THUMPING RETURNS! First iteration - Feedback

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Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,730
10,079
113
Island of Tofu
#21
It looks like this is in the day cycle it seems very bright for me would there be a brightness/gamma adjustment in this game?

Have noticed that swapping skin did not work in pacific server and the other servers it was working!.
 

Astro

Omni Ace
Omni Ace
Jul 26, 2016
86
134
33
#22
+1
Outside of creating a map or naming areas, dropping a visible beacon from the C menu would be helpful, or being able to /find [playername] someone to see their tag across the map.
In Dauntless you can fire flares/fireworks into the sky to show your location. Perhaps Ember could do something similar? Drones that flash in the sky, or perhaps laser beams that shoot up into space? You could go with an effect that can offer cosmetic options... Think Rocket league goal animations, but in the sky to reveal location (default strobing light or something for those who want realistic immersion).
 

SaltehBleach

Omni Ace
Hypedration
May 3, 2020
17
110
28
#23
Sadly, I most likely will not be living up to my name and putting a giant wall of text but ill do my best c:

First of all, gliding around?
I LOVE the lil wind effects around the screen! WHOOSH!
though its been awhile since i played the demo due to my PC having some downloading issues, i noticed when you go to high up it forces your character down so you don't infinitely glide up, which is understandable but i feel like it takes control away from my gliding a bit too much and was a bit annoying after the 4th time, could do without it going straight down until i can control it again or at least hopefully make it a bit less controlling?, though understandable if it must be set in stone.

Second of all, the map?
Even with no textures it looks GREAT, i am no artist or anything but i love the shapes of the hills, i kind of just walked around and looked at the hills!
Though, if I could ask to make it easier to find players to have a ping location ability or have the three bases on the map have 3 beacons of different colors? The compass can help, as long as you know the where they are coming from..

Third of all the enemies & The T.H.M.P.R encounters!
The enemies seem to be doing fine!
The knee biters are a bit of a pain to hit, but they are small so that is a given, though sometimes the AI seems to run somewhere and never return, or the Tsi-Hu spawn a bit to far out of sight and just stand and wander around, though the Tsi-Hu looks pretty cool and slightly different I like it!
Personally, I have yet to do a T.H.M.P.R encounter alone but I have not been able to loose it yet, may have had super talented hunters playing with me, and yes its in its skeleton but i had more fun flying around on the map than doing the encounters for the most part.

Bugs/glitches
-Sometimes the green portal in the sky (the surrounding area) will not expand but stay a tiny portal above the T.H.M.P.R encounter [happened twice]

-Cannot missile target the knee bitters (white block cubes) would love to kill a bunch at a time

-Gliding straight into a wall will keep the lil white line gliding effects, i don't mind it but i don't think its supposed to stay around when walking around c: [pretty much 95% of the time]

-While doing a T.H.M.P.R encounter, Quadranna mentioned it was hard to aim when you running around and shooting as every time you pull out the gun and shoot your aim/camera position changes and makes it hard to hit and aim on the first shot especially.

-Please fix volume again TwT (slightly begging) even with master control and everything at zero, the gliding sound effects when the knee bitters spawn is *pretty* loud. TwT [all the time, please fix TwT]

-When placing a T.H.M.P.R most of the time it will say another T.H.M.P.R is nearby, even though it is none nearby, and a pretty fair distance from a base. [too many times to count TwT]

-When Trying to place a T.H.M.P.R in certain spots it will be green but not allow you to place it, takes a lot of click spam & slight careful movement to place a T.H.M.P.R [a few time]

-Also if your a curious reaper like me, deepstyking between the 2 frames in the base will get you stuck, had to be thorough! [happened twice, had to relog]

-If a crystal is placed just right on a hill during an encounter, and you stand on it your charater will vibrate [happened once]

This seems great as a barebones first draft though! whish there was a coral structure or 2 to glide around, miss gliding around trees and the terrain now that its flat, But Great job Dev Team! cant wait for the next build! always excited to see more effects, sound effects, and upgrades to the AI!

