That’s interesting because I didn’t feel like I was catching any fish at all.
Since they’re required for health potions…it does kinda skew how much they’re needed.
To be fair, I was using math to find the best lure combination for yields.
I’m not going to give away my secret recipe (especially since fishing likely to be overhauled soon) but it also depends on what you are fishing for, and what they like.
I’m pretty sure I caught close to a 100 total fish in the beta with the few hours I put into it.
The higher fishing level you get the stronger pole you’ll need /unlock. Lures will be of rarer mats and rarer fish will be tougher on the line. It’ll be really cool when it’s all implemented!
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You receive the map of the area around Highsteppe from Guardian Bart when finishing the Tutorial Quest line (doesn’t have to be completed to continue main story quest line). If you completed the entire tutorial (killing the king stag) and still didn’t receive the map let me know, if not that is where it is found.
Wow, that is a lot of fish, I’m hit or miss a lot of times with fish. I haven’t caught anywhere near that.
That makes sense. @Logan got to live for another day. I was going to send him straight to the tigers:)
Johann I have 48 reagents left. Prepare yourself!
Here come my rambling observations collected throughout the weekend:
general
- I really had a lot of fun again. This time I focused on playing the warrior.
- I crashed a lot on Friday and Saturday. It was better on Sunday, after the patch from Saturday evening (my time).
- A thing I did not experience during the open alpha, but this time was phasing in and out of a zone. It was happening all the time in the beginning, when the friend list bug was there. But it also happened from time, to time during the following days. Sometimes only a restart of the game did help to get back to where others where shown and or could hear me.
- When walking over long distances I currently often use the slide and teleport at the same time method, because just sliding somehow feels to slow. It would be nice, if the default walking speed could be a bit faster and we wouldn’t have to use “cheats” like this.
questing
- I am not really paying attention to the content of the quests, because I want to experience the story as a whole on release. However I noticed that there were quite some messenger quests. I didn’t really like those (especially close after another), because walking is not the most fun thing in Orbus.
crafting
- I really like the way crafting works. Its very haptic and engaging.
- If you do not look up while you open the chest, the inventory window will be partially stuck in the chest and/or table. It would be good, if the window, could be opened at a predefined position above the chest, that is easy to reach while standing.
dungeon
- I really liked the level 8 dungeon.
- We were not able to finish it during my first run, because the dps on the end boss was not high enough (we knew the mechanic, but ran out of it). All in all it was fun and challenging (especially with only two musketeers and two warriors).
- The second run we fininshed with just a ranger (lvl 9), a musketeer (lvl 6) and warrior (lvl 8). We even had two stalagtites remaining
- I especially liked the lighting and how you have to have a mage or carry a torch to light areas of the cave.
fishing
- relaxing and fun
- maybe it could be a bit more challenging. currently you just have to get a hook and then proceed to do 5 turns and wait and repeat that until you reeled the fish in all the way.
- I tried to cast again when I had a small fish. Maybe it could be a nice addition to allow that, to catch larger fish. You would have to risk the small fish for the chance to catch a better one.
warrior
- my second favorite class by now (after the musketeer)
- I don’t see a good use for Hamstring and have only ever used it by accident. Maybe it could be replaced with a DOT, like for example a bleed
- I did expect shield-bash to interrupt and not only stun, after the mob has performed it’s current attack. It would be great against casters with unblockable attacks.
- I would love a way to pull from afar. Maybe some kind of dagger to throw or something.
- The horn doesn’t seem to generate a lot of aggro. Whenever I used it in a group fight where I lost aggro (or didn’t have from the beginning), the mobs just continued to aggro on other party members, mostly the healer.
- The “rotation” for single target dps (especially during solo play) is a bit monotone. it’s just wound, over and over. It would be nice if there was something to manage. Maybe wound does more damage only when a bleed is applied, so you have to take care to keep the bleed up.
- When you fight a big or flying mob it’s hard to see the health bar, debuffs and floating combat text. You have to look way up. It would be nice, if there was a way to see those information more easy. For ranged it isn’t a problem, but if you are standing right in front of the mob, it is. Maybe the aggored mobs could be shown on the bottom of the shield or the health bar could move to below the mob.
- In the discord we talked about an idea, to maybe make it possible to slot combos (probably separated into 3 strike, 4 strike) into “ammunition” slots, so you could adjust your playstyle (@Logan will or has probably posted more in depth about it)
- Sometimes when I charged the mob at the start of a fight, the mob would run to the position I did charge from.
friends list
- I like that more social features are getting added
- If the list gets to long it doesn’t show everyone and I couldn’t find a way to scroll
- I am looking forward to having a way to contact and invite people through the friends list
- I also had an idea for the contacting part: Maybe we could have a scrying orb (or something alike) in our house and “call” someone on our friends list. If they “pick up”, they would see a ghost of the one “calling” and we could see them and talk to them through the orb.
new stairs in highstep
- Thanks!
