Best Of
Looking back on Rangers. (Rangers being weapon locked)
I know we're well past the ranger showcase but as more and more classes have come out, it's become more and more apparent to me that rangers as they currently exist really feel counterintuitive to Ashes of Creation's design and I think they miss out on the class fantasy.
To Clarify, currently rangers feel like "bow-the class" as opposed to a more hunter/nature aesthetic. Which is fine if Ashes of Creation had classes locked to a weapon... but they don't. I've been on a trend of looking for unique combinations in Ashes of creation recently to see how they might work, 2h sword wielding mage (which they even showcased in a livestream!), bow mage, PI members have gone to talk about battle clerics with maces and heavy armor instead of wands, and all of the different weapon varieties each class can carry. there are only 3 examples I can really think of that fly in the face of this incredible diversity. Everything else besides these 3 examples is truly diverse and unique and allows the user to do whatever kind of stuff they want to do.
1st, the fighter as a whole feels pretty locked into melee weapons. There are several skills that i simply cannot picture working with ranged weapons. Like how would a spellbook work with Whirlwind? for example. But in this example, fighters still have a large range available to them. If we look at the planned weapons we can see that "melee" weapons would incorporate:
- Axes - 1h/2h
- Clubs
- Daggers
- Hammers
- Lances
- Maces - 1h/2h
- Polearms/Halberds
- Spears - 1h/2h
- Swords - 1h/2h
Fighters will still have plenty of options to them to really customize and diversify their class to make fighters feel unique, and none of the fighter skills feel required to have any specific of these. Plus I'm not sure that whirlwind wouldn't work with a wand or a scepter.
2nd, the tank has 1 skill that is weapon locked and that is shield assault. that's it.
Rangers in comparison to these two have 7 skill specifically locked to bow(Weapon bow mastery, Snipe shot+upgrades, the 3 Imbued Ammo techniques, Call of the wind (no idea why this requires the bow, but it does per the wiki), Air strike) (The imbued ammo techniques don't actually specify bow as a requirement but do say "When the target is hit by your bow" in the description.)
And then have 4 more skills that are clearly bow and arrow themed, use arrows in the animations, and/or list bows and arrows in the description of the skill. (Thundering shot, Scatter shot and it's variants, Barrage, Raining Death, and you count the 3 imbued ammo techniques here if you didn't count them above),
For a total of 11! of the rangers techniques being clearly themed for 1 weapon type and that alone. In fact it would have been easier to tell you all the things the rangers can do that aren't bow and arrow themed! which is the hunts and marks (which i love and feel very thematic), the bear trap, disengage, camouflage, and the vine field. 11 skills feels crazy in comparison to all of the other classes for weapon locking.
Despite this I think some skills can be reflavored/reworked slightly to work with any weapon, Barrage, call of the wind, airstrike, thundering shot, the imbued ammo, headshot and honestly Snipe as a targeted charge up dash for melee weapons would be awesome. All of these could easily work with melee weapons let alone other ranged weapon options. A ranger with a staff cosplaying as a druid sounds awesome! and hunting with a spear is an incredibly common depiction.
I think one of Ashes of Creations biggest draws is the customization of build crafting and building something that feels unique and fits your own playstyle/personal vision for a class. One of the biggest components of that is the ability to use any weapon you want with any class, and in it's current iteration Ranger does not allow for that freedom, and currently feels more like a class dedicated to a specific weapon than anything else. This feels like a miss from intrepid given how well they've crafted everything else and how cool the hunter/nature fantasy of the ranger class feels.
TL:DR - I think the ranger class is more of the "bow and arrow" class, and having a class so rigidly attached to one specific weapon feels counter to the general design stance that they have taken of "Any class can use any weapon"
Disclaimer - I know ashes of creation is still in alpha! the game isn't even close to release yet and several things are still a work in progress! Ranger isn't done yet, I get it! I'm more hoping that this post and subsequent discussion can help guide intrepid to getting the ranger into a better overall place and get the same sort of customization that all of the other classes get to love and enjoy. This isn't coming out of hatred or anything like that for the ranger, actually quite the opposite as someone who loves the ranger in d&d and just want it to be as free as everything else.
Edit: forgot to include camouflage under the things Rangers can do without a bow, now fixed, and is a very hunter/naturey thing i like about ranger. Originally forgot to include it cause it's not directly on the skill tree on the wiki.
To Clarify, currently rangers feel like "bow-the class" as opposed to a more hunter/nature aesthetic. Which is fine if Ashes of Creation had classes locked to a weapon... but they don't. I've been on a trend of looking for unique combinations in Ashes of creation recently to see how they might work, 2h sword wielding mage (which they even showcased in a livestream!), bow mage, PI members have gone to talk about battle clerics with maces and heavy armor instead of wands, and all of the different weapon varieties each class can carry. there are only 3 examples I can really think of that fly in the face of this incredible diversity. Everything else besides these 3 examples is truly diverse and unique and allows the user to do whatever kind of stuff they want to do.
1st, the fighter as a whole feels pretty locked into melee weapons. There are several skills that i simply cannot picture working with ranged weapons. Like how would a spellbook work with Whirlwind? for example. But in this example, fighters still have a large range available to them. If we look at the planned weapons we can see that "melee" weapons would incorporate:
- Axes - 1h/2h
- Clubs
- Daggers
- Hammers
- Lances
- Maces - 1h/2h
- Polearms/Halberds
- Spears - 1h/2h
- Swords - 1h/2h
Fighters will still have plenty of options to them to really customize and diversify their class to make fighters feel unique, and none of the fighter skills feel required to have any specific of these. Plus I'm not sure that whirlwind wouldn't work with a wand or a scepter.
2nd, the tank has 1 skill that is weapon locked and that is shield assault. that's it.
