to be honest i was a little disappointed in this stream cohh was way more focused thin normal on the chat thin showing the game. and the AI i was really hoping to see it and it just didn't feel there much other thin the one time i heard joppa make the comment on one mob stunning him. i didn't even see one mez be removed by any npc. also was disappointed didn't see any crafting stuff nodes any place. other thin one boss with some pretty bad ass stuff and 2 new npc skills the self destruction and the power steal ds shield i didn't really fill much was going on over other streams. the trap was nice and all but with out a why to detect it .. it was kinda pointless to show it just a hole in the ground with a fake cover like the hidden room. now if they shown us the skill to see that pit trap i would have been like dang that nice instead it just make me think of skyshine and pulling out a map of where drops are its been done a lot in mmos. it would be nice to see the stream form the others point of view maybe thin we would see what we didn't in the AI. still cant wait for it to come out. just was a bit down with all the alsome stuff we just got shown in spot lights last few months to not really see it in game play. no it might be i was just lookng for and hope to much. it might be this is the level they just start adding in the ai stuff i dont know just was hoping for more.
Bummer. I felt like Cohh was focussed on chat as well, but I was impressed by it and his commentary. He was so positive about everything, even the idea that we have disagreements about things he said in positive ways. I guess it just comes down to what we were hoping for from the stream. There was some good AI work going on, but you're right, they didn't highlight it (if you watch closely you'll see some of what you were looking for, it just wasn't pointed out specifically).
I'm also hoping to see it again from another point of view, if that's possible :)
My expectations are not the high right now so that might explain why I liked it so much. The overall feel they had going with it almost looking like friends playing not developers was refreshing. One of my favorite things I saw was the enchanter casting a light. The game is so dark I was excited they are working on a creative way for the players to deal with it. Over all though it just seems more and more like a game I would want to play. It was also nice to see the rouge played at closer my skill level.
Some of the questions people had got limited answers or answers interrupted by combat. I wonder if they should have Joppa or some other developer watching so that they can focus on talking about what we are seeing and the questions asked.
I liked the stream. In fact, I have re-watched it like four times since then looking for "beans". They stated, early on, in the stream that the main purpose of the stream was "for fun", so that's likely why it wasn't more "informative". It was all sorts of fun. Not only was it fun, it was informative. Both actiely and passively.
This is the kind of thing I am talking about VR being "damned if you do and damned if you don't".
Yes, as some have said this was a stream primarily for fun which may not have been immediately apparent and because of that, I think I also understand the OP's P.o.V.
What I got out of it was: 1. A finished dungeon. 2. A group, like me, thrust into higher-level characters and trying to play them as best as possible and not knowing everything they have-chanter light spell as example. 3. basic NPC dynamics, named's and mini-named's 4. a reasonable/appropriate drop rate/ loot table- caster gloves, staff for caster/medium caster, rogue dagger as example.
As far as NPC AI, I say this was an experienced Group playing in this style of high situational, multi-target awareness, scouting/pulling to group and dealing with adds as they come. If there were any NPC's that could break mezz, the NPC's did not have a chance because of the crowd control used by both the rogue and the chanter on pulls and when in group and aggro management by the tank and casters. Example, the line of sight pull on the caster. Also, there were NPC's on the other side of the wall of the mini named. The group decided to clear them because they were mindful of respawn time-without knowing exactly what that time was because they all understood collectively without it needing to be said of the need for urgency to get to the mini-named soon-ish. had they charged into the mini named and dragged the NPC's with them, just to mez the NPC's, I am sure the mini named would have broken those mezzes on the NPC's.
What I also liked was that they didn't know all they could do. If we were just starting out, we would have early levels to make mistakes in, to learn what spells/abilities do and how they work, cool-downs and gates to be mindful of so by the time we got to that level we would know what we had: the chanter would know he has that light spell, Joppa would not have to say what abilities might be better, Cohh would not have to ask if he had an ability farther down in his spell book- we would know. Like, we would know if we could sense a trap, or as joppa said to be more vertically minded and as kilsin suggested have the caster high on the wall for the mini-named.
I watched it again for the chat and I got the feeling that Cohh didnt have his normal set of chat mods overlooking the chatter and he kinda went into early streamer mode, where hes playing and modding at the same time and then snapping up into insightful Dev/gameplay mode. He has his audience, too, and if they want to come around for this freebie of his- which is probably why he had to do it at 7am considering everyones schedules- it should still be welcoming. Some of Cohh's audience dont know what Pantheon is and Fantheons can consider this when responding in chat instead oif leaving it to Cohh.
