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My Earthrise beta impressions (6 months playtime)
Harabeck
Member Posts: 616
Since the server is down in preparation for release, I thought I'd share my impressions here. I have been following Earthrise for over 2 years and was in one of the earliest beta waves. When I first played the game there was no content outside of the tutorial (which has been completely redesigned since then). I have seen the game grow for a quite a while now, so to assure you that I am not sugar coating things I will start with the bad:
Performance Issues
The game, as of the last day of beta, had both client side and server side performance issues. Lag could spike into the thousands of ms and smoke or water could drag your fps to less than 10. There is speculation that these issues are caused by issues unique to beta (debuggers, test servers etc) but the truth is I don't blame anyone concerned about these issues.
Bugs
Bugs, the game has them. Sometimes items you have removed from you inventory leave ghosts behind. Some mobs are a bit too easy to kite. There is a desync issue that makes npc's invisible, and is fixed by relogging. There is a bug that prevents you from drawing your weapon (entering combat mode) that is fixed by taking a swim. And of course plenty of other small UI bugs than can be a bit annoying.
Content
The game is launching without territory warfare, npc mines, vehicles, mechs, and with quests that focus on quantity over quality.
So then, you may ask, "Why then Harabeck, have you already bought the game?" And I answer:
Confidence in Masthead's ability to fix problems
I've watched the game grow for a long time, and Masthead can get things done. For a while in beta, zone server crashes were a fact of life. The last week or so, there wasn't a single zone crash. And except for occasional spikes, the lag was getting better too, as long as you got away from the crowded starting areas. I've also used their support system to report plenty of bugs, and unlike most games where you never hear back, the system Masthead has set up actually allows you and a GM to post comments on your issue and have a discussion, and they actually do it (have discussions about the issue that is). Masthead listens to their players, and I feel confident they are working hard to fix the very real problems facing the game.
The Roadmap
This, in case you didn't know. Now, I know dates and MMO's don't work well together, but at least Masthead has their priorities straight. Even if they don't get territory warfare out next month, the fact that they're trying to accomplish that means that there is a good chance it will come out sometime soon.
Fun
Let's stop the apologies and really talk about what is in the game that I like. What makes this game fun and addicting?
The combat is miles better than your standard MMO even with the performance issues. Once those are fixed, it will be a truly amazing system. Combat takes skill, and it's truly dynamic (those guys standing around in the combat trailer were noobs, sorry to whoever those devs were).
Danger, consequences and the feeling of the world. Once you get out of your noob gear, you have a lot to lose. The world is full of a lot of players who will gladly shoot first and never ask questions later. Yes, insurance can preserve your gear, but cash is seriously hard to come by. Even farming glitched mobs with a collection quest was barely enough to fund more than one insurance slot. The world itself is huge and very beautiful. There are deserts, canyons, cities built on spires by the coastland and cities built within giant caverns. The variety of terrains will make for some interesting fights.
Crafting. This isn't Darkfall where you have 20 extra armor sets sitting in your bank. Crafting something takes a lot of materials and time (and cash to get the skills). That puts pressure on you to preserve each piece of equipment you get. It also means that all that junk you got from mobs needs to be recycled into mats, and losing even that is a real blow.
The gear system in general. Most of your raw power comes from gear. Health, energy, armor etc are determined almost exclusively by your armor, and 95% of your damage comes from your gun. This again adds to the sense of danger and consequences because you can lose your main source of power to other players.
The skill system. I really like the skill system. You can pick only those abilities you want and take them in any direction you want. By altering your tactics you can waste your whole energy pool in one shot or fire many conservative shots over a whole fight or add a chance to inflict a status effect, or gamble on a chance to restore all energy etc. Also, the system is built in such a way that adding a new skill tree is trivial compared to a game with set classes.
The community. I know, most of you haven't spent two years on the ER forums, and it seems like there is a lot of childish whining like that surrounding most PvP games. But if you can look past the idiots, there is actually a very large, mature community built up around this game. There is already politicing going on; I can't wait until territory warfare releases.