Rangers in comparison to these two have 7 skill specifically locked to bow(Weapon bow mastery, Snipe shot+upgrades, the 3 Imbued Ammo techniques, Call of the wind (no idea why this requires the bow, but it does per the wiki), Air strike) (The imbued ammo techniques don't actually specify bow as a requirement but do say "When the target is hit by your bow" in the description.)
And then have 4 more skills that are clearly bow and arrow themed, use arrows in the animations, and/or list bows and arrows in the description of the skill. (Thundering shot, Scatter shot and it's variants, Barrage, Raining Death, and you count the 3 imbued ammo techniques here if you didn't count them above),
For a total of 11! of the rangers techniques being clearly themed for 1 weapon type and that alone. In fact it would have been easier to tell you all the things the rangers can do that aren't bow and arrow themed! which is the hunts and marks (which i love and feel very thematic), the bear trap, disengage, camouflage, and the vine field. 11 skills feels crazy in comparison to all of the other classes for weapon locking.
Despite this I think some skills can be reflavored/reworked slightly to work with any weapon, Barrage, call of the wind, airstrike, thundering shot, the imbued ammo, headshot and honestly Snipe as a targeted charge up dash for melee weapons would be awesome. All of these could easily work with melee weapons let alone other ranged weapon options. A ranger with a staff cosplaying as a druid sounds awesome! and hunting with a spear is an incredibly common depiction.
I think one of Ashes of Creations biggest draws is the customization of build crafting and building something that feels unique and fits your own playstyle/personal vision for a class. One of the biggest components of that is the ability to use any weapon you want with any class, and in it's current iteration Ranger does not allow for that freedom, and currently feels more like a class dedicated to a specific weapon than anything else. This feels like a miss from intrepid given how well they've crafted everything else and how cool the hunter/nature fantasy of the ranger class feels.
TL:DR - I think the ranger class is more of the "bow and arrow" class, and having a class so rigidly attached to one specific weapon feels counter to the general design stance that they have taken of "Any class can use any weapon"
Disclaimer - I know ashes of creation is still in alpha! the game isn't even close to release yet and several things are still a work in progress! Ranger isn't done yet, I get it! I'm more hoping that this post and subsequent discussion can help guide intrepid to getting the ranger into a better overall place and get the same sort of customization that all of the other classes get to love and enjoy. This isn't coming out of hatred or anything like that for the ranger, actually quite the opposite as someone who loves the ranger in d&d and just want it to be as free as everything else.
Edit: forgot to include camouflage under the things Rangers can do without a bow, now fixed, and is a very hunter/naturey thing i like about ranger. Originally forgot to include it cause it's not directly on the skill tree on the wiki.
Adestra
1
Re: Monthly Live Stream Recap
Development Update: August 30, 2024
Present:
Steven Sharif: Creative Director
Margaret Krohn: Director of Communications
Discussion & Outline Summary
Community & Reminders
• The YouTube comment for this month lead Steven to explain that the archetype augmentation system could be rudimentary changes, like cooldowns, damage, or range. But they could also be very complex which would mean visuals and audio and flavor for a particular ability. They are not at that stage of development just yet though. Some will radically and fundamentally change some classes.
• The Dev Discussions for Storytelling with Archetypes is still up.
• There are still regular office hours that you can provide input on discord with the team.
• Content Creator Program is still open but will be closing in the near future.
• A2 bundles are now available for purchase while supplies last.
• A2 will begin in October.
Citadel of the Steel Bloom and Firebrand Preview
• Jeremey (World Designer), The Citadel of the Steel Bloom was the location of order of the Steel Bloom prior to the exodus and apocalypse. They were a special unit formed by the Aelune Queen who believed in the portents and the omens beforehand. Chung and Trad (Design Team) , Ben, Jason (NPC designer), Bucky, Gunther (Senior Producer)
• The area was in the Harrowers area. The Harrower was one of the ancients lead slaughter, who led a team of marauders through this area during the exodus. They slaughtered the steel Bloom while they were locked inside the citadel.
• The event from the showcase takes place quite a few quests into a main story arc. The people who are currently residing in the Citadel right now are the sacred blades, they are a Kaelar defected military group who took over the Citadel. They have been dealing with cultist to increase their power. They are looking for a relic called The Orb of Ultimate Essence.
• They are trying to resurrect The First Lady of the Rose, who was on the Order of the Rose for the Queen. She is meant to help the party stop the Harrower.
• If the players get The Orb of Ultimate Essence, it is actually a dragon egg, when it is taken it spawns the Firebrand Dragon.
Firebrand Q&A:
• Is it intentional that in target of target the dragon health ticks down in the oppose direction compared to regular health bars.
o No that’s probably a bug.
• Please elaborate on Battle Res. Can you res in combat? Is it mana intensive?
o From a balanced perspective that is what A2 is meant to provide. Battle Res is meant to be a long channel ability that incurs a lot of risk for the healer, but also the player that is resurrected will come back with limited health and limited mana.
• Will world boss’s health be proportional to the number of players fighting it?
o The health will not scale, however as you add more players to an open world encounter, some behaviors may occur more frequently, such as more AoE abilities.
• Since bosses like these are open world, how will you address people that bring way more players than what the boss is designed for?
o To a degree adaptive AI to help zerg down certain content. In certain encounters where they want to keep the numbers at a specific value, they will use instanced content, but that will only be ~20%, but that won’t be until phase 3 of A2
• Are the boss droppings full items a place holders, instead of recipes or mats?
o Yes, the reward tables are not completed. They are just in a functional state. However you will get full loot drops from world bosses, but you will also get unique recipes and components.
Studio Update
• The team and testers are doing a great job leading up to A2.
Q&A
• The staff can be scene in game but not in the A2 phases, can you tell us if the staff will be in A2 and when?
o The other weapons and the staff will be throughout phase 3 of A2. There will be a lot of legacy features in phase 3. There has been a lot of work done on the animations but not necessarily the weapon skills trees, so make sure their identity is unique.
