Best Of
Re: Risk, Reward, Difficulty & FUN: What Intrepid is Missing
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.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.
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.
Dygz
1
Re: Character Models: Too similar?
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.
Aszkalon
1
Re: Amazing world, painfully dull grind
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.
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.
Re: FPS DROP AND CRASH on PTR
!
We beseech the Machine God to watch over you.
Praise the Omnissiah!
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 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!
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?
Re: 📝 Dev Discussion - Archetype Vibe Check
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.
- 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.
Re: 📝 Dev Discussion - Archetype Vibe Check
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
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
MatrimOG
2
Re: 📝 Dev Discussion - Archetype Vibe Check
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.
Atherin
3
Re: 📝 Dev Discussion - Archetype Vibe Check
Rangers play/feel like your playing a mage class not a ranger type class
Veeshan
12
Re: Character Models
GreatPhilisopher wrote: »
always funny to me how western companies use models that are usually attractive or good looking then uglify the hell out of them while the eastern ones make them as beautiful if not more .
oh and the western ones usually dont have a problem with male ones ...i wonder why
Yeah, it is a product of the community. The product of an easily "offended" North America (I use quote there as the bulk of these people dont know what being actually offended even is).
Go back 5 to 10 years ago, every female gamer (it seemed) was on every game developers case about the female models in game, how they were setting unrealistic expectations. A handful of news outlets (a term used very losely here) and tried to make it a big deal. These people seemed to think that game developers were the moral arbiters deciding what a female should look like - an obviously absurd notion.
This didn't happen in Korea, because in Korea, the goal is perfection - even if that means surgery (Seoul is the cosmetic surgery capital of the world). Koreans weren't offended by perfect looking characters in games, they looked at that as a reason to up their own game.
And now, half a decade or more later, we are left with a situation where developers creating games aimed at that easily offended market need to tone things down, while developers creating games aimed at the other market simply do kot need to do this.
It sucks, but don't blame developers, and don't make the mistake of thinking they cant make them look better. The blame lies elsewhere.
Im always baffled when i read/see suff/'takes' like this ngl, what makes you think that YOU( and when i say you is you and the others alike you, which means same distorted mentality...) are the major audience!??And btw if there is someone who should be deciding 'what a female should look like', it is indeed a female! Its not YOU and your '(obviously) absurd notion' that will define or dictate how a female should look like.
- "The product of an easily "offended" North America" - wait WHAT 🤣 (im sorry i had to laugh at that, flash news games are not being made for only North American audiences
- "Go back 5 to 10 years ago, every female gamer (it seemed) was on every game developers case about the female models in game, how they were setting unrealistic expectations. A handful of news outlets (a term used very losely here) and tried to make it a big deal. These people seemed to think that game developers were the moral arbiters deciding what a female should look like - an obviously absurd notion." - I reckon your not a female gamer then right? Thats the conclusion i come to (cuz this sounds very much like an incel take)
- "This didn't happen in Korea, because in Korea, the goal is perfection - even if that means surgery (Seoul is the cosmetic surgery capital of the world). Koreans weren't offended by perfect looking characters in games, they looked at that as a reason to up their own game." - maybe but just maybe... a large portion/amount of people are not looking forward for 'perfection'
- "...easily "offended" North America" "...we are left with a situation where developers creating games aimed at that easily offended market..." - the irony! looks like you just described yourself there...
- "...don't blame developers..." "The blame lies elsewhere"- indeed, issue is YOU and your incel mindsets nothing more or less than that
Thank you for proving my point about how easily offended North Americans can be.
Your actual post makes no sense, I hope you understand that. It is the incoherent ramblings of an offended North American white female gamer.
Noaani
2
Re: 📝 Dev Discussion - Archetype Vibe Check
Which archetype do you find the most fun to play? Why?
Rogue/Fighter.
Combat feels fluid in them. Rogue because it's so over tuned and bloated with mechanics it makes it fun. Fighter because overall it's a well designed kit and shreds in the hands of the right player
Which archetype do you find the least fun to play? Why?
Mage/Cleric
Mage is too simple. Has no depth or interesting mechanics. Just shatter. Which is from WoW. Should function like Rogue IMO have a high skill celling and be deadly in the hands of the right player
Same with Cleric. This is even worse. It's just a standard 30 year old almost healing and combat system. Dated boring and all you do is stare at raid frames. You guys can do better. It's 2025. Design a healer that is more engaging. Look at Wildstar healing for example. Other than that the kit itself is quite underwhelming.
