Best Of
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
AirborneBerserker wrote: »Given thatAirborneBerserker wrote: »First there is no reason to assume most people are in guilds given most MMO players are solo, meaning at best your looking at 50% of people being in guilds.
Create a guild for solo players and tell them to never play together.
That guild could prevent all other players to log into the server and claim the server for soloers only and break Steven's pillars.
Then all other 13 examples are whatever they want to do.
No, because I'm not in the business of telling people there having fun wrong.
You said 50% play solo. You would just have to bring them into your guild by describing your goal. Then the server would be for you and people like you.
Otr
1
Re: Where is the progress
I am all for more transparent develop updates and would love more frequent looks “under the hood” but I feel like most of the community does not grasp how ambitious this project is.
For perspective, sea of thieves was made with over 200 developers and that game had very little content at launch. Ashes of creation is making sea of thieves, but BETTER, inside of a bigger game and that’s only a small fraction of what they want to deliver. You had add in the fact they just reached a team size over 200 this year and you can start to see why things are taking so long.
For perspective, sea of thieves was made with over 200 developers and that game had very little content at launch. Ashes of creation is making sea of thieves, but BETTER, inside of a bigger game and that’s only a small fraction of what they want to deliver. You had add in the fact they just reached a team size over 200 this year and you can start to see why things are taking so long.
RonDog98
3
Re: Loot System Changes
All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards.
I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with.
What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly?
So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content.
That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’.
You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game.
Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials.
If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone.
An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains.
You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded.
Players need to be rewarded, that’s the point. You need to have something that makes people want to do the content at risk of gear degradation, exp debt due to death in PvX, time spent, etc, and if you don’t have that carrot at the end of the stick, you’re going to end up with a game that’s lacking a population willing to do that content.
If the goal is 10k players per server, a very hefty goal for a ‘niche’ game, there has to be something keeping players invested in risking their time and resources for what will amount to most often, no reward.
If ‘abuse’ was intended, which I definitely think is a bunch of nonsense, then why aren’t combat meters permitted on the basis of players being abusive with the information?
Caeryl
2
Re: Loot System Changes
The bottom line is, if a system can be abused, it will be - at some point.
I don't know that there are any "abuse-proof" systems, in the strictest sense. I think the most correct thing that we know to do, currently, is just to punish the people who abuse the systems when it happens to discourage others from doing the same.
For ex, a group that is comprised mostly of guild members but needed a few more randoms to join to fill out the group. They finish some piece of difficult content and then the group leader who is a member of the guild kicks all the non-guild members of the group so they don't get a piece of the loot they rightly earned.
Now, there are mechanics and checks you can put in place to make this type of abuse less likely to happen, but it could fundamentally change how loot is distributed and not necessarily for the better.
For ex, a system whereby loot is allowed to be needed/greeded on, even to people who get kicked from the party as long as they were in the party when the content was finished (boss downed, or w/e).
But this could be abused as well.
For ex, you have 3 party members who did nothing or went afk during the middle of the boss fight or even just before and the party leader is too busy to notice or to do anything about it in the heat of the moment and so they remain in the party until they are finished. Those 3 people arguably should not be privy to the loot since they didn't contribute (and this could be on purpose, mind you) but in the above proposed loot system "fix" it would still give them a roll at the loot even if they were kicked before loot was distributed.
So, either way it can still be abused. I'm not saying it's necessarily impossible to make something that won't or can't be abused, but I don't think I have ever seen it. And just because I can't immediately think of a way to abuse it doesn't mean there isn't a way or that someone else won't find one either. So.. back to my original thought about catching and punishing abusers.
The only determinant factors on getting loot should be:
1) were you in the group that won looting rights at the time the boss died
2) did you contribute to the fight in a meaningful way
3) do you have advancements in the Gathering profession that this boss would
fall under (hunter for a beast, miner for a golem etc)
These are all things the game knows, and regarding point 2, players are actually barred from knowing that information because Steven won’t allow combat metrics logging in any capacity for some reason.
The only way to handle loot in a truly fair way is to have the game allocate it based on specific developer-established criteria, and to have enough non-gear loot in the form of recipes and craft mats drop that it always feels rewarding to be a part of the group that won the dps race.
