Goblin Squad Member
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1) I do think the economy loop from adventuring/gathering to crafting is fun and engaging, and gives groups of players a purpose. I think if you can make that part of the game a little smoother, you'll get folks to pay for subscriptions while the rest goes in. Finding recipes was cool, and meaningful. Being able to craft something for your friends is meaningful.
2) That being said, combat animations/sounds/feel is so clunky I am kind of worried. I'm more about gameplay than graphics, but I'm worried about my guildies who are currently launching in Archaeage. I don't think that game will solve the gameplay and design problems that PFO is meant to get around, but the gap in graphics is so enormous that I worry my friends will be like "Holy crap this is 16-bit--no way."
3) Tooltips, but you know that.
4) Maps. Wow are the maps…not useful. The large map is muddy, indistinct, and difficult to relate to the world you see in the client. It looks like someone blew up a really low-res top down screenshot of the world, and I hate it. I hate the mini-map slightly less, but only slightly.
5) Related to the above: please make it easier to find you party. "Hey, since none of us can see each other on the map, and the map is so indistinct and is unlabeled, let's all try and go to the hex that is three hexes east of, and up one from Sotterhill, at the southern tip of that hex, where it looks like there is a road going into the hex." How about some arrows and stuff so we can find each other? It really lowers the social engagement of the game.
6) Please let me arrange my hotbar buttons: I am sick of healing healing monsters by accident. I udnerstand that there is some sort of rationale between the three slots on the left vs. the ones on the right, but it means that I have hostile/friendly stuff mixed, when I would like to widely separate them.
7) Reputation: do we really want it to be that easy to lose that easily by accident in your party? In the middle of combat with some ogres, I somehow (I think it was mouse-look) targeted a party member, hit him like 8 times (combat animation is bad I had no idea what was happening), and suddenly I'm a murderhobo with -4060 reputation, and I only knew because my friend pointed it out. A system where you can effortlessly, instantly engage the harshest penalties by accident, without being aware of it, sounds like a bad system to me. But I'm prolly just crazy like that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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7) Reputation: do we really want it to be that easy to lose that easily by accident in your party? In the middle of combat with some ogres, I somehow (I think it was...
A long time ago, I thought GW was talking like we wouldn't be able to do things that gave negative consequences without a cautionary check or window. So if I have a neutral tabbed, and click a number by mistake on my keyboard, I should get a "woah - you sure about that?" confirmation window. At least that's what I expected to see.
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A simple workaround for this would be an option in windows that lets you turn off friendly fire for parties, nulling any attack type ability you use on them, or greying it out as it were. A self target on beneficial effect would be similarly AMAZING so healing or buffing doesn't always involve F1, press 9, heal frantically for 2 rounds, `, tab 3 times, resume combat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A simple workaround for this would be an option in windows that lets you turn off friendly fire for parties, nulling any attack type ability you use on them, or greying it out as it were. A self target on beneficial effect would be similarly AMAZING so healing or buffing doesn't always involve F1, press 9, heal frantically for 2 rounds, `, tab 3 times, resume combat.
In EVE its called a safety switch.
I keep mine on green (safe) in hisec space and it saved me yesterday when I misclicked on an ECM Burst on my Viator at the Perimeter gate. If that thing had fired it would have zapped every ship within 6000m and I would have lost a 130 mill ISK Blockade Runner because I hit the wrong button.
Something similar is needed in PFO.
BTW in Alpha I do not just heal monster - I also regular whack myself with touch of darkness. Maybe my character is some sort of medieval penitent monk in disguise.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I, too, almost committed buddyslaughter last weekend. I ran across a hapless gatherer getting ganked by a couple broken men. They were at the edge of my longbow range, and it wasn't until I plugged him with an overdraw shot that I saw I had accidentally targeted the victim rather than the perps. Fortunately he lived and didn't take it personally (maybe he didn't even realize I was the one who shot him). Still, unless it becomes easier to tell friend from foe, I will be hesitant to act on my goody-good carebear Samaritan instincts in the future.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think part of the issue is that target info spawns above the targets head, no matter how far away OR how close the target is making it impossible to actually tell what you have targeted if its too far or too close.
