Dismiss Notice
This Section is READ ONLY - All Posts Are Archived

[POLL] What is your *overall* rating for this Pre-Alpha Release 9? (UNOFFICIAL)

Discussion in 'Release 9 Feedback' started by smack, Aug 22, 2014.

?

What is your *overall* rating for this Pre-Alpha Release 9? (1=bad, 5=great)

Poll closed Sep 5, 2014.
  1. 1

    12.0%
  2. 2

    18.8%
  3. 3

    33.1%
  4. 4

    22.6%
  5. 5

    13.5%
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Dermott

    Dermott Avatar

    Messages:
    761
    Likes Received:
    1,346
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Florida
    Ok... here goes. To me R9 was a LOT like R8 with a few extras here and there. I'm not a PvP player and my one attempt at doing so was more of a disastrous liability to the team I joined, so other than that 5 or so minute foray, I stayed away from it, even if it kept me away from hanging out with people ingame.

    Overall, I give the Release a 4 mainly because I try to score the releases for what they provide, not compared to a finished game. After an initial Dev+ issue with reinstalling the new Launcher and not being able to use the books and maps in bag mode, the Release has been quite stable for me. I've yet to have any constant crashing or other weirdness. I noticed that Kingsport and at least earlier Owl's Head still allow you to break out of the "legal" area and get to the Edge of the World™, into the mountains and so forth. Further rundown are as follows:

    PvP (Team PvP - Virtue vs Chaos) Again, not a PvP player, so this one is kind of N/A for me. Still, I'm not going to complain about focusing on the system for a while as the two sides tend to do when one or the other feels "left out".
    Combat Systems (Reagents, Combos) I'm happy to see the system being fleshed out further. Once things are a bit more finalized, I may take some time to focus on this. 4
    Combat Skills (50 new skills, new Tactics line) I like what I see here and have had fun with Dual Wielding. 5
    Scenes (Ardoris, Blackblade Pass) Did not spend much time in these, however seeing the Owl's Head sewers connect to other underground locations was quite interesting. 5
    New Creatures (new mimic, ice elemental) One I did see, not on this couple listed here was a SLIME. It even worked like the old Ultima slimes... need fire or magic to harm and splits on you if you're not careful. 4
    Intro Cinematic Very well done. Reminiscent of Ultimas 6 and 7 intros, but with its own style and feel. Bill Johnson voices well without being overly dramatic as it came off in the teaser voiceover. 5
    Character Customization (nose, ear, hair) Nice to have, but I always seem to not stray too far from the defaults for this. 3
    Minimap System A good start, but with a few issues. First, showing the entire map makes it a bit large on the screen. Second the ability to zoom in and out will be helpful if possible (a bit of a tradeoff between functionality and realism I know). Third, being able to edit the map (add in markers/pins/etc and label them) is needed. A good start, but only a 3 for now.
    Consumables (potions) Another good start with a couple of issues. First, I think I would cut the "drink" time in half as it's too easy to end up wasting a potion in combat which is where they are needed. Second, lower the size of the potion graphic in Bag display. 4
    Books (premade e.g. instructions, Fire Lotus journals, etc) Nice once they worked in Bag display. 4
    Default Decks Still not a big fan of the deck system as it currently is, so have been using locked skills instead. N/A
    Player Lot Item LimitsOther than I feel that light counts are a bit low outside houses, no problems here. 4
     
  2. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

    Messages:
    8,336
    Likes Received:
    28,405
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    ~SOTA Monk~ ~Monastery~ ~Thailand~
    "There allot that needs to be built here"
    Combat and everything else that is SotA will never be complete. Combat was never complete in UO, it always had tweaks and additions no matter when anyone ever played it. Our combat system isn't what makes the world turn and if it's the only thing we ever work on, then the rest of the world must wait until every single Combat Enthusiast is satisfied which is not what SotA is "all" about. If it operates, then it's enough to operate within the testing world. But if we have our staff working on nothing but combat forever, then our world is nothing more than another battlefield of PvP/PvE. That means no new clothing, no new weapons, no new houses, no new animals, no new quests, no new NPCs and the list goes on forever. SotA has been in stages of manufacture design. I do expect our team will add "a this or that spell or combat skill" with each release or maybe not. We still have not created a SotA Farmville and crafting is nowhere near done either. We would never get to see the sky of the Darkstarr MoonDial or fishing or fishing combat. The rest of the map, "though designed" has yet to be created and walked all over for it's bugs to be found.
    [​IMG]
    Combat Enthusiasts are never going to be satisfied with combat until their own personal interests are fulfilled, yet the rest of the world must be created, as well as tested.
    We have about as many Portalarium Employees as we have releases, or we're getting close to it :p
    Combat alone will not sell this game or satisfy all those who were lead here with intended promise of more. I know I'm no computer specialist engineer, but there's more to this game than just combat or some people here are going to be very upset having their gaming dollar hijacked for only combat design o_O...
    I love combat and that will never change or be satisfied, but nor will the rest of my desires that brought me to this game.
    Otherwise I'd just go back to Richard's Lineage I or II, or UO and re-buffed Old Ultima Games :D
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
    Jynx likes this.
  3. rune_74

