Since this feedback channel, i am throwing out a few things that my husband and I notice. Both of us have been long time gamers since EQ, and my husband even longer.
creating characters - it does not give a good explanations on what each class does. There are descriptions out on the website, but for my husband, each description should be cut and pasted to characters creation screen in the game.
Grouping - if you are in a group together, you should remain in the same channel. We were constantly having to switcg Ch. This got to be so constant that he was about to log off.
Camera View - not sure about the ones developing the game, but camera view is a problem. It may be grand and dandy to look at your toon from a “looking down” approach, but it is not realistic. Players should have the ability to zoom in or out, look where they are going, etc. Even when zoom in, you can’t hardly figure out where you are going. No one walk around looking at their feet in real life, let’s alone drive that way. We cannot truly enjoy the artwork or/and landscapes of the hame. Several of our guildies from another game has also commented on the same issue and would love if the game would allow more control on the camera views.
keys for fighting - my husband felt it was archaic. Everyone we know play with mouse with 6 to 18 programmable buttons for assigning spells, etc. Not having this option to use, was just old ancient school to him.
gender locking different classes is not smart. Where men have NO issue playing female characters, women on the other hand DO NOT want to play men character.
On the other side of the coin, the game has alot going for it with many things to do within its parameters. The landscape from what little we can see, look great. Just have to use the telescopes to actually enjoy it. Tradeskills are right on par for what we like to see. Our personal islands are huge. We enjoy being able to be creative on decorations of our own space. The concept of sharing certain quests and lootable island accross the account is nice, so our characters don’t start to feel repetitive in nature.
And, the pet doing all the loots for us… well, my husband and I “thank you!!” Sometimes one or both of forget to loot a mob or mobs because of the numbers we taken on. This also alleviate trying to get back to a mob to loot if we should die as well. Great job there!
I hope that help a little on your feedback that you are asking for.
On the camera angles, it’s designed at the core to be an isometric game like Diablo or Path of Exile. It isn’t designed to be played like an MMO from an “over the shoulder” perspective, or from a first person perspective. This isn’t a minor change, it’s basic to the game design, and is common to all games with “action RPG” combat like this one. It’s an “expected comment” from MMO players or people who are generally not accustomed to ARPG style games, but it is extremely unlikely to be changed in any meaningful way.
The same more or less holds true for the controls. The basic scheme of mouseclick to move and aim skills and a limited number of skill slots in fixed positions on the KB is also a standard thing for ARPG combat games. It is different from most MMOs because most MMOs don’t use ARPG combat. They could make things more flexible in terms of keybinds, I agree, but at the end of the day it will be limited to 8 skills, because that is a design issue – it isn’t designed around having access to all of your skills all the time like other MMOs, because ARPGs don’t work that way.
The other comments are fine – they could do a better job explaining characters up front and with the channels. On the gender locking, this is a common Western player concern – it’s common in Korean and Asian games in general to have gender locked classes. Smilegate has said that they will work to open more classes to both genders, but it’s unclear what the timeframe for that will be. Likely, as well, when that happens the classes won’t be identical but will be slightly different for each gender, as is the case for the classes with both genders in Black Desert Online, another Korean MMO.
I have to agree with really both of you, I know it’s a tough balance. The keybinds (or lack of) is killing me. To get clarification, this Amazon game is written by a non north American company? I don’t mind the gameplay of only being allowed 8 slots, but being able to change where they were bound would be epic. Another suggestion I’ve seen and can agree with is the ability to turn gore down a bit. That is an option in many games. There is a thread about allowing a little bit more zoom out, even if it’s not typical MMO flip camera everywhere. As a caster, when the world boss I’m fighting is constantly going off screen and I can’t see how far away it is, that’s a bit too zoomed in.
Putting me into a separate channel as my partner was annoying me so much as well. Surely that should have been a common complaint that if you’re in a party on the same map you get grouped together.
