Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Best Of
Re: Why The Game Needs Fast Travel
The game world is empty relative to the goals not 'poorly designed' (at least not definitively so).
It's like complaining that BDO has long pointless roads to ride, because the world team didn't have time to place enough gatherables and PvP is locked pre-50, or that Throne and Liberty's Pre-Talandre overland areas are boring/mob-overcrowded, when they started from an Auto-battler/Astral Hunting grind game with no meaningful gathering/artisanship.
The difference is that Ashes has 'told us what its DNA is supposed to be', and we can explicitly go 'this thing that you have said you will add, is missing, so we have X problem right now'.
I could easily claim 'Ashes needs Fast Travel because its Fishing->Cooking pipeline isn't good' and I'd be very meaninglessly correct. Would it be easier to add Fast Travel than to fix/balance Fishing? Yes. Should they do it? Probably not.
It's like complaining that BDO has long pointless roads to ride, because the world team didn't have time to place enough gatherables and PvP is locked pre-50, or that Throne and Liberty's Pre-Talandre overland areas are boring/mob-overcrowded, when they started from an Auto-battler/Astral Hunting grind game with no meaningful gathering/artisanship.
The difference is that Ashes has 'told us what its DNA is supposed to be', and we can explicitly go 'this thing that you have said you will add, is missing, so we have X problem right now'.
I could easily claim 'Ashes needs Fast Travel because its Fishing->Cooking pipeline isn't good' and I'd be very meaninglessly correct. Would it be easier to add Fast Travel than to fix/balance Fishing? Yes. Should they do it? Probably not.
Azherae
1
Re: Why The Game Needs Fast Travel
Songcaller wrote: »With no fast travel, should there be a destination, say a dungeon for discussion sake, that takes a good hour or so to get to the depths, and one party member disconnects and the remaining party no longer has the ability to fight their way out to safety again, what then for the party that remains and what then for that member that is able to re-connect later but finds they are alone in the dungeon and unable to leave solo?
It's called holes in the grand design. Unfortunately, disconnected millionnaires who run groups and are never alone, have little experience with the issues in the base design which has the opposite trigger than the one desired.
This... is totally separate from the real 'problem', though, even if you dismiss/diminish what akabear is getting at (because yeah, I get it, losing one member shouldn't really make basic backtracking impossible even in big dungeons, but that's a Dungeon Design question)
The problem is the 'gap', not 'traveling'. You know this from BDO. So the 'issue' in the base design is that they want to have both 'the feeling that you live in X place' and 'a way to resolve grouping'.
But your 'disconnected millionaire' thing has no connection to that. A solo player who isn't an explorer/wanderer will probably live somewhere and go to the dungeon with other locals and visitors. The 'fast travel' needed here is only because their Dungeon Design is still in infancy (you could make an argument that the PvE is too trivial and it leads to exp-pump metas, but that's still not a fast travel problem).
Everyone can have that experience if the world is designed well enough. People didn't ride from Kamasylve to Arehaza because someone shouted in world chat that they were forming a party there. If they wanted to party they would form one in Kamasylve (using BDO as the example because it's basically the only game with no Fast Travel, but other games with limited waypoints to teleport out to (and in FF11's case, only one or two options for return target) would often see the same thing happen.
If the POI/Dungeon is more than 6 minutes travel from your home location, just don't go. When the game reaches the point where 'just don't go' is a valid way of playing, or they work out some form of 'one way' teleport to go out to a specific spot or join a group, that should be enough for this game type.
I know that I definitely notice and can simulate 'what TL feels like if I can't teleport more than once or twice a day' and while I won't claim it's 'better' (for me, probably), it recreates that feeling that BDO gives of 'I live here, and this other place counts as a faraway place that I have to plan a trip to visit'.
This comes down to the problem of having dungeons/main exp spots that people have to plan trips to visit because they don't have similar ones nearby, combined with a lack of progress if you don't visit them.
We can list a bunch of things that are causing the problem of feeling that we need fast travel, but we don't have:
Catacombs, Taxi-Caravans, Family Summons, Home-Spring Return Scrolls/Magic, Social Org Trigger Missions, Mini-Arcs, Quest Schemas, most Wandering Bosses, and probably 50% or more of potential Pocket Dungeons.
Azherae
1
Re: Bad Direction
What you are suggesting is that the only death penalty be xp debt, durability loss and a corpse run, or not even that if you get a rez. That sounds like very little penalty at all, which means less fun IMO because there's less need to play wellCounter: it’s an archaic anti fun way or creating difficulty. There’s a reason games known for difficulty don’t have mechanics like this in and that’s because they offer nothing.
