunibuni wrote:
Also tried moving my spells around in the slots a bit in the order I would prefer casting them but ran into problems trying to put them back into their slots. I did this with the staff, and it kept telling me that the spell I wanted to slot didn't go into the staff even though it was there just a moment before. One spell I had in slot two I wanted in slot one. Moved it out, moved the spell from slot one to slot two and then tried putting the original spell into slot one and was told it wasn't for the staff. I went and bought more spells this morning and found I had bought two staff spells. Tried again to put my original spell into slot one but it wouldn't let me do it saying it wasn't for the staff but then would let me put it into slot four!?!?!? The two new spells went into slots one and three. Didn't have a chance to mess with the wand spell slots yet.

Ran into this before downtime this morning, and it's not just mage-stuff, but swords and clubs, too. I'd not heard anyone complain about this before, so I've never heard a workaround or correction.

I'd appreciate suggestions, please, as I now have all three of my weapons borked without full toolbars.

Grand Lodge Goblin Squad Member

KarlBob wrote:
If stealth works well against PCs, those carriers might be rogues. If stealth against other PCs works as well at EE as it did in Alpha 6, then the carriers probably won't be rogues.

Yesterday we did a little testing with Stealth, it was majorly improved in relation to PCs.

I was out harvesting and I doubt GPunk and group even saw me as I kept them at least half my mini-map away when I saw them on my mini-map and judging from the earlier stealth tests I wouldn't have appeared on their Mini-map.

Goblin Squad Member

<kabal> Bunibuni wrote:

Posted this originally on Alpha Forums but thought I would post it here too.

First Impressions

Ok, last night was my first time in Alpha and then I played again for a half hour before heading for work this morning. These are my impressions after sleeping on it.

I used the New Quick Start Guide since I wanted a mage anyways. Did something wrong or something was left out of the guide because I didn't get Mage 1. Ran back and forth between all the folks trying to figure out what I did wrong but finally just took all the schools of magic listed and just as I was about done with getting them all, then I got Mage 1. I did the F11 thing to see what Mage 1 needed and I had all that stuff listed but still didn't have the achievement, was listed as still in progress, before I finally just started buying all the schools of magic.

Couldn't read the Thornguards names, that blue was too dark and lettering was too small. I was in the Windowed version of the game for ease of going back to the quick start guide. I'm going to try the full screen version at a lower resolution to see if more things are readable then tonight.

Confusing to have the Thornguards in red and the goblins outside of town in red as well. Kept getting turned around to head for a Thornguard when I wanted to go after a goblin. Any way of making the Thornguards, I don't know - blue?, on the map screen and then turn red if they hate you and will kill you if they can?

I absolutely did not see the new player trainers at the beginning of where I logged in for the first time until an hour or more into the game. Can you put a glowing arrow or something over their heads so new players know to go talk to them? Or maybe have them hold up and wave signs saying "Tutorial Here!"? I also made a cleric that I didn't do much with except move around a bit. So I will have him try to deal with these folks when I get on tonight.

Combat was cool and I happen to love tab targeting! Moving was easy though it was a bit dizzying to have my guy continue to turn...

Yes the QuickStart guide for Wizard leaves out a few required feats to become Wizard 2. I can't remember which feats exactly but it's more than one.

CEO, Goblinworks

If you are using the new Quick Start guide, I need to know which Feats are missing. I did the Walkyhrough on Wdnesday to verify it was working and correct the text from the previous edition, and it was all correct. If something has gone sideways I need to know ASAP.

If you didn't get Wizard 1 until you took all the caster Feats you probably skipped taking Evoker 1.

CEO, Goblinworks

Darn it I just checked the guide and that's exactly what is missing. I'll get that fixed ASAP.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
Darn it I just checked the guide and that's exactly what is missing. I'll get that fixed ASAP.

Yep I had the same problem. It was Evoker that was missing. Thanks for the guide, I'd be lost without it!

Goblin Squad Member

The game needs some polish, but under the excess template castings there is a great crafting system and potential for a really engaging economy.

Can't wait to see where you (and we, because there is that factor) take it in the next few months.

Goblin Squad Member

On the positive side from me, I really love the way the feat and leveling system is set up! I can spend little xp and try out anything I want, and as I advance I make tougher choices on specialization. It's a great system with endless possibilities for character development. Kudos!

I haven't even tried crafting yet but it looks amazing too. If only I could find some resources!