My favorite streams are the Cohh streams when he is just playing rather than demoing. He clearly likes the game but isn't obsessive about it. It's obvious that he is excited for it to come out, but isn't consuming every single bit of information about it and reviewing every skills demo. For me it is nice to see that you don't have to be obsessive about mechanics to get in, have fun, and be useful.
I do see where the OP is coming from though. If the AI mechanics are not pointed out to us on stream, then they are happening but we may not see them. For the people playing it, it adds a lot of tension and excitement, but for people watching it the combat can look a little slow. I think that is where Pantheon gets criticism from newer MMO players. The tension doesn't come through in stream very well.
Additionally, I love it when the Devs are just playing and having fun such as the December 2018 stream.
Maybe it's a little like Baseball that way ;) People that play it understand the excitement of every pitch. People watching tend to get bored, haha.
It was ok. The bad thing is, it's being played by the people who made it. They know everything and that makes the "excitment" of it a little lack-luster.
Put a group of 6 people who have never played the game before in there and we'd probably see a lot more butt pucker moments.
But I understand that the Dev's are bringing in an "influencer" (ugh) and want to highlight some things they know.
My take-aways were: It looks like a completely playable game, and that's a good thing.
I know the Devs like Cohh, but honestly, I enjoyed the stream from March. Mainly because we had 4 different content creators all running their own streams, so we got to see how people did things differently. Baz, for example, couldn't figure out how to accept quests (kept X-ing them out instead, hehe), but was methodical in his exploration and approach to the game. Napalm kind of just went around banging through things and somewhat ignored specifics, and even explicitly said he wasn't interested in trying out crafting. One of the other guys went to the crafting skill/table and started playing around with it to see what it would do.
Because each of the four did things differently, we were able to get a wide slice of gameplay instead of a narrow one person playing one class in a dungeon crawl.
I also liked the setting. They had the keep that seems almost like a functional (Human?) starting area, complete with beginner quests, NPCs to interact with, exploration, vendors, and crafting; then the team went into the dungeon and crawled through it as well. So again, we git a wide slice of the gameplay.
And bonus points, since there were four different content creators, fans of each and followers of Pantheon's development, basically got four streams for the price of one. That's 12 hours of effective content to watch, all at the cost of only the same 3 hours of VR's time...and it gives players that aren't interested in Rogue or DPS roles other angles to look at to watch the content/classes/gameplay they're more interested in seeing in action.
.
I don't want to poo poo this latest stream - more streams is better than less, imo - but I said back in March, and I hold to this day, that THAT stream is how VR needs to do future streams. Get 4-5 streamers and let them poke around in the world for an hour, then party them up and delve into a dungeon for an hour. I think that's what makes for a great stream.
Compare this stream to the March one (here's Napalm's POV here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45p5ziDA-ZQ ), and I just feel that one was the better presentation overall and would recommend more like that.
Then you COULD have people watching Cohh and him engaging with chat, but...also have 3-4 other perspectives to watch and listen to. And it's just more organic seeing 4-5 people experiencing the content for the first time vs one person who is but partied with 5 to whom it's not new at all. Of the two, the March stream is a lot closer to the "real player experience", if that makes sense, which is probably why I find it a lot more compelling.
Raidil said: Since minus is not part of plus a great stream would be cohh braz therick napalm joppa and any other streamer or dev
For established area and mechanics / new class / NPC AI display I think: Cohh, Roenik, Kilsin, ZOEII (<-!!), Ben Dean (for snark) and a guest. Joppa as mysterious stranger GM-ing. Bonus points for accidental wipes. tbh I liked the wipe at the named-named although it did show beans on how to beat that encounter.
Like OP mentioned I agree, Similar to the all -star streamer stream: 6 streamers/Fantheons and maybe - with prior hype as to WHO will be GM-ing: Joppa and his implying hints?, Ben Dean and his "train them if they break mezz"? (I can foresee no help on a corpse run- lol- but that would be good! to see in action), or Kilsin and...and, I get the impression Kilsin GM-ing would be like Loki GM-ing, omgosh.
I wish they would let Coh in to get his skills and things sorted. Im not sure if its a time issue or what. He really should be on before the stream so he can figure things out.
I really would like to see some new areas seems all we have seen is Black Rose or Halnir cave.
Kiera said: I wish they would let Coh in to get his skills and things sorted. Im not sure if its a time issue or what. He really should be on before the stream so he can figure things out.
Cohh & his wife have 2 young children and a third one due soon (last I heard). In addition, they are still in the process of moving into a new (bigger) home that requires some improvements. He also has - or at least tries to have - a full time streaming schedule as his gainful employment.
I'd definitely say it's a time issue, on his part.
