Warrior Beta Feedback: All things

Beta Feedback
#1

My Hardware

I’m using the Oculus Rift + Touch with 2 Sensors, Front-facing (180 Degree arc).

I got to level 16 as the warrior and I wanted to highlight the things I liked the most, and bring attention to some issues that exist in its current state.

I’m going to start off with the things I like and work my way down to the bugs and other issues I found.

@Logan and other Warriors, please let me know if you had any of these, too.

The Shield

It feels good, and after some work I managed to figure out how to use it better. I really wouldn’t change anything about it.

One of the things i like most is the Distance that monsters move to attack allies. There is enough room for you, as a warrior, to slip in and save the day. You don’t require aggro to block, you just need to have the shield between you and your target.

Distance illustrated here: http://imgur.com/SzSVj7I

There was a brief time where I was with 2 other guys and we were Killing the Skullwolves. They not only aggro with 2 wolves, but also summon 2 more, and aggro control is very difficult in large masses like that. We just stacked on top of each other and they were shooting over my shoulder while i blocked. I didnt need aggro. It felt really good.

Edit: It would also be nice if there was a better indicator for where a monster is attacking, and subsequently, where you should be blocking. This opens up more doors for end game content where you can mix in different heights of attacks to make the Warrior work more to block attacks. Or some monsters have two attacks, one for high and one for low swings.

The Sword

This also felt really good. I had some tracking issues on the Up-Strike for combos, but pushing my VR play space further away from my sensors solved that.

The Provoke, Wound, and Hamstring Combo I know work and feel good. I didnt find myself needing the Cleave combo much, as it was more effective to use Wound and quickly down a single target than to try to burn them all at once.

Sword Rush

Love it. 8 Second CD is perfect. It puts me right where I want to be when I’m fighting.

Extra damage on use is also a nice icing on the cake.

Battle Cry

Easy to use and felt good, but I feel like it didn’t do a good job of actually taunting in most situations.

There are 2 problems I have with it:

In theory, it gives you max threat +10%, but, especially if it is still early in the fight, it’s trivial for another player to take back aggro.

The other issue is the range. Its quite short. Its about the range of your melee strikes. Often i would go to toot my horn, only to be out of range.

I would like to see 2 changes made:

In addition to the threat, have mobs force aggro on you for 2 seconds. This ensures that it never feels wasted when it works.

I would also like to see the range increased by about 25%. That should cover most situations.

Shield Bash

So this one was kind of weird. It is very easy to accidentally use bash on a target, especially when you sword charge into a monster.

Sometimes you hit them right after they start an animation, and it ends up being wasted (like with Adult pigmen). Sometimes the Stun carries over after the animation, like with the worms in the Desert. It didnt feel very consistent.

The last issue with the shield bash was how the Hit-box for the shield bash was still active on enemies a few moments after they die, which will totally waste the ability.

Bashing dead targets illustrated here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqJbpWDcVho

I was also able to perform shield bashes with the shield unequiped, but I wasn’t able to reproduce it for a video.

Target Selection

I had a very difficult time attacking a specific enemy if multiple enemies are clumped up.

In solo play, it just meant i need to use Wound over Cleave so i can drop whatever I was hitting faster so I can prioritize the target I want to hit (which was usually still with Wound).

In group play, It became less of me holding aggro and more about positioning, where we stack on each other and i move forward just a hare to position myself between the enemies and the ones with aggo (anyone who isnt me lol) and forced the enemies to hit my shield that way. To be fair, this was a great deal of fun.

Combat Locomotion

I know Locomotion is something of a hot-button Topic in VR, but I do thing there is an issue that needs to be addressed for Warriors.

The issue in Detail can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wubYHlWOtzU

As mentioned in the video, the Crux of the problem is 2 things:

How teleportation distance gets reset each time you teleport, regardless of the distance you actually go,

and

how monsters can hit you, when you can’t hit them.

As we know, there are times when you need to get away from an AoE attack and if you are stutter-stepping in combat, you wont have the ability to Teleport away and end up eating the damage.

