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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Best Of
Re: Player enemy visual Health Bar update on hit.
This is another good point for visible hp (even on greens), but I'd expect Intrepid's tools to track when someone doesn't receive dmg while not having the needed buffs to do that normally. And the live GMs should be pinged immediately to go check it out.ThevoicestHeVoIcEs wrote: »The forum search functionality doesn't seem to work too well, but I will thrown this in.
I don't see cheater detection being mentioned at all in the light of this feature. This system will definitely lower information available to players, and you are less likely to notice and report certain type of cheat tools.
So, while we might report a random cheater that managed to make themselves invincible - I feel like there'd be more false reports, purely because some people won't know all the possible abilities and buffs that might lead to near-100% dmg mitigation, so they'll start yelling "cheater! cheater!" when in reality it's just a good player with a good build.
This sure as hell happens in perfomance-based multiplayer games, so I definitely think it would happen here as well. All while Intrepid's tools would know for sure if someone's not receiving dmg when they should be.
Ludullu
1
Re: Don't restrict PvP to timeslots or incentivise it only through PvE/gear.
Well, with all that said, I will absolutely accept sieges more often if Ashes can do anything close to my other two games.
Campaign 'rolls over/resets' on Sundays. If you try to Campaign on a Sunday before any players have done any Intel Gathering or Procurement Ops, you can't get advance knowledge of enemy troop movements and your own forces are weaker.
Elite Conflict Zones have enemy ship strength based on the economic and morale statuses of the enemy faction, and I strongly suspect (no concrete proof) that even when two players play maybe an hour apart, on opposing sides, what happens is that the game will add at least one equivalent ship to the Conflict to 'represent that player's effect' if they won.
So a player that takes a Heavy Offense medium ship to a conflict zone and wins, then logs off, causes me to encounter an 'extra' Heavy Offense build medium NPC ship when I go later on.
If someone can convince Intrepid that players should be debuffed in sieges if they don't eat, or that forts/outposts/freeholds need to receive repairs, etc, I'll take 'can initiate anytime' sieges or similar. Go all the way to Campaign and have NPCs that constantly repair and replenish fortifications/Node buildings whenever anyone isn't attacking it, at the cost of overall Node/Guild revenue.
When continually holding a fort against hostiles is draining the guild coffers instead of 'rewarding' the fort holders directly, then I'm all in on freely initiated attacks. That's how I prefer territory PvP games to work.
Campaign 'rolls over/resets' on Sundays. If you try to Campaign on a Sunday before any players have done any Intel Gathering or Procurement Ops, you can't get advance knowledge of enemy troop movements and your own forces are weaker.
Elite Conflict Zones have enemy ship strength based on the economic and morale statuses of the enemy faction, and I strongly suspect (no concrete proof) that even when two players play maybe an hour apart, on opposing sides, what happens is that the game will add at least one equivalent ship to the Conflict to 'represent that player's effect' if they won.
So a player that takes a Heavy Offense medium ship to a conflict zone and wins, then logs off, causes me to encounter an 'extra' Heavy Offense build medium NPC ship when I go later on.
If someone can convince Intrepid that players should be debuffed in sieges if they don't eat, or that forts/outposts/freeholds need to receive repairs, etc, I'll take 'can initiate anytime' sieges or similar. Go all the way to Campaign and have NPCs that constantly repair and replenish fortifications/Node buildings whenever anyone isn't attacking it, at the cost of overall Node/Guild revenue.
When continually holding a fort against hostiles is draining the guild coffers instead of 'rewarding' the fort holders directly, then I'm all in on freely initiated attacks. That's how I prefer territory PvP games to work.
Azherae
1
Re: Concerns About Marketing and "Open Development" Approach
Yeah, but not generally a full blown, multi-phase testing solution.Even games in live states need testing for balance changes, updates, general bug finding and fixing, so on.
They don't give me that impression - not that I've spent much time watching them.The livestreams have given the incorrect impression that the underlying gameplay systems are entirely functional.
Noaani
1
Re: Concerns About Marketing and "Open Development" Approach
So, people are signing on to test a game that they think doesn't need testing?People are going to expect the livestreams to be reflective of the gameplay they signed on to test
Noaani
1
Re: Concerns About Marketing and "Open Development" Approach
People are going to come in expecting the experience that was shown to them in the livestreams.
Why?
Again, the livestreams are showing the parts ot the game that are in a shape to show off - that is showing off for the game, not for alpha testing.
The livestreams aren't there to bring in testers, and Intrepid are very clear about that.
In order for what you are saying to be true, someone would need to;
Find the livestreams without anyone pointing them in that rirection, AND
Ignore the comments in the livestreams about the game being in alpha, AND
Not look in to the game in any other way at all, AND
Go to the website to purchase the game, AND
Ingore the at least 6 times that page says alpha.
If someone is doing all of this, then yes, it is their fault.
By doing what exactly?There's still over a month to correct that impression
Stating the game is still in alpha, and that testing is what people should expect from an alpha? State that people wanting to play the game should wait until the game is released?
The moment Intrepid release a curated livestream that has clear alpha issues in it, there will be dozens of writeups about how the game is going backwards, or is going to still take 5 years before it releases.
Again, the point of the livestreams is to put the games best foot forward.
Noaani
1
Re: Concerns About Marketing and "Open Development" Approach
patrick68794 wrote: »Some of the points made are solid, some aren't really. Obviously they're going to showcase parts of the game that are in a state that are ready to be showcased. They're trying to show people a somewhat decent glimpse at what the game will be like and that's what they want feedback on.