• Would bosses provide exclusive gathering materials for players with specific artisan profession skills such as hunting?
o There likely wouldn’t be exclusive materials, and there isn’t a plan for world bosses to interact with the hunting professions. That is just delicate to hunting prey, which will be divorced from the standard mob. In A2 there will be overlap with mobs, but in the completed game it is hoped that they are unique NPCs that you would track and hunt in order to collect the materials and resources.
• Can you explains what progression will look like and what the benefits or reasons are of leveling monsters (for monster coins)?
o The intent is that the more often you play that monster you will gain additional abilities, in order to ease players into the gameplay of specific monsters.
• There seems to be many ways nodes can hurt each other through PvP, are there ways to hurt rival nodes without a direct PvP, such as trading off resources, or NPC riots.
o There are less straight forward ways other than PvP, such as node commissions which would degrade trade alliances, land management systems, policy choices to limit choices the neighboring node can take, and vassalship.
• You had mentioned in the past that player held castles can be attacked monthly, does this mean that if a castle is not attacked monthly by players the NPCs would original try to retake the castle?
o They have discussed it, but from a design perspective it is not confirmed. The thought process is that if you didn’t have any attackers scheduled for the castle siege, then the castle would enter into an NPC siege, but that might not be the case.
• Since we are getting ships in A2, can we know more about the ship building process? Will we require carpentry for the hull, and tailoring for the sails?
o Yes there will definitely be interfacing with a number of different artisanship in order to create all the components necessary. Not just to build the ship, but also to equip the ship in its equipment slots. They will have more details as the naval system approaches, right now there are still discussion on where certain design aspects will live.
• In a multi boss encounter, how is player performance captured when it becomes a PvX encounter?
o There is a combination of tags system (for first tag), and then damage done, on a raid party basis and then which ever party exceeds the 50% has the loot rights for a period of time. After that period of time expires it becomes public loot.
• Can you elaborate on the Mendelian inheritance of the animal husbandry system?
o The traits are going to be relate to some stat on the animal stat block, they will also relate to abilities (such as passive benefits). This will be tied to genetic traits, and the system will overtime take it into account.
• During phase 2 you are going to test vassaling, would you be open to testing sieging your parent node?
o They don’t need to test that at that stage, what will be tested is the relationship between the too, is it negative or positive? The idea is that it is positive, so then they can look at changing the systems to ensure it is a positive relationship.
Present:
Steven Sharif: Creative Director
Margaret Krohn: Director of Communications
Discussion & Outline Summary
Community & Reminders
• The YouTube comment for this month lead Steven to explain that the archetype augmentation system could be rudimentary changes, like cooldowns, damage, or range. But they could also be very complex which would mean visuals and audio and flavor for a particular ability. They are not at that stage of development just yet though. Some will radically and fundamentally change some classes.
• The Dev Discussions for Storytelling with Archetypes is still up.
• There are still regular office hours that you can provide input on discord with the team.
• Content Creator Program is still open but will be closing in the near future.
• A2 bundles are now available for purchase while supplies last.
• A2 will begin in October.
Citadel of the Steel Bloom and Firebrand Preview
• Jeremey (World Designer), The Citadel of the Steel Bloom was the location of order of the Steel Bloom prior to the exodus and apocalypse. They were a special unit formed by the Aelune Queen who believed in the portents and the omens beforehand. Chung and Trad (Design Team) , Ben, Jason (NPC designer), Bucky, Gunther (Senior Producer)
• The area was in the Harrowers area. The Harrower was one of the ancients lead slaughter, who led a team of marauders through this area during the exodus. They slaughtered the steel Bloom while they were locked inside the citadel.
• The event from the showcase takes place quite a few quests into a main story arc. The people who are currently residing in the Citadel right now are the sacred blades, they are a Kaelar defected military group who took over the Citadel. They have been dealing with cultist to increase their power. They are looking for a relic called The Orb of Ultimate Essence.
• They are trying to resurrect The First Lady of the Rose, who was on the Order of the Rose for the Queen. She is meant to help the party stop the Harrower.
• If the players get The Orb of Ultimate Essence, it is actually a dragon egg, when it is taken it spawns the Firebrand Dragon.
Firebrand Q&A:
• Is it intentional that in target of target the dragon health ticks down in the oppose direction compared to regular health bars.
o No that’s probably a bug.
• Please elaborate on Battle Res. Can you res in combat? Is it mana intensive?
o From a balanced perspective that is what A2 is meant to provide. Battle Res is meant to be a long channel ability that incurs a lot of risk for the healer, but also the player that is resurrected will come back with limited health and limited mana.
• Will world boss’s health be proportional to the number of players fighting it?
o The health will not scale, however as you add more players to an open world encounter, some behaviors may occur more frequently, such as more AoE abilities.
• Since bosses like these are open world, how will you address people that bring way more players than what the boss is designed for?
o To a degree adaptive AI to help zerg down certain content. In certain encounters where they want to keep the numbers at a specific value, they will use instanced content, but that will only be ~20%, but that won’t be until phase 3 of A2
• Are the boss droppings full items a place holders, instead of recipes or mats?
o Yes, the reward tables are not completed. They are just in a functional state. However you will get full loot drops from world bosses, but you will also get unique recipes and components.
Studio Update
• The team and testers are doing a great job leading up to A2.
Q&A
• The staff can be scene in game but not in the A2 phases, can you tell us if the staff will be in A2 and when?
o The other weapons and the staff will be throughout phase 3 of A2. There will be a lot of legacy features in phase 3. There has been a lot of work done on the animations but not necessarily the weapon skills trees, so make sure their identity is unique.
• Would bosses provide exclusive gathering materials for players with specific artisan profession skills such as hunting?
o There likely wouldn’t be exclusive materials, and there isn’t a plan for world bosses to interact with the hunting professions. That is just delicate to hunting prey, which will be divorced from the standard mob. In A2 there will be overlap with mobs, but in the completed game it is hoped that they are unique NPCs that you would track and hunt in order to collect the materials and resources.
