Talk:2023-12-19 Video - Ashes of Creation Alpha Two Ranger Update
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Необработанная стенограмма
- 00:00
Hello everyone and welcome to another day in Vera.
- 00:23
We have a very exciting stream for you today.
- 00:26
It has been some time since we have showed off a bit of the ranged combat and today we
- 00:32
are going to be talking about the Ranger archetype with some 17, 18, 19 skills.
- 00:38
I can't remember what we're going to be showcasing today in the base archetype, but it is a whole
- 00:42
lot of Ranger.
- 00:44
And I have joining us today three of our glorious developers, two of our senior designers, Tratt
- 00:50
and Brian.
- 00:51
Tratt, Brian, how you guys doing?
- 00:54
Doing good.
- 00:55
Glad to be here.
- 00:56
It's been a while since we did our last combat showcase.
- 00:58
I know.
- 00:59
Yeah, I'm doing great.
- 01:01
Happy to show off the Ranger.
- 01:02
Yeah, you've been putting in a lot of work on this, Brian.
- 01:06
Not just me, the whole team.
- 01:07
Absolutely, the whole team.
- 01:09
But Rangers are near and dear to your heart, right?
- 01:11
Aren't you a Ranger player?
- 01:12
Don't you play some Rangers?
- 01:13
Yes.
- 01:14
Yeah, it's definitely one of my favorite classes.
- 01:17
They're often not done justice in games, so getting the opportunity to do right by Ranger
- 01:22
mains makes me happy.
- 01:24
Yes.
- 01:25
And of course, the man behind the magic, the senior engineer and the owner for the PC core
- 01:32
team, Keenan.
- 01:33
How you doing, Keenan?
- 01:35
I'm alive.
- 01:37
Happy to be here though.
- 01:38
Yeah.
- 01:39
This is, by the way, this is a really cool environment.
- 01:43
I see Carven in the background.
- 01:45
We're here in winter.
- 01:46
It is definitely giving me the Christmas vibes.
- 01:51
And it is beautiful.
- 01:52
I mean, the environment team, holy smokes, what an amazing job.
- 01:57
I love the snow, everything.
- 02:00
It feels so cozy.
- 02:02
It does.
- 02:04
Now we have, let's see, I'm in your party.
- 02:08
We have established from some feedback from the community on the showcasing that little
- 02:16
one by one of each ability before we get into any combat situations with some mobs or NPCs
- 02:24
is desired.
- 02:25
It's a nice clean way for us to kind of showcase, obviously all the hard work that's gone into
- 02:30
the creation of this, excuse me, into the creation of this archetype.
- 02:34
I apologize for coughing guys.
- 02:35
I've recently, recently got sick and I'm still recovering a little bit, but I am doing much
- 02:43
better now.
- 02:44
So I think this is a great place where this is like some dried up riverbed or something.
- 02:48
It looks pretty cool.
- 02:49
Get some nice colors in here.
- 02:52
Now obviously as a disclaimer, before we begin, I do want to say that UI, VFX, 100% a work
- 03:00
in progress.
- 03:01
Oh my God, there's a bird up there.
- 03:03
I got him.
- 03:04
Thank you.
- 03:05
Good.
- 03:06
Scary little bird.
- 03:07
The UI is a work in progress.
- 03:09
The VFX are work in progress.
- 03:11
Everything here is subject to change through testing, obviously alpha two coming up is
- 03:15
going to be a big opportunity for us to test a lot of this stuff.
- 03:19
So please keep that in mind, especially you content creators out there who are going to
- 03:22
do some review videos, make sure you mention that at the start of your videos.
- 03:27
Keenan, how do you feel about being a targeting dummy for the showcase of these abilities?
- 03:34
I'll take it.
- 03:35
All right, let's do that.
- 03:36
And do you have a healer?
- 03:37
Tread?
- 03:38
Tread's got me.
- 03:39
All right, Tread's got you.
- 03:40
It's all on me here.
- 03:41
All right, there we go.
- 03:42
All right, so I am now no longer in your party so that I can murder you, but I have set my
- 03:49
cool downs to 0.1 I believe so that I can show each of these abilities off multiple
- 03:56
times as we're talking about it.
- 03:57
So please keep in mind guys, as you're out there watching this display, the cool downs
- 04:03
here are set to practically nothing.
- 04:07
Now we're going to do some combat afterwards.
- 04:08
I'll set cool downs back, but during this display they're set to nothing.
- 04:13
Let us showcase our first ability.
- 04:15
I see we have Snipe and we showed Snipe off last year when we did our last ranged basic
- 04:22
weapon combo update and people got to see a little preview of it last month as well
- 04:29
during our artisanship review.
- 04:30
But talk to me about some of the changes that Snipe has gone through and what this ability
- 04:34
serves as a purpose.
- 04:36
Brian.
- 04:37
Yeah, so with Snipe we've been leaning into it being an alpha strike ability.
- 04:41
So it's what you want to open with to deal massive damage.
- 04:45
And since it's got that charge up time, you know, it's not as good to do when you're needing
- 04:51
to kite something, but whenever you're just opening on something that's an unsuspecting
- 04:55
target, it's the perfect ability for it.
- 04:58
And if you have spec choices, there's other things that lean into it.
- 05:01
For instance, you've got that proc on you right now that's giving you 20% bonus attack
- 05:05
speed on a successful Snipe.
- 05:07
Oh, very cool.
- 05:08
Okay, let me take a look at that.
- 05:09
Fire it again.
- 05:10
Fire it again.
- 05:11
You'll see.
- 05:12
Okay, let me see.
- 05:13
Yeah, Tread helped with this.
- 05:16
He added this into the skill tree.
- 05:18
Yeah, just propped on you there.
- 05:20
So there it is.
- 05:21
Yeah, so your follow up shots will come out even quicker.
- 05:25
Cool.
- 05:27
So that proc is happening because I've spec'd into a passive and let's take a look.
