Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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 Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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: Disable Evasion Rating (Physical/Magical Disable Evasion Rating)???
Blaspherian wrote: »I can't wrap my head around how devs/gamers can think this adds to competitive integrity or fun gameplay.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/50899/crowd-control-should-not-be-based-on-rng
There was also some interesting stuff in:
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/50615/try-to-limit-the-amount-of-braindead-and-anti-fun-cc-that-is-stuns-there-are-better-alternatives
(I'm not really asking nor suggesting you actually read through any of these, this post has a slightly different true purpose so...)
Azherae
1
Re: Great Concept, But a Terrible First Impression
I couldn't agree more with you. I'm even starting to doubt whether the character motion designer of this game is really qualify to create the character motion animations for this game.
dkshaw
3
Re: Great Concept, But a Terrible First Impression
And that is the most backwards belief when it comes to this kind of test phase. There's literally no point in polishing anything right now, because all of that stuff can change several times before its final form.I believe that when developing any game, it makes sense to polish the core mechanics first — and only after that, start working on things like "caravan heists"
But getting proper base-lvl mechanics and features working is waaaay more important, because THAT is what people play.
If you can't separate a proper alpha from the release presentation, then treat Ashes as you would the release version of No Man's Sky or Cyberpunk 2077. Both games were utter shit on release, but fixed themselves in a few years. Ashes is in the worst state it'll ever be. And its main playerbase will be built on release (or right before it), rather than during an alpha test with no promotion, no ads, no huge twitch streamers (well, one, who, I bet, repeats over and over and over that this is a true test) and no proper presentation of the game to players.
The fraction of a fraction of people, who think that the current version of the game is the stopping point of development and will keep that as their entire opinion on the game, is nothing compared to what the game can (and hopefully will) garner closer to release.
If you go and tell your friends "yeaaah, this totally not an alpha test looks totally like not a full release game" - that's on you, not on Intrepid.
I agree that many things you said will change in the future. However, the core content of an MMO, that is, a smooth and silky combat experience, is something that will never change. This is also the purpose of them inviting us to participate in the testing: to identify the flaws and assist them in improving the game, instead of taking it for granted that all the flaws are acceptable just because it's in the internal testing stage and not actively reporting the bugs you've found.
The so-called internal testing means that we, from the perspective of players, discover the problems that the game development team can't detect, so as to help them make improvements.
I believe that a smooth and silky combat experience is the core of the core of an MMO, and significant efforts should be devoted to perfecting it first. It's like the skeletal structure of our human body. Once we have it in place, filling in other game content will make the testing process much easier. A smooth combat experience is also the first thing that new players can feel when they start playing the game.
These experiences will provide players with a great initial experience, which will encourage them to actively test the more in-depth game content, rather than coming in, feeling that the combat experience is terrible, and then leaving the game.
please remember smooth and silky combat experience is the everything in MMO Game !!!
dkshaw
4
Re: Linux Tips, Tweaks and Troubleshooting Thread
Due to Flatpak network namespaces, the custom launch command did not work with Flatpak Steam and Bottles.
In Flatseal add the following:
Now add AOCClient.exe to Steam, force compat to Proton Experimental, and adjust the launch options to the following:
In Flatseal add the following:
Now add AOCClient.exe to Steam, force compat to Proton Experimental, and adjust the launch options to the following:
eval $(%command% LauncherTetherPort=$(flatpak-spawn --host ss -ulpn | grep wineserv | awk '{split($4, a , ":"); print a[2]}') -NOSPLASH -USEEOS=0)
zopsi
1
Salve material cost is too high
It feels like the cost for salves from alchemy is too high. Spindlevine is used in so many other things, and the bolts require wood as well, which definitely isn't worth it over the immediate potion effect. I would recommend changing it to something that's less used like gloomy pross, and maybe making it a thread instead of a bolt as a material cost if it needs to have an added material. I know I would never make them with the way they currently are, but I would like to make them at some point.
