Roxfall

Hi! Not sure what I'll end up playing but where do I sign up to join the guild?

Will every archetype have a promotion class granting access to melee weapons? If yes/no, will Frostweavers get to wield Greatswords? How much money do I have to throw at the screen to make this happen?

I have a hard time getting used to Zbrush UI. Ended up using other software for a personal project. How long did it take you to learn to cope with how anti-Maya, anti-3d, anti-capitalist, anti-freedom the Zbrush UI is? Any advice on coping techniques? I know I'll swallow the bullet and deal with learning the industry standard, but why, Satan, why? Thank you for your thoughts.

On the subject of animation locks, they affect melee characters more than ranged characters. It's harder for a melee toon with short range to complete a "locked" animation and still land a hit on a moving target than for a ranged toon with a longer range to do the same. Ironically, most toons in League of Legends are animation locked. But the attack animations are super cartoonishly fast, which makes them okay.

It does. It is the whole reason I didn't play Tera to begin with. That's how immersion breaking it is. I only played Tera that one weekend to make sure I understand the combat model. High heels absolutely ruined the world of Tera for me. Most importantly, high heels ruined Tera for my -wallet-. There is no greater way they could ruin a game for me. This video is funny. But even as you watch the dancers, they do a lot of motion with their upper bodies and their hips, and most of the motions are ankle-locked straight down. There's no argument that stiletto heels are not restrictive in terms of motion possible in them. These heels also make you less stable, and you need that stability when you're getting bull rushed. Here's an interpetive dance video. Please note that the dancers have a wider range of motion in their ankles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96JTJitRt74 Here's a basic fencing video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8IdfA5fXJs You do a basic lunge in your stilletto heels, you're either on your ass or have an instant broken ankle.

Definitely the second one. User experience is king. At least, for me. Because it's my experience, as the player, and not some guy watching a video I made on youtube.

See I knew I was missing the big picture but I didn't want to slog through the game for a week or more to discover what the end game is like.

I have an ulterior motive. I want to encourage devs to implement a a archetype/promotion class/discipline combination that combines elves with swords, because that's what I play in every game ever.

This wall of text comes with a disclaimer: there's a TL;DR at the bottom. You can skip to it and get the cliffnotes. There were some threads here about combat this and combat that and how people hate Wildstar telegraphs and how people love Wildstar telegraphs and how people hate each other in principle. And then a couple times Tera combat was mentioned. Having never played Tera, I decided I need to educate myself, so I downloaded and played it this past weekend solely based on the mentions in this here forum! Besides, this game has elves, swords and pvp (3 out of 3 in my personal criteria for game rating), therefore it must be good! What did I learn? Nothing... no, I'm kidding. I actually have some insights. To be fair, I played a bunch of characters only to level 10 (go through the tutorial area, beat on mobs, unlock some key abilities). I've played slayer, mystic, priest and warrior. Out of the bunch the only one I actually liked was the warrior. Why? Because the warrior had the fastest attack animations. As it turns out, Tera locks your characters feet in place when you attack until the animation is complete. Coming from WoW, Guild Wars 2 and Wildstar, that was physically painful. Oh, such pain, oh such misery and suffering. I know of one other mmo that does this: Neverwinter. A lot of players don't expect this, we are "spoiled" if you will, by other games that allow you free or limited movement while casting (at least basic attacks), and if you build and balance your combat system around players standing still while attacking, that will turn off a lot of people. Like me. So that was a downer. What was fun about Tera combat then? Aiming. Some projectiles are faster than others, and there are limited ground telegraphs, and hey, if the healer has to actually land the heals on the tank, that means that even the healer gets to play the game. As opposed to sitting in the corner and clicking on spreadsheets all day. By spreadsheets I mean the raid addons that look like spreadsheets. Yeah, yeah, Crowfall is not a PVE raid game, and there aren't any dedicated healers planned - I know - I'm just saying that aiming and dodging is fun - as long as your latency and server load are merciful. The more abilities require aiming, the more engaged your players will be. Now, some people don't want to be engaged in that way - but Crowfall is primarily a pvp game so the target audience here is more action-oriented. The reason why I didn't play Tera up to this point actually has to do with the high heels. High heels are not a victimless crime! Just because I'm playing a guy with normal sized heels over here does not mean that I'm immune to aneurysms from watching everyone else run around and jump, jump, jump in high heels everywhere. Since I was playing throw-away characters, I rolled a couple of females and yeah, the experience was cringe worthy. I could get used to impractical armor that looks like a wardrobe malfunction in progress with wedgies from hell (it's really amazing how quickly an ass crack can grow on you), but when that girl jumped off a cliff with a featherfall effect and landed on her heels, that made me twitch. I'm still twitching thinking about it. Ouch. The ankles! Also, lancer without a horse. In high heels. Just watching that made my suspense of disbelief fall over crying. Or laughing. I forget. It's a repressed memory. I don't want to talk about it. So anyway, I liked Wildstar combat a lot more. The telegraphs were a little noisy, but I've never had as much fun healing a pvp team with a spellslinger healer as I did in Wildstar. I know spellslingers aren't the best healers in the meta game (because they actually have to aim their heals!), but I had fun while it lasted. Cheers! TL;DR: 1. Movement locks based on attack animations are bad for you, your health, your business, your industry and your planet. They're only tolerable when the attacks themselves are cartoonishly snappy and responsive (under 0.3 seconds or less). 2. Aiming is fun (even healing spells - especially healing spells). Dodging is fun. Telegraphs in moderation are fun. 3. High heels break immersion faster than you can say 'asian grind fest', especially when the character falls, jumps, runs or does anything related to action combat. 4. Sexy clothes are fun. Sexy clothes on childlike models are a known cancerogen. 5. This is the internet. Every word everyone says is true. And also, forever.

