Best Of
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
You can talk a lot the entire day, but you have to define it and write it down.Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »How much can they change when every other showcase it's being repeated over and over "this game is not for everyone", "not everyone is a winner in Ashes", "this is an open world pvp game", "only 20% of content is instanced, and majority of that is story-based stuff".
Not every player out there is hyped from AoC, not fully engaged, not fully informed.
If you land on the website, the first slogan is:
"Experience an MMORPG where everything is permanently impacted by your actions – explore, trade, build, and let the world take form."
Or like this?
"Our world structure is dynamic, and built to react to your actions. Cities will rise and fall as you shape the world of Verra. Quests and secrets will unlock as populations gather and their needs grow."
So, so dynamic world (like in 10 other MMOs, cool!) and cool pve questing and secrets (right, exploring! So I wil find treasure chests like in The Witcher Fantasy RPGs, cool!).
The current showcase leads to - correct, PvE content.
All of these points WILL appeal to the (modern) mmo players, independent if the are old-fashioned or modern.
That's what is written and seen on the official webpage.
Perhaps communication, marketing and written statements and slogans should be more precise, more honest and more transparent.
What about...
"Experience an elitist MMORPG where everything is permanently competitive by your actions – invest your time, get stronger, defeat other players and let the world burn in hardcore pvp battles."
Wouldn't this slogan adressing something completely different than exploring, trading and building?
Wouldn't this attract the real target audience to the game and leave out all the others, immediately?
Is this game for casual players, so players that cannot invest 10h per day?
Answer that question within Q&A on the webpage. That's what potential players want to know. It's the core for the attracted veterans, because a veteran means it's no child or teenager, right? Time quota is different for them, but they are NOT the target group at all.
Make clear, as a company and developer, to put your messages right: It's challenging content, but also time consuming one (or not - whatever fits). Can you play 1h in the evening a challenging conent? Of course you can - I did that in WoW over years. It's called arena or mythic dungeons. Time and skill are not absolutely the same aspects, you can be a casual (in time) but veteran (in skill). It also can be de other way: Lot of time but no skill. That's also ok, no offense meant. In large scale pvp games this is more important then skill, because your individual skill is not weightend that much in a 200 vs 200 fight, but it is in a 3v3 fight (which can be done in 5 to 10 minutes).
Are caravans running around for 1h, 2h, 8 hours? How long will a siege take - provide a forecast, Steven for sure has an idea on that (talking "prime time"). And that's one of the main questions for million players out there. Can I play this game in a meaningful way without decreasing my real life because I'm called from a developer that wants to design a game for MMO guys that play these games since decades - so guys that are, alrgiht, decades older nowadays. How can an avarage player, which is listening to that vision and call, play 5h (?) caravan gameplay? 8h sieges?
Of course Stevan and the rest doesn't want to state this truth, because he needs to attract players. He says "it's not for everybody", but he talks to everybody and want to attract everybody - otherwise the statements must be completely different.
If Ashes is a hardcore pvp elitist game surrounding about the wet dream of only having group and raid fights all over the day, then write it down, be transparent, define the target group.
Communicate it that way. Don't talk about "we have maces in our game" for 25min during an August developer stream, but provide statements, in written form, officially on the website, that say something like:
- This is a hardcore group-based pvp game
- This is no MMO for players that prefer and like solo content or rewarding and meaningful content to be done without groups or guilds
- This is a game which needs your highest time investment to get rewards, otherwise you will fall back and thats intented design, because we don't want you to get everything if you are not fully engaged in the game
- This game will not focus on social playing together but fully on fighting against each other and get your fun out of this - the regression of your enemy player is your progression!
- In this game other players will be able to loot certain parts of your loot after killing you so your character will have regression and thats intended design
- In this game you can attack every player at nearly every time, no player can disable this to secure his gameplay
Just examples, it's not my point that all those message are precise, but I'm convinced you got the message.
Then it will NOT appeal to (modern) MMO players. Then it will ONLY appeal to a very, very, very minor playerbase that like this "design".
Write it down. Put it on the website. On the landing page. Get 5 bullet points over there that adress precicsly what game it wants to be and which target group should play it.
No? That's too transparent? Too honest? Too risky? Well, more risk, more reward - right? It would make sure, within a very short time, that only the same players within the same bubble will talk about their MMO without having to discuss other, differentiated feedback with other, more experienced MMO players. Would save some nerves I guess.
