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Re: Instanced Content Should Not Offer Power Gains
Just here to agree, much less risk should give much less reward, regardless of the difficulty of the instance. Plenty of MMOs out there offer the instance raid progression experience, but I started following Ashes because of the Open World progression where you're always at risk of PvP, which are harder and harder to come by in this genre.
Tenguru
2
Re: Instanced Content Should Not Offer Power Gains
Once you start adding in places where the instanced crowd can hide, they will hide. However if the power isn't in the instancing, they will hide less.
My second point is going to be what will happen when you start handing out power in PvE instancing, then the PvP crowd will demand power in their instancing and visa versa. I am against power in all instancing.
Once you put those things in the game, players who only partake in that content will demand more of it, they will demand balance be based off of it, it'll start an entire messy domino effect that is completely unnecessary.
This guy is totaly transparent, he's practically telling us he consider PvE's to be filthy casuals that should be available for him to gank at all times or better yet be driven out of the game all together.
And Ironicaly they WILL be available to gank, the whole thread is based on his totaly erronious conflation of having locked-room chanlenges that act as gates for more crafted PvE experiences anywhere being instant degeneration of the game into a WoW themepark by some kind of slippery slope weak willed caving in on the part of Intrepid to 'the inctanced crowd'.
Lodrig
1
Re: Instanced Content Should Not Offer Power Gains
If one person trolls your entire raid that is a reflection on your raids ability rather than the content itself, again most people will not be completing high end content.
This might be true in low level difficulty mechanics, but when you build an encounter that requires high precision, no room for error execution. (ie: the very pinnacle of end game MMO raids), a single outside player messing with a single person in the raid causes a wipe.
Also your replies are kind of passive aggressive towards players that do engage in that kind of content.
The short version of the story is:
1) Intrepid wants to design pinnacle end game content for raiders, those raids require instancing so they can make the boss an actual challenge.
2) Intrepid wants to give us low effort gear check bosses like we saw with the fire dragon, that is fine if the challenge comes from the threat of pvp during the fight.
3) We can actually have both at the same time, they arent mutually exclusive. So theres no need for personal insults here.
Taerrik
1
Re: Consternation surrounding the 8x8 Class system and how to move forward.
Ok I believe that of the threads that popped up based on this 'issue' recently, this is the one most appropriate for what I have to say now based on the last Livestream.
The YouTube spotlight question chosen by the team for this stream was another iteration of the 'hey what about Secondaries/augments?'.
It wasn't exactly that, but it was basically that:
"How much will a subclass affect the mechanics of your abilities vs the visual (and audio?) flavor?"
And Steven's response, verbatim:
"Yeah, it's a bit of a spectrum there, right? Because some of the ideas we have with regards to Augmentation is that they could be, kind of, very rudimentary mechanics that get adjusted, such as like, damage values, cooldowns, mana costs, distance and range, some targeting changes, but they could also be very fundamental changes which would include visuals and audio and flavor, for a particular ability, and we've given some examples in the past about augments, we're not quite at the augment stage yet, right? We're still fleshing out the remainder of the classes, being Rogue and Summoner, that are remaining for Alpha-2, we've talked about that earlier when we laid out the roadmap for the A2 testing, and once we get into kind of playing around with these augments we're going to be taking a lot of feedback from the community but the idea is that some of these augments will radically and fundamentally change an ability and that could include all of those things listed."
tl;dr I'm taking this as that subtle call-for-help, even if Steven somehow doesn't know how far along his team is with their design framework. This doesn't sound like a thing where he's seen design docs and just isn't sharing any bits from them. He talks differently in those cases.
He goes into a bit more about stuff from the recent NDA 5-day test and the feedback, and so on, as well, giving me a pretty clear idea of what it is that they want people to feel, and their perspective that this is being achieved.
