 What's up everybody I'm the Mangus, you were awesome and today I want to give my thoughts on the predecessor stress test. One thing I think we all need to consider when discussing this weekend is that this was intended to stress the servers and was not an all-inclusive test of game features and functions. I felt that there was a lot missing in the game, however I think this was mainly because they simply weren't ready to test those features. So I won't really focus on what I thought was missing, I will instead talk about what I liked or disliked about the features that were present. The stress test was an overwhelmingly positive experience, however there were a few problems here and there and it's our duty as community members to point out what we didn't like and would like to see improved in order to help them make a grow the game. First up let's talk about what I really liked about Pred Assessor. The game just flat out looked good. Pred has always had a nice map and well animated heroes due to the efforts of Fringe and Smokey, but this stress test brought them to another level. The particle effects were incredible as well. From Gideon's basic attack to Gadget's Thunderdome not only looked impressive, but they interacted with the environment in a way that made sense. You didn't see abilities inexplicably getting placed on trees or clipping oddly into the environment. The optimization was also amazing. I personally never run more than 60 frames per second because that's what I record at, but I didn't dip below those 60 frames once even during intense teamfights and that's with all of my settings on Epic. I'm using a 1660ti not like a souped up 3080 or some shit, so I find that to be very impressive. From what I understand people were able to run the game on stupidly low end computers. I love that Omega has designed Pred Assessor to be as inclusive as possible. The more players the merrier. The sound effects were really well done too. I felt there was a bit of a delay in melee basic attacks, but that's the only complaint I had. Seb's hammer sounded chunky, Belly's little 3 round burst sounded good, and you could certainly tell when a tank was behind you, Richter running past you sounded way different than Chimera. The announcer was very Paragon-ish and there were fantastic audio cues for when objectives spawned. Good sound design could go a long way towards an immersive experience, and Pred Assessor had the best audio of any of the pair of zombies I've played. The pacing of the game seemed perfect. If you had two skilled teams, the games lasted around 25-40 minutes. Not saying that's how long all the games lasted because the variance in player skill and moba understanding was insane. But that's not really what made us fault. I liked the timings on Juggle Camp response and the objective spawn times were also conducive to 30 minute games. The bugs were minimal and none of them were game breaking. This is what impressed me the most about this weekend. I ran around a lot during the stress test and not once did I get stuck on an invisible outcropping, fall into a random hole in the map, or encounter anything that made me have to go back to base or die just to reset myself. I know that seems like a no-brainer, but I still get stuck on invisible shit and fault and there were times at overprime that I had to die in order to regain full control of my character. It's obvious that Pred Assessor was painstakingly tested prior to the release of this stress test. There are so many things that can go wrong with the game, but the biggest bug I had was Belka's ultimate didn't deal damage one time. That's it. Shout out to all the testers, programmers, and map designers for a job well done. Back in support. I made a hire at a company that specializes in back end to assist them with matchmaking, server support, and all that kind of stuff. The August stress test didn't go great due to players not being able to find a game. I had absolutely no problems queuing into and joining a match all throughout this weekend no matter what time I tried. Instances of disconnects were rare. However, I did have a few friends that got booted mid-game, but they were able to reconnect with minimal issues. That may not sound like a big deal, but in my experience with playing various Alpha State MOBAs, reconnecting can be a huge pain in the ass if it's not done right. And finally, the most important aspect. The game was fucking fun. Who cares about sound design and special effects if the game isn't a joy to play? I personally had a great time with the stress test and ended up playing to the point that my fingers back and shoulders hurt. Almost everyone I've talked to has had some criticisms of the game, but they all agree that it was indeed fun. Now let's talk about some gameplay choices I didn't like. The jungle. As long as you took the proper starting gear, the jungle was stupid easy for any melee hero. Yes, some were better at it than others. However, at no time did I feel like I was in danger of losing my life by rushing jungle clear. You didn't even need to leash red or blue for your jungler because they were going to kill it no problem. I didn't need to go back to base at all. In most MOBAs I've played, the jungler has the back at some point due to the amount of damage they take from their first