- 05:31
This is the first time that people have actually seen the progression tree for a particular
- 05:36
archetype in quite a while, actually, probably since our Alpha 1.
- 05:41
But there has been a lot of work that's gone into this from you guys, of course.
- 05:45
Talk to me a little bit about the different types of abilities we're seeing here.
- 05:50
Tread, do you want to take this one?
- 05:51
Because you put a lot of work into this.
- 05:53
Sure.
- 05:54
I mean, we're going to go through all these as we go through and show them off one by
- 05:59
one.
- 06:00
But what we're seeing at a high level here is just what you'd pretty much expect of a
- 06:04
traditional skill tree.
- 06:05
We're doing something a little more advanced than just like a bottom up structure because
- 06:11
we're being a little bit more freeform in this iteration.
- 06:13
This will obviously see more UI iterations in the future.
- 06:16
But you'll see like a mix of active and passive abilities here.
- 06:20
Actives are indicated by their square shape while the circular ones are representing passives.
- 06:26
And one thing to note as well is that these passives are aiming to be a little more interesting
- 06:33
than just like, you know, this ability does more damage now or this, you know, it has
- 06:38
a lower cooldown.
- 06:39
Like, we do have some of those, too.
- 06:41
But the goal with a lot of these passives in addition to that is to allow people to
- 06:46
lean into unique play style.
- 06:48
So you'll notice that some of them are changing your gameplay in meaningful ways.
- 06:52
And that's the direction we want to take player and character customization as a whole.
- 06:58
Very cool.
- 06:59
Yeah, I love it.
- 07:00
Obviously, you know, this is all subject to intense feedback from the testers who will
- 07:04
be participating as part of Alpha 2.
- 07:07
All of this stuff is subject to change, as I said.
- 07:09
But it gives you guys a very good idea direction wise.
- 07:11
And your feedback is, of course, why we do these development updates.
- 07:14
So please make sure that you give us your thoughts back on this type of progression
- 07:18
tree.
- 07:19
Now, moving on to the archetype progression tree, we also have something that interacts
- 07:24
with each of the archetypes.
- 07:26
And that is a weapon progression tree as well.
- 07:29
Now, obviously, the format of this particular weapon skill tree that you're seeing here
- 07:32
is a relatively simplistic one.
- 07:35
But talk to me a little bit about the intent and purpose behind the weapon skill tree.
- 07:41
Yeah, so the intent here is to give you choices.
- 07:45
Either I want to extend and improve my combo, or I want just passive benefits that increase
- 07:51
my attack speed or crit chance in this case with the short bow.
- 07:54
And yeah, as you can see, the tree is a lot more simple, kind of like a stage one tree
- 08:00
work in progress.
- 08:02
But it'll get fancier over time.
- 08:04
And I see on the far right hand side, Brian, that there are additional combo steps.
- 08:09
So let me actually unspec these additional combo steps so that we can talk first about
- 08:17
the basic weapon combo.
- 08:21
And I'm just going to demonstrate that here.
- 08:22
I'm going to use the short bow.
- 08:23
Now, this is a short bow we are using.
- 08:25
You guys remember from last year when we showcased ranged weapons that we had, obviously, a number
- 08:30
of them, some of them arcane, some of them physical, but the two bow types that we have
- 08:33
are long bow and short bow.
- 08:35
I'm using the short bow, as you can see.
- 08:37
It is a copper short bow.
- 08:41
And let's see what this looks like without the combo upgrade.
- 08:47
That's four hits.
- 08:50
Very cool.
- 08:51
So it's relatively rapid pace, especially compared to that of the long bow that you
- 08:55
guys got to see a little while ago.
- 08:58
Let us talk about speccing now into these additional combo steps.
- 09:02
And what does that do?
- 09:04
Oh, you don't know?
- 09:07
Yes.
- 09:08
So we've done a lot of experimentation over the past couple months to find out what's
- 09:14
the shortest and what's the longest combo that's acceptable.
- 09:18
Because we had this goal where we wanted to have combo length progression available to
- 09:23
players so that certain builds could have longer weapon combos and other builds can
- 09:28
have shorter weapon combos with more passive effects.
- 09:33
And this has been the result of our exploration.
- 09:35
So when you start out, you've got a pretty quick four hit combo.
- 09:39
But whenever you unlock the additional hits, you get the fifth and sixth hits, which add
- 09:44
approximately 50% to the overall combo length.
- 09:47
But we found that that gave a pretty satisfying floor and ceiling to how long the combo can
- 09:54
be.
- 09:55
It definitely, I can feel absolutely the change, obviously in the pace between not having specced
- 10:02
into the combo and getting those additional fifth and sixth steps.
- 10:08
So in addition to the later hits in the combo doing additional damage, you also unlock proc
- 10:13
effects.
- 10:14
So on your fifth hit, you unlock the special fifth hit, which gives you 10% bonus critical
- 10:20
strike chance, which you just proc there.
- 10:23
And the sixth hit, you unlock the special six hit, which gives you arrow storm, which
- 10:27
causes your next, I believe, 10 attacks to fire an additional arrow at the target.
- 10:34
So that combos really well with rapid fire abilities, such as the next ability we're
- 10:38
going to be looking at.
- 10:39
All right, let's take a look at barrage.
- 10:42
So barrage is as far as a continual barrage of arrows at your target for one and a half
- 10:47
seconds dealing 12% physical damage per arrow.
- 10:49
Okay, let's take a look at this.
- 10:52
It may not seem like a lot per arrow, but it fires a lot of arrows.
- 10:56
Now that's a charge, is this a charged ability?
- 10:58
Do I have multiple charges of this?
- 11:01
Right now you only have one charge.
- 11:04
And we did some iterations with this and a lot of play testing.
- 11:09
And yeah, we changed this back to only having one charge and you can reduce the cooldown
- 11:13
of this by completing a weapon combo.
- 11:15
Okay, all right, let me see this.
- 11:18
So if I complete a weapon combo, it would reduce the cooldown.
- 11:21
Right now I'm set to zero cooldown, so we can show that off a little bit later.