• Can you explains what progression will look like and what the benefits or reasons are of leveling monsters (for monster coins)?
o The intent is that the more often you play that monster you will gain additional abilities, in order to ease players into the gameplay of specific monsters.
• There seems to be many ways nodes can hurt each other through PvP, are there ways to hurt rival nodes without a direct PvP, such as trading off resources, or NPC riots.
o There are less straight forward ways other than PvP, such as node commissions which would degrade trade alliances, land management systems, policy choices to limit choices the neighboring node can take, and vassalship.
• You had mentioned in the past that player held castles can be attacked monthly, does this mean that if a castle is not attacked monthly by players the NPCs would original try to retake the castle?
o They have discussed it, but from a design perspective it is not confirmed. The thought process is that if you didn’t have any attackers scheduled for the castle siege, then the castle would enter into an NPC siege, but that might not be the case.
• Since we are getting ships in A2, can we know more about the ship building process? Will we require carpentry for the hull, and tailoring for the sails?
o Yes there will definitely be interfacing with a number of different artisanship in order to create all the components necessary. Not just to build the ship, but also to equip the ship in its equipment slots. They will have more details as the naval system approaches, right now there are still discussion on where certain design aspects will live.
• In a multi boss encounter, how is player performance captured when it becomes a PvX encounter?
o There is a combination of tags system (for first tag), and then damage done, on a raid party basis and then which ever party exceeds the 50% has the loot rights for a period of time. After that period of time expires it becomes public loot.
• Can you elaborate on the Mendelian inheritance of the animal husbandry system?
o The traits are going to be relate to some stat on the animal stat block, they will also relate to abilities (such as passive benefits). This will be tied to genetic traits, and the system will overtime take it into account.
• During phase 2 you are going to test vassaling, would you be open to testing sieging your parent node?
o They don’t need to test that at that stage, what will be tested is the relationship between the too, is it negative or positive? The idea is that it is positive, so then they can look at changing the systems to ensure it is a positive relationship.
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
This is meant to be a social mmo.
And it is for multiplayers.
So the problem solo players need to fix is themselves, being solo - make some friends.
And it is for multiplayers.
So the problem solo players need to fix is themselves, being solo - make some friends.
Hinotori
1
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
As a Solo-only player I fully expect to have a lot of fun within this game as I have with so many other MMOs. I'm gonna pushback a little that the game design is unfair, it's just what it is and the average playstyle, whatever the mode, will experience the game in their own way, not really an issue for most.
Caww
3
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
AirborneBerserker wrote: »Where to begin...ah, yes.
First, we need to look at the psychological effect of being happy or just plain having fun while doing something difficult. There is a direct relationship between how much fun a person is having and how likely they will complete a task. That means the happier people are the more likely they are to finish a task, no matter how distasteful. This means that of all the things that are important having fun is the most important.
Now, let's talk about systems. Systems are important, but some systems are more important then others. For example my circulatory system has a higher priority then the electrical system in my house. We are going to take that same concept and apply it to the game.
Okay, So there are systems in the game one of them is the most important system. That system is the class system, this is because of all the systems in the game this one system is the medium by which all interactions occur between the player and the game. So we want the classes to create the most fun/happiness/enjoyment/satisfaction/all the good emotions.
Let's see...Ah, I don't think I am going out on a limb saying that the AoC community wants this game to be difficult. I agree, It helps with...it helps create a sense of...pride and accomplishment. There is no joy in dunking on kindergarteners, however there is a certain satisfaction when they're assholes.
What conclusions can we draw without even knowing anything specific about the game? Given we want the game to be very difficult, having fun is important, and the Class system is the most interacted with by players. We can then conclude that the best thing to do is make sure the Classes are 100% satisfying or as close to that as humanly possible, and do this as early as possible.
Now what conclusions can we draw from the previous conclusion? Any aspect of the class system that either delays, or removes ANY satisfaction, fun, excitement, role, playstyle or any other positive emotion is a poor design decision choice due to needing as much happiness due to the projected difficulty of the game. Now this does not mean that doing something like that is necessarily wrong, unless we establish that all the other systems are creating pressure , then it would be a huge mistake. Now we look at how people interact and the systems surrounding them. (think of pressure as a obstacle, some avoidable, some unavoidable, and some you choose which is more of an accepted challenge then an obstacle)
So, let's start with the guild system, this obviously relives pressure from players. There's no doubt about that. Not every player, solo and casual players wont receive any benefits from guild perks. On top of that some of the pressure shifts rather then disappearing, the pressure comes from other players, falls squarely on solo and casual players.
"Oh, nay, nay" I hear you say, hold your horses. It mostly comes from the always on PvP, this in and of itself isn't a problem, however when you kill people in the open world they drop stuff, and if they're corrupted they drop gear. Now, we need to do a thought experiment. I want you to imagine you're playing AoC and come to a clearing, there's one person in a guild, a Group of four, and one person not in a guild, you have to kill one, who do you choose? I'm going to assume everyone was intellectually honest and picked the one person not in a guild because it is the lowest risk thing, this is because of a psychological human trait called risk aversion which people have. If your saying "I need more information what level are they blah blah blah", that's called dodging the question, but please post that so I know you aren't intellectually honest.
(I'm breaking here because this is going to be a theme moving forward, almost every system in this game either does nothing, adds pressure, or shifts pressure onto solo and casual players, while doing the opposite for Guilds, and if you think that isn't a problem, Solo and casual players account for 50-70% of MMO players.)
Yes, guilds do create pressure for people in the guild, but that is chosen. Plus if you don't like that pressure it is /gquit <--that far away from not being your problem. You can go and join a different guild, maybe a more ambitious one, maybe less ambitious, up to you. There is no option for solo and (most) casual players for that.
