Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Best Of
Confirmation Button for Demotion/Promotion
Please add a confirmation prompt for promoting/demoting a trade. I accidentally demoted my mining when attempting to promote it to Journeyman and now, it won't let me promote it back to Apprentice (it is currently showing a lock on the skill). I know that even when it unlocks, I won't be able to recover the lost levels and XP which actually took me way too long to obtain. Sure, this is Alpha so I get losses happen but it's still annoying AF to lose the time and xp.
Re: Let's talk about crafting in Ashes as it currently works.
In no mmo except Ragnarok Online 2 where I leveled 1 to 50 via crafting, have I ever managed to keep up crafting with my grinding passion. The application of my crafting usually comes at max level anyway. By which point I sm rich and craft the best stuff for my twinks. I think the current iteration is fine but more gatherables are required.
Re: Serious concerns about loot recovery
In general I don't bother retrieving. It takes so freaking long to get anywhere, let alone if you've been ranging far, that its just not worth it. The continued XP debt you incur is annoying. The fact that you will already have been looted and will never know who to even try to get it back is annoying. Alls I see is risk and amd still looking for the promised rewards.
blktauna
1
Gather/Processing Rarity Broken By Enchantment - FLOAT to INT w/o Overload suspected
Description
Wearing enchanted gathering and/or processing equipment appears to destroy rarity outcomes. Numerically on the character sheet the values add up correctly, but I believe there's something hidden/truncated that we cannot see from the enchantment system, and that the functional rarity/quantity increases are breaking due to the values not being sent internally because of mismatched numeric variable types.
Bug Reproduction Steps
1) Log in to gameplay with a character who has a high-rarity gathering tool, and unenchanted gathering equipment.
2) Gather 100 units of the same material type, observe the rate and quality of rare gathering outcomes.
3) Enchant your gathering equipment, put it back on, and gather another 100 units of the same type. Observe the rate and quality of rare gathering outcomes.
Expected Result
The enchanted gathering gear should provide similar or slightly better rarity and quantity results than the unenchanted gear.
Bug Report - Actual Result
The enchanted gear causes gathering rarity to always be uncommon, and no quantity increases are provided. For processing, this causes all products to come out at the same quality and quantity instead of providing extra units and/or higher quality units.
For more context, my +4 Journeyman Mining Belt was causing ALL of my gathering--including Herbalism--to bottom out at common and uncommon only, with zero quantity increases. As soon as I took the enchanted gear off, I was gathering higher rarity. This had been observed but not nailed down going as far back as Phase 1.
Wearing enchanted gathering and/or processing equipment appears to destroy rarity outcomes. Numerically on the character sheet the values add up correctly, but I believe there's something hidden/truncated that we cannot see from the enchantment system, and that the functional rarity/quantity increases are breaking due to the values not being sent internally because of mismatched numeric variable types.
Bug Reproduction Steps
1) Log in to gameplay with a character who has a high-rarity gathering tool, and unenchanted gathering equipment.
2) Gather 100 units of the same material type, observe the rate and quality of rare gathering outcomes.
3) Enchant your gathering equipment, put it back on, and gather another 100 units of the same type. Observe the rate and quality of rare gathering outcomes.
Expected Result
The enchanted gathering gear should provide similar or slightly better rarity and quantity results than the unenchanted gear.
Bug Report - Actual Result
The enchanted gear causes gathering rarity to always be uncommon, and no quantity increases are provided. For processing, this causes all products to come out at the same quality and quantity instead of providing extra units and/or higher quality units.
For more context, my +4 Journeyman Mining Belt was causing ALL of my gathering--including Herbalism--to bottom out at common and uncommon only, with zero quantity increases. As soon as I took the enchanted gear off, I was gathering higher rarity. This had been observed but not nailed down going as far back as Phase 1.
Re: 📝 Dev Discussion #71 - Spells & Abilities ⚔
What is the best ability or spell you’ve used and why?
The best...
https://throneandliberty.gameslantern.com/skills/chaotic-shield
Why:
I play archetypes in gaming where perfect awareness, positioning and reactions are required but have relatively big payoffs.
