Feedback for Version 0.1.10

[Temuldjin]

Here you go fellow testers, a topic just for you guys to post feedback in for this latest Patch.

With the gameplay direction regarding the Bloodlust change being change from a Melee Heavy gameplay where before you used to only use Exsanguinate when you made mistakes for healing to how the current build is now: " you have to spam Exsanguinate to gain Bloodlust " it have resulted in my play style changing from melee focus to more of avoidance melee combat, Mist Form spam, Quick Tap Telekinesis and Exsanguinate and then only with a high Bloodlust do I engage in melee to finish off enemies that survived the Quick Tap Telekinesis attacks and Exsanguinates.
The new playstyle seems safer but also more passive even though I now use more of my abilities it feels like I am doing less. It's weird, you end up going out of your way to not engage weaker enemies all the time because you want to keep " Topping off " the bloodlust meter, where before to gain the most from the gameplay and the bloodlust meter you needed to rush towards combat with the reward of being able to attack faster and stronger, where now you get rewarded for not going in to melee but spamming Exsanguinate instead, I'm not a huge fan of the change.

Maybe there can be a happy medium where we won't lose our bloodlust, or gain less from using Exsanguinate but then still can gain bloodlust from melee attacks?

Bloodlust:
- I've now noticed this several times after Maxing out the Bloodlust Meter and draining enemies over and over that sometimes even long after the enemies are dead I start to lose a few % of the Bloodlust meter only for it to jump to full again, then the Bloodlust Meter starts draining again, only to again jump back to full, and this " Bouncing " of the almost full Bloodlust Meter, it even happened at least a few times after the last enemy of the wave was dead.

- I enjoy that you do not lose your Bloodlust when going from the " Material Realm " to the " Magickal Realm " this change gives you more options to play around with the " Teleportation Step Attack " and a fully charged " Telekinesis attack " which results in more fun gameplay.

- When you combine " Teleportation Step Attack and a fully charged Telekinesis attack " and use it to teleport up to Legionnaires that are being throw up in the air and then if you start holding down left mouse button to begin the sword attack combo it will alter the falling speed of your character.

- I just experience a " weird " audio bug regarding the Bloodlust scripted words/lines/chanting you get access to with a higher bloodlust, 2 different Audio ques was playing at the same time ( both Thor lines, at the same time talking over one another and then a few seconds later 1 of the lines stopped and the chanting began while 1 of the lines continued with Thor talking over the chanting. )
- Edit: The problem continued to persist and now I just managed to get the chanting to happen at the same time out of sync ( I'm experiencing 2 separate chanting at the same time, it's a rather weird experience )
- Edit: I was able to easily recreate the audio bug after using fully charged Exsanguinates on the first Legionnaire in the arena 3 times in a row.

Exsanguinate:
- I wish there were a sort of indicator regarding which enemies you are about to drain after using a Quick Tap Exsanguinate or a Fully Charged Exsanguinate Attack ( I play without using the target button because as long as I face the enemies I'll drain them regardless of targeting them or not. ) So it seems faster, safer and not redundant to keep using " Targeting "

- While using Exsanguinate while your health isn't full ( the red orb ) you do not gain Bloodlust, So I'm just reporting/confirming that the design change is working as intended.

- After the last Legionnaire was dead I had my Bloodlust Meter go from 3/4 full all the way up to full ( in jumps ) and then have the Meter start being drained for it to fill up, drain to around 90-95%, fill back up to full, this happened 12 times ( yes 12 ) before the Bloodlust Started to just drain like normal.

- Using a Fully Charged Exsanguinate on Legionnaires often/sometimes will result in them being stuck and not able to move ( they will just be using the walk animation without moving )
Edit: using Quick Tap Telekinesis or a Fully Charged Telekinesis Attack on a Legionnaires that are stuck because of a Fully Charged Exsanguinate will not make them unstuck.

