Crowfall

Draegan_sl said:

He's a money man for this. Seems to be doing a good job with it.

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Yeah.... I was hesitant about him as well but I think J. Todd is really calling the shots. I think it will be J. Todd's game succeed or fail but I do think he listens to his team and community.

Well I really hope they pay attention to B&D and BDO. They are now the new standard in action MMO combat.

Draegan_sl said:

Well I really hope they pay attention to B&D and BDO. They are now the new standard in action MMO combat.

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CF's action combat so far feels as if it is at half the speed of the current twitch mmorpgs out there. No idea if that's due to being pre alpha, new client control (which is an improvement) or whateves but I kinda prefer this slower action fighting with longer TTK combat. The group on group on group fights are more intense and you have time to actually work as a group as opposed to hitting the ground in seconds. Still work to do but every time we log in for hunger dome match play we keep coming back for more. The last two north American tests has seen an across the board rise in organize skill group play which helps the "fun" factor I guess.

There are a lot of things to tweak there for speed and stuff. Personally I'm just pointing out that, BDO especially, is the crispness, control, and animations are superb when it comes to combat. Not only that, the control scheme is excellent. Everything is controlled by directional keys, shift, Q, F and E and the mouse.

Lot to be learned there.q

Sylas_sl said:

far more forgivable than 1234567890-= bullshit.

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As someone who owns a Razer Naga, I change all scheme's to 1 through =.

Decent video and I actually enjoyed the discussion on "currencies" and how they apply that to everything in game. I'm not in the industry so I don't know if other game developers think along those same lines but it was entertaining none the less.

Testing was up most of the day today (2/14), something like 8 hours.

Hope this becomes a trend.

I understand it's a pre-alpha. I want to like the game, but god damn does it feel clunky. Skills don't respond half the time. I can't tell when I'm disabled. Landing abilities seems more luck than skill, because when they do go off it's usually three seconds later.

It's like playing an MMO at 1,000 latency, a twitch MMO at that. They need to drastically improve animations so you can tell when you're stunned, knocked down, knocked back. They also need to drastically improve the netcode. Then you get an orange/purple item and it adds +18 hp when everyone is running around at 4,000 health. Only four classes are in. Those classes have three sets of armor each, all of which look really plain.

...They have a LOT of work to do.

Woolygimp_sl said:

I understand it's a pre-alpha. I want to like the game, but god damn does it feel clunky. Skills don't respond half the time. I can't tell when I'm disabled. Landing abilities seems more luck than skill, because when they do go off it's usually three seconds later.

It's like playing an MMO at 1,000 latency, a twitch MMO at that. They need to drastically improve animations so you can tell when you're stunned, knocked down, knocked back. They also need to drastically improve the netcode. Then you get an orange/purple item and it adds +18 hp when everyone is running around at 4,000 health. Only four classes are in. Those classes have three sets of armor each, all of which look really plain.

...They have a LOT of work to do.

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You should watch the video posted 4 posts above this by Jimbolini. They talk specifically about how ability response is on deck now that they've moved the movement piece to the client side. Art assets come at a later time and I don't know about you but I would personally rather them work on the game "feeling" right when it comes to combat/movement rather than looking pretty.

Well I was trying to point out that they have a lot of things to tackle at this point, which includes response times and good animations or indicators showing you what the fuck is happening. I can not enjoy the combat currently, or even fathom a guess at how fun it'll be until they get that shit under wraps. So hopefully they get that implemented as soon as possible.

I completely understand that it's a pre-alpha and I'm not chastising them. Basically withholding judgement until we get something a little more workable. I've played a lot of alphas and I was always amazed at how little changes from early builds to release. Maybe this will be much different, I really don't know much about net code and optimization. But sooner they get it fixed, sooner they can start working on the rest of the game.

Woolygimp_sl said:

Well I was trying to point out that they have a lot of things to tackle at this point, which includes response times and good animations or indicators showing you what the fuck is happening. I can not enjoy the combat currently, or even fathom a guess at how fun it'll be until they get that shit under wraps. So hopefully they get that implemented as soon as possible.

I completely understand that it's a pre-alpha and I'm not chastising them. Basically withholding judgement until we get something a little more workable. I've played a lot of alphas and I was always amazed at how little changes from early builds to release. Maybe this will be much different, I really don't know much about net code and optimization. But sooner they get it fixed, sooner they can start working on the rest of the game.