This is the best MMO version of it, for me, because it expanded so much beyond what I could do with https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Utsusemi while still giving much of the same feeling (relative to what the game's base gameplay is)
This single, perfectly designed skill allows me to tank all the same 'single target melee' enemies, frontline against many bosses that rely on attritive 'chunk damage' flows, surprise enemies in PvP with complex strategies involving restoring my teammates, accelerate entire damage structures, and feel the active version of 'managing shadows'. I could go on about the nuances of Chaotic Shield for hours.
Which spells or abilities stand out the most to you from games you’ve played in the past?
For this question I should clarify that when I think 'stand out' I am not referring to 'things that I have mentally slotted as 'personal' archetypal skills. MMOs abilities are, after all, just designers finding ways to provide people with expressions of things they already 'see themselves doing' for the imaginative. Most people of a particular archetype seek the same sorts of things across many games, etc, to the point where I think a really fleshed out game that has been allowed to have a lot of options/complexity will contain almost all of it.
For MMOs, for me, this is now Throne and Liberty, and FF11 also gets to share that spot for much the same reason. You could 'take TL's combat design' and 'put it into FF' and I would not need to change anything. Even MMOs can't let me have everything though (well, until TL, now I can), for that, you have to go to very specific implementations of Pathfinder (or custom TTRPGs) or reference this movelist (I don't suggest doing that) and then add healing to all of it:
https://wiki.gbl.gg/w/Under_Night_In-Birth/UNI2/Seth
So, with all that preamble, moving on to 'things I find interesting and impactful that aren't mostly just the MMO versions of stuff I play everywhere else:
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Auspice
Would take as long to explain as Chaotic Shield, honestly.
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Trick_Attack
Knowing how and when to use this, combined with the fact that you can use it on any melee damage instance, has a specific feeling to it that is incredibly hard to replicate outside of something in Monster Hunter World that is also borderline impossible to explain.
(honestly everything past here is again, just 'stuff I do in other games, but these ones are listed because within the game they are from, they're 'defining', i.e. I could not play the way I want without them but they're not just super obvious)
https://armoredcore.fandom.com/wiki/Rockets
Specifically the ECM ones. This obviously isn't an MMO spell/ability but as noted, they're all the same to me. The ECM rockets debuff your opponent's ability to lock onto you, which makes you somewhat immune to missiles and makes targeting with most weapons meaningfully harder if you are fast. Same thing in Elite Dangerous as an 'augment' on my Plasma Accelerator.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Larcenous_Strike
It's in the name.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Basilisk_Venom
Same but moreso.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Distracting_Daggers
Another reward for prediction ability and timing, in TL and FF I have to work harder for this and perfectly time a Sleep skill/spell, which I don't prefer at all.
I can't really think of more, probably because I specialize in 'having a lot of tools that must be used/timed perfectly', but the tools themselves are simpler and therefore convergent design does the rest.
What made them special to you?
Obviously the answer is 'I like what they do', and I don't think there's any way to justify that other than 'I'm me, so I like things that are me-like'. But I do have a deeper answer.
A child playing pretend (or an adult, we don't discriminate here, obviously) has a specific perception of themselves, and in an RPG, (TTRPGs are probably the best starting point) want to visualize themselves doing specific things. Setting aside all the 'I want to be powerful' and 'I don't want to lose/be mocked' decisions, if the game offers a path to that style, they take it, they become comfortable, they enjoy it. (there are some that like to be everything and play a lot of alts, I don't have any useful opinion on that).
Tabletop games with high flexibility, Trading Card games with high flexibility, Action RPGs with high flexibility, MMORPGs with high flexibility... they're all the same in the end:
Find the path to being the thing,
Make do when the game doesn't allow a part of it,
Rejoice in the feeling of expression,
Lament when your self has been designed in a weak form,
Or for others when you have been designed in too strong a form,
The Night Blade wanders, the Basilisk's Venom cleaves,
The Moonlight breath of the Draconic High Priestess,
Brings solace or death.
The best...
https://throneandliberty.gameslantern.com/skills/chaotic-shield
Why:
I play archetypes in gaming where perfect awareness, positioning and reactions are required but have relatively big payoffs.