What about professions, surely those don't add any pressure. Remember when I said you drop stuff? Well materials and gatherables are both dropped. Okay, but how much? 20-30% so if a person had farmed for an hour you would get between 15-20 mins worth of framing mats for 10 seconds(?) of combat. So yes, especially when you realize that the thought experiment factors into this, people are more likely to target a person they think will have little to no recourse. So even more pressure for solo and casual players.
"No, no, no" I can hear you saying, but yes because professions add another reason why you would want to kill a person that you would otherwise leave alone. They have incentivized hunting other players, and solo and casual players will be the first on the list. This gets worse the higher level you are given the crafting materials will get rarer.
What conclusions can we draw from what we know now? Well, we know people drop things and we know solo players will be targeted more often then not, but what about other mitigating factors like level. Let's start at the beginning move forward, everyone will be level 1, everyone will start with the same knowledge base(for the most part), and there will be not many grievances to consider. Groups get between a 30 and 40% experience boost while grouped based on the number of people in the group (the experience of the killed mob is divided between group members and then multiplied). This means that people that group will level faster, and the people who can group more easily more often will level even faster. Which just so happens to be one of the benefits of being in a guild.
The corruption system has many parts, we are interested in the interaction between groups and solo players, and the removal of corruption. Yes, there are other parts and while they do have some interesting interactions there aren't any that really peak my interest. Especially when we are talking creating pressure and who is affected by that pressure.
Solo and group interactions is first. Namely the fact that a group of people can still grief solo players but the other way around is not possible. This is strait forward and simple all they need to do is swap out people that kill the solo player, if the solo player fights back no corruption is gained and everyone can help if they don't they die and get a debuff making them weaker. Why can they do this? Because they're grouped up and as a result gain more levels which means they are all a higher level, to add to that they almost certainly have higher quality gear due to having access to more forms of content.
Corruption removal can occur in one of two ways either you die, or you grind experience until it falls off. As I understand it griding experience slowly removes the debuff over time. Wait. didn't we just talk about groups getting more experience, so grouping not only gets you more experience, it helps you get rid of corruption faster, ensures you're safer against ganks, and opens up other forms of content.
That brings me to the ownership system.
As we can see the ownership system is not non-existent, rather it is based on the ever popular ancient Greek idea of "the strong do what they can, the weak endure what they must". Just so we're clear ownership whether sanctioned or not, is based on one groups ability to prevent other groups from accessing the thing being possessed. And what is the smallest group? That's right one, so solo players get it again a lot more pressure here given this applies to the entire world even the "solo focused areas", and high level crafting materials which you need to have even decent gear.
In the economic system were going to focus on two things item degradation and auction houses. Yes, there lots of other parts to the system but they are all bog standard things that you would expect for an MMO made in 2024, and have no real impact on the game as a whole beyond exactly what you would expect.
Auction houses are not global. They can be linked but this only helps a little and as I understand it only 3 can be linked at most. this by no means is a huge deal, but it does mean solo players are either forced to pay more or run to a wholly different part of the world to pay less money. And people will do this. Because players will optimize the fun out of games. Guilds on the other hand can send groups of 4 or 8 to pick up what is needed for the guild massively reducing the amount of time they need to travel for this kind of thing and being much safer in the process.
Item degradation in most games saddle you with a simple repair bill which allows you to just press a button, pay gold and be done. It's a gold sink in every sense of the word. Ashes of Creation is instead a materials sink you need to have some of the materials so that you can actually repair the item when it gets damaged. The two ways you incur a repair cost is by either over enchanting an item destroying it, or dying, either from PvE or PvP(with exceptions). This means that you can have top of the line gear. Why can't you repair them well there's a guild farming the nodes where you would get the materials and they horde them for themselves and only trickle a little out at a time to keep them hyper expensive. Why are they hording them? Because they have to since there is no way for them to know when they will get another chance to farm them again, because
Player housing. The thing about player housing is it's stupid. If I wanted to play the sims I would play the sims. It takes up a massive amount of development time and effort, and should never be part of a game, but the game itself. That being said the community seems to be overjoyed that it's happening and it benefits everyone fairly equally so no pressure.
Opt-in objective-based battlegrounds better known as sanctioned PvP events. These are open world battle grounds which include sieges, caravans, guild wars and naval PvP and are guaranteed to be totally balanced in every way and never be totally one sided with sixty people attacking a caravan being guarded by twenty people, and if you didn't pick up on the sarcasm you should get out more. This system as it stands is bad for everyone, It favors uber guilds more then others, but it ultimately guarantees you will almost never have any kind of fifteen versus fifteen balanced team conflict and will likely only ever have waves of people washing over a much smaller group. But let's tackle this in detail.
Naval combat seems fine. The big problem is the lack of set transportation, but as far as I can tell that should be easy to implement and test, so while technically solo players could be prevented from traveling from one continent to the other the fix will be so quick and easy I'm not really worried about it.
Caravans!!! Everyone's favorite system, unfortunately can't be used by solo players at all, even if you're a particularly high functioning adult and think you can wait till 3 am and then send the caravan since caravan events are a thing which prevent you from doing even that, but as far as I can tell it does not directly incentivize people to kill solo players people so that's good. While technically it could benefit solo players it would require you to hang out in the area where the caravans spawn like some jaded wife waiting for lifetime alimony, then shadow it in the hopes that some other larger group shows up. Even then that doesn't guarantee any spoils, or that they wont kill you right after. Uber guilds that can take advantage of the system get a huge pressure release because they can multiply any of their earnings by 5 ensuring their entire guild is stupid rich all the time, and anything they need they can just buy.