If it is handled in this way, then hopefully all the items you get are tradable, otherwise you might end up getting something you didn't want or really wanted a friend to get/have and not being able to do anything about it.
Nothing* in Ashes is intended to be soul bound, so yeah everyone can freely trade afterwards if they want to.
Edit: *very few items might be but we haven’t seen any of them so far so I’m hoping they’ll stick with no BoP
Caeryl
2
Re: Loot System Changes
The bottom line is, if a system can be abused, it will be - at some point.
I don't know that there are any "abuse-proof" systems, in the strictest sense. I think the most correct thing that we know to do, currently, is just to punish the people who abuse the systems when it happens to discourage others from doing the same.
For ex, a group that is comprised mostly of guild members but needed a few more randoms to join to fill out the group. They finish some piece of difficult content and then the group leader who is a member of the guild kicks all the non-guild members of the group so they don't get a piece of the loot they rightly earned.
Now, there are mechanics and checks you can put in place to make this type of abuse less likely to happen, but it could fundamentally change how loot is distributed and not necessarily for the better.
For ex, a system whereby loot is allowed to be needed/greeded on, even to people who get kicked from the party as long as they were in the party when the content was finished (boss downed, or w/e).
But this could be abused as well.
For ex, you have 3 party members who did nothing or went afk during the middle of the boss fight or even just before and the party leader is too busy to notice or to do anything about it in the heat of the moment and so they remain in the party until they are finished. Those 3 people arguably should not be privy to the loot since they didn't contribute (and this could be on purpose, mind you) but in the above proposed loot system "fix" it would still give them a roll at the loot even if they were kicked before loot was distributed.
So, either way it can still be abused. I'm not saying it's necessarily impossible to make something that won't or can't be abused, but I don't think I have ever seen it. And just because I can't immediately think of a way to abuse it doesn't mean there isn't a way or that someone else won't find one either. So.. back to my original thought about catching and punishing abusers.
The only determinant factors on getting loot should be:
1) were you in the group that won looting rights at the time the boss died
2) did you contribute to the fight in a meaningful way
3) do you have advancements in the Gathering profession that this boss would
fall under (hunter for a beast, miner for a golem etc)
These are all things the game knows, and regarding point 2, players are actually barred from knowing that information because Steven won’t allow combat metrics logging in any capacity for some reason.
The only way to handle loot in a truly fair way is to have the game allocate it based on specific developer-established criteria, and to have enough non-gear loot in the form of recipes and craft mats drop that it always feels rewarding to be a part of the group that won the dps race.
Caeryl
2
Re: Quantity of Abilities
DerToastinator wrote: »How many abilities do you want/need?
I think that you can probably make a reasonable game with 20 hotbar slots, 12-15 of which are commonly used. Realistically this is a question of what type of game you're going to make and how you're going to structure your combat and character growth.
As you mentioned, there are solid games with Basic+3+Ult. I don't know of any Basic+3+Ult MMOs however, and I feel like a MMO absolutely needs more than this simply because they want to vary the combat experience through diverse bosses and experiences in PvE. MOBAs and Battle Royales specifically do not do this. They get their variation from PvP tactics, dynamic map and positional interactions, and "select and adapt your build over the course of the match" strategy. MMOs aim to provide many thousands of distinct bosses, which innately requires a broader set of abilities for both enemies, and the players who wish to confront them. It's a different design goal with a different intended challenge type and balance structure. I do love me some Predecessor, but it wouldn't make for a good MMO with a long lifespan worth of PvE content, and even with its PvP aspects, in its vision as a PvX MMO, Ashes does still have to care about keeping up the other half.
DerToastinator wrote: »The most comfortable to reach keys are… E, Q, R, F, C, V, X, Y, 1 to 5 (maby 6). Honorable mention to T, G and B, but B is for Bags change my mind
We have 13 confortable to reach keys and 3 are taken, leaving us with 10. Multiplied by 2 for the shift or ctrl keys makes 20 comfortably usable slots.
First of all, you get to triple it. Ctrl+? and Shift+? both, so your 13 keys are 39 before you go reserving those 3 you mentioned. I'd like to add to this consideration that you also get 7-9, 0, -, and =, (plus their Ctrl and Shift variants) for lesser used and non-timing-critical abilities. This means that while you may only have 36 keybinds available for quick-action things, you can still bind another 18 longer duration buffs, rare cleanses, items, UI windows, or other interactions indicated by your game.
