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: Exploits and ...bans?
Maybe this is the crux of the disagreement, you believe security doesn't work completely so it's not worth doing and/or these efforts will have no effect.
No, in regards to VPN's i believe some people have perfectly valid reasons for using them, and since they aren't going to do anything at all to stop serious offending, on balance, it isn't worth it.
If there were no valid reasons for using them, then there would be no harm in blocking them.
Detecting bot farms using a custom VPN is indeed quite difficult. That is why those companies do thisI uave a better idea - name a company that operates online and does what you say.No need for a strawman argument... Give me an example of a company requiring valid ID to gain access to a service or product that failed because they required valid ID.
The reason I am flipping that around is because I can't think of a single company that actually uses identification services as a hard requirement. The only organizations thst do are government based.Intrepid have no way to verify who I am.Given the option I'd play on a server with verified players.
okay, cool cool cool
I'm going to assume this is just your way of trying to get out of answering the question of naming a company that uses the services you are talking about as a hard requirement - because you can't, because none do, because it is a bad idea, because those companies are not trustworthy and no legitimate company would want to partner with them.
I didn't read it. Only read the first sentence on this one. You can't provide anything of value to the conversation anymore. You used made up stats, argue it's too hard, people don't want it, you can't trust companies, strawman replies, cherry pick, ect ect. It's nothing of substance, it's anecdotal and opinion. I understand your opinion and no longer have an interest in it. I've given up trying to get actual data and facts from you. Maybe this will be more clear to you than just 'okay, cool cool cool'.
Volgaris
1
Re: Exploits and ...bans?
I don't care how good a game this is, I'm not giving my SSN to a gaming company. Ever.
Re: Do not include GameUserSettings.ini in the ToS clause
The only problem with what you are suggesting is that people can make their graphics potato style and see across the map
Unreal Engine graphical settings. Setting them to private will make them so users can't override them via this file.
Edit: To further explain. GameUserSettings is a class that stores a bunch of config options. In GameUserSettings you can often access OTHER public scripts such as RendererSettings class.
i.e. [/Script/Engine.CLASSNAMEHERE]
Any variable that is PUBLIC in that class, can effectively be modified by referencing it in the ini. However, if Intrepid does not wish for a setting to be altered, they can simply go into that class and set it to not be changed EVER. UE4 Actually provides a function that is inherited by damn near every class/object in the engine called CanEditChange https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/API/Runtime/CoreUObject/UObject/UObject/CanEditChange/index.html
The REASON MotionBlur kept resetting is because the devs forgot to add the setting to GameUserSettings as a flag, so it kept defaulting back to the original value. (false)
Intrepid can also set a clamp value for settings, allowing them never to exceed or go below a certain value for specific settings. Which is usually done through scability settings they have already setup, they've already done this for some of the settings. A lot of games will clamp view distance as it's a property of GameUserSettings https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/BlueprintAPI/Settings/SetViewDistanceQuality/index.html 4:cinematic (gets clamped if needed)
This file in no way modifies the core game files, classes, objects, or other. UE4 loads settings from this file to override defaults so your graphical settings do not reset every time you load the game.
Scenario 1: Jim cannot launch the game because his monitor does not support the default resolution in the game settings. Jim edits GameUserSettings and changes his resolution so the game will launch. Jim has just broken the ToS and is now subject to be banned.
Gubstep
1
Classes, and Immersion
Hello,
I only played for about an hour or so and also understand this is mainly a tech alpha.
I think grinding mobs/questing/leveling has been discussed at length so we can leave that out.
The main thing I would like to see is class customization. I really would like to see an oblivion style of leveling.
For example if you want to level restoration magic, heavy armor, swords, and summons you can do so. I understand that its not an easy feat in an mmorpg and there are balancing issues (if you can do everything why wouldn't you).
I think an easy fix is to ditch the archetypes and allow you to pick skills from every archetype.
I just do not feel this game is significantly different from other mmos out there.
I only played for about an hour or so and also understand this is mainly a tech alpha.
I think grinding mobs/questing/leveling has been discussed at length so we can leave that out.
The main thing I would like to see is class customization. I really would like to see an oblivion style of leveling.
For example if you want to level restoration magic, heavy armor, swords, and summons you can do so. I understand that its not an easy feat in an mmorpg and there are balancing issues (if you can do everything why wouldn't you).
I think an easy fix is to ditch the archetypes and allow you to pick skills from every archetype.
I just do not feel this game is significantly different from other mmos out there.
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.
