ArcaneFuror

>Be me, Confessor Main on the Inquisitor Spec >Flimsy as tissue paper >Good thing confessor is given some decent cc >Lots of CC can be retaliated out of, oof in pvp >Stacking high damage >Tornadoes seem to spread more often or not just perfectly to where they miss target >Tends to draw mob aggro abnormally higher than others in group, so might be due to damage >Very hard to do anything yourself though, especially before level 20-ish >Probably would be a lot easier on the Balance side, but that'd just be embarrassing. I'll give HoA specifically a bone though, opening up one of their crafters to the rest of the player base. Eh, maybe I'm just still out of my element and need to try different methods of building the characters. Usually in mmos its pretty straight forward to formulate how the stats and all input/output into abilities, and what mitigations do and all. Crowfall the text is ambigious and theres so many modifiers its kinda hard to tell how each choice adds up.

Ok, let's get two things out of the way, what am I talking about and some obvious disclaimers 1. What do I mean by 'Mobbing'? Large grouping/parties/gangs packed together. (Planning on discussing the consequences, how it may affect the game/experience, should it be considered an issue, ect.) 2. Whether you see it as an issue (or not), there's always multiple factors that cause something. For this some obvious factors for the magnitude of it include: Small population-so one person difference matters more than a normal mmo population would be, demographics of the population, organization, circumstance, ect. And obviously working in groups is a good thing in a multiplayer environment. But my main question I raise is, "Is it too much? Chiefly does it favor/necessitate mobbing too much?" (Also please feel free to bring up other questions or concerns regarding this topic or a similar topic in the discussion. Lets take for example this past campaign: The Trial of Maeve has come to a conclusion, and is where I feel this topic has had the most obvious effects. Nobody can claim that balance were lacking in numbers; multiple factors such as organized guilds moving there together, people wanting to join the winning side, and also from an rp/lore perspective balance is the more neutral and wide reaching faction of the three. Ok that last one is my opinion and understanding, but I digress. But what happened exactly and what makes me bring the discussion up? Well... the first few weeks weren't exactly... pleasant Rolling death type unpleasant. I was on chaos, who scored second by a good margin away from order (R.I.P. order), and at one point near the end we kinda got close to balance. But wait! I can almost hear the clacking of detractors saying "Yall got close! There was no problem see! You just countered your argument". I'd argue we only got as close as we did because balance got bored and lazy, and then kicked their 'mobbing machine' into a more active state just to secure their win. Why would they get bored and lazy? Because there wasn't enough prey. In the spring/summer months, especially in the early spring months, you were almost garunteed to run into balance, and when you did, it was at least 5+ people. But most common in my experience was running into at least 7 man groups, and there wasnt even any sieges near me! Just roaming death squads hoping for some loot, plumping up their K/D/A ratios (Keep this in mind later). This obviously killed the mood for some people in chaos/order, especially if you weren't in a guild or were in the small guilds (We all know the kind, the small 5 man guilds that are more like friend clubhouses than anything, nothing wrong with them obviously, those can be a blast sometimes if you get the right group, but they're not exactly competitive material in most cases). So what do people do? They take a small break and think about the new situation. So we have a large difference in registered population, organized demographic is also very different, and the already out numbered factions who also have to fight one another are losing some activity. So these death squads rolling around for easy pickings for KDA and maybe some loot aren't getting fulfilled. If 5 people find a small 2 man band, obviously only 2 kills are gonna be gained at max. And the people with these death squads are doing it because they wanna pvp, they wanna fight, they like that stuff. Some may start going in smaller bands or on their own because of the feeling of being unfulfilled, especially if they're already strong and geared up as it is. Long anecdote and observations about it are done, so what does this mean? Well we got a list of factors that played into what happened. 