Best posts made by GamerSeuss

@sephgamestv

Re: Primative Dagger is probably meant to be that way. Your first upgrade isn't necessarily going to increase Damage range and things, shoot, a jailhouse Shiv can do relatively the same damage as a knife really.

The main advantages to the other daggers is the ability to add enchanted gems to them, add other advantages based on the grade of metal they are made out of, etc... The Primative Dagger is to get you into battle with a decent enough weapon before the forges have been built.

Re: Resistances in Talent Tree, they are playing around with different talents, trying to find the right fit. Right now, magic is limited by the extremely quick mana cost, and slow regen rates associated with it, so they probably figure the balance is there.

Regardless, they only have so many Talent Branches, and they are trying to find the right mix of talents to make the Talent grid the best it can be, without causing a major imbalance in the game.

No, there isn't a transcript for the recent Q&A. Like I said, the video information is supplemental and done so they don't have to interrupt the actual work they are doing on the game in order to type out constant written updates. WHEN they have something important to spread to the community, it goes up as a News Article, gets sent out as an Email, and gets posted in forums and discord threads.

Case in point, we may not have transcribes of the recent Q&A (and any regular member who watched the video is more than welcome to step in and provide such a transcript if they feel their time is best spent doing so) but we do get a detailed report every time they do a bug patch, with its own thread in the forums. That is a written update, more, it is the kind of written update that we, the Alpha Testers/Backers need at this stage of the game.

A lot of other games in this modern era have practically done away with written updates almost altogether in favor of Video updates and interactive chats/forums. You want to talk about a different climate of the community from Daggarfall and EverQuest, the current Paradigm is to update people via video updates, to interact with your backers and testers in forum threads, and via discord channels, with only truly major concerns maybe making it to written form (and often, those are compilations done by another member of the individual testing community/backers, not done by the developers)

They are a small team of developers, their time is better spent on the game, then on writing up constantly for our edification. As a Kickstarter Project, backed in that way, as long as they are in-line with their roadmaps, and when not in line and on schedule, they update said roadmaps, they are fulfilling the necessary communication requirements in writing for us. All the Video and Chat/Forum updates (now the Paradigm) are actually bonus update material. Yes, there may not have been a new Developer's Journal in the last 2 years, that only means that from the Developers' standpoint, there haven't been major developmental decisions in regards to the target of the game made as of yet. Right after the Alpha test ends, just like with all the previous tests, they will do a Survey, AND THEN they will give us a Written update, including the results from the surveys they received.

I think these developers are doing a splendid job, especially for not having a 'community manager' for awhile. (Thanks Spectre for stepping up in that regard) and I am quite thankful for the Q&A sessions that give me not only more information, but if I manage to tune in during this live Q&A, gives me direct influence on what topics are to be covered.

You also need to think....during an Alpha Testing phase, the Developers don't want to overly influence your feedback on the testing too much, so they have to be careful what they release at this time, so as not to bias the results they need from the actual testing being done.

@grofire As up until recently, Alpha Testing was done in-house/closed, while Beta-testing might be more open, it is in Alpha that you don't worry about enjoyability as much as you worry about the mechanics working, then in Beta, you worry about it coming together in a pleasing package that retains members. That's the big difference between Alpha and Beta. Alpha is a mostly unfinished, unrefined product with more technical focus, Beta is more the market research area when you worry about customer enjoyment.

Shoot, in a lot of Alphas, they aren't even exactly 'Playable' and are rather just snippets or instances. You're testing the fighting, you have an Arena style Alpha set up. You're testing crafting, you just have people using the various crafting interfaces without necessarily incorporating them in the crafting tables or whatnot they will finally appear in. Fractured is going one better and kind of making their Alpha more playable than most, closer to a completed game, but at the same time, remember, it is an Alpha, everything, literally EVERYTHING can change.

I'm pretty sure they confirmed somewhere that Fractured would be going on Steam, but not until release, no Alpha/Beta access

@Jacenson That's not a bug, all the Animal Head helmets are non-casting armor. A +1 to Int can be used for more than casting.

