[Review] Pre-Endgame All Inclusive

My intent here is to go into an in depth critical review of current flaws in the game before endgame. So, first, I'll deal with some of the inevitable questions.

Q- Why flaws and not good things? If you dislike the game so much, maybe it's not for you?
A- I like the game, if I disliked the game, I wouldn't be giving critical analysis of it- I'd have moved on to another game. In fact, I am currently playing this game over other games I enjoy. That said- just because I like the game and many aspects of it, doesn't mean I don't have criticism. And while I could easily point out what I think has been done well in the game- I can do that in another thread, and frankly during a BETA phase, which we've been told this is- criticism is more important than praise.

Q- If you haven't played the game endgame, your opinion doesn't mean anything, pre-endgame doesn't matter.
A- If that's what you believe, I can't change your mind. However, as -most- people will spend a large amount of time pre-60, as these first few weeks are pre-60, and as the first impressions of new players are pre-60, I believe that pre-endgame is in fact extremely important. I am also not saying I haven't been to endgame- only that I won't be talking about it for this review.

Q- Why are you not talking about endgame then?
A- A few reasons. One, I want to have some time to play around with it. Two, most players are new to endgame, and unfortunately, a large number of players at 60 are, for various reasons, new to the game entirely and have very little experience with playing their class. The 'meta' hasn't been fully discovered, early nerfs/buffs that would make current criticism pointless haven't happened, and people aren't geared up (well... kinda...). Basically though- the pvp isn't at a point where it's really competitive yet, and even strategies for pve aren't completely set in stone. In pvp, we also haven't gotten a chance to see how well classes play together, and how some of the best players play them- something I think is a must before we start talking about balance.

Q- Is this just griping?
A- I was in alpha, and I gave constructive criticism back then. Do I have things to gripe about? Yes, especially since many of the things I'm about to say have been said in previous testing phases- some of which are not small issues at all and I feel should have been stamped out before 'open beta'. But, I'll say it again as 'gripe-free' as I can, and avoid as best I can saying things like 'they have come across this very issue in previous mmos they themselves have made, how could they not have foreseen this?' since I'm sure you've all heard this many times before.


I'll note, I'll be putting how severe I think an issue is. Also, if you disagree with something, post your opinions, and if you feel I missed something, mention it and I'll add it. I might not finish the review day one either, it's a lot to cover. As well, if I have something wrong, let me know so I'll correct it- it's possible I've missed an option in the UI.
So, without further ado.

CONTENTS

1.1 Launcher and Creation
1.2 UI General
1.3 Chat, Journal
1.4 Inventory
1.5 Character Sheet/Companion
1.6 Dailies

2.1 Dungeon Finder
2.2 Dungeon Difficulty and Loot

3.1 Skirmishes

4.1 PvP General
4.2 PvP Maps

5.1 Foundry Home Page
5.2 Foundry Creation
5.3 Foundry Missions


1.1 Launcher and Creation

Issue One- minor- When you log out in most games, you go back to character selection screen. In this game you go back to a log in screen. Small inconvenience, but nonetheless.

Issue Two- minor- Certain features seem missing from character creation (same with foundry), as well as a lack of options on many things- for example, where did the 'heels' option go? Tattoos are unfortunately limited. In general- character creation could use more options overall.

Issue Three- minor- During character creation, you should let us know what stats do- literally, not the vague description that isn't even accurate- give us the numbers on what stats give us. Yes, we can find out later or online- but why do that when it should be right in front of us?

1.2 UI General

Issue One- minor- Four different buttons at the top of the screen are randomly dispersed that have to do with currencies and buying/selling stuff. A bit confusing, but, more so- pointless. An auction icon... that doesn't even give you auction access, but more so, if you buy something you have to go to the mailbox, which leads to issue 2

Issue Two- moderate- One mail box in the entire game. Really? Have I missed something? Yes, you can 'read' mail anywhere, but let's face it- people check mail mostly to get items or money, which you can't unless you're in PE. It also adds to how bloated PE is, since you have to go there pretty much all the time, constantly, since everything is there. Would be nice if mail from the auction house was deleted once you took the items... instead of when you delete it, suddenly you get doubles of all mail- what's with that?

Issue Three- minor- Related to the above- the 'useful' icons you will use often should be placed together. Or, better yet, let us rearrange them ourselves so we can decide what goes where.

