Best Of

My favorite archetype is by far the tank. I have been a tank main for the last two decades in a few different mmo's and it's the only playstyle I truely enjoy.

First off, I would like to change the name of the archetype from Tank to Guardian. It's just a better name.

I feel that I can see the broader plan for the AoC tank, but it also feels like it is missing a few key components to get there. Among these there are two that are essential to me and a few that are just conveniences.

The first big one is Blocking. Right now i AoC it feels like Blocking as a tank is just an afterthought with no real advantages. Active blocking doesn't feel right so blocking is just kind of a stat game where I block every 15th or 20th attack with really noticing. Here I see AoC could take one of two paths, one is to go heavily into Active Blocking and the other is to make Blocking a specc and stat game. Both could be viable if done correctly.

If you choose to go with active blocking, it has to feel rewarding and consequential to do so. This means that I want tools and options to customize my active blocking. This could be done by talents in the tanks talent tree that increase the effectiveness of blocking or reduces stamina cost or the like, or it could be by the choice of shield I make. One shield could be able to block higher amounts of damage and another could have better stamina regen or maybe spikes to deal damage to attackers. But there has to be options. Active blocking also needs to flow better with attack chains so that I can get the benefits of finishers somehow even if I'm raising my shield to block attacks.

If blocking is made in to a passive specc and stat game, then there has to be more abilities and talent choices to actually improve or specialize my blocks. This could be a defensive ability to increase my block rating or block chance for a few seconds, or it could be stats on the shield that make me acctually block a significant amount of the incoming attacks or that affect how much of the incoming attacks are blocked. Once again, make me have actual choices that impact the outcome of the encounter.

The second essential component I think is missing is the options to customize the feedback I get during combat. For example, I would like to be able to put certain buffs, like Grit, on a different spot in my UI than all the other buffs just so that it's easier to track. I would also like to be able to customize how incoming damage is displayed and I would really, really, really like to have a visual indicator on the nameplate of mobs if I have aggro or not.

I also think that the tank resource Courage is underwhelming. Right now it only acts as a secondary resource for a few abilities. I would much rather have Courage be a resource that you could either spend on abilities for offense or stack up for greater defence. This would give it a tactical component instead of just being a secondary resource. This could for example be done by have certain defensive abilities stay active as long as you stay above 50 Courage and the Cooldown starts when the effect is lost. That would mean that it's a choice, and a bigger impact, if you choose to spend your Courage on offensive abilities or if you want to manage it for defensive power.

Other than that I would like the tank to have a few more CC options and a few more defensive options. Not necessarily so I can have them all at the same time, just so that I can customize for playstyle and content.

Also, the ability Reflect is one of my favorites as a tank. I would just like if it not only did damage to the attacker, but also blocked incoming damage. Currently it doesn't.

Thank you for reading

Which archetype do you find the most fun to play? Why?
Every other class
Which archetype do you find the least fun to play? Why?
Ranger.
Are there any combat systems or mechanics you feel need more development or refinement? Please explain.
auto attacks range for rangers using BOW.
During group combat or grinding sessions, do you feel any core features or gameplay elements are missing or underdeveloped? If yes, please describe.
i think its better if Ranger ammo do like Explosion, Snare to stun 0.5segs when u have 20 stacks of that ammo etc..

The ranger feels underwhelming. Other classes can use bows too, yet the archer doesn't get any real advantage from it—not even a meaningful range difference (just 5-10 meters more). On top of that, basic attacks and some abilities slow you down. Why? That doesn’t happen to mages or bards. Why slow down the archer, the one class that’s supposed to be agile?

Which archetype do you find the most fun to play? Why?
Although I am and always will be a mage main, I would without a doubt say the most fun/well rounded/well designed classes are Bard, Rogue, and fighter. They all have good (rogue great) kits with lots of interactions with one another, and a high skill ceiling to separate the average player from a good player. Specifically the bard and rogue have good class fantasy/mechanic that makes them unique and engaging to play. As mentioned by other respondents, all classes should be as well designed/well rounded as the rogue at a minimum.
Which archetype do you find the least fun to play? Why?
I would say the rest of the classes need reworking/heavy refinement: Mage, Ranger, Tank, Cleric. I think their class mechanics are uninteresting and don't have enough synergy with the rest of the kit. Aside from mage, the ranger/tank/cleric just have basic builder/spender class mechanic that pretty much does the same thing - this needs reworking/heavy refinement.

As mentioned, I main mage and the class mechanic is uninteresting and needs more flare/synergies woven into the kit overall (or completely reworked). Shatter is cool and a no-brainer, but aside from that everything is lacking. At current max level, mages don't have much in terms of utility/flavor spells outside of slumber and invis eye; Give us more options to create unique builds focusing more on the elements (fire/ice/arcane/earth?), give us more class synergy and interested abilities/mechanics that allow for high skill play and not just straight damage (COUNTERSPELL PLS).

