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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Many people are interested in clearing content with maximum damage output, sure.
Keep in mind, though, that Ashes is not a traditional MMORPG - there will be other things to do in dungeons besides killing stuff. Each class will have other roles besides maximum DPS and maximum HPS.
A lot of things will be determining the DPS output - primary archetype, secondary archetype, racial stat progression, racial augments, Religion/Social/Guild augments.
For players who are seeking to maximize DPS.
Why should the DPS of the Mage Archetype match the core DPS of the Ranger archetype as if the primary role of each archetype should be DPS?
Why should there be a bias towards the classes with the highest DPS?
That would be indicative of poor game design.
Rather, Mages should be good at their roles and Rangers should be good at their roles.
Content should cater to a wide variety of roles and not be primarily focused on DPS or even HPS.
If the primary role of a Ranger is CC rather than DPS, there should be no bias against a Ranger whose DPS doesn't match the DPS of a Mage.
And if a Mage is built for buff/debuff or CC or recon, there should be no bias if their DPS doesn't match the DPS of a Ranger built for maximum DPS.
Balance doesn't mean that every archetype should match each other in DPS.
Balance means that in a party, the different archetypes can synergize such that their strengths and weaknesses compliment each other well enough to overcome the challenges that an encounter (or series of encounters) presents.
If there is a bias against Rangers because Mages are far superior in DPS, it doesn't mean the devs have failed to balance the DPS of the archetypes, rather it means that the devs have failed to provide content and challenges suited for the roles of the Ranger archetype. Typically, the Ranger has a different role than max ranged DPS.
Which is why the traditional balance is that a Mage is a cloth-wearing glass cannon while a Ranger is a leather-wearing combo of magical CC and ranged or melee damage.
Traditionally, a Mage is more focused on damage output than a Ranger is. Because their primary roles are different.
Ofc that would be too much work so it has to be limited in a way, but the more the marrier..
With limited action bars, there is no space for interesting pvp combat. As someone above mentioned earlier, in wow u get ur 4-8 important dmg skills and the remaining ones are utility. By limiting the amount of aviable skills, everyone will run around with these 8 dmg skills and a very small amount of utility..
That may be perfectly fine in PvE combat, but PvP will be very very boring and make the game fail as pvp is directly integrated into the progress of the game world.
One might say: "no! i will do diffrent, i pick many utility skills." which will make him pretty much useless in pve unless theres a huge never before seen need for movement, cc and removal of such. Permanently switching between pvp and pve specs isnt intended by the developers iirc. So one would miss the whole fun of competive gamplay of either pvp or pve aspect of the game.
Notice that this isnt intended to be an offline rpg or moba with limited depth and exclusive pve/pvp gameplay.
If u want to counter your enemy u need appropriate skills. And u need about one of them every 1-2 seconds. Not talking about dmg skills here since focus on dmg skills would lead to our glory 123456 no brain rotation which noone wants in pvp and everyone accepts with a crying eye in pve.
There will be many classes out there, does someone really consider to use the same counter skill against every enemy (what ever class or secondary class it may be) just because he doesnt have a choice due to his limited actionbar, a interesting gameplay?
Not to mention that this glorious single counter skill has a cooldown and require the player to run away after he used it.
Yes im exaggerating a little, but it makes no diffrence if u have 1 counter skill or 4 against 64 various potential enemys. Also using 2-3 skills and run away can be for some ppl enjoyable gameplay(mobas), it just doesnt fit into objective defending and overall mmo combat style.. who likes the hunters who always backpedal? dont make all classes this way.
I cant even see a single positive aspect of limited actionbars within a mmo, so enlighten me.
All kinds of PvE roles besides just combat. And within combat, many roles which are not focused on damage.
Parties have a max of 8, so we can expect that not all 8 in the party will be heavily focused on damage abilities.
And I've also mentioned in previous posts that this doesn't relate to just DPS, but to other roles as well. I just used DPS as it creates the best example. Also, the 'meta' will usually prefer the healers and tanks that can perform passable healing/tanking while granting the most superior utility and buffs. Too beat a dead horse and use GW2 as an example, people in raids only look for 1 class to tank, and 1 class to heal except in 3 specific fights, where it's merely acceptable to have another class heal. Now, the only way I can see Intrepid bucking this trend is to create a balance with the core classes, since everyone will have the same access to augments for utility, survivability, damage, etc. Since everyone will have relatively the same access to these increases through an agnostic secondary system (meaning that every primary class can use any race/religion/secondary class), then the core classes are what need to be balanced against each other. Each core class' damage skills and utility skills need to be compared to the other class' skills within those spheres. This ensures that if a class can viably perform a role, then it is at least comparable to the best class within that role. If at any point a class falls too far behind the 'leader' in a role, then people who enjoy playing that class will suffer as a result. Then, Intrepid has to also decide which roles it wants each class to fill. There will be classes who excel at DPS, tanking, healing, buffing/debuffing, and crowd control. I just hope that within these spheres, there are multiple classes/builds viable for each.