- 11:26
Talk to me a little bit about headshot.
- 11:29
Yeah, headshot, it starts off, so there's ways that you can specialize this that turn
- 11:36
it into the execute that it was born as originally.
- 11:42
It does pretty high damage, but if you spec it appropriately, it does bonus damage when
- 11:46
the target's below 50% health.
- 11:49
And if the target is marked, it has 50% reduced cooldown, I believe with the spec that you
- 11:55
have.
- 11:56
Oh, cool, okay.
- 11:58
So if I have a mark on the target, then I get a 50% cooldown.
- 12:02
Yeah, you get 50% reduced cooldown on headshot.
- 12:05
Nice.
- 12:06
Now, we haven't talked about marks before.
- 12:09
You want to talk to me a little bit about the intent behind marks?
- 12:14
Yep, the intent behind marks is to provide a burst window on the target.
- 12:23
Often in other games, it's just bonus damage.
- 12:25
This is much more significant on the impact that this will have on the target.
- 12:30
It's basically marking the target for death has a pretty huge effect.
- 12:34
For instance, Mark of the Tiger, it grants 50% bonus critical chance to all attacks striking
- 12:39
the target.
- 12:40
Mark of the Bear is minus 25% armor, and Mark of the Raven is a bonus hit that occurs every
- 12:47
time the target is struck, and it scales up in damage based on how low on health the target
- 12:52
is.
- 12:53
Okay, so let me try Mark of the Bear.
- 12:56
This reduces their mitigation by 25%.
- 12:58
So when I use an ability first, like headshot, I just did 76 damage.
- 13:04
If I were to start headshot and then I can use the Mark of the Bear while I'm channeling
- 13:10
the or casting the headshot, it will apply to the target while I'm essentially using
- 13:18
headshot.
- 13:19
Is that correct?
- 13:20
Yeah, correct.
- 13:21
So, I mean, and then the engineers made us some awesome off, you might know it in other
- 13:25
games as off global cooldown tech.
- 13:27
We call it simultaneous casting.
- 13:29
And yeah, that allows you to cast your marks at the same time as other abilities, allowing
- 13:34
for very efficient use of time.
- 13:37
Awesome.
- 13:38
Okay, so now it's gone from 76 again.
- 13:42
Wow, that's a significant bump.
- 13:44
Yeah, Mark of the Bear is really good against tanky targets.
- 13:47
Yeah, that's awesome.
- 13:49
Mark of the Raven.
- 13:50
Look at this.
- 13:52
I love the effects.
- 13:53
Scott has done such a great job with these.
- 13:57
Yeah, I love that he decided to join the VFX team and come over and help us with combat.
- 14:03
He's doing a great job so far.
- 14:05
Absolutely.
- 14:06
Let's see.
- 14:07
Oh, they look great.
- 14:09
Very cool.
- 14:10
That's awesome.
- 14:11
Now, in addition to marks, talk to me, Tratt, a little bit about hunts.
- 14:17
What are the hunts intended to do?
- 14:19
For sure.
- 14:21
So unlike marks, which are debuffs on the target, hunts are different buffs you can
- 14:26
put on yourself.
- 14:27
They're both themed pretty similarly.
- 14:29
At first, we had started with linking these two concepts directly, like you would put
- 14:34
the hunt on yourself and then shoot that hunt out as a mark and infuse the target with that.
- 14:40
But we ended up kind of separating them just to make them a little bit more independently
- 14:44
and freely usable.
- 14:46
But the theming you can see is the same.
- 14:48
We've chosen the tiger, bear and raven animals, but they're, you know, stay tuned for more.
- 14:56
And yeah, like you guys are talking about the visuals for these are really cool.
- 15:01
But yeah, these are basically like different buffs that you will put on yourself.
- 15:07
And they do tend to have some synergy with their respective thematic creatures.
- 15:13
So I used mark of the raven this time.
- 15:15
I was doing 96 damage, but that's because I had hunt of the raven, which is giving me
- 15:19
additional physical penetration.
- 15:22
Let me use mark of the bear on the target while having that hunt active.
- 15:28
And now instead of doing 117, I'm doing 179.
- 15:32
Wow.
- 15:33
That's significant.
- 15:34
Oh, I'm doing 117 again, but that's because...
- 15:37
Let me see.
- 15:38
Let me try this.
- 15:39
Hold on.
- 15:40
Mark of the tiger.
- 15:41
So now that's a crazy critical chance.
- 15:42
Mark of the bear.
- 15:43
Let's try that.
- 15:46
Okay.
- 15:47
Hmm.
- 15:48
Maybe Kenan doesn't have enough armor for the extra to help.
- 15:55
Oh, poor Kenan.
- 15:56
Not enough armor.
- 15:58
Gray armor.
- 15:59
He's in kind of some newbie gear down there.
- 16:02
Oh no.
- 16:03
Okay.
- 16:04
All right.
- 16:05
But then the thing about the armor pen is that will scale more and more effectively
- 16:08
the more armored your target is.
- 16:11
So you can think of it as like a counter stat for people who build that up.
- 16:15
That looks awesome.
- 16:16
All right.
- 16:17
So now we also have scattershot and this is one of our first AoE abilities.
- 16:21
Talk to me a little bit about scattershot.
- 16:24
Yes.
- 16:25
Like you said, it's an AoE ability.
- 16:26
It fires out in a cone in front of you about 20 meters ahead.
- 16:32
We've got some pretty cool tech with this.
- 16:35
The first is where we're drawing a targeting decal that only the caster can see to help
- 16:41
like align the cast as you're firing it.
- 16:44
The second cool thing that we're doing here is you can actually charge the ability into
- 16:49
a beam, which is better for a lower amount of targets.
- 16:53
So if you just want to hit a wide field of targets, you would just quick cast it.
- 16:57
But if you were interested in AoEing a specific smaller pack, it'd be more efficient for you
- 17:02
to do the charge cast.
- 17:08
Very cool.
