Crowfall: Worth $50 to play the upcoming beta?

Slapshot1188

Denambren said:

I pledged for this game a while ago, and when it finally got my invite a few weeks ago, I was just amazed at how poorly optimized the game engine was, with graphics that seemed like the original Everquest. I thought maybe the framerate would get better if I played further into the game, but once entering a populated area, the stuttering and even unexplained flickering was enough to put me off to ever trying this game again. After this much development time, with this poor an engine, it's just considered a write off for me and another loss in the world of crowdfunding.

Huh?
If you "pledged" for the game you have had access to it for years or at least from the day you "pledged".  Perhaps you are confusing it with another game you "pledged".   

Doesn't change your impression of course, but just wanted to avoid any confusion.

Slapshot1188

Right now they have their Live Q&A on Twitch.  I am on a work call so no sound, but from the chat it seems like they ae making a massive change to the skills/character system...

More to come...  but it looks like a huge change

Slapshot1188

So they said they have a team from Unity that is coming in and will be embedded in their team for a few weeks to work through the performance issues.

Not sure if that is good or bad.

Kyleran

Slapshot1188 said:

So they said they have a team from Unity that is coming in and will be embedded in their team for a few weeks to work through the performance issues.

Not sure if that is good or bad.

Not sure about good or bad, but between this and your previous observation on potentially massive skill/char changes it calls into question any predictions about the game "releasing" this year.

Maybe in '22 is becoming the watchword for many games these days, who can say?

Slapshot1188

Kyleran said:

Slapshot1188 said:

So they said they have a team from Unity that is coming in and will be embedded in their team for a few weeks to work through the performance issues.

Not sure if that is good or bad.

Not sure about good or bad, but between this and your previous observation on potentially massive skill/char changes it calls into question any predictions about the game "releasing" this year.

Maybe in '22 is becoming the watchword for many games these days, who can say?

Yeah I am now much less confident it will release this year.  I think that was the plan, but maybe feedback has caused them to take a pause, re-evaluate and adjust that plan.

aslan132

Hmm, completely forgot about this game until I saw this post today. Logged in just to check, and apparently, I was beta group 1. No idea how long I have had access, but Im DL now, and will check it out in a few. Can't hurt to see for myself, I doubt I would ever pay for it though.

Theocritus

Let us know how it goes Aslan

Slapshot1188

5 minute summary

aslan132

So played for a couple of hours yesterday. Seems to still be very "raw". Controls are a bit clunky and combat was.... idk, boring? unsatisfying? lacking something for sure. I can still see potential there but feels like its at least 2 years off still (its been 5?) The crafting system is very basic, and the need for hunger just feels out of place. Its not quite a survival game, not sandbox, not fully anything really. The systems all feel like separate parts of different games slapped together. 

To be perfectly honest, I played the "leveling" server, did not even get to the PVP. But seeing how much I disliked the PVE, I can't imagine using that combat system in PVP. I quit at about level 16? 18? something like that. Overall, I cannot recommend it. Maybe next year it will be ready for a larger audience to see it, but for right now, it should be hidden from the public. I have played F&F alphas that were more polished than this.

TwistedSister77

aslan132 said:

So played for a couple of hours yesterday. Seems to still be very "raw". Controls are a bit clunky and combat was.... idk, boring? unsatisfying? lacking something for sure. I can still see potential there but feels like its at least 2 years off still (its been 5?) The crafting system is very basic, and the need for hunger just feels out of place. Its not quite a survival game, not sandbox, not fully anything really. The systems all feel like separate parts of different games slapped together. 

To be perfectly honest, I played the "leveling" server, did not even get to the PVP. But seeing how much I disliked the PVE, I can't imagine using that combat system in PVP. I quit at about level 16? 18? something like that. Overall, I cannot recommend it. Maybe next year it will be ready for a larger audience to see it, but for right now, it should be hidden from the public. I have played F&F alphas that were more polished than this.

It's main draw and design  has always been PVP... and crafting to help PVP.  The leveling is quick and more of a formality.  So it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of PVE centered players don't play this title.

TwistedSister77

I might be a lone voice here, but given how many indie and crowdfunded projects fail... I was actually impressed by the free beta in August.  

A lot of streamers and youtubers had a blast (that were pvp focused and gilded up).  There were some performance issues, but not always... so maybe they can fix it.

For me, I'm personally not sold yet.  The combat seems really hectic and I have a feeling it's going to be like GW2 server vs server vs server when it first launched... really fun and busy at first... then kinda pointless with people logging off.

YashaX

TwistedSister77 said:

I might be a lone voice here, but given how many indie and crowdfunded projects fail... I was actually impressed by the free beta in August.  

A lot of streamers and youtubers had a blast (that were pvp focused and gilded up).  There were some performance issues, but not always... so maybe they can fix it.

