15 minute first impressions

Setting the stage: a first time player with no MMO experience (yes, none). I've played many top-down /isometric RPG, 5-6 FPS, a few over-the-shoulder games but no MMO. This is a more of a stream of consciousness as I played for 15 minutes. There is a tl;dr summary at the bottom of the key points.

Currently I've gone through character creation, basic camera and player movements, combat, and looting. Will add more as I play more (in 15 minute chunks )

Edit
I suppose I should mention that this is not my saying something is bad or good. This is exactly what I feel/think as a I play R11. I've never played a release prior to this so I do not know if something is better or worse that before. It simply is.
End Edit

Character Creation
I began with character creation; I was male. It started out fun as I picked my gender, skin tone, hair, and beard. When I got to the other options I played around but found that without strong tweaks to the overall face it was very similar to the basic male. I'd rather do a simple pick of nose types and then tweak rather than play with multiple options to get the jaw shape, face shape, and nose shape that I wanted. I was aiming for square-jawed, Roman nose, and a weathered face. Could not make a weathered face. No options for lines on the skins. Oh well. I felt this was enough and I wanted to play rather than trying to figure out the options to get the custom face I wanted. After all, it wouldn't be that important and I would probably be distinguished by my armor, head gear, & name. Whose going to recognize me from my face? The hair style is the distinct characteristic.

Camera & Running
Huh? Is it supposed to be this dark? Oh, I see I'm holding a torch. Still, props for realism, I think, but man, it is dark. Is there a graphics setting I can use to improve visibility on my screen? No? Dang. Okay, I changed my controls to be arrows, so lets try moving and playing with the camera. I moved the mouse. Oh, I need to press right mouse to look around right? Okay, the scenery is cool, but I wish the mouse moved the camera without having to hold something down. Let me combine that with movement. Not too bad, but having to combine with periodic right-click + movement to focus on something is annoying. *Goes to check forums* Oh, trackpad support isn't fully done yet.

Keyboard Controls
Okay, I think I remember the controls. I opened the character's doll, and inventory window. Now, I see that I can drag the harvesting gear to the hotbar. I can't drag the torch to the hotbar. Why not? How do I quickly equip / unequip? I can drag-drop (slowly), but I can't seem to hot-key any equipment. Oh well.

I'm going to talk to that guard now. Hello! Oh, the dialog window in small. Oh, I can resize. Nice. I asked about the undead. Huh, these others windows popped up! Oh, I see that I re-click on the dialog window after each response. Very annoying. Is there a preference setting for this? Oh, there is. Good. Why wasn't it the default?

Combat
I want to try fighting. I run out of town a bit in 1st-person view. I see a stag. I press Z. Oh, the hotbar changed and I see 4 controls. Is this my deck or special moves from the skills? I select the deer. Odd. It has a blue highlight like the townsfolk. Maybe it's because it isn't hostile. I press T to engage in combat. Nothing happens. I'm puzzled so I stop and check the R11 instructions. Oh, I need to double-click. Doh! I double click, and hey, it's red. Now I press T. Hm. Nothing happens. I press 1. Nothing. Oh, I need to be closer. This is annoying. I can't tell if my weapon is long enough because I can't see it when it is drawn (1st person view). I kill the stag and try some rabbits. Controls are hard. In need to turn the camera and walk and select options. I really wish the camera would follow my mouse and move and attack (with mouse button). Not the control scheme, but I supposed I can get used to it. I think will be hard though. I need to wait on the trackpad support to fully try it out.

Looting / Harvesting
I double-click on the dead corpse. It seems double-click is the method of saying I want to interact with object. Meh. Dang, it is a taking several seconds to load the body. I loot it. Nice. Hm. I did not need to select the skinning knife in my hotbar. Why is it there then? What is the purpose of the hotbar?

Hm. I want to see the non-list view. Oh. There is no take all option and my loot doesn't stack. I think I'll switch back to the list view.

Okay, I'll stop for now and try crafting later.

tl;dr version
#1 - No hotkeys for equip / unequip of torches. I have to press C, then I, and then drag & drop. A pain when I want to switch between it and the non-displaying shield.

#2 - When dealing with equipment: No double click or select-enter and then equip/unequip. I have to drag & drop to the slot. Why? Its slow. My armor & weapons can only go to 1 slot.

#3 - Q & E (rotate camera / player) is really slow. It seems faster when moving in 1st-person view, but this makes it a pain in combat when something runs from in front to behind me. I've no quick way to turn around.

#4 - Initiating actions seems slow to respond. Not stuttering or anything because everything runs smoothly, but like it slow to react when I opening windows, start a conversation, or moving items between inventory window & the paperdoll / hotbar. FYI, I've my mouse sensitivity higher than the Mac OS default.

#5 - When in first-person view and in combat I am wielding a sword. However, I have little idea about how close I need to be in order to be in range of rabbits and stags. My impression was that just about need needed to run into them in order to be close enough.

#6 - Trackpad. I know its an existing thing that's being addressed. Just throwing it out there. I'm used to using the mouse just for camera & attack (mouse press) and the keyboard pretty much everything else when not dealing with a top-down. I feel like I'm using a top-down game's control scheme for a 1st-person game.

#7 - Why do I need to double-click to fight? Why not just unsheathe the weapon and attack? This my my first instinct and I had to go back and check the instructions to see that I needed to double-click else it wouldn't work even after unsheathing.

