Hello sorry for the long post but i want to get all my thoughts and experiences written down in 1 place. Let me know if you disagree with anything I’ve said or even agree I’m up for constructive criticism and would like to hear others opinions on what I suggested. I tried to keep everything coherent and in order.
character creation: I like it, can’t say I’ve ever been one for creating a character though. I do like that each person feels unique and instead of recognising peoples gear and colour schemes in the future I will be recognising there features as well.
dragon pet racing: spent most of my time playing this. very enjoyable and I can see it being one of my favourite things to do. The glitching of courses to get pre 10 second times kills my enthusiasm for a course when I see it on the leaderboards. my initial thoughts after my first race was this is horrible, the mechanics for steering feel like driving a boat more then being an epic dragon that’s conquered the sky and if it lags in the slightest your in for a massive headache for the next 10 to 60 mins at least. but once I realised I was ‘good’ and got on the leaderboard I was gripped to be on every top 10 leaderboard. I enjoy the competitive side of trying to get on top of the leaderboard. my motion sickness/headache after an hour of dragon racing went just like say ‘getting your VR legs’ but I defiantly think an alternative control scheme is in order, perhaps just using your controller to steer might be better?
I suggest a spot at the bottom of the leaderboard for your personal best would be a good improvement because I know if I couldn’t make it to the top 10 it would make me lose motivation after trying hard. you currently can’t see what time you have unless its a top 10 on the leaderboard. this way people that might not get top 10 but enjoy it can have something to strive for.
in terms of the courses I enjoyed the maze one because it didn’t seem to be down to RNG on if you get a lucky rock or propeller to move out the way on time. courses with multiple routes with different risk/rewards will be cool and to combat the RNG of moving objects perhaps you could add a stamina bar that would require skill and thinking to manage rather then a random boulder that might or might not be in the way. I’m thinking it could be controlled by your speed so the faster you go the faster it drains so you need to refresh it or regain stamina with the rings but if you go slower you can go further at a slower pace meaning you can cut corners potentially lowering your overall time.
critter capture: I get the that when no one else is online its something to do but it feels hollow and unrewarding. if perhaps you could actually capture the critter by building up enough points in the capture game to have that specific animal as a pet, it could be cool or to have a golden statue/trophy of them in your player house once say you’ve captured 500? its not something I feel like I will stop and do unless specifically trying to complete for a quest for XP.
Monster hunting: In terms of the quests there fine, the option of either a group or solo mission is nice. I’m from EU so my time zone and playtimes generally see low player counts and getting a group can feel like 90% of the battle. so to have something I can work on by myself or with 1 or 2 other guys while we wait for 5 to get a shard going is a welcome idea.
for the new AI I like the charged abilities and from what I hear there not working perfectly as intended right now so I will wait until the next beta to see what its like (hopefully they wont move on charge up, etc.).
the new combat AI’s running mechanic feels stupid. it will randomly run circles on the spot then fight again as if nothing happened. for ranged classes this is mildly annoying but for a tank it feels even more stupid. the tank class seem to have hit registering issues and the shield just doesn’t work so to add that you have to chase mobs and reposition because your fighting the sword registering mechanics more than the mobs is a annoyance to say the least. in terms of moving in combat, you feel sluggish now compared to how it works in the current game. I think I saw that you intend to stop slide/teleport combo to reduce kiting? but surely that should be more of a intended/useful mechanic now to dodge and weave against the new projectiles? I personally think its backwards and contradicting to have both changes. Battles seem more realistic with the dodging but it feels like it drags things out and makes it more tedious than fun.
When I say the sword registering is off its always been finicky even in current game, I feel like I need to line myself up to be able to get upswings working. For the shield in beta I think its bugged as I can tank 1 hit then it stops working unless putting it away and then out again but that will only let me tank 1 hit to then repeat this cycle. I’m curious to hear others experiences on tanking the new mobs.
Side note: the guy that blocks and heals at the same time is busted and I hate his guts. please nerf this dude or separate the block and heal or make it interruptible.
For the bosses (colossus and witch) I didn’t get to fight them as I didn’t get a group.
Another side note: the group listing on the UI let you put up a listing but when people responded the ‘mail’ wouldn’t be there for the owner of the listing.
The bard class: I’m not a huge fan. the instrument takes up way too much of the screen in my opinion so it feels like your to busy playing this mini game in front of you to be busy with what players/mobs around you are doing. this could be fixed by having a option to slide the UI up or down vertically? so that you can see over it but keep it high enough your not hitting you legs if sat down?
When playing as the bard I personally was only focusing on the mini game of the class as I call it and not anything else and when playing a different class and had a bard in the group helping I found they would seem to be oblivious to the surroundings whilst helping? I didn’t notice being buffed or the enemy being debuffed because of this support next to me. perhaps that’s because we are new to it though.
I noticed a player found it was better for the bard to build up a double crescendo out of combat to then 1 shot a mob instantly rather than fight it and accumulate during battle. making me think in raids will we just be waiting 2 minutes for a bunch of bards to slowly get all the crescendos pre-fight so they can cheese a boss whilst everyone else has to wait. its just a concern I have.
In terms of hit registering you have to hit to the bottom of the xylophone notes to register but then can easily accidentally turn off or switch a crescendo note. Maybe a flip of places would fix that? or have the orbs on the either side split 3 on each? This would hopefully also fix that most of the screen is being blocked of by the UI of your instrument and help awareness of surroundings.
The new visuals and terrain: absolutely love it the world gives you a sense of awe and intrigue instead a plain flat land that the current world has. I found my first thought when getting in was to explore this new interesting world. Highsteppe looks epic and i had a smile on my face the first time I saw it. only 1 issue I found was when fighting a mob near a cliff as a tank it did a back flip or random run around and went down the hill so I had to then either run to drag it back up or die to the projectiles to the back whilst doing so.
And finally performance wise: I didn’t feel any different but I assume that’s down to the beta being new rather then no improvements being made. I played mostly on the first few hours of release so a lot of issues where being ironed out so I assume any problems I had have been said a million times by now.