Best Of
Re: Rethinking Resource Systems: Enhancing Class Identity in AoC with Diverse Energy Mechanics
I'm generally possitivly disposed to class (well actually base Archeytype) unique resources. So far we have Momentum (basically renamed Rage) and Courage for the Warrior and Tank respectivly and they look well integrated into their kits.
I would not say that I percive any need to do away with Mana usage in all archetypes other then Mage. But I DO percive a need for a class resource for the yet to be revealed Summoner and I'd like to describe why.
This Summoner resurce would be called 'Control' or 'Command' or 'Willpower' something to that effect, it acts to cap the number of summons that the Summoner can have active at any one time. Thus it will start full (presumably 100) and be depleted with each summon and restored upon the summons death or dismisal. Generally it is desirable that a Summoner be able to maintain their summons 'up' with ease because unlike classes which deal damage with Mana or other resources and can breifly disengage, drink potions, use resets etc and return to combat at full effectiness, a summoner who has lost all their summons and needs to resummon them can get stuck in a loop of having the summons killed as fast as they are made and thus they can't rebound to their proper effectivness. This is countered by making summoning itself relativly fast but capped so the summoners army is more consistent in power. Also summoning cooldown can ramp up the more summons (and thus less Control) the summoner has thus giving a faster rebound at low counts while still giving oponents a meaningful chance to keep summon counts from maxing out by killing them faster then the slowed cooldown.
If multiple kinds of summonables are available they would have unique control costs, a cheap one might be 12 and a costly one 30. Summoners skill tree could lower costs of specific summon types to be able to have more of them, or raise the summons strength, or both depending on where you put the points. And a Summoner could choose what type of summons to actually bring to battle, maybe summoning all the same type in one situation and all of another type in another situation or switching them mid battle rather then in system which just cap each type individually and thus always result in a mixed composition which can't adapt on the fly.
In addition to summoning costing Control a Summoner can issue orders which likewise cost control to maintain while active. Orders are location or character target specific simple AI controls like "Defend this area", "Attack that guy", "Defend Me", probably only 1 of each order can be active at a time. All summons obey the nearest order unless their type is specifically ignores it such as an attack summon which will not obey defence orders or visa versa. An order might also potentially buff the summon obeying it (thus a limit of one such buff at a time) in a relevent way, such as an attack speed buff when obeying an attack order, such buffs would probably be optional skills in the tree and would raise the Control cost of the order an appropriate amount. Lasty Orders which are too far away from the summoner (generally the distance of their summon leash) are immedialy dispeled, and any order can be manual dispelled early via the UI, orders markers on the map or on characters are visible only to the summoner so that enemies are not unduely warned, they have to actually watch the summons and see what they are doing.
Orders exist to give the summoner something tactically meaningful to do in combat if they are that 'commanding from the rear' kind of player but come at the cost of having a slight reduction in number of summons active due to the control cost, which should be balanced by the greater efficiency that a good player should be able to squeeze out with orders. Orders are fully optional to use and a summoner can just summon and let the default AI do everything like Diablo 2 Necromancer had to do, this is likely to be the option prefered for Summoners who join in and fight on the frontlines and thus don't feel they have the attention to spare directing their summons, though even they might want that "Defend Me" order.
Because orders work independently of the number of summons a Summoner can independently decide to have many weak summons or fewer stronger ones AND if they want to give orders or not.
I would not say that I percive any need to do away with Mana usage in all archetypes other then Mage. But I DO percive a need for a class resource for the yet to be revealed Summoner and I'd like to describe why.
This Summoner resurce would be called 'Control' or 'Command' or 'Willpower' something to that effect, it acts to cap the number of summons that the Summoner can have active at any one time. Thus it will start full (presumably 100) and be depleted with each summon and restored upon the summons death or dismisal. Generally it is desirable that a Summoner be able to maintain their summons 'up' with ease because unlike classes which deal damage with Mana or other resources and can breifly disengage, drink potions, use resets etc and return to combat at full effectiness, a summoner who has lost all their summons and needs to resummon them can get stuck in a loop of having the summons killed as fast as they are made and thus they can't rebound to their proper effectivness. This is countered by making summoning itself relativly fast but capped so the summoners army is more consistent in power. Also summoning cooldown can ramp up the more summons (and thus less Control) the summoner has thus giving a faster rebound at low counts while still giving oponents a meaningful chance to keep summon counts from maxing out by killing them faster then the slowed cooldown.
If multiple kinds of summonables are available they would have unique control costs, a cheap one might be 12 and a costly one 30. Summoners skill tree could lower costs of specific summon types to be able to have more of them, or raise the summons strength, or both depending on where you put the points. And a Summoner could choose what type of summons to actually bring to battle, maybe summoning all the same type in one situation and all of another type in another situation or switching them mid battle rather then in system which just cap each type individually and thus always result in a mixed composition which can't adapt on the fly.
