Best Of

I've encountered these moments in every MMO I've played, where mechanics can be cleverly used to gain an advantage.

In Ragnarok Online, as a Wizard, I discovered a trick with Ice Wall. Normally, you couldn't trap creatures inside it. But by kiting them strategically from the south or west, you could freeze them in place. Then, by placing a second Ice Wall behind them, you could negate the knockback effect from Jupitel Thunder, or you could lay down a large AoE to farm them effectively. It was a fantastic farming method that took full advantage of the game’s mechanics.

In World of Warcraft, as a Mage, you could double-dip on the Shatter talent, which gave a big crit chance against frozen targets. First, you’d hard-cast Frostbolt and immediately follow with Fire Blast for massive damage. Another Mage trick was using Blink to negate fall damage, and Priests could time Shadow Word: Death perfectly to reflect damage (since the target wouldn't die), making it a sneaky way to dispel Polymorph. As a Rogue, especially in Subtlety spec, you could use Sprint to close the distance and sap mobs that could normally see through stealth.

All of this reminds me of a Beethoven quote: "Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine." These little tricks and techniques feel like glimpses into the hidden mastery of a game, turning you from a player into a true artist of your craft.

I feel like a point that could be missed here is that, high level mats for processing or gathering at freehold will not be risk free… due to materials always being droppable transporting them to and from freeholds from the node is a risk, also for the case of gatherables we don’t know for example if seeds are single use for higher tier items.

I understand that the main point here is player access to a system required as progression for professions should not be able to be gatekeeped by other players.

But

I don’t particularly see an issue with the current design, part of the design ideas that I have seen from intrepid is exclusivity, and large achievement should require group effort, your complaining that the top 5% of processing/crafting shouldn’t be gatekeeped by other people but realistically only the top 5% of guilds will even have access to those mats from world bosses a solo player was never going to get access to those mats in the first place.

In the side of player experience earning your way into a freehold should feel like an achievement and should be achievable with effort but I still lean to the side of freeholds should be group owned. Always in node housing for casual players… which I will be

Blip wrote: »

Defenetly, lets hope none of the kits are final.

They've previously said there'll be 40 skills for each archetype, with players selecting 12-15. this was a long time ago and may have changed.

I very much doubt this is the final version - just enough to be playable from 1-25.

Bard feels the most developed of them. The other classes need another pass to bring them up to the Bard's level.
Remember the max level currently 25, with different specs and path so as not to have all the skills. Bard feels like the only class truly at 25 with full choice - the others feel like they are 'locked in' to one path (except mage which feels like its locked into being a generalist - it needs about double the amount of skills for each element)

Mages have the fewest skills because they're swinging the biggest dicks on the field. I heard you need two hands to handle their staff.

Myosotys wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Zehlan wrote: »

for the person who has work, kids, wife aggro, the people who are the average players it does and the game is already going to put enough pressure on those casual players you don't need to pile on more.

Keep in mind, Ashes is not being made for the average gamer.

It is being made for Steven.

Steven is a gamer who will use his millions of dollars to get a guild that is basically fanatical, and will do what ever he asks them to do in game, because they want money from him (note, a number of staff at Intrepid are guild mates of his).

That is why this game is built top down - that is how Steven seems MMORPG's.

Steven is used to "the little people" just being there, because that is what he knows. He probably doesn't even realise that this is how things have been for him because those people wanted money from him, not because they were enjoying the gameplay experience they were getting.

This is why I have spent years arguing on these forums. My arguments have all been around the notion that this game needs to be more aimed at the average gamer, not at Steven. If you look back at any argument I have ever found myself in on these forums, it has been about me trying to get this game to focus less on the type of gameplay Steven thinks is what makes an MMORPG, and more in to the type of gameplay my understanding of the average MMORPG player would expect.

This is about your imagination and naive interpretation. The reality is you don't know shit about what Steven will do.

Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't.

I see what is put in front me of, I think back to Steven when he was playing Archeage, I see parallels to how he played that game and how he is developing this one.

I could be right, I could be wrong. However, I would rather speak up and be wrong than keep quiet and be right.

Edit to add; I will state that a lot of people (here on the forums, as well as not here) get actually angry at me for my take on the game. Not so much because they have any way of saying I'm wrong, but because they don't want to hear it.

They want Ashes to be that game that (to them) saves MMORPG's, and they know that if I am right, it absolutely will not do that. They don't want to hear what I'm saying even if I turn out to be 100% right.

Fact is, anyone that legitimately thinks I am wrong would have no reason to get angry at me, or to lash out at me kind of like the above (not that the above was much at all). People that get angry at what I say seem to only get angry because they know there is a good chance I'm right.

" Shadowmancer " seems already to be the darkest, though.

Garcimili wrote: »

Resurrecting this thread from 3+ years ago.

After being "homeless" for most of this year after I stopped playing GW2 in January, with A2 coming up in a few weeks I wanted to stretch out my gaming muscles and prep with Throne and Liberty that just game out yesterday, however like the OP, T&L didn't have the ability to turn left and right in the keybinds, and unfortunately with my playstyle, it makes the game nearly unplayable.

I know Intrepid just put out the keybind image in the last week, however I don't see any option to TURN left/right, only to strafe. Do we know if TURNING will be an option and simply not part of the default keybinds, or will this not be a thing in AOC? I can't imagine them not including this as an option, but I would be beyond disappointed if they didn't.

I believe you can assume they will do this, there's no specific reason not to, and they're pretty receptive to making changes like this that don't really cause any balance issues, for people with specific problems, and those buttons aren't currently doing anything else.

There must be at least one of those NDA pre-Alpha-2 testers who would have brought this up by now if it wasn't done.

zapper wrote: »

This related to PVE
The Mage CC at 10s is pretty useless IMO
When CC'd, the CC should be much more visible, I liked in Wow how CC would sheep (or rabbit, etc) the mob
This was very visible and made it clear that that mob was CC'd and don't hit it

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/61172/dev-discussion-68-crowd-control

Discuss it.

I want CC to matter, using it strategically instead of just on cooldown.

In PvE, if my group is pulling a room full of trash, and there are more than one big guys in the pull, we should have to manage CC, any long sleeps, long stuns, on one or more of the big guys so the tank can actually handle soaking up the rate of damage. And the group should be careful to not break the sleep on that guy.

Stronger pve enemies should also get CC they can use on us. Occasional snares or knockdowns.

That being said, there is nothing more frustrating in a MMO than being stunlocked, so dont go overboard with it. It should take a considerable amount of coordination in a group to stunlock someone. One player should not be able to shut someone down forever.

CC breaks depend on the intended time to kill. In a game where the time to kill is very short as in 10s or less, we NEED a cc break without question or there is zero chance to counterplay it. In a game with a short time to kill, you use CC, then dump all your damage during CC to secure the kill.


If the time to kill is longer, the need for the CC break is less or not at all even.
Longer time to kill makes using CC against an enemy strategic. Interrupting a heal, or big damaging move will be the primary use of CC. If the enemy is at low health you can treat it like above and use the CC itself to secure a damage window to force a kill.

Abilities that give CC immunity for a time I think are more valuable than a CC break, because they require you to plan its use. Use it so you can perform your big damage combo, or get the heal cast when you know they will waste their CC to try to interrupt you, or some other situation you need to make happen.

Also passives that reduce CC duration are nice to consider to.

Diminishing returns is another topic that should be carefully considered. Its also frustrating when I need to stun someone, but they are immune because someone else stunned them a minute ago.