    rune_74 Avatar

    Messages:
    4,786
    Likes Received:
    8,324
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Combat in ultima 7 was atrocious, yet it is considered one of the best if not the best ultima....just a little perspective.
     
    Alexander likes this.
  4. Isaiah

    Isaiah Avatar

    Messages:
    6,887
    Likes Received:
    8,359
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Great points, but as far as this point goes I am a PvPer and this is kind of N/A to me as well. However I'm sure some people will like this, but it is definitely a sport not real PvP.
     
  5. Isaiah

    Isaiah Avatar

    Messages:
    6,887
    Likes Received:
    8,359
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    I totally agree with you. I was only talking about creating a combat system that most people like, or at least one that doesn't fight us while we are using it.

    Although it is an essential feature, and the game depends on it.
     
    Time Lord likes this.
  6. Beaumaris

    Beaumaris Avatar

    Messages:
    4,289
    Likes Received:
    7,415
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Caladruin
    This build's feature list seemed focused on expanding and polishing existing systems, and it felt that way to me. Everything felt a little smoother, evolutionary not revolutionary.

    I'm ok with the focus on proving the combat system early. That makes a lot of sense as it is different and will need many iterations to get right.

    Like others though, I'm interested in seeing what's next beyond that.
     
  7. No Longer In Use

    No Longer In Use Avatar

    Messages:
    203
    Likes Received:
    304
    Trophy Points:
    28
    Gender:
    Male

    Of course! One question: who is "he"?
     
    rune_74 and Time Lord like this.
  8. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

    Messages:
    8,336
    Likes Received:
    28,405
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    ~SOTA Monk~ ~Monastery~ ~Thailand~
    "It's difficult to know what the fish are thinking from the outside of the bowel"
    This is true :rolleyes: I'm thinking that there needs no slugs for cloth and this would ease the leather and heavier armor up of their slugs.
    But I kind of shy away from too much tech of the combat, because I know of so many more players that could better comment on it, just because they're so good at it :cool: I know if it's simple enough for me to be a champion, then there's definitely something wrong with it :p Since the days of the Healer Knight of UO before the Mages and Tamers took over, I've never been good at any strait up combat ever since. PvE sure... but PvP... nope, the ~TL~ is no good at it :(

    I'm thinking that Chris is like our crystal ball on most skills and not just combat. So I'm of the thought that "whatever turns him on to create when he get's a notion to do so, is just fine with me" :D!
    Motivation and inspiration tend to go hand in hand and I want him, Darkstarr and all the crew to be as inspired by whatever turns them on in the morning, but we do also need our offline special things to become known in a better light than they have been, so that we not only keep those player's interests, but gain more of those players as well as those like we combat hounds. I don't think we have "department heads here" where everyone in Portalarium has a specialty of invention. Seems like to me we have a witch's think tank that just keeps inventing anything that comes to mind.

    These things can be good in a way :rolleyes: but there's a bubbling rebellion that is beginning to believe they've been forgotten.