I like top down and personally I haven’t had any issues with movement. It would be nice to zoom out further without having to force the 21:9 aspect ratio.
I don’t really see any of this changing with the exception that there is a chance they will include an option for less gore in the future. But this is a mature rated game.
As for the camera zoom not being enough, as a melee player I didn’t really notice it at all. I’m sure it impacts range classes more, but keep in mind range classes are supposed to stay in camera view of the enemies. Otherwise it makes fights trivial because you can just attack from outside the bosses aoe radius at all times. Where as melee classes have to avoid every single attack bosses make. Including basic melee attacks.
So the camera zoom is more of a restriction to choosing to play a safer ranged class.
Did you and your husband as well as your guildies ever read anything about the game before playing?
Some of the things are basically core features of the game and where so since the beginning of the game. For instance changing the perspective of the game would require basically to develop the game from the beginning again as all assets would need to be reworked and movement would need to be adjusted accordingly.
Gender Locks are quite common in Asian MMORPGs and removing it would basically mean that they need to redesign many of the animations again for the other gender.
As far as programmable buttons goes, I was easily able to reconfigure key bindings to better fit my gaming style. I had no issue with assigning spells to different mouse buttons. If you mean you want to create spell macros like for instance in WoW you will be disappointed though, but you have to realize that not every game developer wants to provide that.
For 2 of your 5 points you basically want them to rewrite/redesign the game, which would mean that the appeal of the game might be lost for a lot of other players.
What is this about women not wanting to play male characters? That’s nonsense. Maybe you don’t, but a lot of us just play whatever. It doesn’t matter.
I dunno what all content you’ve done, but easy example…Wili (world boss) moves around so much and has some insane adds, I literally can’t keep him in sight. This isn’t just standing out enough to avoid a cleave. I’ve played other games top down, but it’s an issue keeping LOS in here. I expect some movement in battle (unless flame wreath is cast or the raid blows up…), but when you are force locked center screen and can’t see immediate area zoomed out fully, that’s a thing.
This is a part of learning the bosses patterns and knowing your positioning. As well as players learning when to counter and stagger bosses, thus eliminating a lot of the movement.
If the KR and RU players have learn to play with the zoom efficiently. So can EU and NA.
I do hope you are able to overcome the challenges it presents you
I see nobody else answered this yet, interestingly.
Yes, the game was developed by Smilegate, a Korean game developer, and released in Korea in 2018. Subsequent localizations were released in Japan and Russia, but this one in EU/NA/SA is the biggest release of the game to date in terms of population coverage (and it’s having issues because of that, clearly).
Amazon didn’t design the game. Amazon is responsible for marketing and “running” the game in EU/NA/SA, but there are some things they can directly control, like location and maintenance of servers and the like, and other things that are not in their control, like the game design itself, the way that the servers and the game interact with each other, what kind of server architecture the game requires (eg, this one requires a kind of master/regional server for trading, grouping and so on, and smaller “servers” for local content like open world or GvG).
Basically Smilegate has entered into a license agreement with Amazon that gives Amazon the right to operate the game within the requirements and limits of the license agreement, in exchange for paying Smilegate a fee (which is probably calculated as a percentage of revenues). As a part of this agreement we know, for example, that Amazon has included in there the ability to rework the aesthetics of the game somewhat to match current Western cultural standards and values which are markedly different in KR/JP/RU (which they have done – less sexualized outfits for female characters, more racial diversity in NPCs and so on), and adjustments to the game shop (likely a lively negotiation topic because that’s the source of the money that Smilegate gets paid). We also know that Amazon has gotten commitments from Smilegate that they would develop more dual gender classes (or add genders to currently single gender classes), but there isn’t anything specific they have shared with us in terms of timing of that and scope.
TY for clarifying how that is run. I am enjoying the game, still working out keeping some of the charging bosses in my sight as a caster, it is a challenge when I’m used to free camera movement. (I have finally mostly broken myself of wasd…)