Clear statements, transparent communication, clear target audience and thus all those players can, within their bubble and experience out of 2-3 MMOs, talk about design patterns and pillars of a game that advantage elistist players, frequent players and hardcore players, investing 10 hours every day, terminating every other player as identified as bad randoms and enemies, increasing toxic behaviour, envy and resentment because every design, in the end, leads to the situation, that once player or group is getting rewarded due to the loss and defeat of another. Progress for one player means regression for another. And this will only work and will only be accepted by a very, very special target group with very very special mindset and behaviour when it comes to computer games and having fun by playing them by harming other players for the own entertainment.
Ok, this has nothing to do with the topic at all but I'm shocked and that's a pity.$100 for me is a full month of living.
100 Dollar are ~90 Euros. With 90 Euros I'm not surving one day with my family (middle europe). That's a small shopping for general food and some drinks/water.
So, 90 Euros for such a key is like a tiny tiny percentage of ... well, let's stop here, that's not the topic, but if talking about "MMO veterans" I'm convinced that 90 Euros / 100 Dollars are just meaning nothing, this target group (although meanwhile we know: The target group seems to be somewhere else, right?) doestn't care about this peanuts.
To be sure: That's not important or valid for me, I've played on pvp servers (in WoW) so I've got all the big punches there and I'm not afraid of pk-ing and pvp-ing in small and big scale. Additionally I'm a bit pre-informed about AoC (but not satisfied with some aspects, like too time consuming content, like no meaningful possibility to get some stuff done alone/solo if just no group is desired for a 1-2h gameplay on some Sunday evening - but still I'm patient and wait what testing, feedback and future changes/solutions will show so still give it a try), but it's about the general communication and general design of different content areas that firstly seems to attract MMO veterans but after an in depth look you get the truth out of all these social hostile mechanics and way to time-consuming mechanics (which doesn't suit to aged MMO veterans but teenagers, students and, yes, let's talk about it, unemployed players) and that will be misleading for a lot of players also in the future. So: State it right and honest, otherwise - as you've already said - this threads will be there for the next 10 years, because that's what players expect - variety, choice, diversity and of course they will compare with other MMOs out there but inevitably not with only 1 or 2 of them.
Chaliux
4
Re: Quantity of Abilities
Ah, yeah, I did forget to account for that...
12 is not enough in a game with a lot of CC 'bloat' since you need more buttons for extra CC and CC breaks, so my answer is only relative to my preferred game type where there isn't as much CC or where only certain classes have considerable amounts of it and then have less other abilities.
12 is not enough in a game with a lot of CC 'bloat' since you need more buttons for extra CC and CC breaks, so my answer is only relative to my preferred game type where there isn't as much CC or where only certain classes have considerable amounts of it and then have less other abilities.
Azherae
1
Re: Vassal resentment
Throwing my two cents in. I'm kind of 50-50 on if I mind being a vassal citizen or not. There's two instances I would hate. One; being vassal to an Economic node in any capacity. (This is more of a personal opinion. I might just pick up and leave if that were the case) Two; being stuck at a lvl 3 Village with no room for advancement (Parent node is a Metro, we are Village).
On the other hand; being a citizen of a city or town who is vassal to a Scientific, Divine, or Military node and I'd probably be a happy camper. I think the problem is that; that is really only a 50-50 shot with the vassal system currently of that being the case. Wiki chart shows that a Metro can have 2 cities, 2 towns, and 4 villages. So 50-50. (I would like to see the opportunity for more towns in this structure.)
That being said; I don't think there's as much helplessness or lack of player agency that originally suggested in this thread. Vassaling is "automatic". That when a node levels up; they auto-collect the neighbors around them. But I think you're missing that up until that point you have leeway in deciding your destiny. It's just very dependent on the formative stage.
For example, If I don't want the economic node in my system to win the "race", my node and I can start a node war with it while we are on even footing (both lvl 3). In the war, we can steal territory from them and the exp from their stolen territory will go to my node instead. (This was demo'd in a live stream). Meaning it would boost your development and hinder theirs. You could also attack caravans going to those nodes, stifling their resources. If you prevent movement of goods there, you can chokehold their ability to start their own wars or slow down significantly what they could build (preventing crafting stations, apartments, etc from being built.) If there isn't much going on in their node, they're less likely to attract players there to play. Less players, less exp. You could implant a spy to become the mayor there and jack up taxes/prices so people leave. Spy-Mayor might be a little harder in a Scientific node with a voting structure, but I could see it working well in Military or Economic nodes (win a battle for mayor/ pay for mayor, respectively).
