Retro MMO player and companion with some praise and questions

Discussion in 'New Player Welcome' started by Justice Owen1, Sep 29, 2018.

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  1. Justice Owen1

    Justice Owen1 Avatar

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    Hello all, myself and a long time MMO/RPG veteran have jumped on the Shroud train after a restless bout of bouncing between games.

    So far we have found Shroud to be quiet enjoyable and presents itself as some combination of EverQuest Online Adventures, Vanguard (R.I.P Brad's second project), Elder Scrolls Online and a tinge of EverQuest II.

    We also appreciate many of the little things -

    Quest and stories have fun easter eggs +1 for the Newt reference in the Esmeralda Ghost saga.
    Combat is not over in two seconds every time
    Quest and craft related items auto sort to top of list and get highlighted in white when in a NPC trade or crafting station window




    I'd also like to give a personal thank you to the developers for two mechanics/systems :

    1. A skill based only platform, where numerical level progression is not tied to the character.
    Carrying on from the EverQuest, DnD and MUD eras, skill based progression was sorely lacking from MMOs and RPGs. It's great to see not only are some games using it again though in the way Shroud has done it is even more exciting.

    2. Their world phasing system. I said many years ago after the first era of what we know now as 'modern' MMOs, that would one day someone would need to make a system that allows for balance between solo play and group play. This meant giving people the option of playing with others or alone at their discretion. Rather than take this on board, the best we got was a scenario where they would alter the difficulty of content.

    After a while it got so dumbed down that all the pre 'end game' content was a solo grind and then you hit a wall at the higher levels where you couldn't progress without a group.

    This left you with no need or necessity to interact with others for half the game and if /when you did, it was through anonymous group finders, which had you in situations where no one spoke and you never saw one another afterwards.


    I am not saying that so far Shroud has been a cake walk. And nor is it EverQuest, in that you need a group for low level mobs(which I do miss...), rather it's trying to find a fair balance beyond just wattering down mobs or making them super silly.


    Also, I appreciate quiet time and not having to watch some naked guy named WTFHOTSAUCEHILLARY leaning into a cinematic, breaking my immersion at an inopportune time while I am talking to an NPC.

    Therefore, thank you - it feels like a personal victory as I got shouted at, talked down to and ridiculed for both ideas. And someone actually managed to achieve it!


    Though leading onto other things I may consider questionable or maybe I need to understand more, I have some questions :

    1. Is the combat meant to be mostly (put aside auto attack vs free attack for the moment) auto attack based with a few timely manually used abilities thrown in? I can't quite figure out if the auto hits are effective enough to let them do their thing. I am more than happy to let auto attack be the primary means of inflicting damage (I played enough classic EverQuest to appreciate the beautiful simplicity).

    Or am I meant to be spamming my focus cost abilities as much as possible? We have figured out what we think is how the cool downs work on focus abilities - as you can hold them to charge up however each time you use it, a soft reuse timer is engaged. You can't use that many charges/ticks until it achives a hard cooldown. Though you can keep using the ability until it runs out of charges/ticks and then you wait for the duration it states on the tool tip to use it at one charge, or wait the entire duration (cool down X charge ticks).

    Any reason to never fully charge an attack then?



    2. Is there any way to make the game always enable auto attack on the mobs I am attacking or attacks me? I found that auto attack doesn't always engage unless I intentionally select a target. Oddly sometimes it works on it's own.


    3. Must we always unsheathe weapons before using an aggressive ability? I wouldn't mind doing it though there's a significant delay. I often have to use it twice to get the weapons out, especially if I used a non aggressive ability moments before.

    SO what ends up happening is, I see a fight - I run up to assist, and I hit an ability button. However since I am not holding my weapons out, it uses the ability on the utility bar. Then I have to wait for that to finish, and and a further few seconds before unsheathing. Then another few seconds for it to finish the animation before I can attack.


    4. Clearly performance is not a staple objective at the moment. I would ask for tips though seems doesn't matter what settings(sans maybe shadow distance/quality) you select on high end gaming computers, it still is poor.

    I noticed hiding the UI netted me 5-10 fps. Are there any lite versions of the UI or tricks to hiding the entire UI until you're in combat?


    5. I read elsewhere that the player/party vitals element cannot be moved, is that correct?


    6. Is there a way to disable the dodge mechanic when quickly double tapping/moving in a direction?


    7. Anyone notice that the A button on xbox 360 controller does not respond in game?


    8. How does the Riposte ability work? I figured you have to wait for the mob to attack though there's little chance you can charge it and let go at the right moment as the combat animations aren't very impacting and therefore clear.


    9. I set up a new chat tab and dragged it out of the main chat window. It is always hidden (both in and out of combat). I want it to behave like the main one and show only in combat.

    10. Is trading limited to non visitors? I just wanted to check I had not overlooked anything.

    11. Will there ever be native support (vertical fov?) for 21:9 or specifically 3440x1440?

    12. Can we eat avatars yet? *Courtesy of Dinsoo

    That's all we have for now.

    Thank you
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2018
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  2. Sean Silverfoot

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    Welcome to the game and enjoyed your write-up.