#8 - I'm guessing the AI for woodland animals (stag, rabbit) isn't in yet? Because it is very dumb. Loop between point A to B even in combat.

 

So this is round #2. A little more than 15 minutes this time, but it was action-ish.

Exploring
I walk around, looked inside some homes. Not bad. Chairs w/ armrests that are next to a pole or table are a pain. If you sit down and then stand up you get stuck between the pole/table and the chair. I used jump to escape. One thing bothered me. If I single-click a door it has a green outline and the cursor is green. Other things had a green outline but the cursor is white. Apparently the green cursor is the indicator that something can be interacted with and not the green outline. It didn't make sense because why then was the outline green?

Combat #2
My main focus was to get better at combat and to do some crafting. I wandered around looking for hostile enemies. Eventually I found this graveyard with a dungeon of pain and suffering. In challenge #2 I came upon 3 wolves... There was no way to really fight them at lvl5. Mainly because I had to move the mouse while manipulating the keyboard in order to double click an enemy and avoid attacks. Then I had to choose 1 to 4 in order to unleash an attack. Yeah, I died -- fast. I couldn't really do all the inputs fast enough. I wished I could just simply attack without having to select the enemy. So I said screw it and wander to the overworld. This time I was in a wide open forest (just NW of Braemar). I soloed bears, wolves, spiders, and undead. Not too difficult. I got used to running in and out from an enemy and letting T's auto-attack smack them while my skills recharged. If I 2+ enemies I had to run away while luring just 1. Not easy.

Thankfully most wolves just stood in place w/o moving until I got really close. On top of them close. I was easy to handle the numbers so long as I didn't run into another one while fighting.

Then I got nauseous from the camera's movement. I stopped playing for a bit.

Crafting
Came back a bit later. I had found harvested many hides, some sulfur, and a cotton plant. No wood or ore though. Meh. I walked north to Owl Head. Along the way I saw various zones (right word?) that I could enter. It said [Enter]. I have this habit of pressing enter which opens the chat room instead of entering. Whoops. I had to use the mouse to select the [Enter] box. I ran around for a bit. It is very empty. How does this work in single player with such stretches of unpopulated territory?

I eventually found the crafting stations and picked up the tools. I was list mode for the inventory and so was the crafting station. I couldn't make any of the recipes because of missing ingredients. I couldn't not figure out how to experiment. Must I buy recipes before I can craft it? Is there no discovery?

Had to stop again. The screen was making me nauseous/

tl;dr
#9 - What is the point of the green outline when the cursor is white?

#10 - 2+ enemies = dead me. The need to select enemies before I can hit them is troublesome. Why can't I just swing away?

#11 - It was really easy to get turn around and lost in the forests. I wished I had a mapping skill so I could find the exit when I wanted to leave. Instead I had to find the wood and pick a direction to follow until I left.

#12 - Towns are empty without other players (Single Player Online)

#13 - Can't seem to figure out how to discover my own recipes. Will try later.

 

Round #3. My goal was to improve my armor.

Crafting #2 - Tanning & Tailoring
I couldn't figure out where to get tree bark so I decided to turn my animal hides into hardened leather. I used the recipe (double-click in recipe book) and the items were transfered. Then a [Craft] button appeared. Oh, now I get it. I can drag items there and the button appears. I was expecting a grayed out button hence my reason in round #2 for thinking that I couldn't discover new recipes for myself. I tried fooling around with hardened leather on the tailoring station. I managed to figure out the recipe for leather bracers, helm, and leggings.

I did discover an very amusing bug and VERY annoying bug.

Amusing Bug: If I Shift-Drag I get prompted to enter an amount. I type 5 then 0. The number that appears is 4, then 3, then 9 ending with 49. However the # actually transferred form the vendor in Owl Head to me was exactly 50. Go figure.

Annoying Bug: I dropped 2 hardened leather onto the tailoring station. Then I added the tailoring knife. Then I added 1 leather strap via Ctrl-Drag. Then I added another. Then I removed 1 hardened leather. The whole set of items vanished from the tailoring station and returned to my inventory.

Other Bug: I crafted the leather helm. I tried to transfer it from the tailoring station to the paperdoll. It vanished. It was not in inventory, not on the station, and neither was it equipped. Time to harvest more leathers and figure out where to find wood. I want to respec as an archer.

#14 - Crafting took a bit, but I got it. I really like testing combos to see if it uncovered a new recipe.

#15 - Wish I find a place to process the carcasses that are piling up.

 

It's very interesting to read the thoughts of a player with no prior experience of this type of game, thank you for posting this! Please keep it up, I'm sure it could be helpful to the devs in seeing what sort of knowledge they may be taking for granted in their player base and where they might be able to improve the 'complete newbie' experience a bit.

There's a difference between not wanting to hold a player's hand too much and leaving them utterly floundering in the dark, and hopefully before launch they'll have a decent tutorial figured out that will help people with the basics. Right now things tend to change every time anyway, so what you learn in this release may not be quite the same next time, but it sounds as if you're managing to figure things out as you go. I hope you're having some fun too!

 

Oh aye, it is a slow learning but worth it. I'm still grouchy over the camera controls, but I hope that the fact that they're working on a trackpad solution will be good.

