Allods Online Early Impressions – CBT2

For the past few days I’ve been making my way through the Empire side of Allods Online as an Arisen (undead) Summoner.  The Summoner is one of 8 classes available in the game.  For me, being in a beta is about trying all of the classes I have even the remotest inclination to play.  I prefer starting a game with the class I’m going to play for the long haul.  Of the classes I tried, I liked the Summoner best.

Classes are the best part of the game so far
While the archetypes are the same MMO-fare, I found interesting twists and abilities in several of the Allods Online classes.  I tried all of the classes except Warrior and Scout while primarily focusing on the caster classes.  Summoner and Psionicist stood out as the more unique.  From what I experienced, Psionicists are in the debuff/crowd control classification of mages.  They might be called Enchanter in other games, except in Allods they must establish a mental link with an offensive target if they want to unleash their more potent abilities.  I think you need to be good at and enjoy kiting to play this class well.

On the surface the Summoner was what I expected which is why I tried it last.  As someone who has a tendency to solo, I enjoy playing casters with pets.  It suits my fascination with magic while providing tactical options for soloing content.  What I didn’t expect was to have healing abilities, including the power to resurrect fallen players.  I also have damage over time spells (DOTs) like a Warlock.  My ability to heal is not native.  I can’t just throw out heals.  Summoner healing spells require blood sacrifice (blood drops) which can only be gained by using damage spells.  This aspect felt very much like the Warrior Priest in Warhammer Online.  Decent magic damage, pets, healing skills and an entertaining mechanic by which I enable my healing, made this class all win for me.

Other things I liked

• Combat animations are entertaining but not distracting
• Quest objectives are in the general vicinity of the Quest-Giver
• Quest objectives are displayed on the map – can be removed
• Quests are as diverse and have something to do with what’s going on
• Plenty of quests per level
• Art design is clean, simple and appealing
• Ambiance and lore are attractive
• Hotkey enabled auto-looting FTW. I can loot while running past them.

Combat is the worst part of the game so far
After trying three classes the feeling that popped into my head was, “This class would be great in another game.”  I enjoy the classes but not the combat.  My dislike of the combat goes beyond the fact that it takes a long time to kill a single mob.  I can get over that if the combat is fluid.  Unfortunately, it’s anything but fluid so far.

There is an unsynchronized behavior that gets infuriating, especially in a close fight.  First off, you bob around like a dashboard bobble-head ornament when you get hit.  If you have a large weapon in your hand, the resulting animation looks like you’re beating the shit out of yourself with your own weapon.  There is something “off” between what I’m doing (pressing skills), what’s happening on the screen and what the combat/damage code is recording.  Example, I start winding up a 2-second cast spell – as far as what I see, the spell has not been cast yet, it’s still building.  However, the mob has “recognized or been hit” before the spell even leaves me hand, which results in it running to me before I’ve cast anything at all.  WTF!

The worst skills mobs can have in a game with unsynchronized combat are crowd control spells.  Meet being stunned or in some other way incapacitated, without knowing it.  On top of which, because there is some sort of delay going on, I’m often rubber banded back to the scene crime, after I moved out of harm’s way. You don’t know what’s going on.  You’re trying to move, cast, anything to get out of harm’s way but every few seconds you bounce back to the attacker.

Runes of Magic suffered from this same problem with combat.  They had one particularly gnarly zone where large clusters of stunning mobs were tightly packed together called the Gnoll Cave or something like that, which was an absolute death trap because of this problem.  I’m always concerned when I find a fundamental issue such as this because it can spell a design problem, which I’ve yet to see a game rectify afterward.  Bad targeting stays that way.  Poor mob pathing remains.  Undesirable combat anomalies don’t get fixed.   