    "Everyone second guesses the boss and how he runs things and I'm no different"
    Selling our game is all about having not only talking points, but clear examples on the shelf that outshine our competitors. I do worry (and I never worry about much) , but I do worry that if we don't have the cash for hiring the help we need, when we need it, that our small crew may have some members that could suffer from burn-out and thus fail to meet the needs by examples of all our product's facets. If they were all based here in Thailand, I'd have them all getting a massage every morning and drinking a Peptein each day before work. (That stuff is really good for mental endeavor! Not sold in the USA)
    [​IMG]
    The days of answering questions of what all we will have in SotA are getting shorter and I want all the gaming cash in the world to be the pillow under our Development Team's head every night. Those answers of "we will have this or a that" needs examples for our public to see that not only are they are not forgotten, but that so much more is on the way.
    I do agree that combat is nowhere near done, because I went PvE hunting with a pair of coconuts clip clopping in my hands and the damage I was doing with my fists of coconuts were taking down monsters just about as easy as when I used a one handed spear. I'm all for having hand combat being much more deadly, because I know I can take a Knight's head right off or kill him with his own weapon, but melee combat is very lacking here and is nowhere near finished because we've only just begun.

    "Our Portalarium hasn't given us any reason for these worries" but...
    I am very fine in waiting for all of everything to come in it's time, yet 5 million $ doesn't get all those Portalarium families fed or keep them all happy for very long. Thus we need to keep those families happy and together with more cash as time keeps ticking. Thus I'm never satisfied with the amount of cash our SotA has to offer them for so many hours of their meaningful work. I don't know how many millionaires we have on our Portalarium's staff that haven't such worries, but we are nowhere close to Star Citizen's cash to make me feel more comfortable that those needs are being met or for how long. "Crowd Funding has it's public worries". Examples sell any product because the promoter can point their finger to it and others can see it with their own eyes. If SotA has enough cash, then none of what I've said here really matters and we can continue the company secrets (because some things can be jacked when others beat us to it) and just ignore all I've said here. But if we need more cash, then we need those examples.

    Our game right now is so very young, it's like worrying about your child's lunch money. At some point we are either creating a prototype that will be eaten by one of the giants, but I hope that comes under better terms that would never stifle our creativity. It would make me jump for joy if Star Citizen bought us and made us one of their planets, thus creating another independent giant among the gaming industry with total creative freedom. Then I could cruse to New Britannia's 3rd Moon in my Constellation and log in from there.

    "Waiting is sometimes the hardest thing to overcome as an Ultima Fan"
    I guess what I'm saying here, is that we all want what we want sooner, yet Mona Lisa took a while to paint and our SotA is no different if we all want each piece of it (of which there are sooooo many) to be the innovative quality that we all desire it to be.
    So; Yes I have concerns, Yes I want those concerns met right now, but no! I've got to wait for the opening of my present until Santa's Little Red Hat Gnomes get finished building it.

    So Santa (Richard Garriott), I've been nice almost all year :rolleyes: and I'll wait for our present to come with milk and cookies standing by, because I don't want a game, that's just another EA or Origin lump of coal!
    I don't want a 1 star game, I want a 5 star game, I give it a 4 star for this release, but only because it crashed on me and my internet sux. But I did get to play it for a few days, saw and had some good fights on the Brave Coast and I think PvP is coming along just fine by me and what all I've seen of it, which was allot!
    ~Time Lord~:D!

    X
     
    Jynx and Isaiah [MGT] like this.
  9. Isaiah

    Isaiah Avatar

    Messages:
    6,887
    Likes Received:
    8,359
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    you
     
  10. SmokerKGB

    SmokerKGB Avatar

    Messages:
    2,227
    Likes Received:
    2,805
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Pittsburg, CA

    I suspect it's because R9 is another combat release and therefore fewer crafters are here... Plus the combat enthusiasts are new to the game, just pledging when they heard of the combat features coming...

    Here were the areas highlighted in the release notes for R9:
    PvP (Team PvP - Virtue vs Chaos): it looks good on paper, but I don't PvP...

    Combat Systems (Reagents, Combos): the reagents are easy to find, and I got most of my gold at the battle camp, so that was no problem for me. The purchase trade window seems to have some problems, says -10 gold as the trade amount when purchasing 100 of each reg. The combo system seems worthless, when the combo needs to be created & used within the time frame of the deck re-dealing. I feel the deck shouldn't redeal at all, each card should remain until used, then that one card is re dealt.

    Combat Skills (50 new skills, new Tactics line): Why introduce Tactics? Medium armor was fine, Tactics was a UO thing, so why bother backpedaling? Leather/chain should be a medium class of armor, otherwise everyone will continue to use Plate(warrior) or Cloth(mage), keeping to the same old item base game play, if leather was fire resistant & chain had better physical resistance and both had fewer slugs ppl might want to use them. There are too many slugs through out all armor classes.