Re: Power Scaling / TTK / Enchanting & Tinkering
I disagree with the OP
While I do agree with the issue of crafting becoming irrelevant, to me its a completely different cause. Increasing power creep and removing diminishing returns and decreasing TTK doesn't fix any of it. To me the solution is:
1. Remove blue or under gear from mob drops past level 10 gear. That way, the node progression will soft lock the gear progression and players will craft level 10 gear while level 20 gear is not available
2. Epic/Legendary lvl 10 gear should be better than uncommon/rare lvl 20 gear. That way, if you decide to go for level 10 epic/legendary gear, you can keep it until you upgrade it to heroic level 20 gear instead of your gear becoming irrelevant once level 20 gear unlocks.
You are looking for % upgrades in a simplistic way, looking for upgrades in the power stat that you already stacked way past the effective soft cap. If you build it properly, you can still gain 8% power upgrade enchanting all your gear to +10, maintain the same power stat while increasing other stats like accuracy, penetration, crit, attack speed, evasion, mitigation, etc. There is now opportunity for build diversity because of the diminishing returns. Power is not the only stat that matters anymore. The same goes for tinkering
While I do agree that of course, bringing more players gives you a better chance to win things, I think the difference between a small skilled well coordinated group and a big uncoordinated zerg of bad players is way bigger now. You can outplay bigger groups by skill and coordination now, instead of how it was before (beating big groups by just attacking first, which realistically, it didn't happen other than ganking and surprise scenarios). Of course, if the groups have the same level of power, skill and coordination, then numbers will be the main determinant as it should be because why would a smaller group with no advantages over the other group win?
While I do agree with the issue of crafting becoming irrelevant, to me its a completely different cause. Increasing power creep and removing diminishing returns and decreasing TTK doesn't fix any of it. To me the solution is:
1. Remove blue or under gear from mob drops past level 10 gear. That way, the node progression will soft lock the gear progression and players will craft level 10 gear while level 20 gear is not available
2. Epic/Legendary lvl 10 gear should be better than uncommon/rare lvl 20 gear. That way, if you decide to go for level 10 epic/legendary gear, you can keep it until you upgrade it to heroic level 20 gear instead of your gear becoming irrelevant once level 20 gear unlocks.
You are looking for % upgrades in a simplistic way, looking for upgrades in the power stat that you already stacked way past the effective soft cap. If you build it properly, you can still gain 8% power upgrade enchanting all your gear to +10, maintain the same power stat while increasing other stats like accuracy, penetration, crit, attack speed, evasion, mitigation, etc. There is now opportunity for build diversity because of the diminishing returns. Power is not the only stat that matters anymore. The same goes for tinkering
While I do agree that of course, bringing more players gives you a better chance to win things, I think the difference between a small skilled well coordinated group and a big uncoordinated zerg of bad players is way bigger now. You can outplay bigger groups by skill and coordination now, instead of how it was before (beating big groups by just attacking first, which realistically, it didn't happen other than ganking and surprise scenarios). Of course, if the groups have the same level of power, skill and coordination, then numbers will be the main determinant as it should be because why would a smaller group with no advantages over the other group win?
Imnotkio
2
Stats and Items - post patch feedback
Originally I wasn't really going to bother with this as I figured with the survey and the limited time between P3 start - everything was basically locked in.
Section 1 - New Stat Weighting
Short version: Only one stat matters as a secondary. The others add so little usually they are just fluff.
With the new stat weighting, the only stat that really matters on a piece of gear is the first secondary stat that it gives. In the case of Forge armor and Carphin armor, this is Fire and Necrotic mitigation. The green heavy carphin chest gives 4-8 strength as a secondary stat, and 1364-1375 necrotic mitigation. When all the stat weighting is just to 1 stat, who cares about 4-8 STR.
Section 2 - Bad Stats.
Short Version: Either make all stats valuable in some situation, or at least not as unbalanced as they are currently.
