Posts made by GamerSeuss

1. The Talent Tree set to 60 points was a conscious decision the Devs have discussed before, and it gives a fairly good amount of customization to characters, especially when you consider you can set up 5 different Presets of these 60 points, any of which you can later delete and reset up. Combined with the 5 presets for skills, you have a powerful set of tools for creating the right character for most jobs, while still limiting a character a little bit so their choice of which character to play still has some meaning.

2. There may be other Talents added in, and the overall tree expanded as the game goes closer to release, and more and more knowledge points and mechanics become available that can be influenced by the Talent tree.

3. Totally agree, the Road system of enhanced movement on paved roads is great. As to expanding it to lesser roads, I feel this isn't needed. The Devs have stated that Fast Travel is something they purposely want to limit in the game in order to give the game more of a Merchant Caravan Economy feel to it. They already have plans for Mounts to come into the game and thus expand travel in several regards.

4. Equipment degrading to the point it needs to be replaced is an intentional feature of this game, not merely a limitation. This is to encourage the merchant economy as all equipment is player-crafted/enchanted in game. The Devs don't want players finding their perfect set of equipment for their build, then just making sure to keep it in good repair, they want to actively encourage players to make/purchase spare copies of the equipment they love so that it can be swapped out, also possibly encouraging later game players to try different enhanced gear instead of just resting on the same ole same ole load-out they have come to find works best for them. The game is meant to evolve and change over time, as well, and who knows, Repair capabilities might be in the plans, but during Alpha, that's just another mechanic that needs to take a step back until the meat and potatoes of the game are ironed out.

5. Totally agree about needing something to tell you where your party members are. An Arrow when their close on the outskirts of the mini-map would be fine. If within the mini-map's current field of range, then an Icon should show, and once they are in zoom out range to be seen, said icons/arrows can go away.

6. Bigger plots are current reserved for outside of City plots only, as really right now the only compensation for building outside. Within the city, the 4x4 is considered what most city civil engineers would allocate at most to any given structure, except maybe an official city building, which obviously could take up whatever space was needed to get the job done. Outside of a city, it is expected that a Player is going to need a bigger structure to hold some of the things the city services provide to the city dwellers, if nothing else, additional places for storage, as the hermit doesn't have a separate locked bank vault, like all city dwellers and even city visitors have.

7. Remember, this is an Alpha, and many things are going to change as the game progresses, our feedback is important in order to encourage that the game moves int eh direction the majority of the player base prefers, but always remember that the Developers have a plan that may not be always clear as of yet to that player base about what their final product is expected to look like and be able to evolve into.

I did not address your points in any sort of order, but rather as I thought about their answers, as I didn't have the original post at hand to reference.

I have sooooo many Reagents stored up now, I could make several sets of armor/weapons and place them strategicly around in case I died, really. The gear isn't disposable, as much as it is not supposed to be the focal point. It has a durability after all and wears out and needs to be replaced. The only reason I'm not doing exactly that is I'm running currently 5 different toons

Have to say, this is a pretty standard thing in MMOs as it is. Even not always having a deathmark is pretty common. I do agree clicking on your body should autoequip what you can (unless you have something else in the appropriate spot.

Retrieving one's corpse though is part and parcel of the MMO experience and shouldn't be made too easy

Actually one need not join a Guild to join a city. Yes, many of the cities will be Guild controlled, but by no means all of them. Non-guild cities will probably be far more open to guildless player interactions, citizens or not.

@Stacy555 I didn't say it had been quiet, that was the other guy, I specifically said dozens are usually chatting on global, which means still over 100+ is probably online and not chatting.

I'm in the US Midwest

They actually have a couple different Roadmaps out there predicting the developmental schedule of the game, but obviously, things like COVID-19 and such have put some wrenches in some of the gears.

Is anyone else getting wierd hanging around Tool Tip windows, and then getting kicked out of the game only to get to a character connect/starter screen hybrid (has the Stamina/Endurance/Mana/Satiation/Exhaustion meter in the upper left, the mini-map in the upper right, and the word Tutorial in the mid-right, the rest being the character select screen?

personally, I don't see the other races coming into the alpha until Alpha 3 really.

I figure they will expand on some of the mobs we can fight though, next test, flesh out the talent tree a little more, maybe add more reagents and expand on some of the crafting/skills potential of the game would be my bet. Another alpha test in say Sept/Oct is what I'm predicting, but who knows. Might be okay if they put in a couple more archtypes too

Actually, we're 7 days into the test. Tomorrow it will be 1 week since it opened.

