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.
Ability Design
ArchivedUser
Guest
I'll just come out and say it, I wasn't too thrilled with the abilities described in the Twitch on the June 30th. So I think there are ways to improve it, especially thematically! A reason I say this is because it felt like some abilities talked about were something that seemed like a hybrid class should have. The cleric in particular felt like something all over the place with abilities that don't resonate well.
I'll start with the tank. I feel like most of what the tank's abilities have kinda have magical overtones. Summoning earth walls, and protecting people by holding your shield above your head doesn't make sense unless magic is involved. I feel like the basic tank class should focus on his ability to parry and block damage not necessarily project to others yet. The class abilities that do that can be a flavor of choice with the secondary you pick or you can be the boss tank with tank/tank.
Clerics had weird abilities that don't fit well to me, I think they should be focused on healing and divine based control or attacks, not ways to do competitive damage with damage dealers unless they go into a secondary for that. Dealing damage to heal allies is fun but probably should be something from a secondary class because having that for the base class would seem to take away from secondary class choices. Cleric/cleric should probably have divine thematics not rotate life energy thematics like some sort of blood healer.
I don't think rangers and mages had very many problems but arcane shot probably should be ranger/mage, I'd focus ranger/ranger on poisoned shots and traps personally.
Did anyone else feel this way? Sorry if this is not articulated well I wanted to type it better but I'm in a hurry.
Edit: Yes I know it's early gameplay stuff and we haven't seen it yet. I just want to voice this stuff now before it's too late! I'm still excited for the game!
I'll start with the tank. I feel like most of what the tank's abilities have kinda have magical overtones. Summoning earth walls, and protecting people by holding your shield above your head doesn't make sense unless magic is involved. I feel like the basic tank class should focus on his ability to parry and block damage not necessarily project to others yet. The class abilities that do that can be a flavor of choice with the secondary you pick or you can be the boss tank with tank/tank.
Clerics had weird abilities that don't fit well to me, I think they should be focused on healing and divine based control or attacks, not ways to do competitive damage with damage dealers unless they go into a secondary for that. Dealing damage to heal allies is fun but probably should be something from a secondary class because having that for the base class would seem to take away from secondary class choices. Cleric/cleric should probably have divine thematics not rotate life energy thematics like some sort of blood healer.
I don't think rangers and mages had very many problems but arcane shot probably should be ranger/mage, I'd focus ranger/ranger on poisoned shots and traps personally.
Did anyone else feel this way? Sorry if this is not articulated well I wanted to type it better but I'm in a hurry.
Edit: Yes I know it's early gameplay stuff and we haven't seen it yet. I just want to voice this stuff now before it's too late! I'm still excited for the game!
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Comments
On top of that, there is very little in the way of guiding lore right now. Granted, IS will know much more about this internally, but at the moment they might be keeping some things guarded so as not to create the wrong impression.
We do know that the Ashes world is a magical world, so I expect everything will be tinged with magic. Also there is a strong divine influence on the world, so this will add a further twist to how classes build out with augments from their religion.
But, I do agree with you. The presentation on the 30th seemed a little bit ad hoc. I wish they had time to go into things in more depth! But... we have one or two more years, so there's plenty of time for that
From what we all have heard the class and ability system is going to be wide spread with choices to be made. We have no idea really what the main abilites of a class will be or how any one of the secondary choices will effect your primary class.
Another point I would like to make is that I haven't known one cleric in 20 years who did not also have the ability to do some damage. If they did exist they leveled up as pocket healers only. I might not feel right about having to take life from one form to heal another but the Gods do work in mysterious ways as they say.
I actually reaallly like the the skills that all the classes have (especially as a pvper). I can already foresee cross class combinations that will be amazing to see in battle.
I see that Ashes has a lot of focus in working as a team and learning that best play will come from groups working together to work out effective combinations imo:)
Remember the skills for PAX are a small selection of what we'll have in Ashes. We only have the Primary ARCHETYPE at pax and preset weapons.
I can't wait for PAX stream already