Carphin armor and Forge armor give over 1k mitigation rating to a specific element each. These are extremely useless stats with current scaling. People will NEVER wear this armor unless they are bad players. This includes some weapons like Tumok bow which has health regeneration rating, or the Firebrand bow because it has Addative Fire Damage. People will also not use non-universal defensive stats either. Why would you wear magical evasion armor, when you can wear evasion armor and get 2X the value? ETC.
Examples of bad stats and why they are bad -
- Any specific defensive stat (Critical disable reduction rating, magical evasion rating, Necrotic mitigation rating, fire mitigation rating, Physical Critical Mitigation rating, and more). These are bad because they are too niche and they scale bad.
- Additive Damage. Two problems with additive damage. 1- It only applies to auto attacks. I see you guys updated lifesteal to apply to abilities, so should Additive damage. 2- It scales very badly. 3k additive weapon fire damage on Firebrand weapons? Its like 25 damage per auto attack or something negligible.
- Health Regeneration Rating. 500 rating = 1 hps. By default players have 16 ish HPS. Tumok weapons give 3k health regeneration rating which is an effective 6 hps
. imo this shouldn't be a stackable stat, just a flavor 'tertiary' stat or w/e. Nobody wants the HP regen stacking tank meta to ever exist. Also ranger's Regeneration buff is .5hps. Maybe update that?
- Armor and Magic Resist. They just don't scale defensively. Pen is also pretty easy to get too so, yeah.
- ALL ATTRIBUTES. STr, INT, MR, etc. Suppose you do want all the stats that STR gives you. You are already accuracy capped (essentially) by the time you get a set of green gear from passive STR on gear. So you get an effective 8 secondary stats per STR point. But, Physical block mitigation rating? Physical disable duration rating? Remember what I said about building bad attributes above? You are better off getting 1.4k power in your chest slot instead of 120 STR for example. And getting other secondary stats as the main one for other slots.
- Accuracy Rating. Players are already capped through their main attribute - this rating is 0 value 95% of the time.
If you want a summary of why these stats matter so much - imagine fighting a player with 4 pieces of power gear. Meanwhile you are in a full set of green gear with random mitigation rating and disable reduction and accuracy. Noobs won't know how bad their gear is. This also makes it so some named mobs / gear is worth absolutely 0. Instead of "oh you have that, it isn't as good, but at least you have something". Someone puts on a gear and they don't get stronger - thats bad. Meanwhile some of the new stats are extremely strong when they are weighted using the current system.
Section 3 - Gear.
Short Version: There does not exist named drop options for all gear slots, please give some love.
There is some gear slots that you just can't farm named mobs for. Meanwhile there are like a dozen magical weapon options, and offhand magic focuses.
- Bows. Right now there is Firebrand, Tumok, Carphin, and Forge for bows. So two bosses on really long CDS, and two generic drops from random mobs in the POI's. Not to mention that all those named bows suck because of the bad value secondary stats they have.
- Energy Focuses [physical]. Until this patch where some offhands got busted secondary boosted attributes - using a focus for a dps oriented class wasn't really an option because there are no named or craftable options.
- Magic Power Greatswords.
- Magic power maces.
etc. You get the jist. I am sure you guys have a big DB of items and can provide like at least 2 options for all of the server who don't have a physical named mob they can farm for their ranged weapon for example.
Section 4 - Level 10 gear VS lvl 20 gear.
The way the game is balanced right now, a grey level 20 piece of gear is equal to an EPIC level 10 piece of gear. Part of the reason people were so excited for fresh starts is because they wanted to rush to level 10, start farming mats, and make a level 10 'temporary' set of gear, so that they can be ahead of the curve. As it stands right now, you get to level 20, you farm your green named mobs. Then you go full econ. You can try to RNG named mobs to get better drops. But its going to be like a month before nodes upgrade so you are 'done' gearing really early. Theres no real prep for level 10 stuff unlocking from a PVP perspective.
Let epic / legendary level 10 gear be equal to level 20 rare gear imo is a good balance point.