Thanks to all the nice people I played with. I had a blast! Looking forward to next month.
I just remembered something now: the smooth turn is too fast (at least with the vive). Also i used to move with the right controller and turn with the left so i would like to have an option “Left turn, right strafe”.
Feedback Time!
I payed my way into the closed beta about two or three days before it went live and got the majority of my information from what I could glean from the community posts I read. This gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect and what I should gun for. cough cough Runemage cough cough After playing on and off for the duration of the beta, RIP my eyes, I think this game gets a solid 7/10, even though I kind of dicked around for most of the time and didn’t even hit level 5.
I really only messed around with the Ranger class because it’s obviously the best class out there, and even using the Rift, I didn’t think the bow twisting was that hard to avoid or correct. There were times when it was definitely a pain to deal with, but more often than not my shots went more or less where I wanted them to. Even longshots were consistently doable. The only issues I noticed that concerned me was the fact that the mine thing you can toss didn’t always activate, even when the mobs went right over them. I don’t know if there’s a timer for it to “come online” after it hits the ground, but even the ones that I set up before aggro-ing mobs didn’t always trigger. Other times I could throw it at a mob’s face and it would explode instantly. It wasn’t really a bit deal because I only used it to buy myself an extra second for one last charged shot before I spammed arrows, but I thought I should mention it. The other thing I noticed was the hitboxes on foxes weren’t always… Active. I’d lay into one for a solid 15 seconds, my health draining all the while, and my arrows would just phase straight through them, even when I teleported a ways away to reset my distance a bit. I would have died once had a kind passerby not stabbed it.
Also, may I ask for a “help me I don’t know how I got here but I can’t leave and want to go home” button or something? I was just kind of walking around and decided to take a left at the crossroads by the lake instead of following it around and wound up in the jungle area at level 3. Needless to say, I died. I respawned past my death further in at a town. Disoriented, I ended up going further in because I didn’t know which direction I came in from and I wasn’t sure if I went north or south to go in. After about ten minutes, I found myself at the very end of the jungle zone with nowhere to go. I managed to use the combination of the musket, teleporting, and guards to slowly work my way up and halfway to the next town, which I discovered was the way I needed to go. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bait the guard any further away from his post and the mobs wouldn’t come as far down as I needed. It was about two minutes later that a very kind level 10 player came up and brought to my attention that I was a level 3 in a very not-level-3 zone. He offered to make me a portal back to, what is it called, Highsteppe? since he didn’t have any business in the jungle anymore. (by the way, huge shoutout to you, friendly person, for saving me and telling me where the witch was. I was Ryder) My point being that had it not been for this kind person I would have been stuck or would have had to grind for hours upon hours or try and work something out with you dev peoples. A simple “I messed up” button might come in handy at some point.
On the topic of the witch, she was a little tricky to find at first. Though, I probably would have stumbled upon her the second I went that way. But casting spells wasn’t that bad. I couldn’t manage even one for the first several hours I had my wand, but I happened to catch someone teaching a lower level how to cast and got the trick. Now I have about 40% activation rate with Fireball, something like 70% with Freeze, and 50% with Shadow, though it takes a long time for it to acknowledge the shape. I kind of figured the other runes were level-locked by the pillars around the world, so that’s totally fine; there’s plenty to grind away on in the beginning area.
This has been a beta review from some no-name newbie with little to no insight on any of the history of this game’s development. Looking forward to the next test period!
I think I might have been the one that helped you. My username was Heldor if that rings any bells.
I think you may be right. Well, again, thanks a ton. You saved me a lot of effort.
I feel you, that happened to me in the open alpha, i was lost for almost an hour before i found a mage that made a portal
I understand that you guys are probably jam-packed working your guys’s butts off on this amazing game but sitting there reading the Texas kind of just bumming me out it kind of drops the realism of the RPG roll also I found a Time skipping through the dialogue cuz I was bored and didn’t feel like reading it was just a small things other than that I’m loving the game
Another thing i remembered now (i’m thinking about orbus day and night even after the beta ahah): as a giant i managed to nock the arrow in the bow just a few times because it only works in a very small point. (i know we’re not supposed to fight as giants, i just reported a weird bug) Maybe this happen because the “hitbox” of the bow is still small even if the bow become bigger?
I think my account bugged. I played through the tutorial quest in an open Alpha but it seemed to be already completed (or never started) in the Beta. I’ll probably be needing help with it in the future! 