jungle clear. Not only did I not have to back for health, but I was pretty much topped off on mana for the whole thing. Even when waiting to stack with Sev, the jungle minions just didn't pose any threat. And this is coming from a certified shit jungler. I'm not a jungle main in any way, so clearing the entire jungle while still getting a few meaningful ganks in should not be possible for me. This is a position usually reserved for high skilled players, but I feel the only skill needed was knowing not to gank a full health player under their tower. I would like to see the difficulty cranked up for junglers so that high skilled players can feel properly rewarded for playing the position well. This extends through the smite item. It was called Hunt and Predecessor and would auto proc to execute a minion at a certain health threshold. This being an automatic occurrence takes some play potential away from junglers. A good jungler will often use smite on a minion mid fight in order to gain the advantage of a duel, or a bad jungler will use it too early on a main objective, thus freeing up the enemy jungler to steal it away. The Hunt item was a very dumbed down version of a smite and I didn't like it. Minion Executes. There was an execute mechanic for minions that made farming much easier. Again, this takes away from player skill. Last hitting well is a really basic and common MOBA skill that helps separate good players from bad. Yes, it makes the experience much easier for new players, but seasoned MOBA veterans are not going to find this to be a fun mechanic. The Flash. I'm a bit torn on this topic. On the one hand, proper usage of your blink is a fun mechanic that adds the gameplay. On the other hand, it's frustrating when you use your skill to execute a really good rotation to punish an overextended hero, only to see your target zurp away under the tower. Giving everyone a blink lets everyone play stupid and frustrates those who play well. My main concern with all of these easy mode mechanics is that Omida seems to be tailoring Predecessor to emulate the era of Paragon when Epic started to dumb the game down in order to attract more players. While this is obviously a smart marketing decision to get more players into the game, it still concerns me because that's when I started losing interest in Paragon. They're a step away from having the three-card system, and that makes me want to fucking vomit. Technical difficulties. The number one issue I found with Predecessor during the test was poor client side prediction. At least I believe that's what it was. Client side prediction is basically a system that governs what happens when two people in two different geographic locations input commands into the game. There's a few reasons I feel that client side prediction was off. One example you can see here, I land a subjugate on Sevrog as he dashes away. One of two things should happen, either he dashes before subjugate lands, or subjugate lands and negates the dash. What actually happens is he dashes and then gets rooted on the other side. I felt this all throughout the playtest, Melee hits in particular felt a bit sloppy with damage occurring well after the animation hit the target. It was especially obvious to anyone who played against a steal off lane. You could hit that asshole with a stun before he started his charge, but he would charge through anyway and just get stunned on the other side where it just didn't matter. This also affected auto-cancelling and the ability to queue up abilities. You would either not use the ability, or not use the basic attack. Many people have said that both fault and overprime had better combat, and I tend to agree because of this server lag thing that they had going on. This is a problem that has plagued Omidus since the very first alpha test back in March of 2019, and I sincerely hope they can get a handle on this. Many people believe that Predecessor is ready for full launch in its current state, and while I think that what we had to toy around with was fun, there were far too many systems absent and therefore untested. What they gave us was certainly an excellent indication of what they're capable of, but basic systems like player progression, cast settings, and some sort of monetization will need to be implemented before they release the game full access. This was a stress test, not an alpha test, and in that, they were incredibly successful with the amount of players they were able to get into the game. I'm looking forward to what they'll let us play around with in the future and I'm particularly interested in what they plan to do for monetization. Omidus borrowed quite a bit in order to create Predecessor, and they'll have to recoup that money somehow. The stress test was certainly a major milestone for Predecessor that served to showcase their capabilities to the community and inspired even more confidence in the game. But this was just one step along the road back to Agora, and we must all be patient and allow Omidus to fully implement and test their systems before putting them into our hands. I just hope the wait isn't too damn long because I'm already feeling for more Predecessor. Like the video if you enjoyed it, sub for more 3rd person mobile content, but for now, this is the Mangoo signing off, you guys, have a good one.