Extra races and other things like that is just nice fluff to have. Let the devs focus on the really important stuff first, like netcode with good synchronization and FPS optimization. After that, they need to implement core gameplay mechanics and make sure they work, like PvP mechanics, the knowledge system, are skills fun to use & balanced, does player collision work etc. Once all of the above is also fine, they can focus on polishing graphics and adding new races to attract new players. But if the game has a bad foundation, (i.e bad netcode), it really doesn't matter what the rest is like.

And if the devs do have extra time and aren't delayed in any way (which would really be a miracle), then I personally would like more Demon sub-classes. Particularly a dedicated anti zerg class that gets more powerful the more enemies are clustered on one spot (although it could be very possible that the blood vampire is already this class, we don't know yet!).

@tulukaruk I do not consider it a weakness. If you have played League of Legends, you will know that stutter step (moving, attacking, moving very quickly again to cancel the attack animation as soon as you have attacked), is a very high skill cap mechanic. High skill cap games are always good! If it was just WASD plus a fire button in the area where you are aimed at, you will remove a ton of skill expression and make it far more arcade like.

If the stretch goals are simply cosmetics, then I'm all for them. If they start feature creeping, then it's bad. Generally 'exciting' stretch goals are all pretty bad for the game's chances of coming out and being good in the long term, so I personally hope they stick to their core vision (which is already super ambitious).

@Logain P2W is very simple, it generally refers to paying for an advantage that players who normally play the game just cannot get. Usually it is restricted to things like Asian MMOs, where you can buy a sword that does say, 5 times the damage of anything lootable or craftable in game.

In games like EVE, there is no P2W, because even if you can buy ISK with PLEX (bought with IRL money), the ISK can be gotten in game as well, and everything in the game is made by players in some manner (aside from the starter safe zone stations).

@Tuoni The thing is, if you ignore what the term means, it just becomes a meaningless term that people throw around to insult devs and companies, instead of a red line that a company cannot cross. Millions of people are often wrong, and just because everyone is wrong doesn't mean you have to abandon the correct definition, which acts to form a good barrier against abusive practices in a game's mechanics. The equivalent in politics would be calling everyone a Nazi, thus diluting and therefore ignoring the impact the word (and what that organization did).

There is a reason populist movements engage in heavy name calling by calling their opponents traitors, enemies of the people, murderers etc, as it is a powerful tool to divert the public's attention from actual problems. The masses playing games are pretty much doing the same thing to game developers by accusing them of P2W even if it isn't actually the classical definition of paying to gain an advantage that a free player could never attain. This is usually because they're frustrated with something in the game's mechanics or their own unwillingness to grind out a game (which in turn indicates that they don't actually like the core game loop). A good example of this right now is Magic the Gathering's Arena. During the time when the meta was fun to play, there were little accusations of "P2W". Now that the current meta is boring and repetitive, there are plenty of accusations of "P2W"; the real reason is because the current game is boring to play, not because the game is actually "paying to win".

At the end of the day, paying for convenience is a proven way to keep a game alive (League of Legends being the best example; one champion could take days to farm for, or you can instantly buy it with real money), and is needed for any modern game business model to work. Pay to Win kills games.

You might have heard of a recent indie game called Mordhau, which is completely free after the initial payment, with free cosmetics, free weapons, free progression and etc. That game was at the top of Steam's charts, but has now fallen down to the wayside, simply because of the fact that it is no longer reasonable for the devs to keep investing all their time into a product with little return, and therefore the updates come very slowly. If that game had a standard modern business model (pay for convenience, such as quickly buying new weapons that might otherwise take 24 hours of gameplay to grind, and cosmetics), they would have had access to more revenue, which in turn would allow the devs to invest more money into creating more content. The gaming world worships the idea of returning to the old days of buying a game once and never paying again while having full content at low time investment. This used to work when games were not a service, when they were mostly singleplayer, were never patched, never updated, and there was little competition. This no longer applies to modern games. If Fractured is to thrive in the modern world, it needs to adopt modern business models so it can compete with all the other great alternatives out there.

The game is current in the alpha stage, and most of the structure of the game hasn't been developed yet. There is a test coming up soon though, and when it goes live (tests are not always on), you can check out the game (technically, it's not really a game right now) in its current state! Keep in mind that each alpha test is only designed to test out a section of the game, and most of the mechanics currently in game will probably be changed by the time we get to launch.

That might be true for most isometric games, but the Devs did specifically state that one's appearance will change if one becomes an Angel/Abomination. This would hint at the fact that appearences do indeed matter (even if you stay a demon!) Besides, different character appearances is a great way to sell cosmetics, and isometric based games like LoL have tons of different appearance selections to make your playable character more unique.

As for the demon-human interaction, read Spotlight #1, the human part, specifically the lore text. Maybe it's hinting towards a possible mechanic?

