Awkward Things That Should Be Addressed For An Officially Released Game.

I never touched the quests before "release". All I have to say is the new user experience is horrid and like older games you're just pushed off a boat into an ocean of systems and content and expected to swim.
Some people swim and the rest drown. This is not how you retain new players or get new players. This being niche is part of its' charm, but it shouldn't be a secret club requiring hours of research to know how the basic game systems work.

 

For the longest time I didn't know you jumped when you released space. I so used to the "quick tap" from most games that I just assumed it was input lag that's just part of general clunky animation of the game, lmfao

 

Theres lots of videos of things that have been changed because the game was in development and they are completely irrelevant now. One of these is the forcing of the free trial accounts down a single path. As others have stated, all free trial accounts can now choose any path at the start (but are still limited to that path only).

Also, regarding voice acting, it is not as simple as you think. You would need to voice act for every localized version of the game, which would be half a dozen or so recordings of the voice acting.

Edit: OK this video has been brought to my attention. Seems like the player could not choose their path at the oracle on player creation scene when talking to the oracle for the first time. I'm thinking it could be a bug where the path is set and cannot be changes as soon as the questions are answered. If that is the case, then the path should not be set until the complete conversation sequence with the oracle has been completed.

 

I also watched recent streams in which the free trial user experienced this.

 

Then there is some bug affecting this, because I saw a stream a day or two before release during which the streamer experienced just as the OP describes.

Edit: I apologize, I forgot your edit 2 seconds after reading it!

 

I totally agree with your criticism about slowing down when you're walking next to an npc. I hate that with the fires of, well, a place with lots of fire. To make it worse, someone's pet is treated as an npc, so if a player on the screen has a pet, you're now slowed down if his pet walks by you. You get stopped suddenly by a freaking cat. A cat.

 

I agree

 

I wouldn't mind how jumping works ("Mario" jumps where you control your position while in the air) if it didn't COMPLETELY PREVENT jumping when your toes are up aganst something while trying to move forward! I understand preventing jumping when not on a level surface, people were jumping around absurd places, but I do not understand the "toe glue" they also added. It makes jumping really annoying.

Charging jumps is an interesting idea, but it results in a completely counter-intuitive "jump when you release the button" that goes against the instinct of people who have played any platformer video games since '80s. Even playing this game for almost three years, it is still a pain in the ass for me.

Suggestion: have it jump on key down, then "charge" by how long you keep it held down while jumping.

Learn to use the E key. Yes, seriously, this makes the game so much easier to play.

They don't seem to have anyone with human factors UI experience. Which is okay because they properly shouldn't have had the budget for one. They never seemed to understand about annoying parts of the UI, or things like visual contrast. But again, those are things that a AAA crew would be expected to do, and they were definitely not on a AAA budget.

And I don't like how the camera keeps getting zoomed back in for some reason. The field of view is just too narrow by default, and I scroll wheel back to see more of what's around me without having to use the right-click drag all the time. And constantly I have to do it again and again. If in a small area, fine, clip the camera in, but zoom it back out again when not boxed in. A bonus would be to do what FFXI does, which is to change the actual field of view as the camera zooms in and out.

But again, they didn't have the AAA budget to have people whose job is to get such small human factors details right. It still doesn't help that they seem to have nobody who cares about it. They may be trying to please the people who are vocal about graphics being less than pixel-perfect, but they don't care about the people to whom the controls feel wrong, because (I guess) most games get that right early, or maybe start with an earlier code base that got it right, so it's not normally a problem. It's also possible this is from something deep in Unity, which means they can't do something about it, but I don't think that's likely about the jumping.

Yes. I hate the way jumping works. It's an un-intuitive mess.

But that's a standard thing with Ultima games? The first thing you get are questions, then that sets your path.

It's not like this is the only game that has ever done this. FFXI does this, but they eventually relented and removed the effect when talking through... an AFK player. (The game design encourages being AFK with bazaar mode on in order to sell things. This results in dozens or even hundreds of AFK players in the main cities. Now imagine being delayed by walking through that.)

Still, it bugs me when a guard is going in roughly the same direction as you, then turns the same time you turn, all the while saying "Do you mind?" And the NPCs who constantly stand in the middle of a traffic area. But this bothers me much less than jumping and camera view.

 

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I really have to disagree with the OP on movement animation.

SOTA got it right because now when I go back to play other games they are the ones that feel clunky.

 

I think at least those who said so here legitimately prefer the chargeup jump to the tap jump. I dont think settling is what’s being enjoyed

 

This movement animation is eqvuivalent to me creating my own game on Unity for the first time and showing my friends, hey look what I made. That is the quality level of the movement animation.

 

I'm sorry I have no intention of putting your comments down, however you are wrong...

I can think of more then half of the tier5+ maps where charging jump is required to get to certain advantage points. Bloodbay has a awesome point at the top of the volcano that definitely is hard to platform up to, especially without being able to put some extra force into your jump

 

We judging from the livestream we get to have it both ways. BTW, you're wrong @Grape-Ape. Even mobile games are more responsive.
The interface is so bad that I remapped many of my keys and use an XBOX controller for some of the repetitive movements. I am glad it took lots of flaming on steam and an overwhelming number of comments from new players for them to finally admit that their setup is atrocious from a UX standpoint.

 

I'm sorry I think you misunderstand my statement. I was commenting on the players account of not encountering any terrain that requires charging the jump.

I don't mind if they change the keys. there is however areas in the game that do require quite a leap. I hope they do not reduce the ability to reach these places without the "+2 jump" artifact

 

You're right I did misinterpret your comment. I assumed that I had to charge my jump because I am so fat and wearing plate armor I need as much help getting over things as possible.

 

The animation for the avatar disappearing and reappearing also looks like the stock unity animation.

When I say graphics I am lumping Visuals, animation, and landscapes into one.

I know they are a small team but I feel when a game is released it should look at least as good as a game released the same year it goes into production.

Example, Sota should look as good as a mmo released in 2013-2014. Minus the games with stupidly large budgets. Really, a game released in 2013 went into production 2-4 years earlier. If you can't pull off better graphics then a game that started work 6-8 years ago your doing something wrong.

 

Thank you.

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We actually put a lot of effort into our movement system to allow players to be able to seamlessly run in 8 directions without being slowed down while changing direction and at the same time allowing weapon attacks (both regular and special attacks) to be used without slowing down the character. We also worked into the movement a mechanic that allows for a variable range of speed as well as including encumbered effects. Our system of movement is specifically geared to allow players to run around enemies and still attack at regular speeds uninterrupted. We actually tried out a system of movement and combat that was slower, had more transitioning and more full body use that would interrupt movement when attacking and it felt a lot more sluggish compared to what we have now. Our goal is for a responsive and quick combat system and the movement animations reflect that goal.

We are looking into many areas and options including jumping and we are in the process of implementing more voices in the game.

We value all of your feedback and take it into consideration, as we have done all along on this project. I assure you, we do care about giving players a good experience and continue to balance and tweak aspects of the game to help it be fun for as many people as possible. A lot of time and feedback and hard work has gone into the game and we will continue to work just as hard to continue to make the game as smooth and fun as we can as we move forward.

Thanks for the great feedback, everyone, and please share any more specific ideas you may have!

 

I have only just been using the Black Cat so not sure how long this has been in but i think recently. My black cat now when i go into combat mode, enters a 'combat mode' of his own, ears back , body skewed and lets out a squeal...its very well done and i like these small but detailed additions. The animations are top-notch in the game i think and have said before so no complaints from me there.

 

I love the combat and movement in SotA. My only complaint is this:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...t-chris-daily-blog.85583/page-326#post-995535