15 minute first impressions

I know what you mean about skeletons tethering back after they run too far. Why does there have to be a tether? I don't care if a guy gets a train of monsters and runs them across the whole area like they did in UO. I would rather see monster trains than have one creature tether back after I lured it away and was fighting it. Let monsters chase you till you die. Forget tgis tethering business.

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No, I didn't mean that I wanted it to follow me though that would also work. Ranged units are not melee and should seek range. The problem is that once it got range it lost interest in me. In that case I would need to a way to stop it from escaping. As a melee or archer character I do not know what can do that. There was no way of achieving that.

Possibility #1 - Make a sound, get behind it, cut off that path of retreat = not possible because it willing to accept damage as it runs towards you and back to base

Possibility #2 - Shoot it, lure it close = not possible because if you approach is backs off. If you hide it loses interest right away rather than investigating. Then branch to possibility #1

Possibility #3 - Lure it and paralyze (no attacking or moving) when in range = not possible because nothing for melee / archer can do that. Suspect I need to wait on poisons to be implemented. Will poisons even work on the undead?

Possibility #4 - Lure it and pin it (no moving, but can attack) = not possible because no skill exists.

Possibility #5 - Lure it and slow it. Race close = not possible because of range issues from possibility #2.

Possibility #6 - ???

Edit: I suppose of could go for bludgeon or Air magic's stuns. However, they didn't seem to last too long. Basically I need a better way to lure an enemy away and keep it from escaping.

Edit 2: Here is basically what I thought should happen. I attack the archer. Archer realizes it can't finish me off. It runs back trying to lure me close. It should spread the word and dispatch stronger allied units to my position. I break contact & move locations. Keep the enemy pulled out of position & sneak past. If I instead closed the distance it could keep pulling me in close and weakening me while nearby units converge. Either way the enemy should respond in force. This would also be great for team play. Archers can be used to harass an enemy and lure it out of position. 2nd group in team moves in behind the enemy. Pincer!

Right now it just people move up and whack it. The enemy doesn't move as an intelligent group and individuals are stupid.

Edit 3: Oh, hey. There appears to be an Earth 'Root' spell. Haven't tried it, but if I am to play a non-magic user, what are my options?

 

Round #9

Multiplayer
I just realized I did not do a multiplayer round. Started a new character to see how hard it was. Much easier now that I know what to do and it did not take too long to get leather armor. Basically I dumped my locked deck and dropped in the 10 combat skills. Wolves fell quickly unlike my first playthrough with a locked deck. I hear the devs may make unlocks level dependent. I hope not. I quickly hunted wolves; gathered hide scraps; I tried hunting deer, but it was harder this time; scrounged up some iron ore; headed to Owl's Head. Once there I smelted some iron ore into ingots. Doh! I meant to get iron bars. I wanted to try full plate mail. Waste of coal. 1 coal per crafting operation. It took 5 coal to convert the 4 ingots (4 for ingot + 1 for combine) to get 1 bar instead of 1 coal for 1 bar. Lesson learned.

Oh, when I was in the woods hunting I ran across some other players hunting & harvesting. One guy got a tree that I noted & was moving to grab while I fighting some wolves in the way.

Anyways, back at Owl's Head I also took my wood and crafted a long bow. I figure it will make it easier to hunt deer. I also found something call Augmented Leather for my chest armor. Nice. A couple of times I ran afoul of the crafting bug where items are on the station but you can't see them or take them and you have to quit / reload to fix it. Gah.

When talking to Handac I noted that all kinds of goods were available for purchase. Even those that did not fit the vendor's profile, i.e. Handac was a dumping ground. Makes it easy-ish to find something, but it may be harder when the game is fully going and he has too much. I like shopping around.

tl;dr
#43 - When I do an emote to a person could I auto-align so that face the person. It is really weird to a do a bow and be slightly off.

