Best Of

This are just some thoughts and Ideas not really trying anything more here.

Emporium building is pretty nice, should this benefits be exclusive to citizens? Probably.

Election method of scientific node being by popular vote is boring and I feel does not reflect The antisan role play.

As for specific military building I can see a duel coliseum where people can duel without any penalties and You can reset your cooldowns right after every duel.

Specific building for Divine nodes should be Pve 8 man group can face a horde Mode (Evil creatures) and gain favor by it.

Classes:
Spells I would add to The archetype kits. ( Level 50)
Tank: Medusas Gaze: Turn to stone for 4 secs any enemy in a 7 meters Radius in front of him any damage Taken break the spell. 100 secs cd
Iron Roar: shouts in a 20 meters aoe breaking all enemies armor reducing it by 40% for 6 seconds.
35 sec cd
Fighter:
Ares Arena: Creates an arena for 8 second which blocks enemy from the outside and any enemy inside cannot get out of it.
Any enemy kill inside gives The user 5 percent damage per kill, last 10 seconds after The spell ends. 150 secs cd
War Cannon:
Transforms The user in a asteroid of brute force falling above a Target. Main Target is damage and show by 60% any other Target closet to it get 30% show in a 5 meters aoe. 60 secs cd
Ranger:
Godspeed: Increased movement speed by 100% and 100% evasion for 6 sec making it look like a blur. 45 seconds cd
Dead Arrow: Shoots a black arrow to a Target poisoning doing damage over time for 8 second doing more damage as time pases and slowing The Target by 50% if cleanse burst doing doble The damage. 60 sec cd
Rogue:
Shadow Slash:
Leaps to a Target doing 4 slashes to the Target ignoring their armor completly and The user being invulnerable during it's duration needs to be in melee range ( 5 meters) 60 sec cd.
Blood Madness:
The user enters a frenzy state for 6 seconds making him to do 30% more damage if the enemy is at 35% hp and reducing 50 % damage if the Rogue is at 15% hp or only 10% damage if it's above that. 90 sec cd.
Bard:
Masacre Dance:
If sucessfully ccing 3 times The same Target The user performs a dance and after a short delay doing massive damage in an aoe of 20 meters
120 sec cd.
Maiden Melody:
The user pick a friendly target and performing a Melody binding their souls together being inmune to cc for 5 seconds and healing 10% of their hp over time this efects only happen if they are not more than 5 meters apart from eachother.
Cleric:
Sword of Vengance:
Creates a sword of radiant energy increasing The user damage by 70% for 5 seconds every hit heals the user by 10% 70 sec cd.
Word of Salvation:
If the user or a friendly target is below 10 % and geta healed by WoS The Target reflect all damage done in the next 3 seconds after The heals. Cast spells 60 sec cd.
Mage:
Chrono Dome:
Creates a 15 aoe meters dome that freeze time for 6 seconds any enemy or Ally is freeze in time but The mage gets 40% cast speed. 120 sec cd.
Supernova:
Creates a Wave of fire in a 25 aoe Radius. The farther the targets are from the epicenter the most damage they take. Targets una 10 meter Radius get stunned for 2 seconds. 100 secs cd.
Summoner:
Balrog:
Summons a Balrog by using 30% of the user hp.
Balrog has Fire breath and Inmolation aura which burns targets over time. 90 sec cd
Frost Haunter
Summons a Frost Ghost by using 30% of the user mana.
Frost Haunter has ice breath and Icy claws that slows the Target for a few seconds. 90 sec cd.

1. Personally i feel like mounted movement feels like ass because of the sidestep. If you could make it so Shift+a/d lets you sidestep and then normal a/d will let you run sideways would feel really nice.

2. How fucking awesome would it be to jump directly on your mount when calling it.
Press "call mount" --> Mount appears --> Start mounting animation in same frame as mount shows up. It would feel so fantasy like to see your character whisteling for a mount that magically appears and then grab the side and drag yourself on in the same frame, with instant forward momentum.

(You could hold Shift or Ctrl to counteract the action, or make it a keybind to jump directly on it.
A - If direct mount, it should spawn on your person. B - If only call mount, it should spawn like it does now, next to you)
People would start using it as an escape in combat and it would be amazing

3. I am a big advocate for being able to personalize your settings and keybinds as much as possible. For example ; free movement can get bothersome, but if you let players have a setting that allows free movement to be activated when holding down either RMB or LMB (LMB would actually be absolutly perfect for this!) would be really cool. Also, to allow players to double bind different keybinds. I cant think of an example right now but i know i have thought of one.

There's good information here already, but if you're curious, there is often good and up-to-date information to be found on the wiki as well! https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Controller_support

I think this could also be done with adds, that react to how much dmg the boss is receiving in a period of time. (period could depend on a boss buff or its stage of hp). Even better if those adds react to each other and blow up in some kind of aoe, if they're too close to each other.

You brought a zerg and they're all attacking? Now there's a shitton of little mobs running around, who're about to hit your zerg with a huge aoe (could be mana burn, massive poison, burn, etc etc etc) and now you're somewhat fucked.

I always thought that the "environmental hazards based on player amount in the area" was meant to have a similar effect, but we've obviously not seen a single representation of that so far (outside of maaaybe the pools in the Twins battle, but I don't remember if those were reactive), so it's difficult to say either way.

Yes, the plan is to prevent people from using crowd control abilities on green players. This feature is simply not implemented yet.