But I hope it's not too radical/biased/pretentious to say that they do need help if they want to get this done 'soon'. Even if you don't agree with the 'concerned posters' or George's stance that they should do it differently altogether, we can highlight this part:
"we've given some examples in the past about augments, we're not quite at the augment stage yet, right? We're still fleshing out the remainder of the classes, being Rogue and Summoner, that are remaining for Alpha-2"
I'm honestly surprised at the lack of progress here. I don't care why it is and I am not here to prophesy doom or even massive delay or question their overall ability to understand or take the feedback. But I am switching my mode of interacting with this 'problem' to 'giving way too many suggestions and lecturing'. I am taking this as a yeah we basically haven't locked in much of this and might need some inspiration based on what I know of their rudimentary balance framework/ability design schema.
I avoided this before because I don't like the interactions it causes, but I also want to enjoy this game before 2028 (as an A1-and-onwards backer this has nothing to do with launch date opinions). So, I'm gonna push a bit, from now, and hope that Intrepid's response to that 'pushing' is positive. I ask others to also push. Push your ideas, push back those of others as respectfully and detailedly as possible, etc.
Because even without every Archetype done, even with the 'assumption that a lot of this is going to be obvious when the time comes and we could leave it to the devs', if we're all thinking about it anyway, the 'worst' that could happen from giving way too much 'unfounded pre-reveal feedback' is that a lot of it gets discarded. I can't imagine 'discarding things that don't make sense' could take enough time to strain the devs on this, certainly not a net negative if they manage to pick up anything good.
We're with you, Intrepid, just point us at the thing.
The YouTube spotlight question chosen by the team for this stream was another iteration of the 'hey what about Secondaries/augments?'.
It wasn't exactly that, but it was basically that:
"How much will a subclass affect the mechanics of your abilities vs the visual (and audio?) flavor?"
And Steven's response, verbatim:
"Yeah, it's a bit of a spectrum there, right? Because some of the ideas we have with regards to Augmentation is that they could be, kind of, very rudimentary mechanics that get adjusted, such as like, damage values, cooldowns, mana costs, distance and range, some targeting changes, but they could also be very fundamental changes which would include visuals and audio and flavor, for a particular ability, and we've given some examples in the past about augments, we're not quite at the augment stage yet, right? We're still fleshing out the remainder of the classes, being Rogue and Summoner, that are remaining for Alpha-2, we've talked about that earlier when we laid out the roadmap for the A2 testing, and once we get into kind of playing around with these augments we're going to be taking a lot of feedback from the community but the idea is that some of these augments will radically and fundamentally change an ability and that could include all of those things listed."
tl;dr I'm taking this as that subtle call-for-help, even if Steven somehow doesn't know how far along his team is with their design framework. This doesn't sound like a thing where he's seen design docs and just isn't sharing any bits from them. He talks differently in those cases.
He goes into a bit more about stuff from the recent NDA 5-day test and the feedback, and so on, as well, giving me a pretty clear idea of what it is that they want people to feel, and their perspective that this is being achieved.
But I hope it's not too radical/biased/pretentious to say that they do need help if they want to get this done 'soon'. Even if you don't agree with the 'concerned posters' or George's stance that they should do it differently altogether, we can highlight this part:
"we've given some examples in the past about augments, we're not quite at the augment stage yet, right? We're still fleshing out the remainder of the classes, being Rogue and Summoner, that are remaining for Alpha-2"
I'm honestly surprised at the lack of progress here. I don't care why it is and I am not here to prophesy doom or even massive delay or question their overall ability to understand or take the feedback. But I am switching my mode of interacting with this 'problem' to 'giving way too many suggestions and lecturing'. I am taking this as a yeah we basically haven't locked in much of this and might need some inspiration based on what I know of their rudimentary balance framework/ability design schema.
I avoided this before because I don't like the interactions it causes, but I also want to enjoy this game before 2028 (as an A1-and-onwards backer this has nothing to do with launch date opinions). So, I'm gonna push a bit, from now, and hope that Intrepid's response to that 'pushing' is positive. I ask others to also push. Push your ideas, push back those of others as respectfully and detailedly as possible, etc.
Because even without every Archetype done, even with the 'assumption that a lot of this is going to be obvious when the time comes and we could leave it to the devs', if we're all thinking about it anyway, the 'worst' that could happen from giving way too much 'unfounded pre-reveal feedback' is that a lot of it gets discarded. I can't imagine 'discarding things that don't make sense' could take enough time to strain the devs on this, certainly not a net negative if they manage to pick up anything good.