You point out lacks, but that isn't the point. What there is to see is. For instance, many people got the check marks for Vale of Shadows, but how many went all the way in and saw the stunning rope bridge scenes to the far NW of the Vale?

As to numbers of players, I think your greatly underestimating that as well. I personally passed a group of several yesterday, and at different times throughout the day, just watching Hlobal you can see there's probably dozens chatting, and for each person chatting on global, figure there's 5 not chatting, so there's still over 100+ using and testing the Alpha.

I'm not saying we need more land to explore, just more push to explore what's here already. The next test, who knows? Mayhaps they'll give us more geography...shoot, with the most recent patch, they did shuffle some of the mob spawn points making for interesting in town encounters

Actually, this Alpha is going pretty good. You can't really judge an alpha by only a week's worth of data anyway. There is a reason the Alpha was set to run a month, and to end it premature for anything but a major bug problem would be silly.

Remember, different testers have different schedules and priorities, and also, some things in game are being tweaked as we go along even in this alpha, during hot bug patches on an almost daily basis to handle the little things found by people. Some of the intended Alpha testers, for instance, may not even have gotten to log in at all yet, so their feedback isn't even reflected yet in the alpha testing. Other testers work M-F and can only log in to test on the weekend for limited time slots, and should still be allowed to come in and give the game as much of a once over as they possibly can.

I still find much in the game to explore and try to fiddle around with. My sister is contemplating changing Cities right now to explore a relationship with a different city than the one we started with, while I and my GF are looking at staying put because of the involvement in moving everything we've established. I'm beginning to get quite the enchanter's station set up in my home in town, for instance, and I'm still trying to deck out the optimal equipment build for my characters.

People like me want to put the game through as many paces as we possibly can in the very limited time we're allotted to play in the alpha stages, and cutting that already limited time short would really be a disservice to those of us still die hard about doing the alpha test justice.

I currently am running 4 characters in the game, 2 of each archtype, and I plan on possibly creating a 5th character with a more Archer custom build in the future as well. I play both Solo and Group with 2 or 3 of us at a time, so far, and would love to get in a session or 2 with a larger group of players as well. Shoot, we haven't even had a chance to explore every area of the given continent yet, let alone spreading things out into further continents and worlds at this stage.

Instead of ending the alpha prematurely, a better idea would be expanding the 'Tutorial Quests' with some more exploration quests to get people checking out some of the other areas on the continent that aren't getting as much traffic because there's no-one incentivizing you to go to those areas.

Not that Realism and historical accuracy is 100% important, but it is worth noting that in medieval times, and even in frontier days, tanning tubs were not something you traditionally had in your homestead at all, because of the smell.

Where you did your tanning was usually in an out of the way shed or cabin (frontiers) or in a specific quarter of the city (medieval) and that city quarter usually had some distinctive nomenclature like "Stink Alley" because of it. The smell of leather tanning pervades an entire house and for a good bit around it, and ventilation and such may or may not be easily possible in smaller spaces where such fumes could become toxic. I can see not having tanneries in individual houses in town, and requiring them to be outside or in a separate outbuilding in solo plots for this reason to aid in the versimilitude of the overall game.

Again, though, it's about how much realism and historical accuracy you want.

I also agree that this game doesn't need to degenerate into 'instant gratification' in everything.

I want Crafting to be as involved as combat an gathering is, if not more so, so I think some crafts requiring a timer is an excellent way to make it more tangible in game, and as was said, it also adds value to the end products. Everything in this game is Player Created, and so much can be instantly finished, but certain things need to take a little time.

Enchantment makes sense to be instantaneous, it's magic, you expect it to be done in a single application of a process. You don't leave something bubbling in the magic circle for 20 mins or 3 hrs.
Leather tanning, on the other hand, is generally at least an overnight endeavor, so 16 hrs for tanning is not unreasonable to assume. Could they shorten it a little, based on in-game days vs out of game day perspectives? Sure, maybe make it 8hrs instead, assuming that the in-game clock moves faster relatively, than our out of time world.
Something like Alchemy, a magical branch of chemistry, might also be something that had to brew for awhile before completion, in the story-books and legends these games are loosely based around, you expect a witch or Sorcerer to tend their magic potions for a period of time before reaching a result, but something like just enchanting somehting is done with a spell and it's finished. In fact, Alchemical reactions might even be multi-step things, where you add the initial ingredients in and start the process, then a 20 minute timer starts, any time after that 20 mins elapses, maybe up to 24 hrs later, you can begin the next step by adding more ingredients, and starting another timer, maybe an hour this time. Magical storage chests could be next to Alchemy labs, so if you know your going to be away longer than the spoil counter would be, you could pull your partially done concoction from the crafting station and put it into the storage locker, which would Freeze the concoction timers until you come back and resume your work.