For me, I'm personally not sold yet.  The combat seems really hectic and I have a feeling it's going to be like GW2 server vs server vs server when it first launched... really fun and busy at first... then kinda pointless with people logging off.

Lol, it is in no way going to be anything near the quality and sheer awesomeness that was GW2 WvW when it first launched. 

Borluc

I’ve watched it streamed quite a bit on streams and my impressions are that the game is very much in an alpha state without a strong theme to the world. The combat looks entertaining but if you want more than dull pve mixed with some good pvp, I’d wait. I’m playing Return of Reckoning and having a blast. You can level with pvp and there is lots of Warhammer rich lore around. Free too.

Slapshot1188

Borluc said:

I’ve watched it streamed quite a bit on streams and my impressions are that the game is very much in an alpha state without a strong theme to the world. The combat looks entertaining but if you want more than dull pve mixed with some good pvp, I’d wait. I’m playing Return of Reckoning and having a blast. You can level with pvp and there is lots of Warhammer rich lore around. Free too.

I’d argue about the Alpha comment but not about Reckoning.   I’ve been playing for a few months and it’s great!

Hatefull

Currently playing this (and SC). Update 6.2 is going to go to the test server soon, then after that to live. It is a complete revamp of the skill system and if I wasn't already bought into the game I would wait until that hits to get in.

There will be some manner of wipe, not sure about passive training but certainly, character/inventory wipe.

Is it worth 50 bucks? I dunno, I spend more than that on coffee every weekend, so for me, yeah whatever, if you have a game you are playing and enjoy, I would recommend waiting for 6.2 at a minimum. 

It's a fun game with a few different modes of play. God's reach is your starter safe zones (no PvP), The Infected is faction-based PvP light (you can kill the other two factions, but no looting bodies), and then The Dregs. This is guild (and alliance finally!) based open warfare where you can attack anyone outside your Guild/alliance and loot their inventory excepting equipped items ie armor, weapons, mounts, etc.

Guilds are critical in this game, you can look at them and ultimately join them on the actual Crowfall site, not in-game. 

PDFS

I bought access to this a few years ago, and I've played it for a couple of weeks at a time at different points since then.

The gameplay concepts are interesting, if incomplete feeling (like hunger). Crafting is 100% necessary and therefore so is access to materials, which means somebody somewhere is hitting rocks for an eternity to supply you with ore (if you're not doing it yourself). Guilds kind of minimize the grind of this as you can pool resources to churn out items more quickly than solo. Skills are, y'know, flashy and loud, which is neither here nor there for me. But I don't even wanna talk about this shit because...

At no point has it appeared like they will get Unity to actually support the game they want it to host. From the earliest tests to present day, performance is spotty when you're alone around some props (especially in town) and drops down to absolutely unacceptable in combat. Don't take my word for it, look at even the most recent Youtuber combat highlight reel and count the frames on one hand. And this is with only beta testers! The engine cannot handle even a couple of other people on screen before it starts to tank. This game cannot release, because forget surviving the initial New Player Surge, I'm not convinced it can sustain the baseline of players that will make it fun to play after launch week.

If you've ever played GW2's WvW, you know how when the two largest groups on the servers meet head-to-head there's some gremlin behaviour. Skills don't show up, players don't render, you spend some time seeing nameplates and AoE markers only. But that happens when there's over 100 players in one location. Crowfall struggles hard with ~30 people on the screen. They allegedly have reps from Unity coming in to try and bail out the back end, but is there a hidden switch they can flip that's gonna fix a MMO that can't handle other players? Tear down and rebuild the skill trees all you like, but it has been obvious at all stages of development that balance issues are not going to be the Achilles heel.

Kyleran

Jean-Luc_Picard said:

The poor performance of the game is just not justified by any graphic quality... the graphis are of WoW 2004 quality, maybe a BIT better (and art wise, I beg to differ, but then Blizzard's art team has always been one of the very best of the industry anyway).
As I said, New World has graphics 100x better than this, and the game is performing 100x better too. I can't wait to play more of NW, and I have free access to this and I just don't want to play it because it's just... bad!
This is, technically wise, a big pile of crap in its current state. There's very little to like about this game. No immersive world, no interesting lore, no good PvP, nothing.

It's not really surprising they are struggling with performance issues, this team is lead by former SB devs and that title was certainly an unoptimized mess way back then as well. (History repeating itself?)

Also been my experience when delivering software (not in gaming) it is better to optimize early and often, rather than trying to resolve such problems later in the development process.

It seems to me game devs more often than not take the latter approach and struggle to catch up and often find out it's an impossible task.

I think CSE and RI are also both in similar "death spirals," meaning they are struggling if not stuck with serious performance issues which are causing them to flail about trying different solutions which have not been terribly effective to date.