Castle and Node sieges are a thing. I don't see a problem with Castle sieges, if toddlers want to spend 3 hours fighting over a sand castle that's their prerogative. Node sieges on the other hand are another story. Mainly because they upend everything anyone was trying to do and force you to deal with that, or leave, rather then do what you want. So your choices are forced content, which solo players are likely to lose, or move to a new area, and learn that area from scratch. This is another system that favors guilds, the bigger they are the better off they are again. This is probably the biggest slap in the face you can do to people. This does not make me feel like a player in a game, it makes me feel like I'm content for someone else's game. And while you can do that in a game you never want it to feel like that is what's happening, and no matter what you do, how fun and engaging you make these systems to participate in you will ultimately still be in a situation where you are the monkey being forced to dance for other peoples entertainment.
Node sieges are not opt in. You have two choices "Flee or Die"(IYKYK), there is no opt out. I know I'm going to get push back on this, but for something to be opt in you need to be able to opt out. Fleeing is not opting out because you never asked to be in the situation in the first place. Your are being forced to choose not being asked if you would like a choice. The other tack some might take is the by entering the game you are opting in, and okay fair enough nodes are ubiquitous so maybe that is a valid argument. Let's list the other sanctioned "battlegrounds" them Guild Wars, Castle Sieges, Naval PvP, Caravans, and Node Wars. The first 4 of those are actually opt in, arguably doubly so, first opt in to the guild system, then opt into the content. Node Wars is a pseudo-opt in system. You technically opt in because you vote for a mayor, problem is people can lie, (insert suitably insulting comment about politicians here). So while there are some that might say that people can opt in, I cannot agree with that. Node Sieges are even further from opt in because there is no way to avoid them unless you bypass the citizenship process all together, and even if you do, you still face the consequences of some one sieging the node you call home.
But what about peoples first interaction with the Node Siege system? Why don't we look at what the first experience of a node siege will be like, and tackle losing a node siege after. The first thing we need to know is when will the first sieges start to occur. How do we figure out that? well we have a number 200 to 300 hours to maximum level. At 28 to 42 hours per week that's 4.5 to 11 weeks as per the wiki. So what level can sieges be initiated? Well we know that 21 days after a node advances to a new stage, a siege can't be declared, and we also know village is the first stage that can be sieged. We know it will take a few days which usually means 3 or more, and many tends to mean 5 to 8 on the lower scale, which means on average it should take 3-4 days to get a node from Wilderness stage to the Village stage. There will be nothing average about the launch of the game so you will probably see Villages on launch day this means that the very first sieges CAN occur on day 22. Okay so we have a minimum point at which to start. Now when will people start doing node sieges, probably around max level given it is end game content.
(If you're wondering why were doing this, it's because the initial experience determines your baseline emotional state while participating in that experience. In other words how likely people will be in a negative emotional state when they engage with the second most important system in the game and constitutes a major source of content, and can't be avoided.)
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/HOURS-PER-WEEK-SPENT-ON-GAMING-BY-MMORPG-PLAYERS-AND-NON-MMORPG-PLAYERS-IN-PERCENTAGE_tbl1_7802995#:~:text=When asked how many hours,, as expected. ...
Leveling rates according to above numbers:
18 to 27 weeks @ 10 hours per week
9 to 14 weeks @ 20 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 30 hours per week
5 to 7 weeks @ 40 hours per week
I'm not going to show the math you have the numbers I'm using, you can do it yourself. So we know around 3 weeks after the launch of the game people can start launching sieges. and at about 9 weeks about 45% of the population will be max level. now we need to factor in the experience bonus groups get and the fact that being in a guild means that, on average, you will get in a group faster, be able to group for longer, have access to more content, have increased efficiency, and access to more information. There is no real way to accurately predict that right now due to all the variables. So we will only take the 30% increase and leave it at that even though the rate will probably be higher.
Solo players leveling rates:
18 to 27 weeks @ 10 hours per week
9 to 14 weeks @ 20 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 30 hours per week
5 to 7 weeks @ 40 hours per week
Guild Players leveling rates:
12 to 18 weeks @ 10 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 20 hours per week
4 to 6 weeks @ 30 hours per week
3 to 5 weeks @ 40 hours per week
Node Wars are basically the same as Node sieges no recourse for the node having war declared on them, but there are some interesting points that we definitely need to cover. First you know how people say this game is a gank box? This system is why people say that. It effectively turns off the corruption system, and lets anyone from the declaring node kill anyone from the declared with out restriction, and vice versa. So if you want to kill the same person 30 times in a row. Your allowed to do that. If you want to camp the spawn points so people can't even play the game and simply die the moment they respawn, you can do that. There are no limits except maybe only 1 Node War at a time, but they haven't even said that, or given a time limit for that matter.
Now we apply a principle we applied at the very beginning and were going to do so with another thought experiment. Your a guild leader and you have 3 neighboring nodes to attack, one has another guild about the same size as yours plus a number of other citizens, one has a dad guild with about 50 people and another 50 solo players, another has 100 solo players and no guild to speak of. Which do you choose to attack. Now I am again relying on the honor system again, but I believe in you guys, you can do it. Did you pick 100 solo players? I know I would it's a much softer target, guilds will literally have no experience (or very little) sieging nodes, and a quick easy win will give them some confidence. Now that we have all the information there's only one thing left to do.
Time to put it all together. First they will come in groups of 4 and they will focus on killing solo players, this has 3 advantages. It lets them test how resilient the people of the node are, lowers the node-to-node reputation so they can declare war, and makes getting a count on the number of people doing it very very difficult. Then they will declare war on the node. People will flood in from the other node and start killing people, it will be indiscriminate, and they will start to corral people as much as they can, if they can camp spawn points they will. This is because the kind of person that will do this will understand that war is not about killing the other person its about breaking their morale. And even if they don't understand that, they still might be thinking 50 people that leave the node to not deal with this, is 50 less people in the siege. That will last a couple days at most(again no time limit). Then the siege will begin, and for lack of a better word it will be pathetic. It will be very short, and very brutal. And when people realize they couldn't last 10 minutes in what should have been an hour long event, some will quit the game, but others will start to ask questions. And when they get the answers to those questions they will realize they were never meant to win, the game itself was designed to make sure they lost. The same way some one would kill a random mob in the open world.