Also, only from a very narrow set of standards would alts 'ruin' the game. To a vast majority of players out there, removal of the ability to play alternate characters would drop the appeal of the game to the point many would back out of backing/playing altogether. Why do I say this? Because, especially in the beginning of a release, players are going to want to experiment with the different races and builds. Most, if not all MMORPG players I know tend to keep at least 3 characters in whatever game they play. 1 is their main character, they spend 70% of their time playing, 1 is their backup character, where they do most of their experimental stuff with before commiting their main to trying new things, and 1 is their totally casual character, one they build usually of the opposite archetype of what they normally prefer, just to get the feel of that other archetypes play in the game, and to have a character of that sort in case friends/family want to jump in and play a few sessions together. They don't necessarily want to stop whatever their doing on their Main account to go play with the cousins or the in-laws or whatever, or guide a noob through the start of the game, so they have this casual character for that. If limited to only 2 character slots, the #2 and #3 types listed are combined, and often deleted/respec'd as needed to fit the bill at any given time.

ANY game of multiple archetypes and races is going to attract players who want to try it all. Even in a game where a character can do everything, all the skills, all the talent builds, all the crafting/fighting/building/sieging, they will still want to try out the different Races and Base Classes/Archetypes, if for no other reason than that touch of variety, and so they can say to their friends they've played it all.

My favorite class in D&D is a Bard, typically I play a Human or Halfelven Bard as my go to for serious campaigns, however in my 42 years of playing D&D, I've played just about every official WotC/TSR race/class combination that has ever come out, even Paladins, and I HATE PALADINS. Why, so as a DM, or just a teacher, helping new players, I can tell them some of how the gameplay feels using that archetype. MMORPGs are an extension of my love of TTRPGs, and I approach them the same way. I want to kick the tires, and put the game through its paces, something you can never fully do with only 1 character.

@grofire

1. As all players start with a roster of perfectly acceptable skills based on their archetype, New players can compete on an even keel with older, experienced players just as they promised. You mainly just get variety with experience.
2. Now, the Talent tree does in fact improve the character, but as you said, it is in small enough steps that it doesn't really break horizontal goals.

The goal of this game is to encourage that kind of even playing field, where you play for customization and variety, but not power level. Gear is easily acquired, and not too difficult to enchant once you garner the reagents, some rarer than others, AND all gear has a durability that prevents a player from just finding their optimal build and set it/forget it, because they will have to acquire several sets of that favorite gear throughout their play history, and with the slight variance in crafting results added in, there is no guarantee they will quickly amass that perfect set in sufficient quantity to remain able to maintain their full optimal regalia all the time.

This may not be what you signed on to the game for, but I do believe the #1 hyped feature of this game since the very beginning is that it is attempting to be as horizontally progressive as possible. That combined with the ability to equally cater to different styles of play are the two main selling points most of us signed up for.

Devs have said that WASD/Keyboard movement is not planned, but I am unsure about gamepads. They do say that the mouse click movement system is essential for the game style they are going for.

As to release, I think current release is looking like 2022, last I heard, or very late 2021 right now. The game has actually been in Development longer than 2 years, so it will probably be close to the 6 yr average when done.

Oh, and yes, for the Alpha testing phase, so far, only the Humans and 1 Human continent have been utilized. I personally expect this trend to make it all the way to just before beta, with the introduction of the other races coming out during the last 1 to 2 Alpha Tests, as mechanically, they will be pretty similar, and Alpha is more for Mechanics, and Beta will give you more QoL and Cosmetic/Diversity options.

@OlivePit You also consider that the game is now 'Always up' not a limited 30 day test, so drop rates can be a whole lot rarer to give value to some reagents.

Even though Foxtail and Rabbits Feet are pretty rare, and we now need 5 of them to enchant with, I still think their drop rate is good overall.

@Roccandil said in Death Penalty of losing all gear and inventory: WORST IDEA EVER!!!:

Your gear wears out and breaks even if you don't die. Gear/enchants aren't worth it to me right now.