I don’t think to myself, man I love that death has consequences. I think to myself, man I would love to keep getting up and trying again; but the fact I lose default 25% that can’t be retrieved makes it so I’m no longer engaging in fun risk.
I wouldn’t mind losing materials as long as I could get all of them back if I’m the first person to my body.
the .001% player base wants the game to be overly harsh in difficulty, while the 99.9% of the gaming market will be cut off...not very smart or reasonable, actually kinda self-centered, I'm advocating for success not failure.
Re: Bad Direction
Bloodstormz wrote: »One thing that is going to Kill this game from players is the 50% Drop when you die. 25% of the resources you have spent hours, weeks and in some cases a month harvesting go poof instantly, and 9 times out of 10, someone will loot the other 25%.
This is a bit of an exaggeration
- You only drop 25% if you are flagged, of which half is recoverable. This can actually be used in PvE, IE "oh damn, we're going to wipe" *activates PvP flag*. Not useful for the first couple of deaths in the group though.
- Most people bank their droppables after a few hours at most. If you lose days/weeks/months of effort, that's really on you.
That said, losing 50% of the current play session's mats can still be daunting. Especially if you join a group and die because someone else plays stupidly. It just takes 1 bad pull.
But I still believe that we need to keep bodies lootable by others and have something disappear on death. What's missing is a reason to return to your corpse, even if someone else loots you. So I suggest taking some of that 50% and reserving it for the dead person to retrieve. And at the same time allow some xp debt to be removed. Example:
On PvE death, 10% of your materials go poof, 20% of them are lootable by another person, and 20% are only lootable by the person who died. And if they loot their corpse, some of the xp debt is removed. If you don't get a rez, this makes the corpse run valuable.
On PvP death, 5% of your materials go poof, and 20% is lootable by another person. No changes in XP debt, since it's already 1/2 of what a PvE death is
its not an "Exaggeration", 99% of the time people are training OVERPOPULATED 3 Star lvl 30 mobs that one shot for 2500 damage to the average player. the agro picks up from 2-300 meters and they drag those mobs across you to get them off themselves then they loot your stuff and run off till the flag goes away. Poof 50% of your resources are gone. This is a Griefing system and 95% of the Gaming Market will not play a game like this. as it is right now the entire system is WORSE than Archeage was and we see how that turned out.
as for "banking" yeah that's a no brainer, but your missing the point most people have to travel for resources, especially willow and oak if your in the desert. its a high chance your not going to make it to the "Bank"
ITs bad enough that people are P2W with 5-10 bot accounts time camping static resource nodes, making the wild resources VERY scarce and a matter of hitting the lottery with some rare resources.
I suggest ZERO deleted resources, because that's just stupid IMO. 25% drop 15% Lootable and all returnable if not looted, id still come back for 25%. restrict mobs to an area so they won't be chasing people from one node to the other. move all 2-3 star mobs out of roads and Travel paths so they are not agro, put them away in nooks caves and far out of the way for people that can farm them.
Longbow vs. Shortbow [PVE] - My thoughts. Your thoughts?
When starting out, it really seemed like the shortbow felt much, much better than the longbow...
But after hitting level 20 and getting my hands on some more decent rarity / well optimized gear...I've found that the long-bow has been quite pleasant to use now...And seems to be giving me better TTK than it's comparable, short-bow counterpart. (Using a 2*, level 20 goblin flayer as a benchmark)
Current longbow is uncommon steel, and shortbow is uncommon dunzen, which is about all I could currently afford.
Both bows are leveled to 25, for fair comparison...and my stat priorities are currently :
- STR > DEX > Attack power > Attack speed > Accuracy > crit chance > crit power > Penetration
Another thing that I've noticed, is that the long-bow's auto-attacks actually crit quite respectably...And my finishers and extended finishers are often critting for about a 1/3 of what my snipe can crit for.
I thought that maybe the short-bow would still perform better with the mage-buff, due to the high attack speed, but having a mage friend and testing it out...that really didn't seem to be the case.
Though, I am uncertain as to how exactly that weapon buff applies / what it scales off of.
Overall, it just seems like the skills are scaling better overall off of the increased power the longbow provides, while my auto-attacks seem significantly better with gear that offers better attack speed rating. Getting to the finishers/extended finishers more quickly/reliably has seemed to help quite a lot.
