Ranger special arrows and trap usage

Suggestions
#1

First of all, I’m pretty new here so hello to all and my apologies if this has been suggested elsewhere and I missed it. I’m only level 5 Ranger and perhaps things change as it goes on, but I’ve been a little inaccurate at times trying to grab the special arrow on my side or the trap. It should be noted that I play on the Oculus Rift. I’ve never held a Vive controller before so maybe this isn’t possible but I was wondering if the special arrows could maybe be assigned to buttons or a flick of a specific joystick in a direction while a normal arrow is nocked, with different buttons or directions correlating to how you assign your CDs for usage instead of grabbing one from your side. Reason being, I feel that it would be easier to use the desired arrow or trap properly and it would clean up the view some.

I feel the Ranger is wonderfully done thus far, I’ve really enjoyed it and I’m especially pleased with the aiming mechanic. At first I was firing all over the place, until I decided to see if using my IRL anchor point would actually work. What a difference that made, I can’t be happier with how well done that is and I wanted to praise the dev team for this. Thanks for the awesome work so far, and thank you for reading this regardless of if it can be a consideration or not for future updates.

#2

Originally the special arrows were assigned to the trackpad (before full rift integration) and it felt too arcady. Vr is where you can physically do movements like grabbing arrows and so all combat classes use these “physically grab” objects (arrows, trap, horn, turret, etc). It takes practice to mechanically grab these items which is part of the skill ceiling and muscle memory challenge. Eventually you’ll grab them crazy fast and accurate and feel like you’ve gained a level non-number or stat related. It’s a good feeling!

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#3

First, welcome! I too am new and bought ibto the beta. I have a vive and ill admit the arrows are a liittle tricky if you are scrambling/in a hurry but, with practice its a lot easier.

One thing I have noticed is a few of oculus players sit in chairs and play, that could also be a part of the issue. if you are sitting its possible something is messing with your tracking.

#4

Yeah, I can image what you mean about it being too arcadey feeling and I must admit that I agree totally with you on that now that I think about it. Perhaps being able to assign where on your body they are and where you grab them from would be a better way to put it? Or it looks like I better just “git gud” haha! Which is fine by me, I was loving it in there! The way it is isn’t that bad at all, it’s generally only frantic moments when I grab the wrong one or miss completely.

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#5

Thanks and welcome to you too! On the subject of sitting down, I was getting a little sick yesterday and so I sat down while moving a few times, but not in combat. I didn’t think about it in terms of grabbing arrows, to me it just feels weird to try and fire a bow sitting down like that and it would defeat the purpose of what this game is supposed to be. Then again of course, so would assigning buttons to arrows instead of grabbing them lol.

So, yeah I think my idea is definitely not a good one anymore the more it goes through my mind. The left arrow I didn’t have any problems with, it was mainly just the right side and the trap. Which, yes with more practice should continue to get better and better. I still wouldn’t mind seeing it customizable where on your body you grab them from though, if for no other reason than to try and clean up the clutter of things when I look down. But really, it’s not too bad.

#6

I believe the devs mentioned messing with locations or size of the items because they can get a little bulky or extra troublesome to grab. Time will tell!

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#7

Yeah they said they would work on them. I think it’d be nice to be able to arrange your belt items. Much like you can in Vanishing Relms.

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#8

Yeah I had to sit down and take a rest with my party after tanking for a few hours lol, so I totally get that.
As for the motion sickness, you might want to try lowering your graphics settings in game. If its a little choppy in moving then it might bother you, but lower settings will allow smother frame rates and may help with that.

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#9

I found the vanishing realm belt frustrating and in fast combat it would be tricky to deal with. I do however think the size of the gathering tool is too big and I’d like to adjust the vertical position of my belt. Some people like a shorter reach and some find reaching farther more natural

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#10

I suppose I meant more of the concept and not the actual style, because yeah it was not good for fast actions.

And yeah I often have grabbed my gathering tool when trying to get times or my horn. lol not a huge deal but can be startling in combat when you grab the wrong thing.

But for a beta I have to say this is smoother than some full launch games. I’m sure they will knock out most of these issues by next beta period.

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#11

I realize this might also take away from the appeal of grabbing things off of you, but maybe like a little pouch on your side for things like gathering tool, compass, pots, journal, etc. As in, grab the sack and when you bring it up in front of you it opens a little popup menu that you can select the item you want from it. This way you still have to grab something off of you, but only the pouch shows up on your body to condense the nonsense.

