First Impressions R27

hmm where to begin..

One of the first things I noticed early on where the new sfx for wolves. We know how that went.. they weren't tied to the sfx slider and sounds played excessively.. I see in the patch notes that has been fixed.. but there are other new sounds that suffer the same problem.. and some also that weren't properly assigned. Sorry but this one has a mixed reaction from me. I like that new sounds are finally going in but implementation on this feels rushed and lacking. Thugs for example.. should not sound like kobolds and when I'm a level below them in the mines I shouldn't be able to hear them. I also shouldn't feel like I need to turn my sound off entirely to not have to hear them.

New interface for lot management.. kinda cool.. haven't checked out the increased décor for towns yet but that's also a welcome change.

Skills.. Dig In.. seems to now be utterly useless.. sure it decreases the damage you take but if you can't move AND you can't attack.. when you're solo you may as well just be standing there saying "ok kill me now".. You should at LEAST be able to attack.

As for using Dig In in parties.. I've yet to see a party that wasn't running all over the place. Leaving someone who's crouched down and not moving all along in moments. Why do I ever want to use this skill in a combat situation let alone train it past 10 to get to Testudo? Then once Testudo is leveled up what benefit does Dig In have at all?

On the subject of skills I still have concerns regarding the use of innates in the magic schools.

Imagine, if you will, you take the first tier spell.. level it up to 10 and set it to maintain.. depending on the school maybe get another passive spell you can cast without needing a target.. then set that not to level up or maintain.. Then get the innate skills and use the locked ones to level them up with all the XP per cast going to the innate. Is this not far too easy to master innate skills without any serious investment in the magic school? 10-20 points in actual spells could allow you both access and mastery of innate skills.

With combat skills this isn't really an issue since they are gear dependent.. but magic skills are not. Where then is the drawback here? Why shouldn't literally everyone master all magical innate skills that provide passing, ongoing bonuses to stats and resistances? All you need is time and XP.

I haven't checked out any of the new content really but I'm excited for the new cobblestone free templates and changes to décor rules for player towns.

The process for equipping tools is.. well sorry but it's both cumbersome and annoying. Sure it's great IF you have tools that never break.. otherwise pain in the butt. The most annoying thing about it though is that your tools are tied to your decks! If you don't associate your equipped gear then when you switch decks all your tools are unequipped and you have to go in there and reequip them.

Also annoying is when a tool's durability reaches 0. Before the game would just grab the next viable tool in your inventory.. Now you have to stop, open your skills menu.. find the right skill.. open your inventory and drag the next tool over.

For a change in features that looks intended to be convenient.. the first iteration is anything but.

Untrain ability on skills.. all I can say is it's about time. I never liked the idea that a trainer could wipe your skill.. Now we have all the control we really need. So kudos there.

Like configurable saturation.

Like finally displaying game mode. I play single most of the time but I also run events so I'm back and foth a lot.

 

Even if you could attack with it, monsters(like large reg spiders) would just kite(your range is obviously short from using a 1h) anyway. It was my primary defensive skill before the patch and i just deleveled it as much as i could. I'm really disappointed with the solo PVE actives in shields atm. The new anti-CC one is good for pvp but the others are all pretty worthless. Shield bash is a really short CC for having no damage(hurts dps notably to use it). Charge is like bodyslam with a slightly higher range that does no damage(same stun %s). Tetsudo and Dig In are both party oriented and crippling to use solo. Even Deflect is totally broken right now (refer to a bug report i posted earlier). So that means that not a single one of those actives is currently worth using for a solo player outside of PVP.

 

Nothing about the sky and stars arrangement?

 

I've gotta agree wholeheartedly with this Bowen, I was really disappointed in this. If you've got the tool on your person, this should be enough.

Cornfellow

 

Depends.. what if you have 3 different versions of the same tool? Artisan and prosperity tools aren't the same and you may want to use one or the other at any given time. But what it should do.. is auto equip a tool for you if you either don't have one equipped or the one you're using drops to 0 durability and you have another in your inventory.

Another problem I see with this is that you now have that much more that you're carrying that doesn't appear in your inventory and yet still has the weight. The weight of course makes sense but visually you can't really account for it.

 

I've done what I can on the subject and know the devs have read my latest on that. Ball's in their court now.

 

I agree with all you said on this post Bowen ...

 

Not only are some of the sounds mixed up (growling for thugs, I can't recall what else ATM but there were a few on my run through various scenes), a lot of them sound like they're repeating the sounds/echoing a split second after the first sfx starts (elves, wolves), especially when slain.

I'll add my personal opinion that most in-fight sounds are worse than they were before the update. Bears sound awesome, but my female fighter now sounds like a lady of the night starring in her own adult feature film when hit repeatedly, and elves sound breathy and weird. The character combat sfx (grunts, ughs, whatever you want to call them) sound dull and out of place, they don't fit into the overall sound mixing. I don't quite know how else to explain it, I just cringe whenever I hear most character sfx now.

 

With most (or all) of the original sounds as place holders I'm beginning to think it might be awhile before all the sounds really sound good together. The biggest thing for me right now is getting those sounds tied to the sfx slider. It wouldn't be so bad if some of them weren't so loud compared to everything else.

 

That is a huge deal. The wall breaking sound used to keep me from playing with sound on for this very reason...

 

Agreed that the sliders need to match up correctly first.

Part of my personal issue is that they already had female fighter sounds that were better than what they have now (in my opinion). I dislike change for the worse unless it's part of progression where something absolutely must get worse before it gets better (I think of graphics optimization like that, some level of trial and error).

 

I do agree with you all. But, consider that audio is often (not always) the least part in projects and if a sound designer is not able to code himself, relies on programmers.
In that case, the audio guy is not even able to see the actual sound working until the next build / implementation round.
Unless there's a middle ware software like Wwise but with Unity it's unlikely. We can't know such things but, in the end, audio is tricky. Takes patience.
And we do have the same, i guess

Oh, and beside audio...

the new watchers is Ardoris are AWESOME!