Mist Form:
- Manually Cancelling Mist Form before the duration ends with " Spacebar " no longer results in you being stuck like it did in patch 0.1.9

- Using Mist Form while " Strafing " blocks the movement from the keyboard " A, D and S " and only repels you forward unless you use mouse to change direction, you seem to have way more control of Mist Form if you do not strafe.

Telekinesis:
- I think it's a shame that all that currently happens when you use a fully charged Telekinesis Attack on Legionnaires is that you throw enemies up in the air, what I wish happened instead was you being able pull enemies towards you, grab them by the throat, drinking their blood, snapping their necks, or simple use them as human shields. That's more in line with what a think a Vampire would do, makes you seem and feel more like a predator...

- Just as in patch 0.1.7 - 0.1.8 and 0.1.9 it's still possible to get on top of shield units after a knock-down with a quick tap Telekinesis Attack.

- If you use a fully charged " Telekinesis Attack " on units walking on the floor when a unit is un top of them the unit un top will also be lifted up in the air when the attack happens, he just won't have an animation of him being throw up there, it looked more like an invisible hand was lifting him up and down while he was still trying to walk towards me mid air.

- Trying to use a fully charged " Telekinesis Attack " and using the " Bloodlust Teleportation Step Attack " and hit enemies mid air is still a very fun to try and do.

- A fully charged Telekinesis Attack Results in you doing a " T Pose " grabbed a screen shot of it.

- I used a " Quick Tap Telekinesis Attack " on a Legionnaire that had just spawned which resulted in him entering the arena with the " Staggered " condition, however while he was staggered he was also gliding across the floor with the same momentum he would have had as if he was walking, it first stopped when he was no longer staggered, at which point he had almost crossed the entire arena, he then turned around and walked towards me.

Zorins Maw:
- Zorins Maw cannot break objects like your sword can ( Like the wooden weapon racks or the pots )

Strafing:
- It feels like the speed of " A and D " was reduces and is much closer to the speed of " S " this has resulted in " Strafing " feeling less useful.

- When you toggle " Strafing " on with " Shift " and you then " press " A or D " it can result in your character starting to Auto Run forward as if you were holding down " W " and not to the Left or Right as was planned when you pressed " A or D "

- After easily herding the Legionnaires with " Strafing " I managed to get one of them to go on top of another Legionnaire shield unit.

- After herding all the Legionnaires together in a big group my frames dropped from a stable 60 to 48-51 FPS. The FPS stabilized after I killed them all.

- With " Strafing " toggled on and after using Targeting on a Legionnaire and toggling it off again my movement became " weird/wonky" and now when I'm using " S " the camera rotates around to look at my character from the front while he is walking/running backwards and sometimes the camera would spin around my character. What would normally happen would be the camera showing your back, not the front.
- Edit: I recreated it again without " Strafing " and when holding down " S " your character would just sprint towards the camera like normal. So this " bug " only happens when " Strafing " is toggled on.

Other:
- First time I opened up the Patch 0.1.10 the game crashed.

- If you open up the Demo while being alt-tapped and moves the mouse around you still get audio feedback when ever the mouse cursor hovers over any area the video's or the menu would be, even though you are alt tapped to the desktop. You can still heard the burning/kindling as well.

- The lag just after entering the arena seems to have decreased a lot, not fixed entirely, it's less bad now for sure compared to patch 0.1.9 the lag stabilises faster where before it could take 1 or 2 rounds and you would often lag when you engage in combat against the first few Legionnaires, now it's just a few seconds after you enter the arena.

- The Demo definitely takes more time to open now than before and it takes longer to load the Combat Demo Room. With that said, I'll rather that a longer load time and no lag than a faster load time with a laggy gameplay in the first wave.

- I had a Wave where after I killed the last enemy the Rune didn't change away from the red color indicating the round was over so I spent a good minute running around to look for the mysterious none existent Legionnaire I was missing, eventually I ran over the Red Rune and it activated lowering itself, only to then active and spawn the wave, it never changed to the blue color but stayed red the whole time.