This game is quite challenging for beginners, especially for those who communicate in different languages. But I think this game is still good and I want to give it a try. However, after I left the beginner village, during hunting, I encountered a player. He started the player-versus-player mode and stunned me, then he also stole my game score. Although the rules of this game allow players to do this, it is indeed unfair for beginners. I think the design of the game should provide more protective measures for beginners. Doing so might reduce the enthusiasm of some players.

It sounds like we aren't disagreeing at all, and I totally expect that you have had experiences with the sort of person that you're actually concerned/complaining about in your OP, I'm very familiar with them too.

The problem with where Ashes is now (which I agree we don't need to discuss) is that it's very hard to tell the difference between people who are put off by the 'discomfort' of the Econ/Artisanship and trying to tell Intrepid that it needs to be brought up to near 'standard'...

And those people who want to press buttons and have the game tell them "You Did Good Today. 5 Stars For You'.

However the system is not better than most other games right now, unless you explicitly dismiss old games (understandable, but if Ashes is trying to bring back some semblance of that era, and appealing to players from that era, they will get the feedback of 'this isn't as good as it was back in my day!'

And for some who are less studied on the matter (or less patient with development), one could conclude 'and it won't become that good', because we definitely don't always get a proper implementation put on top of any similar looking foundations lately.

That said, I have new data from the Throne and Liberty side, and things are working there, so I have no doubt that there is still a reasonable audience for what Ashes is doing in terms of Econ (you can consider TL's Econ transparency to be good enough that the 'average' game-IQ player either doesn't get completely lost, or doesn't seem to notice in a way that bothers them, at least that's my anecdotal data).

(And yes, for those who like to hate on NCSoft, there are also people out there just swiping to buy stuff, but there are also a lot of people out there earning Lucent in game and then spending it and the Economy is working, even within the limited specializations they have managed to get in so far).

Laetitian wrote: »

What barriers did BG3 have to knock down? Isn't it just a slightly more shallow Dragon Age: Origins, with flirtier characters added to make it more marketable?

Dragon Age was right on that line of breaking through the niche.

The thing is, BG3 isn't shallower than DA:O. It presents itself as shallower, and it can be played shallower, but it actually has more depth to it (a lot more, tbh). DA:O had too many situations where there was only one viable path, BG3 has very few. This is the case not just for the story, but also for combat.

...BG3, anyone?

The difference is that in BG3, all of that content is available to me, and *I* am the only thing standing in the way.

WIth node states in Ashes, any content that Intrepid add to it, an individual player has the entire server standing in their way. They have no meaningful way of influencing what content they will and will not have access to. That isn't to say Intrepid should do away with the node system or anything, it is just to say that adding new content via this system will not attract players to Ashes.

And in reality, there are pretty much always parts of every MMO not every player gets to see

I'm not sure where the mistake here has come from, but we are not talking about content that some players will not see.

Rather, we are talking about content that no player will ever see.

Content that is harder to access for many players is ok. It is seen as asperational content, it keeps people in games because there is still something they want to do or see. The thing is, people need to have a clear path as to what they need to do in order to get to that content - much like in BG3 it needs to be something they can do if they wish.

Content added via the node system is not something a player has a clear path laid out for, there is no means they have as a player to access that content.

Your idea that you present of "You can restrict the experience, but repeat it in a modified version somewhere else, later. You can move assets and ideas between events, dungeons, bosses, quests and story arcs."... why?

That doesn't create a good game. That doesn't attract people to the game. That turns people away from the game. It means players don't have shared experiences. They can't talk about the game with people from other servers, they can't talk about hte lore, because it will be different on different servers as things like quests result in different outcomes.

That kind of thing is just a whole lot of work to make the game worse off, but with no payoff of additional players at the end. And yes, the game would be worse off, because everything would need to be modular - quests, for example, would all need to take the same amount of time so that the rewards from them that will be shuffled around all match the effort put in.

It's one of those things that sounds like it could be good, until you consider the implications of it all.

Back to one of the first things you said in your post

letting the game become average also isn't a real option, in my opinion. Its premise hinges on having more depth than the average.

Again, as BG3 proves, the issue isn't in removing the depth - it is in making it so that players not from that genre don't need to engage with that depth and still get a great experience from the game.

Ashes can not and will not have that. I'm not even saying they should try.

Rather, I am saying they will not break through that niche barrier. This is simply NOT the game to do that with.

It is also worth pointing out that things like nodes, the economy, sieges and naval content are adding breadth to the game, not depth. This isn't a bad thing at all, it is just worth pointing out for this discussion.

And make no mistake, the biggest barrier that this niche (which is open world PvP MMORPG) has is in relation to snowballing based on the loser of a fight losing power, while the winner gains it. That is the barrier that needs to be broken down by which ever open world PvP MMORPG finally breaks through that niche - if any of them ever do.

Imanek wrote: »

And I’ve tested this personally. I temporarily prevented three groups from farming at HH. They died repeatedly. I flagged for PvP, pulled a few mobs, applied some control, and put pressure on the healers — all while avoiding corruption.
And alone, I managed to ruin the experience for 24 players in just a short amount of time.
...
Even in that game, the Library (an open dungeon) was PvP-free, because you simply can’t expect a group to defend itself from both tough NPCs and enemy players at the same time.

With each such example I just realize more and more that L2 players are truly unique. Neither of these things can be true there, because most parties would always remove an annoying player and most parties would fight over their farm to the point of one side giving up, which means that the farm is now truly secured.

Oh how the times/cultures change... I guess it'll take Steven dumping a few dozen million into the game to realize this too. Or he'll just succumb to the majority's preference and the game will no longer be what it wanted to be.