Best Of
Re: So....bagpipes for the Bard class?
100% only for AoE damage or to help people run faster =-D
So....bagpipes for the Bard class?
This feels like a serious oversight? Also I hope different instruments change the Bard abilities VFX and SFX.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi3na4qTW1o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi3na4qTW1o
Re: Contest for Parent Node
The revolution id a originally was a great thought. The major issue around this is about the exact mechanics of how a node becomes a vassal. With most opinion being that it just automatically happens.
I would hope to see some type of deliberate action that leads to vassal status. Either 1). The subject node mayor and citizens want to be part of the parent node. So they have a node event, mayoral commission, to bend the knee and offer themselves to the parent.
Or 2). The higher level node decides they want this node as a vassal. So there is a commission for some type of war or subjugation action against that node. That if won or successful the citizens of the node bend the knee. But it provides that lower level node the chance to form a defense against becoming a vassal by fighting against anyone who wants to take their independence or sovereignty away from them.
Kind of a real world thing led to this thinking. That vassals do not just pop up and happen. There are politics, strife, war and all sorts of nasty stuff that leads to a vassal status.
I agree that automatic vassalization is a poor system and it should be done by deliberate action.
What I would propose is that nodes tier of development is not cappby by BEING vassalized, but by how many vassals THEY HAVE (as in network size so vassals vassals count). Thus the aqusition of vassal nodes becomes the means to raise your own tier.
Aquisition can be by warfare or peaceful means. In both cases the vassal must be of equal or lower level (if a vassal of equal level is take the patron will immediatly earn promotion), and sufficiently close by to the Aquiring nodes network, maybe not nessarily directly adjacent. If it peacefull submission then the vassal might negotiate for lower taxes, more benifits etc, while a defeated node would get a 'standard' rate and low but atleast some benifits. By having voluntary vassalization present possible alternatives their is an incentive to both bully and negotiate at the same time and more complex politics results.
Once vassal status is established by peacefull means the vassal is considered in a state of 'contentment' and either side can propose modifications but these take effect only if signed by the other party, thus allowing both sides to continue to keep the relationship up to date with changing needs and expectations. So long as the most recent interaction between two nodes is a signed agreement the vassal is in contentment. Vassals in this state have a very hard time declaring war against their Patron, needing to be no more then 1 tier lower in development, and must pay a large war declaration cost.
But if a vassal is taken by force it has an initial 'defeated' status which lasts a specific time period (2-4 weeks maybe) after which it automatically goes to 'agrived' and vassals in such status can at any time make a war declaration at reduced or possibly no cost to try for liberation, if they lose they go back to defeated as a timeout.
The Patron node can also pull a Vader and "Alter the agreement" unilaterally, if the changes are in any way negative for the vassal (higher taxes or lower benifits even if combined with offsets elseware) then the vassal node is set to a state of 'agrived' allowing them to essentially fight for independence or perhapse a return to the old agreement with a freeze out period in which no alterations are allowed. Alternativly the vassal can submit and sign the new agreement and go back to contentment. This allows some brinksmanship and friction between patron and vassal nodes and encourages them to again get into disagrements.
Lastly possibility for a node to develop up to a level through aquiring vassals and for them to then lose thouse vassals which were a pre-requisite to their development level. This puts a node in a state of 'over-stretched' and will trigger a decay process. If they do not bring their vassal count back up in a specified period (likely the same 2-4 weeks that 'defeated' status lasts) the development tier will regress 1 level then start another decay timer if it is still over-stretched. Over-stretched should carry significant penalties such as not being able to create any new buildings or lossing lots of taxes and no wars delcarations for purposes other then aquiring vassals.
Lodrig
5
Re: Why did you stop to play an MMO you once loved?
Ultima Online, just got tired of drama with the admin team (it was a "private" shard).
Lineage 2 - I got tired of the grind and poor content variety.
WoW - one day I logged in and just felt sick, I suppose that's the way you feel if you gorge too much on something. Still I have some fond memories of my Tauren shaman open world PvP, and levelling my human warlock whilst playing BB King in the background. I came back a decade later for a nostalgia trip, but my interest in the game fizzled out. The game didn't feel much like a MMO, and the open world content felt too easy.