How do you plan to do this long term when we have higher tiers? On server launch everyone will level up to max, farm named mobs and wait 2 months for a metropolis node so they can craft level 50 gear- because anything lower is just deconstruct trash basically? idk
Consumables -
Overall these are fine. I really don't like potions though. Please make them useable at any time instead of being like on the GCD or having an animation, idk. Right now I just either forget or it feels bad to use them mid-combat. I am trying to play my class.
Overall it is good this change happened. Just needs some tuning. ZVZ and small-medium scale pvp feels good. I will warn you though - when people optimize this, the TTK is going to decrease a bit from how it is now. Or some tank is going to go full HP and max mitigation and be an unkillable meatball. (Also consider addressing how tanks steal threat from each other for world boss competing. Right now its the tanks fighting for agro to reset if they think the other team got tag, while the raids all watch. Also the current power DR curve is good. If you remove that curve, expect people to go back to stacking 2 stats only, one offense (power) and the one defensive stat that's over tuned.
Section 1 - New Stat Weighting
Short version: Only one stat matters as a secondary. The others add so little usually they are just fluff.
With the new stat weighting, the only stat that really matters on a piece of gear is the first secondary stat that it gives. In the case of Forge armor and Carphin armor, this is Fire and Necrotic mitigation. The green heavy carphin chest gives 4-8 strength as a secondary stat, and 1364-1375 necrotic mitigation. When all the stat weighting is just to 1 stat, who cares about 4-8 STR.
Section 2 - Bad Stats.
Short Version: Either make all stats valuable in some situation, or at least not as unbalanced as they are currently.
Carphin armor and Forge armor give over 1k mitigation rating to a specific element each. These are extremely useless stats with current scaling. People will NEVER wear this armor unless they are bad players. This includes some weapons like Tumok bow which has health regeneration rating, or the Firebrand bow because it has Addative Fire Damage. People will also not use non-universal defensive stats either. Why would you wear magical evasion armor, when you can wear evasion armor and get 2X the value? ETC.
Examples of bad stats and why they are bad -
- Any specific defensive stat (Critical disable reduction rating, magical evasion rating, Necrotic mitigation rating, fire mitigation rating, Physical Critical Mitigation rating, and more). These are bad because they are too niche and they scale bad.
- Additive Damage. Two problems with additive damage. 1- It only applies to auto attacks. I see you guys updated lifesteal to apply to abilities, so should Additive damage. 2- It scales very badly. 3k additive weapon fire damage on Firebrand weapons? Its like 25 damage per auto attack or something negligible.
- Health Regeneration Rating. 500 rating = 1 hps. By default players have 16 ish HPS. Tumok weapons give 3k health regeneration rating which is an effective 6 hps
. imo this shouldn't be a stackable stat, just a flavor 'tertiary' stat or w/e. Nobody wants the HP regen stacking tank meta to ever exist. Also ranger's Regeneration buff is .5hps. Maybe update that?- Armor and Magic Resist. They just don't scale defensively. Pen is also pretty easy to get too so, yeah.
- ALL ATTRIBUTES. STr, INT, MR, etc. Suppose you do want all the stats that STR gives you. You are already accuracy capped (essentially) by the time you get a set of green gear from passive STR on gear. So you get an effective 8 secondary stats per STR point. But, Physical block mitigation rating? Physical disable duration rating? Remember what I said about building bad attributes above? You are better off getting 1.4k power in your chest slot instead of 120 STR for example. And getting other secondary stats as the main one for other slots.
- Accuracy Rating. Players are already capped through their main attribute - this rating is 0 value 95% of the time.
If you want a summary of why these stats matter so much - imagine fighting a player with 4 pieces of power gear. Meanwhile you are in a full set of green gear with random mitigation rating and disable reduction and accuracy. Noobs won't know how bad their gear is. This also makes it so some named mobs / gear is worth absolutely 0. Instead of "oh you have that, it isn't as good, but at least you have something". Someone puts on a gear and they don't get stronger - thats bad. Meanwhile some of the new stats are extremely strong when they are weighted using the current system.
Section 3 - Gear.