Those are the options I can see for someone like OP--who wants absolute dominance in their territory. You're going to want to play strategically like the people around you are enemies from the get-go. If you're aiming for mayor yourself, you'll also really want to start figuring out how to get people to your node early on, incentives or at least a community. (Starting a guild is a good way!)
For people like myself, who have some *opinions* about certain outcomes, but don't mind vassal. Once you do become vassal to a node; it is absolutely in my best interest to help that node succeed. And best to help them succeed through my own node! Once my node reaches it's cap (one level below our parent). It starts siphoning the excess exp to level up the parent. This is good for me! Because once the parent levels up, my Village can level up. So, I'd probably be in a mad dash to make sure I don't get stuck in a permanent Village node. Supporting their advancement is supporting my own advancement.
I get two chances to do that, I think? Once would be the first (and best opportunity) when my parent is going from 4 to 5. This window gives me a good chance to land in a city. And one last chance to save my outcome when it's going from 5-6. Though, I'm not certain if this second opportunity really exists without playing the game. It might just be that the ZOI of the parent adopts in another powerful node locking my node out of advancement entirely.
But I can see the issue in that; where if I do get stuck in a Village node. At that point I really am just hoping for the whole system's downfall, without any option from my end to influence that. I can't really see any benefit to being stuck in a non-advancing Village node. Not sure what benefit dials Intrepid intends to spin to balance that out to feel fair. Currently, I can only see resentment from my end if that were the case. Especially if I put in a ton of effort to try and advance my parent node twice, just to get locked out of advancement in the second opportunity because of how far the parent's ZOI stretches.
I'd definitely want a rebellion option in that scenario! Or an option to fight the nodes within the system that're locking me out of advancing.
The only current way to shift our positions would be through Node Atrophy, I think? But how is a Village node supposed to compete to attract players to it and away from others when you have basically just the starting slots to build on, and have remained unchanged for so long with no bonuses? It feels like my only option then is to wait and hope that another server discovers that leveling up my node gives some good benefit to the world, like spawning a world boss, and that news spreads via internet to players on my server causing them to flock over. But that's not very fun player-agency wise, depending on players who aren't even on your server. It's also a shot in the dark that your node is even special enough to cause that. And it really feels like you're almost perma-stuck as a Village then.
TL;DR
I don't mind being vassal to certain node-types. I think there's some good player agency to steer your destiny to where you want to go in the server's formative stage, though you could argue they're all PvP-centric. (Personally, don't mind that, though.) I kind of want the opportunity to fight other vassals to shift power dynamics in my system, but I don't think that's a thing?
On the other hand; being a citizen of a city or town who is vassal to a Scientific, Divine, or Military node and I'd probably be a happy camper. I think the problem is that; that is really only a 50-50 shot with the vassal system currently of that being the case. Wiki chart shows that a Metro can have 2 cities, 2 towns, and 4 villages. So 50-50. (I would like to see the opportunity for more towns in this structure.)
That being said; I don't think there's as much helplessness or lack of player agency that originally suggested in this thread. Vassaling is "automatic". That when a node levels up; they auto-collect the neighbors around them. But I think you're missing that up until that point you have leeway in deciding your destiny. It's just very dependent on the formative stage.
For example, If I don't want the economic node in my system to win the "race", my node and I can start a node war with it while we are on even footing (both lvl 3). In the war, we can steal territory from them and the exp from their stolen territory will go to my node instead. (This was demo'd in a live stream). Meaning it would boost your development and hinder theirs. You could also attack caravans going to those nodes, stifling their resources. If you prevent movement of goods there, you can chokehold their ability to start their own wars or slow down significantly what they could build (preventing crafting stations, apartments, etc from being built.) If there isn't much going on in their node, they're less likely to attract players there to play. Less players, less exp. You could implant a spy to become the mayor there and jack up taxes/prices so people leave. Spy-Mayor might be a little harder in a Scientific node with a voting structure, but I could see it working well in Military or Economic nodes (win a battle for mayor/ pay for mayor, respectively).
Those are the options I can see for someone like OP--who wants absolute dominance in their territory. You're going to want to play strategically like the people around you are enemies from the get-go. If you're aiming for mayor yourself, you'll also really want to start figuring out how to get people to your node early on, incentives or at least a community. (Starting a guild is a good way!)
