here is a quick feedback based on my very first impression of the alpha: I played just around 2 hours last night, in between several crashes, so it is really based on first impressions
- crashes: I just wanted to address this first, in an otherwise very positive first impression. I am experiencing frequent crashes, mostly of 2 types: UE engine crashes while playing (not sure how to fix those) and full PC restarts when loading the map. the second type is probably related to my PC and has nothing to do with the game. might be my SSD reaching the end of its days. I'm trying to change different things to isolate the issue.
- First impression on the game: It looks good! It feels good!
crashes aside, I am really impressed by how nice the world and characters look, the overall performance (i can keep steady 60fps and probably 120 as well with a 5yo PC, setings on medium-high and 1980x resolution). also the new game interface feels so much more fast and responsive, compared to MO1
- ping: I think SV must have build MO2 servers in my basement while I was not home. otherwise I could not explain how I would get stable 17ms ping while playing from the middle of the Pacific ocean. quite impressive.
-skills: the skill system is pretty much the same of MO1, which is good! a missed opportunity here from SV was to remove some of the "forced" combat skills. what i mean by "forced"? all the skills related to combat movement (Cmanouvering etc etc) which affect combat STAM regen and walking speed. I call them forced because they are a must-have for any foot fighter, since movement and speed is key, especially in this slower combat (more on it below). I really liked the change in racial background, which does not force people anymore to play Thursars only: would have be nice to have the same for these skills which everyone is going to have (and probably macro up, like in MO1), which would open up more diversified builds imo.
my suggestion: either make them all passive (including the parent skill) or remove them altogether. in MO1 was quite frustrating for new players waddling around at slug speed, until those slow skills would level up. that's not the type of character progression you want in a game, that just makes people annoyed and not engaged.
- melee combat: big disclaimer here, not a big expert on combat. here is my opinion though based on a whole TWO duels in bakti: the slower combat feels nice to me, probably because I am a noob
. parrying is indeed a bit too easy, and really encourages turtling in duels. I didn't like much the idea of bandaging while running: chasing people down is already quite problematic, and adding the option to bandage on the run means players could probably run away indefinitely. however as i said I am no expert and I need to test more the combat with different weapons/amors as well
- crafting (weapons): the new crafting window is amazing! feels so much better than the MO1. and i love all the additional crafting options for weapon hilts/heads. big props here because it is definitely an improvement. with the slower swing speed, old MO1 crafting combinations which focused on fast and hard hitting weapons (namely Spw/ironsilk handles) do not seem that good anymore. more realistically, you can actually make the core of a weapon with steel (instead of Spw, the MO equivalent of cork) for much more durability and minimal extra weight. need to test more armor crafting, but so far there seems to be pretty linear correlation between amount of material and weight/protection. as mentioned in other threads, there seems to be a hard weight cap on armor weight, after which you start moving slower. I would also be more in favor of a linear slope (more weight = less speed), otherwise armor crafting will be reduced to finding the optimal armor combination with the most damage reduction just below the weight cap, I feel.
- hunting/butchering: tbd
- mining and extraction: tbd (is this even in the game yet? cannot even find the mining/woodcutting skills)
overall impression: extremely positive! It is definitely an improvement over MO1. I hope SV capitalizes this by releasing MO2 with most of the features developed in MO1 over almost 10 years, so that the game at launch feels more complete and new players will stay in the game more.
- crashes: I just wanted to address this first, in an otherwise very positive first impression. I am experiencing frequent crashes, mostly of 2 types: UE engine crashes while playing (not sure how to fix those) and full PC restarts when loading the map. the second type is probably related to my PC and has nothing to do with the game. might be my SSD reaching the end of its days. I'm trying to change different things to isolate the issue.
- First impression on the game: It looks good! It feels good!
crashes aside, I am really impressed by how nice the world and characters look, the overall performance (i can keep steady 60fps and probably 120 as well with a 5yo PC, setings on medium-high and 1980x resolution). also the new game interface feels so much more fast and responsive, compared to MO1
- ping: I think SV must have build MO2 servers in my basement while I was not home. otherwise I could not explain how I would get stable 17ms ping while playing from the middle of the Pacific ocean. quite impressive.
-skills: the skill system is pretty much the same of MO1, which is good! a missed opportunity here from SV was to remove some of the "forced" combat skills. what i mean by "forced"? all the skills related to combat movement (Cmanouvering etc etc) which affect combat STAM regen and walking speed. I call them forced because they are a must-have for any foot fighter, since movement and speed is key, especially in this slower combat (more on it below). I really liked the change in racial background, which does not force people anymore to play Thursars only: would have be nice to have the same for these skills which everyone is going to have (and probably macro up, like in MO1), which would open up more diversified builds imo.
my suggestion: either make them all passive (including the parent skill) or remove them altogether. in MO1 was quite frustrating for new players waddling around at slug speed, until those slow skills would level up. that's not the type of character progression you want in a game, that just makes people annoyed and not engaged.
- melee combat: big disclaimer here, not a big expert on combat. here is my opinion though based on a whole TWO duels in bakti: the slower combat feels nice to me, probably because I am a noob
. parrying is indeed a bit too easy, and really encourages turtling in duels. I didn't like much the idea of bandaging while running: chasing people down is already quite problematic, and adding the option to bandage on the run means players could probably run away indefinitely. however as i said I am no expert and I need to test more the combat with different weapons/amors as well - crafting (weapons): the new crafting window is amazing! feels so much better than the MO1. and i love all the additional crafting options for weapon hilts/heads. big props here because it is definitely an improvement. with the slower swing speed, old MO1 crafting combinations which focused on fast and hard hitting weapons (namely Spw/ironsilk handles) do not seem that good anymore. more realistically, you can actually make the core of a weapon with steel (instead of Spw, the MO equivalent of cork) for much more durability and minimal extra weight. need to test more armor crafting, but so far there seems to be pretty linear correlation between amount of material and weight/protection. as mentioned in other threads, there seems to be a hard weight cap on armor weight, after which you start moving slower. I would also be more in favor of a linear slope (more weight = less speed), otherwise armor crafting will be reduced to finding the optimal armor combination with the most damage reduction just below the weight cap, I feel.
- hunting/butchering: tbd
- mining and extraction: tbd (is this even in the game yet? cannot even find the mining/woodcutting skills)
overall impression: extremely positive! It is definitely an improvement over MO1. I hope SV capitalizes this by releasing MO2 with most of the features developed in MO1 over almost 10 years, so that the game at launch feels more complete and new players will stay in the game more.