- Just as in all the other versions of the Demo body parts sometimes still glide/float over the floor like they wore soaked in soap and the floor was covered in ice. ( I must admit I find it amusing and that it looks funny, however I don't think this is working as intended so I'll keeping reporting it )

- Just as in Patch 0.1.9 the camera takes a detour when the Bat Form Reveal event starts and when it ends. This both happens when it's from the Rune and when it's from " T "

- After Pressing " T " I started the " Bat Form Reveal Event " while a wave was still ongoing, the weird part was the timing of the Bat Form when it landed in the Arena, it landed right on top of a Legionnaire which then resulted in a collision bug and the legionnaire could no longer move out of the Bat form, the event continued as normal, the Bat Form did all the things it usually does, just while a Legionnaire was inside of it. I managed to take 2 screen shots of it.
- Edit: After the " Batform Reveal Event " was over the Legionnaire was still stuck at the same spot/running on the same spot where the collision happened, without being able to leave it. Even after a " Quick Tap Telekinesis " he was still stuck there.

- After alt tapping mid " Bat Form Reveal Event " and tapping back in after it was done, the sound of the Bat Form even played as if it was paused while I was alt tapped, so even though the event was over I could still hear the bat form scream and it flying away even though that had happened maybe 30-45 seconds earlier in the game and had already listened to it, so there is a sort of weird audio feedback loop/cache problem?
- Edit: I have had this Audio Problem happen at other times after I alt tap and didn't pause the game.

- I managed to get on top of a Legionnaire Shield Unit without having him knock downed first and with a low Bloodlust ( so it was without the usual trick of " Quick Tap Telekinesis Attack " + " Bloodlust Teleportation Step Attack " all I did was holding down " Left Mouse Button " and the attack combo did the rest.

- While targeting is activated on an Legionnaire if you press and hold " A or D " it results in your character running forward as if he was using " W "

- After playing for around 15 minutes ( x amount of rounds ) the Legionnaires starts to become very passive, I just killed the entire group of enemies without any of them tried to attack me even ones... They never fought back and just stood there doing nothing.

- They seemed to have a hard time locating my exact position and several times the Legionnaires was facing the wrong way/decided to turn their backs to me.
Edit: This keep happening wave after wave, eventually the Legionnaires in Patch 0.1.10 seem to lose the ability to pinpoint your location. If I were to guess it's might have something to do with the ( " Added shared information to enemy decision making " ) which was added for this patch, I've seen Legionnaires turning their back to me and looking in the wrong direction, I also took a Screen Shot of it.

- If you keep playing a few waves after this then the Legionnaires will start to back away slowly or simply run away from you, similar but not quite identical to how the very first build of the Demo was when the Legionnaires would run away from you when they had low health, now they don't need low health to do so.
- Edit: Right after starting a new wave and running up to the closest one he still refuse to hit me.
- Edit: I checked if going to the " Magickal Realm " and " Essential Realm " and then back to the " Physical Realm " would " Reset " the Legionnaires, it did not. After waiting for my health to run out and then going back to the " Material Realm " the Legionnaires still won't attack me.
- Edit: This have now happened 3 out of 3 attempts. Eventually the Legionnaires just stop attacking you.

- Legionnaires can still be pushed out of the Arena ( Out of Bounds ) at the same location. The trick is to hit them with a Quick Tap Telekinesis Attack before they managed to get inside the arena. ( I was looking at them for at least 10 seconds and in that time they did not move at all, so I concluded that they were " Stuck Out of Bounds " and changed focus to the rest of the Legionnaires that was still alive inside the arena.
- Edit: The 2 Legionnaires that was stuck out of bounds managed to get back up to the arena, I don't know if they walked back up here or if they were teleported. I was " busy " running around killing legionnaires and when I returned to look at the 2 enemies out of bounds they were suddenly at the edge of the Combat Arena.
- Edit: As long as you don't stand at the edge looking at them but move at least a few meters back the Legionnaires that have been pushed out of bounds will begin to walk back towards the arena, they will however stop at the edge, as if there is a invisible barrier or wall they cannot cross.