It sometimes looks like GW is trying so hard to be a "rebel" and do something "different" they throw away perfectly good, intelligent and standard UI element (like a preset target box in the same location every time) in order to do something "different" that just turns out to be confusing, frustrating, detrimental and stupid.
Players should be fighting the mobs and each other, not a poorly implemented UI because you want to be "different"
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Goblin Squad Member
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...I also regular whack myself with touch of darkness.
I've done the same far too often. I've never checked myself, but others have said we take Reputation damage for injuring ourselves...is that correct, and, if so, does it make even the tiniest bit of sense, in-character, out-of-, meta-game, or anyhow?
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Goblin Squad Member
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If this weekend follows the pattern of the last several weekends, this will be the schedule:
Thursday at approximately 3pm Pacific the server will come up.
Friday at approximately 6am Pacific the server will go down.
Friday at approximately 3pm Pacific the server will come up.
Monday at approximately 6am Pacific the server will go down.
The new twist is that Monday or Tuesday afternoon the server should come back up with Alpha Build 8.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Good points. Unfortunately the answer to all these issues is, is that the game simply needs more development time. Stuff like accidentally tanking your rep when you hit a friend is fine for an alpha, but not for a Beta (yes, beta) where you pay money for (EE and gametime). Well, it is fine for a few hundred hardcore fans, but not for 20.000 of them. I am a hardcore fan, this game has the best design-doc there is, but I am avoiding groups untill they sort out friendly fire + Rep-hits.
Stuff like that (also an UI that gives Feedback to what you are actually doing/training, Targeting and so forth) is needed for an MVP, imo.
Right now I think I will let my character accumulate XP once EE starts, but will not play untill I think the game is ready for *me* to play. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am really looking forward to discovering what Dwarf does for my Cleric/Miner/Smelter/Amorsmith build.
According to the latest spreadsheets, Dwarf gives:
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Armorsmith +10
Weaponsmith +10
Miner +20
Smelter +20
Stonemason +10
Heavy Melee Attack Bonus +10
Fortitude Defense Bonus +10
Divine Attack Bonus +10
Sawyer +10
Tanner +10
Carpenter +10
Iconographer +10
Apothecary +10
Scavenger +10
Forester +10
Perception +10
SenseMotive +10
Survival +10
Dowser -5
Sage -5
Officer -5
Seneschal -5
Bluff -5
HandleAnimal -5
Perform -5
Persuasion -5
Elf gives:
Perception +20
Arcane Attack Bonus +10
Light Melee Attack Bonus +10
Ranged Attack Bonus +10
Reflex Defense Bonus +10
Alchemist +10
Artificer +10
Bowyer +10
Engineer +10
Jeweler +10
Leatherworker +10
Tailor +10
Gemcutter +10
Miner -5
Sawyer -5
Smelter -5
Tanner -5
Weaver +10
Architect +10
Carpenter -5
Arcana +10
Dungeoneering +10
Geography +10
History +10
Local +10
Nature +10
Stealth +10
Planes +10
DisableDevice +10
EscapeArtist +10
Ride +10
Finally, Human gives:
Base Attack Bonus +5
Base Defense Bonus +5
Alchemist +5
Armorsmith +5
Artificer +5
Bowyer +5
Engineer +5
Iconographer +5
Jeweler +5
Leatherworker +5
Tailor +5
Weaponsmith +5
Apothecary +5
Dowser +5
Scavenger +5
Forester +5
Gemcutter +5
Miner +5
Sage +5
Sawyer +5
Smelter +5
Tanner +5
Weaver +5
Perception +5
Survival +5
Architect +5
Carpenter +5
Officer +5
Seneschal +5
Stonemason +5
Soldier +5
Arcana +5
Dungeoneering +5
Geography +5
History +5
Local +5
Nature +5
Stealth +5
HandleAnimal +5
Planes +5
Athletics +5
DisableDevice +5
EscapeArtist +5
Fly +5
Perform +5
Persuasion +5
Ride +5
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Goblin Squad Member
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I love to see a game again with Racial bonuses that matter. I hope the following applies:
Does a negative value of let us say -5 for a skill, mean that you will never be able to get that skill higher then 295(195 in training, the rest in other bonusses)? Possibly locking you out of the highest, elite recipes(that need a skill of 295+)?