It being an Alpha Test, its not really going to be super worth it right now. That's just to be expected. You can only enchant to tier 2 at best right now anyway. The point of having it in the test right now is more to test out if the gear and enchantments work, and there have been bugs found in that regard, which just goes to validate that very inclusion. Also, some of the Alpha Players are putting things through their paces to the point that even the little bit of protection and bump that gear does allow makes a real difference in their playing experience, even if it wears out on them and needs must be replaced. One of my favorite things to do is sit and enchant suits of armor for Me and my guild.We still strive to have the best possible armor on our characters, and at least 1 good back-up suit in the bank or a storage trunk in one of our houses. Gathering Reagents thus becomes an even more vital sub-game during the alpha.

Ultimately you have to look at an Alpha as an Alpha Test, not a fully fleshed out game, and don't expect things to be WORTH IT at all. Expect to test things, sometimes tediously test and retest things with very minimal game, just to make sure the mechanics of said things run smoothly and no bugs are found. Sure, give your opinion on what you want the final product to look like, the Devs have encouraged that from the start, BUT they have also set forth certain basic design credos that you shouldn't expect them to abandon just because a small number of potential players, despite having read the intentions from the very beginning, believe these credos are not their cup of tea. Fast travel is NOT a big priority on this game's horizon, in fact, they want to make it so you have to physically take the trip around the various locations in order to develop the real merchant economy system they intend. This means that dying to transport too and fro is not exactly something they will be encouraging. Granted, dying leaves your stuff behind, thus such travel would not affect the merchant aspect of the game over-much, but also, Dying and losing your corpse is a standard Trope of MMOs as well. They have also stated that they intended from the very beginning that your gear should degrade and need to be replaced constantly, to encourage the merchant-effect again, and to keep characters from maxing out skills and talents and then finding their optimum gear build and then resting on their laurels. THEY WANT IT TO BREAK DOWN!

@PeachMcD Someone's thinking Arcane Archer type dreams

I love games with the right balance of complexity to playability, and so far, Fractured is doing well in that regard. Me, I'm one of the ones still contemplating Bard Builds, and what's a Bard without a good Rapiar at his side, hmmmmmm

Guilds are Alignment and Race locked, that would make them Planet Specific, as each Core Race has an Associated Planet.

@DuRBaTuLuK known bug, and as you may have missed it, possibly being fixed in today's patch scheduled to drop in 2.5 hrs

@Gothix said in Coinage and Monster Gold Loot:

I'm kinda hoping that AH doesn't take the cut of the sales.

It makes sense that it does, but unfortunately that always leads to people avoiding AH and trying to sell stuff manually, which leads to insane amount of WTS spam in any populated area.

AH not taking cut would greatly reduce this spam.

Sadly, this dynamic wouldn't work out too well. The AH taking a cut is one way that a game Money-sinks. It gets rid of a portion of the currency by absorbing it in fees.

Thus, AH fees should be mandatory, and based on sale price as a percentage or base+% rate.

As to WTS Spam, if they make a specific chat channel for WTS posts, and filter them out of the main chat altogether, that covers the WTS spam. There could also be Broker NPCs, where you post what you want, and then you communicate through a broker to buy/sell stuff direct player to player, avoiding the auction house but incuring a brokerage fee, but then chat filters could be used to prevent WTS posts spamming in regular channels making players use the AH, the Brokers, or talking in private message to organize such deals

@Logain the last 2-3 weeks of a month+ long test always tend to die down, no matter when during the year your testing. This is because most of the hardcore testers get everything they want to test done in the first 1-2 weeks. This is 100% normal. It actually helps validate those people who have called for more frequent, smaller focused testing.

The general consensus that I've heard in our forums when asked, on the other hand, has Fractured players not overly enthusiastic about the release of New World, at all. Not to mention their release and testing has been pushed back a few times, so I don't personally see much competition from New World breaking Fractured as a whole. Most of the Fractured potential players are not going to buy into New World when they have already invested in Fractured and aren't overly enthused about it in the first place....but hey, I may be wrong.

End of October is going to start running into Holidays when family will be demanding more of peoples' time than anything, keeping them from being able to necessarily be testing Fractured. If anything, The Holiday season is when other family members will be buying people New World, just considering it a game present for gamers (Parents and Siblings sometimes only know we're 'Gamers' and don't know what our preferences are) so that's when New World will start to drag players away, if at all. Really hardcore multi-game players will try to play everything they can, and will see the Alpha of Fractured to be a short enough access window to throw their focus on it, with the rest of their time doing Guild Grinds in New World to get their Guild that early jump to ultimate power on a new game.