In addition to summoning costing Control a Summoner can issue orders which likewise cost control to maintain while active. Orders are location or character target specific simple AI controls like "Defend this area", "Attack that guy", "Defend Me", probably only 1 of each order can be active at a time. All summons obey the nearest order unless their type is specifically ignores it such as an attack summon which will not obey defence orders or visa versa. An order might also potentially buff the summon obeying it (thus a limit of one such buff at a time) in a relevent way, such as an attack speed buff when obeying an attack order, such buffs would probably be optional skills in the tree and would raise the Control cost of the order an appropriate amount. Lasty Orders which are too far away from the summoner (generally the distance of their summon leash) are immedialy dispeled, and any order can be manual dispelled early via the UI, orders markers on the map or on characters are visible only to the summoner so that enemies are not unduely warned, they have to actually watch the summons and see what they are doing.
Orders exist to give the summoner something tactically meaningful to do in combat if they are that 'commanding from the rear' kind of player but come at the cost of having a slight reduction in number of summons active due to the control cost, which should be balanced by the greater efficiency that a good player should be able to squeeze out with orders. Orders are fully optional to use and a summoner can just summon and let the default AI do everything like Diablo 2 Necromancer had to do, this is likely to be the option prefered for Summoners who join in and fight on the frontlines and thus don't feel they have the attention to spare directing their summons, though even they might want that "Defend Me" order.
Because orders work independently of the number of summons a Summoner can independently decide to have many weak summons or fewer stronger ones AND if they want to give orders or not.
Lodrig
3
Re: Fixing the Class system
You lost me.
And I'm not sure what you mean by "only change it 10%".
If a Mage Teleport applied to my Fighter's Rush allows me to blink past a Wall that would otherwise impede me, that significantly changes my tactics. A quantifier like 10% seems to be meaningless.
I'd definitely prefer some other Mage-like stuff to place on my other Active Skills, than a Teleport.
I dunno how a Teleport Augment is supposed to help augment my Battle Cry.
Your being willfully ignorant if you can't understand this.
And your example is emblematic of lazy thinking. You have to postulate a SPECIFC enemy countermeasure produced by 1 opposing archetype for limited time under which a teleport augmented Blitz would seemingly play ANY different then the base Blitz. To call this reaching is an understatement.
No player worth their salt would call that a meaningful change to tactics let alone playstyle because once you think about it for more then a second you remember the barrier is still present and your now trapped and cut off from team mates so in even in your hypothetical 90% of the time you ain't gonna teleport through said wall because you have no escape path. Your still a Fighter with a gap closer which is gonna feel exactly the same as every other fighter, that's what 10% change is, something you don't even need to relearn or alter your play around.
I think we first need to set what actually makes an ability different enough from one another.
At its core, teleport and charge are both movement skills that displace your character, and move it to another location. How they do it is very important, and also what's very important are the visuals and sound effects.
You are just downplaying the importance of both things here.
How they do it is important, because something that makes you appear at another location almost instantly, has different implications than something that takes time to reach the target. One can be used to traverse terrain faster, to engage easier and avoid cc, to disengage, etc. allowing you more freedom of movement, because it doesn't require a target necessarily, while the other thing does it slower, maybe requires a target, probably deals damage to the target, etc.
Visuals and sound effects are a huge part of what make the ability feel different and separate from one another, and this is the key part that people seem to downplay when talking about augments. It's more important that the visual and sound effects change, than anything else. This is what will easily distinguish your class from everyone else, and make it unique.
I'm really not sure what you expect, and how do you want to make the ability even more different?
If you expect that augments will change your charge ability, into something completely different, unrelated to the base skill, which offers mobility and displaces your character, then you just have to manage your expectations better, because that's not the aim with this system.
Both abilities are the same at its core, but how they achieve their purpose and how they look and sound is what separates them, just like every other ability in the game.
Tell me, what separates Mage's Blizzard ability, and Fighter's Whirlwind? Both are channeled AoEs that deal damage around your character. By your logic, there is not enough difference between the two.
In reality, visuals are different, Blizzard basically rains down projectiles, while Whirlwind allows you to move while channeling it, damage type and status effects they apply are different, etc..
iccer
5
Re: Is no one else disappointed that "Persistent Alpha" AKA 24/7 Alpha 2 access isn't until May 2025?
patrick68794 wrote: »One thing I simply do not get is people who are upset about this.
