Best Of

Aside from the ton of feedback all over the official discord, steven's reddit "gigathread" and the forum so far, i want you to remind you on the effects outside of direct-enemy-engagements: The Economy and Server Progession side.

Putting Journeyman enchantment scrolls in the citizen vendors pocket was a genius move. This completely motivated the whole server (im talking about Lotharia during Phase 2, Alpha 2) to complete buy orders. Lots of buy orders have been completed before the material cooldowns came back for the mayor. This enabled a market for the more PvE oriented players that do no get to spamming caravans or camping a legendary tree (this will change soon, i know.). The Economy on that part was super healthy, because people sought after enchantments. Scroll prices went up, PvP Oriented players did drive more caravans, more caravan-pvp happened - it put the server in a healthy state. But, i do agree, enchanting needed a nerf. It was unrealistig to give 600% value to items by just enchanting them to +8 (yes, this description does not fit every single item, but there had been some extremes that went this far)

With stats and how they work now, and also the strong differences between apprentice level 10 gear on legendary, and green level 20 drops from NPC's which do not require a bit of effort, the economy will be out of the box on another wipe/fresh start. People do not want to craft level 10 gear, because getting epic/legendary materials, processing it on different people, to wait for a node wide crafting buff and also paying a fee for service, to be outscaled by a green level 20 item that just dropped because there was an NPC attacking you while you chopped a tree - lets be real, a feeling noone wants to face.

Combine this with the extreme diminshing returns on both, physical and magical power, and you will most likely end up with following scenario
People will either not do buy orders at all, because crafting '10 gear will be pointless, and reaching Journeyman Status on the server (again, Lotharia, full EU on one Server) took more than 3 Months to reach.
Apprentice Materials on every gathering profession will be essentially worthless, unless the server somehow reaches journeyman status super early. Then the tool-materials for Journeyman tools will be valuable, and the Journeyman Gatherables will be very valuable - because the new system will feel like every other MMO. Just rush max level and dont mess with any crafting beforehand, because dropped items are better either way. Thats not what we want to see in ashes afaik.
Oh, and also - should not put the best, highest stats on Citizen Cloaks. "Crafters make the best shit" some wise guy once said. Citizen Cloaks should be rather cosmetic, to make crafting even more worth it, rather than just buying it off a vendor.

And, since I know how hard it can be to get feedback from less engaged players, the perspective from the opposite side - 'doesn't actually test actively right now but generally follows whatever can be followed without actually playtesting':

Looks like you're just starting over, Intrepid? Posts like the OP are well detailed and give a lot of relative clarity, unfortunately for us less invested who use these posts to get a sense of what's going on, it looks 100% like y'all are just messing around (or making a mess) again to try some stuff, which is confusing since it seemingly went past PTR.

Almost every outcome reported so far is unsurprising considering the usual quality/expectations of work (they are not particularly positive or high expectations). But the response isn't 'oh they don't know what they're doing at all', it's just 'oh they're finally getting around to trying some stuff and weren't actually seriouslly working on this before'.

So, do your thing, it's your budget constraints, hope it works out.

As for me personally, I'd say the #1 reason this outcome was the expected one for me is that this was not the order one solves this problem in, a lesson I hope is learned across the industry.

Incentives -> PvE/Comfort feeling -> Stats -> Economy -> PvP Feeling -> Repeat.

If this happened because the testers/Devs felt that the PvE feeling was still good, {That's too bad.} But it's probably just not as 'bad' as the first responders are making it out to be... right?

pendragon wrote: »

Case and point. Executing strategies and plays. Capitalizing on opportunities. People died np.

https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k3Z4IxYuhTXtHvWWr?invite=cr-MSxraXIsMjg4MzYzODY3

Ya I wouldn't call this skill we walked at them as a ball and

pendragon wrote: »

Case and point. Executing strategies and plays. Capitalizing on opportunities. People died np.

https://medal.tv/games/ashes-of-creation/clips/k3Z4IxYuhTXtHvWWr?invite=cr-MSxraXIsMjg4MzYzODY3

Huh how are you gonna previously say in your post that were unqualified lmao then link a clip of "POLAR" playing "ME" shot calling and call it proof. You don't understand any of the context to that clip you have no idea how many healers the other team has or what we were testing. Smh.

The pvp with low ttk feels boring underwhelming and extremely basic. The game currently has the rotation for most DPS classes of MMOs from 2004 where if you had key binds you were a god. The lack of defensives interrupts and almost no skill expression has made the combat feel muddy at best. When the ttk was quick -> positioning, timing, and decision making felt way more Impactful. A well combo or blitz could let one player take out three, now you need the entire team to target one player to kill them. Its extremely one dimensional, walk at the other team as a ball and target the other team one by one. This isn't skillful its boring and zerg meta.

I agree with the OP, this is really needed for current stage of testing.
We desperately need better testing condition for more accurate data before the P3.
Stop treating the A2 servers as live game and treat it like the test it should be.

anarcx wrote: »

No idea what terrible source you're using for Lineage 2 but here's the official codex with data that actually means something, stop trippin' with wikipedia and google AI. Can't even pull the right source and you gonna pretend like you're OG? Please x)

lol I ain't talking about a 2010s version of the game. That looks like a system designed for P2W monetization lol. I'm talking about the original game. The one that was popular, that probably released when you were in diapers.

But good to know they fucked up their power progression in future versions, proves my point that ridiculous power progression = less popular pvp game

Green wrote: »

This ttk is horrible. I see a lot of comments about how combat is more skill based now but that is just isn't true at all. There is no tactics, or unique strategy's now. You don't get high value from pulling off risky plays. Combat now is just calling targets to focus down 1 by 1. Any competent opponent will destroy you if you do otherwise.

This isn't a game like WoW were you can chain cc's and interrupts together alongside your cooldowns to setup kills. The combat just isn't that dynamic. Longer ttk doesn't force you to create opportunities to kill people. It just forces you to out dps the healing a player is receiving (which if your target is dodge rolling, this is impossible).

It isn't enough, I agree with you. But it went from pressing W and smashing your head on the keyboard to coordinating damage to a target. It's definitely better than it was before, and it's a good direction.

We need more. Stronger defensives, increased base survivability for DPSs, interrupts, and higher TTK. When they do that, you will care to use the proper debuff system, you'll see that coordination helps in killing the other party faster, and the difference is not between killing players in 2 seconds or 1.5 seconds, it's the difference between killing them in 10 or in 3 seconds. That means you are more rewarded for coordinating.

They have not confirmed a wipe, just fresh start servers. People have asked about accelerated servers or PTR style vendors so they can skip the normal process. The answer so far has been no, and is most likely not going to change since you have it coming from both Steven and MK.