Best Of

I do want some rng in pvp and resists to disables, but I'm definitely against this universal bs. If you're afraid of stuns - build your resistances against THAT, not against every god damn disable out there.

Same for slows, poisons, bleeds, anchors, roots, etc etc etc.

I hope that this kind of design comes with horizontal enchantment of gear, that we were promised, and that the universal stat will go away after that horizontality is implemented.

Another solution would be to make Anti-Flying mechanisms.
For example:
* caravan upgrade to equip it with anti air ballista that can be controlled manually and if you manage to hit the flying mount its instant kill + the rider dies from fall dmg. (no corruption triggered)
* Crafting items that shoot nets in the air and can disable the flying mount flight ability - so the mount is forced on the ground and cant fly for the next 2 minutes.
* Ships anti air equipment
* random watch towers around the world that have equipment on top of them to fight against air
* Mobs around the world that will shoot and kill flying targets if you pass above their zones
* players on the ground should have bigger vision + range to reach the flying mounts than the players in the air. So in order for someone with fly mount to spot a caravan - he should already be in the range of the ballista

After all the core game principle is Risk vs Reward.
So flying should have its risks also (since the rewards it provide are big already)

As a rogue player, I don't understand the added value of daggers compared to 2H weapons. Can more experienced players help me out? Because right now, 2H seems way more OP to me.

We were promised that Bard wouldn't just be a Buff Bot, though...

REHOC wrote: »

Wow, this is an incredibly thorough list, thanks for putting all this together, dkshaw.

I hope they can continue to optimize the game in the future so that players with low-end computers can also play this game smoothly.

Merged the conversations. Thank you, @REHOC !

Azherae wrote: »

My recent experience implies that cost is smaller than I thought. The recent stat/gearing changes also imply a path where the drop is wearable but Common/White grade and 'only worth deconstructing'. I believe this leads to a good econ-flow (but my opinion of the current stats and gear balance pass is low, as you'd expect from a first iteration).

Btw, what would be the economic impact of targeted deconstruction methods? So, instead of just receiving a bit of every part of the crafting requirements for the item, you could pick a certain part of the crafting list and get the full set of those items.

I'd imagine that having rarity-up effect during the deconstruction would be a bad thing, so this selective process would only be applicable to universal parts of the item (which would in turn probably require crafting to have a few more universal parts in it, I guess).

I'd be more ok with somewhat frequent grey drops, if they pretty much just went back into crafting immediately, because anything higher than rare+x item of lower tier would be better.

Butkus wrote: »

A large part of the mmo genre is the joy of getting a gear drop. I'd hate for that to go away entirely. I agree it should be rare on non named mobs but it's a large part of why I play.

This is a big deal to a lot of people, yes.

I don't know if Intrepid can come up with a solution for this that pleases everyone within their own constraints, but I can offer that even though I don't think the solution Throne and Liberty uses would work for Ashes, it hasn't seemed to cause as much negativity as I would've expected.

I think average people are learning to understand game economies again if they are eased into it. So part of the reason for my change of heart is actually this:

"I don't think Ashes has to worry about 'paying the goodwill cost' of 'not having wearable/satisfying gear drop from mobs'."

That is, I think it's okay to absorb the 'salt' of people who complain about the initial drop they get not being a big improvement/upgrade/gear-chase item.

My recent experience implies that cost is smaller than I thought. The recent stat/gearing changes also imply a path where the drop is wearable but Common/White grade and 'only worth deconstructing'. I believe this leads to a good econ-flow (but my opinion of the current stats and gear balance pass is low, as you'd expect from a first iteration).

Apok wrote: »

maybe something like a more flushed out weapon skill system that gives access to actual abilities

This would make combat feel a lot more interesting, to me. There are large periods where you're just Auto-Attacking, sitting still and watching the character do stuff for you, rather than playing it yourself. And that feels weird.

I hate output rng. I think people get caught up in the idea of "output rng can reinforce and feed into input rng", but there are plenty of opportunities for input rng by simply relying on the dynamic nature of player behaviors, skill variance, and branching decision making (providing the combat system is deep enough to allow room for variety of different combat outcomes). If this is the case, having enough input rng for dynamic combat happens organically and doesn't need help from output rng, so I think focusing on that does more harm than good to the feel of the combat imo.

I mean, look at fighting games. Most of them don't really include much output rng at all. In those games if you hit your opponent you get rewarded for it. Yet they have some of the most complex and dynamic combat systems in all of gaming due to said player behaviors I mentioned earlier. Why is output rng necessary for combat? I dont get it.


So yeah I hate the rng cc resist, and any other waterfall stat that determines any given combat interaction (like evasion/accuracy overriding manual dodging/attacking), rather than letting the ability usage do its job.