All rough ideas, but all would make this game so much more immersive and enjoyable to a certain class of players.

Actually, I kind of prefer having to pick an herb to get info about it. There are a few that look relatively similar, and I like the fact I get frustrated sometimes thinking I'm picking say Dandalion and I instead pick up some Arnica.

Too many tool tips, as was said, dumbs down the game. Having some pictures in the Knowledge book might be nice, but I would say add that in if/when they start making plants just like creature knowledge, where you gradually get to 100%, and only at 75-100% would I add the pictures in. (and only in the book, no hover over tooltips)

@catraccoon I play solo more than I play group, and My build for my Arcanist with 60 Talents is very well rounded. If you want multiple end of branch powers, you do have to decide which middle powers you don't max out, but you can do a pretty decent job of building a nice Solo character.

My Arcanist has:

Master Wizard
Power Caster
Unwearing
Unbreakable
and Army Veteran

and +75 Elemental Resistance
+180 Armor
+320 Endurance
+80 Accuracy
+400 Mana
+20 Life Regen
+24 Mana Regen
+24% Damage with Magic Staffs
and +16% Spell Damage

that's in addition to the Ability Score increases along the way. We're only talking Talents here, too, Enchant your Gear and you can get some of these things as well, or increase some you already have.

@catraccoon Progress in the game is NOT to get everything you want...if anyone ever gets everything they want, they end up with no challenge and nothing to strive for. The goal is to get as good as you CAN get, and learning to adapt to what you can't change. If your getting a build that is only 5 to 10 points shy of your image of 'perfect' then I think they are catching the exact right balance within the game. This is especially true, as with what Stormbug said about Presets and being able to swap out with a quick nap. Every PC can have 5 presets for Talents and 5 presets for Skills, together, that makes for a lot of possible permutations of your build, 25 potential build choices in fact, and that's not counting deleting out older presets and refining them.

The problem with Pumpkins, for efficiency purposes, is that it is one of the only foods that doesn't stack when uncooked. I guess to compensate for that, when you do cook it, you get a 4 for 1 return

@Stacy555 Sorry, hit the Quote button, and your who the reply tagged for some reason

@Mr14taz actually, in every game I ever played, MMO wise, recruiting for Guilds in global chat was considered Trolling.

I personally just ignore in-game chat completely right now. Its not constructive, so it's a distraction and a resource that could be dedicated to some other aspect of the game. Everything we do takes up bandwidth, processing power, etc..., turn off Global chat and wait until party/city/guild chat is ready to go, and wait until ignore features are added.

I definitely see some merit in this idea, with a caveat.

I still think people should be able to branch out and do everything, but, your generalist, like in real life, generally has to work twice as hard to get all their ducks in a row to produce things because they are dabbling in so many things, and thus, rarely exceed a certain level of proficiency with any one discipline because of it.

Want to make your own Tanning Station in the wild, all the things that go into that tanning station need to either be bought or made there as well to make it work. Special chemicals produced through the alchemy skill and an alchemy workbench need to be produced to 'finish' your tanned goods. special metal frames need to be ordered and carried to your plot for assembly to finish making your crafting station, etc...

A single self-sufficient 'prepper' type hermit could still thus exist, but they would find reason to come into town occasionally in order to special order something they can't easily make themselves, or they would spend all their time making their infrastructure work out.

A farmer may harvest veggies, wheat, flax, etc..., then carry any they don't use into a town to sell off what they have extra and use the funds obtained to buy what they do need, like meat for the fire, good charcoal, paint and stains, medicine for sick plants, etc...

A nearby rancher could have an agreement with said farmer to take his leftover food veg to feed his own stock. Horses and cattle eating wheat/hay, pigs eating a mix of various foods, carrots, apples, etc... and in return, gives a portion of the meat and dairy they produce back to the farmer...

in other words, just how real world economics of such industry work.