It doesn't really do anything for them to show us the parts of the game that aren't ready to be shown and most people aren't going to understand, or will willfully ignore, that the game is heavily in development still and what they're showing isn't representative of the final product. CIG has fallen into that pit a couple of times with Star Citizen and outside of the dedicated few that watch every video, a lot of people see most of the stuff they've shown that's broken/buggy and very early in development and either purposely or ignorantly take that out of context and fuel negative sentiment towards the game and company.
And yeah, there are going to be some people that genuinely want to see the bugs and brokenness to understand just what goes into development but that really only benefits them, not Intrepid. And some of those people are going to be wanting that to purposely try and cast the game and studio in a negative light. It's better in most cases to just not show the bugs and roadblocks they've encountered with a large project like AoC because of that.
Star Citizen gets most of its bad rap from the macrotransactions honestly.
And yeah I don't blame them for wanting to showcase the good (that's a natural instinct when you're creating something), but they're setting themselves up for a lot of needless drama by not showing any of the heavy WIPs and neglecting to put emphasis on things that are needing to be tested (anti-zerg behavior in bosses, branching quest paths, the mechanisms behind node growth and emergent dungeons, etc)
Phase 1 is going to be testing the barebones server capabilities, and thankfully that's all early backers who know what they're in for (I'm expecting to sit in queues on queues on queues and then have everything breaking when I actually get to log in).
Phase 2 is what I'm not confident about going over smoothly as far as meeting the advertised gameplay. Phase 2 is going to be a lot of people who have had a couple livestreams of info and gameplay, both of which cite lightning (and no particular game systems other than 'we will have quests') as a current focus, and it's going to be a whole annoying Thing because none of the gritty reality has been shown recently, or progress to the underlying game systems.
Caeryl
1
Re: Concerns About Marketing and "Open Development" Approach
Some of the points made are solid, some aren't really. Obviously they're going to showcase parts of the game that are in a state that are ready to be showcased. They're trying to show people a somewhat decent glimpse at what the game will be like and that's what they want feedback on.
It doesn't really do anything for them to show us the parts of the game that aren't ready to be shown and most people aren't going to understand, or will willfully ignore, that the game is heavily in development still and what they're showing isn't representative of the final product. CIG has fallen into that pit a couple of times with Star Citizen and outside of the dedicated few that watch every video, a lot of people see most of the stuff they've shown that's broken/buggy and very early in development and either purposely or ignorantly take that out of context and fuel negative sentiment towards the game and company.
And yeah, there are going to be some people that genuinely want to see the bugs and brokenness to understand just what goes into development but that really only benefits them, not Intrepid. And some of those people are going to be wanting that to purposely try and cast the game and studio in a negative light. It's better in most cases to just not show the bugs and roadblocks they've encountered with a large project like AoC because of that.
It doesn't really do anything for them to show us the parts of the game that aren't ready to be shown and most people aren't going to understand, or will willfully ignore, that the game is heavily in development still and what they're showing isn't representative of the final product. CIG has fallen into that pit a couple of times with Star Citizen and outside of the dedicated few that watch every video, a lot of people see most of the stuff they've shown that's broken/buggy and very early in development and either purposely or ignorantly take that out of context and fuel negative sentiment towards the game and company.
And yeah, there are going to be some people that genuinely want to see the bugs and brokenness to understand just what goes into development but that really only benefits them, not Intrepid. And some of those people are going to be wanting that to purposely try and cast the game and studio in a negative light. It's better in most cases to just not show the bugs and roadblocks they've encountered with a large project like AoC because of that.
Re: Concerns About Marketing and "Open Development" Approach
Why aren't they important features to demo encounters typical for the start of A2?Where are the features though? A dungeon crawl and dragon fight with basic mechanics aren't exactly important features at this point when we still haven't seen the interaction of nodes with each other, which is the backbone for all subsequent content forming for players to tackle.
And, how much of Nodes interacting do you expect to see in a 45 minute that includes bugs.
A Node progression demo would have to be heavily edited.
For the Citadel of the Steel Bloom Demo Steven wanted feedback on:
Combat; Group Combat; Raid Combat; Raid Boss Fighting; POI; Events
How many players comprise a zerg? Also, why are you expecting to see anti-zerg behaviors in A2 Phase 1??
Citadel of the Steel Bloom is a Raid. I didn't know there's supposed to be a different Quest path for the attackers and defenders, but this Raid was not intended to demo Quest paths. Maybe I need to review the demo again to learn more about the different Quest paths for attackers and defenders. I thought both would be competing to acquire the same Relic and have the same Quest.
Dygz
1
Re: Concerns About Marketing and "Open Development" Approach
It's not really as much of a challenge as you surmise because the balance primarily comes from the 8 Primary Archetypes, rather than the 64 Classes.One of the key challenges that seems to be elusive is how the developers are planning to balance the 64 classes across both PvE and PvP (PvX) content. While diversity in class roles and playstyles sounds great on paper, as suggested by the game’s wiki, I wonder if having this many classes risks spreading each class too thin in terms of depth, complexity, and the way they interact with one another.
But, we're really still more than a year away from seeing Secondary Archetype Augments and the 64 Classes.
Dygz
1
Re: Concerns About Marketing and "Open Development" Approach
You really don't understand what an Alpha is. I don't agree that what they show in the demo is a game that just needs polish.They state the game is in Alpha, and the Alpha footage they show is that of a game in polishing stages. As far as all the new arrivals been shown from Intrepid, the livestreams are indicative of the experience that can expect from the Alpha 2.
Do you really not understand how that's going to cause problems when people realize it isn't like all the showcases they've been watching?
Steven keeps telling people several times per month that testing Alpha 2 will not really be "fun"; instead It's going to be testing with tons of bugs.
Dygz
1