Round #4 - Time wasted trying to learn how to shoot a bow

Deck Management
Kill before they get close. That's my new motto after dying to a single wolf. Bah. I headed back to Braemar to get a bow and some arrows. It was dark when I arrived and even with a torch I got lost until I say the tall walls in the distance. Finally. I picked up a bow and 20 arrows. I equipped them, but how do I change those icons at the bottom? They look like the Glyphs menu. So I open it (L button) and try to drag-drop from the Glyphs menu to the combat hotbar. No luck. I try pressing 1 through 4. No luck. I try double clicking. Again, no luck.

I decide to poke around in the deck menu (Y button). I don't get it. I select Auto Deck. It unequips everything from except my leather chest armor and equips the sword & shield. What? I do not like that. I re-equip everything. Maybe if I create a new deck. Not again. Everything was unequipped when I created a new deck. Bah! I re-re-equip everything. It is really slow to re-re-equip yourself when you have to drag-drop everything. I play with the custom deck and I get my glyphs dropped in. Ohhhhh. Now I get how the hotbar works. I enter combat mode. WTF? They're popping in and out existence. What is going on? Why aren't they staying still? I leave combat (thankfully it just a stag) and go back to the deck menu. I see this 'Combat' deck. Oh, this is it. I drop my 3 archery skills onto it and re-enter combat. Yay!

Ranged Combat
Hmmm. It had to get really close. Almost melee close and it took 2 shots. I need to respec. Current specs are now 1 Aimed/Piercing/Disabling. 1 Eagle eye, 4 range, 3 draw strength. Maybe this will let me snipe from afar.

Heck YES. I can use the special abilities (is that what the glyph skills are called?). I cant auto-attack from a distance, but this ranged shooting is just as good as my sword for stags. But I'll run out of arrows at this rate. What is interesting is that the loot is higher from using a bow. My sword gave me a carcass and a hide. Now I get a carcass, a hide, scraps, and a stag head. Maybe certain attacks are less damaging to the treasure that is an enemies body?

Also of note: Still haven't found a way to process a carcass into meat for cooking.

Edit: Arrows are expensive. It took many arrows to take down a wolf compared to a stag. I still haven't found a way to craft them or boost their damage and the returns are not much so buying may be a bit tricky. Especially if stock runs out. Where is wood??? *huffs*

tl;dr
#16 - How to setup the combat skills takes a while to figure out.

#17 - The degree of improvement for leveling a skill is not clear. I'm glad I can reset though.

#18 - Arrows are freaking expensive vs. the number needed to take down an enemy. Will need to find a way to make them better or make massive numbers.

#19 - I wish I could buy a map of resource nodes. Then I would go harvest it. I really want
wood.

#20 - I'm glad I don't have to aim. As long as I face in the general direction I can hit my target.

 

If you press tab, it will auto-select the closest enemy so you don't have to double-click it. And the glyphs popping in and out of existence is how combat is supposed to work at higher levels: your "custom deck" is really a card deck made of glyphs, and they are randomly dealt into your hand so you can use them during the fight. Equipping armor adds unusable "slugs" to your deck, so those will also pop up in your hand. There are skills in the skill tree to do things like speed up the card replacement in your hand or make cards stay in your hand longer.

 

Thank you for the help. Mostly I'm doing the locked deck w/ cooldowns. I'm still level 5 though. Regrettably the instructions are not clear w/o a picture to assist. However, after playing with the deck menu I think I have a handle on it. I still wonder about the purpose of the glyph menu when not in the deck menu.

 

Interesting read. Thanks for posting this.

#18 You can craft arrows in this release. If I remember correct, you need wooden planks, feathers, arrow heads and a carpentry hammer. You can cut down trees to get wood (target the brown trees, they'll stand out), you can turn them into planks at milling table. You might need a cubit measure for that. I haven't checked the recipe yet so I guess you'll need to make the arrow heads at the smelting / smithing stations. I'll get to try this myself today....

 

Yeah, the problem is wood. Wood, wood, wood. I've tried a variety of trees w/o luck. Tomorrow my goal is to find wood.

 

Yep, as monxter pointed out, the trees that can be chopped down have reddish brown leaves. You can also hover your mouse over the trees and it should change into an axe icon if it's harvestable. Good luck and looking forward to your next gameplay diary!

 

I'll place my feedback in here too, although I waited longer than 15 minutes, but I feel I haven't explored much but did mostly leveling and about an hour or so of adventuring at this point before giving feedback....

1. Reagents don't seem to provide any potency to fireballs. Do reagents do anything but make the spell more stable??? At this point I feel like throwing in the towel on reagents and go without them. That is not likely an option, but they surely don't feel useful enough yet to merit the expense of buying them.
2. Targeting a fireball should begin on the last target. The targeting takes time and in real time combat it would be nice to make things faster and more efficient. I believe putting the targeting mechanism on the last target, AND also please let us automatically retarget our last target after casting fireball (or any targeting spell) so we don't lose a tempo in combat.
3. Commands for pets really needs to have the ability to map keys on our keyboard. I have a logitech G710+ and would like to be able to just hit the G4 key or something to tell my elemental to attack and then hit last target. Many times the elemental is in the way so I cannot see the target.
4. Having a picture of the house in the chat window before you purchase a house deed would be nice. I know what they all look like, and I was still frustrated not seeing the picture. So I can imagine that new players would have an issue with that for sure.
5. I did like the mage skills in general (apart from reagents at this point), and there are lots of good things in the focus skill tree. I'm feeling quite satisfied with all that. I also really like the way you guys implemented the boosting of strength, dexterity, and intelligence through skill points. Nice touch.