GW2 and SWTOR - I liked them both for different reasons, but overall the copy/paste nature of the game activities and again, PvE content which in the open world did not encourage use of your classes to the fully potential made it boring in the long run.
The Lord of the Rings Online - the landscape difficulty made it interesting, and the old school nature of some content was weirdly refreshing. The game was pretty atmospheric, despite its age, however content felt a bit uninspired around level 30+ if I remember correctly. That specific zone quest line felt weak, and I felt zero motivation to continue playing at that point. In the end server latency / server performance issues were also immersion breaking.
A side note: For some reason I enjoyed quite a bit both GW2 and LOTRO crafting experience as a solo player. In GW2 crafting was the reason why I ended levelling 5 different classes at the same time and levelling up different crafting schools.
Overall the passing nature of the levelling zones was one of the reasons why I disliked in a lot of MMOs. You barely ever felt a reason to come back to a "low" level zone as you have already completed all content there and roaming mobs were no threat at all. One of the reasons why I liked GW2 more with its level scaling system, which adjusted your level to the zone content. That alone made the game world feel more like a living, breathing world.
Lineage 2 - I got tired of the grind and poor content variety.
WoW - one day I logged in and just felt sick, I suppose that's the way you feel if you gorge too much on something. Still I have some fond memories of my Tauren shaman open world PvP, and levelling my human warlock whilst playing BB King in the background. I came back a decade later for a nostalgia trip, but my interest in the game fizzled out. The game didn't feel much like a MMO, and the open world content felt too easy.
GW2 and SWTOR - I liked them both for different reasons, but overall the copy/paste nature of the game activities and again, PvE content which in the open world did not encourage use of your classes to the fully potential made it boring in the long run.
The Lord of the Rings Online - the landscape difficulty made it interesting, and the old school nature of some content was weirdly refreshing. The game was pretty atmospheric, despite its age, however content felt a bit uninspired around level 30+ if I remember correctly. That specific zone quest line felt weak, and I felt zero motivation to continue playing at that point. In the end server latency / server performance issues were also immersion breaking.
A side note: For some reason I enjoyed quite a bit both GW2 and LOTRO crafting experience as a solo player. In GW2 crafting was the reason why I ended levelling 5 different classes at the same time and levelling up different crafting schools.
Overall the passing nature of the levelling zones was one of the reasons why I disliked in a lot of MMOs. You barely ever felt a reason to come back to a "low" level zone as you have already completed all content there and roaming mobs were no threat at all. One of the reasons why I liked GW2 more with its level scaling system, which adjusted your level to the zone content. That alone made the game world feel more like a living, breathing world.
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
Starting to think no this is a troll thread and I have been had.
Well done good sir.
Well done good sir.
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
AirborneBerserker wrote: »I did not strawman anything. I asked a simple yes or no question and rather then just saying yes and agreeing to something that is just a basic fact about people, you spouted off a bunch of things which have nothing to do with anything I said.
I gave you a clear answer: I know that Intrepid makes mistakes and if you cant even filter that from 13 words, how are we to discuss complexer systems than that?
AirborneBerserker wrote: »Do any of the things you stated prevent the Devs from making a mistake? No, they don't. Did I ever claim any of those things, no I haven't, in fact I have said the opposite. So who is committing the strawman fallacy here?
What are "those things"? You want to discuss this, be specific.
AirborneBerserker wrote: »So now let's look at a couple of the reasons why the devs might make a mistake. The node system is completely new and has never been implemented in a MMORPG before.
True, the system hasn't been tested yet, but this is not an issue for solo players, because they are not meant to be the focus group - groups and guilds are. If solo players are lucky, the system will provide them with opportunities to gruadually move into what the package of the game says: This is a group focused MMORPG.
AirborneBerserker wrote: »The gathering system operates different then any other game due to the materials shifting around the world and disappearing entirely some times.