For people like myself, who have some *opinions* about certain outcomes, but don't mind vassal. Once you do become vassal to a node; it is absolutely in my best interest to help that node succeed. And best to help them succeed through my own node! Once my node reaches it's cap (one level below our parent). It starts siphoning the excess exp to level up the parent. This is good for me! Because once the parent levels up, my Village can level up. So, I'd probably be in a mad dash to make sure I don't get stuck in a permanent Village node. Supporting their advancement is supporting my own advancement.
I get two chances to do that, I think? Once would be the first (and best opportunity) when my parent is going from 4 to 5. This window gives me a good chance to land in a city. And one last chance to save my outcome when it's going from 5-6. Though, I'm not certain if this second opportunity really exists without playing the game. It might just be that the ZOI of the parent adopts in another powerful node locking my node out of advancement entirely.
But I can see the issue in that; where if I do get stuck in a Village node. At that point I really am just hoping for the whole system's downfall, without any option from my end to influence that. I can't really see any benefit to being stuck in a non-advancing Village node. Not sure what benefit dials Intrepid intends to spin to balance that out to feel fair. Currently, I can only see resentment from my end if that were the case. Especially if I put in a ton of effort to try and advance my parent node twice, just to get locked out of advancement in the second opportunity because of how far the parent's ZOI stretches.
I'd definitely want a rebellion option in that scenario! Or an option to fight the nodes within the system that're locking me out of advancing.
The only current way to shift our positions would be through Node Atrophy, I think? But how is a Village node supposed to compete to attract players to it and away from others when you have basically just the starting slots to build on, and have remained unchanged for so long with no bonuses? It feels like my only option then is to wait and hope that another server discovers that leveling up my node gives some good benefit to the world, like spawning a world boss, and that news spreads via internet to players on my server causing them to flock over. But that's not very fun player-agency wise, depending on players who aren't even on your server. It's also a shot in the dark that your node is even special enough to cause that. And it really feels like you're almost perma-stuck as a Village then.
TL;DR
I don't mind being vassal to certain node-types. I think there's some good player agency to steer your destiny to where you want to go in the server's formative stage, though you could argue they're all PvP-centric. (Personally, don't mind that, though.) I kind of want the opportunity to fight other vassals to shift power dynamics in my system, but I don't think that's a thing?
keenow
1
Re: Vassal resentment
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges#Declaring_a_node_siegeThat's completly untenable as a design if you ask me. If that's not just a misinterpretation on your part and is actually what they are planning then it will be abandoned at some point in Alpha/Beta and they will move to a system in which a siege will be initiated my a Mayor. Random non-citizens declaring sieges would be trollish if the cost were low and pointless if it were high.
Node sieges are declared directly by any player[16] who completes the prerequisites for the siege initiation.[17]
Ludullu
1
Re: What are your 'class fantasies' for the 64 classes
Since most of your last post addressed Shadow Disciple directly I'll briefly give my data there.
1. I'm not interested in playing a Shadow Disciple with low amounts of Misdirection, but it does not all need to be Stealth, just being untargetable by pressing Tab or lowering enemy Accuracy/Raising Evasion is enough for me.
2. I believe that augments will be tuned somewhat toward the ability they are attached to, but I don't think this is difficult, and sometimes it would be slightly funny, like giving the Mend Ability from the Cleric showcase as a 'grants Stealth for 1.5-2s'. It's funny because I think you can see the little sparkler that moves to the person to heal them.
3. In the end, I don't actually agree that making a character with a fairly large amount of stealth access is a big deal in an MMORPG, nor do I agree that 'many short bursts of stealth' is 'clearly OP', but I'm a Throne and Liberty enjoyer, and in that game it requires you to be attacked in a specific way to 'keep using it' like that...
We all have our opinions on what is fun or fair in games, though. This is exactly the sort of thing that would be delaying Rogue or Augments. I say 'let me blink in and out of sight constantly like in Neverwinter/TL' and you say 'that's clearly OP'.
It might be really OP in Ashes, it might not.
1. I'm not interested in playing a Shadow Disciple with low amounts of Misdirection, but it does not all need to be Stealth, just being untargetable by pressing Tab or lowering enemy Accuracy/Raising Evasion is enough for me.
2. I believe that augments will be tuned somewhat toward the ability they are attached to, but I don't think this is difficult, and sometimes it would be slightly funny, like giving the Mend Ability from the Cleric showcase as a 'grants Stealth for 1.5-2s'. It's funny because I think you can see the little sparkler that moves to the person to heal them.
