Echo of Soul feedback compliation thread.

For compiling feedback.  Here's my current list:

Melee (possibly ranged as well) attacks with move to target should hit, not get a range error.  Melee (possibly ranged as well) attacks should not cancel mid movement without some additional input (happens about 10% of the time.)
Quests with use items (combinables as well) should always have a note about combining or using the item(s), and an icon next to the tracker.  All quests found without such icons or notes have been bug reported so far.  However, this does not cover all quests in the game.
Better profession introduction, include a discussion point with profession masters about each profession.  Make sure to add something saying that resource gathering is available as an extra.
Streamline mob levels.  Mobs being 2 levels higher, or 2 levels lower, on average from the quest is not really nice (especially when the game already requires so many consumable breaks.)
Fix grouping XP.  High level players should not be able to just let low level group members kill stuff and see XP rolling in.  Low level members should get some XP from kills, even if it is minimized.
Add notes about benefits to mounts in purchase screens.
Consider guild creation mechanic where the guild is specifically forbidden from guild PvP, but can have many more members at low level.
Western audiences will appreciate having classes not locked to gender for the most part.
Streamline gathering resources by considering a less grindy leveling strategy for each range (yellow range portions are painful.)
Streamline gathering quest by combining the resources for the total amount required.  AKA instead of gathering ore or plants, gather ore and plants.  Consider adding a gathering quest for total rarer materials (metal and herbs.)
Add a customized UI layout save function.  The UI has a tendency to reset to default placements, and this can grow very annoying over time.
Reduce the level 20 requirement to form a guild.  Nobody really wants to force themselves to level just to guild up with friends. This might be combined with the PvE only guild option.
Lag penalties, especially disconnects, are especially harsh with the rez system in place.  Consider making rez items easier to get at lower levels.
Quest objectives are extremely competition heavy.  The game effectively rewards objective ninja tactics.  Consider changes to tagging or interactables to minimize the pain of people questing nearby.
Mechanics are not explained extremely well.  For example, although dungeon bosses keep telling me to block an attack, I have never been shown how to block.  All I can do is try to evade the attack or just deal with the damage somehow.
Possibly consider making party objective quest bosses in the world work like the event bosses, with credit given regardless of being in the party (if not making credit count for shared kills above.)
RNG on evaluations favors the low end too strongly (0 or 1 comes up by far too frequently.)
Add crafting XP to things that provide guild xp.
A reduced energy cost while leveling.  This would make food worth something while leveling (as it stands, it is too hard to maintain a decent buff, and food is more valuable vendored than eaten.)
Reduced shortcut invisible walls.  *Pathing in the game feels very punishing if you wish to try to jump down a short drop or otherwise avoid the long way around.*
Reaction time on some melee punishing attacks that are not interruptable can be a big problem (noticed that any lag would make these attacks far more dangerous than normal.)
The main NPC in the level 42 dungeon that taunts can end up kneeling and at full health after fighting at 1 hp for a while once, making fights far more difficult... should be fixed.
Some UI elements could use options to resize or move them.  Especially things like quest text and item popups.  As it stands a player who does not completely maximize their resolution will find they cannot read some text, or even in some cases take actions due to buttons being hidden.

tried doing a long post of good stuff and forgot to do a copy of it before posting so lost all the work I did, so I'm going to bed annoyed. LOL

However, I'm actually liking this game even if it isn't going to be one of those grabs me games.  I'm just playing it a lot to really give them feedback which you can do at...

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CjyquULl4iYdbYpX9XEZLZj8EyEXW95GwmqGL4qJG70/viewform

Maybe I'll be able to try summing up again later.  =)  However, be sure to use the form to even send some feedback, not just bugs so they can see what we are thinking.  Jairone has a some good things above as far as things that need fixing, but we need to make sure we note some positives along with the negatives.

This is definitely not a game Gaiscioch will have a chapter in due to how they set it up, but it has been a fun testing opportunity and is fun in its own way.

Yeah, I'm going to be feeding Aoibheann with positive notes due to her running the interview.  I am working on compiling that list, then will add it here.

There's a lot of interesting points to this game, I think if we point them out that will be the part that shines. 

That said, this game was never even a consideration for our family. I knew long ago this wasn't the right place for us. My intent with the test was purely to help a friend and keep a hot contact happy. Where he once was at Trion, he is not at Aeria, tomorrow he may be somewhere that we plan to go. Keep those contacts happy and keep your community in their mind. People change companies a lot in this industry and you never know who will end up working on your next chapter title. Hell look at Matt Firor, he's worked on 3 of the 5 game's we've played. So has Jessica Folsom. The whole reason we got into early testing in ESO was Jessica and Matt's previous knowledge of us. Nurturing those relationships is key to our overall success.