    Scenes (Ardoris, Blackblade Pass): Ardoris was pretty boring without music playing in the background, plus you entered it on the edge of "row" city housing. It needs at least a few village plots throughout, maybe enter your chr in the middle of town where the merchants are... Blackblade Pass was cool, but the slimes divided too often when fighting them, not enough mining spots spawning in underground areas.

    New Creatures (new mimic, ice elemental): I didn't find the new mimic and the ice ele is kind of weak and it's too long to cast...

    Intro Cinematic: I liked the intro, great job...

    Character Customization (nose, ear, hair): everything seems to be coming along, but I wish I could vary them more. Was hoping for some wider ears, not larger, but wider (like wings or elephant or Ferengi)...

    Minimap System: I really liked this, thanks for adding it, but they need a zoom/scroll...

    Consumables (potions): Why do these have a casting timer?

    Books (premade e.g. instructions, Fire Lotus journals, etc): I liked them, but don't have time to read, got things to do...

    Default Decks: A nice time saver, gives me something to experiment with, I liked the addition...

    Player Lot Item Limits: I knew it was coming, and the limits are fine for indoor/outdoor, I'm not a hoarder, so I didn't even come close (I think, no way to tell). I like the fact chest items don't count.

    I still rate it as a 5, many things for crafting were fixed, many other things were fixed to, I am getting used to this card system for combat, I am using the 64 bit client without any problems (crashed 3 times but Windows said it changed some compatibility setting and it didn't crash afterwards), the spawn for resources went up (I did a lot of gathering, but still couldn't get enough to make all the stuff I wanted, mainly need more iron ore/cotton spawning).

    Still need to fix:
    -tools disappearing from tool bar when zoning (this is a PITB).
    -more iron/cotton spawning
    -combat bar comes up when casting light on myself
    -combat/non-combat bars don't switch fast enough sometimes, it gets stuck on combat sometimes...
    -giant spiders have Loot sometimes/sometimes not (field dressing is fine)
     
    Time Lord, Akro and smack like this.
  11. Tompez42

    Tompez42 Avatar

    Messages:
    35
    Likes Received:
    32
    Trophy Points:
    8
    light and medium armor has way too many slugs
     
  12. Dermott

    Dermott Avatar

    Messages:
    761
    Likes Received:
    1,346
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Florida
    ^ This. I'd be MUCH happier with the card system if it dealt out an initial "hand", then kept those cards until they were used, then those get replaced by what's next in the list. They initially drew the comparison to CCG (thus "card combat), but can't remember a single time playing Magic when I had to discard and draw a new card every 10 seconds (ok... maybe outside some rather insane and complete NOT serious deck setups, but never as a standard mechanic).
     
    SmokerKGB likes this.
  13. Sir Seir

    Sir Seir Avatar

    Messages:
    1,055
    Likes Received:
    1,526
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Bailey, CO

    Did you try adjusting the draw/discard speeds?
    [​IMG]
    Setting the discard to the slowest speed gives you about 20 seconds before a given card is tossed; seems like a very long time in combat to me.
     
  14. Lordy

    Lordy Avatar

    Messages:
    114
    Likes Received:
    156
    Trophy Points:
    18
    In my humble opinion next round of R after 10 are going to be crucial for SOTA. personally i have noticed a huge improvement in the game during the first 5-6 R ( contents and performances). After those, i noticed a general slow down on improvement rate. This is possibly due to the fact that alot of the job is now behind the stage, though i think it' s important to give us, the players, a general feeling of improvement in those mechanincs and stuff we are trying. Otherwise, and i tried my own this aspect while i was working with Artifact Entertwinment on Horizons, a sort of negativity and general depression starts bouncing here and there through the lines of players ruining the general atmosphere. We need to avoid it. My suggestion is to focus on fixing and tweaking what we have so far, before adding new content. Another advice i humbly put on the table, is that while it's great to have giveaways of keys by partners. Etc. to spread out the voice about SOTA, this is a double edged blade: there are people not ready to taste an Alpha, those guys aren't bad, simply they are too demanding for a project in it's early stage. Such guys will create posts in our forum about " how bad is the game" or " claiming that dual scale is going to be the tombstone for Sota" etc. making the general mood quite low and not adding anything new or constructive to the cause....Even worse they will start a negative viral marketing about SOTA, and for a person going around talking bad about the game, we need 7 guys talking good to cancel the negative effect. This is a known marketing rule...