- 17:09
I have to hold the charge to completion to get the additional damage value essentially.
- 17:15
Yes.
- 17:16
Very cool.
- 17:17
Now this is obviously a big point of feedback that I think people can provide.
- 17:24
Obviously there's a lot of interesting thoughts around subjective, of course, around UI and
- 17:32
decal elements that help to communicate kind of these AoEs.
- 17:36
As Brian said, this is obviously going to be a decal that is only shown to the caster,
- 17:41
not shown across to multiple players.
- 17:46
But what is the desire of our community when it comes to showcasing and demonstrating kind
- 17:52
of the area of effect for certain types of spells?
- 17:54
Do you want something, obviously this is done very elegantly.
- 17:58
I think Scott did this one as well.
- 18:00
I think it looks great.
- 18:02
But this is something that is a point of feedback that we want to collect from players as you
- 18:06
guys get to kind of play through Alpha 2.
- 18:08
And as you're seeing these updates, what do you enjoy most about conveying these area
- 18:13
of effects?
- 18:14
And this isn't the only area of effects we have.
- 18:16
We also have Airstrike and we've seen Airstrike in the past as well.
- 18:20
But this one's received a little bit of TLC.
- 18:24
Talk to me a little bit about that.
- 18:25
Yeah.
- 18:26
And just real quick, the reason why you hear my voice a lot is I'm the owner of the ragers.
- 18:31
So yeah, I'm in charge of this class.
- 18:35
So that's why you hear my voice a lot.
- 18:39
Anyways, Airstrike.
- 18:40
We gave this an update.
- 18:43
We replaced the particle effects because they were way too laggy.
- 18:47
So yeah, Scott again did a pass on these.
- 18:50
They look amazing.
- 18:51
We also let you have air control with this so you can steer it while you're in the air.
- 18:57
And we fine tuned the animation.
- 18:59
I believe Alex put in some time to make sure that it's holding you only for the right amount.
- 19:05
It's not grabbing you and locking you in place weirdly on landing.
- 19:09
We really polished up how it feels whenever you use it.
- 19:12
So it's just really seamless and nice to use.
- 19:15
Oh, and the effect that it's providing if you actually hit a target with it, it does
- 19:20
pretty big damage and also roots the target.
- 19:22
So this is a really good skill whenever your tank pulls in a big pack of monsters, you
- 19:26
just Airstrike over top of it, lock it all down in place, and then you and your mages
- 19:30
blow up the pack.
- 19:32
I think it looks great.
- 19:34
The animation changes that Alex did look awesome.
- 19:36
The additional functionality that you guys incorporated as part of controlling the air
- 19:41
movement I think is something that people are going to love.
- 19:46
Obviously, Airstrike also is a significant mechanical benefit for the Ranger because
- 19:54
it's, in addition to damage, is also a CC effect.
- 20:00
Talk to me a little bit about the CC that Airstrike conveys and what's its intended
- 20:06
purpose like in combat.
- 20:07
I mean, there's mobility associated with it, there's damage associated with it, there's
- 20:10
CC.
- 20:11
It's kind of a, has a broad spectrum of effect conveyed.
- 20:14
Yeah, it's a pretty powerful ability and it has a long cooldown because it's providing
- 20:18
that wide spectrum of effect.
- 20:21
The Ranger is one of the most mobile classes.
- 20:24
It's second to the Rogue only.
- 20:26
This is part of how we're providing that mobility benefit.
- 20:29
Yeah, whenever you hit targets, they're rooted in place, they cannot move.
- 20:33
It's very effective as an escape tool but also a hard engage tool that kind of puts
- 20:39
you at risk but if you got a tank and a cleric at your back, maybe that's the right calculus
- 20:43
for your play.
- 20:44
Absolutely.
- 20:45
All right, cool.
- 20:46
Let us try Thundering Shot.
- 20:47
Talk to me a little bit about Thundering Shot.
- 20:48
Yeah, this is definitely a favorite ability on the team by a lot of people.
- 21:00
It shoots a lightning arrow at the target and if you're far enough away, I believe the
- 21:04
conversion range is 10 meters, it does an additional AoE explosion around the target.
- 21:09
Okay, so that did 96.
- 21:12
Let's see if I'm closer.
- 21:15
Okay, so it does a variable amount of damage and also changes it to be around the target.
- 21:24
Yeah, so you get more damage.
- 21:27
We wanted to have some abilities in the kit, at least with the showcase that we're showing
- 21:32
right now where it's range focused, where there is some advantage for staying at range
- 21:38
and also there's some advantage for closing on a Ranger.
- 21:41
Yeah, absolutely.
- 21:42
Very cool.
- 21:43
Next up, we have another lightning ability, but this one's called Lightning Reload.
- 21:47
Talk to me a little bit about Lightning Reload, Trap.
- 21:51
Sure.
- 21:52
This one's more of a self-buff effect when you put it on yourself.
- 21:57
It will allow you to use one of a few abilities without spending its cooldown.
- 22:04
So I believe a couple of them are like Snipe, Headshot, Thundering Shot, ones we've already
- 22:08
been through.
- 22:10
If you pop that first, you get about a five second window and if you use one of those
- 22:14
abilities within that window, it will not trigger the CD, meaning you could use it twice
- 22:18
back to back.
- 22:20
You can also even use something that's already on cooldown by popping that first, so it's
- 22:23
not like you have to already have it available.
- 22:26
So you can use it in a lot of pinches.
- 22:28
So this is another concurrent channel effect that I can use.
- 22:30
Brian, what are some of the cool combos with this?
- 22:34
Yeah, one of my favorite ones is the Triple Headshot combo.
- 22:39
So if a target is marked, Headshot on them has 50% reduced cooldown if you're spec'd
- 22:45
for it.
- 22:46
So what you can do is you can Headshot and as you're charging up that first Headshot,
- 22:52
throw a mark and then whenever the Headshot hits, you Lightning Reload and then you get
- 22:57
two more Headshots right after that.