And as always, thank you to the friends who keep me company in demo chat & VC, in the demo c:

Don't forget to stay hydrated!
 

Magus

Omni Ace
Apr 2, 2017
6
15
3
#24
I'm sure many of us have experienced games where the player's input is modified or otherwise obfuscated often in the name of immersion. Perhaps one of the most wide spread of examples is that of heavy turrets simulating their weight by effectively reducing the player's mouse sensitivity. While I believe the sentiment is indeed for the sake of immersion, what results is often a tedious and cumbersome experience in which the user is forced to use a sensitivity that is explicitly not their desired sensitivity and quickly and repeatedly make exaggerated movements in order to accomplish what should be a simple and intuitive task: aiming a weapon.

In my humble opinion, the interface with which the user interacts with the game should be made as clear and direct as possible as to reduce any and all possible sources of frustration and tedium. I don't want the game randomly dictating to me what my mouse sensitivity is no more than I want the game to randomly decide to turn off my mouse clicks entirely. I don't care if it's in the name of immersion, I want my inputs and comfort prioritized; likewise, I don't ever want to have to give more input than I need to. I should simply move my reticle to my target, and my gun in-game slowly position itself to match my reticle: it SHOULD NOT be the other way around.

Now, why do I bring this up? As for as far as I know, there are no heavy turrets that require slow positioning in any Em-8ER demo yet? I bring it up to give perspective to an issue that is currently present, at least in the Whitebox demo. Like how certain games modify my inputs by modifying my mouse sensitivity against my will, Em-8er's Whitebox demo's gun recoil moves my viewport and main targeting reticle against my will. What results is an unpleasant feeling of me fighting my own inputs trying to get the gun to shoot at least halfway straight. The problem is often compounded as the random artificial jitter and shakes applied to my input are amplified by my natural imperfect movements of correction.

I must add that even if immersion was the reasoning behind the decision to have such intrusive recoil, it wasn't fully reasoned out from my perspective. As we are in fact, as far as I'm aware, controlling the pilot and not the suit, we should have more abstracted control. What do I mean by that? Targeting computers and stabilizers should handle the second-by-second corrections of recoil and the pilot should just be pointing to what needs to be hit. As it stands right now, it feels like the recoil is equivalent to the small human pilot trying to lug and fire the large weapon without assistance from a exosuit or mount.

I must admit, I don't know the exact solution, but I have a few ideas. I think the viewport needs to follow the recoil less or not at all, the main reticle needs to stay centered, and perhaps a secondary less visually empathized reticle added to visualize where the recoil is actually placing rounds. I'm not saying get rid of recoil entirely, but I'm just saying at least get rid of it effecting the user's viewport and reticle so much.

TL;DR Recoil is currently dramatic and needs to stop moving the viewport and reticle, because it feels like I'm fighting my mouse more than I'm fighting the enemy.
 

Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,730
10,079
113
Island of Tofu
#26
My goodness how far we"ve come.. Remember this back in 2019ish @Pandagnome ? View attachment 4748
(My detailed white-box demo feedback coming soon)
@PartTimeJedi oh yess the many islands of Copa ahh it feels like it was just yesterday.... btw you have hidden your keys well!!!

Imagine a biome where there are hybrid plant machines and certain shrubs move could they be spies why they move strange, what is there agenda? perhaps they want to study us?

https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/elowan-a-plant-robot-hybrid/overview/

Then there are other parts where the wild carnivorous plants appear the hybrid plant machines they are not so much into the meats.

Imagine luring a tsihu to a carnivorous plant could it mean that the plant absorbs the electric and turn into electrical carnivorous plant hazard?

How would the future pilots do their business when you got to pee and poops, perhaps the G-suit is so advanced that you are fed the exact amount of nutrients and energy sources that you would never need to do the pee pee or poops!!!!!