Short Version: There does not exist named drop options for all gear slots, please give some love.
There is some gear slots that you just can't farm named mobs for. Meanwhile there are like a dozen magical weapon options, and offhand magic focuses.
- Bows. Right now there is Firebrand, Tumok, Carphin, and Forge for bows. So two bosses on really long CDS, and two generic drops from random mobs in the POI's. Not to mention that all those named bows suck because of the bad value secondary stats they have.
- Energy Focuses [physical]. Until this patch where some offhands got busted secondary boosted attributes - using a focus for a dps oriented class wasn't really an option because there are no named or craftable options.
- Magic Power Greatswords.
- Magic power maces.
etc. You get the jist. I am sure you guys have a big DB of items and can provide like at least 2 options for all of the server who don't have a physical named mob they can farm for their ranged weapon for example.
Section 4 - Level 10 gear VS lvl 20 gear.
The way the game is balanced right now, a grey level 20 piece of gear is equal to an EPIC level 10 piece of gear. Part of the reason people were so excited for fresh starts is because they wanted to rush to level 10, start farming mats, and make a level 10 'temporary' set of gear, so that they can be ahead of the curve. As it stands right now, you get to level 20, you farm your green named mobs. Then you go full econ. You can try to RNG named mobs to get better drops. But its going to be like a month before nodes upgrade so you are 'done' gearing really early. Theres no real prep for level 10 stuff unlocking from a PVP perspective.
Let epic / legendary level 10 gear be equal to level 20 rare gear imo is a good balance point.
How do you plan to do this long term when we have higher tiers? On server launch everyone will level up to max, farm named mobs and wait 2 months for a metropolis node so they can craft level 50 gear- because anything lower is just deconstruct trash basically? idk
Consumables -
Overall these are fine. I really don't like potions though. Please make them useable at any time instead of being like on the GCD or having an animation, idk. Right now I just either forget or it feels bad to use them mid-combat. I am trying to play my class.
Overall it is good this change happened. Just needs some tuning. ZVZ and small-medium scale pvp feels good. I will warn you though - when people optimize this, the TTK is going to decrease a bit from how it is now. Or some tank is going to go full HP and max mitigation and be an unkillable meatball. (Also consider addressing how tanks steal threat from each other for world boss competing. Right now its the tanks fighting for agro to reset if they think the other team got tag, while the raids all watch. Also the current power DR curve is good. If you remove that curve, expect people to go back to stacking 2 stats only, one offense (power) and the one defensive stat that's over tuned.
Re: Disable Evasion Rating (Physical/Magical Disable Evasion Rating)???
I think we're crossing our threads a little here, so to speak. As far as Crit vs CC, I'm not debating specifics from other games or hypotheticals of how things could play out in Ashes. I'm just talking fundamental form and function. And I think we're edging towards getting a little away from the main topic but I'll wrap my point up:So, in my experience, both of these things function in the same way, are countered in the same way - all while the fun of gameplay was perceived in the same way as well (I already gave examples of situations I've seen before). And so to me they're fine.
Crit and CC can take similar function at times yes, but they are not the same in form. CC is more dynamic. Crit is more linear in its application. Crit is like a fixed blade where CC would be a utility knife.
CC can be used, like you said, to grant you a few more hits (more damage), functioning similarly to Crit. CC can also be used for zone denial, zone acquisition. CC can be used to create an opening for engage or disengage. CC can be used as a pause button to heal, pop defensive CDs, allow time for CDs to refresh, amongst other things.
Simply put, CC has numerous applications. I don't think the same can be said for Crit. I'm not saying Crit isn't valuable, cause it absolutely is, just not in the same way that CC is.
In most games you have Crit Dmg and maybe Crit healing. If you take away the Crit part from happening, you still have the intrinsic value of the Damage or the Heal, you just didn't get the passive bonus to it's value. Whether or not the Crit happens, your ability still did its job, the expected effect happened. Either way, the outcome isn't going to radically impact your next decision. When it comes to a CC being resisted, the expected effect of your ability never happened, thus the outcome has a potentially radical (negative) impact on your next decision. You need a new plan.