The loss of resources has been present in games before and Steven is on record taking inspiration from games where stuff wasn't globally available through auction houses but instead have to be moved around. As for certain resources being available only during certain seasons: That doesn't seem to be a problem unless these resources are necessary for everyone to have and no alternatives exist. And if that were the case thats just an overall issue, not a single player issue.
AirborneBerserker wrote: »And as I pointed out in very beginning of my OP if your going to make a game difficult then you want the class system to as fun as possible as early as possible. Because it's the only system you know 100% of the player base will interact with.
And what makes the class system not fun? Do you think the Archetypes are badly designed? Do you doubt the meaningfulness of the augment system?
Again, because that is what I've been saying in my first comment: The timing is just odd. 7 years of archetype development and 8x8 class design plus a promise to make the system in the 8x8 pattern - If you want anyone to take this serious "It could be a problem" will not suffice, people will just shrug their shoulders and wait a few weeks until they can test the systems and provide ACTUAL feedback
Anyhow without stretching this discussion into the infinite: Yes there is a problem for solo players: They are trying to play a multiplayer game alone and Intrepid (rightfully) does not intend to cater to them at the cost of social group gameplay.
Kilion
2
Re: Consternation surrounding the 8x8 Class system and how to move forward.
It's not like we are all telling Intrepid what to do. If we tell them stuff in advance, 90% of the time, it's just going to be the same thing we were going to tell them when they showed off whatever it was. Classes are about a feeling that a player is looking for when they're trying to play your game. If I want to be a Song Warden, it's only because I think that Song Warden is going to be the thing I want to play. That thing I want to play is already in my mind.
Even if Intrepid has a different way of achieving that (maybe I'm a Trickster instead), I'm still going to end up giving them feedback that I want one of their classes to let me play the way I want. So I don't care about people who think that I shouldn't get to play the way I want in a game like Ashes, because all those people are telling me is that I should find a different game to play. And since I have games that let me do what I want already, it's up to Intrepid to provide the same or close enough if they want me to play.
Even if Intrepid has a different way of achieving that (maybe I'm a Trickster instead), I'm still going to end up giving them feedback that I want one of their classes to let me play the way I want. So I don't care about people who think that I shouldn't get to play the way I want in a game like Ashes, because all those people are telling me is that I should find a different game to play. And since I have games that let me do what I want already, it's up to Intrepid to provide the same or close enough if they want me to play.
SongRune
1
Re: Node alliances should be thought about like factions
I object to them because they are a shitty system. Everything else is just the consequence of them being shitty, not the source of the shittiness.So you object to factions because changing them is monetized by the developer? C'mon, you're moving the argument all over the place. Also, we know this won't be an issue in Ashes.
Yes, I know they are factions. They're also SUPER EASY TO CHANGE ON A WHIM, even if Intrepid decide to put some type of lockout on that action. Changing your node citizenship will be super costly and won't even mean that you're not downshifting when you change it (unless you're an inn bum).To try to get over a semantics issue, do you realize that in FFA PvP MMOs that don't have pre-set factions like horde/etc, your guilds/guild alliances are your faction? You can't PvP people in your guild(faction), and you're working together with them to accomplish objectives against other guilds(factions).
And I've already said that I'd prefer if we could attack our party/guild/raid/alliance-mates, because this allows for a much broader range of player interactions.
Yes, except both guilds and nodes will have limited memberships, which is just yet another point towards them not being factions, because afaik every game that has factions doesn't prevent you from picking a faction even if the entire damn server is already on that faction's side.And yes, many people will join the winning side when they can. But that applies to guild/guild alliances just as much as it does to node/node alliances in Ashes
So once again, faction-based games are trash. Nodes are not factions, because you can attack your mates freely (even if with consequence). Guilds are as close to factions as it comes, but you can change them waaaay easier than in any other faction-based game and your core gameplay doesn't suffer due to that change. And I will be giving Intrepid feedback that attacking our mates is more than fine, as long as it requires a conscience action and a combo of keys to do it (just as the current flagging action does, but either even more complex or just on a different key combo).
Ludullu
1
Re: So....bagpipes for the Bard class?
Bear is doing the music... so maybe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSbktQtZV1c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSbktQtZV1c