Everyone’s progress (quests, inventory, XP, etc.) was reset at the start of the Beta. So that’s expected behavior. At this point we aren’t planning on wiping out any progress until the end of the Beta/start of Early Access later this year.
Sorry I meant I couldn’t do it in the beta as if it had already been done. There was quest for Bart to give, so I just started from the hunting monsters/chef quest!
Mega Wall of text incoming, My Apologies! Standard disclaimers of wanting only to assist in improving the game apply as always! Additional specific information (including video) on any issue below available upon request!
For context: got to level 16 Runemage and 7 Musketeer during this playtest.
Critical Issue
Constantly constantly had my spells get “stuck” where I couldn’t control them, and needed to relog, which often resulted in a crash, and sometimes a clone. There were points where it would only happen once every hour or two, and several hour stretches where it happened every 5 to 10 minutes, which made it crazy frustrating to play.
Old Bugs (Aka Bugs I’ve Previously Reported But Verified Are Still Happening)
- Significantly improved but still present: various audio issues where players cut out or get high-pitched
- Lots of crashes when relogging - clones of myself being created (seemed worse when I relogged very quickly)
- Lots of ending up in personal instance with no mobs or other players and needing to reset
- Icelance still has a weird post cast delay (I think it’s the slight lingering VFX that keep you from casting again when you think you should be able to)
- Some quest items missing icons
- Some quest mob target names still lowercase in journal
- Journal pages sometimes overlap a bit
- Occasional bugged harvest node, can’t be harvested even though its within reach
- Also, a large number of harvestables are out of reach due to spawning out over the water or up on hillsides
- Not enough room for all alchemy reagents in container and on table
- Pet dragon occasionally does crazy roar (like full grown panther roar)
- Cenn’s infinitely repeatable quest doesn’t repeat (after 2nd quest turn in, he has an exclamation mark, but doesn’t respond)
- Trying to craft with both hands breaks alchemy (you end up not dropping 2nd ingredient and it sticks to your hand)
- There is no coconut model for alchemy
- Avatar at character select often doesn’t match in-game character (Sometimes missing gear, level shown as 0, etc)
- Sometimes hover-finger just doesn’t work to bring up tooltips unless you move the slot the item is in
- There are still a number of issues with immediately completing a quest you just received because you already had the items requested. Responses may be out of order, or incorrect/missing quest markers, needing to wave multiple times. You typically don’t get blocked, but it is weird.
- Occasional lingering visual elements on the client from other players (Lures and turrets seemed the most common.) This is vastly improved from previous tests but still happens on occasion.
- Some mobs and npcs were still not showing their names
- Fairly often the player will appear to be just outside an AE telegraph and still get hit by it, might be nice to have the telegraph be slightly larger than the effect
- Various minor typos in dialogue and locations
- For some quests you get an incongruous response if you decline in dialogue as if they thought you accepted
- Had the issue where pages of the journal would overlap each other weirdly
New Bugs (Aka Either New to this test or things I haven’t previously reported from before)
- Left menu poke sometimes stops working
- I died to invis mobs in the desert multiple times, never happened before anywhere
- Died pretty close to first graveyard in the desert, but spawned in the second
- Desert glove dropping mobs insanely rare/long respawn
- Armor values don’t update reliably when equipping and unequipping gear, was very eratic
- I’m nearly positive the ghost AE causes it to heal itself when it hits other mobs and turrets, not just players
- Chickens don’t animate on attacking and death
- Had some weirdness with the way adding friends worked, but I’ll hold off on that until we get the full implementation
- Capes don’t collide with the avatar so they are often drifting through people’s torsos
- When you trade with someone it will tell you what items you got (cool) as well as 0 Dram (bug) if you didn’t trade money.
- I agree with what some have mentioned about feeling too close to the NPC dialogue text, I often take a half step back each time the window refreshes
- Sometimes the distance fog just wouldn’t load at all. At one point entering the desert, I couldn’t see the first town to the left, and another I could see halfway across the zone
- Had an issue a couple times where the equipment boxes for the center items (pet, harvest tools, etc) weren’t displaying
- Sometimes when you harvest a node, it will insta-respawn (or close to it) at the same spot (might just be an RNG thing based on the spawn table logic random respawning)
- Seems like people can have the same name if there is different capitalization: Example: logan and Logan
- The map in the journal is not centered and big chunks of it are truncated
General Feedback/Random Questions
- It seems like the drop rates on certain items is really erratic, beyond what RNG would account for. Example: I got no ritual reagents or desert helm while grouped with Logan (me 9, him 13 I think) for hundreds of kills, but when I solo’d from 12 to 16, I got plenty of both over a similar sample size.Are there minimal level requirements for certain items? Does grouping across significant level ranges hurt the drop rates of players on either side? Are there rules to this we should know?