And that a +10 means that you actually have to buy one *less* tier of a skill-line to reach the maximum of 300?
Or is that you can rather get that skill with the +-bonus to 310, and can get skills with a negative to 300 anyway with other bonusses?
I would prefer the first iteration. If you only have to buy 19x tiers of Gemcutter instead of 20, then you are talking a serious saving of XP.
I could also see problems with skills above 300. I am guessing any incremental bonusses to a higher skill(like a faster queue) will have become rather tiny at those high levels(diminishing returns?), however I also hope that a high skill will open up elite recipes(hard skill requirements for recipes). Else I do not see many people really bothering with paying hundreds of thousands of XP for those last levels. But that would mean there'd have to be certain recipes that need a skill above 300, in order to make that bonus above 300 have some meaning.
So therefore I feel it is better that the "reward" of a racial bonus is in the fact that you can save a huge chunk of XP, while still being able to make the best stuff (skill 300)
I hope my assuming about crafting skills is not too far off.
Choose wisely and you can save yourself a lot of XP that you can spend otherwise. This also makes me more curious as to what bonusses future Races will have.
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Goblin Squad Member
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-5 means you will cap at 195 from training alone and you will need 105 points of bonus if you want to reach the cap of 300.
+10 means fully trained will put you at 210. You'd cap with 90 points of bonus.
Note that it's not anticipated that people will be working with 100ish points of skill bonus by default. The cap isn't the goal nor is it likely to be a reasonable target for most players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I kind of wish that elves got a Forester bonus, but I can also see that taking wood out of the forest is not thier favorite (as a general racial stereotype).
Doesn't Forester cover herblore as well as logging? And the logging isn't clear-cutting but removing some wood from the forest. While dwarves have advantages with enduring hard work, I think the Forester should be in the elves' corner. Likewise dowsing - they just seem a more magical folk..
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Goblin Squad Member
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-5 means you will cap at 195 from training alone and you will need 105 points of bonus if you want to reach the cap of 300.
+10 means fully trained will put you at 210. You'd cap with 90 points of bonus.
Note that it's not anticipated that people will be working with 100ish points of skill bonus by default. The cap isn't the goal nor is it likely to be a reasonable target for most players.
Mmm, thanks for the explanation. I should probably be a bit less enthusiastic about the racial bonusses then. I guess a +10 bonus does give you a bit of a headstart, but not something that a dedicated player that has a negative for that skill, can't overcome in (a short) time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I guess a +10 bonus does give you a bit of a headstart, but not something that a dedicated player that has a negative for that skill, can't overcome in (a short) time.
That should be true of any bonus source. Nothing should make any particular path defacto the "only option" if you want to accomplish something. Races should be for flavour, not so that you can be a better "xxxxxx" than anyone who isn't that race.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Darn Elves and their Arcane Attack Bonus. I'll show them! I will be a better Dwarven Mage than they ever could be! :-)That shouldn't be hard. I'd expect elves to make terrible dwarven mages.
They cannot grow a decent beard and cannot hold their ale. So yeah they would fail.
Then again dwarves would need to totter around on stilts to pass as elves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Darn Elves and their Arcane Attack Bonus. I'll show them! I will be a better Dwarven Mage than they ever could be! :-)That shouldn't be hard. I'd expect elves to make terrible dwarven mages.They cannot grow a decent beard and cannot hold their ale. So yeah they would fail.
Then again dwarves would need to totter around on stilts to pass as elves.
They'd have to shave, too. How embarrassing would that be the next day?
"Caught in a glorious fireball, it was. Luckily, I think the follicles survived, so it'll be back!"
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Goblin Squad Member
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I guess a +10 bonus does give you a bit of a headstart, but not something that a dedicated player that has a negative for that skill, can't overcome in (a short) time.That should be true of any bonus source. Nothing should make any particular path defacto the "only option" if you want to accomplish something. Races should be for flavour, not so that you can be a better "xxxxxx" than anyone who isn't that race.
