While we don’t know exactly in October Age of Heroes will launch, this is probably at the halfway point. I’ve had to take care of a lot of personal things the past 2 weeks so haven’t been able to really get into everything I’ve wanted to, hopefully there’s still time to do that. I’ll add on to this post with more thoughts as I go on.
Anyway, I think it is a good time to get it all out:
The good:
- Having seen the past few months that the animation for gathering with hands was gone, it’s back consistently.
- If you wait it out, the rubberbanding on relog goes away.
- The functionality of accessing building pieces enmeshed has been greatly improved, as long as you can see even a small piece it can be highlighted red and removed.
- I believe that a fix for the sort UI issues happened on Beta, I have not lost anything or had problems moving and equipping since it was reported in this Beta - I can’t say it is the same for others BUT I have had everything sorted to Heaviest First for a few weeks now.
The hmm:
- An interesting observation, I have a feeling you do not load placeables and benches while in the vicinity anymore, you have to be close and actually looking at them. If I leave my base and come back or log in on my bedroom floor and go down, once I’ve laid eyes then everything loads. Not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. Further to this, I’ve also noticed if I am rendering a base from afar, I cannot see the majority of what is inside before the shell loads - this was not the case before, I often could see the entire layout of benches and chests.
The bad:
- Rubberbanding on relog and spawn happens more frequently. While waiting out or pulling bracelet is an option, for certain modes you need that minute, every damn second can count!
- KO’d thralls falling through the world happens more frequently.
- Getting stuck in enemies is WORSE.
- Thralls auto placing themselves from a WOP is annoying.
- Issues with profession or specialization is super wonky, either Tiers 1-3 overtaking 4s, overlays of other thralls names in the icon area while hovering, or seeing the name of another thrall and their bonuses overtaking, first icon being auto selected on server restart, etc.,…
- The settlement system wonkiness, in addition to known issues of opening doors, teleportation, etc.,… but the entire system just halting and the workers being stock still or stuck on a specific task.
- Many benches missing stop and play buttons is something I am bitter about. Why change MORE of the UI?? To me, the stop and play buttons were very useful.
- Not liking the “view obstructed” while moving or making placeables in small areas, it prevents you from placing these things. While this has always been a bit challenging it is worse, like the area of “view” has been decreased? Have to crouch a lot to get something in a 1x1 height. I’ve noticed that in wide open areas this does occur as well. It’s annoying.
- You no longer need to know starmetal tools to learn Pride of the Silent Legion, Dragonbone, Warmaker or Arena and can craft all of them as soon as you have an Improved Armorer’s Bench, Improved Blacksmith Bench and Tinker’s Bench as long as you have all of the materials. You will need to wait until you can craft Perfected Paddings and Weapon Handles if you don’t have them, however. I am classifying this as bad because there’s nothing challenging about progression with this and only makes PVP/PVE-C players jumpstart without having leveled if they have a clan ready.
- If you KO a thrall normally you’d still see the KO bar - that has been removed. While the assumption is that most people might go directly to a WOP or a sorcery bench immediately, it’s not always the case. It might be that you have to run across the map (no transpo stones or maprooms), or maybe you didn’t make a WOP ready (my case). You are still able to keep that thrall KO’d indefinitely as long as you use a truncheon on them periodically but there’s no indication of how far the bar has regained consciousness anymore.
- Worker thralls when appearing to be “working” at a bench will effectively “turn on” lights as if the bench is on even if there are no items crafting. No way to turn off the light of say a large campfire, IF they work as intended
- You can kill other clan’s guarding thralls, at least in PVP, outside of raid hours if they are in DBNO stage. I have no idea if this was the case when DBNO was introduced. Not sure if this can be done on PVE or PVE-C.
- Cannot choose Cooks for Stoves or Preservation Barrel however, since most of the thrall special recipes are in the stove and barrel already I suppose this doesn’t matter
The pre-existing bugs:
I’m sorry but maybe I’m just not seeing what is truly the prioritization? I have filed 40 bug reports for this Beta and commented on 3 others that I’m experiencing the same. Of those 40, 33 are pre-existing bugs that I have experienced in some form or other. Some are worse.
Other things:
- I wish the functionality of being able to take all while previewing your own benches and chests would come back.
- I CANNOT overstate how much I DETEST fatalities and have since they were implemented. I do everything I can to possibly avoid them but I often get stuck in performing them. I almost die frequently in mobs because of this. They do no actual damage while performing them despite some of their wide sweeping animations, so any other attacking NPCs just wail on me. I truly wish there was a player setting to turn them the hell off or ability to disengage. They do not benefit me, I do not care how “cool” I look killing NPCs, I don’t want to be stuck in animation when so many other functions I perform I can disengage. It’s not fun AT ALL.
- Is it really necessary for every skeleton to be carrying the wall mount of X animal? What are they doing, hanging on to the decor of their past life?
- The ease of gaining paddings, handles, feasts, high tier potions and dragonpowder is just completely ridiculous.
- Something I should have questioned before. Since the addition of automatic re-equipping of something after climbing if the item was already equipped, why is it not the same for going in and out of water for a 2 handed weapon?