You are complaining about an ALPHA. You are not meant to play the game, you are meant to TEST it and provide feedback. Having Alpha be persistent immediately, or next year in May, should make absolutely 0 difference to you, AS A TESTER. It does however make a huge difference to devs, you know, because at this stage of the game, they matter a lot more than you.
If they cannot provide you with something that was promised during this stage, then it's totally normal, for anyone who has a slight clue about development process. Expecting them to meet deadlines, while they're still very much in the middle of developing the game and it's systems, is beyond baffling to me.
If I were Steven, I would never, ever again put a deadline on anything, ever, just because of crybabies online who complain when they cannot meet said deadlines. And for a long time, he didn't want to say when Alpha 2 will happen, because he wanted to avoid situations like these.
Be happy that you get an Alpha 2 this year, because they could've easily pushed it back to May, and maybe then you would've got persistent alpha, except then you would cry about the delay.
I'd be totally supporting the argument if we were talking about a launch, but this is an Alpha. Things change, some deadlines cannot be met due to various reasons.
No, nobody lied to you. Yes, there is a reason they had to push it back.
People that have paid money are absolutely allowed to be upset here. It doesn't matter that we've paid to "test" instead of "play" either. We've invested money into the project and if deadlines are missed then feedback should be provided.
Investors pushing game devs to crunch to fit in their unrealistic timeline expectations?
Now where have I seen this before, and what have gamers always said about those people pushing dev teams to crunch out games despite it harming the overall product?
Nothing that can be said here, that’s for sure.
Caeryl
2
Re: [EU] Nephilim [PVX] [18+] [Semi Hardcore] [Competitive] [Close Knit Community]
Awesome guild still recruiting for Alpha 2 head over to the discord for more info!
https://discord.gg/nephilim
https://discord.gg/nephilim
Re: [EU] Nephilim [PVX] [18+] [Semi Hardcore] [Competitive] [Close Knit Community]
Bump, great community. Wel informed and factual. Looking forward to jump into A2 with this group.
Faltana
2
Re: Fixing the Class system
I think you belive that ROLE is the same as Playstyle/tactics and that Augments will 'preserve the role' what your indicating is that playstyle and tactics will be unaltered.
No what I think is that people are underestimating the impact the (currently expected) augments will make despite being seemingly small. I am quite aware that the Role is not the same as the playstyle. The Core function of augmented skills will remain the same, Steven said as much, but he also said that augments are meant to "blur the lines a bit" between the Archetypes to allow for some adjustments regarding the Rock-Paper-Scissor System (A Mage can account for their weakness against Rangers and Rogues by augmenting their skills with Tank aspects), this allows for situational, new options during fights, but at that core the Mage is still that: A mage.
You present and speak of Flavor changes AS IF they were Radical changes because you over interpret the tactical effects of an extra damage proc or buff getting applied ontop of a skill.
I'm just saying what I think will be Intrepids approach to augments and its effects. And correct me if I am wrong: We have nothing PROVING neither me nor you wrong. It's an open question and I don't share the worry that augments will be little more than cosmetics.
So I don't think we are talking past each other, we simply don't agree on what we will get because information is not conclusive on the matter. Which is why I think that there is no "fixing the class system" when nobody can really know whether there is something to fix to begin with.
I am asking for and brainstorming playstyle varients for the classes in the light of radical changes and with the intent to create a simple description of that playstyle which synthesises both archetypes. This is healtheir then trying to design augments for an individual skill. See ny Class Fantasy thread for examples, I'd like to produce a description for all 64 classes.
Fair enough, but this is over at your thread and I was primarily concerend with OPs prompt here to "fix" something that we don't even know the workings of. Additionally, I don't think we need short descriptions for every class, which is while I will not grace/taint your thread either.
Kilion
5
Re: Removing Waypoints During Questing: A More Immersive Exploration?
I could also see specifically having no quest markers for unique quests, but full task instructions and 3d markers for Commissions and repeatable side quests.
That way you could make the big quests where you need to keep track of where you have to go and what you need to do long and rewarding, while the handheld quests grant very low rewards and mostly serve as incentive to go out and kill things.
Might sound obvious, but most games have no distinction in the amount of handholding, or worse, inconsistent handholding, guaranteeing that players will get impatient with the low-handholding story quests.
If it's a consistent design philosophy, players know the effort and reward associated with unique versus repeatable quests.
That way you could make the big quests where you need to keep track of where you have to go and what you need to do long and rewarding, while the handheld quests grant very low rewards and mostly serve as incentive to go out and kill things.
Might sound obvious, but most games have no distinction in the amount of handholding, or worse, inconsistent handholding, guaranteeing that players will get impatient with the low-handholding story quests.
If it's a consistent design philosophy, players know the effort and reward associated with unique versus repeatable quests.