In conclusion, I understand if you want to avoid the game for now. But you'd really be doing yourself a favor by checking it out again in a month or two. But by then, I'll have a good leg up on you.
If you do decide to give a try, do your best to find friends fast, this game is not solo friendly. Also, read the in-game help manual before you start complaining about the controls. Don't be like the massively guy that did the livestream and not even realize that tab locks your mouse so you can aim like a shooter...
Comments
The PvE is so weaksauce you don't have to move. If you do move you can take on mobs way beyond your "level". The hardest part of PvE is lag/desync.
It's not that the game is terribad. The graphics are pretty decent and the combat is sort of cool. However PvE is a complete joke atm. The desync is insane for a game ready to launch.
Imo these kinds of things while common in indie mmo's are unacceptable to the current market. We have to many games that are polished to choose from to put up with unfinished products.
Can this be a good game if Masthead fixes the problems plaguing the game? Probably. The problem is you only get one launch and then it's gg.
I hope I am dead wrong and some miracle patch fixes the game and it becomes a smash hit. I see it however as the Sci-fi equivalent to MO.
Definately agree with all you said, the game does indeed have lots of potential, the crafting system is great once you know what mobs drop what, the combat is fun as well, the biggest issue is the fps, doing pvp when your fps drops to 10 and it becomes a slideshow for players is not fun, i would definately encourage people to check out the game in march once they come out with the game engine optimizations.
It would indeed be nice if the PvE were more fun, but to me it's just a means to more PvP. Besides, it's a neat challenge to find and kill the hardest mobs you can while using weak gear. It's a lot better than a themepark game where a higher level mob simply kills you and you have aboslutely no chance against it.
As for launch, tons of MMO's have rough launches. Eve was barely a shadow of the gorgeous monster it is now. Even Wow was pretty bad. Again, if you don't like it now, do yourself a favor and check back in a month. "You only get one launch and then it's gg" is simply not true. MMO's can start small and build to greatness.
when you mention skills, they arent really skills are they? in the beta i couldn't find the actuall skills, like melee, pistol, msg, rifle, launcher. are there any in the game or is actually just an ability page you get? i got 1 ability that gave me 170% to weapon dmg and a 25s buff.
its my biggest concern, i played project entropia when it first came out because of the skill tree. you actually had to use the weapon to become proficient with it. i wouldnt even mind adding points to upgrade the skill.
your knowledge is most welcome.
thanks!!
edit: spelling, hate laptop keyboards
Death the only skills you need to get in the terms you talk about is the different tiers, for example to be able to use the different tier 2 weapons you need to exchange your battlepoints to buy that skills so lets say you want to use the t2 shotgun, you need to exchange lets say 1000battle points and then get the skill, you will need to buy the gun afterwards, once you have the gun you can exchance bp points to get specific skills for that gun, i dont know if they got different skills for the different tiers as in t3 shotgun t4 etc, i think its the same skills for all shotgun tiers but i could be wrong, and yes most of them just add extra dmg or stuns or aoe effects and so on.
Thanks Baihuigau,
i didnt even see the skill to get the t2 stuff, just did a quick pass though and it looked like some the skill names were just place holders i.e. shot 1, shot 2, shot 3. the only difference was how much each cost.
Gunna keep my eye on this one, it's something i've wanted since playing AC and i love my sci-fi. no not Sy Fy.
The only skills that should look like shot 1, shot 2, etc are the equipment skills e.g. (Shotgun tier1, Shotgun tier 2...). Above the equipment skills in the skill menu are the ability lines. Each weapon has 8 active abilities (each with its own name...) and a few passive abilities that are active whenever you have that weapon equipped. BP is used to purchase both equipment skills and abilities. You can also buy up to two tactic slots for each ability (each slot is half the price to unlock the ability itself) and insert tactics to modify the ability. Tactics are also purchased with BP, and once bought can be inserted into any number of abilities.
Gets better and better!
