The Resource Scanning & Mining Demo coming Tuesday, November 17th

[Thorp]

1) I was initially confused why I could not call a THMPR down then I realized I was not near a scanned resource node. While I understand there is no reason to call a THMPR down without scanning a resource node, I can't help but feel like the restriction is unnecessary.

2) Scan Visual Effect:
+The Yellow expanding circle is neat
+The sound of the scan's punch is good
+The ping sound when a resource node is discovered is nice though it does feel a little cartoony

-The scan radius is too large. Part of the fun of scanning in Firefall was the hunting. I feel like players should have to track down nodes using triangulation or other strategies like Hot/Cold, Guess/Check. When players caught the scent of a node there was anticipation and added thrill in wondering how big the epicenter could be and what the payout would be.

-The scan results are uninspiring. Em8er is pre-pre-alpha and has proof-of-concept visuals but I hope that the current scan visuals evolve to resemble a sort of topographical representation. Firefall's scan hammer produced a colorful and visual topographic representation of the resource nodes. Players were able to follow the visual graph to hunt down the epicenter of the resource node. The biggest problem I had with Firefall's scan hammer visual was the visual obstructed terrain and it lingered too long. [example vid] All in all I believe Em8er's scan needs more visual representation of what is nearby and add a bit more color...pizzazz.

~ Can the scan visual and results be multiplayer please? Firefall was a bit tedious in that players had to individually scan the area to see the scan results. Of course keeping the scan results singleplayer encourages player to player communication however there's little value/bonding from this type of communication. Continually players won't always want to see the scan visual so perhaps only show multiplayer scan visuals when the player is in "scan mode".

 

[Skube]

Just want to add something.
After watching Skubes' Resource Scanning YouTube video I realized that I REALLY love the soft background music playing.
The style of it fits the mood perfectly. Just wanted to point this out to the Devs as it really pulls you into the immersion of the game and maybe add something like this to the next Demo?

Grummz has mentioned that they are working on music with Firefall's Original composer Michael Bross!

 

[themisanthrope#7475]

I was playing yesterday and noticed a glitch that could be pretty significant.

When gliding, it is possible to scan. Your mech will actually make all of the motions as if he is driving the spike whilst he is moving through the air. Furthermore, this action results generates scan results successfully.

I found this when I tried to to see if the mech drop to the ground when the scan was initiated.

The next issue I found was in deploying the Thmper mech. I found it very difficult to find any place on the map that would allow for the deployment. Especially in hilly or elevated terrain. In other instances, I was on fairly level ground and the indication color was constantly red. When I clicked anyway, I was usually able to deploy the mech despite the negative indicator.

One thing I could recommend as an addon/module is a targeting system that would, in essence, paint an area of interest/focus for the Thmper to concentrate their mining efforts. This way he's not wandering around the map aimlessly gathering whatever he's standing on. Also, something along the lines of a prospecting marker could be deployed in the center of the area of interest. Wherein, the Thmper would stay within a defined radius. Similar in concept to the original scan hammer and Thumper setup in Firefall.

Just some food for thought. Can't wait for the crafting demo to come out. Seriously, my most anticipated part.

 

[Pandagnome]

Another thing can you add a chat feature it would be good to chat to people in the game too!

I stole some of faeryl's materials last time it felt like super mario again collection coins but instead it was minerals

 

[themisanthrope#7475]

Got another report for everyone.

Tried again this evening and found another discrepancy in the demo.

If anyone has noticed the islands just beyond the main island, I found that you can travel to them and land on them. I tried mining on them only to find that the hotspot always spawned right under my feet. When I called in the Thmpr, he never moved and stayed in the exact spot that he fell into. He would turn a little bit here and there. But, never moved.

Another little bug I can report, and I'm not sure if this is planned for the future, is that you don't take water damage or drown when you submerge below the surface of the water. I think this area would make an excellent addition to the game. Perhaps necessitating a re-breather module or the like to commence operations under water.

I had one final thought on the mining as well. I agree with one of the previous posters about seeking out the center of a mining node. That really made it a lot more fun to go hunting for resources. However, having a single highest tier node at any time was rather off-putting for many players and wound up creating a massive conflict to get to it. My thought would be to spawn several high tier nodes that people can home in on via scanning. However, they would need a high tier mining tool for their Thmpr in order to extract said materials. Like we had the tiers in Firefall, something similar could be implemented here to limit the number of people who can access an area or feature without having earned that access. This could also be use as a means promoting player pogression in the same fashion that we had in Firefall, with people who had put in the work reaping the rewards of their efforts with better equipment and stats. Doing something like this could also prevent scammers from getting ahold of high value materials with brand new characters and performing cash sales.

 

[netkatie#7578]

I was playing yesterday and noticed a glitch that could be pretty significant.

When gliding, it is possible to scan. Your mech will actually make all of the motions as if he is driving the spike whilst he is moving through the air. Furthermore, this action results generates scan results successfully.

I found this when I tried to to see if the mech drop to the ground when the scan was initiated.