Issue Four- minor- Keeping pages open can be a pain since any movement closes all your windows. Naturally, this is due to the different style of mmo- but it feels like this could be handled better.

Issue Five- moderate- Auction House. Too much to even talk about here, but basically... it's not working right.

1.3 Chat, Journal Tabs

Issue One- moderate- I don't know what you were thinking putting in a single zone tab, but now those of us who might simply be looking for information are bombarded by chat that should be in an LFG or Trade chat channel. The thing is- I actually use zone chat in other zones, because outside of PE zone chat is generally pretty good. PE though is a mess, and it's not fair to people who don't want to see that- nor to people who are looking just to trade, or just for LFG- and it could be easily fixed just by adding in those two popular chat tabs.

Issue Two- major- For those not using voice chat, chances are this one has killed you during Mad Dragon or something. Auto complete, like we're using a phone. At the least let us turn this feature off, because being stuck in chat while trying to quickly say something because it thinks you're saying 'kiteface@kitehead' instead of kite the adds will likely end up with you dead.

Issue Three- minor/moderate- Relating to journal, achievements and lore entries. It's going to be a great annoyance to some people not being able to go back into instanced areas, or trying to get into outlevelled dungeons in order to find things they've missed. In some cases, you can just do the epic version. But- overall this is very inconvenient not being able to simply come and go as you please.

1.4 Inventory

Issue One- potentially catastrophic- Bag space. This might be one of the number one concerns of some people. Now, there's two 'free' bags you get from a Blacklake and a Grave Yard quest that I know of- there might be more, I'm not sure. But between the cost for bags and how important they are to people, this alone may turn a lot of people off of this game very quickly. Add to that one of the smallest banks I've seen, and you get more items to hold onto than anything else. Quest items take up bag space, you tend to have gathering items, potions, and all sorts of profession made things like armours that you hold onto because you know in 4 ranks you'll need to use it to make another profession armour. And that doesn't even come to the real inventory space jammer- enchant/runes. If these hard their own professions bag that alone would make everyone breath easier, because between a dozen different kinds, and 7 ranks of each, plus special ones- you end up with 90% of your bag space being those, and I don't think people are wrong to assume we get so many items to clutter our bags just so you can sell vastly overpriced bags on the zen shop.

Issue Two- moderate- There's no counter on bag space. Putting a x/x on the bag item so we know how much space we have left would be fantastic so we don't have to open our bags constantly to check- unless you're just assuming we already know the space we have left is always zero

Issue Three- minor- Bag of Holes. Simply put, I kinda feel bad for people who spent money buying these, because it's straight out a scam, but people do it since the next cheapest bag is 6 dollars.

Issue Four- moderate- Items that don't stack. Mainly, this is between BoP potions and non-BoP, making more bag bloat for people who ironically enough spent money buying packs with them. But, it's not limited to that. Right now, I have two stacks of non bound Portable Altars- same description, not bound, but I can't put them together. If profession made armours stacked- that would also help a bit with space too.

1.5 Character Sheet/Companion

Issue One- moderate- There's no dressing room for checking out how gear looks before you bind it to you.

Issue Two- moderate- The game could really use 'cosmetic' gear in some way. Not meaning the fashion tab, for that one outfit we get and a handful you can buy- but ability to keep the looks of those sweet level 30 boots on your ugly level 60 boots which have superior stats. MMORPGs are largely about customization, and almost everyone else is doing this now.

Issue Three- moderate- Gear looks the same for the first thirty levels, but, also, gear looks... shoddy for females. I'm not going to make this into some bizarre sexist issue, or whatever- but the holes make it look first off, very impractical, but second off, it looks like someone took scissors to every piece of armour. I'll admit, in high school, sometimes I did that to my clothes, to my parents horror- but half the gear is half cut into on one side or just has random holes. Impractical, not stylish, and maybe a man will tell me I'm wrong here but do we really look sexy in gear that seems to have been put together while the blacksmith was drunk?

Issue Four- minor- More options to disable visuals, I mean, you allow people to go naked in their fashion tab with full stats anyway, might as well give some more options for us.

Issue Five- moderate- What are our stats doing for our companions? It doesn't show us, for no discernible reason.

Issue Six- moderate- Companions, we get one healer... who maxes at like, 6k hp. Yikes. A year is a long time to wait for the angel healer, why not instead put in something like mounts- two books which increase a rank 1 to 2, and a 2 to 3?