Are there any combat systems or mechanics you feel need more development or refinement? Please explain.
I have to say, i really dislike the shared debuff mechanic. When in a group bigger than maybe 5 people or with 2-3 classes that share the slow/immobilize debuff, it makes it extremely difficult/impossible to successfully execute your rotation even if you play perfectly. You will never be able to take advantage of the frozen/shatter/thermal equilibrium/fuse talents because it will always get DRed instantly when grouped with a few classes that overlap the debuff; even more so in a raid. This feels AWEFUL and makes you not want to try and maximize your dps or care about how you even play your class, as we haven't experienced any content yet where knowing how to play your class even matters anyways. I understand that shared debuffs has a place, but there needs to be a middle ground where you can still focus on personal performance - IE a certain amount of stacks of shock/burning/freeze produced by you are only usable by you, or something to that effect. In addition, i think there should be an option for button prompts or better visual ques for consuming stacks of a debuff that aren't just watching the tiny squares on enemy health bars!

During group combat or grinding sessions, do you feel any core features or gameplay elements are missing or underdeveloped? If yes, please describe.
As touched on in previous paragraph, better visual ques for stacks would be nice so we aren't staring at the tiny debuff squares constantly. I also think adding more interclass synergies would truly make this a next gen combat experience. The same way the new caravan system added the ability to opt-in via clicking an icon, maybe small visual indicators to use an ability with another player in your group/raid. I think this could possibly be a better way to have party/class synergy without disrupting your own buffs/debuff/rotations and still maintain the same reactive gameplay. Imagine a ranger charging a kill shot, and for a brief period, a visual indicator becomes available to your class (there would be unique class interactions available only to said class combos/abilities ) to empower their kill shot with fire to give it more damage and apply burning by clicking the icon before it disappears! I think there is so much you can do with class/party synergies that is still left on the table with everything so far.

RonDog98 wrote: »

I’m saying you can have risk vs reward in scenarios that matter more. If the journey to max is more solo and casual friendly, they are more likely to stick around past that.

The problem is that Steven's philosophy is that MMOs are only fun if everything you do has high competition and high Risk. And he believes that there are Rewards that will help make that enjoyable.

Casuals are unlikely to find that enjoyable. Cozies definitely won't.
And there are no Rewards that will change that. Especially when there are other games that fit the playstyle better.
When describing how Inventory is designed for bags, Steven said they are designed so that even we head out to gather we should be contemplating Economic warfare. I don't want to be constantly contemplating competition and Economic warfare any time I go out to gather some flowers.

First think I do, when I Level is go off an explore areas where no mobs longer con as Red/Skulls.
Steven thinks that is opt-in PvP if you go out to explore The Open Seas. I don't consider that opt-in Free-For-All PvP. Because Steven is motivated by the Rewards - and his love of PvP combat.
If I'm going out to explore, I just want to explore and not be distracted by other players pushing me into PvP combat. And there are no Rewards that are going to make Free-For-All PvP combat more enticing to me when I'm really only in the mood for exploration.
People who love PvP, say, "Well, you can always choose not to go to The Open Seas." But. I am an explorer first and foremost. Exploring the entire map probably has my highest interest, so, I'm not really going to be interested in playing a game where I can't explore the entire map. Instead I would just play a game where I can explore the entire map without having to deal with FFA PvP.

By the time Steven announced The Open Seas, WoW had already dropped Dragonflight - which I love to play.
Dragonflight has a level of PvE risk v reward that I enjoy. And Endgame loops I enjoy.
So... I would now play WoW rather than Ashes.
Had Ashes released Before 2020 with the original Kickstarter game design, I would have played Ashes rather than WoW.

Ashes has become less Casual-friendly since Jeffrey Bard left as Lead Game Designer.
Because Steven loves competition and high Risk... and he's creating a game for that niche who has his playstyle.

nanfoodle wrote: »

Characters look ugly and frumpy. Men and women are mostly not defined well enough. My wife really hates her female chars. My guess we are on where close to final pass.

I can't wait for Improvements later on.

As of right now....

I'll probably be playing solo for a while in Ashes. I'll still find some groups to do content with but wont be running with a pack or guild for awhile. Assuming I don't get bored after the first month or so.. for what I want to do in the game wont be much of an issue considering how you can sign up for content IE caravans etc

I dont see a point in finding guilds now before there's an official release date. Too much drama and falling out non-sense to avoid. To each their own in that regard though.

!

Aszkalon wrote: »

The Machine Spirit of your Graphic Card is strong - but even then,

the (true) Alpha shows it's nasty, true Colors. Until things are optimized - Chaos has it's slithering tentacles all about the PTR and sometimes also Live(?) Test Servers.

We beseech the Machine God to watch over you.
Praise the Omnissiah!

LeonGutz wrote: »

crash and fps drop.
I'm having a big problem in the PTR of Ashes, it's having a very high fps drop, some brutal crashes. As I bought the key for the third wave I do not know if the game is broken like this or just the PTR. My PC is relatively good, I don't think it's just him. RTX 5070, Ryzen 7 5700x and 16 gb ram 3200. SSD and Exitlag to improve the connection. what may be causing these fps drops, can someone help me please

what are your percentiles while playing?
what resolution?
graphical settings?
frame rate limits?

when you say your ram is 3200? is that your MT/s or MHz?

