Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Skill Level and Class Diversity
My mechanical skill level basically sucks, but I was still a decent hard core raider in EQ2. I think one aspect of the PvP vs PvE discussions and the tab-target vs skill-shot discussions is people are worried that Ashes will be either be too hard or too easy.
Class diversity might be one way to accommodate both high and low skill players. Yes, have a few classes that require high mechanical-skill and balance them for PvP arena, but then have other classes dependent on other type skills.
The Grinding Tree Skill: I solo and spend hours and hours killing stuff (or collecting) to get that next bonus stat.
The Timing is Everything Skill: I like to have tons of spells, long cooldowns, much theory crafting .
The Buff Bot Raid Leader: I know the big picture, all the dungeon bosses, when to block AE, when to debuff, ect.
And with the sub-class system you would be able to tailor your character to fit your exact play-style strengths.
Class diversity might be one way to accommodate both high and low skill players. Yes, have a few classes that require high mechanical-skill and balance them for PvP arena, but then have other classes dependent on other type skills.
The Grinding Tree Skill: I solo and spend hours and hours killing stuff (or collecting) to get that next bonus stat.
The Timing is Everything Skill: I like to have tons of spells, long cooldowns, much theory crafting .
The Buff Bot Raid Leader: I know the big picture, all the dungeon bosses, when to block AE, when to debuff, ect.
And with the sub-class system you would be able to tailor your character to fit your exact play-style strengths.
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Comments
Does it only includes aim? Or are reaction time and skill rotation also a part of this?
In games with soft-lock or tap-targeting the pvp combat can still be challenging. The first thing that comes to mind is reaction time for things like blocking, dodging or breakign-free at the right moment. Skill rotation can also be a big part of player skill, usually burst damage and well-timed CCs are the key to wining in pvp. Simply put, if someone can heal for X amount per second you need to do more dmg per second or prevent him from healing for a couple seconds. So there's a lot of skill and experience that goes into timing skills correctly. Some classes might be weaker to certain skills, knowing what to use against which class is also crucial.
The downside of having to aim your skills manually is that latency becomes more important to determine if you hit your target. Some countries (like Australia) are further away from the servers which would give them an even bigger disadvantage.
I think the best way to go is system in which aiming gives a soft-lock and tab hard-locks on the target. In both cases I feel the direction of the attacks should somewhat match the direction of the target. So if someone is behind you its not possible to attack if you dont turn around.
The angular width of the cone will help with accuracy issues over long range.
Rapid finger motion and gymnastics is not compatible with a wide player ability spectrum.
So rotations with a wide button mashing requirement is problematic.
Tactical combat that relies on action reaction with clear combat feedback and mimimalist controls is the best way to cater to a wide variety of physical limitations.
1. Are you building a game focused at the people with the fastest and most dexterous fingers.
2. Are you building a game that is inclusive of as many people as possible.
The angular width of the cone will help with accuracy issues over long range.
Rapid finger motion and gymnastics is not compatible with a wide player ability spectrum.
So rotations with a wide button mashing requirement is problematic.
Tactical combat that relies on action reaction with clear combat feedback and mimimalist controls is the best way to cater to a wide variety of physical limitations.
1. Are you building a game focused at the people with the fastest and most dexterous fingers.
2. Are you building a game that is inclusive of as many people as possible.
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The gameplay videos showed around 10 active skills which isnt too crazy. This number might be adjusted during development or alpha/beta testing ofc.
The problem with too minimalist controls is that it doesnt necessarily makes it easier, Dark Souls has really minimalist controls and still can be pretty tough due to the timing for example.
If you want the game rely less on dexterous fingers it should rely more heavily on knowledge and timing, what skills to use against which class and when to use them. The problem with this is that it could turn into rock-paper-scissors, class A always wins vs B but always loses vs C etc. So class balancing (which is already incredibly difficult) becomes even more important.
A three button mouse doesnt really require much finger movement.
You have click, hold and combos.
The keyboard can work well with the movement keys, but when you start throwing in mouse + movement keys and then 10 skill buttons....where some rotation require rapid rotations of those skill buttons while trying to move; you end up with sore fingers, painful joints and shaking hands after a couple of hours of intense openworld warfare. Thats not good
So I would prefer to see transient effects controlled by the mouse and movement keys alone. With the traditional skill keys more of an occasional change of mode.
eg.
1-5 are high speed low power to low speed high power - melee weapon
6-10 are are high speed low power to low speed high power - range weapon
Low speed attacks being more open to interruption.
I dont know. Somewhere down the line, physical UI and skills UI have became desynced. Much thought is given to skills and their variety but not how to physically deploy them in a practical way for a wide player base. Thats all I am trying to get at really.
Even with Ashes you can see its an afterthought, where they havent really decided yet how many skills will be on a skill bar.
Games that are created around a complicated combat system can also become boring (For Honor for example) if there's nothing meaningful to fight for.
I didn't realize just how bad I was at high-skill PvP until I played Age of Wushu. Beautiful game, fun to level and explore, cool crafting mini-games. But then I went to my first guild vs guild fight and got pwned repeatedly. They use the rock, paper, scissors form of combat, plus some wild double-jump movement skills. Way out of my league. http://www.ageofwushu.com/material/view/42
Latency (server lag) normally depends on how many players around you that you can hit and they can hit at the same time.
Shove 100 all in range of each other with an AoE cap of 1 will be no problem. Raise that AoE cap to 100 and the server will laugh at you ..hard....then die
If you then add duration with dots to those attacks, not only do the old attacks escalate, they also repeat and append to the new attacks every tick.
No system can cope with such sticky, transient and exponential loads.