Well, for me personally I do not agree with that. I am fine with having to lock myself into a Race that has some negative. Sometimes I choose for the flavor, and accept the negative that comes with it, sometimes I want the perk and choose my race accordingly. I am neither a powergamer nor a roleplayer though. I guess I am a minority so it is probably good business to not do it that way anymore.
Everquest removed a lot of Race and Class penalties too after a few years.
I am still curious wether these companies have statistics to back up these changes. Does the old system truly scare subscribers away? Or is it a Customer Service nightmare, with people constantly complaining about the penalties? Or do they cave in to a vocal minority that haunt the forums, while most really don't care that much?
Or is it lazy design?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I guess a +10 bonus does give you a bit of a headstart, but not something that a dedicated player that has a negative for that skill, can't overcome in (a short) time.That should be true of any bonus source. Nothing should make any particular path defacto the "only option" if you want to accomplish something. Races should be for flavour, not so that you can be a better "xxxxxx" than anyone who isn't that race.Well, for me personally I do not agree with that. I am fine with having to lock myself into a Race that has some negative. Sometimes I choose for the flavor, and accept the negative that comes with it, sometimes I want the perk and choose my race accordingly. I am neither a powergamer nor a roleplayer though. I guess I am a minority so it is probably good business to not do it that way anymore.
Everquest removed a lot of Race and Class penalties too after a few years.
I am still curious wether these companies have statistics to back up these changes. Does the old system truly scare subscribers away? Or is it a Customer Service nightmare, with people constantly complaining about the penalties? Or do they cave in to a vocal minority that haunt the forums, while most really don't care that much?
Or is it lazy design?
GW could go old school 1E AD&D. Making it where certain races have a max ability score w/o magic and females had a lesser max when it came to Strength.
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Goblin Squad Member
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GW could go old school 1E AD&D. Making it where certain races have a max ability score w/o magic and females had a lesser max when it came to Strength.I guess a +10 bonus does give you a bit of a headstart, but not something that a dedicated player that has a negative for that skill, can't overcome in (a short) time.That should be true of any bonus source. Nothing should make any particular path defacto the "only option" if you want to accomplish something. Races should be for flavour, not so that you can be a better "xxxxxx" than anyone who isn't that race.Well, for me personally I do not agree with that. I am fine with having to lock myself into a Race that has some negative. Sometimes I choose for the flavor, and accept the negative that comes with it, sometimes I want the perk and choose my race accordingly. I am neither a powergamer nor a roleplayer though. I guess I am a minority so it is probably good business to not do it that way anymore.
Everquest removed a lot of Race and Class penalties too after a few years.
I am still curious wether these companies have statistics to back up these changes. Does the old system truly scare subscribers away? Or is it a Customer Service nightmare, with people constantly complaining about the penalties? Or do they cave in to a vocal minority that haunt the forums, while most really don't care that much?
Or is it lazy design?
Well played. :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is why instead of hard bonuses and negatives for feats there should instead be a bonus or penalty % that always applies. For example, a dwarf gets a -5% XP cost to all strength based skills (or the list of skills seen here). I'm really not a fan of the +5/+10 bonuses, pretty much makes race an afterthought that only makes a difference in the start.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is why instead of hard bonuses and negatives for feats there should instead be a bonus or penalty % that always applies. For example, a dwarf gets a -5% XP cost to all strength based skills (or the list of skills seen here). I'm really not a fan of the +5/+10 bonuses, pretty much makes race an afterthought that only makes a difference in the start.
The bonus always applies, beginning, middle, and end of your career. +10 racial bonus means that you're a better, faster crafter than your competition throughout your leveling progress, and it means you have an easier time making a bonus template to get to 300 than anyone else does. As Stephen said:
"While others are figuring out enchants, feats, and temporary buffs to hit the 300 cap, the racial bonuses makes it easier, so you can focus some of your build on something else beyond hitting a 300.
"And as you level up, you'll be functionally a rank or two ahead for most of the benefits of the skill, just not for meeting prereqs."