So you lost a node siege what's the big deal?
Now I realize that some people are going to give me push back on this. If you plan on saying I made an assumption about X you should probably assume I didn't assume and just cut out two paragraphs of this already horrifically long post. And if you come to the conclusion I did just assume something assume I went with either the average or the best possible outcome. depending oh which was more favorable to the game. So, yes I assumed the max number of people on the server and I did that because it's literally the best case scenario. Now for the people who are going to try and say, "I'm not that mean" or "people aren't going to act like that" I first need to thank you my internet interlocuter for allowing me to quote one of my favorite songs, and respond with this:
"Credulous at best, your desire to believe in
Angels in the hearts of men
Pull your head on out your hippy haze and give a listen
Shouldn't have to say it all again
The universe is hostile, so impersonal
Devour to survive, so it is, so it's always been"
-Tool, Vicarious
What this basically means is don't fucking assume people will be nice just because you are. Assholes exist, they will play this game, they will grief people, they will be merciless, because this is a war simulator, and that's how war gets. Not to mention all the incentives the game has given players to do these things, and since you're more vulnerable while you are attacking someone else because your resources are being spent elsewhere you want to end the war as quickly as possible. This will take 5% of the population and increase it to either 60% or whatever the maximum percentage can do it which ever is less.
The class system this is the final system and I thought this would be where I point out all the problems I have above and make my case for why having as much choice at the start of the game would be the most important. That is no longer the case. I now think that no matter how good they make the class system it still wont prevent 50-70% of people that start playing this game to drop it in the first 6 months. So here is the order I will cover this in, abilities, role diversity then some counter points.
Now according to some people we are going to get 64 unique classes and simply have to pick them, or build them, as time dictates. Why not just make 14 base classes, they apparently already exist and could be slotted in and be done. make 2 or 3 subclasses that are mostly aesthetic with some noticeable differences for each class, and then slot in the rest when time permits. And if you think class identity is important there should be concern with the fact that the base classes only have 35-40 abilities which means best case scenario you're looking at somewhat samey combat with other subclasses.
End game systems for Solo players. There are none. There aren't even plans for them.
There are other problems but I've already been working on this too long.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Solo_players
The final conclusion, this game heavily favors guilds in what I can only describe as the most blatant bias and total disregard I have ever seen in an MMO. There is not a single system that works in favor of solo/single/casual players. In fact any system that is meant to punish people punishes solo players more. Systems that solo players could take advantage of have road blocks put in to prevent them from using them ala the caravan system. Other systems which have inherent advantages in the game are given further advantages like giving groups an experience bonus. The end game systems are geared purely towards guilds and groups giving them many ways to meaningfully interact with the end game. solo players have no way to meaningfully interact with the end game, and there are no plans to create anything for solo players. The fact that design pillars are routinely broken in favor of guilds is symptomatic of the entire game. The worst part is if they do add something at the end game for solo players it will undoubtedly be flooded with people in guilds with the best gear meaning it will end up being a shit show for solo players who are permanently going to be locked out of getting the best gear because they wont be able to access the materials due to guilds hording as much as they can while they can, and dungeons which they will never be able to do. New players after the game launches will be mostly solo players, and they will have to contend with fully geared highly experienced players when they hit max level. They will have to do this with almost no experience because there is no way for them to learn about PvP except by doing open world PvP.
This will ultimately end up being some mutated version of the Stanford prison experiment where the prisoners pay for the privilege, but can leave at any time, and the guards aren't allowed full power directly, but can still achieve total power through work arounds and in built systems.
maybe the game isn't for you and its aimed at those who play a decent amount of hours per week, which according to your stats, its the majority of mmorpg players, who also want to group up and not solo but don't mind soloing.
Depraved
2
Re: Current Combat in Ashes: Updated
My only contribution to this for Intrepid is this, which I'm sure they already know.
You cannot please both camps on this and also balance your game. You already mostly chose the WoW side. I'd even say to mostly-ignore all us 'floaty combat'-haters.
Some of us can be 'appeased', but 'pleased' is a stretch, and the cost of compromise to get even 'appeased' will probably irritate the WoW players.
I, at least, am fine with waiting for another game with my preferred combat, as long as I can avoid having to care about my dispreferred combat while playing Ashes. The thing I don't want is some janky 'free movement but lots of CC + spells that leave you unresponsive' in a game built for WoW players.
No matter how much I hate 'free movement' style WoW combat, I hate 'halfassing WoW combat by trying to add more risk-reward timing to it' even more, especially in a game so open to feedback that will almost certainly be constantly flip-flopping about how much mobility a powerful ability should let you retain.
You cannot please both camps on this and also balance your game. You already mostly chose the WoW side. I'd even say to mostly-ignore all us 'floaty combat'-haters.
Some of us can be 'appeased', but 'pleased' is a stretch, and the cost of compromise to get even 'appeased' will probably irritate the WoW players.
I, at least, am fine with waiting for another game with my preferred combat, as long as I can avoid having to care about my dispreferred combat while playing Ashes. The thing I don't want is some janky 'free movement but lots of CC + spells that leave you unresponsive' in a game built for WoW players.
No matter how much I hate 'free movement' style WoW combat, I hate 'halfassing WoW combat by trying to add more risk-reward timing to it' even more, especially in a game so open to feedback that will almost certainly be constantly flip-flopping about how much mobility a powerful ability should let you retain.