I wonder if the “feature”, ability to pre-cast a spells (run through the casting timer), was actually born out of this problem.  I’ve often cast a spell but the mob is dead before it hits them, like they were actually dead on the last cast but that wasn’t shown in time, leaving me with having executed a cast for no reason.  However, using their pre-cast concept, the casting time isn’t wasted.  The spell is sitting in my hand and can be instant cast later.  Did you know that original NyQuil wasn’t intended as a nighttime medicine?  That was a marketing/rebranding decision after they realized the after affects of the product.  They turned a problem into a feature.


Other things I didn’t Like

• There’s no mini-map – I don’t like going back to the stone ages in game design.  There needs to be a mini-map in a game where you can't resize the zone map.  Something ala Age of Conan would be perfect
• Map details aren’t rendered very well.  You can’t see small nuisances in the landscape like blocked areas, so that you avoid running all the way in one direction, only to realize you can’t actual pass through there.  They need a map with CRISP details and drop the faux hand inked look they're using.
• You can’t change chat text colors.  Zone chat was barely readable for me.  They have a pumpkin color text on top of a transparent light gray background.  It made me blind trying to follow conversations.
• Summoner Pet Commands can’t be bound to a hotkey.  Clicking every-single-command with the mouse is tedious.
• Quest text is too long.  They need to add the short version with optional extended version like Runes of Magic uses.  The text goes beyond the lore and back story.  It’s seriously a wall of text sometimes.
• You cannot mob-grind XP to level – don’t even think about it.  If that’s your play style this game is NOT for you.
• VERY LIMIT interface customization and no macro features. I’m not a fan of being forced to live with what someone else thought was the best screen layout.
• Inconsistent/un-reliable behavior when using key modifiers (Ctrl/Alt).  Aion suffered from the same problem.  There’s something different about the logic used to translate them into actions.  I setup up ALL my games with the same exact hotkey/keyboard layout which makes it very apparent to me when they don’t work as expected.

I want to continue playing Allods to see the next couple of zones.  There’s a lot of potential here.  If they fix the most glaring combat issues, the game play would be greatly improved.  My chief interest in persisting is to experience Astral Ship combat.  The idea of owning my own vessel in a fantasy setting is hugely appealing.  I've wanted something like that ever since Vanguard announced it as a feature.  Allowing ship combat on a small scale with player vessel, as well as larger guild own ships, sounds fun.

Comments

[Winged Nazgul]

Haven't checked this game out much even though I do have a Beta key, but I understand their stat system isn't the normal "dump all into one stat" which might be contributing to the slowness of the combat you are experiencing.

http://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=3179

[Saylah]

Yes, stats are important but you only get 1 point per level to spend while having 4 primary stats that to at least to 100. I find this strange and expected something more like AOC where you get maybe 5 to spend and you put 1 here, 2 there, etc. Also the gear itemization is getting poorer the more I level. I was initially impressed that the stats on the quest reward gear was appropriate for my class AND most of the reward options when it was gear related were multiple choice. There's nothing like being rewarded with gear you can't wear. Why on earth do games do that??? Blizzard, I'm talking to you!

So while the stats are important, so far I've seen very little at my disposal to impact them enough in order to improve the combat. Every meager 1 point I get I'm putting into Perception to offset the 30% to 50% resists on my damage. This is part of what makes the combat take so long. They have the mobs resisting a good deal of your damage output.

[Tesh]

The casting "storage" was apparently rooted in PvP design considerations. Since ship-to-ship (with crew vs. crew boarding actions) PvP is a significant part of the endgame, and ships are somewhat constrained arenas with doors and walls, the devs wanted a way to avoid making casting times break line of sight on moving foes, thereby wasting a cast. Storing a spell to fire it off instantly later is a way to keep the casting time for balance reasons but allow for split second usage in tight quarters.

Of course, it does change other aspects of combat as well, like pulling and timing (especially during lag). It's there consciously, though, rather than a band-aid fix for tech incompetence.

So far I like the game, though I have many of the same quibbles. I really miss the minimap, autoattack and strong wiki.