The archetype I most enjoy is the fighter, though I say that with a couple of caveats.
- I love the overall feel of fighter.
- Momentum is a shitty class resource. Always starting empty is miserable, and the rate at which it drains when combat ends is far too fast. In PvP, it's hard to generate momentum whilst being constantly kited.
- Melee characters (fighters especially) are fucked in large group combat. The more hardcore guilds won't even slot a fighter in their siege teams.

Class balance should be a matter of taking say 30 design points and splitting them between DPS, Mitigation, Range, Healing, and Mobility. Every class gets the same budget to split. The way the game plays right now, you guys have left Range out of the points calculation. You're splitting the 30 points between DPS, Mitigation, Healing, and Mobility. Ranged classes just get Range for free and it fucks with balance. It also feels like you're not differentiating the classes much. Mage and Ranger are very similar in role, for example.

I also enjoy playing Tank. Not because of the mechanics, but in spite of them. I like being useful to my group, and Tank is very useful. It's just not a lot of fun mechanics-wise. Tank mitigation is pretty piss-poor. Having to hit grit every 18s is annoying as fuck. And everything else a tank gets mitigation-wise, so does every other class if they make the same gear choices. Tanks have a massively increased cost of repair compared to everyone else, and they die so often that they take home less glint and more xp debt too.

I like playing mage and ranger, though less than the two classes above. Maybe I'm a masochist. Ranger and Mage are easy to play, have great damage, everyone wants you in their PvP group, But they're both boring, possibly because they're too easy.

I like playing cleric solo - the self heals are fun, though I do wish there was a way to spec into a more offensive build for cleric. I'd like to be able to sacrifice some group heals for some dps, for instance. I don't like playing cleric in a group, but that's not a slight to AoC clerics in particular - I just don't like to play healers in any game.

I don't like rogue or bard. Both are extremely effective classes, and I like that they have a high skill ceiling. I just don't like playing stealth or support.

You need to raise the skill ceiling on the simpler classes, fix the range vs melee balance, and make every class feel more unique.

Hi, Fighter main here.

Fighter feels very good intrinsically, I love the "weight" that big abilities have, I like the skills and the interaction that different Status Effects have on your rotation. I have an issue with the limitation that Weapon Skill trees have by not really being unique enough for each weapon (yet?) but I digress, this is an Archetype discussion. :P

I still love the feel of the combat in general even 10 months later, it is definitely a very solid foundation to go forward with, however I do have some fundamental issues that have manifested during this time:

What is Fighter? For PvP specifically, Melee is in a rough spot particularly in larger groups. I understand that Archetypes will be balanced around 8v8 but it still needs to be somewhat viable without ditching your entire class fantasy for spamming Longbow the entire fight.
- I would like Fighter to be more of the disrupting force it is supposed to be. A couple fighters should be able to jump into a group of casters and make them disperse simply by fear of getting AoE tripped and clobbered. This would allow Fighter to fill this specific role of breaking up large clumps of people. IMO this could be achieved by increasing Fighter Invulnerability while actively doing damage and the counter-play would be for people to have to move and kite-drain a fighter's Combat Momentum or focus them down, currently Fighters will run out of juice in 6-8 seconds and have to dodge roll spam just to get away from mages that easily face tanked them. Essentially its a one way trip against a competent team which does not feel very Fighter. Perhaps other Fighters can CC through a Fighter's Invulnerability with some abilities for more counter-play?? Idk throwing things out there...

I think Fighter is in an Almost-but-not-quite state in PvE as well, our status effects are largely useless since any Tank already applies them for free and we are basically locked to Ferocity Form always which doesn't feel super finished.

One footnote about the Rogue: I am a little concerned about free Healing in stealth. Especially since the addition of the rogue archetype, we have the ability for "resets" to happen. In these resets the rogue has the ability to disengage and heal for free. At the very least I feel like we should be able to eat Rations to heal, NOT in combat, but while having ACTIVE DoTs on us. Hit and run attrition tactics are very much a play style for sure, but combine them with no counter-play to force a player back into the fight it becomes this silly situational issue.
This is not just a rogue issue, but also when a Mage applies Burn and then dies and still kills you 8 seconds later simply because you cannot eat even though you are out of combat.
Also, I have a sneaking feeling Summoner will bring a slew of DoT effects with it that are going to be equally annoying.

Good job with the momentum changes, movement abilities feels much more important than in 2.5

In regard to auto attacks, they may be too prevalent in things like pvp interaction. For instance, most pvp engagements start and end mostly with auto attacks from strictly longbows because of the attack range of the weapon and this makes classes like rogue almost useless as you are hardly in stealth locking people down with dmg/cc instead you are expected to help with auto attack damage and finish low targets taking away a lot of what makes a rogue a rogue. I feel this is the case for a lot of classes. Not everyone wants to poke with bows every time they pvp.