EDIT: Did I forget to mention I find no need for fireball and ring of fire spells? The arrow spell is actually superior at this point in my opinion.

Although I do think that death area effect spell will be really useful for healing when fighting multiple foes. I haven't been able to test that yet though. However that would make that spell useful because of its potential to heal lots of damage. The fireball is usually focused on one maybe two targets (because it is too hard to focus it on opponents while they move AND hitting monsters you arent fighting is useless because they heal for some reason) and it does the damage of a fire arrow and isn't a guaranteed hit. Definitely a work in progress.

Yeah now that I mention that, why do monsters need to heal at all? If monsters never heal then area effect spells are more valuable.

Let special monsters have the ability to regenerate, but most things should not just heal up even when they leave combat mode. Let damaged monsters stay damaged even if they tether back. If I beat up a monster and then they run off and they regenerate faster than my mana something is wrong.

 

Round #5 - Improving my damage

Preparing for level-up
I thought about yesterday and what I did. Melee damage is good, but I can't handle 2+. Ranged damage is good, but quickly consumes arrows. I want to keep ranged attacks as my strategy. I don't intend to forge heavier armors. What I need a way to boost my damage per shot. Possibilities:
- Better bow? I have a shortbow, perhaps I should get a longbow or crossbow?
- Better arrows? I have just arrows. Maybe there are broadheads or other arrows designed to pierce armor. In game terms I suppose that means ignoring defense
- Stat Boost? RPGs usually use dexterity to control bow damage. I never understood why though. Higher STR = higher draw = higher velocity = deadlier arrow. Oh well.
- Combo attacks? I noticed on the glyph menu that there was an electrical + arrow combo. Presumably combos have superior to damage to using 2 attacks separately.
- Stealth? Some games offer a critical%, critical dmg, or dmg multiplier for stealthy players.
- Crafting bonus. I suppose this falls under the better bow category. Unfortunately I say that crafting skills did not exist yet. I wonder how this works for low-level player? Focus on crafting and innate combat boosts I suppose. Point spread would be a bit thin.

Another problem is nighttime. If it is night I cannot see because I cannot wield a bow & torch. Nor do I have a way to quickly swap. Another thought occurs to me. If an enemy gets close I need to draw a melee weapon or have skills in unarmed combat. Stun the enemy and run away. Otherwise I have to hope I kill the enemy before it closes. Or party with someone, but this solo play right now. I'm sad that there doesn't appear to be unarmed combat skills and no hotkey for quick swaps. I did notice that the deck options yesterday will force my gear to change. Can I quick swap decks? Oh, I can quick swap deck. Yes. Oh, I can only have 1 alternate. Damn. I wanted 3 modes: Melee, Ranged, and Explorer. For now I've a ranged deck with skills and a melee deck with sword + shield but no skills (I'm still lvl5!)

Combos
I've no way of knowing where to get/craft a better bow yet. I can't get crafting skills and I've yet to find wood. I need to save my gold. So, having a better bow & better arrows. I don't know if stat boost will be best, so I'm going to try that lightning + arrow combo. According to the Glyph menu I need aimed shot + discharge. So I get them + the innate boosts to range and damage for archers. I found nightvision in the Moon tree and stat boosts in the Sun tree. It's daylight only, but it should help.

I'm going to practice now. After I buy more arrows. *grumble*

Ranged
Aimed Shot +1
Eagle Eye +1
Range +3, Damage +3

Air
Gust +1 (Prereq for Discharge)
Discharge +1

Moon
Night Vision +1

Sun
Light +1
Sun Worship +2 (Stat Boost!)

Weapons
Shortbow (Main Deck)
Iron Longsword + Wooden Shield (Alt Deck)

I can't drop my combo skill Shock Arrow in my deck. Not sure how it works, but there is a key R that starts the combo
Build is done. Going to hunt for wood and level up in the forest.

Combat #3
Bought some arrow, went near a stag. I started auto-attacking. I pressed Discharge and then Aimed Shot. No combo, they fired separately. I pressed R. No menu came offering the Shock Arrow. Little puzzled. I decided to head to Owls Head.

Crafting #3

Since I'm playing Single Player Online other people's houses, and more importantly crafting stations, can be accessed. Thank you Natalie Raas. She had a butcher's station. I discovered the recipe for butcher (Cleaver + Skinning Knife + Carcass). My cleaver and knife vanished though when I tried to butcher a stag's carcass. I had the same problem when I crafted a leather helm. It fixed itself after I quit & logged back in.

I'm also going to craft Leather Boots. I need to experiment to find the recipe but I hope I don;t need supple leather. Supple leather requires tree bark which I cannot seem to buy and I haven't found those harvestable trees. I also want to know if I can make light armor that is a step above leather, but I don't think I can afford it yet.

