Crowfall Combat - Will It Change?

Since the hugely successful Crowfall Kickstarter has ended, the developers have started tackling combat first off as their first milestone giving us updates on Tuesday and Friday on the website and announcing that pre-alpha players will be testing the new combat system later this summer. Tully (who moved from community manager to design) and Blair even had a Combat Chat earlier last month about combat in their, "Combat Chat" where they talk about Crowfall... and combat... and chatting up about them in a 9:44 video.

In the chat they talk about the strike team (and what it is) working on combat and how they played it safe during the Kickstarter by showing the traditional MMO combat and are putting the more action parts into combat now. A main question Tully had asked Blair what his favorite part was in the combat system right now. Blair responded with the combo system saying that they had built the system from the ground up and have the powers for each archetype work with the system. Blair also stated that combat is between the DC Universe Online and TERA combo models. For more information on the combo system and other stuff regarding combat in the video.

Female Ranger Plus More Stretch Goals!

As the ACE team gets down to work on Crowfall the concept of the female version for the Human Ranger archetype got released along with a new stretch goal. There is tons more left for Crowfall, the Kickstarter was just the beginning.

$1.7 Million Raised - A Look Back On The Crowfall Kickstarter

As the amazingly good kickstarter ends Crowfall has become what I would say is a game for the people where their input really matters. Not only did we all help fund Crowfall in some way to be produced we also made it the #17th largest game in Kickstarter history raising $1,766,205 with over 17,000 backers!

International Hosting - Will It Happen?

It is a really tough process to actually get a server the way the team at ArtCraft Entertainment wants to go internationally. On Friday Gordon Walton created a thread about Crowfall and how it will be distributed across the world outside of North America. How exactly will they pull it off though?

800,000 and Beyond!

First game trailer for Crowfall showing off the 5 archetypes already implemented

in the game being the Elven Frostweaver, Human Knight and Templar, 

Centaur Legionnaire and the Stoneborn Forgemaster.

Another big part of the reveal when the countdown is the long anticipated Kickstarter Campaign which is showing how much the world wants Crowfall with already finishing the $800,000 goal to produce the rest of the game yesterday February 27th. Earlier in the week people were flocking to put in money from $5 to $10,000 with the $30 option sold out.

Also from this campaign starting we saw the in-game destruction of voxels and the first signs of an alpha which is right now limited to Alpha 3 for people who pledge $100 or more, Alpha 2 for $175 or more, Alpha 1 for $500 or more, and if you pay $5,000 or more (5 more left) you get access into prealpha. Alpha testing for Crowfall will start late Summer of this year. Also with gaining alpha and pre-alpha access from pledging, if you are in a later beta group you can move up to Beta 2 if you paid $30+ (sold out), $34+ or $40+ and Beta 1 for $60+. It is currently unknown if when you get a beta spot when pledging you actually take someone else's spot in that group but probably not. There are a ton of other cool things like forum trims, invitation to launch day for Crowfall but go check them out at the Kickstarter page and pledge!

New Archetypes

On Monday February 23rd, 2015 with the countdown ending the last 3 archetypes were announced. These three archetypes being the Human Ranger, Human Champion and Forest Druid.

Human Ranger

The first of the three which has had speculation all over the place is actually a ranger and a Specialist making the third Specialist archetype in the game. If you hate the cold, want to stab innocent not leaving a hunger-infected world during winter, setting people or alive, or be like Jon Snow this is the class for you. Human Rangers are the Warders, Protectors of the Light, and the Heralds of Winter. Or if you just like to protect also. This archetype is available to both genders but only the male concept has been made at the moment.

Strength: 3

Dexterity: 3

Intellect: 2

Spirit: 1

Roles and Combat Inside Crowfall

There are many roles in Crowfall from Melee DPS to Supporter but what exactly are they and what are the rules in combat? I am here to tell you all you need to know before beta for Crowfall starts.

Combat Roles

Melee DPS: Melee DPS is a melee class that does Damage Per Shot. Weapons of this could be anything that is melee from a spear to a scabbard or knife. This only archetype in this role is the Human Champion (Physical).

Ranged DPS: Another form of DPS is Ranged DPS where you attack from a distance. There are two main categories of weapons in this role being magic and bows. Archetypes in this role would be the Human Confessor (Magical), Elven Frostweaver (Magical), and Elken Stalker (Physical).

Tank: This is your wall. Your nearly indestructible wall that can move in fact. There are two categories of tank in Crowfall: Mitigation, which is the standard tank, and dodge, Archetypes for this role are the Human Templar (Dodge) Minotaur Myrmidon (Mitigation) and the Human Knight (Mitigation).

Specialist: Specialists are the archetypes that specialize in a certain part of the game. Stealth to sneak into enemies castles and forts, hammer for crafting, and burrow for siege. Archetypes for this role are the Fae Assassin (Stealth), Guinecean Duelist (Burrow), Stoneborn Forgemaster (Hammer) and Human Ranger (Stealth).

Support: Support archetypes can buff allies and debuff enemies. Supports can also heal, but with a cost so powerhouse healing doesn't happen in fights. Archetypes for this role would be the Centaur Legionnaire and the Human Druid.

Combat

Since you now know of the roles of archetypes, let's talk combat. Crowfall DOES NOT use tab-targeting as they want the game to be more action-based combat rather than your regular traditional MMO. Instead, there are dashes for avoiding attacks opposed to passive dodges. Since there is no tab-targeting there will be shapes like cones, rectangles, and spheres. To help you annihilate your enemies you can turn projected ground texture off when in combat so you don't get a much lag from some pesky grass.

Also, there are laws of physics that apply to Crowfall. With the Crowfall devs using character movement and combat movement for a physics model means that players and projectiles (arrows, fireballs, etc.) move realistically in 3D environment. With this in play, it leads to some stuff that you may not be used to, like arrows landing on the ground after you shoot them and they don't go as far as you wanted them to go.

Voxel Farm and How It Will Affect Crowfall

Voxel Farm is a technology all of us probably know of already are disliking that it is coming to Crowfall also. Fear not though because you will change your mind after you start the game... or reading this article.

3 Left?

Last Thursday we got double the amount of archetypes released. A page finally for the Elven Frostweaver and the Guinecean Duelist but how many more are left? We only known 9 out of 12 seen archetypes from the character creation preview but what other roles will we see and what races?