This is the best MMO version of it, for me, because it expanded so much beyond what I could do with https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Utsusemi while still giving much of the same feeling (relative to what the game's base gameplay is)
This single, perfectly designed skill allows me to tank all the same 'single target melee' enemies, frontline against many bosses that rely on attritive 'chunk damage' flows, surprise enemies in PvP with complex strategies involving restoring my teammates, accelerate entire damage structures, and feel the active version of 'managing shadows'. I could go on about the nuances of Chaotic Shield for hours.
Which spells or abilities stand out the most to you from games you’ve played in the past?
For this question I should clarify that when I think 'stand out' I am not referring to 'things that I have mentally slotted as 'personal' archetypal skills. MMOs abilities are, after all, just designers finding ways to provide people with expressions of things they already 'see themselves doing' for the imaginative. Most people of a particular archetype seek the same sorts of things across many games, etc, to the point where I think a really fleshed out game that has been allowed to have a lot of options/complexity will contain almost all of it.
For MMOs, for me, this is now Throne and Liberty, and FF11 also gets to share that spot for much the same reason. You could 'take TL's combat design' and 'put it into FF' and I would not need to change anything. Even MMOs can't let me have everything though (well, until TL, now I can), for that, you have to go to very specific implementations of Pathfinder (or custom TTRPGs) or reference this movelist (I don't suggest doing that) and then add healing to all of it:
https://wiki.gbl.gg/w/Under_Night_In-Birth/UNI2/Seth
So, with all that preamble, moving on to 'things I find interesting and impactful that aren't mostly just the MMO versions of stuff I play everywhere else:
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Auspice
Would take as long to explain as Chaotic Shield, honestly.
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Trick_Attack
Knowing how and when to use this, combined with the fact that you can use it on any melee damage instance, has a specific feeling to it that is incredibly hard to replicate outside of something in Monster Hunter World that is also borderline impossible to explain.
(honestly everything past here is again, just 'stuff I do in other games, but these ones are listed because within the game they are from, they're 'defining', i.e. I could not play the way I want without them but they're not just super obvious)
https://armoredcore.fandom.com/wiki/Rockets
Specifically the ECM ones. This obviously isn't an MMO spell/ability but as noted, they're all the same to me. The ECM rockets debuff your opponent's ability to lock onto you, which makes you somewhat immune to missiles and makes targeting with most weapons meaningfully harder if you are fast. Same thing in Elite Dangerous as an 'augment' on my Plasma Accelerator.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Larcenous_Strike
It's in the name.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Basilisk_Venom
Same but moreso.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Distracting_Daggers
Another reward for prediction ability and timing, in TL and FF I have to work harder for this and perfectly time a Sleep skill/spell, which I don't prefer at all.
I can't really think of more, probably because I specialize in 'having a lot of tools that must be used/timed perfectly', but the tools themselves are simpler and therefore convergent design does the rest.
What made them special to you?
Obviously the answer is 'I like what they do', and I don't think there's any way to justify that other than 'I'm me, so I like things that are me-like'. But I do have a deeper answer.
A child playing pretend (or an adult, we don't discriminate here, obviously) has a specific perception of themselves, and in an RPG, (TTRPGs are probably the best starting point) want to visualize themselves doing specific things. Setting aside all the 'I want to be powerful' and 'I don't want to lose/be mocked' decisions, if the game offers a path to that style, they take it, they become comfortable, they enjoy it. (there are some that like to be everything and play a lot of alts, I don't have any useful opinion on that).
Tabletop games with high flexibility, Trading Card games with high flexibility, Action RPGs with high flexibility, MMORPGs with high flexibility... they're all the same in the end:
Find the path to being the thing,
Make do when the game doesn't allow a part of it,
Rejoice in the feeling of expression,
Lament when your self has been designed in a weak form,
Or for others when you have been designed in too strong a form,
The Night Blade wanders, the Basilisk's Venom cleaves,
The Moonlight breath of the Draconic High Priestess,
Brings solace or death.
