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
Re: Tanking has no incentives, only detriments to the player
Yup. It's completely stupid. Tanks die at a rate which far, far exceeds any other class in normal PvE play. So there is a loop of death, loss of exp, loss of money, higher repair cost. This all leads to significantly lower reward per hour played compared with the other classes.
If a farming group goes well, you still get less of everything than everyone else, but it's tolerable. If things go poorly its really discouraging.
This is well documented and well understood. I would assumes devs will change something. Otherwise it's down to group members handing glint to the tank when the PVE ends and hoping he gets to town without dying. It should be said this is a terrible solution to the problem.
If a farming group goes well, you still get less of everything than everyone else, but it's tolerable. If things go poorly its really discouraging.
This is well documented and well understood. I would assumes devs will change something. Otherwise it's down to group members handing glint to the tank when the PVE ends and hoping he gets to town without dying. It should be said this is a terrible solution to the problem.
faylaen
3
Re: Linux Tips, Tweaks and Troubleshooting Thread
ashesofbutt wrote: »mercfredis, see my Ubuntu instructions a few posts up. I'd imagine they also work for Debian.
Ahh, didn't see that, thanks... been running Linux since '93 and I see people saying "YOU HAVE TO DITCH DEBIAN-BASED DISTROS!" which can't possibly be correct... so I was looking for any details and then prove them wrong. :-) Thanks for the notes, I'll check it out.
Re: Iron Aura reduced from 10% reduced damage to 2% ?
If u check the buffs bellow ur hp, still 10%.
if you check your character stats sheet its 2%. So it's actually currently 2% to the stats.
Grit is also 8% (not 10%). which makes it identical to Mark of the Bear except that Mark of the Bear doesn't reduce attack damage.
Re: Iron Aura reduced from 10% reduced damage to 2% ?
I am not sure if this is intended or an error. If you mouse over the actual ability, it says 2% reduction. But if you mouse over the buff as its applied, it still says 10%. I think that damage reduction brings a huge benefit to a group for PvE and PvP. To nerf it to 2% seems a bit of an extreme swing, but its hard to say what is implemented as of this last weekend with the conflicting info sheets.
PvP Experience is a big minus - I don't understand the design goals there
PvP in these types of games is niche. It's not Fortnite or Call of Duty. When you look at very successful MMOs the PvP has very tight controls on them, generally speaking, and those that don't typically have a significantly lower share of the market/subscriber base and so forth.
It may well be that Intrepid is ok with that as that's more of a business decision, but since it's so baked in and fundamental at this point, it would be difficult to about face. I think of Wildstar's old school raiding (huge mistake/alienating of community), and EQ2s "you must have a full group to do any kind of meaningful content" prior to launch, also a huge mistake a rolled back. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
That all aside, given that PvP is very much here to stay and a core feature of the game, here are a couple of misgivings from someone who is a complete lowbie with very little game time.
I struggle to understand, on any level, the fun factor of getting continuously looted at the ripe old age of level 4,5,6 a mere few hours into the game. After the quest sends me off into the middle of nowhere with my old swayback, I found myself slowly gathering bits of glint, and other odds and ends. There wasn't really anywhere to sell it, the main city was a long, long ways off. After about 5 hours of game time I ended up with just about what I started with - close to nothing. I watched as players looted my dead body, I returned to my dead body to find it gone, and I watch as other players hovered, waiting for the mobs to finally get me, so they can loot me. Not really amazing for community building!
My question is, who is this fun for? You can say cry more newb or git gud or whatever and that's fine, but when the design sessions are occurring, is there fervent agreement, and inspiration when we talk about the newb who's just barely learning to game getting his pittance of loot snagged for the 10th time as a great design decision? This feeds back to my comment above - who is your player base? Who enjoys that? I mean, surely the looters, but when they push out the casuals... well, you have your niche market share.
If that's what you want, then ok it just needs to be understood. If not, then why is it like this?
Here's where design/dev/tiny "community" testing of PvP fails on a fundamental level. When you're having your caravan run and oh no there's some players going to try and take us out - it's a blast! But... you're playing with you peers, your co-workers, your boss and your subordinates. They are people you know and have a relationship with. That DOES sound like fun! But that is not the reality of your player base
To truly test your systems you need the trolls. The people who don't care about the consequence (if they are at all meaningful which, at the moment, they don't seem to be). The people whose game fun/experience comes from ruining yours. The people who are anonymous tea-baggers who shout cry more newb and will camp you and/or generally exploit the system as much as possible to grief you. That's who you need testing, not your friends or people you pay, but those people.
If your systems can withstand that and remain enjoyable, congratulations you figured it out! If not, expect a small niche player base and a level of success associated with that. Again, perhaps that's your goal - I'm sure Pantheon of the Fallen isn't trying to be the next WoW and that's ok.
Now pardon me while I offer my newb corpse and the pittance of loot it holds to the leets out there that actually know what they're doing!
It may well be that Intrepid is ok with that as that's more of a business decision, but since it's so baked in and fundamental at this point, it would be difficult to about face. I think of Wildstar's old school raiding (huge mistake/alienating of community), and EQ2s "you must have a full group to do any kind of meaningful content" prior to launch, also a huge mistake a rolled back. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
That all aside, given that PvP is very much here to stay and a core feature of the game, here are a couple of misgivings from someone who is a complete lowbie with very little game time.