- 22:58
And it makes a really nasty combo for finishing off a target that's already below 50% health
- 23:04
because you're getting that bonus damage on Headshot too at that point, which makes its
- 23:08
efficiency per second higher than Snipe.
- 23:11
Okay so with Mark of the Raven, which one gives the mark benefit we were talking about
- 23:21
for Headshot?
- 23:22
Oh, any of the marks will do it.
- 23:26
Any of the marks will provide a 50% reduced cooldown on Headshot.
- 23:29
All right, and I currently have Hunt physical penetration, but we've already determined
- 23:37
that you don't have enough physical mitigation.
- 23:42
So let us do Hunt of the Tiger and let us apply Mark of the Bear on you while we're
- 23:54
casting three.
- 23:55
So it's going to be three shift four and then you said Lightning Reload and three twice
- 24:01
more?
- 24:02
Yes.
- 24:03
Should I start with Snipe first?
- 24:05
Yeah, you can do that.
- 24:07
Okay so Snipe to three while doing Mark of the Bear.
- 24:12
All right, let's try that.
- 24:14
I'm going to need some heals, Dread.
- 24:20
Really?
- 24:22
Oh, but you know what?
- 24:28
I did that with the cooldown set to nothing.
- 24:30
Oh no, hold on.
- 24:33
Let me set that back to one.
- 24:35
Okay so this is the normal cooldown frequency.
- 24:38
Okay.
- 24:39
Not representative of real gameplay.
- 24:40
Correct, yes, yes, yes.
- 24:41
All right, let's try that again.
- 24:42
I'm going to do the Mark of the Bear.
- 24:43
All right, here we go.
- 24:44
Ooh, okay, very cool.
- 24:45
That was awesome.
- 24:46
Yeah, it feels pretty crisp, but yeah, if Keenan was below half health there, he would
- 25:04
have taken, I mean he might have died.
- 25:06
Oh my God, Keenan.
- 25:08
Not with me as his healer.
- 25:09
I know, you're too good.
- 25:11
All right, let me set cooldowns back.
- 25:14
Let me max my mana.
- 25:18
Okay we've showed off Lightning Reload.
- 25:22
Next up I have Bear Trap.
- 25:23
Talk to me a little bit about Bear Trap.
- 25:26
Yes, Bear Trap.
- 25:28
So we went through a couple iterations on this.
- 25:30
We wanted a very solid trap ability.
- 25:32
It's right in the name.
- 25:33
But often in games they're either too small, they activate too short, or they don't last
- 25:38
long enough.
- 25:39
There's lots of ways for a trap to suck.
- 25:41
And we think we got Bear Trap in a decent spot where it's pretty usable.
- 25:46
You can pre-place them on the ground.
- 25:47
They last for, I believe, 30 seconds after you place them.
- 25:51
So it's a very strategic ability, allowing for zone control.
- 25:56
You can place these in between you and a hostile target and kite them into it.
- 26:01
You can make a little trap wall in front of you so that if people are closing on you,
- 26:07
or rather you're setting up a gank and you want to set that up beforehand so whenever
- 26:11
there's a counterattack you're already prepared for it.
- 26:14
It definitely benefits that strategically minded player.
- 26:17
Very nice.
- 26:18
That feels great.
- 26:19
Can I hit my own Bear Trap?
- 26:20
No, I'm just kidding.
- 26:21
No, thankfully.
- 26:22
I hope not.
- 26:23
But if I did, I'd have Call of the Wild.
- 26:26
Yes.
- 26:27
Yeah, maybe we should just show that one.
- 26:30
Maybe, what is Call of the Wild do?
- 26:34
It is a CC break and a movement buff.
- 26:38
So if you get hit with a nasty stun or something, you can just break out of it and run away.
- 26:43
Ooh, that was cool.
- 26:47
I love the effects.
- 26:48
That looked awesome.
- 26:49
Wait, let's try that one more time.
- 26:53
So I'm running along.
- 26:54
Give me a stun.
- 26:55
I got to wait for this to cool down.
- 26:57
Try with the trap or something.
- 27:00
Yeah, but the ranger is a fairly fragile class overall so if they get a stun on them and
- 27:07
it doesn't get cleansed, then they'd be very nasty.
- 27:12
Ooh, that was good.
- 27:16
That's great.
- 27:18
Yeah, all of our archetypes will have their own versions of CC breaks just because that
- 27:25
is one of the things where players want answers to those kinds of situations.
- 27:31
That'll be part of your spec choice, right?
- 27:33
How much do you want to build into your ability to resist and break CC versus just be like
- 27:39
a raw glass cannon and accepting those risks.
- 27:44
That all factors into the decision making when it comes to specs.
- 27:48
One of the pillars that we're trying to build combat on top of is giving players the true
- 27:53
feeling of agency, like they're really in control of their character and what happens
- 27:57
to their character rather than just watching stuff happen to their character that they
- 28:00
have no impact on.
- 28:02
Oh, it feels so good.
- 28:06
Kenan, come over here.
- 28:09
Let me try this next ability, Reigning Death.
- 28:13
I love the name of that by the way.
- 28:18
Sounds like a perfect band name for a heavy metal group.
- 28:25
Yeah, like a Slayer song.
- 28:28
I know.
- 28:29
All right, very cool.
- 28:32
So Reigning Death is also using a caster side targeting decal.
- 28:36
So again, only the caster is seeing that targeting decal.
- 28:40
That allows them to line it up a little bit better and make sure they're hitting the targets
- 28:43
that they want to hit.
- 28:44
And another thing to note is we are making the spread of projectiles a little more even
- 28:50
and dense.
- 28:51
So as you notice, there's some spots in the decal that don't look like they're getting
- 28:56
hit.
- 28:57
They are actually getting hit because of this homing arrow tech.
- 29:01
There's actually a hit box that's being drawn there and every target within that hit box
- 29:05
is getting a homing arrow fired at it.
- 29:07
Actually two homing arrows fired at it.
