Closed Alpha Feedback Thread: April 20th MARK II

[Cinyman]

Ok so after many hours of playing today. a few things I’ve Noticed.
I went afk for just 5 minutes i had my character parked against a mountain. when i came back i was dead. Looking around couldn’t find my revive button. i looked for the logout (its been cut off by the new buttons) no big deal. I will say i forgot to try the debug tool there. i exited the game to get my resurrect button back.

Warrior : Threat is a finicky thing. While starting a fight using sword throw and getting a few hacks in i noticed some mobs basically would ignore me completely and run to the very next target upon engagement.

Warriors sword i noticed if i placed my shield on my back. then i got it back out before attacking an enemy would sometimes no function properly as if i didn’t have a sword in my hand at all. putting it on my back and getting it back out solved the problem.

Warrior shield not regenerating health like normal health does. i found my self doing shield ground slams to force my shield to 0 so it would reset to full. I love the tanking mechanic behind a blast about to occur and getting out of it. no complaints on any of that part.

Warriors shield. i think would work a little better if it didn’t feel like i was holding it with a stick in front. Normal shields are against your forearm. holding the shield like I’m actually pointing it feels a little awkward. I’ve found that attacking with the sword north to south and vise versa works best to keep from accidentally hitting your shield even if you’re holding it off to the side.

When a monster is on a mountains edge and you attacking it. the monster comes towards you in a straight line. ground or walking on air
Has the same effect when attacking one that’s by the rivers edge. it will swim through the earth to get to you.

I did notice that strangely when fighting the giant pigmen with the cleaver. we had a couple of times when he would being the emotion for a sword slam. (i tanked on the opposite side/sideways from dps.) that when he would being the motion and i would teleport to the side of him very rarely he would turn and do his slam smashing all that were behind me. only happened 2-3 times that i noticed. once killed a dps haha.

While taking the airship (which is one of my favorite things) I was playing around with my sword throwing it overboard. not thinking about it i hit my trigger. teleporting me below the ground below the airship. but was still tied to the airship being i was still in its same “instance” i guess you could say. It would drag me around the world below the surface where i had thrown my sword. i attempted to use the bug report and resurrect at the graveyard just for my resurrect button to stay still as i moved away still being attached to the ship. (exited game and rejoined it placed me at graveyard)

Sometimes the sword throw seems a little jerky. sometimes throwing it just inches from my feet. normally i’d blame myself i’m good at screwing up a simple motion. but have had it do that to me on what i really felt were a good “throw”.

Warrior note. today after 5-6 hours of swinging my arm to attack with a sword its rather sore. id like to maybe have a small threat increase to decrease the amount of swinging.

Leveling to 8 has been a fantastic experience and die for more of this. the communication between players has been something to never forget.

We downed the Plant world boss on the 2nd attempt! a Little formation required and instruction. it had a noise glitch going on when i got close to it i basically couldnt hear much of anything the group members had to say and it stuck with me till i restarted the game. almost like there was a water fall around me…

Anyways thanks for the great time and the chance to help! Ill be on more tomorrow!

[Tab_B]

my group heard the same sound bug. I think it is the sound of the plant boss coming out of the ground. maybe getting stuck in a loop.

[Chrondar]

I forgot to mention in my previous feedback about the quest system.
Currently the quests are repeatable. Not sure if that was intended at this point in the game.
Also if you logout or get disconnected you lose the quest and have to pick it up again.
The symbol above the quest givers head is always an exclamation point. In most mmo’s there is one symbol for an available quest and a different symbol to signal that you completed the quest and need to talk to them to turn it in.

I found it was very confusing to have everyones damage numbers getting blurred together. Couldn’t see what my damage was. Perhaps make your damage come up as a different color than other players damage numbers to help distinguish.

The compass is great but really needs a greater area for speaking when up to the mouth. Also I think a map would be a great addition. Not a map that shows the location of you and other players but just a simple topographical map labeling all the towns and points of interests. While exploring I frequently got turned around and am in no way sure if I saw everything there was to see. A map would have helped with this. Perhaps just as an item in your inventory or a button in your menu.

Again I must say I had a blast today and want to thank the Devs for a wonderful and very promising game.

[kymahi]

Disclaimer
love the game so far. i’ve noticed a few quirks here and there and have a bit of feedback regarding a few things, but definitely don’t take this all negatively. the game’s been a blast so far. I really look forward to playing more.