- I managed to get out of bounds with the original high Bloodlust " Teleportation Step Attack " and fully charged " Telekinesis " I supplied a screenshot of it.
- Edit: It's still easy to get behind the bar with the high Bloodlust " Teleportation Step Attack " and fully charged " Telekinesis " trick.
It was harder to get back in the Arena, if you use the trick against the last enemy you can end up killing him which results in you being stuck behind the bar area without any way to get back in to the arena, resulted in your only option being exiting the arena and entering again ( the only way to get back in the arena is to use the same trick high Bloodlust " Teleportation Step Attack " and fully charged " Telekinesis " on an enemy inside the arena so you have a target to teleport to who is in mid air to cross over the invisible wall encasing the arena.
- I also managed to get up on top of the balcony but while trying to find a good place for a Screenshot I fell through it down back to the Arena.

- While being out of bound I started exploring to see how far away I could run away from the Arena, big mistake, I fell through the floor and now I'm just falling.
- Edit: I'm just falling now... however I can keep swinging my sword, and use all of my abilities mid fall, so that is nice. ( I would expect this means that I could have used Bat Form and flew back up if that was available? )
- Edit: I waited for all my health and mana to drain to see if there were any skelly bois down there, there were not.

- While standing beside the Skelly at the section where the balcony is collapses " screenshot 16 " the Legionnaires cannot pinpoint my location and keeps attack the air which is several meters away from actual position. ( I do not remember this location having that problem in earlier Patches than Patch 0.1.10 )

- The biggest culprit for out of bounds shenanigans for patch 0.1.10 are the use of the trick: high Bloodlust " Teleportation Step Attack " and fully charged " Telekinesis " to get to the pillars under the balcony, and then from there simply running out of the arena. Screenshot is provided, number 17.

- While doing a fully charged " Exsanguinate Attack " in the " Magickal Realm " while having low mana and then when your run out of mana being auto pushed back to the " Material Realm " and then being hit by a Legionnaire before the attack goes off if can result in you not being able to go back in " Magickal Realm " even though you have more than enough mana to do so.

 

[Elveone]

I do not like the new bloodlust mechanic. Previously you would start swinging the sword slowly and build up speed and now you have to spend a bunch of time exsanquinating enemies in order to build it up then you go into battle at full speed and slowly lose speed as the combat goes by as if the vampire gets slowly tired until you again spend a bunch of time exsanquinating enemies. The current mechanic is more deserving of the name blood lethargy, hemophilia or anemia than bloodlust because the lack of constant transfusion makes you feel lethargic.

The ragdoll can bug quite severely on death but not sure if it is something that can be fixed. I would attach a video but apparently a 1.44mb zip is too large to upload and I do not want to put it on public sites.

Also at some point the AI in the demo just dies and would just follow the player without doing anything.

 

[Temuldjin]

Also at some point the AI in the demo just dies and would just follow the player without doing anything.

I experienced the exact same thing, If you keep playing a few more rounds after that the Legionnaires start to move away from you if you move towards them.

 

[Varik Keldun]

As Temuldjin stated, and maybe it is just because it is what we have gotten used to, but having to constantly spam exsanguinate to keep topping off the bloodlust makes it feel more like a chore than it is fun.

The bouncing of the bloodlust meter I have also noticed, going up and down without drawing blood a minute or two later after using exsanguinate.

Also as previously stated after a period of time the AI will just surround you, then sit and watch you without doing anything.


other things to note
upon starting a round (Using controller) and locking onto a target while moving towards them, if you try to change directions it will continue to move forward even if you try to back away.

attacking while locked on will still circle around them while not locked on you can attack straight on.