Not every enemy will do like the spirit does in the video. Some, Like the Dogs and Foxes will get closer than others. But in general, most enemies will be too far away, and you need to advance on them.

With target selection as wonkey as it was in this test, you need to stutter-step around so you can ensure you are using the provoke combo on each enemy as needed. If AoE attacks are mixed into the chaos, it can be very daunting on the Warrior to avoid it.

More Screenshots:
http://imgur.com/Nbyom7G
http://imgur.com/s6DDv2S
http://imgur.com/b0AgwPW
(Thanks to @Draven for the help)

For non-Warrior classes, that’s a fine distance, but it wont work for us.

Some solutions to this issue:

Don’t drain all of the Distance for teleport each time you move. Instead, only drain the proportional amount that you move. E.g. If you only move half of you Tele Distance, You should be able to immediately be able to move again, up to half your max distance.

Make it so when a Warrior is at the top of the aggro chart for a monster, have them move closer, so the warrior can hit it. Keep it the same for everyone else. I like being able to slip in between a monster and an ally. That’s a cool mechanic.

Change Sword Rush so that it can be used while off cooldown, but does no damage and has a significantly lower range.

Enable some sort of locomotion option that can be used with the Joysticks(rift) or Trackpad(Vive) in combat that doesnt impede the ability to dodge attacks. E.g. Tip-toe speed smooth walking.

Edit: One final point about this locomotion issue is sometimes you get “too close” to a monster, and cant see the Red Indicator for an AoE attack. This was especially prevalent against the Pyramid Heads. The Sword Rush puts you right at that sweet spot that lets you have vision of that event and still be in attack range. However, you may need to reengage without it because you’re moving so much in that fight.

Final Notes

I really enjoyed playing the Warrior! It was fun and exhausting and felt great overall.

Most of the issues I pointed out only came into effect at higher levels and are not a “FIX RIGHT NOW” problem for the class.

I hope everyone enjoyed the beta as much as I did.

Shout out to @Riley_D for Fixing Sanyael the Grand Worm. It was great fighting him, even as he slaughtered us. :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#2

Nice guide. Lots of stuff I didn’t know about warrior. The final release could use a bit of a skill explanation in game.

#3

There are a lot of things the game needs before Launch. This is the time to test Edge Cases in what you spend the most time doing.

I decided I want to play Warrior and make sure warrior feels good to play. If it isnt, nobody is going to want to tank, and no tanks = no game.

Just gatta spend time doing things, and find what isnt working for you.

For me, that was in-combat movement. Took me FOREVER to realize I have to be the one to initiate a fight with a mob.

UI, and other information can be found on the Wiki. They will, i’m sure, be added into the game at some time. There is a month until the next test. That is a lot of time to add content.

#4

What does the term Edge Class mean over the term Class?

#5

Edge Cases, not classes.

Simply defined as the less frequent activities. Like, Fighting World bosses, certain interactions, and other fun things.

My favorite was what happens when you cast your fishing rod while under the effect of the Giant potion. Weird things like that, which, because they may not have been designed to be used together, may have a game-breaking interaction.

#6

Ohh! I read it wrong. Thank you for clarifying.

1 Like
#7

These issues have been around for a few tests now and I’ve mentioned them before, though it never really bugged me (due to my 360 setup).

Shield bashing dead enemies has always been a little annoying.

The horn puts you at the top but 1 fireball removes aggro from you again. It’s tricky because some enemies won’t turn no matter how many provokes or horns you use. I think the class balances will fix this.

Definitely need a slow slide to fix minor distance issues. It was said the game is designed for 360 and not 180 do expect “issues” (not being able to do some actions) smooth turning fixed the “turn around fast in combat” 180 draw back.

I constantly port around to get into a better position and never have issues not being able to get out of red unless the aoe is so big it expects you to preemptively hold down the teleport which I sometimes miss.

If I have 4 enemies infront if me, my sword is going through all 4. I’m not expecting a combo to only hig the one I want (left swing hits the enemy on the right, finished combo ends on the left enemy). I’ll move so my sword will only tag the one I want.