Azherae
1
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
Overall, I agree to nearly everything you say. I‘ve been playing MMOs since DAoC/WoW (until New World, and a lot in between like Warhammer, Aion, Rift, Neverwinter, Terra, GW2, ESO, FF14x, …) and count myself from highly invested PvX player (Raiding in WoW, Gladiator in PvP Arena and rated Battlegrounds, sPvP in Guild Wars 2, and so on) to „casual“ meanwhile, because I‘m 20 years older now.AirborneBerserker wrote: »The final conclusion, this game heavily favors guilds in what I can only describe as the most blatant bias and total disregard I have ever seen in an MMO. There is not a single system that works in favor of solo/single/casual players.
Whereas I‘m still a social guy, I hope ;-), I lack time to bind my playing time to other players or guilds and their expectations, although there are enough casual guilds out there, but they will not really work in AoC, they will not have success and access to real endgame items, features, goals.
But, thinking about that and liking to play a high fantasy MMO with „old school“ aspects I just have to say: Well, it‘s me than. Perhaps to old, perhaps wrong game all together.
But: I will give AoC a chance, because I like 3rd Person Fantasy RPGs (MMOs and Singleplayer) and I will try to find a casual guild to at least participate in some group content as good as possible instead of trying to change this vision and ideas.
So, yes, solo players will definitely not get the 100% package, thats just true and from all we have seen so far this will soon be a fact, not only an assumption.
But, I will try to find some chilled players to have the best experience I can get together with them and accept, that a 12h a day guild player will be ahead of me. Thats ok, that‘s virtual life. Without playing in group content I again agree, you (and me), we will be locked out, gear-wise, crafting-wise (ressources of raid bosses, …) and probably event-wisen (nothing to do solo if a caravan is protected from 40 guild members, even not as rogue I guess).
So perhaps you can try to see things more relaxed? They will not change the game to WoW, where you can solo a lot meanwhile (vanilla WoW was different to that and the better game), so maybe, although your assumptions make sense to me, start AoC more relaxed - perhaps it will work also for you.
What‘s the reason why you think you won‘t find a suitable guild? Or do you just dislike being part of a group? If yes, why? My very beginnings in MMOs (DAoC, WoW) were not possible without groups, guilds and friends. And thats the best experience, but the most time-binding and -consuming one.
(sorry for my English, no native speaker as you can imagine)
Chaliux
3
Re: What are your 'class fantasies' for the 64 classes
Same here.George_Black wrote: »I am a pretty vanilla guy in gaming.
Give me human for a race, with medieval looks, even though I am not from northern europe.
And give me a class with melee abilities, with animations that look good on twin swords, 2handed or sword shield.
I want from my class to be able to make a character that shines on the field of battle, mostly on small scale and duels, using a mastery of swords, and the tools to respond to the majority of enemy types, so that I can achieve victory.
I dont care for magic, I dont care for ranged attacks.
Thinking about Weapon Master or Highsword at the moment, if its meaningful with twohanded weapon, mainly sword, but I guess so.
Paladin or Knight, so main class Tank, perhaps is an alternative option, but DPS wise I expect that Fighter is (should be) ahead.
That‘s why Highsword currently is raising my attention, hoping to get a Fighter with some little self heal abilities or some that heal others around / surrounding during melee combat. We will see.
He will look like my avatar than, roleplay wise ;-)
But I’m also waiting for rogue gameplay later on, as Warrior/Fighter and Rogue/Assassin always were my favorite classes in all MMOs I‘ve played.
Chaliux
1
Re: PvE difficulty or a lack thereof
I'm not sure where people think this dragon raid was easy. They had a Cleric (Steven) set to God mode and resed people almost none stop. They would have failed other wise.
It was the group’s first time taking it on, so yeah they would have and that’s fine, but it wasn’t a difficult fight.
Some basic strategies to use in attempt 2:
- don’t stack so much, which reduces the fire breath frequency and impact when it happens
- Stop running around so much. There was a lot of New Raiders tuned Headless Chicken aspect to it when there didn’t need to be. If nothing is hitting you and you’re in range to deal damage, stick to a small area of motion.
- Healer arrangements in the formation should cover the tank and maximize group coverage with AoE for the large scale attacks, similar story for the bards though they would have to be more mobile
- They should prioritize a set amount of adds rather than split damage on all of them. If ten is the enrage threshold and it summons fifteen adds, the group should only bother focusing damage on 6 of them
- There’s no need to retreat all the way to outside the third circle of fire and interrupt your damage, just hug near the dividing lines and shuffle in after the inner one has already popped (also don’t just eat the damage expecting to heal through it, that’s annoying a good way to make sure your healers let you stay down)
Caeryl
1
Re: What are your 'class fantasies' for the 64 classes
A couple:
Mage and fighter or tank hybrid - along the lines of Unchained Sienna from Vermintide 2 game. A fire mage which walks a thin line between staying in control and getting consumed by the fire magic. A capable melee fighter, who's melee power is augmented when they use their magic first.
Cleric and fighter or tank hybrid - a capable melee fighter able to feed its healing and other support abilities by staying on the frontline, dishing out melee damage and supporting its allies.
Inquisitor class similar to Pathfinder inq, a witch hunter archetype.
Zealot class - basically a religious fanatic. Something between a berserker and a firebrand not particularly tolerant cleric.
So yes, I bounce between heretical magic users who can barely control their power, and religious dogmatic zealots quite a bit
Mage and fighter or tank hybrid - along the lines of Unchained Sienna from Vermintide 2 game. A fire mage which walks a thin line between staying in control and getting consumed by the fire magic. A capable melee fighter, who's melee power is augmented when they use their magic first.
Cleric and fighter or tank hybrid - a capable melee fighter able to feed its healing and other support abilities by staying on the frontline, dishing out melee damage and supporting its allies.
Inquisitor class similar to Pathfinder inq, a witch hunter archetype.
Zealot class - basically a religious fanatic. Something between a berserker and a firebrand not particularly tolerant cleric.
So yes, I bounce between heretical magic users who can barely control their power, and religious dogmatic zealots quite a bit