Though I have managed to get up top a couple of times I have not been able to go OOB or get stuck outside of the arena area, so that is a plus (will continue to try and break this of course )

 

[Sailor Midgard]

I also agree about combat feeling to slowed down by the Bloodlust mechanic now. Perhaps a medium ground where Exsanguinate doesnt completely drain Bloodlust if used in spurts. It seems that three targets can be affected by exsanguinate so have the Bloodlust fill up as it used to with attacking, then drained by 1/3 of the meter for every target hit by Exsanguinate. This would provide some balance and make us have to weigh how much blood we want vs how much Bloodlust we want. This also would allow us to control the flow of combat a little more ourselves rather than the full stop the old system had and less chore like that of the new system.

The camera gets lost for me as well when the batform event starts.

The enemies getting lost and losing interest in Zorin seem to be looking to where the batform event exited the stage for me. Don't know if coincidence or not.

Love the multiple versions of the Bloodlust chant

Managed to get my favorite glitch again

I got the T-pose as well but for me it was tapped Telekinesis that wasn't targeting anyone.

Enemies do not seem to notice me sometimes coming back from essential realm. They just stand there till I attack again


Anyone ever wonder who the easter bunny is in Malorum cause I may have found the answer.


Had to go take care of some stuff and left it paused, got a bit of a scare cause of that. Wonder what that sound was though?

At one point the audio became choppy and was just a series of laggy sounds, then it suddenly sped back up to normal. Will try to replicate

Was writing this and playing and when tabbed back into game movement was really jerky afterwards. Also causes the audio jumping for me but first time was not tabbed out.

The blood on the screen does distract some, maybe save that for a especially brutal kill like finishers or something later.

 

[Temuldjin]

other things to note
upon starting a round (Using controller) and locking onto a target while moving towards them, if you try to change directions it will continue to move forward even if you try to back away.

attacking while locked on will still circle around them while not locked on you can attack straight on.

Though I have managed to get up top a couple of times I have not been able to go OOB or get stuck outside of the arena area, so that is a plus (will continue to try and break this of course )

I had both " Target lock " problems on keyboard and mouse as well, and god speed Mr OOB

 

[Temuldjin]

The ragdoll can bug quite severely on death but not sure if it is something that can be fixed. I would attach a video but apparently a 1.44mb zip is too large to upload and I do not want to put it on public sites.

I've had 3 really weird rag dolls this patch where the bodies were stuck somewhat in the ground, made for some highly comical twitches and movement that lasted for minutes.

 

[Faceless Mike]

Funnily enough I found the bloodlust change opened up combat more.
Previously I would ignore the bloodlust mechanic as it would always be a case of having to stop my combat and need to reset the whole process when I needed to top up my health.

Now I find myself having a choice and rolling through enemies between damaging with telekinesis and draining blood to keep my bloodlust topped off and dashing between enemies killing them all and having a good rotation of using all abilities.
Don't know if it's a case of people just being used to the older system or if they don't like the new system cause it's not their play style.

For me anyway it gives the feeling of more power, but that's just my opinion anyways.

 

[Temuldjin]

Don't know if it's a case of people just being used to the older system or if they don't like the new system cause it's not their play style.

For me anyway it gives the feeling of more power, but that's just my opinion anyways.

Sure, I was more used to the old system, I've played that for 5 weeks now, where I've Played the new one for 1 day, but I can already tell by now that I prefer the old one over the new, and it's not because I'm nostalgic for what I was used to do, but because I personally enjoy melee combat more than ranged/spell damage. ( Melee focus, Quick Tap Telekinesis and Mist Form for defensive actions )

The old system was way more up my alley and fit my playstyle more, I personally find the new playstyle more restrictive, but sure I do admit ( and I did write it previously ) that with the new playstyle I find myself using more of my abilities ( No Zorin's Maw, not you, you still suck, go away, shoo! ) where before I was mainly using Quick Tap Telekinesis to knockdown my enemies and bloodlust to devastate my enemies.
Where now I run away from my enemies, quick tap Telekinesis all the time to give me more time to spam Exsanguinate, I noticed that now I deliberately run away from enemies even if they don't have armor because I want my Bloodlust Meter to be full so I can be as powerful as I used to be with the old system.
But it only last for a handful of seconds or up to 30 seconds before I have to stop attacking do to the need to fill up my Bloodlust Meter again.