Bugs

The Warrior’s Sword
The warrior’s sword is a bit off in placement. it seems as though i’m holding the very bottom of the sword, towards the knob of it, instead of the middle of the hilt. it’s also angled a bit off from the way my controller is angled, which can be disjointing.

Damage Color/Placement
If possible, I’d love to see your damage appear as a different color (probably not green for those red/green colorblind people), and appear on top of other player’s damage so you can see how well you’re hitting. this could be particularly useful for warriors, since their damage is pretty much completely dependent on the length of their swing. this way they can see “ok I’ve hit X damage, which isn’t max. i need to take longer swings”, etc.

Sword Throwing Bug
There’s a place after you get off the airship, where you can sword throw through a door and get into an area with tents and a bunch of mountains. going through the initial door, and the door on the right (sword throwing), you can sword throw your way up the mountain until you get into a valley of sorts. walking through to the edge of the cliff, you can then sword throw off the cliff, but you will not see the sword. teleporting to it reveals it get stuck in the sky box, and you can now stand in the sky and continuously sword throw/teleport as far as the game allows you. we tried to get to the end, and ended throwing for about an hour, but never reached a wall or anything like that.

If the above doesn’t help with location, @Damage_Da_Mage can show/tell you exactly where it is.

Menu Bugs
finally, the menu is a bit buggy, as some have mentioned before. while in a party, the logout option sometimes disappears and reappears after leaving the party. also, while on the airship, the menu appears where your character was in space when you first pressed the button, not right in front of you.

Suggestions

The Menu
the menu is unintuitive and pretty clunky. i have issues making sure the menu items i wanted to click were the ones i was actually clicking. also, it probably shouldn’t appear where the hand you press the button to activate it is, instead, it should appear in a fixed location in front of you.

Hand Animations
the hand movements, while nice to look at, take too long to finish the animation. i’m trying to press and move things and end up doing it twice because the hand animation was not finished when i went to click on an item or menu button.

Inventory
drag and drop for items would be pretty nice to have as well. going back to the menu follies, clicking one item and then clicking the space is less intuitive (and doesn’t always works the first go-around) than clicking and holding an item and then dragging it to the location you want it.

also, clicking on an item should display the item information, rather than clicking and holding. maybe don’t put it in front of the menu/item, like it does now, instead, put it above the entire menu/inventory.

Controls
this one i may be alone on, but i hate using the grip buttons as frequently as we have to. using the trigger is much easier and more intuitive for me when stowing and unstowing my main weapon, especially since, in other VR games, the trigger is a main functioning button and the grips are secondary, whereas here it feels the opposite. i think the grip and the trigger should be completely switched in function. the grips are too easy to hit randomly and accidentally stow or unstow your weapon. there were times, especially when sword throwing that i accidentally put my weapon away, because the grip buttons are too easy to hit.

Switching Classes
i would love a way to quick-switch classes. like, if we held down the trigger or held grips and trigger at the same time, a circular menu appeared over your hands where you have 3-4 numbers corresponding to different outfits you made for your character with items from your inventory that you can set from the menu to equip.

that is to say, have a 3-4 quick-switch outfit tabs in the inventory screen that have all of the clothing/items/weapons as the normal character screen, but when holding the key combination down and selecting the new outfit via the circle touch pad/joystick would change your class/clothes/armor/whatever to one of your pre-defined outfits sets.

obviously this would have to be outside of battle, but could allow for easy saves, for instance, if your musketeer dies, and you have levels in it, after your monster is slain, you could quick-switch into your musketeer class and help the rest of your party until your main healer returns.

i hope that’s clear enough. it’s very late here and i’m running on fumes after playing this for so long.

Epilogue
Honestly, the game is very fun, and i hope you haven’t taken this to be all negative. If i started listing everything i enjoyed about the game so far, this would be over twice as long as it is now. it’s been fantastic.

If you have any question about anything i wrote about here, let me know!

Thanks Riley and team!

[Damage_Da_Mage]

@kymahi

also, it probably shouldn’t appear where the hand you press the button to activate it is, instead, it should appear in a fixed location in front of you.

To expand on this, when you’re on the airship it’s very difficult to access the menu to swap out gear. I managed it once by stretching my arm out as far in front of me as possible and I think the airship may have been slowing down at that point. Popping the menu in a fixed location would prevent this issue. I was pretty disappointed when I wasn’t able to sort through my gear during the down time aboard the airship.