    We have a fantastic community, please let's try and be careful about people we are inviting in our house....i'd hate to see someone peeing on my carpet ;)

    My 2 cents.
     
    Asclepius, Lord Beli, Kaisa and 3 others like this.
  15. Asclepius

    Asclepius Avatar

    Messages:
    1,650
    Likes Received:
    6,029
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Perth West Australia
    Well for the first time I'm giving a low score (2).

    That's an overall impression, and probably needs explanation. I did do some playing and exploring - there were positives:
    I do like the combat system, and am getting more used to the deck arrangement. I urge people not to despair or give up on it - I think it is a radical departure from traditional MMOs (new = scary!!) but it does offer much for those who delve into it.
    Ardoris looked nice, from what I saw of it.
    Never got to the Blackblade mountains, saw Ferig's battle camp briefly

    The thing that killed it mainly for me was stability. Multiple crashes, even after two full reinstalls, and got to the point where I couldn't play for more than 5 minutes. Often, starting or concluding a transaction with a merchant was enough to kill the game.

    It is a work in progress, and I very much like the direction the game is heading in; however for me this particular iteration was pretty much a disaster. I have no doubt the devs will be burning the midnight oil trying to track down all the issues, so I'm not giving up - just haven't been able to spend much time in New Britannia at all this weekend.
     
  16. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

    Messages:
    8,336
    Likes Received:
    28,405
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    ~SOTA Monk~ ~Monastery~ ~Thailand~
    Lets encourage "mindful love" in the forums:
    [​IMG]
    A bird showed this to me... which is a reminder to us all, just how large our tree is and all it's leaves truly are...
    and it was a very smart bird ;)!
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
  17. No Longer In Use

    No Longer In Use Avatar

    Messages:
    203
    Likes Received:
    304
    Trophy Points:
    28
    Gender:
    Male

    So your sentence, with the pronouns replaced, should read:

    So you're saying I shouldn't "fall for"... my own assumed position on this problem? Aside from being logically awkward, that's presumptuous and quite insulting. Calling other people's concerns "nonsense" is also disrespectful. I certainly didn't say that about your point of view. It also looks an awful lot like you lost track of who you were talking to, and that you were trying to set me up as a "straw man" for your own argument/agenda.

    A little courtesy and respect goes a long way toward getting your point across. So does keeping track of who you're talking to, frankly.
     
  18. Violation Clauth

    Violation Clauth Avatar

    Messages:
    3,247
    Likes Received:
    7,594
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    in a pre-alpha?

    Agreed... but not that it's painfully bad... requiring too much now will slow down testing of the core systems. It's easy to see what reagents WILL be required.
     
    Kaisa and smack like this.
  19. Greymarch

    Greymarch Avatar

    Messages:
    345
    Likes Received:
    482
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Toronto
    PvP (Team PvP - Virtue vs Chaos) - This seemed to work fine though the team sizes could become uneven if people left and I guess there's not much you can do about that. As a basic free-for-all it was a fine space with nice side corridors and such. I hope that some kind of objective gets added (destroy the other teams tower or something?) in the future. I did note that most matches tended to be total domination by one side. Lord British trolling people in their base didn't help either ;) 4/5

    Combat Systems (Reagents, Combos) - I stuck primarily with melee attacks and low level spells that didn't require reagents. I did rearrange my deck a few times to make combos a bit more likely and after I did they did pop up more often. I got the buzzsaw off a few times to good effect. I think the key with combos is the few them as a bonus, and not plan your whole fight around them or you'll be disappointed. One thing I was not really a fan of was the decision to include potions and the like as glyphs in your deck. IMO it would be better to have a dedicated fixed slot to put one in, or actually have to take the time to open your inventory to use them. Reagents are a whole other topic that I'll get into later. 3/5

    Combat Skills (50 new skills, new Tactics line) - I think there is still some balancing to be done. The proliferation of fireballs and fire elementals I saw was telling. Melee needs some kind of gap closer as they can be stunned/rooted very easily and end up whiffing a lot of attacks if the enemy moves. Against NPCs it wasn't as big of a deal. I was primarily using a 2 blade build, but in PVP I had to throw in some mage to even have a chance. Without some snares/ranged all I was doing was a lot of dying. I realize there are still many more skills to come so we can't really look at the overall balance yet, but I think there's a lot of work to be done yet. 3/5