That's not anything to do with maps but it is interesting
 

Magus

Omni Ace
Apr 2, 2017
6
15
3
#27
I must admit, I don't know the exact solution.
I was thinking of good examples of gameplay when it came to gunplay and recoil, and I was going to give up and just show a CS:GO clip, but then I remembered Titanfall fits the bill almost exactly as it has exosuits using assault rifle equivalents.

Linked is a timestamp on some random video on YouTube showing almost exactly what I think would be ideal or at the very least far better than what is currently implemented:
 

liandri

Omni Ace
Omni Ace
Jul 29, 2016
448
1,108
93
Zone of Bones, Australia
#28
I thought Gigabear posted something about this on the forum, but maybe it was during the Chief Chat? There's a rare glitch that occurs when you're dashing that sends you across the map in an instant, pretty much a straight line until you hit something. Did it accidentally twice, but couldn't replicate it after to record. Might be worth looking into.
Can confirm the terrain collision works well. It didn't send me outside the map unfortunately.
 

Aarohnn Landao

Base Commander
Aug 11, 2016
5
10
3
#29
I gave the demo a try today, I've not tried any of the previous ones. So all of my feedback here is first impression of Em8er gameplay demos as a whole. Sort of off topic as far as this specific build I guess. As I was commenting on some of the things in discord, I was asked to repost my reactions to things here. So that's what I'll do. I'll leave them in their initial form in quotes so as not to dilute the initial reaction. Much of them will be disorganized thoughts that just hit me as I played. I'll elaborate a bit beyond the initial thoughts as well.

-

"oh wow, I love the pop up display for the guns. That's a bad ass way to do that"
This style of pop up ammo display just feels so nice and clean, I love the emersion of NOT sticking it somewhere on the side of the screen.

"oh man, how I've missed the good ol' plasma cannon"
The plasma cannon hits a near perfect nostalgia button, I feel like audio wise it's just missing a bit of a bass spectrum that gave that satisfying "Thwump-sizzle" on strike.

"I want to see bosses in here that make use of the sliding, for dodging attacks! lmao"
The sliding action when running is great. It's so fun to use, I'd love to see a little of that happen when you come to a stop with running momentum, or change direction (you are heavy after all). It would be so fantastic to see this in use as a dodge against some sort of boss with large projectile flying towards you and the like.

"The sound off the jumpjets feels so "Mecha" I love that! It needs just a little more of that firey deep jet hiss and crackle off of it though. "

-Question asked in discord conversation: 'Have you tried the jumpjets and gliding yet?'
-Reply: "I tried that, my first thought was that I needed an altimeter like system to know when I was too steep in my glide. but I need a moment to re-orient and see how I really feel about it. F*f*'s original glider system took me hours in it's first iteration to learn, so I'm reserving judgment until I play with it a little more. Jumpjets feel great, side to side strafing and sliding is extremely satisfying."
After playing around a bit, I found that there is an indicator for when you are getting too steep in your glide, however I feel like it pops up too late. I feel like there should be a little more feedback in this realm.

"Almost feels like there is a little motion blur, which I don't care for. it makes me feel like I'm not wearing my glasses. but it's not too bad in here, just noticable."

-Conversation: "Is there a free view? I need a free view, I want to see the front of my mech"
There needs to be a vanity camera within the game. I'd love to be able to see the front of my mech with my pilot sitting there looking sexy and ready for battle


I noticed that my pilot was falling out of her harness in flight. That looked pretty funny. I was afraid she would fall out.

"The running animation is fantastic, one of the best i've seen for this style of "Body/frame/mech", but the terrain needs "Lubricant" I keep getting stuck on polygons on hills when running "

"hmm, I can't engage 'overthrust' when gliding. that would have been cool"
"I feel like with those badass thrusters I should be able to engage them when gliding for a little bit more push even if for a limited time"

"So, I reflexively want to hold right click to gain a slight over shoulder zoom in with these guns, and I can't get past that." "What is the purpose of alt? It seems to both (take out/put away) my weapon and (zoom in/out) over shoulder at the same time" "that doesn't feel too good. I can reflex shoot and stay zoomed out or I can tap alt, pull out my gun and then be stuck in zoom unless I want to put the gun away too"

"Scan will eventually need it's own keybind so people don't have to hit a menu to use it. especially with in context of a larger map and more resources when players might just want one and are scanning a lot. but I really like the animation for it! Punch that ground!"