A tree for different ways to spec dodge is definitely something interesting. My brain hurts too much to dive into it though.I think the middle ground compromise that I'd be fine with is if they add an exclusivity branch to the dodge mechanic, where your maneuverability goes waaaaaaay down, but your CC resistance goes up. In other words, make it a conscious choice on the side of the player, whether they want to have more protection against phys effects or magic ones.
Lol, like I said before, not gonna debate you on that. Cause I definitely agree.BUT I STILL WANT HEIGHTENED RESISTANCES RATHER THAN FULL EVASION AGAINST MAAAAGIC. You can't evade magic, cause it's fucking maaaagic.
Please only make ONE NA EAST fresh start server
NA East serves both for NA and EU based players like myself
do not make more than one server, its a 3 month testing period that will bleed players after the first month, needs to me just one server
do not make more than one server, its a 3 month testing period that will bleed players after the first month, needs to me just one server
Liniker
1
With Fresh starts, merges and node wipes coming, let's get rid of flying mounts!
With the server merge on May 1st, it's a good time to think about some of the mechanics we've experienced and how their absence might shape the game moving forward, especially with Phase 3 on the horizon in August. Flying mounts have introduced some concerning issues when it comes to node development and community balance.
One of the more significant issues I've observed is how flying mounts can inadvertently incentivize players to game the Node Mayoral system. Instead of focusing on the core gameplay loop of node progression - participating in events, building structures, and leveling up the node itself certain communities have been able to leverage mayoral control to secure multiple flying mounts. This feels counter to the intended design, where mayoral leadership should ideally be tied to fostering a well-developed node.
Flying mounts also create an imbalance of power. Groups that manage to win multiple nodes gain an even greater advantage due to their enhanced mobility and scouting provided by flying mounts. This can make it significantly harder for smaller communities or newer players to establish themselves and compete.
The upcoming server merge, which will reset mayors and remove flying mounts, presents Intrepid with a fantastic opportunity. We'll essentially have a clean slate to observe how a server ecosystem functions without the influence of widespread aerial travel. This period leading up to the Phase 3 launch in August could provide invaluable data on node progression, resource distribution, and community interaction in a world where ground based travel and node development are more central to the experience.
Personally, I'm interested to see how the absence of flying mounts impacts player behavior and the overall server dynamic. Will we see a greater emphasis on node development and cooperation? Will the balance of power shift, offering more opportunities for emerging communities?
What are your thoughts on the impact of flying mounts? Do you agree with these potential negatives, or do you see benefits that outweigh them? Let's discuss!
One of the more significant issues I've observed is how flying mounts can inadvertently incentivize players to game the Node Mayoral system. Instead of focusing on the core gameplay loop of node progression - participating in events, building structures, and leveling up the node itself certain communities have been able to leverage mayoral control to secure multiple flying mounts. This feels counter to the intended design, where mayoral leadership should ideally be tied to fostering a well-developed node.
Flying mounts also create an imbalance of power. Groups that manage to win multiple nodes gain an even greater advantage due to their enhanced mobility and scouting provided by flying mounts. This can make it significantly harder for smaller communities or newer players to establish themselves and compete.
The upcoming server merge, which will reset mayors and remove flying mounts, presents Intrepid with a fantastic opportunity. We'll essentially have a clean slate to observe how a server ecosystem functions without the influence of widespread aerial travel. This period leading up to the Phase 3 launch in August could provide invaluable data on node progression, resource distribution, and community interaction in a world where ground based travel and node development are more central to the experience.
Personally, I'm interested to see how the absence of flying mounts impacts player behavior and the overall server dynamic. Will we see a greater emphasis on node development and cooperation? Will the balance of power shift, offering more opportunities for emerging communities?
What are your thoughts on the impact of flying mounts? Do you agree with these potential negatives, or do you see benefits that outweigh them? Let's discuss!
Hamlet
6