- 29:09
So it is hitting stuff even though it might not look like it right now.
- 29:14
We're going to improve that a little bit more.
- 29:19
And Scattershot has a little bit of the same thing going on where the spread's not really
- 29:22
perfect.
- 29:23
But yeah, that's currently in progress with our VFX artist to make a little bit better.
- 29:27
It's a good representation of where we've been trying to find a balance between making
- 29:34
these abilities feel organic and not super like templated to use, but at the same time
- 29:40
at the end of the day, like gameplay is the name of the game and we want these things
- 29:45
to be reliable and consistent both from the users and oh, well, look at that.
- 29:53
You're taking advantage of the fact that I'm talking.
- 29:58
He just turned into Ash.
- 30:02
It's okay.
- 30:04
I raised him.
- 30:05
So that was so good.
- 30:06
That was so good.
- 30:07
That was a little ash loot pile.
- 30:08
I forgot what I was saying.
- 30:09
I forgot what I was saying too.
- 30:10
That was a great effect.
- 30:11
I think SIVA worked on that.
- 30:12
Excuse me.
- 30:13
I think SIVA worked on that as well as the snipe reauthor as well.
- 30:25
But yeah.
- 30:26
Yeah.
- 30:27
Go ahead.
- 30:28
So this is an example where we iterate on these abilities multiple times and sometimes
- 30:33
it requires a complete rebuild.
- 30:34
This is I think the third complete rebuild of that ability because the previous versions
- 30:39
just weren't good enough for our players.
- 30:42
They were more direct fire projectile based, which is pretty cool because you see there's
- 30:48
a direct connection between the projectile and dealing damage.
- 30:51
But we found a solution where we can simulate the appearance of all the projectiles hitting
- 30:57
and then we can also have a homing volume underneath that.
- 31:01
So it's very reliable while also looking.
- 31:04
Out of mana.
- 31:05
Sorry, Keenan.
- 31:06
Oh no, Keenan.
- 31:07
Oh no.
- 31:08
Oh, he's corrupted.
- 31:09
Look at that.
- 31:10
Oh, did I turn corrupt?
- 31:11
Oh, I got to take advantage of it.
- 31:12
Oh no, no, no.
- 31:13
Wait a minute.
- 31:14
Wait a minute.
- 31:15
I have no cooldown.
- 31:16
You pissed off the cleric.
- 31:17
How did the cleric, how did I go corrupt?
- 31:22
By killing an innocent player.
- 31:25
Oh, we did it.
- 31:28
Okay, wait, don't kill me.
- 31:32
Don't kill me.
- 31:35
Let me get back to what I was doing.
- 31:41
All right.
- 31:42
Sorry.
- 31:43
So.
- 31:44
See, Steven's a good player, guys.
- 31:45
Yay.
- 31:46
How dare you?
- 31:47
Just because I show at a lower APM so everyone can see the fidelity of the effects and the
- 31:53
gameplay around the environment and the NPCs doesn't mean I don't have a little bit of
- 31:59
a, what is it called?
- 32:01
Juice?
- 32:02
What is it called?
- 32:03
The juice box?
- 32:04
I can't remember.
- 32:05
Yeah.
- 32:06
Yeah.
- 32:07
All right.
- 32:08
So we showed off a little bit of the bear claw, I mean, the bear trap, the call of
- 32:14
the wild.
- 32:15
We went through lightning reload and thundering shot.
- 32:17
We talked about the marks and the different hunts that exist.
- 32:22
We have disengage to show.
- 32:24
Yes.
- 32:25
Disengage.
- 32:27
Whenever you don't have, you only have the ability and you haven't unlocked any of the
- 32:32
passives involved with disengage, it'll shoot you right back whenever you press it.
- 32:37
So it's really good for creating space between you and some targets that are charging at
- 32:41
you.
- 32:42
You can just hit disengage and you'll flip back.
- 32:44
All right.
- 32:45
Let me try that now.
- 32:49
And yeah, like Steven's demonstrating.
- 32:51
You can also use it for traversal.
- 32:56
Something that we learned with disengage though is people have different preferences for how
- 33:00
they want this ability to activate.
- 33:03
There's some people who've played a lot of ranger who just like, you know what?
- 33:07
I don't want to have to spin my camera around to press disengage to be able to go forward.
- 33:13
I just want it to go forward when I press the button.
- 33:16
So we made this omnidirectional disengage option, which costs zero skill points.
- 33:22
Yeah.
- 33:23
But in the future, that'll be kind of an ability option that you can choose, right?
- 33:27
Not necessarily through a passive effect.
- 33:31
That's the intent.
- 33:32
Correct.
- 33:33
Yes, that is the intent.
- 33:34
We still need to do some work on how we're going to display that to the player to make
- 33:38
sure it's as apparent as a spec option.
- 33:41
That's very apparent that you have that choice.
- 33:44
It can often be lame in games whenever Hadamon Max is all in the options menu, but we're
- 33:49
going to make sure that that's nice and clean for our players and it's very apparent, the
- 33:52
options that they have available to them.
- 33:54
But yeah, whenever you have the omnidirectional option engaged, now whenever you're pressing
- 33:58
a movement key, disengage will send you in that direction instead of straight back.
- 34:04
Very cool.
- 34:05
Very cool.
- 34:06
All right.
- 34:07
And then last but not least, and then we'll go up to the environment and just kind of
- 34:11
play together a little bit.
- 34:13
Is the imbue ammo.
- 34:15
Talk to me about imbue ammo.
- 34:17
Yep.
- 34:18
So imbue ammo, whenever you cast it, it'll imbue your next, currently they're set up
- 34:23
to imbue your next 10 shots, and this will probably go through another iteration, but
- 34:26
currently it imbues your next 10 shots with a special effect.
- 34:30
So we've got weighted ammo, concussive ammo, and barbed ammo right now.
- 34:34
We're probably going to add more in the future.
- 34:36
These are ammo imbues, so you're imbuing your next 10 shots with this effect.