3. In the end, I don't actually agree that making a character with a fairly large amount of stealth access is a big deal in an MMORPG, nor do I agree that 'many short bursts of stealth' is 'clearly OP', but I'm a Throne and Liberty enjoyer, and in that game it requires you to be attacked in a specific way to 'keep using it' like that...
We all have our opinions on what is fun or fair in games, though. This is exactly the sort of thing that would be delaying Rogue or Augments. I say 'let me blink in and out of sight constantly like in Neverwinter/TL' and you say 'that's clearly OP'.
It might be really OP in Ashes, it might not.
Azherae
1
Re: Where is the progress
What about the dragon doesn't look realistic
You do know dragons aren't real, right?
The dragon looked great, btw. Love the graphics and artistic direction of this game.
Re: Quantity of Abilities
In my opinion, anything less than 15 is not enough.
Having played ESO and GW2, that limit your number of abilities, I can only say that it's just not fun at all. I didn't like being limited by the game in that way, at all. You end up having 2-3 main abilities that you spam all the time, with the rest just acting as additional stuff you throw in between depending on situation.
I dislike spamming the same 3 abilities all the time, with others being used "in-between" or situationally.
Yes, there needs to be a choice presented, where you have to pick which abilities you want to use, but it shouldn't be as limiting, or rather, it should give you a lot of options to choose from. Your skill tree should have paths presented to you, where you could go down a certain path, and have certain abilities with certain style of play in mind. You can always select some other abilities from other paths, but you can only fully go down one or two paths, meaning you cannot just select all the abilities you want.
Obviously this might not be how Intrepid is going to design the skill tree, so it remains to be seen, however I think 15-20 would be a good number of class abilities on your skill bar, with basically 30-40 to choose from. Remember, you will also have potions/food, other buffs, maybe even weapon skills as well on your hotbar.
Comparing MMORPGs combat system with games that are not in the same genre is just not a good comparison, in this case.
First, those are different types of games. Second, the combat system is completely different.
Using LoL as an example, they have over 100 champions with different abilities, they can get away with having only 4 champ abilities, because if you don't like one kit, you can play another. Matches are short, you won't have the exact same build every time, tactics are different, combat is different, etc.
In MMORPGs, and Ashes specifically, your character is more permanent, it's harder to re-roll, so you need choices, and you need a choice of abilities to not make it boring.
Imagine playing one champion for 500h+ in League, without playing anything else. I know such people exist, but they're a very small portion of the playerbase. In MMORPGs, it's a regular occurrence, where you just play one class for hundreds, if not thousands of hours.
It's just shoehorning and limiting what you can and cannot do. You cannot simply design every class to have the same template abilities you mentioned (2 rotational spells, an AoE, mobility, def CD, dmg amp spell, CC, interrupt, heal and an ultimate (like the bard and warrior had) throw in 2 buffs/utility and you are done.) because classes will just not work in that way, neither will the combat. Some builds/specs will focus on more AoEs, some on more cc, some on more heals, more buffs, or debuffs. They need something that will make them unique, rather than making every class have the same type of abilities.
Archeage I think had 20 class abilities, with the rest of the skillbar being filled with random stuff like mounts, gliders, potions, food, items, etc. - perfectly good.
WoW is the only game I can think of where you have too many abilities on your bar.
Having played ESO and GW2, that limit your number of abilities, I can only say that it's just not fun at all. I didn't like being limited by the game in that way, at all. You end up having 2-3 main abilities that you spam all the time, with the rest just acting as additional stuff you throw in between depending on situation.
I dislike spamming the same 3 abilities all the time, with others being used "in-between" or situationally.
Yes, there needs to be a choice presented, where you have to pick which abilities you want to use, but it shouldn't be as limiting, or rather, it should give you a lot of options to choose from. Your skill tree should have paths presented to you, where you could go down a certain path, and have certain abilities with certain style of play in mind. You can always select some other abilities from other paths, but you can only fully go down one or two paths, meaning you cannot just select all the abilities you want.
Obviously this might not be how Intrepid is going to design the skill tree, so it remains to be seen, however I think 15-20 would be a good number of class abilities on your skill bar, with basically 30-40 to choose from. Remember, you will also have potions/food, other buffs, maybe even weapon skills as well on your hotbar.
Comparing MMORPGs combat system with games that are not in the same genre is just not a good comparison, in this case.
First, those are different types of games. Second, the combat system is completely different.
Using LoL as an example, they have over 100 champions with different abilities, they can get away with having only 4 champ abilities, because if you don't like one kit, you can play another. Matches are short, you won't have the exact same build every time, tactics are different, combat is different, etc.