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Well, when it was server side movement, the abilities were pretty usable. Didn't play lately so maybe that just got screwed up when they transitioned to the client model. Still, this isn't Star Citizen. They've come a long way so far IMO.

I hear what you saying Wooly. I felt the same way back in November but after sticking w the same archetype and playing with a group on voice com on dozens of tests some of those issues become less of an issue.

Utnayan_sl said:

So wait. Voice com and knowing your class is making UI/ability response time and lag animation a non issue for you?

Has anyone looked at the Bio of people working on this? The games have been absolutely fucking horrible, with most of the leads coming out of Ex-SOE and the people directly responsible for fucking up SWG with the NGE and the ones who made the majority of design mistakes with SWTOR and TESO. I would say they could learn from their mistakes right? No. These are egotistical good ol' boys club morons who will sink a ship over being wrong. It's been proven over the last20 years. So my question is why would anyone think this is going to change? Gordon Walton couldn't lead an army of monkeys to ford a 4" river to banana island. Jesus Christ. Open your eyes people.

"Since earning a PhD in Astrophysics in the mid 90s, Bill has worked primarily in MMO development."

But wait, don't worry. Raph Koster sits on the advisory board????

Welcome to the misfit playhouse!

I strongly advise no one, I mean literally no one, gets too deep into this garbage hype. You are all smarter than this.

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To be clearer, yes the pre alpha is clunky at times, but that being said I had no idea wtf was going on as well in the beginning but after learning my abilities, learning the other archetype indicators etc the hunger game combat played at a much more enjoyable level. Personally I have a lot of fun playing with my buddies as a group in these pre alpha combat tests and seen a vast improvement on abilities since the client controls went in. Of course there is work to be done on combat still. I see a lot of the OG pvp guilds logging in weekly to fight in the hunger dome so something must be working.

No idea on the hype level of Crowfall since I dont pay attention to the masses but Shadowbane was by far the best pvp social mmorpg to date. If J Todd Coleman gets Crowfall to half of what Shadowbane was in terms of nation building, guild on guild warefare, open pvp in a sandbox then I will be a happy

I am totally new to this style of combat, so I do not know how fast or slow it should be.

I tend to spend most of my time in Hunger Dome testing areas and looking for issues regarding line of site, etc.

It's clear to me that when this game launches I will be more of the craft it, supply it, and help in other ways type of player. (Translation: I suck at this type of combat and always get stuck in between a circle of enemies)

Barab_sl said:

To be clearer, yes the pre alpha is clunky at times, but that being said I had no idea wtf was going on as well in the beginning but after learning my abilities, learning the other archetype indicators etc the hunger game combat played at a much more enjoyable level. Personally I have a lot of fun playing with my buddies as a group in these pre alpha combat tests and seen a vast improvement on abilities since the client controls went in. Of course there is work to be done on combat still. I see a lot of the OG pvp guilds logging in weekly to fight in the hunger dome so something must be working.

No idea on the hype level of Crowfall since I dont pay attention to the masses but Shadowbane was by far the best pvp social mmorpg to date. If J Todd Coleman gets Crowfall to half of what Shadowbane was in terms of nation building, guild on guild warefare, open pvp in a sandbox then I will be a happy

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This is because you have an idea which each ability does without seeing status effects. That'll be a lot less likely for new players or when they have all of their classes implemented.

Besides with how the Hunger Dome is structured, most groups roll a bunch of Knights and Confessors. The Knights just stay to stay alive the last minute or so, and the Confessors do the damage before they're killed off. Champion is by far the least class because it's so damn difficult to land abilities will all of the warping and lag. Only newer players play them.
I mean there are times when you can block people in, and keep them from moving and that's satisfying... but Knights have twice (probably closer to three times) as much survivability, about 70% of their damage, and way more utility than Champs.

Hunger Dome right now is easily 70% Knights...

And Ultima Online was the best social PvP to date.
I really don't know. Right now the ONLY thing running is a combat test, and it's the same game mode every match. Hunger should do percentage of hp as damage, but it doesn't. That's why Knights pretty much dominate. Right now I'm getting a very bland feel, but it is pre-alpha... I just don't feel feel any improvement in the last six months. Still only four classes, only three suits of armor, the same map, the same lag, and the only change I've noticed is that there are some textures.

I'm hoping they can make something fun, but I'm a little skeptical that they can ever pull off anything remotely similar to B&S or BDO (with better sandbox elements).