Goblin Squad Member

Tyveil wrote:
If only I could find some resources!

My experience so far has been lots of nodes heavily camped by monsters, and most of the ones I got, both solo and while sharing with a group, had essences. I'm very well-stocked on one variety of those, but have only one or two each of any other material.

Goblin Squad Member

T7V Jazzlvraz wrote:
Tyveil wrote:
If only I could find some resources!
My experience so far has been lots of nodes heavily camped by monsters, and most of the ones I got, both solo and while sharing with a group, had essences. I'm very well-stocked on one variety of those, but have only one or two each of any other material.

If under trained and under geared (look at my toon) the best thing to do is get skilled in a type or two of "gathering" (forester, miner, scavenger, dowser) and get out and about. Even untrained stealth will get you pretty close to camped nodes, but there are many that aren't camped by mobs. :)

Goblin Squad Member

I found that it is actually quit easy to take on camps with two mobs, and even 3, if you make sure they are "recruits" rather then regular bandits. :) This opens up a lot more nodes, and you get some serious loot from the bandits too off course. There are very few nodes near Sotterhill.
I got a lot of loot from about 15 bandits: an apprentice staff, a steel sword, lots of a certain implement (I think?), coin and such. I was rather pleased. No recipes yet though.

Goblin Squad Member

Tyncale wrote:
...if you make sure they are "recruits" rather then regular bandits.

...and have no more than one Archer, and sometimes that one's too many. Archery, aimed both directions, is powerful and scary.

Goblin Squad Member

Absolutely. I make sure I am running at full speed towards him when engaging an archer, need to close in quick.

Goblin Squad Member

I noticed, in camps with two wolves and an Archer, that the wolves are really quite good at blocking you, thus keeping you from their more-squishy friend.

Goblin Squad Member

I was killed by many wolves. I managed to return the favor once. At least there's nowhere to go but up....

Goblin Squad Member

Sneak (X) in until spotted, then hit crtl to dash forward and strike. Archers are usually constantly exploitable with your heavy-hitter.

Goblin Squad Member

I remember wolves being more beefy last weekend, they seem to go down rather quickly now though. I did not notice the blocking yet, but that sounds cool! :)

I was surprised at how easy a single bandit went down with just Hitpoints 3 trained and zero fighting skills (just the starter club). Can't wait to log in again and train some Feats so that I can use my new Steel Sword to more effect!

Goblin Squad Member

Yah, when I was with my group yesterday, I'd take on wolves. Solo this morning, not-so-much.

Goblin Squad Member

T7V Jazzlvraz wrote:
Tyveil wrote:
If only I could find some resources!
My experience so far has been lots of nodes heavily camped by monsters, and most of the ones I got, both solo and while sharing with a group, had essences. I'm very well-stocked on one variety of those, but have only one or two each of any other material.

Types of essences are just like logs or plants or minerals, you'll find a ton of that kind in that hex but go two hexes over and it will be a different kind.

Also in the far flung regions I anecdotally find more nodes, closer together. Even twin nodes here and 30 feet that way is another and 20 feet after that another. @ baddies to kill if I don't want to stealth it. Avoiding masses of players does have a niche in the game still.

Also I found stealth very effective for harvesting. Never had a single snafu. As a test I unstealthed after the harvest and they did spot and attack me then each time, so I have my personal confirmation that even untrained stealth is working to some degree (I'm level 6 or 8 now woo hoo!)

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:

If you are using the new Quick Start guide, I need to know which Feats are missing. I did the Walkyhrough on Wdnesday to verify it was working and correct the text from the previous edition, and it was all correct. If something has gone sideways I need to know ASAP.

If you didn't get Wizard 1 until you took all the caster Feats you probably skipped taking Evoker 1.

btw, to the GW folks, I like the quick start guides and other materials you've put out. Single player RPGs typically have pretty good user guides. MMOs often make do with tutorials - which can't be pre-viewed or re-viewed. Despite missing the info on Evokers, the information you've been providing for PFO is good; it looks solid and professional.

What would be very cool is if there was (later, of course) a way to look at the user guides from inside the game.

Goblin Squad Member

Urman wrote:
...if there was (later, of course) a way to look at the user guides from inside the game.