- 34:41
Weighted ammunition is a snaring effect, barbed is a bleed effect, and concussive is a stagger
- 34:48
effect.
- 34:49
Stagger reduces accuracy and evasion.
- 34:52
Nice.
- 34:53
Okay.
- 34:54
And it also increases trick duration.
- 34:55
Very cool.
- 34:56
So go ahead.
- 34:57
Keenan, try just kind of running down this path and let me do some weighted shots.
- 35:06
Another element of detail that I really like that you were down for going for, Steven,
- 35:12
was it actually changing the appearance of the ammunition whenever you're firing it.
- 35:17
Yes, absolutely.
- 35:18
So when you load up weighted shot, it will actually swap your arrows that you're firing
- 35:25
to look the part.
- 35:28
And it currently swaps over both basic attacks and barrage.
- 35:33
Nice.
- 35:35
Very cool.
- 35:36
Yeah, if you want to cast your ammo and then cast barrage, you can show that off.
- 35:41
Let's do it.
- 35:42
Let me do probably...
- 35:43
Let's do weighted as you're running again.
- 35:48
Let's do that.
- 35:53
That's so cool.
- 35:58
Very cool.
- 36:00
All right, let me set my cooldowns to something that's representative of real gameplay, although
- 36:06
I have far more abilities than I should at level seven, but that's okay.
- 36:09
And I will join your party now.
- 36:11
Oh, no.
- 36:13
If we can even invite you.
- 36:14
No, you can.
- 36:15
You can.
- 36:16
I'm only corrupted.
- 36:17
I mean, I'm not like a monster.
- 36:18
Come on.
- 36:19
It's true.
- 36:20
Now, you might, however, flag when you heal me, but that's okay.
- 36:24
We'll see.
- 36:25
What do we got over here?
- 36:28
Oh, I love that.
- 36:31
That's awesome.
- 36:32
My, my...
- 36:33
Oops.
- 36:34
Oh, wow.
- 36:43
The snipe followed the target.
- 36:46
That was crazy.
- 36:47
Oh, yeah.
- 36:48
There's a little bit of aim offset there in animation that we did.
- 36:54
Yeah, that looks great.
- 36:57
Quite a few of the bow abilities do it actually.
- 36:59
It's just a lot more obvious with snipe.
- 37:02
Yeah, headshot's another one.
- 37:05
As long as it's within a certain angle, it will try to maintain tracking of the target.
- 37:13
And yeah, the way that we pulled it off, it's not affecting your control rotation at all.
- 37:18
It's just an appearance thing.
- 37:22
Oh, it feels good.
- 37:27
Feels very good.
- 37:29
Yeah, it did not feel this good a while ago.
- 37:36
I really want to give credit to our playtesting process.
- 37:40
This was in a much rougher state a couple of months ago.
- 37:43
Absolutely.
- 37:44
But yeah, we get in the game, we play test it the same way that the players will be playtesting
- 37:50
it to make sure that it's going to be awesome.
- 37:52
Absolutely.
- 37:53
And one of the great things that your team has done is you've really defined your iterative
- 38:00
loop.
- 38:01
Right?
- 38:02
And obviously the most important aspect of that loop is going to be the playtesting aspect,
- 38:08
which you guys playtest, I mean, I think every day, right?
- 38:11
With NPC team and the world team in helping to define, obviously not just the player character
- 38:18
and the abilities you guys are authoring, but also the playable space and the playable
- 38:23
enemies that you're encountering as part of this whole thing.
- 38:28
Yeah, I mean, it's important to note, even when we're not in official playtest, like
- 38:32
when we're building these things, we make it a key point to be playing this stuff as
- 38:38
we're building it.
- 38:40
Like the designers aren't just making stuff on paper and handing it off.
- 38:43
Like we're in the tools, we're building these things and we're in a game environment.
- 38:47
And it's, I think part of the reason that these things come together so nicely is we
- 38:53
can like build them in real time and play them in real time as we do so.
- 38:57
Yeah, I mean, it is.
- 38:59
It'll help guys.
- 39:00
Oh wait, hold on.
- 39:01
I'm just taking in the view a little bit over here because it is a beautiful view.
- 39:08
It is definitely beautiful.
- 39:10
And I love all the verticality on our maps, but it has definitely forced us to make abilities
- 39:17
in a better way.
- 39:19
If we just had flat arenas like every other game, it would be way easier to make all this
- 39:23
stuff.
- 39:24
But that's why we were forced to make the cool homing hitbox tech that both Scattershot
- 39:29
and Raining Death are using because we're playtesting in the environment, we're figuring
- 39:33
out what works or what doesn't, and then we're adjusting and building new stuff to fit.
- 39:38
Oh, it feels so good.
- 39:45
Love the combat with this raider.
- 39:48
And obviously we have a big showcase next month with regards to PvP in a more raid format.
- 39:55
And you guys are going to be seeing some changes that are done to the mage effects as well,
- 40:01
yeah?
- 40:02
Scott's working on that now.
- 40:04
Oh my god.
- 40:05
Scott and Siva, I believe, are both working on the mage next.
- 40:09
So that'll be very exciting to see that get another pass because man, the mage can really
- 40:14
throw down the particle effects.
- 40:16
Absolutely.
- 40:17
Wow, that was a big pull actually.
- 40:22
Shredded.
- 40:24
I love this area.
- 40:31
The mixture of creatures here is kind of interesting.
- 40:35
Yeah, I actually like the raven has gone through a bunch of iterations, but I do like the
- 40:40
current iteration of it.
- 40:41
It could be a little bit more deadly, but I think it's fulfilling its role of like that
- 40:46
popcorn mob.
- 40:47
It's super annoying, but you can kill it really fast if you focus it down, then it won't give
- 40:51
you as many issues.
- 40:52
Oh man, you just one shot that thing.
- 40:56
One shot that raven.
- 40:57
By the way, Siva, isn't that shard over there more relevant?
- 41:03
Which one?
- 41:04
Oh, good call.
