Talk:2023-12-19 Video - Ashes of Creation Alpha Two Ranger Update

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Transcription brute

• 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