    6. - NO clue, never played the game with a controller
    5.- Not that I know of, possible if you change key association???
    4.- Correct
    3. Performance is ALWAYS on their schedule almost every release in some way. Performance over the last 6-7 months have made crazy nice jumps.
    2. Auo-Attack is controlled by a key, sometimes I unknowingly turn it off, could that be it?
    1.- For my own use I vary a lot between auto attack and feeding a few timely attacks. With lesser opponents usually auto-attack handles it. Then sometimes I'm hard core on my skilled attacks. I think situation makes the choice.


    All above only my thoughts. Doesn't mean they are all correct..lol

    Again Welcome. If I or PaxLair can be of any help let me know. Same name in game
     
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  3. Mingo Ebonmark

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    I always use auto attack unless I am trying to achieve some kind of crowd control. I use T to toggle auto attack on and off. Auto attack gives me a lot of extra DPS as I am continuously striking the enemy while I charge my glyph attacks. It's important to balance your combat between spamming glyphs and charging glyphs(charged glyphs use much less focus and are more potent but you will still get more dps if you spam the glyphs)to try and reduce focus consumption. I also use TAB to auto target enemies. Sometimes never fully charging an attack is useful if the attack has status effects such as root or bleed and you need it applied fast.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2018
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  4. Justice Owen1

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    Thank you both. At the moment we cannot disable/enable auto attack. Which leads me onto a question about the key binding simply known as 'attack'
    I have updated my question list and added on about that.
     
  5. Dinsoo

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    12) No we can't eat avatars yet, sigh.
     
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  6. Jason_M

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    Visitors can't purchase from player vendors, if that's what you're asking.

    For riposte, you must engage the Parry glyph and await a "Parried" notification that you have successfully parried an attack. You must then, within a very small window of time, activate riposte. The result will be an extra powerful attack!
     
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  7. Luca Xante

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  8. Spungwa

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    Options -> Controls -> un-tick Enable Combat Rolling

    Did this myself after killing myself a few times in Krul by rolling off platforms.

    The pin (top right of chat window) makes it say on the screen and not auto hide after a while, pin is not stopping it moving like in most games. I think the reason you think the other one unhides while in combat is that in combat text is streaming into it. But I could be wrong.

    Welcome to the game.


    Regards
    Spung
     
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  9. Vladamir Begemot

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    Easiest thing to do is hit Tab, it'll autoselect someone, usually the closest enemy. And yes, you'll have to draw your weapon first, so just get in the habit of pushing Z, then Tab.

    Re: disabling/enabling auto attack, there is a key binding for that. Check in controls.

    Re: Parry/Ripost... you will sometimes Parry even if you don't have the skill activated, but will do it much more often when you do. Ripost does much more damage after a successful Parry, but still works as a normal, low damage attack as well.

    Visitors: Full players can trade TO them, but Visitors can't trade things back, or buy things from their vendors.

    Welcome!
     
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  10. Justice Owen1

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    Thank you Mr. Begemot and Jason RE: trading.
    Rather we are struggling to trade with one another as Visitors.
     
  11. Vladamir Begemot

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    If right clicking on the other guy and clicking Trade, then putting things in the window doesn't light up the Trade buttons, then it doesn't work.
     
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  12. Beaumaris

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    Welcome Justice Owen!
     
  13. Vodalian

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    Question one:
    In addition to the locked skill glyphs which can be charged:
    You can also have dynamic "empty" slots where glyphs are dealt by a system you set up when you make the deck.
    These dynamic glyphs can't be charged, but they can be stacked on top of each other. If you stack two or more of the same, it's the same as charging. If you stack two different, they can sometimes combo into a whole new skill. This can be done by dragging with mouse, or with keyboard (keyboard is the only way it can be done efficiently).

    Some people use locked deck only and charge the skills, but many use a combination of locked and dynamic.
    Either way, the abilities which cost mana will deal more damage than the auto attack. If you use dynamic decks, you generally want to time one ability between each auto attack (at least if you use a slower weapon like me.)
     
  14. Elwyn

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    I think you may not have noticed that a fundamental part of the matchmaking system is no world shards. Only individual zones are instanced, based on population limits, but with housing/deco changes synced between the instances. You will never be on the "wrong server". You can always meet up with your friends. There is always a chance that you can meet any and every other player in the game. And that points out one of the problems with group finders, when they can match you with someone from another server, neither of you have much reputation to lose if you suck.

    7. there is no official support for playing with controllers yet

    10. the basic rule is nothing comes from a trial visitor into the economy. Items and emotes (and I guess crafting recipes) can be traded TO visitors, but trial accounts can't buy anything from other players because gold would go in the other direction. Since this is a "buy to play" game, you can all the grind resources want on a trial account, but you have to buy into the game to sell them to other players. Of course this rule would extend to trial-to-trial trades.
     
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  15. Justice Owen1

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    I've caught up on how to arrange the steam account linking, though one thing I noticed is that the green button to login with steam is always faded out?
     
  16. Anpu

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    Are you using steam or the stand alone installer to start the game?

