Best posts made by Basileus

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!

To be honest, it looks like Improbable is on the wrong here from my perspective, if they really have been copying and stealing tech from Unity as they claim(and I wouldn't be surprised if this happened; unicorns are not known for respecting boundaries).

Probably in this case, Improbable will have to stop playing the victim card and settle this either in negotiations or in court. Let's see how this works out.

The reason why I suspect Improbable is that their first reaction, on having things go sideways, is to go to the press rather than negotiate in private. Leveraging public emotions and using general statements like "games that people love will cease development because of this sudden and unexpected change!!" are a clear appeal to the masses. It's a classic populist move. If both parties were mature, they would have settled this in private and if differences could not be reconciled, parted in good terms.

Another thing is that Improbable instantly put together a 25 million dollar deal immediately after this 'surprising' change? You can see the lies unravel here IMO. These deals don't magically appear in under the span of a week, they're negotiated over a very long time. And as anyone knows, Epic Games is owned by Tencent, who has a history of cornering marketshare in China.

Random speculation here, but anyone bet that Tencent is trying to expand to earn more for their shareholders and possibly advance their own private interests in gathering more tech? It is after all, only useful to the central party if it can provide something, else it becomes a threat to the establishment over in China (The Chinese Govt recently moved against Tencent via Video Game bans, so I imagine Tencent is in a rush to show why this would be a bad idea (as the Communist Party also wants to catch up on any and all tech)). Or they could just be trying to make more money, either way works.

@jetah EVE has gone through many phases, and I believe there used to be a 30 minute timer that did not reset on being attack; this was abused and I believe there was a tactic to keep healing your titans (ships worth 1k dollars in RL money if you converted ISK into PLEX cost) that were 100% going to die, and they would alt-f4 the moment the fight was lost. Their guildies would keep healing their afk ship, then 30 minutes later it would poof and disappear before it could be killed. This is probably why they changed it so that the timer reset the second you were attacked.

@Finland I would be okay with a 1 minute 30 second timer for logging out that can be interrupted upon any damage (human or NPC) if you were fully visible for the entirety of that timer. No stealth should be allowed while you are logging out to prevent people from using it to escape from a dangerous situation. Same with any potential teleport to towns etc (though I do believe such a mechanic would somewhat ruin the travelling and merchant core game the devs are trying to create; in EVE online there is no such thing as an auto teleport to a safe dock!). There will still be edge cases maybe where people will use the logoff to escape via hiding behind terrain or something, but maybe this can be overcome with good planning.

Do remember that the game is full loot, so the goal of the game would probably be to build up your settlements and gain influence rather that getting the perfectly grinded 3 star OP weapon that you will lose the moment you die to a player.

@tulukaruk

If you've worked with Unity before, you know that they're a very developer friendly organization. Furthermore, the TOS changes are merely for show. The fact is that Improbable has been breaking the TOS from the get go, (putting their wrapper around a one time use Unity License, then selling that to multiple people). The TOS change was merely to clarify that they were indeed breaking the rules, and that it was time to negotiate. Improbable then plays victim, runs to the press, and has a backup 25 million dollar plan in place in under 3 days.

Improbable might think it's being smart, but this is a pretty transparent scheme from where I stand. Let us see how it plays out. Improbable wouldn't be the first unicorn to use dirty tricks to get ahead, and it won't be the last, but often these unicorns companies are just playing the coinflip game, much like cheaters in exams. Flip heads 7 times in a row, and you're a straight A student graduating with honors. Flip heads 6 times and tails once, you're exposed as a cheater and leave in disgrace with nothing.

Remember that at this point, Improbable has actually made no actual money yet (their balance line is still deep in the red and they haven't been profitable once), and like other unicorns, rely on fresh investors dumping money into them for the promise of one day being a major cash cow. For example, did you know that even Twitter, the giant unicorn of today's world, just turned a profit for the very first time in Q2 of 2018? And they've been around since 2006. That's 12 years to turn a profit (but of course, now it's a very valuable and trustworthy unicorn, and one of the good ones in terms of how they run their business).

I'll just throw in my two cents, but I think it's important for communities to treat accusations of cheating more seriously than the accusation of toxicity. The former leads to the latter, so treating the former is a good fix for the actual problem, rather than simply treating the symptom. A good way to do this (especially if and when the game comes out) would be to put out a ban list, plus the reason for banning. People should be free to appeal, and they could always just create a new account anyway (for now at least).

As for the leaderboard, I personally believe that it is hardly going to lead to a good choice for the top 100 people to alpha test, and encourages cheating and mass alt creation (thus also inflating the numbers of potential 'players' the devs see in their community, and potentially messing with calculations). The best way to handle it would be to remove the leaderboard, as well as removing the incentive for being top 100. Rather, the foundation rewards should be incentive enough; pre alpha should have an application form, as well as selecting community members most active on the forums/discord in a productive manner.

EDIT: I would also like to say that some of the most successful MMOs in history, like EVE and others, were known for their freewheeling attitude to things considered unsavory by many. Spying on enemy organizations, scamming other players, etc were all freely permitted, so long as things did not escalate out of game and into the real world. A truly free environment with no heavy hand-holding by devs is the best form of sandbox, and I hope this game is going to go in that direction, else you might as well build a theme-park (which is hardly possible on this budget).

I can't imagine that it'll be much more intensive than something like Path of Exile, given it's a similar format of gameplay graphics wise.

@loxreaten The whole point is that being in top 100 on the leaderboards shouldn't mean anything, especially with alts running around. The best way would be just to reset anyone who used alts to farm points to level 0. However, currently the top 100 on that leaderboard hardly represents the best contributors to the game so far, and is causing more harm than good (cheating before the game has started really sets the tone). If that is the case, then the logical solution is to just retire the concept of granting them alpha keys, and that should just make it a solo affair where you're just trying to get points for personal goodies when the game comes out.

I think angels will be pretty rare, since most people who roll demon to start with would generally be players that prefer PvP. Whereas the opposite would be more common (rolling beastman, then becoming an abomination), as that's usually the general trend for players in most multiplayer games (start with PvE, end with PvP for emergent content). That being said, the fact that angels will probably be rare means that people are more likely to try to make their characters angels for status.

Nice, looking forward to seeing what the character creation looks like!

I honestly just want to see what the advanced demon character models look like. Will be interesting to see what they come up with!