Are there any combat systems or mechanics you feel need more development or refinement? Please explain.
Yes. The Hybrid combat system. This is not what we were promised. We were promised 75% of abilities could be skill shots or 75% could be tab.
Currently it seems the team and Steven are leaning into fully tab target. This is a huge mistake and alienates the backers who supported you under the pretense of Hybrid combat. We were also told no HARD CC would be possible with tab target combat spells. In general tab target combat is low skill expression. And causes a lot of problems with a low Time to Kill that intrepid wants. Free damage that 2 shots people is not fun. IMO High scaling abilities should ALL be aimed. And lower scaling 100% and less can be tab. You can see this issue with Archetypes doing MASSIVE unavoidable free damage. That one shots almost.
During group combat or grinding sessions, do you feel any core features or gameplay elements are missing or underdeveloped? If yes, please describe.
Yeah what's missing is the Sub Archetypes. And judging from comments from the team and Steven it seems that system has been scaled down as well. For an example. If you are Sub classing FIGHTER as a Ranger. Your kit should transform into something that has the ability of playing MELEE combat (unlocking new melee moves) with the ranger kit. AKA Survival hunter WoW. Another example... If you are playing Cleric and subclass ROGUE it should give you new or transformed CURRENT abilities allowing you to play close quarters with daggers while still offering healing EXAMPLE (healing touch: augments into a damage ability if used on an enemy. Deals bonus damage from BEHIND the target if sub classing Rogue). I have heard from some of the team that it will NOT work this way. Essentially only being passive flavor to a Archetype. THIS IS A HUGE MISTAKE (if true)
Also look on the Bard Forums for my Bard Revamp Idea. https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/1kftxbd/bard_revamp_idea_from_a_2000_time_played_bard/
Rogue/Fighter.
Combat feels fluid in them. Rogue because it's so over tuned and bloated with mechanics it makes it fun. Fighter because overall it's a well designed kit and shreds in the hands of the right player
Which archetype do you find the least fun to play? Why?
Mage/Cleric
Mage is too simple. Has no depth or interesting mechanics. Just shatter. Which is from WoW. Should function like Rogue IMO have a high skill celling and be deadly in the hands of the right player
Same with Cleric. This is even worse. It's just a standard 30 year old almost healing and combat system. Dated boring and all you do is stare at raid frames. You guys can do better. It's 2025. Design a healer that is more engaging. Look at Wildstar healing for example. Other than that the kit itself is quite underwhelming.
Are there any combat systems or mechanics you feel need more development or refinement? Please explain.
Yes. The Hybrid combat system. This is not what we were promised. We were promised 75% of abilities could be skill shots or 75% could be tab.
Currently it seems the team and Steven are leaning into fully tab target. This is a huge mistake and alienates the backers who supported you under the pretense of Hybrid combat. We were also told no HARD CC would be possible with tab target combat spells. In general tab target combat is low skill expression. And causes a lot of problems with a low Time to Kill that intrepid wants. Free damage that 2 shots people is not fun. IMO High scaling abilities should ALL be aimed. And lower scaling 100% and less can be tab. You can see this issue with Archetypes doing MASSIVE unavoidable free damage. That one shots almost.
During group combat or grinding sessions, do you feel any core features or gameplay elements are missing or underdeveloped? If yes, please describe.
Yeah what's missing is the Sub Archetypes. And judging from comments from the team and Steven it seems that system has been scaled down as well. For an example. If you are Sub classing FIGHTER as a Ranger. Your kit should transform into something that has the ability of playing MELEE combat (unlocking new melee moves) with the ranger kit. AKA Survival hunter WoW. Another example... If you are playing Cleric and subclass ROGUE it should give you new or transformed CURRENT abilities allowing you to play close quarters with daggers while still offering healing EXAMPLE (healing touch: augments into a damage ability if used on an enemy. Deals bonus damage from BEHIND the target if sub classing Rogue). I have heard from some of the team that it will NOT work this way. Essentially only being passive flavor to a Archetype. THIS IS A HUGE MISTAKE (if true)
Also look on the Bard Forums for my Bard Revamp Idea. https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/1kftxbd/bard_revamp_idea_from_a_2000_time_played_bard/
Glowies
5