At that point you can have 4 full hotbars, with at least 30 "quick-reaction" abilities, effortlessly. Key bindings are not the constraint. The player experience you want, and the overall structure of your combat design are what dictate your ability pool, and how many abilities you allow, and expect/require your players to take.
DerToastinator wrote: »I think you should be able to decide what abilities fit your playstyle and only be able to choose or talent in a select number of abilities. This would cut down on rotation bloat, refine your character identity and lead to interesting choices along the way.
(Example Ranger: do I choose to specialize into barrage and be mobile while shooting, or choose to talent the stationary snipe for big dmg, but must have a snare in my kit to keep distance? Or try to have both but lack in another department)
I solemnly believe this would bring out YOUR identity.
It also ensures not every class will feel the same, because you cannot take everything and might need others to help elevate your weakspots, when facing tougher foes.
This is a much better reason to have fewer abilities available to players, one that I can agree with, and one that I think we'll get. Steven has said repeatedly that you will not be able to take all abilities your class offers. He has spoken as well about the decision to go 'wide' or 'deep' with your skill tree, such that even choosing to buy more abilities has a meaningful tradeoff in terms of their power.
But even this doesn't answer the question of how many hotbar slots a player should tend to have. That can only be decided by the type, level, and variety of tactical complexity you choose for your combat design, and a developer has a large degree of freedom to tune those various aspects against each other to produce the experience they want.
DerToastinator wrote: »Less abilities also means that 1. your weapon specialisation tree with its combo system has time to shine and 2. every ability press is deliberate and has weight to it. No longer are you mindlessly pressing a rotation, you are choosing to use your CC or heal-cut. You will still have press on CD abilities, but maby you speced into a bleed and can proudly say you have 100% uptime on it on enemies whereas another player can’t, but he can bleed multiple enemies at once.
I would like to see meaningful choice in weapon specialization, but at the end of the day, the basic attack combo sequence you spec into, the proc types, the durations, etc, still only amount to 1-2 abilities worth of tactical complexity and decision making. You get to decide "what target needs my damage?", "what target needs my debuff?", and "is my debuff more valuable on that target than something else I could be doing?" (i.e. "do I finish my combo?"). That's more or less it. "Who do I hit?" and "Do I finish my combo chain to get the proc, right now, instead of doing something else?".
The main way that weapon specialization that relates to abilities is "Is it ever worth hitting something with my weapon at all?".
You should always have a couple of abilities that are better than your basic attack combo (and its proc) in most any given situation, but those will cost "mana" and go on cooldown. Unless the devs fall into the "noob trap" of giving everyone tons of damage abilities without proper costs, such that using them all the time is a good idea, this also isn't what determines how many hotbar slots a given player should have.
DerToastinator wrote: »I think a Player should realistically only have to use and spec into 12 abilities out of all the abilities he is presented. That’s enough for 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.
That’s a fairly good distribution, and if you want to have more of something, you now have a choice to make.
That sounds like a pretty reasonable hotbar for a Fighter. It probably isn't remotely enough for an effective Bard.
For a Fighter, "having options" is about having the ability to respond to, and create, situations on the field, through the judicious use and timing of... as you say: movement, CC, damage, and AoE, a bit of interrupt and maybe some recovery. For them, that hotbar is a pretty good coverage of their required options, without too much duplication or excess.
For a Bard, "having options" means something completely different. Having options, for a Bard, is not about using them all, or even most of them. We need to have abilities that cover a wide range of situations, including situations that we will not encounter today. While a fighter may be able to use similar tools in a wide variety of situations, a Bard will need perhaps the same amount of buffs, but different buffs, in any given content. When one party, or one calls for a Health Regeneration buff, another party, or another situation may require Mana Regeneration. Where one situation requires Defense, another might require Movement Speed.
For a Fighter, "having options" is about what they will use in the moment to moment tactics of a situation. For a Bard, "having options" is about the ability to change their (and their party's) approach to a situation by choosing to use a completely different set of abilities than they would use in a different scenario. I will only be using perhaps 8-12 abilities at a time, but if I don't have have the other 8-12 (or even 15-20 depending on the design), that means that I can't do my job if the situation changes, and sooner or later, it will.