I feel less powerful and feel like I have to jump through extra hoops to try and gain ½ of the power for a fraction of time of what I used have before. Before the Bloodlust Meter was filled do to combat actions, you got rewarded for taking the risk of always being in combat, like a double edged sword and you had to find the balance between Bloodlust and healing yourself, where now I'm spamming the " healing button " at max health and running away from enemies.

Edit: Maybe the way the old system worked could be a good way the Dance Macabre card could be specked if one desired a more melee heavy playstyle like I would and the current playstyle could more reflect how a person would experience the Vampire class right out of the gate the first time they try playing the Vampire. I would have no problem at all with the way the current playstyle is, if I knew I had the option to alter it to how I personally would enjoy it the most.

The current playstyle feels more like what I would expect the Banshee would have and not the Vampire.

With all of that said, this comes from a player that really enjoys " melee builds / classes " and I plan to be a Revenant main with Ghoul being the runner up, this also comes from a guy who played wow classic for hundreds of hours with a Warrior main who did rank 14 grind just for the gear, who raided all the raids and who never made an Alt character. ( I know what I like, and that is melee, and when the game is out of cause I am gonna make a Vampire, but I am gonna spec it as heavy in to melee as possible to fit my playstyle ) and if your plan is to try and balance the vampire to be closer to a " Jack of All Trades " my feedback might not be ideal.

 

[Elveone]

Funnily enough I found the bloodlust change opened up combat more.
Previously I would ignore the bloodlust mechanic as it would always be a case of having to stop my combat and need to reset the whole process when I needed to top up my health.

Now I find myself having a choice and rolling through enemies between damaging with telekinesis and draining blood to keep my bloodlust topped off and dashing between enemies killing them all and having a good rotation of using all abilities.
Don't know if it's a case of people just being used to the older system or if they don't like the new system cause it's not their play style.

For me anyway it gives the feeling of more power, but that's just my opinion anyways.

I find the bloodlust state in both systems to be unsustainable. In the old system it was unsustainable because it would reset on healing and the health drained way too quickly. In the new system it is unsustainable because it drains over time and it replenishes only on overheal which together with the health draining way too quickly causes a break in the combat in order to replenish both the health and the bloodlust meter one after the other. I like the original system more because it is a risk-vs-reward mechanic while the new system currently feels like a chore you have to maintain while limiting your playstyle but not requiring any additional skill.

The bigger question that has to be asked is what exactly is the bloodlust system supposed to be? Is it a risk-vs-reward system? Is it a skill-cap increase for increased effectiveness? Or is it something else? If you want to keep the current version of the system where overheal fills the bloodlust bar then I would suggest an alternative melee quick cast mode for exsanguinate that can only be triggered on enemies with low health and acts as a finisher and quickly replenishes comparable amount of health to the fully charged remote attack right now. The new quick ast mode can have one or multiple animations where the vampire decapitates or disembowels the enemy while draining his blood.

BTW the lifesteal on dance macabre does cause the bloodlust meter to replenish right now but it happens too rarely in order to sustain it. Also I do not think the lifeasteal on dance macabre triggers consistently right now even on enemies that have been stripped of armor.

 

[Temuldjin]

My original post was getting a little to long and I didn't want this specific small thing to be missed in the sea of post.

So I'll just post this here: If you managed to get Out Of Bound and get to this location your character will be stuck in place and unable to move, and I though this specific thing would be useful. Like why does your character get stuck here, can others replicate it, it seem useful for the developers to know that such a thing can happen, and then figure out why so they can make sure it doesn't happen in other places.