One thing I did notice and thoroughly frustrated several people with is that you are able to cast portals on top of people and insta-teleport them when it’s completed. I threw one guy off the airship pad while we were waiting for it to arrive (don’t worry, he made it back in time). Perhaps portals should only be available to the party you’re in currently? Or maybe just a quick acceptance menu before you go through? It is, however, impossible to use this trick on the airship because your wand just sends a stream of pink out in front of you because it captures the airship motion as your own. Yeah, I know, I’m kind of evil sometimes.

I also tried creating a portal to Highsteppe directly on the spot where you arrive after taking a portal to Highsteppe. That didn’t do anything though. My character just stood there in the portal instead of ending up in a never-ending portal loop, so excellent foresight on that one. Well, unless I was stuck in a never-ending portal loop and just couldn’t tell because I was instantly reappearing in the exact same position I was in when I left… Man, portals are hard.

Overall I’m having a great time and I have very little to add that hasn’t been touched on already. Here’s a picture of my group well past the “edge of the world” looking for the true boundary. Just for some added giggles (And for science! )

[kymahi]

@kymahi

finally, the menu is a bit buggy, as some have mentioned before. while in a party, the logout option sometimes disappears and reappears after leaving the party. also, while on the airship, the menu appears where your character was in space when you first pressed the button, not right in front of you.

@Damage_Da_Mage I mentioned the airship. trying to steal my thunder now?

[Damage_Da_Mage]

Ah, nope, just read right over that. My bad. Tired and stuff.

[kymahi]

it’s cool, just busting your chops a bit

[Pyrarrows]

I thought that you guys said that you’d never remove the log out button!

This was a good night, I’ll be uploading some videos tomorrow, My group also found an interesting glitch in the player house. It is very possible & somewhat easy to get yourself stuck in the player house, the only way out is to successfully make a portal to a different location. At least I finally learned how to cast portals tonight…
One of my party members actually got stuck in the void beneath the house.

You can teleport to the upper floor through the skylights, but you can’t teleport back down to the floor with the door. The upper floor looks really cool though. Do not throw the warrior sword when in the house, it will fall through the floor. The door will be out of reach & the back to Graveyard button doesn’t work at all in the house, you just respawn where you were standing.

[Zurtagh]

Just confirming that I was also having trouble with portals not actually teleporting me anywhere. I would step through them and they would disappear but nothing would happen.

I also noticed that after stepping through several portals that did not transport me anywhere, I seemed to have that “invisible wall” that my other spells could not travel through which was mentioned before.

Wondering about a “tracer” for projected path of arrow. Aiming seemed a bit difficult and could be frustrating if you missed a fully charged poison shot and had to wait for it refresh. If this is a planned difficulty in aiming however - spot on.

I think the push for socialization was either nailed on the head or has gone a bit too far. I just popped on and couldn’t find anyone to play with anywhere (I’m assuming I’m the only one out of the 8 on that doesn’t have a max level character :-P). In it’s current state, playing by yourself was definitely not fun. I imagine that might change a little bit once XP and quests and other intricacies are tweaked or added to the game, but the difference between playing with a group and playing solo was phenomenal (and I’m not talking XP wise - I’ve read those posts). I got to play with a group earlier in the day and even though we didn’t really end up doing that much, I had an absolute blast. Far different from my lonely experience tonight.

Hoping more people are on in the hours to come and I can squeeze in a few more before the test ends.

Thanks everyone!

[Richard_M]

So, has anyone else experienced that playing especially the warior class for a good few hours, by morning I feel like I have been in an actual war! XD

No complaints or anything, it feels like a workout!

[Falsedemise]

Fishing from the docks in the Guild City doesn’t work. When reeling in the line, the bobber gets stuck in the water and won’t come up to the pole.

[Richard_M]

Oh hey False, I assumed it was you talking about fishing! - its Rae here.

[Outlander_Robert]

Okay thanks for posting that, we actually found that bug while we were Dev. testing just haven’t had time to address it. But hopefully we will be able to get it figured out before the next test.

[Cinyman]

Veryyyy much so… hahahhahahahaha 7 hours of playing warrior yesterday does that!

[Admino]

Hey guys, Riley, Robert, and the other devs who’ve worked so hard on OrbusVR.

Apologies for not writing sooner. I had intended to write up every problem I found in depth and in detail, but my human tendancies got the best of me (playing for too long in one stint, falling asleep from exaustion, and then repeating the process…

First, Orbus is an amazing game even at this stage. I’ve had a blast playing around with the mechanics as well as meeting a lot of great people in the process. I’m looking forward to catching up with you all again on the forums, discord and in game.

Now a brief rundown on some things I’ve noticed. Some of these have already been reported and some have already been fixed (like #4).