We're with you, Intrepid, just point us at the thing.
Azherae
2
Re: Down time and res, can more classes have this skill?
Remember that we're supposed to have items as an option for this.
At that point it just becomes part of the preparation Risk/Reward schema. You can risk not taking your equivalent of https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Reraiser or whatever because it's expensive or takes long to get, and then face the consequences if something happens...
Or you can 'know you are going into a dangerous situation and prepare accordingly'. I don't know if it suits the current target audience to have to rely on everyone to actually be prepared rather than 'just gathering the right grouping', but I would say it does fit with the established design philosophy so far, to have people rely on items to fill the gaps when the Cleric is exhausted.
At that point it just becomes part of the preparation Risk/Reward schema. You can risk not taking your equivalent of https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Reraiser or whatever because it's expensive or takes long to get, and then face the consequences if something happens...
Or you can 'know you are going into a dangerous situation and prepare accordingly'. I don't know if it suits the current target audience to have to rely on everyone to actually be prepared rather than 'just gathering the right grouping', but I would say it does fit with the established design philosophy so far, to have people rely on items to fill the gaps when the Cleric is exhausted.
Azherae
2
Re: Vassal resentment
There should be a mayoral policy that quite costly to complete but once completed your node gets uprising status which after awhile allows the node to declare a seige on a one node above it in the vassalisation chain if they win they bump down the node one rank and requires time to repair structures and you get a 50% bump to node progression to the next rank so it doesnt garanteed you to rank up however u get a boost over the other nodes to race to rank up before them.
It not as damaging to the loosing node since u only rank down instead of getting destroyed but it does allow some change in node vasalistion structure.
It not as damaging to the loosing node since u only rank down instead of getting destroyed but it does allow some change in node vasalistion structure.
Veeshan
2
Re: What surprised you in the FireBrand fight?
For me the Dragon waiting patently for a bunch of humans to attack it first, rather then aggressivly attacking anyone in the area would certainly surprize me if a real dragon behaved like that. I kind of expect a dragon to be atleast as much of a jerk as the average open world pvper.
So im guessing all mobs need to be attacking everything on sight sense it knows its going to be attacked. So technically if you go into a camp the entire camp should zerg people?
Sometimes i here these kinds of suggestions and they don't seem akin to a mmorpg.
Even in dragons dogma dragons don't attack you instantly just being in sight in far distance.
Unless I missed the actual quest premise, this was a dragon whose egg was just stolen, so it should be much more hostile than normal
Caeryl
1
Re: What surprised you in the FireBrand fight?
For me the Dragon waiting patently for a bunch of humans to attack it first, rather then aggressivly attacking anyone in the area would certainly surprize me if a real dragon behaved like that. I kind of expect a dragon to be atleast as much of a jerk as the average open world pvper.
Lodrig
1
Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
Please fix the stats as soon as possible. This is probably the least informative stat profile I have ever seen in a game. All these nebulous ratings that requires the player to do math to even know what they do. What is 6 crit power rating, what is 111 additive weapon fire damage rating. Just give us exactly what these stats are doing with flat values and percentages. Looking at these items I have 0 idea how much damage they are giving me or how much mitigation. It is impossible to know. Tell us what damage Physical power rating gives, Tell us what 70 attack speed gives. Make it reflect automatically on the weapon's base stats tooltip. Right now the items just look like boring stat sticks.
When you look at an item in a game like Path of Exile you know exactly what that item is giving you. If a stat modifies weapon damage it is reflected on the weapon's base damage. If I have added fire damage it gives you a nice Red Text on the item saying the fire damage it does. All these ratings that require the player to know some formula to get any idea of the function is simply bad design. Some of these stats are fine but having all of them like this means you have to guess what a good item is.
On another note the tooltip does not tell you what item type these things are for some reason. The only way to know is the tiny picture. We need to know the base stats, weapon type, Modifiers to base stats and how much they modify if you hold shift or a more info key.