#12

Yeah that is what me and @Logan were talking about in Vanishing Relms. It sounds kinda useful but at the same time (especially for pots or combat related items) it can be slow and that little bit of added time it takes can and will some times kill you.

But at the same time it as an option to use would be nice. something like the four main slots that are there now could be “quick action/bar” items then anything else you might need can go in the “catchall” bag? but I’m sure @Riley_D has something awesome in the works.

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#13

That’s a good thought but you’d need to limit what was in there. You grab the compass a lot, same with class item abilities, and even the gathering tool. . And potions. . So opening a sack to select something every time you need to talk to the party, use a potion in combat, gather 1 material, use a skill, makes it not worth it. Could be on the right track though. Condensing items would clear up clutter

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#14

I wonder if the compass could be integrated into the view, in a corner perhaps. Not a full blown mini-map though, that would distract from the immersive feeling. But one with simple directions and perhaps dots to mark mobs or NPCs (akin to the on screen compass in FFXI), or just a marker to point you in the direction of a location you set on your map always in view would be really nice. Then touching it to open up an actual map with your location and icons for NPCs to be more specific would be perfect. As for communicating with your party over distances, maybe something like holding your controller up by your ear could activate speaking to them. I saw in older patch notes about holding the compass up to your mouth lets you do it, but I’m not sure if it still works because I tried a few times and got no responses from the people in my party.

I have a really hard time remembering who gave what quest and I still haven’t been able to find a vendor at all. The one commander NPC who made you get the cape said there were vendors all over Guild City (I’m sorry i’m terrible with names and I can’t remember) , but as much as I walked around the city and the nearby garrison I found nothing of the sort. This whole time I’ve been trying to get where I need to go by using the compass, but generally wind up wandering until I stumble across something. Pulling up my journal to look at my quests hasn’t been a huge help either, simply because just telling me the name of an NPC still leaves me wandering around trying to remember where they were.

To be clear, I don’t want Orbus to hold my hand like most modern MMOs tend to do. The idea of literally putting me on everything like in FFXIV is something I’d love Orbus to steer away from. I enjoy the wandering and only being generally directed, while having to figure things out and explore on my own. In this sense, Orbus does a very good job. I guess my inability to remember where specific NPCs are is a personal problem that’s my fault, not the game’s. I don’t really want Orbus to show me where all the quest NPCs are, nor would I want it to show me where to go to accomplish the quest. Just once I’ve completed it, it would be nice to have a marker on a map showing where the person is to turn the quest into. I have no problems finding apprentice blacksmiths as they all have a big yellow “!” over their head but I’m still lost on vendors. Maybe I’m just dumb and missed something haha.

Sorry to make so many references to the Final Fantasy MMOs. They are by no means the only ones I’ve played, just the ones I’ve played and enjoyed the most over the years. I still play both of them to this day. In my opinion, FFXI is the superior game because it doesn’t hold your hand like FFXIV does, and it requires much more strategic gameplay versus just learning the new dance in every fight. Which reminds me, giving us the ability to do every job and level them separately on a single character in Orbus? Bravo dev team, I cannot thank you enough for this and think it’s absolutely nuts that not every MMO has adopted it.

Now I’m getting way too deep into FF and I’m sorry if you guys take offense if you think I’m trying to say “Hey you guys should make this a VR FF MMO”; but I will say that the job/subjob and cross class ideas implemented in those games was such a phenomenal idea (until SE took cross class away from FFXIV and replaced it with the new role action system that you don’t have to level other jobs to get your abilities from, ugh). I’m not asking for this to be replicated, but I do think that giving some sort of advantage to leveling multiple jobs is always a huge plus and gives so much more incentive to people to try everything out. I’m not sure how you’d differentiate that from what FFXI and FFXIV did though, as the only logical things I could think of would be sharing abilities between jobs, or allowing the stats of a job you have leveled buff the stats of your current job in a scaled manner. I’ll have to put more thought into that one, sorry just getting sidetracked here.

I only got to play this for a few hours because I had to work all weekend, and I guess I don’t know if you gain new abilities or actions when you level up. I only hit 7 ranger, and that was the only job I put time into. Not that I didn’t want to put time into all of them, just my work schedule got in the way of the beta test period and I stuck to only one job to try getting as far as I could.

#15