- 41:05
Yeah, we should talk a little bit about this zone.
- 41:08
So this is a small point of interest within the Riverlands area.
- 41:12
Obviously, we're in the Riverlands, it is winter.
- 41:16
And this particular location called the Gem Spring is a remnant, a shard remnant of one
- 41:24
of the Harbingers that broke off and actually has begun some interesting interaction with
- 41:33
essence within this area.
- 41:34
So those of you guys who are going to be participating in Alpha 2, this will be a location where
- 41:39
you're going to have some related quests.
- 41:41
And this gives you an idea about Gem Springs.
- 41:43
Oh, we're here.
- 41:45
Gem Spring.
- 41:46
What do you say?
- 41:48
Should we just do like a massive AoE?
- 41:51
Oh, gosh.
- 41:52
All right.
- 41:53
Do you want to pull them?
- 41:54
Yeah.
- 41:55
Get it all.
- 41:56
Get it all.
- 41:57
Keep them in chains, though.
- 41:58
I got an AoE down.
- 41:59
Pull them back in.
- 42:00
Get as many as you can.
- 42:01
Oh my god.
- 42:02
I'm going to die.
- 42:03
I'm going to die.
- 42:04
Oh my god.
- 42:05
Yeah, big chunk of spool.
- 42:10
I'm going to go all the way around.
- 42:19
Oh, here they come.
- 42:22
OK, OK, where are you at?
- 42:24
Where are you at?
- 42:25
They're right here.
- 42:26
I'll be leashed.
- 42:27
OK, we got some of them.
- 42:28
That wasn't bad.
- 42:34
That wasn't too bad.
- 42:40
Fortunately, these guys are just kind of slow.
- 42:43
What am I, Scyllian?
- 42:45
Let's take a look at their...
- 42:47
Not the ravens, though.
- 42:48
The ravens are quick.
- 42:49
Oh, they push you out of the way.
- 43:14
That was awesome.
- 43:25
We cleaned up this place.
- 43:26
That was very cool.
- 43:27
Yeah, and I really need to get some better gear.
- 43:29
My damage is terrible.
- 43:30
I wonder if there is something for us to discover up at the top.
- 43:35
Should we go check it out?
- 43:42
Yeah, let's go.
- 43:47
These poor spiders.
- 43:50
Wait, that's a named mob.
- 43:52
Oh, no.
- 43:53
Oh, no.
- 43:54
Is it really?
- 43:55
Yeah.
- 43:56
That's got like 2.5k health.
- 44:01
All right.
- 44:04
It's just a bigger spider.
- 44:05
It's like three times the normal spiders.
- 44:08
Let's see.
- 44:09
No.
- 44:21
It has a lot of hit points here.
- 44:23
It really does.
- 44:24
I need a tank.
- 44:25
I'm trying.
- 44:26
My damage is just so bad.
- 44:27
You don't need a tank.
- 44:28
Wait for it.
- 44:40
There he goes.
- 44:42
I think we leashed him.
- 44:44
Oh, no.
- 44:45
Kill him quick.
- 44:46
Kill him.
- 44:47
Kill him.
- 44:48
Snare him.
- 44:49
Oh, no.
- 44:50
Oh, no.
- 44:51
Oh, no.
- 44:52
Oh, no.
- 44:53
Oh, no.
- 44:54
Oh, no.
- 44:55
Oh, no.
- 44:56
Oh, no.
- 45:01
Oh, no.
- 45:02
Oh, no.
- 45:03
Oh, no.
- 45:04
That's a classic moment right there.
- 45:05
All right.
- 45:06
Let's take him down.
- 45:07
Let's take him down.
- 45:08
Come on now.
- 45:09
All right.
- 45:10
All deeps.
- 45:18
Come on now.
- 45:25
this one he doesn't hit that hard sir
- 45:36
got him we did it yeah we have done it we have done the thing look at this view
- 45:47
good god man it looks so good let me climb up here where are you going I'm
- 45:56
just getting a better view this is nice yeah this is the car fins in the
- 46:03
distance it's a familiar point of interest it looks beautiful
- 46:10
hold something over here where over yonder from the rock oh what is that
- 46:21
what is that it's a little sandal surprise left to us from our lovely
- 46:28
environment artists it probably belongs to that spider back there no we found
- 46:32
its nest it's sad the nest we killed it and have had a sandal nest in in
- 46:39
adoration to the to the sandal wisdom this looks amazing I love it Tristan and
- 46:48
the environment team must have been a an awesome job here some of these this I've
- 46:54
never seen the sandal tree before that's new that's different I wonder if the
- 46:57
wind speed affects it it does it really yeah that's so good that is so awesome
- 47:05
oh is there like a little jump puzzle can you get up there you can I don't
- 47:10
know if you can get on the big tree that looks awesome well guys thank you for
- 47:14
joining me and show and showcasing all the hard work that you and the and the
- 47:18
many members of the team have devoted to to obviously upgrading our basic weapon
- 47:25
attacks the ranged weapons the Ranger archetype you know the zone is beautiful
- 47:31
the monsters are cool everything is shaping up very nicely as a great
- 47:35
showcase for the end of the year and guys you're watching out there in the
- 47:38
community obviously we do these so that we can get your feedback oh no okay we
- 47:42
did it so we can get your feedback on things that you saw today what did you
- 47:48
think looked great what what things would you change this is look at that
- 47:53
beautiful creek down there my god what a great winter Wonderland so please make
- 47:59
sure to participate in our forums on the social media YouTube video everything
- 48:05
talk to us about what you enjoyed today and how you like the direction of the
- 48:09
archetypes in the class of the combat how everything is going I know it means
- 48:11
a lot to Brian trad keen and everybody else on the combat team for you guys to
- 48:16
give your feedback trat Brian Keenan thank you for joining me and showcasing
- 48:23
all your guys's hard work this was great thanks for having thank you
- 48:26
absolutely guys we'll see you back on stream to close out 2023 bye everybody
- 48:33
cheers