Yep, okay, some bright spots I have too:

Characters and graphics look great.
Customization is pretty easy.  Although limited, the styles are different from most MMOs and that is somewhat refreshing.
The interface works well.
Infinite hunting grounds is a nice idea for alternate leveling.
Control-right click gem swapping for equipment is cool.
Nice variety of environments.
Solo dungeons are nice to have, although a better mix of group and solo would be fun.
There really aren't many big bugs, and the experience flows nicely for the most part.
Good use of addons that have become fairly standard, like a damage meter, in the game itself.
Dungeon drops from solo dungeons are at least for your class (although spec is not locked in.)
Nice naming use.
Lots of fun culture references for those who like them.

Okay, been spending most of my online gaming time in this and well, it seemed the better place to be for the moment due to what was going on with life.  Got that life stuff sorted out though!  Anyway, on with some of what I've seen and think of this game.  A lot of this went to them as a combo of feedback and bug reporting even if the form says it is for bug reports.  =)  Not totally with it and need to give them some other info, but haven't done as good the last couple days.

Overall:

Really like the vibrancy of the graphics in the game and the effects.  Sure it's anime style, but still well done.  I did laugh when I ran into a raptor because that was the most realistic looking thing in the game and did not seem as altered.

You are stuck with one sex or the other by class, which is really the only thing I don't like about character creation.  The rest seems pretty good and you can make a decent enough looking toon though each has it's own style you get stuck in.  A lot of same armor looks especially at lower levels, but nothing major.  On the other thread that started off getting us here you can see my mage and GMa's and they look way different even with the same hairdo!  That was when I was around L12 and she was just about hitting 15.

I actually like playing this game, it isn't one I want to play for years, but for something free and for a change of pace I would mess with it.

Combat:

I need to play my mage and archer more to really get a feel for them, but I really like the fighting styleof the Guardian.  There is good animation for everything going on, it is just a matter of recognizing when the major attacks are coming, especially with dungeon bosses.  Not paying attention and having your timing off makes you die in a hurry!

I like that there several buff items you can have on at once.  Crafted items include food, potions and scrolls.  There also some nice things you can buy with golden eggs they give you in game though the amount of eggs you get compared to cost of things is not that much at the moment.  I am sure they will probably do something for making it so you can somehow acquire more of these things bought with eggs.  It's good to try to have at least all the crafted buffs on - one food, one scroll and one potion.

Armor/Gear:

There are a couple of ways to enhance things in the game.  Jewelry and weapons have rune slots.  The runes are drops in the game.  The armor can be enhanced with gems.  Gems can be made and are also lootable.  Gems can be upgaded to higher level of enhancement by combining.  The combining is pretty symple in that two +1 gems will make a +2 gem, and two +2 gems will make a +3 gem, etc.  To combine gems just right click on any combo of 2 or more in your inventory.

To put a rune on something you right click the run in the inventory, have the item it will be applied to in your inventory and drag the item into the box on the rune window.  Click apply and you're done.

The gem enhancement has more options to it.  When you first start finding gear that can be enhanced, to put a gem on it you do shift+right click on the item and then drag the gem in your inventory of appropriate type (go by name and color) into the box on the window and then click apply.  

Now the cool thing is you have an enhanced item on and you get a better one.  You can do Ctrl+right click on the new item in the invtory and it equips the new item plus moves the enhancement to it.  If you need to remove a gem to further upgrade the enhancement you can find the appropriate scroll for removing the gem from the general merchant.

Inventory space:

This gets interesting really fase if you craft.  However, it appears the cash shop will have ways for you to get larger bags.  In beta that might be one of the perks if you get a founders pack, but I wouldn't know for sure.  The bank can be increased with bag slots via money for the characters own vault space.  There is a separate account wind bank for sharing items between characters, but you can't put gold in it.  Having played with all the crafts and hobbies a bit, I have three characters and really have had to do the inventory management game at times.  Not like I don't do that in Elder Scrolls, too!

Crafting:

Maybe a tad clunky, but down right simple at the same time.  The cool part is being to click a button and it will craft all of something.  Just make sure you want all your components going in there before clicking Craft All.  The other option is telling it how many of the max you can make at the time.  Say you can make 20 but you only want five.  You can up the number from 1 and put in 5 and then click the crafting button (not the all one) to do the 5 only.  I don't think you can craft from the character's bank, but haven't verified that for sure.