#44 - I feel vendors should only buy things that they can sell, i.e., food vendors buy food products, not Handac the dumping ground.

 

If I wasn't level 30 before entering those swamps I would never have gotten range. There were wild creatures there that could eat us. If the creatures didn't get you the spiders would. Unless you consider the spiders as a creature. Is a spider a creature? If it is, does that mean the bears and wolves aren't? Either way there were wild creatures there that could eat us.

 

Round #10

Exploring
Since the uptime was extended I decided I should just fool around and level up. Much easier this time with the plate mail. I noticed that when I reached Level 11 I gained more open slots, but it resulted in more slugs. I maxed out my Heavy Armor's slug reduction though... not sure how to fix and my combat became worse. I suppose I could increase the draw rate and the increase the discard rate. A fast shuffle may be better than keeping a hand longer (longer hand = focus benefit) if I have too many slugs.

What bothered me was the West Raven forest, North forest, and Deep forest. There are all the same map, with the same / very similar resource nodes. There are connecting dungeons which are not the same and the color scheme is more foreboding as you go West > North > Deep. Also, the enemies get tougher. But the map is the same. Explore 1 and you know the path for the other 2. Is this for PreAlpha only or will this be the way the game is built from now on? I saw a lot of that in Dragon Age 2 and I didn't like it, don't like it now.

I did get stutter in Owl's Head, usually when the player count was high ~8+ I think. This is on fastest. But since this is PreAlpha I know that performance improvements would likely be coming later.

Also, does fishing work? I tried it, no luck. Are there fishing spots or am I supposed to equip and attack the fish swimming with the rod?

tl;dr
#45 - Recycled maps are bleh.

Edit:
#46 - Why is the walking so slow? In RL my walk is at about twice that speed. I wish it we were faster. Almost NY walking speed.

 

The way the overland map works changed for this release and we're all waiting to hear more about how it will be designed moving forward.

And nope, no fishing yet

 

Another thing is that when tethering back, the skeletons were invulnerable. They no longer took any fire damage, or any other type of damage while running back. Only when they have returned to the home position is it possible to damage skeletons again.

 

Why does any of that have to happen? That's my point. Just let the monsters be monsters, and let them roam anywhere unless they are an intelligent species and they are supposed to be guarding something.

There is no need for a tether, or invulnerability etc.

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If they want to run back and grab some of their buddies to help them kill you, that's reasonable. Or if they get tired of chasing us and decide to give up and go back to where we found them so they can recover, I could accept that too. But in that case we should still be able to damage them, and in fact should be doing more damage because we're hitting them in the back as they run away. It ought to be possible to kill them before they make it back to their friends (who may then decide to come after us anyway, depending on how close to them the first one was when it died).

Monsters being tethered to a small area, and being invulnerable while they run back to their 'home' spot whereupon they are immediately back at full health, just sucks and makes no sense to me. Pulling enemies one at a time and finishing them off individually should be a viable tactic, especially when you're fighting alone.

 

Note that they do not return to full health immediately. Once they return to the home position they can be damaged again and engaged immediately before any health regenerates. As a low level fire mage, what you need to do is attack, run while attacking when you can, until you hit the retreat point (which is currently at the exact same point). You can actually stand slightly beyond the retreat point and the skeleton will always stop before getting to you. Chase the skeleton back as he retreats, holding your attacks since the skeleton is invulnerable. When it get's home, and sheaths weapon, attack. Keep repeating and the skeleton can be defeated. The next problem though is that the respawn rate is so high that skeletons respawn before you can whittle more than 2 away with attrition. You can see this behavior in the Obsidian Keep bridge, and the skeletons patrolling after the bridge.

I agree this should be a viable tactic, but isn't currently.

 

Okay, thank you - I haven't actually played this release, and was basing my comments on what tends to happen in other games I've played with tethered enemies. They still shouldn't be invulnerable to damage whilst returning, though... if we can't run away with impunity, why should they?!