R16 First Impressions

Well what can I say really? I've only played a couple of hours so far. In that time I've managed to complete the hat quest and explore the bulk of the Novia map and go back home within the span of 22M of bandwidth. (That makes me happy). Single player of course.

A lot of people have expressed astonishment already at the improved performance and visuals so I'll spare everyone the all cap acronyms.. but I'm forced to agree.. wow what a difference the new lighting and cloth sim makes!

It's hard to say anything bad at this point.. but then I came into the game after several early patches so there must've been SOME negatives.

I did notice a few cotton plants in Solace Forest that needed light issues fixed.. ie they didn't have shadows applied to them so they stuck out in the dark.

First thing I noticed was the cloth sim.. that is so much better! Then I stepped out my door into a sunny day in Westhollow and wow what a difference..

Grunvald Shardfall was scaled down a LOT.. SO much better now.. I could be happy if it's left that size on the map.

To be honest I expected the overall scale of the Novia map to seem bigger. Like twice the size it is now. Not that it's a bad thing. If anything is going to trip me up on the overworld map though it's that I expect things to be farther away.

It really feels like a lot of work when into this release just in the visual and performance improvements alone. I wouldn't be surprised if R16 goes down as one that everyone remembers.

 

Agree graphically. I was stunned.

 

I will admit I haven't even logged on due to POE....

 

Hmmm POE - point of entry? Meaning what? I could be duh but I don't get what you are saying Rune.

 

Pillars of eternity.

 

lol Yes, I guess my mind is not on that game.

 

The Novia overworld needs to be at least 4x bigger.

 

If Control Points and quests have players locked down, does it really need to be larger?

Bigger would be better, I agree. But it's just a map with points of interest. If there are not enough points of interest, that's not a problem with map size.

 

I have no problems with the Overworld being much larger, but only if it's filled with diverse content (not just another random forest map). With R16 large parts of the map feel empty (I know, that more content is coming, of course)

 

So far control points don't really 'lock players down'. There are always ways around them.. if you're willing to take a detour.

 

There are multiple control points. If none of them are passable you're locked down.

Just like if there were hordes of undead roaming the lands you wanted to get to. There may be ways around that - we don't know for sure. But I can see combinations of events effectively keeping players from going where they wanted - temporarily.

 

You're assuming those control points block entire areas of the map. We're both just speculating at this point I suppose since they're not all in yet.. but if Brightbone for example is a control point.. but the Eastmarch Gap is not.. .. I can always take the long way around to get from Ardoris to Midras.

I suspect though that once the game launches that players will keep those control points relatively free and clear.

 

Salut,

I agree with you. I am on Linux and since R15, I can see and feel some very positive improvements.

In this release, I have to admit that Unity 5 has brought this little touch witch makes me very happy. Game loading a bit faster, running in the game is really much smoother, graphics have also improved (actualy, I play with all options activated in 1920x1200 60Hz). Combat are more pleasant.

But, the biggest stuff to me, is the cloak. I was really fed up about that in the prévious releases but now... Woaw, that's something else!
The cloak seems so realistic while the character is moving, I mean the fluidity of its movement is really great. I love that!

all in all, it's very good release and I look forward to see R17.

A+
Debcool

 

I actually think the cloak moves around a bit too much a lot of times.. like maybe it's not heavy enough.. it's almost bouncy.. but at this point I don't want to nitpick. Besides I'm really am happy with it right now. It's a heck of a lot better than a stiff board which I really dislike and I'll take it as is over what it was any day!

 

Just downloaded the latest patch a few hours ago & am just about to setup my R16 character. SOTA has been worth every penny I"ve put into it so far and my confidence in it grows with every major version.