At various levels, usually every 40, you can acquire new skills and recipes by talking to the proper person for the profession and chosing the Upgrade option.  Now some upgrades include crafting level with the player level.  For most you can't get past 160 until you are at least L25 and it goes up from there with the max character level of 60 and a max crafting level of 400.  For the most part it does not take long to level anything in this game other than the Resource Collector (only because you have to run around finding stuff, not standing there letting the thing auto-make stacks of stuff).

The confusing thing is the two hobbies and one profession per character deal.  Even more confusing is actually realizing what is a hobby.  The quest you run into where you talk to the Cook and Soul Expert is really teaching you what the two hobbies are and how they and professions work over all.  However, it really needs to be clarified that Cook and Soul expert are the two hobbies in the game and all your characters can have both.  Two of your buff items I mentioned above come from your hobbies - food from the Cook obviously and the scrolls from the Soul Expert.

Now the professions are currently Jeweler, Alchemist and Resource Collector.  Your character can only have one of these three, hence why I have three toons.  The Jeweler and the Alchemist require materials that come from the Resource Collector, though they will get some from daily quests.  However, they will probably still need a resource collector friend or alt to make sure they have things.

Alchemist is the one that makes the potions for buffs.  Oddly the Alchemist can make some of the jewelry in the game.  I need to play more to really see who does what on this part.

Jeweler can learn how to make those enhancement gems I mentioned above.  I still have yet to figure this out because you need gem shards and I need to figure out how to get those out of items.

Now the Resource Collect levels up by collecting items from nodes out in the world like most games.  These nodes are shared with everyone, so if someone beats you to one, you don't have access to it and the respawn time is too long to stand there waiting for it.  The other current leveling hinderance is the bug on the daily repeatable quests.  Currently only ore counts, but only the plants are marked for you to find them easy.  I definitely tested this out at multiple tiers and it is the same across all of them and I gave them a thorough report about it.  So until they fix it, go for the ore nodes when trying to complete the daily quest for Resource Collector.

A note on the daily quests.  You can repeat all tiers each day.  However, one of the items you get is a book to increase your level and you can't use any of the ones below the tier you have leveled to.  The good point of doing the lower level ones is you do get a couple stacks (20 per stack) of items from the tier you did the quest at.

Overall there are some useful things that come from bothering with professions and hobbies.

Questing and Leveling:

The quest chain is the same no matter what your character class is.  So once you do it once, you've seen.  The cool things is they did a good job with the write up of the quests and the story of the world you learn from doing the quests.  The first time through it is worth the read.

Each quest has a compass needle on it along with the distance to the quest item listed beneath it.  This helps you get to a quest fairly easily in the same map without having to bother looking on the map to see where it is.  The map is well marked with quest locations so is also quite helpful.  If the arrow on the quest is pointing straight up you are heading right for it and you will see the distance meter decreasing in value.

If you hate questing or are bored with it, go to the infinite hunting grounds.  Here there is one quest to collect  certain number of items off the mobs that is repeatable.  You can go get a whole bunch at once and then come back to rinse and repeat the quest until you run out of the required item.  This works pretty quick and has another added bonus.  You get a currency that you can spend on some decent gear.  So leveling here isn't going to ruin your chances of having decent gear, too.

Dungeons:

I've only done solo ones, but each has a normal and a hero mode to do.  Hero mode is accessible 5 levels above the normal mode with the recommended levels for both being about two levels over the level you can enter at.  These are rather fun with a good challenging set of bosses and things to do.  Most have two bosses.  One might kill you, but you usually can live through them.  The final boss is where you need to be sure you pay attention to mechanics for sure and have some buffs on you.  You definitely want to time using your skill that will use the souls you have acquired as this makes you a lot stronger for about 15 seconds of the full minute cool down it runs on before you can use it again.

You can rinse and repeat the dungeons for gear.  You will get class based gear, but may not get the path your character chose.  Every class has two paths.  For instance as a Stormguard path of Guardian, I got both Storm and Earth gear.  I wound up doing a combo of three of each to at least get what the 3 set buff would give rather than really trying to get a full Storm set.  After a bit the repeat of the dungeon is not going to level you all that fast and when you go back to questing you will outlevel the set items with in 6 or so hours of play time that is spent on questing or leveling in the infinite hunting grounds.  It is definitely worth going through several times to get gear, but then move on.  Lots of times you might get two set pieces in one run of the dungeon, which does help running them for gear on the solo ones.

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That's it for this summary.  I know there are some things I hinted at in there that I did not explain, but this should give a general idea of what is in the game and how it seems to all go together.