    Scenes (Ardoris, Blackblade Pass) - I really enjoyed Ardoris, even though there didn't seem to be any music and a dearth of NPCs. As it was indicated that this is an extremely early view of Ardoris though I'm not holding that against it. I enjoyed the architecture being a mix of Euro/Asian and enjoyed speaking with the NPCs and learning about spirit-walkers and the palaces and all that. I didn't get to see the other new areas so Ardoris is really the only place I can rate. 4/5

    New Creatures (new mimic, ice elemental) - The only new monster I encountered was the slime. And while it seemed to work okay the look of it... ugh. It looked very dated imo, just a green blob with jagged polygonal lines. It desperatley needs some texture to it, some bubbles, something. It looked like something from an even older game than the rest of this. 2/5

    Intro Cinematic - I like it, and spoke about it in the General Forum earlier but I enjoy that the music gives me more of the sense of "adventure" than "heroic drama" that most games try for. The Illuminati pyramid is a bit cheesey but overall I quite enjoyed it. I hope however that there will be more informational cinematics or something leading into playing the game itself. Not just seeing that and then PLOP, hey I'm in Owl's Head. 4/5

    Character Customization (nose, ear, hair) - While technically the new parts do what they claim I still think the avatars look horrible. The much touted improvement to the mohawk still looks extremely dated. I seriously hope that there are going to be extensive improvements to this area. You will spend the entire game looking at your avatar, it should be one of the most polished things in the game imo. 2/5

    Minimap System - I quite like the principle of this system there are just a few modifications needed. The ability to stretch/shrink the size of the map and/or zoom on it. Making the triangle more obvious (as was mentioned previously it's pretty much an equilateral triangle - hard to tell which way it's pointed) and the ability to add our own notes. I don't mind the runic, but then again I taught myself how to read that way back playing Ultima V so my opinion may not be the same as other. Having an English translation popup when you mouse-over a word may be an idea? 3.5/5

    Consumables (potions) - TBH I never even used any, but as I mentioned before I think the idea to include them in decks is pretty silly. 2/5

    Books (premade e.g. instructions, Fire Lotus journals, etc) - Yep. They were books alright. Not much to say about them either way. Having links in the table of contents move you to that page might be nice, as well as a bookmark. 3/5

    Default Decks - Didn't try them, went for my own right away. Saw the amount of slugs and went "nope". N/A

    Player Lot Item Limits - Didn't build enough for this to come up but I understand the reasoning behind it. One question though: I got a row house in Ardoris but was unable to place anything outside even though there seemed to be a little shaded area at the front for it. Also I recalled reading something about an exterior item limit of 3 for row houses? Should I have been able to? N/A

    So a few other topics:

    Reagents
    This is really a tricky subject to discuss this early in the game, yet ironically it's one of those things that's going to need to be decided upon early. As much as I have been asking people to calm down about it, in actuality I do agree that spells should require reagents. I would even go further than that and say that said reagents should be prepared for the spell ahead of time like in Ultima game of yore. Make each "glyph" actually a pre-prepared spell and once its cast it's taken out of your deck. Then mages would need to replenish their decks between combats.

    But I know that won't happen, too many people would find it tedious and worry even further about balance. I think we have to accept that with this deck building system each glyph is relatively on equal footing as far as power goes, and they don't want people to make decks but then not be able to cast the spells. I would kind of like them to expand on the way they have it now, lower tier spells require no reagents, mid-tier ones use them but can be cast as a weaker effect without, and then the top-tier spells must have reagents or they auto-fizzle. I think that would be a good trade-off personally.

    I know there has been a complaint about archers needing arrows, and my argument is that reagents cost a lot more than arrows but during this play through I only did a little bit of PVEing and I had thousands of gold pieces and fistfuls of diamonds in my backpack. Before we can worry about how much mage characters will need to spend on reagents we need to look at how the in-game economy is going to work in the first place. I really hope we aren't going to be rolling around this fat in cash so quickly. At the rate you can gain gold currently you can swim in as many reagents as you want, making the requirement to use them inconsequential. If it's going to be that easy, may as well get rid of them altogether.