Azherae
3
[Suggestion] Heroic Dungeon Days
Working towards level 25 is quite a journey, but one of the things that kind of sucks is revisiting those awesome dungeons/POIs from early levels and the mobs are easy to kill, and no loot drops, its like eating lukewarm soup (no offense to you cold borscht soup eaters)
A "cool to have" game feature would be days where the dungeons/POIs scale to higher levels; Thursdays - Oakenbane Heroic Day, or Heroic Highwayman Hills Wednesdays. During the events mob levels and damage would scale, loot scaling would be rad, but honestly would just be cool to run the dungeons at a higher level/difficulty.
Might not be feasible, but a fun thought.
A "cool to have" game feature would be days where the dungeons/POIs scale to higher levels; Thursdays - Oakenbane Heroic Day, or Heroic Highwayman Hills Wednesdays. During the events mob levels and damage would scale, loot scaling would be rad, but honestly would just be cool to run the dungeons at a higher level/difficulty.
Might not be feasible, but a fun thought.
Re: Designing the Rogue to be less about stealth
Agreed. When most of the gameplay / abilities of a class rely on stealth, stealth itself must be reliable enough for the class to be playable. And then balancing it becomes harder... Other classes must be given ways to see through it or break it. Same with mobs or else the stealther can go anywhere...Simple hot take.
Rogues should not get permanent stealth.
I've played characters with limited time for stealth. Jedi Sentinel in SWTOR and Witch Hunter in WAR. Worked well in both games. If I remember right, in both cases it was a fixed max time in stealth that would break if you attacked. AoC could do the same, or have stealth constantly draining mana, thus forcing the player to balance invisibility time with combat resource.
Problem is Sent/Mara wasn't a rogue class, it was a Berserker class (dual wield/fighter) The rogue classes were Shadow and Smuggler both of which had permanent stealth.
Not to mention Sent /Mara got fucking destroyed by the nerf hammer because while it was insanely fun to play as, but playing against it was a nightmare.
You can have permanent stealth so long as it isn't followed up by a 4 sec stun then, a 4 sec mez then, an 8 sec mez which is enough time to drop combat and restealth and apply the 4 sec stun again.
Stealth should be a gap closer to apply front loaded damage, a long potent DOT or something that goes off 5 secs after application.
This allows for counter play like using DCDs or applying HoTs which gives the rogue a chance to assess what's going on and either continue with the attack, or choose life.
Node Voting restrictions are OVERDUE
Currently non-citizens frequently stuff votes with alts or by dropping citizenship when a node election is announced. The cooldown is 36 hours, the time between an election's announcement and conclusion is 48 hours, giving everyone a 12 hour window to drop citizenship and still vote.
My proposed solutions are already planned by the devs afaik, but they need to be implemented and tested ASAP as they are crucial to the system functioning effectively.
limitations should be:
- one node per account
- one vote per account
- one week delay after joining a node to be eligible for a vote
My proposed solutions are already planned by the devs afaik, but they need to be implemented and tested ASAP as they are crucial to the system functioning effectively.
limitations should be:
- one node per account
- one vote per account
- one week delay after joining a node to be eligible for a vote
Re: Make Guards attack people during Node Wars.
Arya_Yeshe wrote: »I have experience in this like very few have around here:
It is horrible fighting your war targets while having npc police, npc guards, faction army/navy annoying you. Police should be for crimes only, not for wars!!!
Even when I am the smaller group in a war trying to punch up against the bigger group then I will have npc police chasing me? Give me break!
Wars should be fought by armies and the army here are the players! It is the players who have to organize and form their defense or die off and disband, go join better groups.
But, why would a node guard not protect their node?
Re: Grinding Spots
Fairly sure that's not only the plan, but is already implemented in Alpha. Not only at the scale of a dungeon, but the whole location too. Plain/1* mobs on the outskirts of a location, 2* and harder mobs deeper in and then 3* in the center, with groups of them in the most difficult spots.Maybe they should look into a tougher dungeon design, one where you progress forward into tougher mobs and better loot?
That way the stronger group will push passed the lower content freeing that up for others, and also giving the other groups a chance to farm that content til they themselves can then progress forward and so on
Ludullu
1