Lack of focus in this livestream

We have not received permission from neuroguy to share the quoted post.

You're probably not ALONE but I disagree on literally every point.

I feel like I learned a lot, enjoyed it a lot, got a really good feel.

But I admit I also think of Steven's role as a really cool Dungeon Master that we are watching flesh out a system. When such a DM offers to 'let you sit in on a planning session' and calls it a 'Showcase', I'd expect to get EXACTLY what we got, especially at this stage in balance and development.

I feel like there was lots to give feedback on, though a lot of it was subtle, and it seamlessly combined all those things into one flow.

To me therefore the lack of 'focus' was a huge positive, bringing me back to the sort of content I enjoyed from their streams in years past where you get 'a little of everything' and 'a lot of the Dungeon Master explaining how things will work'.

If one wanted something else, then I would think it would be disappointing, yes, but I liked this so much better than the Ranger showcase that if I had to give feedback on the 'presentation style' of this sort of thing, I'd rate it five stars with a commendation and look forward to the next.

We have not received permission from neuroguy to share the quoted post.

You're correct there. Nothing very specific was explained (which was my expectation).

We were shown that there are constellations that you can see, and reinforced that there will be effects and/OR interactions with:

Vek, Religion, positioning in the world.

Since I have 'basic assumptions about what that means due to coming from games where it matters a bit', and 'not expecting Ashes to do less than those games', but obviously those are assumptions.

But if you were looking for stuff about the Constellation system, I agree. I was talking about the Cleric and combat parts. The Constellations felt more like a 'hey while we're here let's show a visual thing that we've discussed before'.

We have not received permission from maouw to share the quoted post.

I got exactly what I needed though.

As a Cleric, explanations of basic common Cleric skills would tell me nothing other than 'hey we're the same as most other games' or 'hey we'd like to take Healing in a new direction!'

Flow, rhythm, distance, watching HP bars, synergies, cooldowns, targeting...

I was able to get EVERY single one of these things in this video, with lots of comparison points, to a degree that I can say with relative confidence 'this is what healing will feel like in Ashes'.

I was actually WORRIED that we were going to get the useless equivalent of 'here are your skills, they heal this much, this one heals this way', instead of what we got. The numbers don't matter to me, the little things matter. I don't know if other Clerics experienced it the same way or not, but that was my takeaway and I am super thankful for the way it was presented.

"The things I watch for, as a Cleric, were all there, and showcased very well."

Individual things like 'explanations of skills' is so far down my priority list for 'showing me Cleric' that I was practically thankful that ZERO time was devoted to any skill explanations.

We have not received permission from neuroguy to share the quoted post.

Why not?

It was a showcase for Cleric.

I would expect the target audience to be Clerics.

It was clearly communicated to me. I'm not really understanding entirely your point, though I don't really want to discredit it.

Would telling you the specifics of Cleric skills in the way that it was for Ranger skills tell you anything about Cleric?

It's the same as 'the Ranger stream actually being largely about placement, charge times, targeting, and longbows'. The skills were practically an afterthought, but the parts of them that were explained were critical to 'how Ranger plays' I think.

All I'm saying is that the information that I, as a Cleric, need, was communicated perfectly, and nearly any OTHER information that could have been communicated would not have been what I needed to know in any way. I would hope it isn't too 'selfish' to hope that a Cleric showcase should be tailored towards informing the Clerics.

We have not received permission from neuroguy to share the quoted post.

Very well, I'll disengage.

I don't know if it is that you don't play Cleric, but I'm pretty confident that this isn't just me, or some form of super specialized skill.

When you play Cleric, you watch and do certain things. The showcase gave direct access to each and every one of those things in multiple situations, which is more helpful, and it was required to be relatively long for related reasons.

I'm trying to tell you that 'Knowing what Cleric skills do' is MUCH less important to a Cleric than what they showed. I cannot 'read a list of skills for the healer in an MMO' and get any ideas about how it works at ALL. I need what I was given to know if I want to play it or not.

That's all I have to say, I guess. You can consider the point 'conceded' in whatever way is required.

I will hope that Steven and the guys know why I am thankful, and if it was intentional, then this conversation is me 'being supportive of their intention'. I can only be encouraging in feedback of what I benefit from.

We have not received permission from neuroguy to share the quoted post.

Yet oddly, none of the clerics have asked for any information on the skills.

I can definitely agree that I'd like these videos to be better structured. I definitely understand Azherae's point of "having a feel of what the gameplay might be", but I definitely agree with neuro that the "feeling" part of the video could've come after just even a brief explanation of the things that we'd see during that part.

I think Steven did try to show off a bit of stuff all at the same time, cause he was hovering over some skills at the start, he showed off the tree gathering (as a clickbait for the previous stream), tried to show off the constellations (which definitely took a bit too much time) and then went through a few mechanics.

But all of that was jumbled up with small talk with the devs, general gameplay that required attention and Steven's innate sporadic attention span and trains of thought.

I'd prefer if they just did a quick intro of the video and devs, quickly explained the immediately stuff shown to us in the video (that is the cleric and its new abilities) and then went onto showing off that stuff in practical use. Because trying to explain some abilities while executing them at the same time and trying to play the game too requires a particular set of skills, which I think most devs don't have (hell, even most streamers don't have it).

And while the more attentive and analytically-brained people like Azherae would have no issues processing all the things we saw in that video, I think that Intrepid would benefit from, well, dumbing it down a bit and being way more clear with their explanations. In other words, combine this stream with the ranger's showcase and find a middle ground between the two and you'd be golden (imo).