My install defaulted to running windowed, and I've found it to be very Alt-Tab-friendly. At least, of the six crashes (one to login, five to desktop) I've had yesterday and today, none was proximate to an Alt-Tab.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

T7V Jazzlvraz wrote:
Tyncale wrote:
...if you make sure they are "recruits" rather then regular bandits.
...and have no more than one Archer, and sometimes that one's too many. Archery, aimed both directions, is powerful and scary.

Last weekend, in Alpha 6, I used my rogue's short bow to soften up enemies as they approached, then finished them off with dual short swords.

Last night I found a long bow, but not a short bow. The difference is dramatic! Using the long bow, I'm killing most enemies with one shot.

Is the difference I've seen more likely a factor of Alpha 6 vs Alpha 7, or short bow vs long bow? If it's the type of bow that makes such a huge difference, then I think the long bow needs a serious beating with the nerf bat.

Edit: "Needs a serious beating with the nerf bat" is deliberately provocative language, and intended to be funny. Buffing the short bow a bit would also be acceptable.

Goblin Squad Member

I heard several people looking for shortbows, so I suspect the commentary on bow-lethality was about long. From context alone, I think Build 7 may *appear* to have more damage from longbows than Build 6; whether it actually does is up to the devs to tell us.

Goblin Squad Member

Once we get ammo consumption, those bows are going to be resource drains. But so is dying and taking damage to one's armor.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

That's true, but it doesn't address the extreme disparity between short bow and long bow.

Goblin Squad Member

KarlBob wrote:
That's true, but it doesn't address the extreme disparity between short bow and long bow.

Not having tried out the longbow, is there a large difference in the damage between the two?

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Wyldethorne wrote:
KarlBob wrote:
That's true, but it doesn't address the extreme disparity between short bow and long bow.
Not having tried out the longbow, is there a large difference in the damage between the two?

I've seen an enormous difference. Last week with a short bow, I hit enemies multiple times as they approached me, and they were still alive when they reached melee range. Last night all but one monster died after a single long bow shot. They never had time to turn around, much less close to melee range.

I'm comparing two different versions of the Alpha test: short bow in Alpha 6 and long bow in Alpha 7. It could be that I was shooting at much tougher monsters last week, and if I had used a long bow then, the difference might not have been as stark.

Has anyone fired both a short bow and a long bow this week? If so, are you seeing a huge difference in effectiveness?

Goblin Squad Member

I'll be working with a shortbow(assuming I can find one). I'll try and keep notes on how effective it is.

Goblin Squad Member

I remember much speculation last weekend that even the monsters close to Sotterhill were boosted for power-testing, but no confirmation that I saw. You may have the right of it, KarlBob, that we're now shooting at baby-monsters--which has been confirmed--with howitzers; now we need to see whether we have two calibres of big gun.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Wyldethorne wrote:
I'll be working with a shortbow(assuming I can find one). I'll try and keep notes on how effective it is.

I'll be looking for a short bow, too. I guess we can compare notes Monday, if we find, buy or craft short bows.

Goblin Squad Member

In the feats window for training, it would be nice to have a tab or filter to only show the feats for the weapon you are looking to use.

Right now, you have to either use an outside spreadsheet to reference or train level 1 of everything to find out. Neither of these is a decent solution.

As for everyone starting with a club, and considering the lack of drops of the most common and low quality weapons or the rare drop of their recipes, cold start is not very successful. Or I could also point out how it favors those that were looking to use Hammers as their primary weapon, since skills bought for that weapon type would not be wasted on the Club.

Mobs should drop the weapons that you actually see them using. What ever happened to reverse engineering of items? That could be an avenue of getting recipes for common items.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Bluddwolf wrote:

Mobs should drop the weapons that you actually see them using. What ever happened to reverse engineering of items? That could be an avenue of getting recipes for common items.

I could support this idea, as long as all enemy weapons were shown. Right now, goblin scouts must be throwing invisible rocks, because I don't see bows in their hands.

Goblin Squad Member

KarlBob wrote:
I could support this idea, as long as all enemy weapons were shown. Right now, goblin scouts must be throwing invisible rocks, because I don't see bows in their hands.

Throwing axes I believe, which I would kill for!!!

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Throwing axes would be nice to see.

Goblin Squad Member

Shortbow attack "Deadly Aim" has a Damage Factor of 2.99 and a speed of 2.3, compare to Overdraw's DF of 3.83 and speed of 3.5- Overdraw has more alpha but Deadly Aim actually looks like it has a higher DPS, albeit at a much higher stamina cost per second.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Sounds like the difference between Alpha 6 enemies and Alpha 7 enemies might have been the biggest factor after all. I don't remember how much I used Deadly Aim last week, either.