Items and gear are one of the most important things to get right. If you are giving players items that just cause confusion or requires them to tab out of the game and run a simulator you are failing step 1. Clarity should be your number 1 priority. This needs to be done very soon or it undermines your core function crafting systems.
I made up some examples of what I feel would be an improved tooltip. There is more visual clarity on how much damage the weapon is providing you along with some potential interactions with weapon skill points. For the example I copied the Cindersinger bow stat profile but with more clear indication on what you are getting from each stat. (I used a great Path of Exile tooltip editor because it was very fast and easy to use so excuse that.)
Lashing
2
Re: Instanced Content Should Not Offer Power Gains
Disagree.
Instanced content should also give you meaningful rewards, including gear or materials that are necessary for crafting that gear.
I know your point was specifically against power gains, and not meaningful rewards in general.
In my opinion, instanced content should still provide some level of gear that won't make you useless. It doesn't have to be on the same level as the gear you get from open-world content, or crafted gear.
It could be your starting "endgame" set of gear, which you will replace in a few weeks with better gear you get from open world, or just the materials required for crafting some specific lower level gear (that maybe has no upgrade paths toward something better).
Your 2nd and 3rd points just don't make any sense. Third point especially, because those games are just not like what Ashes is aiming to be, because those games are heavily focused on instanced content, while Ashes will not be, even if it's 20% of all content in game. Open-world in Ashes will not be less meaningful, because all the events are going to happen there, from world bosses, to dungeons, caravans, naval content, OW events in general, etc.
Just because 20% of content is going to be instanced, doesn't mean all of that instanced content will provide power gains.
Just like in most instances, I'd just point out a certain game that a certain important person here has played.
Archeage.
Archeage had instanced dungeons, and they were somewhat of an important part of the game, whether that's for early end-game sets of gear, later for farming mats for gear upgrades, with library especially, or some unique weapons / pieces of gear that certain classes might want to go for.
I have never felt it took away anything from the open-world. It actually added something else to do, something different, which was just as fun.
So in my opinion, more content, and more different content is always welcome. I just do not see it being such a big deal as you are making it out to be, and if anything it can actually help the game attract more people, and give people more content to enjoy the game for longer, so they get bored of doing the same thing every day.
You need to make it worthwhile to do the instanced content though, because if the rewards are not there, or if they are not deemed important by players, then simply players won't do that content.
Instanced content should also give you meaningful rewards, including gear or materials that are necessary for crafting that gear.
I know your point was specifically against power gains, and not meaningful rewards in general.
In my opinion, instanced content should still provide some level of gear that won't make you useless. It doesn't have to be on the same level as the gear you get from open-world content, or crafted gear.
It could be your starting "endgame" set of gear, which you will replace in a few weeks with better gear you get from open world, or just the materials required for crafting some specific lower level gear (that maybe has no upgrade paths toward something better).
Your 2nd and 3rd points just don't make any sense. Third point especially, because those games are just not like what Ashes is aiming to be, because those games are heavily focused on instanced content, while Ashes will not be, even if it's 20% of all content in game. Open-world in Ashes will not be less meaningful, because all the events are going to happen there, from world bosses, to dungeons, caravans, naval content, OW events in general, etc.
Just because 20% of content is going to be instanced, doesn't mean all of that instanced content will provide power gains.
Just like in most instances, I'd just point out a certain game that a certain important person here has played.
Archeage.
Archeage had instanced dungeons, and they were somewhat of an important part of the game, whether that's for early end-game sets of gear, later for farming mats for gear upgrades, with library especially, or some unique weapons / pieces of gear that certain classes might want to go for.
I have never felt it took away anything from the open-world. It actually added something else to do, something different, which was just as fun.
So in my opinion, more content, and more different content is always welcome. I just do not see it being such a big deal as you are making it out to be, and if anything it can actually help the game attract more people, and give people more content to enjoy the game for longer, so they get bored of doing the same thing every day.
You need to make it worthwhile to do the instanced content though, because if the rewards are not there, or if they are not deemed important by players, then simply players won't do that content.
iccer
2