- Any chance giant potion could increase your ambient voice volume output too?
- Would it be possible to see an ingredient count above/next to the item models on the tables in your home when crafting without needing to open the box?
- As we add more people from beta and beyond, there is going to be a point where a robust reporting feature becomes critical. I try to record all my gameplay experiences but may people do not and we’re going to need to be vigilant to protect the positive nature of the community.
- Traveling to and from Guild City is a huge hassle. The expected airship route in the future may help with this, but right now it’s pretty rough.
- I’d kill for a persistent bug database as mentioned in other threads. (Would cut these posts down dramatically)
- How exactly does avatar height get calculated? Everyone always seems to be the same height as everyone else, but as a tall dude, I believe this means when I think I’m putting my hand up to my face, it’s actually putting it lower? Hard to test empircally, but there is something wierd there with the normalization.
- I agree with the suggestion that it would be nice to have an ambient light source equippable slot
- Fishing lures lose 2 durability per use, whether you catch a fish or not. Is this intended? If so, why not just make it have half the durability and go down by 1 each time? (Maybe higher level fishermen have a chance to lose less durability?)
- The way alchemy resets colors on ingredient adding is still really confusing to people. I saw the comment that you may change it to stay the same color briefly after adding an ingredient before resetting but maybe it doesn’t need to reset and it’s just various windows of color as the temperature increases during the craft instead of resetting at all?
- Alchemy is really fun when you are making a few potions, but when you are making them in bulk, it can get tedious really fast. Maybe at higher Alchemy ranks you can make them in batches if you have enough materials?
- The self healing on forest golems, even on the low level ones near the airship drop point are really really difficult/impossible for new players, even of the appropriate level to defeat solo
- Player avatars blocking spells makes sense, but they can also be blocked by loot, dead mobs, pets, invisible collision, and even in rare cases other spells. It may be worth making some of these non-collidable
- The red truffles are really really small and easy to miss. I’ve done that quest several times now and them being moved along with the camp to the old elongata area was enough that it took me several repeat visits to find them
Various Praise
- Having sound on login screen is amazing
- Excited that we have capes! Can’t wait to have options to pick between!
- Loved the new steps down the NE side of Highsteppe, holy crap, thank you!
- I love love love the feedback when gaining items, experience, dram, etc.
- Sandworm World Boss. Yes. (More Below)
New Zone: Desert
- Great new visuals, loved the adobe elements, sandstorms, the oasis, the ruins
- Seems oddly empty/unpropped. I really like the open layout, which helps with not feeling linear, but it feels like it needs more ambient elements. Maybe some paths, more props, dune crests?
- New mobs are cool, new drops are really visually interesting
- Empty towns (I’m sure content will help)
- I was sad at lack of teleport stones
- Looking forward to playing with the cliffside doors more, seems like an interesting puzzle
- Love the clockwork hatch, can’t wait to go inside
- The level 18 pyramidhead mobs that can drop the gloves were really few in number and seemed to have insanely long respawns. Led to massive morale hits for anyone trying to get the gloves, myself included
- Super crazy frustrating: invisible walls all over the ruins area, which blocked spells when fighting against almost half the mobs present without pulling them far away
New World Boss: Sanyael
- Really excited about the world boss
- Visuals are great, killing sandworms is up there with killing dragons, gods, and elder demons in my book
- Poison AE is brutal but manageable with good timing, dig it
- The other damage AE’s seem like nigh unavoidable instakills but I’ll work on finding a way to deal with them
- Him popping up and down makes it kinda hard to know if you are actually hitting him a lot of the time
- Could we get some lights in his chamber/path leading to him? It’s really dark at night
As always, the amount of content/systems/bug-fixes you guys manage to add each playtest is phenomenal and I’m thrilled to be a part of this journey of the world’s first VRMMO.
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Things Draven said I am really strongly feeling this should be done, so I would like to repeat them and add my own two cents:
- Don’t reset the colors at all when adding new ingredients in alchemy. It makes so much more sense for a pot to stay the same temperature when throwing in new items that aren’t labeled as especially cold. Suggestion: when the snow area (I am guessing the level 20 area) can come in, you can add an item that cools down the brew and you can make more advanced potions from that.
- Adding a faint path to some parts of the desert would really change the biome’s empty feeling. People live in those deserts, so why didn’t they make any paths? Kinda strange.
- Fix invisible/almost unfindable Red Truffles. And even prevent people from harvesting the invisible red truffle while they shouldn’t be able to harvest it. Saw 2 people break their quest-line because they harvested it before they were on the quest.