"Hello Beautiful."

I only got to try the thmpr once before everything bugged with a warning saying I was too close to another thmpr and couldn't drop another in. but it was pretty cool. It did feel weird to have to run around and grab the resources instead of them being auto deposited upon success. but I was also too busy getting the feel for the rockets (in my next comment) which didn't really work out as planned.

"The rockets (2) didn't quite function correctly for me, it was like they were trapped in the character model so they detonated in my face lmao"

"huh, random; but I think there needs to be a crouch key. I don't know why. just feels it lol. it needs crouch/sneak or slow movement"

UI feedback; Nice and clean, I would prefer to see my health on my left, and my shield on the right. and for them to be persistant but simi-transparent. The white indicators for Jumpjet energy and Weapon energy also need different colors or a darker simi-transparent background. in battle; in white box at least, they are hard to see.

Deepstryke: this ability feels quite nice to use and very nostalgic though I have to say I did really like the more drawn out wind up of it's spiritual predecessor. It just felt great to have a more dramatic wind up before that powerful impact.

Final thoughts: I like what I see! a lot of it is very "nostalgic but better" which excites me. Keep up the good work.




edit: misspelling or three...
 
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Pandagnome

Kaiju Slayer
Fart Siege
Welcome Wagon
Happy Kaiju
Jul 27, 2016
7,730
10,079
113
Island of Tofu
#30
"I want to see bosses in here that make use of the sliding, for dodging attacks! lmao"
Imagine that sliding around under the legs on its back across a big hill and its right infront of you go inside its mouth find an escape route through the pooper shooter and survive :eek:

"The sound off the jumpjets feels so "Mecha" I love that! It needs just a little more of that firey deep jet hiss and crackle off of it though. "
I love all these weird sounds like to see how they create it in some documentary from the Em8er team some day.

I found that there is an indicator for when you are getting too steep in your glide, however I feel like it pops up too late. I feel like there should be a little more feedback in this realm.
If it was a different colour for the indicator and had a unique sound cue could notice it better.


want to hold right click to gain a slight over shoulder zoom in with these guns, and I can't get past that." "What is the purpose of alt? It seems to both (take out/put away) my weapon and (zoom in/out) over shoulder at the same time" "that doesn't feel too good.
Would be nice to have zoom, i am not sure if its alt fire for a different fire mode such as if you had a rifle with a left button as the primary fire pew pew pew and the right mouse button to fire a nade

Could be the mouse wheel have the alt fire function perhaps so that right mouse button could have the zoom hmm

Hopefully keybind could help, wonder if that is applicable to mouse too or does it need a software from the mouse maker to do that?

Changing sides with H when jetpacking sometimes goes back from 1 side to the other instead of staying on that side... hope that get fixed!.

"Scan will eventually need it's own keybind so people don't have to hit a menu to use it.
Ah i dont mind it c and then s but for when you want the most efficient way then yes that would be nice even for the thumpr call down too.


I only got to try the thmpr once before everything bugged with a warning saying I was too close to another thmpr and couldn't drop another in. but it was pretty cool. It did feel weird to have to run around and grab the resources instead of them being auto deposited upon success. but I was also too busy getting the feel for the rockets (in my next comment) which didn't really work out as planned.
I had that where it kept saying that and the rockets did not use them as much compared to the assault rifle and the deep stryke ability on top of the tsihu.

I think there needs to be a crouch key. I don't know why. just feels it lol. it needs crouch/sneak or slow movement"
Yess i sure like sneaky :cool:

UI feedback; Nice and clean, I would prefer to see my health on my left, and my shield on the right. and for them to be persistant but simi-transparent. The white indicators for Jumpjet energy and Weapon energy also need different colors or a darker simi-transparent background. in battle; in white box at least, they are hard to see.
I hope we can change our UI layout just like we could in firefall that was nice so you could customize it to your preference.