I've settled on a Psionicist (Gibberling Seer) for my "main" during the beta, and I've enjoyed it so far. Kiting is indeed useful, but I've managed to find a rotation where I can kill equal level foes from a distance, often before they get to melee range. Lower level foes almost never reach me. Higher level foes get in close, but I have a couple of defensive panic buttons to use to last out the fight.

Then again, it's hard to take on foes that are more than a level ahead of me. The power differential between levels seems to be pretty significant. The level 40 cap might have something to do with that (a wide power band with fewer discrete steps means each step is bigger than a narrow band with many steps).

[Bhagpuss]

I'm thoroughly enjoying Allods.

I'm also not seeing ANY of the issues with combat you describe. I wonder if it's a connectivity/lag issue? I am mostly playign a Gibberling Animist, currently 16th. My main targetted spell is a lightning strike (excellent graphic). It casts instantly and strikes the mob in exact synchronization. Never seen the slightest delay.

I also played a Mage to 8th and his spells worked perfectly. Mrs Bhagpuss has played just about everything now and she reports no synchronization issues at all.

I have seen a very small amount of mob rubberbanding, but only infrequently. I see a lot more in other games.

As a pretty poorly equipped Animist I can kill mobs at or below my level with ease (my pet can solo most thngs even a level below me). I can kill mobs one level above me reliably, two levels above me sometimes. Beyond that it is impossible.

Stats make a HUGE difference, much more so than any other MMO I have played. It's not the single point per level you put into them that matters so much as the stats on gear.

I disagree about the quest text, which I love. I am entirely against anything that lets people skip text, all the more so if that makes this a game that puts off people who don't like to read.

Last day of CB2 today and I really hope CB3 starts soon.

[Saylah]

@Bhag - I can't imagine why this game would be lagging for me an no other game. I can run 5 WOW clients, two Aion clients and this one lags? Hmm.

I prefer games that allow people to choose what works best for them. Runes of Magic struck a wonderful balance in that regard. While some may enjoy the walls of text others don't. There's no need to force people to scan/speed read if they're not as interested as others are, in the back story.

[Keen]

Hi Saylah. I'd like to weigh in on the combat and your discussion about stats.

You're correct in stating that you only get 1 point per level. When you look at a piece of gear and see +5 to this and +6 to that you realize that your 1 point per level seems a little ineffective. However, you'll notice as you get higher level that you start lacking in a certain area.

As a Melee Warden I need to focus on Perception, Wisdom, Luck, and Intelligence. I've noticed that gear with enough Wisdom (my finesse stat) is lacking. I've decided to place all my points into Wisdom when I level to offset this deficit.

Combat should not be slow. It should not feel long and drawn out and you should not feel out of sync. As for feeling slow, you must be running into a problem with your stats or your spec. Allods is anything but forgiving. I think that's why respecs are offered for real money. You need to not mess up or your combat will feel slow. However, experimenting and playing enough, and a willingness to learn, will reveal that it is easier than it seems at first glance. Once you figure out how the stats work with the different types of playstyles then you won't feel like it's slow.

As for being unsynchronized, I'm not sure what to say. It's smooth and synchronized for me. The pacing of combat takes some getting used to with no auto attack. Until you get higher level and have more abilities (~15) you may be waiting for the refresh timer.

A mini-map is supposedly on the way. UI customization (and modding) is available for the Russians so we believe it will be for everyone else.

If you have any particular questions I can try to answer them. I've invested a lot of time becoming educated on the game and will be leveling to 30 (if that's the cap) in the next phase of beta.

[Freedon Gordman]

I read your "impressions", and all I have to say is...
I'm sorry you suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder. It's a terrible condition, really.

[Saylah]

Because I have a method for testing classes in games and keyboard layouts? Sorry, I don't find memorizing new keyboard layouts a form of entertainment. Every time you want to go to your favorite restaurant from your house, so you purposefully take a different route just 'cuz? Didn't think so. Moving is moving, jumping is jumping - there's no value add in having it mapped differently for each game. The sameness of menial tasks, things for which there is no value gained by it being different or confusing, is why standards are eventually established.