While a PvE only game can get around this by having a Bard re-shuffle their hotbar before any given encounter based on what they know to expect, this would be cumbersome, and it becomes outright impossible in a PvX game. When PvP begins, the situation that your party faces changes completely, and so too do the flow, strategy, tactics, and needs of your group. When PvE becomes PvX (or when you defeat the invaders and your PvX becomes PvE once more), I, as a Bard, need to be able to completely change my approach, and fast. I can't do that without having my options available.
While there will be strong spec-based identity differences, both between Support and Debuff focused Bards (an already slightly contentious topic in the feedback threads), and in terms of which buffs or debuffs any given bard chooses to take (and whether they spec into Weak AoE or Strong Single-Target), most if not all bards will need to have a variety of options available to them.
If we don't have that, then combat will end up being very flat (so that we can handle all its variety in a small ability set), or Bard will end up being frustrating and ineffective (due to our inability to adapt in the way that our Archetype (in the original sense of the word) demands).
I believe that something like Bucky showed us in the Bard Preview stream will end up being correct for Ashes of Creation, with something like 22 abilities (before Basic/Dodge/Block/Sprint/etc) for a mid-level Bard. (See screenshot.)
Bucky's hotbar from the Bard Showcase:
This also lines up reasonably well with the roughly 25 unique songs at level 50 (excluding Elemental Defense, Elemental Weaken, and lower-level duplicates) that I'm used to from Final Fantasy XI (not FF14).
I think Ashes is right in line with where they should be in terms of Bard design, and the variation and ability choice in the skill tree. We'll surely see more Bard abilities than they've shown off (they even told us as much in the stream), but I do not expect Bucky's design to end up either too small and limited or too overwhelming or bloated. They're in just about the right place (both in spec choices, and hotbar) for a mid-level Bard, and I have no doubt that Bucky will give us a high-level Bard of the same quality.
But one part of doing that will be having significantly more than 12 abilities in our hotbar. Even before Basic/Block/Dodge/Sprint.
SongRune
2
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
AirborneBerserker wrote: »Here's the rest of that list:
- gathering
- caravans and highwayman system
- battlegrounds/arenas
- mob farming in general
- instanced housing
- some level of crafting and processing
- open world events
- questing
- participating in the economy, selling stuff on the AH, making money
Right away I'm going to knock off Questing and Mob farming, If I just spent 300 hours doing that then I'm not going to want to do more of that at max level, yes at some point I will probably do more quests but I'm coming at this as a fresh max level character.
So here are the problems, Gathering will be highly curtailed due to all the top end gear being crafted and needing mats to be repaired.
Caravans and battle grounds are the same system and I'm not interested in getting involved in one sided battles that will be lost quickly. I'm also not interested in destroying things other people have made. If they have instanced versions that are more geared towards balance I will probably see how much I like them.
Arenas I will probably do if they look any good, which they don't right now. 1v1 is a literal lottery where the person that gets their hard counter the least wins. 2v2 and 3v3 will be comp dominated, the lowest you could go and hope to get any kind of skill based grading which is more skill then luck would be 4v4. Not something you want to do with out getting some kind of gear first though.
I have a real house I don't care about a fake one.
Yes assuming I'm able to get the materials.
Open world events, maybe. Problem is if the rewards are too good, then I'm just a guy standing there with some good rewards and one click away from them having it. Again most of you have a completely different mind state then I do.
While I'm sure some people love to play the market it's really not my thing.Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »Yep, this. As I have been saying, as long as solos don't expect to farm raids and magically get good rewards out of that - there's plenty of stuff to do in the game.It's only up to you whether you think the things I've listed are enough, or if you want some more content for solo players.
Gameplay should not all be equally valuable, especially when the person themselves realizes that they're not in peak form or do not want to participate in activities that would represent peak in-game performance.
I agree with everything except the plenty to do. There are avenues that aren't covered. In particular PvP.
I mean, the logical conclusion here is that this game isn't for you, or others like you.
You have been presented with the options the game offers, and said you basically don't like any of them. If you don't like what this game has to offer, why are you paying it any attention?