Issue Seven- moderate- Companion AI is wonky. We use these guys a lot, especially solo players. Companions get stuck before traps- even ones you've disabled :eek: They stand slack jawed before super slam attacks. I've noticed they seem to take a bit less aoe damage, and even seem to ignore aoe in some cases- but they are paper mid to high levels. Please remember free to play players want to hit max level too, there's a difference between letting them have a good companion, and letting them have a companion that can take more than a single hit from a minion.

1.6 Dailies

Issue One- moderate- Bugginess. I've had dailies where I'm at 2/2 and still not completed them.

Issue Two- moderate- Levels to do them. Getting 'finish skirmish 3 times' and then, at a mere 2 levels above the skirmish's level, the skirmish not being in the queue menu feels like often I don't have the levels to finish some dailies. Perhaps skirmishes and dungeons could have a few more levels leeway? Or, perhaps not having 3 as a daily for quests you have 2-3 levels to finish for skirmishes would be nice.

Issue Three- moderate- Reliance on them. Yes, dailies are becoming a big part of most games- but in this case, it's one of the few ways to gain the relevant currency of the game. Between that and having to do dungeons/pvp/skirmishes based specifically on the timeline you have for 'bonus' diamonds, you've put the players less on 'our' schedule, and more on 'yours'. That won't sit well with people.

Issue Four- moderate- The hour long 'windows' to do specific things forces people to plan when they're going to do something specific so it matches your timeline. Heaven forbid it takes a bit longer to do a skirmish or a pvp match is very evenly matched and goes past the hour. The biggest issue here though is- you might enter a queue for a skirmish with 45 minutes left, then get into the skirmish with 10 minutes left, and to get the dungeon one it feels like you should be queuing up half an hour early.


2.1 Dungeon Finder

Issue One- moderate- It not only takes a long time, but then, we get groups with nothing but GWF, CW and TR. This game has a trinity, like it or not. Do you always need it? No, especially early on... but later in the game, good luck going anywhere without a DC.

Issue Two- massive- This issue is so big, I have stopped even queuing for dungeons. No way to replace people. Getting to the final boss after almost an hour, one wipe, someone drops- and bam, you're done. Why can't we reenter the group finder and look for more people? I absolutely cannot stand wasting that much time for no reason... over and over. Because dungeon loot isn't that great, the xp is terrible- we're in it almost always for the final boss chest and daily. I don't mind dungeons being very hard, I don't mind wiping- but having to give up because someone left and we have no way to queue up to find more? That's just terrible design. If there is a way, please tell me, but I've done dozens of dungeons and not met one person who knows how to do this- so if there is a way, it needs to be far more clear.

Issue Three- big- This also has to do with skirmishes and pvp. Votekick system. Namely- there is none. Instead, it goes to a randomly chosen leader. That's just asking for abuse- and it's getting abused like crazy. Is votekick perfect? No, but it's better than some random getting the sole vote.
Issue Four- minor- Touched on before, but entering a dungeon needs to be easier than it currently is if you're overlevelled, or it bugs and you end up in PE rather than the dungeon.

2.2 Dungeon Difficulty and Loot

I like the difficulty, I think it's great that there's some real challenge in parts of the game... but...

Issue One- moderate- The challenge seems to always be the exact same thing- absurd numbers of adds, with absurd numbers of AoEs. There are ways to make challenging fights without just saying 'lets put in more, more, more!'. I'm not saying nerf fights, but at least consider some alternatives (note- pre endgame, again, this isn't talking about endgame dungeon difficulty).

Issue Two- moderate- Make up. Due to number of adds and healing threat, it seems the 'winning' strategy every time we hit a snag ends up being 'why don't we have the DC round up all the adds and...' either 'we aoe them down' or 'they kite while we kill the boss'. The issue I have here is twofold. One- it puts most of the reliance on one class, while making the DC and aoe classes have primary usefulness. Two- it puts DCs in a role in dungeons which I'm 99% sure they did not pick that class to be doing. I have to tell friends thinking of playing a tank to pick DC.