1. This campaign had K/D/A be a part of the leaderboard, which that and the bragging rights it entails is our really only method of competition we have at the moment (and for some, this is the only fun that can be had in these test phases, I'm not much of a PvP person at all, I'd rather just grind xp/mats in a semi-meditative pace in some dungeon or isolated forest someplace, but I digress). 2. Sure the death mechanic got a change halfway through, but still applies to a similar degree, but the death mechanic really punished death. REALLY punished it. One death hitting all equipped gear's durability to a very significant degree. A handful of deaths could shatter a set alone, much less the normal decay and the like. 3. Related to number 2, but also the map and the fights necessitated the need for increased movement, aka packpigs. Which had only 200 durability, and cost 900 gold (Expensive thing that easy to break, but necessary for effective play? hmmm). yay for the patch that happened during the campaign allowing us to sell things to npcs for gold! 4. XP (as far as I've noticed, I havent done a test to verify) isn't split, but rather the same for each participant (If it is split, it isn't a noticeable difference, maybe a mix of split and static baseline?). So this means that it is way more efficient to go in groups (paired with the benefit of being able to always eat the R10s, the biggest bounty, even with some people being under-leveled.) so much so, you'd be considered a fool by any min-maxer/statistician/tryhard for not rolling in a group to improve. Seriously there is no point in not mobbing for this reason alone. And if you've played the game more than 2 hours, you'll quickly notice that leveling is a constant part of life. (Vessel rarities, un-resettable talents, stats relating to gathering and crafting, just to name a few reasons) 5. Everything of worth is in the pvp zones, and if the anecdotal account hasn't stated anything, they're really dangerous. And of course its part of design, but its still on the list of causes for obvious reasons. But not just the mats and scoring stuff, if you want to level past 15 on a vessel, especially past white vessels where rarity starts to matter, you have to go in pvp zones. And this is nowhere near a comprehensive list of everything about it. But is it too much? Should we completely isolate the solo player? or the ones who play more than the few others in their 'clubhouse guilds'? Or the PvE-er who wants to farm or xp run but everyone they can access online are the pvp centrics who are farmed out this campaign and only want to roam around fighting people? Or the one harvester that can gather those nodes in an efficient manner and there's no-one who wants to join to just help keep them safe? ... See where I'm going? The over encouragement of mobbing extends far past a small solo demographic or whatever. And I'd even say harms the "beneficiaries" of this same effect, but instead of it being harm through oppression and grief, but harm through spoiled experience. Too many hunters, not enough prey. Spirit bank being available anywhere, at all times, at no limit (Also the one of very few protections on the small end, able to insure a small portion of their work) made a kill hollow. Being so big made competition virtually non existent, easy claim to resource nodes and being constantly geared, making the impact of death less on them, as if their stuff breaks they can just replace it, where the other side has broken gear being more devastating. The big side just winds up never feeling fully satisfied, as now their wearing premium grade stuff amongst outnumbered foes covered in rags wielding butter-knives. (Haven't you noticed more videos of outnumbered fights? Heck even the most recent of this post war story video was an outnumbered fight being won. *And it was a balance member, hmmm* ) Thoughts? Questions? Solutions? Throw your two cents about this in here. There's a larger conversation to be had, but I'm ending this here, this has taken a while to write as well... My biggest forum message ever I think... But I really like what this game has the potential of being, so I really want to engage, see what happens, enjoy the ride, and put in my two cents. Maybe something positive will come out of it?

I'd be satisfied with something non-tangible, like progressing ui skins to choose from or even just small account/profile/website markers.

I agree there is a vital need in prioritizing certain aspects of development in certain steps and phases. Something I hope is remedied and communicated between the Devs and their foundational supporters (Us, the players and backers, in case someone wasn't sure who I was talking about here)

You know what, I like your energy, and think you got some decent ideas. But even if I didn't I still like that you're talking about these things. Please keep talking and encouraging healthy discussion!