1. When updating the launcher, the “launch game” button is useable even though the game files are still being checked. This seems to depend on whether the server is online or offline.
2. Fishing: messages are written backward.
3. Near tunnel entrance to Ma’at’s keep, there is a floating tree (it appears to be about a mage wand’s length above the ground and is on the left as you approach the entrance from the front).
4. Warrior on Rift: Sword jump causes sword to fly out at odd angles (already fixed).
5. Right half of runemage’s and ranger’s head and shoulders not showing.
6. Sword thow ability allows players to enter non-game areas as well as bypass natural obstacles.
7. Summonable plant boss respawns after several seconds making it very difficult to get loot without dying.
8. Plant boss can be soloed (or glitched) by a musketeer on the ridge to the left of the stairs, and then collecting loot by switching to warrior, sword throwing to the loot, and stashing it before dying (I hate to be a party pooper, but everything’ll be wiped anyway ^^;).
9. PVP arena:I only tried it a couple of times. The first time I changed to a musketeer and died to a ranger. For some reason I wasn’t doing any damage and my turret wasn’t working. The second time, I went it with a group member and we were still grouped in the arena. I’d recommend disabling groups within the arena, but allowing people to remain grouped when they leave.
10. Runemage portals were haphazard; sometimes they worked, sometimes they transported you to the place where you entered the portal.

Classes:
Musketeer:
felt the musketeer is probably the simplest and strongest class owing to its buffs and heals. It has LoS trajectory, range, buffs, debuffs, and most importantly healing. The lack of a healing ability for the other classes makes it very lopsided. I lost my second fight against another musketeer because of RNG on healing balls.

Runemage:
I enjoyed playing the runemage simply because I like the idea of magic and being able to control it. I think the runemage is relatively well-balanced considering the strength of its spells and its overall armour. However, I didn’t feel the frost fire spell to be that useful or it’s effects noticeable. Perhaps something more obvious such as rooting the target to the spot would make it’s utility more obvious. Spell-casting: with a bit of practice, I was able to pretty much cast most of the spells I wanted to, but I also had problems with rune recognition. There were many occasions when an arcane ray spell or shield spell was misread as the first rune of a portal spell and there were also many occasions when the shield was misread as an arcane ray spell.

Warrior:
I didn’t play as the warrior much as I had problems with the sword thowing ability (which has now been fixed).
I noticed that it is (or was) possible for a warrior to attack his own shield and damage it with his sword. That is hopefully not intentional.

Ranger:
I kinda felt the ranger was not very powerful. Again, I didn’t play with it much so I was still low level.

Supercharge: I noticed that if I have an unused supercharge available after playing as the ranger, the supercharge bar remained full even after switching to another class (namely the warrior; I didn’t test with switching to other classes).

That’s all I can think. I’ll try to be more organized next time

Adios till next time!

[Chrondar]

I didn’t find the sword throwing ability to be fixed…I’m an oculus user and my sword would still fly off in odd directions. (as of 20 minutes ago.)

[Unrivalled_Super_Hot]

My god I had a blast for this test, I was with a really nice and friendly group. Hunting and leveling is HARD, I loved the fact that our lives were hanging by a thread even during leveling after the initial airship area. People got together in large hunting parties to make it easier, but it still sometimes turned into a massacre with too many monsters. The struggle to keep some kind of formation and trying to stay alive was a fresh feeling. I may have been too excited and never shut up during the dungeon as it was very exciting, and my team was very good as well (thanks for bearing with me, haha).

I had the usual problems like the others, runemage rune writing was very clunky and my fireballs turned into icebolts around half the time.
I also had the problem of sword hit detection with warrior. When trying to kill those frog dog thingies at the beginner area the sword hit registered but there was no damage even if I swinged really hard (this was yesterday afternoon before PvP patch).

[Admino]

Oh? The problem was only noticed by Rift users who had front-facing tracking on (myself included). Another player reported that the sword would always fly off in the front direction of the user’s play-space setup. I’m sure I saw a post my Riley saying it’d been fixed. I know that the last time I checked it, I could underarm throw the sword and it went where I wanted it to. If It’s not been fixed yet, I could have been lucky in that I was facing “front” those times. I didn’t spend enough time as the warrior to be sure though.

[Zurtagh]

When I died while having the crit effect on with the Ranger - the animation stuck to my bow. It did not go away when I died again or when I refilled the yellow bar and triggered the effect again, it still remained. It did not disappear until the area seemed to glitch (no ghosts or wolves or any mobs whatsoever showing up)