Core mechanics seam really well made. Of course there is a bit of bugs because this is alpha, but mainly this game shows great promise.
Separation to 3 worlds with different rulesets, housing, GvG... Can't wait all this to be tested, but we need to wait for beta for more content to be added.
So far, so good. 
part of MTX is advertising. part of that advertising is forcing others to see it.
Yeah, I agree. But in that case, costumes need to remain decent, to not push away folks from the game.
Or hmmm... have majority of (decent) costumes "always visible", and create a special tag for smaller cathegory of "silly" costumes, and let people deactivate visibility of those if they wish.
I can see devs implementing "small cooldown" on weapon switching, so players could just use keybinding to switch weapon all the time and cast everything in succession and hit the target as well.
Realistically, having certain spells "require certain weapon equipped" makes no sense if weapons can be switches in combat and without a CD.
If client had an ability to render that cosmetic part of an outfit only on "client side" so people that don't want to walk into town "full of shiny glowing people with silly masks" aren't forced to see that, than I guess such costumes would be more viable.
Plenty of people want a "decent looking" MMO, where everything is closer to realistic (fantasy based realism), rather than seeing people in pink cat costumes running around. Those people tend to avoid MMOs that introduce such cosmetics and force them to look at it.
An option to "turn on visibility" of cosmetic part of outfit could be a nice feature. So everyone can see what you are wearing from gear, but only those that turned on "costume rendering on other people" can see what cosmetic outfit you are wearing.
Options (Cosmetic Rendering):
Those could be core features. An additional options could be (render on guild members, render only on people in friend list,...).
@Meiki the point is that Angels are certainly not restricted from having PvP. They will be able to have a lots of PvP, because there will be plenty of evil characters around. Also neutrals that killed someone or stole, and they can have PvP with all of them.
They are also not restricted from any form of PvE. So Angel gameplay isn't restricted in any way because they can't change to neutral. They can still do everything.
And if someone wishes to preform evil actions.... they will simply not play Angel.
You can't have everything on a single characters, to do several things you will need alts.
Evil characters are even more restricted then any other characters, due to not being able to even explore major part of Arboreus. An angel can still go everywhere, have full PvP and PvE.
Angel not being able to permanently stay on Arboreus (IF they will not), is not a restriction. It's just that part of people desire to have a cherry on top of the cake. But even without a cherry, that cake will still be pretty good.
Dev forum could showcase materials they are preparing but not finished yet (work in progress).
Art, mechanics, other things that aren't shown live yet in current state.
@Alexian i definitely agree on guilds not being hard capped in member size. And yes this is why logistical cost is so important to implement, and collision and friendly fire would add so much value.
@Meiki That's not correct. Good characters can attack all flagged characters (murderers, thieves) at will. Not sure about unflagged evil characters, perhaps even them.
Angel could easily be the main for someone who wishes to play as holy crusader, purging the demons and evil humans off of this world.
Would still have plenty of pvp like that, and pve isnt limited for anyone regardless of the alignment.
Staying permanently on Arboreus imho isnt a crucial prerequisite for playing an angel. At least not unless you are a teddy bear.
@Roccandil said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
Hmm. I don't think friendly fire would reduce zerging (see below), nor is that my goal.
Your goal is not to reduce zerging? Well... i guess that explains a lot... lol
Personally i prefer where skills determine the outcome of the battles and not who brings 1000 players vs 150.
I actually prefer that "funny armors" are never introduced to Fractured.
Perhaps only temporary ones, and tied to specific events. But never permament ones.
The moment i see characters running around with horse head masks and pink pijamas, i'll know end is just behind the corner.
(Just how i personaly feel about "funny costumes")
I would expect Arboreus cities to depend heavily on politics, and have political mechanics that can impact everything a lot more heavily than Syndesia and Tartaros.
young mobs - strong but naive, tend to be more aggressive, bigger agro range, follow you for longer distance before going back
middle age mobs - strong, more wise, more tactical, better AI, balanced agro
old mobs - bit weaker, but advanced AI, most tactical, playing defensively
@Roccandil we didn't say "eliminate zerging". But they would certainly reduce it. And then in addition of some other mechanics, zerg can become more trouble then what it's worth.
And that is the goal.
@Jetah said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
i also think the whole isometric view will be a problem for zergs too. Only so many people can fit on a screen, thus only so many can attack an object. then add in friendly fire with no-clip with line of sight projectiles hitting the nearest object, it'll be pretty hard to blob things.
Player collision and friendly fire are indeed the most efficient ways to deter zerging.
I would like to suggest another thing (for those areas where friendly fire will be a thing).
If there will be no guild based immunity, I would suggest let guild organisation UI, allow to organize people within a guild into "families".
Allow guilds to have any number of guild members (with optionally including those soft cap mechanics), but limit family size to up to 10 people (size of 2 parties?).
Every player within a guild would be treated mechanically equally in anything connected to guild, and families would just be tied to friendly fire mechanics.
Family members would be immune to each other for friendly fire (regardless of party status), and they wouldn't be immune to friendly fire from rest of guild members.
That would incentivise creating of small tactical teams for organized combat, so guilds that place an effort in being better organized and trained could benefit from this option when group fighting is involved.
One other way to deter zerging is to tie the rewards to single (winning) guild only, and not shareable in any way.
I will add an example for siege zerging below (overflow guilds), but other methods could be devised to deter zerging in other situations, in some similar way.
For example guild that wins siege does not get gold (or similar rewards that result in directly earning you gold) as reward (gold is simply shared to other guilds that helped with the siege). Siege should be rewarded with something that's bound to character (those characters who were in the guild at the time siege was won*).
In this way, even if 2000 people help, only 200 people that were in the winning guild will only actually be rewarded, and rest 1800 have absolutely nothing from this. Because ALL rewards that winning the siege involve, were bound to those 200 characters somehow.
What kind of rewards that should be is discussable, I can give some examples.
only those 200 characters get an ability to set their houses in special locations (that are activated and available only to those that were in the guild at the time siege was won*)
only those 200 characters get special tax free status (every other player auto pays taxes, by game mechanics auto taking extra cash from him, and only those 200 players are ignored by mechanics)
only those 200 players get special treatmant by NPCs in that zone
only those 200 players get special options available to them in that zone
only those 200 players have an ability to get political positions in this zone
Now those are just an examples, but the point is that only the people that were the part of a winning guild at the time the siege was won (both part of the guild at the time siege is won AND and 1 month part of the guild before that), get those rewards, that are tied to their characters.
*I added this one month clause so guilds wouldn't just invite 2000 players right before the siege, and kick them after to avoid taxes.
@Alexian said in What challenges should guild alliances face?:
How would you have them deal with overflow guilds?
Specially when people are arguing against friendly fire.
Large guilds would just make 10 smaller guilds and play together. Not worrying about zerging when friendly fire doesn't exist.