    Slugs
    The much maligned slugs. I think they serve a key purpose in the deck system but in R9 we hit a snag with them. One thing this whole glyph/deck system reminded me of was a FTP game called "Card Hunters". By giving characters different gear it would add different cards to a deck that you used to do actions. Some gear gave both beneficial and disadvantaged cards to you. A lot of gearing up your dudes was figuring out whether it was worth using these cards or not. Heavy armor would often slow you down, and some weapons might have one or two awesome attacks, but also add some fumble cards. There's a lot of choices to make. Of course, that's a turn based game and we don't have as long to mull things over in frantic MMO combat here.

    I think slugs should stay (sorta), but I don't think ditching them should enact the global cool-down. In that respect R8 was better than R9. Not only that but I think they should actually do something. Some people have been very negative about their appearance and how they are "not fun". My proposal would be to take the slugs as they exist now and split them into two types of slugs: Armor Slugs and Deck Slugs. They would still be added to your deck in the same manner, Armor Slugs from heavier armours, and Deck Slugs from having unused card slots in your deck.

    The difference now would be if they came up in your hand you could just discard them as now (or R8 rather) or actually use them instead. An Armor Slug would simply give you a small buff to your armour rating for a few seconds, a Deck Slug would act as a rest and get you back a small amount of Focus. Not as much as an actual ability from one of the trees, but not completely useless either.

    The Map
    Personally I would prefer to have an open world to explore. However, I know that barring a ton of funding showing up that just isn't going to happen. I hope that there will be more detail added to the overhead map, it's very dreary the way it is right now. I especially hope that we will have the option of overlaying the hexes to know where new tiles begin and end. TBH I'm also not a big fan of the way our token just glides over the map. I don't really have a suggestion, but it just bugs me.

    Overall
    I think the game is still maturing and there are a lot of things that need to be worked on, but we can't really complain about balance yet when many of the abilities still aren't even in the game yet. What's the point of balancing it all perfectly just to have the next tree added screw it all up again? I think there have been a few missteps, but otherwise things are moving along nicely. Overall 3/5
     
  20. Lathiari

    Lathiari Avatar

    Messages:
    124
    Likes Received:
    289
    Trophy Points:
    18
    I don't usually post here or get involved at all actually but I thought I would kick in my two pents as it were for this one. This was the first release I put ANY kind of actual play time into, a friend and I spent a good 2 hours playing and laughing and having a good time with this and 'fwiw' though different and complex I didn't find the combat systems or deck systems as they are to be any big hindrance. It took me a little bit to understand everything but inside of my 2 or 3 hours with the game I feel I have a very good understanding of how it all works and what it means. This release was allot of fun for us and I plan to upload some videos later of our adventure as it were.

    I ended up playing a mostly melee character with a few splashes of magic thrown in as that currently seems to be the popular play style. For this test I decided to familiarize myself with game systems and build something to my liking, I have always been a fan of the "death knight" or in UO my 7x "necro warrior" Lathiari so I was determined to try and recreate that here. Within a few moments of studying the UI I found my way into the deck system, after a moment I understood that putting points into talent trees corresponded with adding cards to your hand which could then be structured into your 20 card deck. I also noticed that within the focus tree you had abilities that enhanced the way your deck handled, these seem very important to me and I could see most players not paying this tree enough attention and I really feel like you should. Funnily enough if you think of the game "magic the gathering" and you picture the way that is working what with a planes walker and spell/creature cards you should view the focus tree as something that makes the planes walker himself stronger, if that analogy makes no sense at all then please disregard it but it worked for me!

    I feel like allot of the negativity from people here shows a clear sign that some people "get" this system and some people "almost get it". The people having fun with it I believe completely understand it and are really showing that on the battlefield while the others who are almost there are not having quite as much fun and thus want to dismiss the system as flawed. That isn't to say it is perfect mind you but I find it telling that you can walk onto a battlefield and really see a stark contrast between people who really get it and people who don't. It could benefit from more tutorials but the game is in such an early state that we really cannot fault anyone for that. I really like how unique this system is and though I wasn't really sure about the whole "random" aspect of the cards after spending awhile with it I can say that it feels pretty unique and fun. I really like how this system discourages macro's and autohotkey use, the random nature of the draw demands that you pay attention to your skill bar and really doesn't allow for pre programmed domination as it were, if you are going to win it's because you were more focused than your opponent not because you fired off macros or had better access to third party tools/hardware.

    I'm not saying everything here is perfect, it's not - but I really had a good time with what I played. I can only see things getting better going forward.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.