Edit:
Crafted the boot, yay! Made some spools of thread and a rope. Meh. I also managed to butcher a deer carcass. Fat + Bone + Meat. The fat will probably be for frying recipes and the bones for a soup recipe (broth / stock). I think I might also be able to turn bones in weapons. However, I can't seem to discover any such recipe and the cooking recipes aren't happening. Not sure what I'm missing. Maybe water?

I lost my rope & loom to the crafting bug (items disappeared, but reappear on login). Oh well.

I also found something very, very annoying. The various glyphs (sun & moon) that I picked. They do not work. Basically in R11 it seems that if the glyph doesn't have an icon, it isn't happening. So, no night vision and no stat boost in sunlight. Respec is needed.
End edit

tl;dr
#21 - Can't figure out how combos work. Do I need an unlocked deck? I have too many slugs right now and that worries me.

#22 - I couldn't find a public alchemy or butcher station. I found a cooking station in Braemar across from the tavern and others in Owls Head. But not those two.

 

Round #6 - So yeah, bows didn't work out

Devs just patched. Some cooking recipes are there and the Q&E buttons rotate the camera faster. Yay!

Combat #4
I was level 5, now level 8. I tried to hurt my enemies but I was shooting oh so slowly and each shot was ~8 damage. I died 2-3 times and ran out of arrows. I couldn't fire a combo because they only work with unlocked decks and I had too many slugs. So I respec as a Blade + Earth warrior. I'm going to level up, get more points, and then try to respec as an archer again.

As a bladesman I headed over to the Dragon's Cave. I kicked ass and made it to level 8. That's 24 points. Woohoo! With the double swing skill @ 20 STR I do ~44 damage. Much better. I think what I need is to do the same for DEX. With more points I can also get the Aimed Shot and Discharge skills more often. Pretty good.

Fighting in cramped tunnels against Kobold Fighters is not easy. You cannot just stand your ground in leather armor with 76 health. You run up, unleash a skill, run away. Rinse, lather, repeat. I did notice something odd. I can run away and while away the enemies does the attack animation. I still received damage even though I was too far back. It makes it hard to time things.

Honestly I like the melee. It works for cramped quarters, but I hate taking damage. What do I do if the final release doesn't let you respec or requires a high cost? When the time comes I want to be able to start out as an archer and not get my butt whooped. If I party with someone -- at low levels -- what good can archer do except lure enemies into range of the melee? Maybe I need poisons or status effects shots, but alchemy only offers focus & health potions. Maybe an archer isn't viable as a starting build until R12?

Finances
Hunting bears, rabbits, and stags can provide me with raw resources. I convert into goods, sell, and profit. I've yet to work out the profit margin, but I think it would do. Maybe I should hunt skeletons? They drop the iron warhammers which sell for a decent sum. I need to raise money for a better bow and 999 arrows. @2 gold an arrow I can almost afford a lot instead. Finances aren't balanced yet so that doesn't matter.

 

Your feedback has been a pleasure to read. Thank you for taking the time to document your experience.

 

Great comments from the OP.

I totally agree on the darkness comments. I have reasonable eyesight. I wonder what happens for our more sight-challenged friends who will play the game. The extreme darkness just causes downtime for me, not more exploration time. I find myself just going off and taking a break while it is dark. Maybe that is a good thing. Maybe it will cause me to want to be in towns crafting in night cycles. Not sure. But it is dark. On the upside, it makes the other lighting in game look great!

 

Round #7 - Over my head, a bug dropped in with too high level enemies.

Combat #5
This was my intent, but I was in the Dragon's Cave not far from the entrance when I saved. When I came back I wasn't were I left off, but rather I was in a tunnel in the between the Kingsport Sewers and Owl's Head Sewers. I presume a bug of some sort so I tried to escape via the Owl's Head Sewers. Hahahaha. Dang that hurt. Regardless of direction I had a slime and I was level 8. My sword did minimal damage and only my earth spell hurt it. Unfortunately, the slime split. Tricky. Solution? Run away! Thankfully I had a light spell above me. I punch through the walls. Yes, I have mighty fists and I punch those bricks down. Hah!

Ahem.

Anyways, on the other side was sewer water and skeleton archers. I had 78 life. I recharged my light spell and swam looking for an exit. The water poisoned me and the archers took pot shots. I was almost dead when I found the ladder and climbed out. The AI is thankfully very dumb. I ran out of range and hid behind a wall in the next room. The archers wandered nearby but never pathed to the door. I was so glad that I had a healing spell. I just sat there waiting for it to come up and healed myself. I wandered into the next room which had 2 Skeleton Footmen. I had to exploit their very stupid behaviors to get past them. Basically if I hit one and ran around the corner it would lose me even though it could see me; the center of the room was wide open with a pool. It was very hard to defeat them. Again, my earth punching spell did the trick. Then I kept running and hit giant spiders. Oh, hello! Goodbye!

I ran away and realized I was trapped. No matter which direction I went I was trapped.

So I saved and quit while I looked for a command that could get me out of there. Didn't find one. Instead I reloaded the game and decided to die. But when I did I was no longer in the sewers. I was in Owl's Head at the entrance to the sewers. I left Owl's Head and then I appeared on the overworld map at the entrance to the Dragon's Cave.

I think I'll avoid saving in dungeons for now. Scary.

Analyzing what happened I can conclude that you either need to party so the damage sources are well-represented or really diversify the skills. Maybe at a higher level.