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding then. If you have a +10, does that mean the cost to get to 11 is the same cost as somebody getting to 1 who doesn't have the bonus? I was assuming the cost to train 10->11 would be the same. But if the bonus is in the background, IE you are really training to level 1 even though your effective skill is 11, then this is the same effect as what I mentioned on the % training bonus. I'm happy with that system and it will always have an effect early and late game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You get 10 points of skill per training rank. Your effective final skill is 10* your training rank, plus or minus any bonuses such as the racial bonus.
Dwarves have Miner +20 and Dowser -5. If he trains both skills 10 times, he'll have 120 Miner and 95 Dowser, for the same XP cost.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding then. If you have a +10, does that mean the cost to get to 11 is the same cost as somebody getting to 1 who doesn't have the bonus? I was assuming the cost to train 10->11 would be the same. But if the bonus is in the background, IE you are really training to level 1 even though your effective skill is 11, then this is the same effect as what I mentioned on the % training bonus. I'm happy with that system and it will always have an effect early and late game.
I think it means that a dwarven miner, for example pays the same xp to buy Mining 5 as the next guy. But with his 20% bonus, he'll either be mining faster, or will be consulting the Mining 6 loot table, or will just get a +20 result on a unified loot table.
I think it might means the dwarven smelter has a better chance of getting a random +1 or +2 to refining rolls. And the dwarven smith can skimp a bit on materials and still match the results of a human of the same skill.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All else being equal, a [non-race] person who trains to 10 might have a 260 on their roll while the [race] person will have a 270.
If [non-race] needs level 15 to get 300, [race] person will be at 300 at 14 and can stop training that. At that point, they have the same chance, no matter how much more training they do.
[edit: for a 10% racial bonus]
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Goblin Squad Member
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My latest info is Dwarves have +20 mining/smelting while humans have +5 to those skills.
A human Smelter 1 has skill 15, a dwarf smelter 1 has skill 30. When they're both smelter 12s the human has 125 skill and the dwarf has 140.
I believe this allows a dwarf miner 6 to access T2 materials while harvesting, with skill 80, where humans need to spend the extra xp for miner 8 to start to get them (or miner 7 + 5 mining from an imaginary-for-now commoner gear item). But level requirements on recipes are level requirements and the racial skill bonus doesn't help there.
But true they can't make it such a strong bonus that no professional miner isn't a dwarf or worse the WoW Druid Affect, "You're a dwarf why are you doing anything besides healing mining?"
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Goblin Squad Member
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But true they can't make it such a strong bonus that no professional miner isn't a dwarf or worse the WoW Druid Affect, "You're a dwarf why are you doing anything besideshealingmining?"
That was always my concern with racial bonuses. I do not mind up a bit of extra work to reach the same end-point, but given enough time and effort any bonuses or penalties should fade away. The aptitudes should guide higher proportions of races to follow certain tracks because it is easier for them, but it should not lock out other groups entirely.
That race bonus looks very cool.
I am disappointed in a lot of things with Alpha. Way too many crashes. I hate that you have to click on a player to target. I was playing with my friend and we were sparring with bows and whoever got the target locked then moved back and forth won because you couldn't really click on them when they wiggle.
The rep is strange, indeed. I wanted to show my weapon and pressed 1 to draw it. So stupid. haha. Lost rep then and ended up having to leave town. In the end, I killed him and we played around (as said above.) At one time, he came up behind me and killed me in the wilderness and he lost like 600 rep even tho his rep was perfect and mine was like -4000.
i am disappointed that there isn't any stam or encum. Would really be bad if the game started without those. No loot drop on death is also disappointing. Cuz I kind of want to play the game when it's not on cheatmode easy for at least one alpha build.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Tab targeting works, you just have to poll through everything in range if your tab selects the wrong target.
They seriously need either option tab functions or to get nodes and quest objects off the selection list. It is not fun to cycle through all close nodes, 3 "sack of grain" and several wrong targets while the ogre you want beats on you.
I could just "click" on the ogre, but why do I get used to tab targeting to "not" use it? ;)