Anyway, those are my thoughts/observations...Maybe I'm wrong/missing something...I'd be interested in other opinions.
But after hitting level 20 and getting my hands on some more decent rarity / well optimized gear...I've found that the long-bow has been quite pleasant to use now...And seems to be giving me better TTK than it's comparable, short-bow counterpart. (Using a 2*, level 20 goblin flayer as a benchmark)
Current longbow is uncommon steel, and shortbow is uncommon dunzen, which is about all I could currently afford.
Both bows are leveled to 25, for fair comparison...and my stat priorities are currently :
- STR > DEX > Attack power > Attack speed > Accuracy > crit chance > crit power > Penetration
Another thing that I've noticed, is that the long-bow's auto-attacks actually crit quite respectably...And my finishers and extended finishers are often critting for about a 1/3 of what my snipe can crit for.
I thought that maybe the short-bow would still perform better with the mage-buff, due to the high attack speed, but having a mage friend and testing it out...that really didn't seem to be the case.
Though, I am uncertain as to how exactly that weapon buff applies / what it scales off of.
Overall, it just seems like the skills are scaling better overall off of the increased power the longbow provides, while my auto-attacks seem significantly better with gear that offers better attack speed rating. Getting to the finishers/extended finishers more quickly/reliably has seemed to help quite a lot.
Anyway, those are my thoughts/observations...Maybe I'm wrong/missing something...I'd be interested in other opinions.
leton
1
Re: 200 hours on ranger, these are the changes i would like to see
Shadow Phoenix wrote: »All great points above. Being a ranger main in all MMOs and having played ranger here since Phase 1, I'd add the following:Snipe IS a great opener, and that is what I see it used for most often (the cast time during combat makes it very situational and almost a death sentence in PVP). So, why is it that it has an additive proc to it (hemorrhage) and not a primary (bleed). It feels completely contradictory to use in its current setup, as you're supposed to use it after you've applied bleed (either through weapon or skill proc) and hemorrhage isn't enough of a dmg boost (over bleed) to account for the cast time of Snipe.Snipe - great opener
This is the same issue I have with Vine Field. It feels backwards to have to proc bleed first, then apply hemorrhage via VF, instead of applying bleed with VF then boosting that with something like Scatter Shot.
Only 100h hunter here...but I would agree, and glad someone brought it up...Even in PVE, I hardly ever see hunters using snipe outside of initial pack engages as "an opener"...instead of using it throughout the fight to apply hemorrhage when everything else is on cooldown. (And sadly, I think it only slightly edges out the dps you could have had with a longbow, if you simply just auto-attacked instead, assuming your attack speed stat is high enough...)
Definitely feels backwards...Wishing that vines/snipe applied bleed and barrage/scatter applied hemorrhaging. Would also be nice if the wind-up was reduced by even just 1 second.
What's even more disheartening, is then comparing it to what the mage does. Mage casts firebolt/fireball which appears to have shorter windup, or magma-field, and then simply instant-casts combust to deal damage AND proc conflag.
Whereas ranger has to either go through an auto-attack finisher sequence with a 50% chance to proc bleeding (without barbs), hit the target with a charged up skillshot that is severely impacted by changes in terrain elevation, or be close enough to use barrage...assuming you've got enhanced armament : barbs for the skills...and then finally you have follow that up with the most telegraphed skill of all time + ~3s windup.
feelsbadman.
leton
6
Re: Corruption
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_corruptionUltima Online had Buc's Den for red characters. No normal NPC would deal with them, and instead call the guards. In Ashes, the NPCs happily deal with corrupted players, so it doesn't even really matter. Make it past the guards somehow and you're fine.
There's a lot that has to be worked on and fixed to make this work.
Player to player trading, interacting with vendors or NPCs, and the ability to access storage is disabled for corrupted players.[34][8][35]
One of these godforsaken days people will start READING THE GOD DAMN WIKI
One of these godforsaken days people will start SEEING WHAT'S HAPPENING IN GAME RIGHT NOW.
Andi
1
Re: Ranger feedback from a player that did it all
GreatPhilisopher wrote: »i'd say since everyone is using a bow as a secondary just make it so the bow attack distance for anyone that isnt a ranger like 50% less and maybe even have less accuracy the further they are from the target
I think it would be more practical to extend rangers range rather than punish everyone elses.
Re: Cleric Rating meaning and importance
Nevermind I misread the OP. Most Clerics are just going for int and magic power.
Texas
1