In MMORPGs, and Ashes specifically, your character is more permanent, it's harder to re-roll, so you need choices, and you need a choice of abilities to not make it boring.
Imagine playing one champion for 500h+ in League, without playing anything else. I know such people exist, but they're a very small portion of the playerbase. In MMORPGs, it's a regular occurrence, where you just play one class for hundreds, if not thousands of hours.
It's just shoehorning and limiting what you can and cannot do. You cannot simply design every class to have the same template abilities you mentioned (2 rotational spells, an AoE, mobility, def CD, dmg amp spell, CC, interrupt, heal and an ultimate (like the bard and warrior had) throw in 2 buffs/utility and you are done.) because classes will just not work in that way, neither will the combat. Some builds/specs will focus on more AoEs, some on more cc, some on more heals, more buffs, or debuffs. They need something that will make them unique, rather than making every class have the same type of abilities.
Archeage I think had 20 class abilities, with the rest of the skillbar being filled with random stuff like mounts, gliders, potions, food, items, etc. - perfectly good.
WoW is the only game I can think of where you have too many abilities on your bar.
Let's take a look at this example from Archeage, note that this is not a DPS class, but a initiator or a PvP tank if you will.
Going left to right, and top to bottom.
In Occultism tree, you have your 1. Spammable ability, 2. & 3. your main combo of 2 abilities that also cc, 4. your additional damage + slow (+combo proc), 5. cc immunity + melee dmg reflect, 6. AOE CC, 7. buff, 8. channeled debuff/dmg.
In Defense tree, you have 9. melee cc, 10. buff, 11. heal, 12. def buff, 13. imprison/cage, 14. immunity, 15. cc/utility.
In Auramancy, 16. speed boost in a path, 17. implosion aka pull, 18. teleport, 19. anti cc, 20. anti cc.
You have several cc effects, you have several buffs, you have several anti cc spells. It's all needed, it makes the gameplay more interesting, having to use the right ability at the right time. It's a way more in depth class, than anything else that's going to only use 12 abilities.
Going left to right, and top to bottom.
In Occultism tree, you have your 1. Spammable ability, 2. & 3. your main combo of 2 abilities that also cc, 4. your additional damage + slow (+combo proc), 5. cc immunity + melee dmg reflect, 6. AOE CC, 7. buff, 8. channeled debuff/dmg.
In Defense tree, you have 9. melee cc, 10. buff, 11. heal, 12. def buff, 13. imprison/cage, 14. immunity, 15. cc/utility.
In Auramancy, 16. speed boost in a path, 17. implosion aka pull, 18. teleport, 19. anti cc, 20. anti cc.
You have several cc effects, you have several buffs, you have several anti cc spells. It's all needed, it makes the gameplay more interesting, having to use the right ability at the right time. It's a way more in depth class, than anything else that's going to only use 12 abilities.
iccer
2
Re: Quantity of Abilities
Sorry, I'm a bit confused. Is this not similar if not nearly exactly what is currently planned? Limited number of slots on hot bar, not the 12 you are suggesting but 15-20 isn't bad. Limited skill points available as you level to specialize the abilities you want to customize your character identity and play style. I'm honestly not trying to be rude or dismissive here, I just don't see enough of a difference to be a problem.
If it's the number of keys one has easy access to use during game play, that's down the the personal preference for hardware of said person. I use a 20ish year old mechanical steelseries merc gamer keyboard on my gaming computer, not sure off the top of my head, I think something like 27 common game keys within easy reach not counting movement keys? I've seen people using gamer pads with more than that.
If it's the number of keys one has easy access to use during game play, that's down the the personal preference for hardware of said person. I use a 20ish year old mechanical steelseries merc gamer keyboard on my gaming computer, not sure off the top of my head, I think something like 27 common game keys within easy reach not counting movement keys? I've seen people using gamer pads with more than that.
Re: Quantity of Abilities
Myself, I would rather the UI had presets you could setup. One for gear, one for skills and one for Augments. I would love to just push a button and what I setup with just be loaded for me. ESO had add on that did this and it was great. Also just for that one guy thats gonna reply you cant change some things but out of combat and and in town. I get that, I still would like the UI tools.
I totally agree with the note of having preset options. If you for example have to go to the town to respec (wich is fine) you should be able to have presets! Then you can allow yourself to experiment and specialize.
ALSO! I hereby suggest a "training ground" in every town! A place where you can freely respec and test without paying or locking the spells in. Could even be instanced to prevent exploits.