Edit:
I realized something and that thing is that I have no idea how strong or weak I am until I fight an enemy. What if the enemy is weak? Am I actually strong?

I know that I can check the stats menu and see how my skills influence things, but I have no idea what some of these are. Attack Skill? It is average damage per hit? Average DPS for my skill level? It would be nice to have tooltips for these stats.
End Edit

tl;dr
#23 - I find it worthless to fight enemies that do not drop something. I like that they do not always drop gold, but there must be some way to profit from killing an enemy. Otherwise, why fight?

#24 - Multi-class is better for solo or becoming very skilled at running away.

#25 - It would be helpful to be able to throw a torch or light so I can scout ahead. It took too long to swim through the sewers and find a ladder. Of course, throwing a light / torch wouldn't have helped, but it would have helped me look before I leapt.

#26 - Stats. What do they mean? I want tooltips or a list of definitions. It makes planning easier.

 

Try raising strength, dexterity, or intelligence, and you will see the other stats that rise with them. Also some stats are fixed at this time but are relevant to us so we can know wjat to expect (like focus regeneration). It is fixed at around 0.15% I think. If you watch your focus stat while it is regenerating you will see that focus regeneration is 0.15% of your maximum focus. So even though we cannot change our focus regen rate we can increase our regeneration by raising our maximum focus. The greater the focus the faster it regenerates. So basically the little thermometer that represents our focus always regenerates just as fast regardless how much focus we have, but the numbers change basef on our max of that attribute. Pretty much all of those stats can be observed in the same way.

I'm sure they will explain them more later but I think they want to see how people will do without any refrences and see if it makes sense. It might give them a baseline of how a newbie might feel without reading any guides etc.

Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk.

 

Here's some more first impressions...

1. I noticed if I left a conversation window open too long they end the conversation with us. This seems realistic, but in a game like this I will need to take notes. Taking notes and then having to go back through the same conversation is also not realistic. Nobody has the exact convesation two or three times in a row. That is even more unrealistic than then not canceling the conversation.
2. I noticed in some transitions the camera either zoomed up closer to my avatar, and at Owl's Nest it zoomed into first person mode for me when I entered the cave. This is a minor annoyance. I want it to keep my settings so I don't have to keep zooming out after every conversation and change of locations.
3. ***THIS ONE CONCERNS ME*** I understand that the deck size gets bigger the higher level you go, but once it got to a minimum of 20 I thought it would stop, but I noticed at level 31 it increased to 25... I hope it does not increase beyond 25. My reasoning is that we can get level 5 in a particular skill, and if we are level 81 and we have a minimum deck size of 40, then it is better not to level. I like the deck system when I can rely on it to facilitate combat "reliably" if I'm level 81 I should be more reliable in combat not less efficient. I don't want a 1 in 10 chance for my skill to come up... that is back to the random deck rather than the system we tested in R8. That means at level 21 we can predict our skills better than when we are level 81. I don't like that. I also don't like the idea of adding a level 6, 7, and 8 for the glyphs which cost more points. That means the higher the level the more points we waist to keep our deck in good working order. I don't like that. It will actually make locked decks more efficient at high levels. THink about that for a bit. If having 5 copies of a card always have the same cooldown on a static deck, then the static tool bar maintains it's efficiency as we level while the deck system depreciates its potential the higher we level. I don't want the static toolbar to be superior in any way to the deck system.
4. I noticed the fireball was difficult to aim at long range. In fact I don't think it hits at all. I know I was dead on because it even highlighted the elder wolf when the targeting circle was out there. No damage though. I know that is still a new system, and fireball is far from done. I just figured I would mention it.

EDIT: The rest of it was good though. I'm not critiquing the good stuff, I'm only pointing out the issues that bothered me. This release is Fing fantastic!

Double EDIT: I decided to go up to level 41 to see if it went to a minimum of 30 cards per deck, and it sure is. So I seriously do not like this mechanic. Please do not do this. PLEASE! I got significantly weaker going from level 40 to level 41. PLease consider changing this mechanic. Stop it at 25. At this rate we would have to have 50 cards at level 81. I would much rather have a level cap or at least the ability to refuse to rise to the next level. I surely won't be working hard to level up if I know my deck is going to get diluted.

 

Running : So far I don't mind the new run method but I find that I also want to be able to "double tap" and stay running. I'm talking about how (in R1 or R2) you could run in those first builds, I like that I find I now miss that method.

Not having a map to pull up, even if it's only partially explored would be really nice, IMHO

The "Compass" is in a really bad spot on the GUI layout

Still can't place a "Coil of Rope" as a decoration... Can we have a decorative version?

I much prefer the PvP and Challenge dungeon to be located in a accessible manner like in R10.

 

Round #8 - Wrap-up

So, I'm a bit bored with the game. ~3-4 hours in and I'm not really interested in progressing anymore. I wanted an archer, couldn't get it to work. I wanted deep crafting, only the basics are in. I wanted interesting combat but the enemies are strong & dumb or weak & dumb. I wanted to be able to think & apply sneaky tactics, but the support for that doesn't exist. Most if this is not because the game is bad, but because it is unfinished. I will be playing R12 and trying this again if such things are added.

So, the only thing left to do is to tackle the Tour Guides.