Issue Three- minor- Overall I don't think this is too bad... but health pools. Is a boss with copious amounts of health necessarily harder? Not really, generally they're just more tedious. And dungeons seem full of high health enemies and high health bosses. I'll use an example likely everyone's seen. Early on, the skirmish to kill the pirate king- this guy is easy, very easy. But that health bar just does not move. So we end up with ten minutes of us wailing on him, and I have yet to see even one person drop during the fight. Health can be curbed in some cases, and I feel the bosses would be just as challenging.

Issue Four- massive- This one is pissing people off, and also making the game less about cooperation and more about hating everyone else in your party. You have made the strictest gear system I've seen, where almost everything only fits one class- and then you make near everything BoE and let anyone roll on them. Do you know what 'need' means, or what 'greed' means? If you're selling something, which is what someone who can't use the gear obviously will be doing, that is greed- anyone who isn't the specific class who can use that item, should not be able to roll need because simply put, they DO NOT need it. The system now straight out encourages ninja looting- what is the deal with that?

Issue Five- moderate- Loot flying every which way, off of cliffs, down pits you can't get into, into spike pits, into acid baths.

3.1 Skirmishes

Issue One- moderate- This might be a bug, but I've noticed that some mobs, such as Gnarled Man in the swamp skirmish, use an aoe ability that saps your health away in a mere few seconds. The red circle for this doesn't appear most of the time, and all you get is a faint blue circle thing swirling around. Problematic as it blends into the ground, and this is one of the most deadly aoe circles early on in the game.

Issue Two- moderate- Pit, sometimes waves spawn behind walls, are untouchable and thus you are unable to finish the skirmish.

4.1 PvP General

Issue One- massive- AFK farmers. Yes, people will afk no matter what. It ruins it for people who pvp to 'gasp' pvp to have some afkers, and you're SOL if the team leader is an AFKer- heck, they might boot you so you don't do something horrible like take a node and slow their rate of gain. Now, before everyone says 'well, they can't do anything about-' WRONG. Let me point out OBVIOUS flaws. First off- almost no reward for participation. I do like how you get most of the reward from winning, which hopefully prevents deathmatching, while not getting nothing for losing- which prevents people from just leaving. But you could at least have some minimal play required- something like a certain amount of damage done, or kills/assists, or even having died x number of times to prove you've actually been fighting. Second- there's no auto kick at the campfire. That alone would force people to stay at their computer, cuz they'd have to leave the camp area, and then if they died they'd have to leave it again. Third- votekick system, or even a one vote system- put a timer in, if you get a vote against you, you have 90 seconds to enter combat. At least that would ensure you're playing.

Issue Two- moderate- afk farmers/bots will still happen, but you know what would really cut back on that? Not having the gear be sellable on the auction. That's what's making afkers so bad right now, mainly- these are people who are rolling in cash by not playing the game.

4.2 PvP Maps

Issue One- moderate- Maps are small, so why do we have mounts? It's not just that it gives people who paid money an advantage for a better mount. But, the maps are so small you can ride from one end to the other in like, 15 seconds- we don't need the super fast travel. Not to mention, if you get even a few seconds away from someone, you can hop on and zoom away- or vice versa, you can chase someone down. That just doesn't seem right.

5.1 Foundry Home Page

Issue One- moderate- OK, ignoring all the exploits. Better ways to filter foundry missions. If there was a 'xp farm' tab, most people wouldn't really care since they'd never see it unless they were looking to just farm. Similarly- if I'm looking for dungeon delves, or for story heavy ones, or for humour based ones- a tab would make it that much easier for us to use and find what we want to find.

5.2 Foundry Creation

Issue One- moderate- One campfire. For small adventures, maybe that works. But for large maps with lots of mobs, this can end up making it painful.

Issue Two- big- We can't really test it properly with what you've given us for testing characters... and that's pretty clear if you try a few foundry missions.

5.3 Foundry Missions

Issue One- moderate- Scaling. For regular questing in the world, numbers of minions scale correctly with the difficulty. But in foundry, a group of monsters that might be easy for a level 15 CW, might be nigh impossible for a level 50 TR. Now, one might say- it's the duty of the foundry author to test it for all levels, but see above.

Issue Two- moderate- There is little reward for foundry missions, fair enough. But could you at least up altar/potion drops, since foundry missions seem to often take a massive amount of potions due to campfire placement? I don't mind that the reward is always a useless white item, but more potions on the way would at least make it so you don't lose things by going into foundry.


I will add more later, but that's all for tonight.