I really hope they focus on programming all the really basic core stuff from the get go, rather than flashy features. Netcode, engine stability, good frames when there's a lot of people on screen etc. After that, they can sort out game mechanics and stuff! Things like graphics, extra non core game features and etc should come last.

Personally, I would love this idea; I found this game through an ad on the Camelot Unchained reddit, and they plan to have darkness as an actual game mechanic. If certain races like Demons have excellent night vision, while humans have horrible night vision and require items like torches to increase visibility (and also making themselves easier to spot in the process), then it could create a really interesting PvP dynamic at night. Of course, we would need to give humans incentives to go out at night, but I'm sure this could be done quite easily (special events, knowledge that can only be gained at night, demon deals to gain more power etc). The much harder part would be implementing all of the mechanics with nighttime, and that is something the devs will have to decide whether it's worth the time investment or not.

@jetah A lot of the great MMOs and sandbox games (ESO circa 2014 - 2017, EVE Online, etc) will allow a highly skilled player to 1 vs X, usually because the X doesn't bother with coordination, training, using skills at the right time (they usually are used to overwhelming with numbers and spamming one thing). If the game has a high skill ceiling and a low skill floor, I would not be surprised if the best player in the game could kill twenty bad players and live to tell the tale (as it was in the 2015 days of ESO).

You can look it up on youtube, most ESO videos dating from 2015 was all about 1 vs X.

EDIT: As for demons needing numbers, I beg to differ. Demons will have way more PvP experience on hand, so much so that it would probably be entirely possible for an average Demon player to be able to easily 1 vs 2 some average human players (especially since the devs have mentioned many times that gear is only situational and the whole MMO trope of "I have better gear, I win" does not exist in Fractured). In fact, this is part of the core vision and one of the reasons I'm looking forward to the game so much; I would love to have a game that isn't focused on grinding pointless gear pixels, and more focused on player skill, coordination and general strategy (of course you still need things like warm clothes to travel around in cold regions and such, it seems like a great way to make gear relevant but balanced at the same time!).

As for stunlocks being a problem, they could simply design very few actual crowd control abilities, along with a natural CC breaker (like ESO has) that everyone can use, which also makes one immune to CC for a few seconds afterwards. This will up the skill ceiling (i.e when to use a stun break at the exact right time, managing timers and etc) and allow very good players to defeat enemy players in a 1 vs x scenario (i.e enemy players who do not know what to break, when to break, when to stun, or how to burst correctly if the opponent is stunned). I believe the devs have also mentioned that there will be things like dodges in game which you can use to evade skill shots, adding in even more skill ceiling to the game!

I would personally hate a mechanic that stops the player from moving while casting a spell. Staying still should be a user decision, as would cancelling the spell via movement. Just imagine how bad it would be in PvP if you could accidentally hit a skill then be unable to move. Currently to cast a spell and finish it, just make sure you don't press your movement keys while casting? Less options for the user is always worse IMO.

The game is current in the alpha stage, and most of the structure of the game hasn't been developed yet. There is a test coming up soon though, and when it goes live (tests are not always on), you can check out the game (technically, it's not really a game right now) in its current state! Keep in mind that each alpha test is only designed to test out a section of the game, and most of the mechanics currently in game will probably be changed by the time we get to launch.

@Ostaff said in Death Penalty of losing all gear and inventory: WORST IDEA EVER!!!:

@FluffKugel

The tutorial system is not what you think it is. It is merely missions for you to do if you choose to. The missions will teach you the basics of the game. You are not obligate to start or complete the tutorial. There is no time line for the tutorial missions to be completed, and you are actually playing the game while on the tutorial missions.

So, if the last mission was to go defeat a dragon.. you would just not do it (if ever) until you were able to defeat a dragon with friends or solo.

Currently the 'missions' as they are probably won't even exist in the final game. In EVE Online in the early days, you used to be given just a starter ship, and then you were thrown out into the world with not a clue as what you were supposed to do. Eventually they made a tutorial system (for multiple different professions, such as combat, mining, exploration, trading and etc), which had a mission that included you getting blown up and losing your ship, while the tutorial NPC told your player character how dying was nothing to be afraid of, and how you'd lose everything you were flying at the time. I believe new player retention increased a great deal after the tutorial missions were released.

@TrueCrimsonFTW said in Death Penalty of losing all gear and inventory: WORST IDEA EVER!!!:

@Basileus Yeah but saying "bad" gear is relative. To a new player everything is good.

Not really, you spawn with some default gear right? If you spend 20 minutes gathering mats, craft, and then die, the experience learned from dying is more than worth the gear itself. Far better than someone grinding materials in a safe zone for weeks, finally leaving it, then immediately dying and losing 3 weeks worth of grind in under 30 seconds. The more you protect new players, the more you harm them in the long run. Besides, any good organization will just throw low level gear at new players for free, and just lead them around to try and find fun fights to engage in.