Ravensmoor
I explored around Braemar and I noticed that there are places you can enter that are not marked on the map. These are labeled "Hidden Vale: Hills" or "Hidden Vale: Plains". I also noticed some locations that are labeled on the map but nothing appears telling me what is is or allowing me to enter.

Regardless, time for Ravensmoor (Tour Guide #2).

I was here previously and I was up against skeleton archers. Do not like them, not easy to fight. Easy to kill but they run away tempting you to chase them and if you do you will run into other enemies. I couldn't find an easy way to lure it close and finish it off so I sneak past them. From the entrance I head right until I see a little plot of land with grave markers and 2 skeleton mages. I kill them. They are very weak and I am pushed up to Level 10. It seems Level 10 gave me bonus points, yay! I invested in a healing spell boost (the innate skill that gives more health per cast to healing spells).

There is 1 very annoying thing I noticed. I suspect this is by design, but... Investing in innate skills give greater rewards the more you invest. On the other hand activated skills give jack except more chances in a random deck if you invest in 2+ ranks. For example, what good is Light 2? I do not get a larger radius, brighter light, or longer duration. It seems to have no benefit in combat. What if I use a locked deck. Does it reduce cooldown? It doesn't seem to. Now, some skills I did invest 2+ ranks in because I am using a random deck, but non-combat activated skills are worthless for 2+ ranks it seems.

Well, I saw the cliffside and determined that I could not safely climb down. I decided to try the other side (left side of map), but the skeleton mage respawned! Not respawned while I was away, but respawned while I was there. Only 1 mage respawned and so I fought it. While I was fighting it I was hit in the back by another fireball. The 2nd mage had respawned while I was fighting the first. Gah! Thankfully they are weak and do little damage. If these were skeleton footmen I would have been killed. I really wish enemies would not respawn while I was standing near their spawn point.

Done with combat I headed left. I avoid the center because of all the patrolling undead. Instead I work my way to the far left corner past the wolves and bears. I've gotten in the habit of scanning the treetops for those oranges leaves and I harvest some wood along the way. I don't like that each tree gives one wood. I'm worried that if I ever play the MMO versions (I'm SPO right now) there will be a run on resources and a lack of nodes. Maybe R12 will address this. More on this later.

I look along the cliffside and I note 2 things. #1 - The enemy is patrolling the foot path. I can run past them, but I don't know what surprises await me at the bottom. #2 - The bottom touches the sea and to the left of the path is a cliff face that I can climb down. There is a shattered boat at the bottom, but if I make it down I might be able to swim out, swing around, scout, and see what is at the bottom. So I carefully work my way down, but this sucks. I am now trapped between the cliff face and an invisible wall. There was nothing to indicate that such a wall would be there... this is wrong so I have to use /stuck and return to the entrance.

This time I work my way to the left and race down the footpath. I dodge a footman and take from shots from a skeleton mage. I aim for the sea and get far enough away that they lose interest in me. I decide to see what happens if I swim far enough out. Maybe I can return to the world map and re-infiltrate from sea. Imagine it. I could do amphibious assaults. Alas, it doesn't work out. I hit another invisible wall far from the ocean shore. It is a pity. I am not able to use the terrain to my advantage. Instead I just fight or race past enemies. The latter will not be viable in the final release because it only worked due to the fact that the enemies AI is very dumb. Or maybe because they are undead. If I do not want to fight then I'll need stealth to sneak past. But what if I want to do the clever thing and find alternate routes? It seems the map makers have locked us into specific routes which need specific skills to pass. Bah.

Anyway, I enter the cave, get the tour guide, and race up the path and out the exit.


Solace Bridge
I head to Owl's Head. I do not feel like crafting so I just stop by the Lunar Gate. It is already at Solace Bridge (peaceful version) and I enter. I see the tour guide and say hi and then I decide to cross the bridge. The gate is down, but there is a switch on the outside. I flip it and the gates goes up. Okay, wait. Why is there a switch to the gate that defends the little fort on the outside? I hope this is just a temp thing for R11 so people can explore. It makes no sense to have to the controls to your defenses on the enemies side of the wall otherwise. I look around. Inside one of the house the walls are these wood slats. Ugly textures, hope they fix it. See it here.

I leave and go back to Owl's Head.


Kobold Camp
The lunar rift is set to the Solace Bridge Battle. I enter really fast to see what it is like. Fire! Lovely fire! *Ahem*. Anyways, I try to see if I can be lit on fire. I can. I step on a fire and my body is burning but no damage (or very little) is incurred. I've the idea that in the future I can set fires to the ground / trees / bushes to herd enemies, but that can wait for later.

I return to Owl's Head and wait for the Kobold Camp to appear. There is no indicator that the location has changed so I keep having to move my mouse and check what is currently displayed. I thought that the beam coming out would hop from rock to rock and thus indicate the location, but not so. Also, it moves pretty quickly. Is this a temp thing or will it be this way in the final release? If it moves this quickly then why bother waiting? Why not just pick the location? If it is going to be slowed down then will there be a way to work out the schedule based on the in-game time or RL time? If in-game time then I really want a clock.

I get the Kobold Camp, talk to the tour guide, and turn around. I leave Owl's Head, and decide to tackle the Obsidian Keep.