Noaani
1
Re: World boss and greater loot drop idea/discussion
Arya_Yeshe wrote: »Would be fantastic if the immediate area around the corpse could flag everybody for PvP, creating more fights and more drama that are good things for the game.
Caravans are already a free pvp zone
Chialde
1
Re: [DE] PhoenX Society | PvX | Semi-Progress | Family
Godbrithil wrote: »Hey Aszkalon!
Danke für Deine Nachricht. Tatsächlich ist die "PhoenX Society" der tatsächliche Name unserer Community. Dahinter gibt es auch eine kleine Geschichte, die Du gerne auf unserer Website nachlesen kannst – so Du willst: https://www.phoenx-society.de/about_us
Gleich mal durchlesen. ; >
Godbrithil wrote: »Ich kann Deinen Frust dahingehend auch voll verstehen, genau aus diesem Grund, haben wir uns dazu entschieden, die Gilde vorab zu "eröffnen" und die Leute somit kennenzulernen, mit ins Boot zu holen, noch bevor das Spiel überhaupt in trockenen Tüchern ist. Bei uns sind einige Freundschaften entstanden und sogar Pärchen. Irgendwann kennt man sich, wie die eigene Familie.
Dann freue ich mich schon, auf Dein zukünftiges Stalking!
Ich war ja seit ... ... ... ungefähr so 2013 immer auf der Suche nach RP-Servern und Rollenspiel-Gilden, weil dies einfach ein simpler, entspannender Inhalt war und ist. Zumindestens wenn man Rollenspiel will.
Und dann hab ich etliche Gilden gesehen, die hatten alle einfach keine Energie und Motivation - die "schlimmsten" von denen nichtmal für soziales, simples Miteinander und Aktivität im Gildenchat,
ZIEMLICH viele brachen einfach auseinander nach ein paar Wochen und/oder Monaten : (ich schwöre ^^ alles Energie-Vampire die irgendwie nur bespaßt und geknuddelt werden wollen aber für die selber ein wenig soziale Interaktion zuviel gewesen ist ^^ ),
tja und am Ende bin ich immer - und IMMER WIEDER - bei der bisher einzigen Gilde gelandet auf "Die Aldor", die nie ihre simple, fröhliche Art verloren hat.
Garde Mekkadrill. Und die sind noch nichtmal eine reine 100% RP Gilde. Vielleicht sind die auch deswegen nicht so bierernst, sondern immer fröhlich drauf. ^.^
Nicht nur ist in der Regel immer jemand online, bis vielleicht außer mal in der tiefsten Nacht - Nein die Mitglieder haben auch kein Problem mal ein wenig anwesend zu sein, zum schnacken. Ausser die sind gerade heftig beschäftigt, zum Beispiel weil sie gerade in einer Fünfergruppe durch eine Instanz gehen.
Das ist nicht hart ... ... ; >
Das ist nicht schwer, einfach nur ein wenig sozial zu sein und sich mal zu melden wenn jemand Anderes einen anflüstert und reden will. Ich hab in den Jahren auch mal eben oft unterbrochen was ich gerade in der Open World gemacht hatte, wenn mich mal jemand angeflüstert hatte. 🙃
Jede Gilde, die das kann - > hat automatisch gewonnen.
Diese Gilden bestehen locker JAAAHHHRE und drohen auch nie, auseinanderzufallen. Solange immer jemand Zeit für das Spiel hat, geht die Gilde nie unter.
Wir werden auch in Ashes of Creation wieder Gilden sehen - wo die einen Jahre lang durchhalten und weiterbestehen und das ganz ohne Mühe und Not,
tja und die Anderen brechen halt auseinander bei kleinstem' Druck ^.^ wie ein Kartenhäus'chen in einem Sturm.
Aszkalon
1
Re: [Feedback Request] Alpha Two Citadel of the Steel Bloom & Firebrand Preview | August Livestream
I mean you dont need to keep the players busy, dot make like a gigant dragon piñata, use the enviroment.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LcVNLX2fTfc
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dsUirl_RA58
Etc:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WfViWtdH-nc
You dont need to copy paste this fights, but at least get some inspiration from them.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LcVNLX2fTfc
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dsUirl_RA58
Etc:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WfViWtdH-nc
You dont need to copy paste this fights, but at least get some inspiration from them.