The Phase 3 test that I was a part of took place on 22/06/2023 and the purpose of this test was to check conditions which cause server instability (Crashes). For this particular test we were asked to create Dwarf and Greenskins only. Of Course i was on the dwarf side. The test for me lasted 3 hours as my time was limited although devs continued on for several more hours.
The test for the purpose it was designed, was a success. We were able to identify several crashing conditions which include skills, morales, tactics, social interactions and more. We not only simply identified them but also isolated the code to be fixed, which means the time to fix them will be a lot shorter. Along the way some more bugs were detected and bug reports were made.
I am sure that you all want to know more about gameplay and see some footage. For footage i have to say that there was some but nothing supper exciting as it was only a few of us there. Nevertheless I will be making a video in the next few days from this post to show a few things.
For this test I played an Engineer (Grenadier) and Runepriest (Healer). These classes were provided at level 40 with access to vendors for level 40 gear fitting those classes, including gear, weapons, jewellery, and talismans.
Testing is not a lot of fun as you don’t really get to play since you have to keep an eye on combat logs, constant crashes and more. However, I will report this experience to the best of my abilities.
Things we did not see during this test.
- Builds: We did not have access to builds or extra skills. The mastery trees were not accessible. I don’t know if they were restricted due to testing or not implemented yet. The classes were played with approximately 8 skills of the starter pack, since all other skills come with specialisations.
- GFX: Skills had no gfx assigned to them during the test. I do know that the gfx exists in the mythic database so it’s a matter of linking.
- Addons: My UI was fully loaded and it had no problems with 68 + addons. However some addons will not function in Interbellum and they will require players to rebuild them. Example: Buffhead does not pick up any of the new skills and skill IDs need to be entered by the players. I am not sure if anyone will make an Interbellum version.
- Balance: Damage modifiers were off for this testing, so I can’t report if ranged AOE vs melee damage is balanced or if the damage was good. (Perks of testing).
Things we saw during the test.
- Working mechanics: The mechanics of the Engineer and the Runepriest worked as intended.
- Gear affixes and stats: Gear looking good and the number felt ok on the gear. Weapons had no stats as stated in the pre-launch public releases.
- Fluent combat: There were no problems in kiting, staggering, punting, and CCing.How ever combat for ranged will be a new experience. Melee not much changed.
Gameplay & Combat
The mechanics were both easier than I thought and harder at the same time.
Engineer (Grenadier)
The engineer is relatively an easy class to play. Originally I thought that the bullet,grenade, and kit mechanism would make it much harder to play due to resource management. The mechanism works ok. You can get 10 of each before combat and then you just need to press the button every 20 secs to keep regenerating and you also get a skill to convert 2 kits to grandes so you should be ok even in long fights.
My main issue with the engineer was the AOE. All AOE is ground targeting therefore you have to press the skill button then lick location and during kitting can become a bit difficult. However the range of the skills is 20 feet which makes it a bit easier but it takes a bit of getting used to it. As you see in the photo below the circle is between me and the magus. The circle is not 20 feet wide. It serves as the starting point of the 200 feet radius. So you don’t have to be accurate just throw near the target. Personally, after 3 hours I was still not used to it. I was still trying to place the circle on top of my enemies.
Other than this the engineer felt good on the gameplay. I can’t speak about damage as the modifiers were off. So only base damage.
Runepriest (Healer)
The Runepirest felt very difficult. Please keep in mind that we were given level 40 toons with mechanics we never played before. The levelling process exists for this reason to play and learn your skills and mechanics.
The mechanic was working as intended. I found it hard to manage the shared cooldowns. Despite the fact that you can augment the skills so that they don’t get into a cooldown state, I still found the management to be more difficult than the engineer mechanic. The Runepriest has more skills to heal with and heal by dealing damage but without a full build on this class it felt hard to play.
Despite the short time I played Runepriest and the difficulties of the mechanic due to lack of experience with it, it still felt good that I just did not have to spam one button.
Overall the new class mechanics and builds felt good. I am still worried a bit about damage balance between ranged AOE and melee. The single target damage of ranged both Engineer and Runepriest matched the damage of the melee but with longer cast times. The AOE numbers without scaling felt weak, the same as in RoR due to the AOE nature. I was looking for a higher number due to the fact that they only hit 3 targets instead of 24 as in ROR. HOWEVER this is still a test and we need to wait for the final version with modifiers and full builds and skills to see the overall damage.
Final Thoughts:
The work the devs have done is good and the games feel fresh. There is a lot more to be done before we have a game for the public to join. I hope they manage to get some more stuff to move even faster. I keep an eye on discord and I have to say that they put a lot of hours into this. Let’s hope they can finish this so we can all play and start providing more feedback for a better, balanced, fun game.