The next issue I found was in deploying the Thmper mech. I found it very difficult to find any place on the map that would allow for the deployment. Especially in hilly or elevated terrain. In other instances, I was on fairly level ground and the indication color was constantly red. When I clicked anyway, I was usually able to deploy the mech despite the negative indicator.

One thing I could recommend as an addon/module is a targeting system that would, in essence, paint an area of interest/focus for the Thmper to concentrate their mining efforts. This way he's not wandering around the map aimlessly gathering whatever he's standing on. Also, something along the lines of a prospecting marker could be deployed in the center of the area of interest. Wherein, the Thmper would stay within a defined radius. Similar in concept to the original scan hammer and Thumper setup in Firefall.

Just some food for thought. Can't wait for the crafting demo to come out. Seriously, my most anticipated part.

Yea I noticed that while you scan, you can move any direction while you're still kneeling down. Not sure if during the scanning emote, you should be staying where you initiated the scan?

 

[liandri]

I thought I'd capture some more demo things.

THMPR can be called down when the indicator is red. Probably just a visual bug as there is usually a point where there is a green indicator.

Spoiler: Video showing THMPR deployment on invalid position

THMPR mines resources without playing the thumping animation. This happened all over the map about once per calldown.

Spoiler: Video showing resources begging to be collected

THMPR mines no resources. This consistently happened on the last thump, so I assume this is intentional and I haven't noticed it until now. I can get behind the realism element that you've mined all the resources in the area and that's your signal that it's time to go, but it's not particularly rewarding.

Spoiler: Video showing great sadness and disappointment

Dropship riding slide bug. If you get onto a dropship while it picks up your THMPR and start to slide just before it disappears, you retain the ship's momentum and get launched into the air across the map. This is great if you really need to get some height.

Spoiler: Video showing dropship slide bug

- There's no momentum while gliding anymore. It doesn't feel right dropping 50 metres and levelling out with no speed increase. A higher maximum gliding speed would be better while keeping the currently base gliding speed as is.

I mentioned the gliding momentum being limited, and though the speed on the RiftFixes0.3.1 is really fun, I have to concede that it's also pretty unrealistic and would make traversing the world a breeze (until you get grappled out of the air and crash into the ground at Mach 3). I still think that the limit could be higher, but I guess it depends on the size of the world.

Spoiler: Video showing difference in gliding speeds

 

[Pandagnome]

Dropship riding slide bug. If you get onto a dropship while it picks up your THMPR and start to slide just before it disappears, you retain the ship's momentum and get launched into the air across the map. This is great if you really need to get some height.

Does look fun that!

I like the last video too the gliding looked really fun for the riftfixes 0.3.1
some strange ringing sounded like oilspill needed some help.

Got me thinking of an achievement nice hair cut where you glide ever so close to someone and whizz past some npc and they get a haircut preferably an npc with big hair like this




and it would end up like this



I also noticed when standing right in the drill section when the thumpr is drilling can get the minerals easier but i am not really damaged by the drill maybe have some anti-drill damage technology!

 

[liandri]

If you try to call-down a THMPR while the reticule is over you (possibly other players, haven't tried yet), the THMPR indicator appears on you but won't deploy, even if green.

Spoiler: Image

I'll stop posting, really.

 

[Pandagnome]

If you try to call-down a THMPR while the reticule is over you (possibly other players, haven't tried yet), the THMPR indicator appears on you but won't deploy, even if green.

Spoiler: Image

View attachment 4149

I'll stop posting, really.

Looks like slimer got you

 

[liandri]

Okay, here's an interesting one that I think was mentioned in an older demo. 3x fire rate when spamming in and out of sliding.

Spoiler: Another Video

 

[Pandagnome]

Okay, here's an interesting one that I think was mentioned in an older demo. 3x fire rate when spamming in and out of sliding.

Spoiler: Another Video

Never realised you could do that what if it was some kind of kinetic energy recharge system where enough sliding built up a meter to then activate so you can increase fire rate for a time or something else hmm

Then if you wanted to instead of pressing the button to activate this meter could have it set on auto so that everytime it fills up you can fire faster etc without having to manually press a button to activate it as an option.

 

[liandri]

Never realised you could do that what if it was some kind of kinetic energy recharge system where enough sliding built up a meter to then activate so you can increase fire rate for a time or something else hmm

Then if you wanted to instead of pressing the button to activate this meter could have it set on auto so that everytime it fills up you can fire faster etc without having to manually press a button to activate it as an option.

That'd be a nice ability you could add to a light frame though. You keep chaining moves, going faster and faster, for a boost to fire rate and reload speed. Just the recoil that'd get you.

 

[Salvatore]

Here a Game crashing glitch, Changing the Resolution to 1024 x 768 it crashes the game

 

[liandri]

Maybe I'm just not understanding this right, but is the Player Ping correct?

Spoiler: 6 Players + Ping

I'm on the US PVP server, but I'm based in Australia. I would have thought my ping would be highest. After a server restart, I was on 16 but others were 60+.

Changing the Resolution to 1024 x 768 it crashes the game

Tried this a few times. No crash on Fullscreen, Windowed Fullscreen or Windowed. It does stay black for a while though. Nvidia GeForce 940M 1GB, 8GB RAM.