Some commentary from playing around for ~3 hours. I didn't have spreadsheets memorized or the UI guide memorized, but went in as a player that had read just a little bit.

1) Can we get so that the hover-over text in the gold and blue "roles" window turns green when we meet the pre-requisites, such that it is easy to see what we're missing?
2) Sometimes power and hit points and the really general feats would show up in my feat list, and sometimes they wouldn't.
3) I needed heavy armor 2 from the Dreadnaught to progress crusader to progress cleric. I couldn't figure out how to get this, as it didn't seem to be there.
4) I found some glowing blue something with a diamond resource note out in the wilderness but couldn't access it --- a collection of colourful sparks. Presumably I need some gathering skill, but it'd be nice if the game told me which one?
5) I bought tonnes and tonnes of spells from the seminary but seemed only able to use divine favour + Shield of faith. Maybe my lack of holy implement was an impedement?
6) Dying didn't seem to have any consequences pre-gear, which was useful for random exploration"?
7) I found the lack of Town Map for Sotterhill often troublesome.
8) As a Gearless and probably poorly feated 7th level cleric, if I got 4 bandit recruits, I could kill 2. If I got 2 normal bandits, I could kill one.
9) After dying once I failed to draw my club but still meleed, just without the animation.
10) There was a bandit camp comprised entirely of wolves, which was slightly amusing to see. It seems like bandits and wolves cooperate, but you think there'd be some bandits around.
11) Ogre's and bandits sit within line of sight of each other pretty calmly.
12) I got some random things (Lesser Tokens = basic consumables?) copper coins, tradeskill things and an apprentices wand. I only have a loose idea of what to do with each, so I think I probably need to read the game guides more.

That being said, 2 hours of play, only 1 crash. The wilderness is super dangerous as you get away from town, or maybe that's just me being terrible.

Thus far, it's pretty smooth and pretty interesting. I look forward to playing more and learning the game a little better.

Goblin Squad Member

Ikeren wrote:
3) I needed heavy armor 2 from the Dreadnaught to progress crusader to progress cleric. I couldn't figure out how to get this, as it didn't seem to be there.

This seems to've come up a lot tonight, and the answer *might* be you can only buy Feats up to certain levels in Sotterhill. If you don't find what you're looking for under Available or Unavailable, and you know you're looking at the correct trainer, then you're on your way to Cloverdell (Fighter/Cleric) or Osterburg (Rogue/Wizard) for more learning.

I've not seen that in writing anywhere, so I can't yet treat it as the definitive answer.

Goblin Squad Member

Heavy Armor 2 is definitely available in Cloverdell, however it looks like the requirements are bugged- it's supposed to demand 14 Con, but appears to be gated at 12 Str instead. That's great for fighters but lousy for clerics.


Interesting. Thank you for the information. Anyone know what skill I needed to make use of the colourful sparks? There seemed to be a lot of them.

And I heard someone say that healing and kiting with a bow on a cleric was great --- I trained minor healing 4 but can't figure out how to use it?

Goblin Squad Member

Ikeren wrote:

Interesting. Thank you for the information. Anyone know what skill I needed to make use of the colourful sparks? There seemed to be a lot of them.

And I heard someone say that healing and kiting with a bow on a cleric was great --- I trained minor healing 4 but can't figure out how to use it?

The sparks are Essence Nodes. Harvesting Essence nodes requires Dowser skill.

Kiting is simply a question of backing away from the target as they approach in an effort to stay out of their weapon reach. You need good bow skill, and to not back into anything that won't move, or that's more dangerous than what you are kiting....

You'll need a cleric "implement" as your second weapon, and the spell can be attached to that.

Goblin Squad Member

Will this same area and 3 towns be available on EE Launch, will we get a larger (or different) area?

Goblin Squad Member

Tyveil wrote:
Will this same area and 3 towns be available on EE Launch, will we get a larger (or different) area?

The EE map will be many times the size, with 33 basic settlements that will be variations. There will not be a single place to train everything past about level 3.

Goblin Squad Member

Callambea and Freehaven on this map roughly equate to two of the settlements on the alpha map.


Thank you, Caldeathe!

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