EDIT: What would be great though IMO, is to have a tutorial mission give you some really good gear, then force you into a fight where you will 100% die, and lose all your gear with no chance of getting it back. That sort of thing generally teaches players the consequence of death without actually costing them anything. Plus they will of course get some sort of reward upon completion of said tutorial.

@TrueCrimsonFTW said in Death Penalty of losing all gear and inventory: WORST IDEA EVER!!!:

I am more going off, no new player likes to constantly regrind and be bullied by other players if they are new. I think this provides a safety net. Again just my opinion.

Well the idea is that it's a harsh world, and it's better that new players learn early to not get attached to any of their gear, rather than later in the game where they craft really expensive gear, and then finally lose it. You can't really set an arbitary cutoff for "new player" vs "veteran". In EVE, usually the earlier a new player dies and loses all their gear, the better (as they learn an important lesson of not flying what they can't afford to lose). Early on dying might only be losing an hour worth of grind, but if they avoid death for a long while, they will eventually die in some ridiculously badly fit ship (in Fractured, this will be the equivalent of bad armor + weapon + skill synergy), and end up as laughing stocks of the community. Vets aren't attached to their ships, and treat them like they're already dead the moment you undock.

This also rewards organizations that have good supply chains, logistics, and is great for the economy as a whole. Because everyone is losing their gear constantly, materials will always have value, and crafters will always have jobs as a result.

EDIT: Also, newbies will have the advantage of numbers, and any organization worth anything will herd them into a large group, and just PvP with 30 newbies vs one or two people with decent gear, kill and loot them. Even if some newbies die, they can just die in horrible gear that can be given out to them for free. I imagine newbies with support skills will be quite useful even if they have no gear at all.

@TrueCrimsonFTW said in Death Penalty of losing all gear and inventory: WORST IDEA EVER!!!:

I do think it should be level based thought. That way new people don't lose stuff right off the start but after a certain level you should suffer!

In EVE, a general rule that every new player learns quickly is to pretend everything you fly is already dead, so don't fly what you cannot afford to lose. In fractured, I imagine it'll be the same for any player who isn't in a large organization that can quickly resupply them with standardized gear, just don't wear what you can't afford to lose.

Full loss is actually great for the game, especially in terms of in game economy. It means that there will always be a need for materials to make gear, which means new players will always have a reliable income stream. Inflation is countered by gear destruction, and large organizations with skilled logistics teams will gain a massive advantage in war (by resupplying their members with gear whenever they die, and they prepare them to die en mass for strategic objectives). If you want a good example of that in an MMO, look no further than EVE Online. There's a great book out there called "Empires of EVE" that details the stories from that game; my hope is that someday Fractured will also offer a similar experience, but in a fantasy setting.

@d3Sync I don't understand why anyone who wants more color wouldn't use digital vibrance. It's basically a free way to change the color however you want. Some people do actually like less intense colors, so that's a purely subjective thing that can't be "improved" per se.

And as for people not wanting 'drastically improved' graphics, I'm saying that even small improvements can make a massive difference in both cost and FPS. For example, in Valorant, there's an "Improve Clarity" setting that basically doesn't change too much aside from making colors a little more intense, but in exchange you lose 15% of your total FPS. Meanwhile, changing Digital Vibrance to 100% costs you 0 fps, and is easily doable by just changing a single slider value.

Ultimately, there's a reason why games like Counterstrike have more players and larger impact on the market than any CoD game, despite the giant graphical discrepancy in favour of CoD. If the opportunity cost of time and money is spent on making graphics better instead of better gameplay, the game will fail (remember this is an indie company with super limited resources, a lot of their textures and art are basically pulled from templates that you can buy so that they can save time). No matter how much you improve the graphics, you aren't going to draw in the Crysis style crowd, but if you focus on gameplay and good netcode, you can easily draw in the more competitive minded players who will be staying around for a long time.

Graphics just costs a lot in terms of development time and monetary resources, and doesn't do much for gameplay. There's a reason why more recent games with high tech graphics just don't have the content in them compared to a really old game with lower grade graphics. Besides, if we expect to have large scale PvP battles eventually, keeping high FPS on most computers will ensure that more people can play the game. In more multiplayer oriented games like League of Legends or Valorant for instance, you can see how the developers deliberately chose a graphical style that allowed a large amount of people to play the game even on bad computers, while still looking good to the human eye.

EDIT: And if you want more colour in the game, just turn up Nvidia's Digital Vibrance.

I'd love to take part, and see how PvP works in Fractured! I'd also be pretty interested in trying to setup a necromancy build or something, assuming it exists right now.