Major points to Harabeck, your review is pretty much what I made of it in 2 weeks.
I'll see you tomorrow! (hopefully!)
Very good review, Harabeck, see you in game
I found the 600 to insure your gear wasnt taht big of deal, also the reason your not going to have a ton of armor on reserver is there is no bank.
Also its super gear centric to the degree a person with gear one better then yours will always beat 2-3 of you.
This game seems really intriguing to me, especially since I've been playing Fallen Earth again recently, but I was wondering - is it going to be another, FFA pvp game with full loot? I know a lot of people prefer that kind of system, but it's an instant loss-of-interest for me if that's the only option.
yes you can insure your weapon and armor of loss no big deal but everything else goes because you have to keep ecverything on you becuase there is no bank implemented yet
Oh and one of the worst character creator for an avatar ever. everyone will look the same
They promised bank for release, I think there will be bank tomorrow.
You missed a patch. The first gear slot is now 800 and the cost of additional slots has gone up significantly (it has actually returned to the price scheme they used before the big invite waves). Also, the money rewards for quests has gone down, and so have vendor sell prices. It is now much harder to make money than it was in the last patch where the first insurance slot cost 600.
It is true that in the early game the gear tiers mean a lot. The differences get smaller as the tiers go up however. Also note that it is possibly for groups of lower tier players to take on higher tier opponents, something which is not possible in many games. I.e. in Wow a level 10 vs a level 20 is not really a fight, but in ER a BR30 player can be killed by two BR 20 players (There's a thread in the official forum discussing such an incident right now).
As for banks, while it is true there are none in game yet, that has nothing to do with how much gear you have in reserve. For one, you can still mail stuff to someone else for safekeeping. Secondly, you are ignoring the difficulty of crafting. It takes a long time to the get skills, money, and material to craft an item, especially armor. Even one set of armor represents hours of gameplay time invested.
Best recap of the game I've seen....true on every account
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
Good review bro. I have seen you in game and my guildies ingame have a lot of respect for you and asked me not to gank you haha.
you agree that the game is in alpha stage, but believe that with time bugs will be fixed and content added. You are investing your own money to start the 2 months beta test, after which, you think that the game should be complete.
In my opinion, even if in 2 months it turns out to be what you expect it to be, i still dont see it making it because of some very poor designs which can not be improved unless totally redone.
1 Current combat system--minus the lag and fps drops--is very "disconnected", you dont get a felling that your hitting something or being hit.
2 In addition to that, character control is very uncomfortable, it feels stiff.
Put these two together and you get very dissatisfying PVP/PVE. Yes, im sure you dont see it as a problem but many others do. And I believe that there are many other issues that will send this project in the wrong direction.
have they, by chance, mentioned when it will launch tomorrow?
I don't understand the complaints about character control/disconnect from character complaints. It could just be that I don't care too much about immersion maybe? I do understand the not knowing when you are getting hit, There needs to be a "ouch" sound or something. But that doesn't require a redesign, neither does tweaking animations and character speed to make it feel more natural.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
this tbh, THOUGH I have to give a heads up for Harabeck for making a good point - check the game in 2 months, CONSIDERING they'll be giving out free trials, otherwise nothanks...
in 2 months, maybe a year, it will be clear if the game has a slightest chance of survining. As it is today it is utter failure, not because it is in spoor state before release, but because it is in a poor alpha state after SEVEN years of development...
it has been 5 and most of that time was making the engine
have you seen anyone use melee weapons? youll be slashing all day long and not hit anything at all.
and the last 2 years theyve been lying about the game being already in closed beta with most features being implemented. Why did we not see any FlyBy videos, why just couple of screenshots a month, why so long to remake a combat video? - Cuz they never had anything tangible to show.
No, I don't agree that the game is in alpha. You clearly have no idea what a game in alpha actually looks like. Your two complaints there are simply laughable. It's no worse than many other games, and besides, you're just complaining about animations, a simple fix once they get some free time. The core mechanics are solid.