Only time will tell. Regardless, these kinds of misgivings should have been brought up back when they announced that the next Alpha would probably be pushed to the end of September, not now, when it's almost here.

@Farlander Actually, in a game like Fractured, restricting by race makes the most sense.

Racially restricting guilds basically has the affect of restricting initial alignment, and world, by just adding 1 limiter. As Alignment, and even world can change, but race generally doesn't (not counting sub-type changes, which is what we'll call Demons and Abominations currently) by restricting Race, they get the most bang for their buck and don't have to input a bunch of separate limiters. They also don't have to worry about what happens to a person's Guild membership if something changes with the character. Alignment should be an every shifting possibility, and although world hopping isn't meant to be easy, it is going to happen, and if these were Guild membership restrictions, the question comes up as to whether the character would have to abandon their guild, be put on an Inactive status, or whatever when these changes happen.

Right off the bat, I'm going to comment on your last couple of points:

1. I totally agree about the Siege Window being able to be set as any 4 hr window convenient to the city Governorship. With the global player base, there is always going to be a time when people can be online to siege a city, and, as you said, it is far easier for an individual to take a single day and plan around sieging a city than it is for a city owner to constantly have to readjust their realworld schedule to protect that city, and a city should have a reasonable chance to gather its protectors without too much fall out to their real time lives.

2. Scope of the game: As much as I'm excited to see the 3 continents per world system an 3 planets to start, I agree that initial launch doesn't need to fulfill that total scope on day 1. Initially, for good growth of your community on each planet, it actually makes sense to release a single continent per planet initially, and then save the other continents for expansion material down the road. This is good from both a gameplay/community building standpoint, AND from a development schedule standpoint. Now, granted, once you perfect a continent on a given world, it takes very little to duplicate that continent with just a different shape to the landmass, so your not saving a whole lot of development time, however, if you plan each continent to have its own unique ecosystem elements, and unique legends to confront, than you are still saving a lot of development time you can instead use to speed up the initial release of the game. Personally, I'd be fine waiting until 2025 for the game to come out as long as the quality isn't compromised, but scope can be pulled back and then expanded later without sacrificing quality. Also, I'm 50 with health concerns, and it would be nice if the game actually released before I passed, just so I got to more than just Alpha/Beta it.

That's all I have on this video so far, but great overview of the changes, @Nekrage and thank you for taking the time to lay it out there. Even PvE players such as myself can agree that there is a lot that can be done to refine the game to the betterment of play for all involved.

@Razvan said in Coinage and Monster Gold Loot:

The more visited towns will generate a lot of money from crafting facilities anyway, so I don't think they should also have a marketplace fee that goes to the treasury as well since it will create too big of an economy boost compared to less visited towns.

Your thinking backwards though. You want to encourage towns to become commercial hubs and increase visitor traffic. Thus you want to reward such hubs with additional tax revenue and then these hubs reward their visitors with better tax rates when they reach certain volumes. If a town is small and out of the way, it might tax all items sold at say 2% (just throwing out numbers, not sure what rates will be) in order to make enough from their market to make it worth it, while the big metropolis with tons of visitors can get away with a .5% tax, because they have 10 times the traffic. 1/4 the tax, but 10 times the traffic equates to 2.5 x the profit, spread out amongst more people/individual sales

@OlivePit Daggars/Throwing Daggars might be a good possible Mage Weapon. Use it at ranged, with almost the speed of a bow, but with magic channeling ability added in, with automatic returning ammo would be really nice

Ok, so when you Own a House, you can have 1 Co-Owner, which allows that Co-Owner to build on your plot of land, it shows up on their map as a home icon, etc...

Other buildings however, are governed by towns, and the Governor can set them to Public or Citizen (not sure what else as I haven't been a Governor yet)

In your Player Owned house/Plot, if you build a workbench, you can set it to You only(which if I remember automatically shares it with Co-Owners), Party, Guild, Friend, or Everyone. This is often how Chests are utilized, but of course, direct trading will make Chests less essential in this regard.