Devs: "We want an easy in easy out system for gear, we want players crafting to matter, and let players choice have impact" Players: Awesome! Hey crafted gear is pretty awesome and our gathering and crafting team is doing really well! on the right track! Devs: "Oh no, players have been moving through our testing material too fast! Guess we better randomize things and grind everything to a slow crawl" Players: "Crafting is harder than ever, decent stuff isn't feasible to crank out as much. Its really out of our hand and doesnt feel so fun anymore. Plus why you slowing down testing? We need to experiment and stuff" Devs: "...And while we're at it, make randomized loot roughly equal to what beginner/intermediate crafters can make, making the difference negligible. Also make disciplines beyond white quality only drop randomly and vessels can only equip disciplines of at least equal quality" Players: "Are we a joke to you?" Does this sum it up?

Leveling up without groups is pretty slow, and some classes are really bad at leveling up on their own and make it take even longer than others. Almost necessitates a guild or consistent group that runs leveling parties. Although thats all anecdotal so you may find different results. Its mainly harvesting, killing camp mobs for sac drops, or bosses for disciplines. That all and making new vessels via the necromancy tree since gear comes and goes so easily... So you'll be starting from the ground up multiple times. And then if you wanna try something different in the same class, gotta make a new one since you cant reset talents. And of course if you want to try a different class.... Yeah... Its mainly either constantly leveling up, or harvesting. Well that or go ganking, but unless you're in balance you're more likely to just run right into a larger group that steam rolls you, and if you're in balance, don't expect kills as there arent as much prey to go around. If you're in a big enough guild you could join them in sieges, still kinda runs into the whole balance issue. But the current campaign is about to end so who knows, may not be the case much longer.

I think a big improvement to the talent tree would be the ability to reset. Would prevent us from needing to spend a ton of time making new vessels solely to try another subclass or slight different spread of points, since by level 30 you can get most but not all perks. If anything would make testing easier, I can see why maybe for actual gameplay why they wouldn't want to make it easy to switch, but whats the harm during testing phases?

Don't consider it a game going into it. Consider it a tech/feature demo. For a great number of reasons related to development, testing, and the general fickleness of things you might experience frustration as its not what you might expect. Fun is going to be more of a happy little accident when it comes up more than something you're going to expect 100% of the time. Every time I load up, its out of curiosity or getting a small goal done, or try something out. It has a great vision and potential, but its not like you're jumping into a developed product with only a few months left to release. This is the early stage stuff that likely won't be a finished product for several more years. If you're still interested then I'd say do it.

My only qualms are just my view on the pre-alpha and backer/tester relationship vs how it boils down. When I got into crowfall, I legitimately wanted to do testing, not early access to content to play with. Maybe its organization and someone will send me a link to exactly what I'm about to describe. I'd hoped it was going to work out something along the lines of. Developer: "Hey guys we put in some new armor and weapons, we put vendors that have every item related to equipment next to a duel ground and some training dummies. Stat resets are there, please test and write in detail about your experience and methodology" My ideas on testing were that testers were given a goal, maybe still had freedoms to test other aspects or even just play around a bit and have fun, but were given the tools to test efficiently. I don't think the developers coding everything is gathering and crafting after every item they test breaks. I'm pretty sure they spawn it in some way or another, cause why would they take the long way? But we're not testers/backers that will be players when the game launches We're treated as players, with no goal, that has pacing implemented. And that's something that legit needs testing too, pacing. But priorities people, the pacing of progression should, at least in my opinion, be one of the last things implemented, in the beta test, the cherry on the top. Doing it in pre-alpha either makes it harder for each phase to test efficiently, or it gets disabled and updates makes it outdated, and either needs to be retested before launch or is launched on faulty reasoning. Pre-Alpha testing with testers who are doing this for free and even paid into this, doing this on their own time in their lives? I'd have expected specific goals regarding the tests, tools to make it happen and cross barriers, and all the data so the reports that the serious testers give back are as useful as possible. Love the premise of the game, love the lore that's on the site, love what's unique. Just make the distinction clear between testers and players.

Or at the very least a 24hr authorization window so if I need to relog that day for any reason.