I struggle to understand, on any level, the fun factor of getting continuously looted at the ripe old age of level 4,5,6 a mere few hours into the game. After the quest sends me off into the middle of nowhere with my old swayback, I found myself slowly gathering bits of glint, and other odds and ends. There wasn't really anywhere to sell it, the main city was a long, long ways off. After about 5 hours of game time I ended up with just about what I started with - close to nothing. I watched as players looted my dead body, I returned to my dead body to find it gone, and I watch as other players hovered, waiting for the mobs to finally get me, so they can loot me. Not really amazing for community building!
My question is, who is this fun for? You can say cry more newb or git gud or whatever and that's fine, but when the design sessions are occurring, is there fervent agreement, and inspiration when we talk about the newb who's just barely learning to game getting his pittance of loot snagged for the 10th time as a great design decision? This feeds back to my comment above - who is your player base? Who enjoys that? I mean, surely the looters, but when they push out the casuals... well, you have your niche market share.
If that's what you want, then ok it just needs to be understood. If not, then why is it like this?
Here's where design/dev/tiny "community" testing of PvP fails on a fundamental level. When you're having your caravan run and oh no there's some players going to try and take us out - it's a blast! But... you're playing with you peers, your co-workers, your boss and your subordinates. They are people you know and have a relationship with. That DOES sound like fun! But that is not the reality of your player base
To truly test your systems you need the trolls. The people who don't care about the consequence (if they are at all meaningful which, at the moment, they don't seem to be). The people whose game fun/experience comes from ruining yours. The people who are anonymous tea-baggers who shout cry more newb and will camp you and/or generally exploit the system as much as possible to grief you. That's who you need testing, not your friends or people you pay, but those people.
If your systems can withstand that and remain enjoyable, congratulations you figured it out! If not, expect a small niche player base and a level of success associated with that. Again, perhaps that's your goal - I'm sure Pantheon of the Fallen isn't trying to be the next WoW and that's ok.
Now pardon me while I offer my newb corpse and the pittance of loot it holds to the leets out there that actually know what they're doing!
kelvar
2
Re: Linux Tips, Tweaks and Troubleshooting Thread
Hi guys, I appreciate the big-brain distro war battle, but could we keep this thread on the topic of getting AOC to work on Linux and associated troubleshooting? 
We're all on the same side here.
We're all on the same side here.
Re: Resource Respawn Issue: Broken Balance and Game Economy
Yeah, static respawn locations, and static timers. This is NOTHING like what was promised in the design discussions. I would imagine this is a placeholder of a placeholder atm.
Re: No Zinc or Copper anywhere
I was able to get copper and ruby in addition to basalt as a rare chance. Not sure if this was put in place as a stop gap or actually intended.
Lack of soft and hard stat caps is killing the pvp - stat stacking, gear rarity, enchanting & buffs
Time To Kill values especially in group play are insane, even before we factor in few other broken systems. This is Phase1 rarity gear situation all over again.
There is no space for player skill expression in the game, there is no space for being an underdog player or guild if stats dominate everything else. There is no space to even start talking about class balance in the context of 1v1 or group pvp.
It's all out damage stat race, which brings up your damage output to insane levels from single ability casts. We are back to a scenario, where you are able to 1-2 shot people.
We had the rarity gear nerfs during Phase 1, those came pretty late. The current issues are equally as obvious. Why aren't those issues closely tracked? Why the math behind the stats, the damage output and defensive stats has not been done?
This should have been hot fixed weeks ago, I mean the power gap between geared and not geared players is surely not intended. I have little interest in a game which allows me to 1 shot my opponents due to stat differences. The life of underdog in Ashes has to offer a sensible access to the game content or the population will just die.
If the power gap is intentional, please can we have a statement about it, so those of us who care about balanced and fun pvp experience can direct our attention elsewhere?
Thanks
There is no space for player skill expression in the game, there is no space for being an underdog player or guild if stats dominate everything else. There is no space to even start talking about class balance in the context of 1v1 or group pvp.
It's all out damage stat race, which brings up your damage output to insane levels from single ability casts. We are back to a scenario, where you are able to 1-2 shot people.
We had the rarity gear nerfs during Phase 1, those came pretty late. The current issues are equally as obvious. Why aren't those issues closely tracked? Why the math behind the stats, the damage output and defensive stats has not been done?
This should have been hot fixed weeks ago, I mean the power gap between geared and not geared players is surely not intended. I have little interest in a game which allows me to 1 shot my opponents due to stat differences. The life of underdog in Ashes has to offer a sensible access to the game content or the population will just die.
If the power gap is intentional, please can we have a statement about it, so those of us who care about balanced and fun pvp experience can direct our attention elsewhere?
Thanks
Re: High quality AoC memes
I need a bot to autoreply this to all these threads. I'm getting so triggered by the concern-trolling. They take up so much energy just to answer fake concerns about Ashes's potential future popularity, raised by people who themselves will never like what Ashes is going to be, just to give them a pretext to suggest knocking over Ashes's pillars.Arya_Yeshe wrote: »Tired of weekly concern threads and then I go read it and I get flabbergasted about how devoid of reason and relevancy their concerns are