Obsidian Keep
I hear that you can simply sneak in so I do just that. I talk to the tour guide and get ambushed by a mage. I lure it away and kill it. Or is that re-kill it? After all, it is already dead, but just animated. Do I de-animate it instead? Anyways, there is treasure! On the table there are swords and there are arrows nearby and a rack of weapons. I get a Snake Sword, a Battle Spear / Pike-thingy, and a Founder's Cutlass. I also get some daggers, but what is their value? Except for RP the daggers are no good because they lack reach and damage. Oddly enough the arrows are all lowercase and while they stack with one another they do not stack with the arrow I purchased. I leave the way I came in and head for the Mysterious Swamp. Where I run around looking for the Tour Guide and blitzing past skeletons, kobolds, and fire spiders. Gah! I eventually escape and decide to look online. Oh.... he is near the entrance, but head NW a bit. I talk to him and get attack. I run away but get lost in the swamp and run smack-dab into the middle of a lich. Sorry for bumping into you sir. Do I you mind if I leave. Oh, you do mind? Er, what nice spells you have. Gak! *Dead*.

Well, I've got my hat though.

Economy & Archers
I was thinking about how this is supposed to be a player-driven economy. Maybe it isn't in yet or maybe it was because I was in SPO (but it syncs to the multiplayer version...), but the problem is that the economy stinks. If there is a lack of goods the price will go up until supply arrives to bring the price down. There does not appear to enough nodes and crafting material for sale to keep prices reasonable. Also, it costs more to make an arrow than it does it buy. If people play a lot of archers then will there be a run on arrows forcing people to craft? How will that effect the resource nodes? Also, does player-driven mean that we can set prices? How will this affect things? I don't know and it worries me.

I think I said this before, but arrows are pointless. They just drain gold from a player and provide no benefit. Maybe it is because archery isn't fully in yet, but I feel that the type f arrow should affect combat. Better range? Better damage? Status effects (poison!)? Armor piercing is a big reason why I want archers.


Anyways... I've decided to stop, sit down, and think through everything I've done since R11 came out and come up with anything I else I felt. So here it is. My final additions to the list of 15 minute impressions.

tl;dr
#27 - The T button is used to toggle auto-attack. If I have a bow I do not want to auto-attack until I am ready. How can I know if it is active or not? I don't. This isn't so bad for melee. I ran up to an enemy thinking it was active when it wasn't. I stood for a moment, got hit, and decided to toggle it.

#28 - Lack of feedback on my hits vs. enemy hits. Sometimes I hear the clang of metal but nothing happens to the HP bar. Sometimes I move away from an enemy with no sound of metal clanging but my HP bar changes. I can see the hit or miss info if I open my chat window, but it obscures my view of the battlefield so I leave it closed. It would be nice to have something. Did I miss an options to show DMG on strike and HIT/MISS text?
Edit: Seems better in Multiplayer. I could see the numbers and could better gauge. Do not know why it was so hard in SPO.

#29 - Enemies respawn while I am fighting. Let me at least get away first or respawn more slowly.

#30 - I wandered the map. Some locations would not have names added if the location wasdiscovered, e.g., Hidden Vale: Hills, or : Plains

#31 - Clock would be helpful or simply a way to know how till morning or nightfall. I suppose it isn't realistic, but when I join a game and it is night so I wait around for a while (and tab out to another application) as I wait for morning?

#32 - I hate invisible walls. You can plan around what you can see. You can't plan for things you can't see. It feels like an pointless obstruction that mocks my efforts.

#33 - Legs don't look right when I dance (knee joints). Funny though.

#34 - If damage is reduced when running, does that apply to short bows? Also, aren't short bows meant to have a higher firing rate in exchange for reduced range & damage? What benefit does a shortbow have over a longbow?

#35 - I have to buy feathers. I've yet to encounter an enemy or resource node that gives feathers. I see birds in town, but I won't attack them. Because it is in town, not the wilds.

#36 - I can grow crops but I can't practice animal husbandry. Am I to slaughter the sheep, cows, and chickens in town? In town!? If I want another source & it doesn't it then how will this lack of player produced animal products affect the economy? There aren't that many chickens / cows / sheep.

#37 - What is point in investing in multiple ranks for non-combat activated skills? Activated skills only add extra draws in decks. With no improvement to effectiveness or efficiency (focus cost / cooldown) there is no point in investing.
Edit: I see that light can be used as a combat skill by provided attack bonuses (to-hit?) if cast on enemies so ignore that one. But what about night vision? Feels like it should be an auto-innate skill when the light dims.

#38 - It is possible to be become stuck on the work map. I left Obsidian Keep and went right only to be stuck between the building's model and the terrain. This seems silly since I can run over mountains. That said...

#39 - The Overworld Map seems silly since I can run over any mountains and do not have to enter any dungeons. So, why do I need to run from location to location? Seems like too would be better to just click on a location and enter it. There is no benefit to exploration that I could find.

#40 - Arrows in Obsidian Keep do not stack with arrows from vendor.

#41 - I can see items but I cannot know what it is until I take it. Could I at least get a name even if you don't want to display the stats?

#42 - If in the future the lunar rifts do not move from loc to loc so quickly will there be a way to work out where they are based on the current time (in RL or In game)?

Edit: Regarding the ocean's invisible walls. Put a giant sea serpent or something so that I know swimming that far out is a bad idea rather than letting me hit the walls. Use an immersive method of saying "Do not go this way" please.