Pre-Alpha 5 Live! for July - Official discussion thread

[Pann 8,312]

The monthly stream returns with designers Thomas Blair and Mark Halash discussing 'big ticket' changes to the game

FULL STORY

[Helix 3,272]

Finally I'll be able to get the answer to some hard hitting questions like:

• Will we ever get dolphin mounts and / or a man-dolphin race?
• If so, how big will they be?

Edited July 11, 2017 by Helix

[dolmar 769]

We will see if they plan on actually updating anything soon I guess.

[Anthrage 2,274]

Regarding this patch change they just covered in the stream:

"Renamed "Enhanced Druid Orbs" to "Druid Orb Refund" to better explain how the stat functions."

I don't think that really better explains what it does. Casting the Orbs generates Essence and essentially spends 'room' in your Essence Cauldron. Refunding in this context would therefore be refunding some of that empty space, refunding or giving you something back that you'd spent by taking something away, Essence. While technically this is new naming accurate, it is not instinctively meaningful or intrinsically clear.

A suggestion on a better name? I don't have one. Not because I can't think of one, but because I don't think the power should exist in the first place.

Essence management is hard enough as it is, but at least we have various tools with which to control it. This power effectively adds some RNG to the equation, something we definitely do not need. We do not control if or when someone uses one of the orbs, and while losing Essence might be a good thing if you are casting in Life Tray to heal, it is definitely not a good thing if you are trying to generate a full cauldron of Essence to cast from Death Tray with, and it's an even worse thing if you are in Death Tray when this empty space is refunded and Essence is suddenly taken away. Forgive me for saying so, but while I appreciate the attempt to add value to some Druid mechanics, this hasn't thought through completely.

A more useful and safe thing to do, for example, if you wanted to have such a power and do anything, would be to heal the Druid instead, when one of these orbs is used by to heal someone else. To be clear, both players would be healed. Not only is this safer, but it can actually be used in a planned, controlled and tactical way for even more value.

I hate to appear negative of late, but some things are just not good, or have unintended consequences that were difficult or impossible to see from a too-close perspective. We do neither you nor ourselves any favors by not pointing these things out.

[Durin 1,546]

So, we know that clerics have block and throw hammers.

[srathor 1,992]

Next month the format should be changed. This was practically useless for the first 35 minutes or so. Just like the last one.
The 4 week delay also does not help because it makes them not even know what they are talking about. 

I know everything is a work in progress but a lot of it looks like amature hour. 
 

[blazzen 3,976]

The patch note reading section isn't particularly useful for those of us that follow the forums closely. Maybe it's useful for those that don't. 

The "coming soon" and "Q&A" section was very useful. We had some good questions and dialogue going today. Thanks for that. 

[pang 4,173]

Yeah can probably skip the past patchnotes bit, at most maybe a few minutes for any big changes and how it effected things.

More time for Q&A should be the priority.

 

Was good to hear more about stealth/anti-stealth mechanics, Ranger/Stalker merge and Elkin racials.

[moneda 1,413]

I like that the monthly Q&A videos gives answers that people who don't keep up with development weekly can use, but considering those of us who do keep up weekly are also more likely to tune into these streams I'd be more than happy to see the patch note reading portion fall by the wayside and watch a one hour Q&A.

[Nirnaeth 24]

Without wishing to be a hater, but that was a rather useless stream.

It was billed as "Crowfall game designers Thomas Blair and Mark Halash will discuss the “big ticket” changes to the game and give a sneak peek at upcoming changes.", yet there was nothing really of substance in there. In fact, during Q&A you went out of your way to prevent answering the real big-ticket questions that people wanted to hear, such as ETAs for Live Test Server / 5.2 Patch, plans about Friendly Fire, Thrall crafting stations, etc.

It should be easy to find the trending topics on the forum to get a feel of what really bugs people or what they want to know more about, and build a bit of an agenda around that for a live stream. 35 minutes of reading historical patch notes out loud was a waste of time I hate to say. It was followed by some new stuff and quite a bit of that exciting (stealth/anti-stealth mechanics, etc), but nothing of the sort that people were waiting for and definitely not the "big ticket" items.

The Q&A was also largely a waste of time. For example, rather than answering my question about the ETA of the test server, you choose to answer the question directly above it about which hair products you guys are using. A bit of banter is fine, but don't build up the hype in your news article and then don't announce anything meaningful whilst you have nearly 150 people watching.

I left work early to listen to the Live stream. Won't be doing that again I'm afraid.

 

Edited July 11, 2017 by Nirnaeth

[coolwaters 4,841]

Tough crowd today.

Hopefully they are working so fast and hard that they don't have time to please everyone by way of update.

[Durin 1,546]

3 minutes ago, coolwaters said:

Tough crowd today.

...

I suspect there is some lingering resentment regarding the recent "skill training mechanics and you" update from a few.  Though, I will admit, the first part of the live stream seemed unnecessary. It was nice that they took some questions, though.   

[KrakkenSmacken 4,607]

39 minutes ago, blazzen said:

The patch note reading section isn't particularly useful for those of us that follow the forums closely. Maybe it's useful for those that don't. 

The "coming soon" and "Q&A" section was very useful. We had some good questions and dialogue going today. Thanks for that. 

Realistically, who is on the livestream that doesn't follow the forums, at least enough to read the patch notes?

I think that particular sub-group would be rather small.

 

Edited July 11, 2017 by KrakkenSmacken

[dolmar 769]

Reading the patch notes to me is kinda crappy. They obviously shy away from any real questions when the ones they answer are about blairs hair gell....

To me the entire Q/A today was a waste of time for me and them. They could have just posted the gunnician racial and that would been about the only real news.

[VIKINGNAIL 5,681]

So glad about armor restrictions, letting people get to them if they find it worthwhile, but also making it a tough choice via discipline usage.

I think there's an issue of entitlement plaguing the current testing community.

We would consume information faster than ACE could ever cement it into their game, look at the bigger picture and understand that these sessions aren't just for the die hard fan that pays attention to everything.

Edited July 11, 2017 by VIKINGNAIL

[dolmar 769]

1 hour ago, VIKINGNAIL said:

So glad about armor restrictions, letting people get to them if they find it worthwhile, but also making it a tough choice via discipline usage.

I think there's an issue of entitlement plaguing the current testing community.

We would consume information faster than ACE could ever cement it into their game, look at the bigger picture and understand that these sessions aren't just for the die hard fan that pays attention to everything.

Yes but reading out loud patch notes that are posted is somewhat a time waster .

Edited July 11, 2017 by dolmar

[Rikutatis 1,593]

The only thing I took from this stream is that cleric has OP blocking and throws hammers around like Thor.

H Y P E

[coolster50 2,180]

8 minutes ago, Rikutatis said:

The only thing I took from this stream is that cleric has OP blocking and throws hammers around like Thor.

H Y P E

Unless Clerics bring the Lightning, it won't be the same.

WTB Druid w/ MoHammers

[Zolaz 796]

11 minutes ago, coolster50 said:

Unless Clerics bring the Lightning, it won't be the same.

WTB Druid w/ MoHammers

WTB more Lightning, less hammer.

[thomasblair 3,404]

We have 2 Live! style formats on the schedule every month for the next few months in addition to the monthly Dev Partner Q+A at the beginning of the month.

One of the Live! segments is all the updates we made in the last month (via patchnotes) to the Live game environment and some insight into why we made some of the changes and a small portion of Q+A. 

The other Live! segment is more of an interactive Q+A around a specific topic or two. (Last month was racial disciplines)