Kiera said:I wish they would let Coh in to get his skills and things sorted. Im not sure if its a time issue or what. He really should be on before the stream so he can figure things out.
I really would like to see some new areas seems all we have seen is Black Rose or Halnir cave.
I'm not sure that would fit with his schedule. Cohh is not a basic solo streamer, he has people that works for him managing his agenda and I guess, making sure games & audio/video works for him. I'm not at all into that type of streamers or the fact it can be a full time job, but that's not the point, I simply don't think he had more time to engage into this.
Overall I enjoyed the streeam, even if I missed most of the non bound skill effects, I also saw the rogue had a good utility with the combinaison of tripwire and smoke and mirror. While a bit less reliable than enchanter due to cooldown or opportunity costs/tied to stealth, I believe some flashbomb dancing can allow the rogue to perform better in that field and keep one to two ennemies CC'ed if one is a melee.
If I'm not wrong, this time gash (older waylay) and hidden strike had no cooldown but served as primary energy dump buttons when Leaking wound, Blackjack kick and backstab were under cooldown, the first doing more damage and the second allowing for some threat management.
We will see if outside of Leaking wound/Blackjack and backstab, having more endurance leads to a decent upgrade in damage and gameplay or if it's more interesting to capitalize on these hard hidding ones.
edit: blockquote issue
Raidil said:I get the impression Kilsin GM-ing would be like Loki GM-ing, omgosh.
I agree with some of the statements above that it would've been good if Cohh had had some more time before the stream to get up to date with his skills and his hotbar layout.
That said, I still enjoyed the stream very much!
- The complexity of the dungeon seems amazing, imagining all the different levels and secret rooms and traps...really gives a great old school feeling! I hope they can get his level of quality for other dungeons as well.
- I like the lighting, colors and atmosphere in the dungeon (the green crystals, the blue lights, and the fog on the floor)!
- Spell effects (and sounds!) appear to have made some nice progress. I liked the wizard "slow meteor" (whatever it was). Also the enchanter mez animation (the pendulum). I heard some people mention they found it "too showy" (or similar) but IMO this is one thing that must be very visible. Maybe the brightness for it could be toned down a bit?
- The "superheated" mobs (and the other similar dispositions) were really nice. Things like these will keep people on their toes!
- The final boss they encountered was pretty cool!
- Overall, it seemed the difficulty was ok, but tbh the enchanter helped a lot with that. I wonder how it would've gone if no enchanter was there and they would've had to rely on rogue CC only.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:Raidil said:I get the impression Kilsin GM-ing would be like Loki GM-ing, omgosh.
LMAO Thanks Goofy, that's a real gem.
Raidil said:to be honest i was a little disappointed in this stream cohh was way more focused thin normal on the chat thin showing the game. and the AI i was really hoping to see it and it just didn't feel there much other thin the one time i heard joppa make the comment on one mob stunning him. i didn't even see one mez be removed by any npc. also was disappointed didn't see any crafting stuff nodes any place. other thin one boss with some pretty bad ass stuff and 2 new npc skills the self destruction and the power steal ds shield i didn't really fill much was going on over other streams. the trap was nice and all but with out a why to detect it .. it was kinda pointless to show it just a hole in the ground with a fake cover like the hidden room. now if they shown us the skill to see that pit trap i would have been like dang that nice instead it just make me think of skyshine and pulling out a map of where drops are its been done a lot in mmos. it would be nice to see the stream form the others point of view maybe thin we would see what we didn't in the AI. still cant wait for it to come out. just was a bit down with all the alsome stuff we just got shown in spot lights last few months to not really see it in game play. no it might be i was just lookng for and hope to much. it might be this is the level they just start adding in the ai stuff i dont know just was hoping for more.
It was a great stream to me. I hate to see negative pressure over stuff like this in the community. It is not normal to be this intertwined with the creation process of a mmo. Development isn't usually this open. I love seeing all the concept art and grey box. I love picking the brains of the development team bi-monthly. I even love watching them cut up on a casual dungeon run from time to time. The Visionary Realms team expose themselves to all kinds of criticism, ridicule, and misunderstandings for opening up like this and letting us peer behind the curtain. The more critical the community gets the more priveleged information becomes.
Gottbeard said:It was a great stream to me. I hate to see negative pressure over stuff like this in the community. It is not normal to be this intertwined with the creation process of a mmo. Development isn't usually this open. I love seeing all the concept art and grey box. I love picking the brains of the development team bi-monthly. I even love watching them cut up on a casual dungeon run from time to time. The Visionary Realms team expose themselves to all kinds of criticism, ridicule, and misunderstandings for opening up like this and letting us peer behind the curtain. The more critical the community gets the more priveleged information becomes.