I’ll only use sword rush if the enemy is out of a fast teleport range. It’s a practice thing. If you aren’t constantly moving to readjust enemies, flip them, and gather them away from teammates in a tight group, you aren’t doing it the most effective way.

Final thoughts:
Give us a slow teleport to fix distance issues.
Fix the shield stun on dead enemies.
Fix or change the horn to adjust aggro.
Allow the horn to give the user a shield.
Make hamstring and cleave worth using.

Most other things are practice. If there’s a way to make it mechanically more inviting to a variety of setups I say try it. 360 setups are currently at an advantage and the number of 180 have increased since the rift sale.

Also the desert is too easy. Level 8s shouldnt be able to skip the jungle all together and go straight to the desert.

2 Likes
#8

Because I am unfamiliar, can you Elaborate on how the 360 alleviates some of these issues? Do you just have a giant playspace that lets you “walk” up to an enemy? Or is there some other trick you have up your sleeve?

These issues aside, combat felt quite smooth from the 180 setup.

I’m glad to know these have been documented. This was my first test, and was doing my part to make sure these are known. :slight_smile:

#9

My playspace allows me to physically turn around and provoke an enemy while it’s moving. The large space let’s me step closer or further to close/widen a gap. I can step out if small aoe (boars or pigmen). Stuff like that. I have freedom of movement. I can start provoke then move and finish it on a target of my choosing

#10

Whoa nice.

Yeah that’s way handy. There is now a great chance I’m going to upgrade my room with 360 capabilities now lol.

At least I’m in no rush until mid September :stuck_out_tongue:

#11

Yeah with the range classes a 180 is fine, but we’re doing 180s, reaching far or backing away so a boar will get its face out of our guts. Crazy fun lol

#12

Totes. Im basically in a long rectangle, roughly 14 ft by 7. I have a lot of wiggle room moving forwards and backwards, but I can physically turn around. I can turn my head around and see behind me, but my chest blocks the sensors if I’m not careful, making attacking while backwards unrealistic.

Its totally cool to see that different perspective on setup lol

#13

Yep I’m at approx 8ft by 12 ft and it’s more than enough room. That extra wiggle room can get you out of an aoe if you teleport just short. Few things are more satisfying than having an enemy run passed and as you finish a provoke it spins around to face you.

#14

Haha i’ll have to try that next beta :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
#15

Dude! Solid review and honestly I agree with all accounts, especially with the movement and shield bash. The bash was very tedious to control at times.

The only thing I would add is blocking AOE attacks. From what I could tell even with your shield up you would take full damage. I figured there would be some sort of reduction at least. Again maybe I just didn’t notice it but from what i could tell you took full damage each time. But if the movement gets fixed that might not be as big of a deal, but as it is now I think that’s my only “complaint”.

#16

You can’t block aoe. Gotta dodge them. There used to be a mechanic where you would bash your shield into the ground and it would block aoe attacks but breaks your shield/turns it red. This was removed because, like the shield bash, it was too easy to accidentally trigger.

#17

This is a confirmed feature of the game and functioning as intended. It is not obvious with in-game information yet. #beta.

The Wiki is a very valuable resource during testing (pre-launch) as most of the useful information is not implemented.

This is why we test so Devs can distinguish between things that are working “correctly” an things that are not.

Therefore the Wiki is the Dev’s primary means of communicating how things SHOULD work to us.

#18

Oh, okay I didn’t know that. I must have missed that in the wiki :sweat:
Then yeah I guess the movement ideas would be the way to go. That being said most small mobs like the spirit’s AOE was most the time pretty easy to evade. But some of the boss AOEs (like the worm world boss) happen so fast you have almost no way of avoiding it.

#19

I think some AOEs are designed this way so that you can’t just dodge everything with no experience and sometimes you will need to learn their attacks and prepare for them before they actually happen.

#20

I missed the fight but I’d guess we’ll identify patterns the boss takes/priority targets and learn to deal with them. Bosses like that always have weird tricks besides just dodging. Elongata, the first world boss, will completely wipe a raid if a warrior isn’t in melee range. Figuring out weird mechanics like that are what make fights fun!

1 Like