Yes different colours certainly stands out against the white background and those cube enemies could be a different colour too!
 
Aug 5, 2017
166
397
63
UK
#32
First of all - Love the size of the map - looking forward to exploring and putting down a flag or two !!
TBH...nothing has changed/altered to much from the Copa map - obviously (exception) the mining instance which is awesome. Great to be part of a mining adventure again (FF butterflies were doing their thang!!) after sooo long!
Didn't notice any glitches - perhaps I was enjoying myself to much to notice. The Gliding, sounds, moving and firing weapons all seem smooth and relatively lag free, even on the US server.
Also, the animation/movement on the rough/rocky terrain looked great to - placement of feet and body angles seemed realistic - Excellent work!

Great work team Em-8er !!!!! :cool:
 
#33
I only want to know if the next playable update will feature some terrain with vegetation, like a green isle. And not the white box. I haven't downloaded any of the previous ones, so I'll be eager to jump in and mess around and possibly have some people on the microphone to chat with, to practice my English. And test, troubleshoot, feedback and all that stuff, too, of course.
 
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Wyntyr

Omni Ace
Ark Liege
Jul 26, 2016
6,336
11,601
113
Florida
#34
I only want to know if the next playable update will feature some terrain with vegetation, like a green isle. And not the white box. I haven't downloaded any of the previous ones, so I'll be eager to jump in and mess around and possibly have some people on the microphone to chat with, to practice my English. And test, troubleshoot, feedback and all that stuff, too, of course.
If I recall correctly...the white box build will be the build all the way up to KS. It's white box to hide what things actually will look like for the KS Demo reveal. They may update AI and/or how/when/where enemies spawn and in what numbers etc...but no pretty pictures until the actual KS Demo.
 
#35
If I recall correctly...the white box build will be the build all the way up to KS. It's white box to hide what things actually will look like for the KS Demo reveal. They may update AI and/or how/when/where enemies spawn and in what numbers etc...but no pretty pictures until the actual KS Demo.
Well, hopefully things will really kick off from there. :)
 
#36
I only vaguely recall we may have discussed the possibility of animating our frames and THMPRs to show progressively more damage as they sustain it. To get a visual feedback, that is not a health-bar, to show its condition. You know, torn off armor plates, smoking chest, crackling electrical discharges at the joints, leaking pistons, weirdly noisy servos, ass on fire. Those sort of things.

Is that possible? I think FireFall had something like that, but it wasn't too visible.
 
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PIghead Elderberry

Kaiju Slayer
JUMBO KAIJU SLAYER
Jun 4, 2017
248
510
93
CA USA
#38
I only vaguely recall we may have discussed the possibility of animating our frames and THMPRs to show progressively more damage as they sustain it. To get a visual feedback, that is not a health-bar, to show its condition. You know, torn off armor plates, smoking chest, crackling electrical discharges at the joints, leaking pistons, weirdly noisy servos, ass on fire. Those sort of things.

Is that possible? I think FireFall had something like that, but it wasn't too visible.
I sure would love to see this along with an option to turn offf health bars completely - if we have the misfortune of having them in the fisrt place.

Health bars make every game appear identical - just watching a bar srhink.
 
#39
I sure would love to see this along with an option to turn offf health bars completely - if we have the misfortune of having them in the fisrt place.

Health bars make every game appear identical - just watching a bar srhink.
The only use I see in enemy health bars is to show me whether or not I should waste an ability (and put it on cooldown) on an enemy that's almost dead or if I can just finish it off with a couple of shots and use the same ability on something else, instead. With clear enough feedback from the appearance of an enemy and our frames, we should be able to tell how much more damage we have to deal and how much we can still take. Such a thing wouldn't be THAT unusual, but it would break from the norm set by MMOs, at least.
 
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