Lord of the Rings Online had an interesting combat mount system (because Riders or Rohan!), but it's not something a programmer can implement in an afternoon. Animations, collisions, charges and jousting are a complex affair.

For your consideration, this problem came up in a recent game, Shadowrun Chronicles. I love that game! This is its only weakness. During character creation, and during advancement, you make some irreversible choices (race, background, skill tree path), and you have to lock them in before you try them. This is an awkward situation because on one hand, hey, once an orc, always an orc, you can't suddenly "evolve" into a dwarf, that'd be silly. On the other hand, problematic design forces you to make a decision before you have all the information you need to make it. Here's two squirming bags. One is a cat, the other is a hedgehog. Which one do you want? I dunno, let's try a cat. Oh, the cat is useless and terrible for my build because I get crit bonuses from spiky things. Crap. So in Shadowrun Chronicles you have two choices when you make an irreversible choice: wait for a patch when they change things enough to grant everyone a respec, or delete the character and start over. If you have an empty slot, you could also roll an alt. That's three choices. Still, not an ideal situation because in order to make intelligent choices, one needs to try them all. There doesn't have to be the one "right" choice, also known as flavor of the month, in before the nerfs, etc. But there need to be choices that cater to different builds or playstyles. With me so far? You're still reading this wall of text? Awesome! I have a suggestion. Could we maybe get an optional all-inclusive respec on death, with payment of some kind? Not necessarily microtransactions, but in-game currency? That way we don't lock anyone in a build they hate for life, but also make the choices you make have a non-zero weight.

Hell no to active skill training. Do you want to see bots face-planted in every corner of your kingdom, jumping up and down with AFK signs above their heads? Well, do you?

1. Elves. 2. Swords. 3. PvP.

Aiming telegraphs like League of Legends. http://www.gamingcfg.com/img/347/lol-ashe-volley.jpg These would help you line up your skill shot. In most cases, only you (the person aiming) sees them. Once you fire them, the visual effects act like a telegraph for the enemy. Some projectiles fly (or erupt, or come down) slower than others, and this gives some latency-dependant wiggle room for counter play. So the enemy never sees your aiming reticule (as in that screenshot) but they see the particle effect that indicates where the pain will land. In some cases, the enemy effects are different from friendly effects with faint zone outlines (Morgana vs Morgana, red circle vs green circle). The outlines are non-obtrusive, but they help identify a hostile spell from a friendly one. Full disclosure: I like Wildstar's telegraph system too, but a lot of people hate it, and this seems like a nice compromise. It's visually apparent, not ugly or spammy and is representative of the kill zone of each ability used.

Woa, woa, telegraph system confirmed off? Why? Where? I looked, but I can't find a link with a dev quote on this. The search option is awesome on this forum, but there is a lot of chaff and telegraph hate to dig through to find a dev response. I liked wildstar's telegraph system. The only thing they nailed in that game.