    The stand alone version has the steam login faded out.

    And in my opinion, using the stand alone version is just faster than using steam (for patching). I stopped using steam a long time ago to play this.

    I still use steam to play other games.
     
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  17. Blake Blackstone

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  18. Dinsoo

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    Nice to eat you!
     
  19. Justice Owen1

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    I mentioned previously how the game presented itself, a mixture of well known titles and obviously influenced heavily by Ultima.
    Though after playing a bit now, we're starting to wonder where mechanically and style wise it fits in the genre.

    Clearly it's not a true old school MMORPG because you don't gain the majority of your experience from monster killing. And you certainly do not form groups and 'pull' mobs to a camp as with EverQuest, FFXI, EQOA etc.
    In that regard, it feels more as a solo content game, with occasional needs for assistance from others.
    Dungeons seem to be any area that you can enter from the overworld that is not a town or city.
    Players and the developers talk a lot about interesting things such as seasonal content, moon and comet/ancestral bodies and how it affects mobs and loot; however I don't see or feel any of this in-game

    I am just not sure I understand the overall approach of the game. What is the general flow meant to be?

    • Do you rush through to a certain skill level(instead of player level) like in ESO and then the 'real' game begins after a certain point?
    • Is there an actual 'end game' and the focus is meant to be on that mainly?
    • Where is the party at? Meaning, where are people hanging out, is everyone at 'end game' by now?
    • Is there ever a focus on group content or dungeon crawling at any point?
    • How does the scaling of content work. Does it auto adjust whether my multiplayer mode is private/party/open?



    Thanks all
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2018
  20. majoria70

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    Hello @Justice Owen and welcome to the game. I played Everquest 2 and not Everquest and I did love Vanguard very much. I also played Ultima Online. I played some Ultimas but really enjoyed some other Single player games a bit more than the Ultima single player games. Ok now this game is different so far. To help you better understand read below.

    The game got funded on mostly Pledges that included housing and the sale of Player owned towns. Housing and player owned towns were the major funding for this game and is basically why it exists today. The game started with a vision of course as most do but in the case of this game many, many fingers in the pie have given it many, many different directions. Those fingers are called backers ;). We all had our own vision of what we wished for this game and that started in 2013. I have been here since Nov 2013. So Developers made this game with constant direction changing from feedback from it's backers. Thus we are a bit all over the place.

    So as to your questions: There is no rushing needed. As a plan for leveling you can plan to get skills to 40 then click on the brownish triangle on the skill to set to maintain. The skill tree is your k key. The pool you are building from doing anything in the game such as killing creatures, doing quests, crafting etc is broken down into two tabs. Watching your pool becomes important later. Your skills advance draining the pool and when emptied it could steal from your skills. We have no caps so you can go in any tree.

    I recommend choosing your weapon or play style and getting all of that and specializing in it. You also will need some trees that give resistances. In the fire tree get fireproof for sure. You can take your skills to 80 and only go further in certain skills depending on what you are doing. For myself I play a paladin type character weilding a 2 handed axe and wear chain mail. I have gotten lots of heals and specialized in bludgeons and healing tree. Since I also have a healing deck too. Some prefer to go the undead route and use the death shield to leach heals from the enemies and corpse explode them.

    You can actually try it all and set up a deck for each way you want to try since we have no caps to limit us. Anyway don't forget to get your buffs from eating food, and jumping in the waters in devotionals. These are 9 hour buffs. If you point at town names on the map it will tell you what is in them and you can find towns that have devotional shrines to get that buff. I never fight without them. And don't forget to point at signs to read them. These are not just deco ;). Anyway it will be a learning process and there is no worries since it is a process you will learn as you go and just ask at each point and others are very happy to help.

    Well I would say if we had an end game since this is a sandbox game with many other components to it end game would be finishing all 3 quest lines. Episode 2 will bring more story and a new quest system, since the one we have is a bit buggy, new lands, new content, and even I've heard treasure hunting and who knows what all.

    As to the sandbox part of the game and how that can affect those who wish for goals to achieve always that pathway is more obscure. We have quests, we have combat, we have pvp, pve, we have a music system that allows us to play songs together with up to 8 players, we have vendors to sell and buy from other players and even trade towns with mostly vendors, we have dungeons and bosses and mini bosses, we have fishing that is just now getting expanded upon, we have housing that includes decorating and dying furniture even, and we have role playing player groups and non roleplaying players, we have looking for group. Finding your own niche will be part of your journey.

    We have lots of things to try and do. It will keep you busy but you don't have to rush through it. There are a lot of really cool things to see in this game. How it all ties in together imo is a bit of a weak link still different from other games who have ironed that out. Group content is mainly used to get more xp or to just hang out. You have to be in a group to sync a song (play together) but you can play songs by yourself also for example. This young game is still trying to figure that out. I have heard there will be one day an achievement system that may give cause for more reasons to do things. This game truly has a lot to do and feedback is pulling it more together. I think it is worth the ride, well I must I've been here almost since the very beginning. I am again Majoria in game and happy to help anytime.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2018
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