Second, there is a balancing issue here. The more skills that you have access to, the more skills the devs have to take into account when balancing the game. If you always have access to all of your skills at any given time, then the devs have to balance the entirety of all the classes compared to each other all the time. How nightmarish would it be to simultaneously balance how well a class can tank and deal damage and use utility against 7 other classes all at once, without taking builds into account? And without taking secondary classes, religion, and race into account?
Those are my two biggest reasonings against having all of your abilities available at once. A third, more minor one is personal preference. I would prefer a game where you are punished for not being sufficiently prepared for an encounter, rather than letting you always be prepared for every encounter. Also, having a limited action bar means that there's potential to try out new builds outside of just changing armor stats. If you always have access to all of your abilities, the only thing that ever changes is your armor stats and maybe which abilities you happen to use more.
Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have enough bar space to take any skills except for those within the role of whatever we're trying to do. If you want to do damage, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to take some off-heals or heavy CC or tanking abilities to allow you to adapt to the situation. The question here is finding the balance between adaptability and preparation. If a game has too limited of an action bar, then it requires much more preparation if you want to succeed, an forces you to swap skills/builds based on what you think you're going to face. If a game has too much skill bar space, then it allows you to be too adaptable, with fights being more determined by gear score than your build, and allows you to do too many things without giving up anything in return.
If I had to pick a number, I'd probably pick about 15-20 skills available at any given time. This is a large enough number to allow for choosing some core skills, and then choosing skills based on what you wish to prepare for, without allowing you to be rpepared for it all.
That would mean 1/4 of the party is DPS and 1/8 is HPS.
Then we fill in the rest with whatever we wish.
5/8 of the party doesn't have to focus on DPS.
"High end content" isn't really much different than the rest of the game.
Ashes isn't the kind of game were the focus of gameplay changes once your character reaches max level.
In Ashes, it's going to be much easier to find people to group with because we like hanging out with those people - the same people we see day after day and week after week - because they play at the same times we do and we know when and where to find each other. We will have similar interests because we live in the same town and we belong to the same social groups and we know how the people we hang with like to play.
People won't have the same access to augments for utility - that is primarily determined by archetype. And will likely be determined by build within the archetype.
Especially with only 10 slots on the hotbar, people will likely be playing quite differently.
In Ashes, each class can have a many roles.
We have 64 sub-classes. Plus racial stat progression. Plus racial/social/guild augments.
The devs promise that all 64 sub-classes will be viable. We'll have to see if they can keep that promise.
But, part of the reason we will see a wide variety of different builds is because the hotbar is limited to 10 slots.
And, even when we have people in the same party have the same abilities slotted, they will likely have different augments on those abilities. And all will be influenced by the choices made regarding racial stat progression and gear.
So...people are going to have to shed their expectations from playing previous MMORPGs and adapt to the various ways that Ashes gameplay will be considerably different from what has come before.
If IS is able to fulfill their game design plans.
In a limited action set you have to decide what you're going to bring to your party. Will you forego a dps skill to dispel an illusion and uncover a shortcut? To make sure you have enough cc? To gain an advantage with a movement ability? If everyone has everything then it's "bind it and l2p."
The problems with preparing your role before each battle are:
1. Its not immersive to swap abilitys all day.
And while it may make fun to figure out diffrent builds for diffrent situations, u do this one time and then use the prebuild swap button if implemented or script a ahk hotkey to do so.. Whats the fun in there? MMOs are played for a long time, not 20-80h like the average buy to play title.
2. Its an RPG.
You choose a role and stick to it. Makes no sense to say: yes im a frostmage but i cant use my frostbolt today for reasons.
3. In large scale, long duration fights, theres nothing more annoying than loosing a fight because ur actual role cant counter a certain enemy, even if ur used to beat this enemy all the time with another build. (oh not sure if i made it clear, im not talking about diffrent roles in terms of role1: dps; role2:hybrid but in terms of role1:pvp; role2:pve) Its a mostly open world game so pvp and pve will happen at the same time at some point.
Im okay with choosing between various skills, as long as it doesnt need to be changed frequently aka the aviable skills have to be versatile enough to be useful for ur role(tank/support/heal/dps/hybrid/w\e) at all times.
If i have to sacrifice pvp skills to be successful in pve or the other way around, it will prevent pve players from participating in pvp and pvp players from doing pve.
Think about the pve players who cry about pvp quests that are in some way required in some games. These ppl are mostly not optimized for in this case pvp content and do not have any fun while playing these as a result.
Also many ppl dont have time or dont want to figure out the best specs for 2 builds which fulfill basicaly the same role and train 2 diffrent muscle memorys for each set of binds. Muscle memory is important in competitive gameplay and is not in question.
@SconeOfDoom
In my opinion 20 skills is way too less, especialy if u want to be competitive in pvp, pve and have non combat open world skills.
If you only use a few skills regulary even if u have more, its:
1. totaly okay everyone can do what he wants and also the unused skills wont bite u,
2. if you can list a priority list with the 10 useful skills which most ppl agree with the designer failed his task. there should be many skills that are slightly diffrent to fit better into what ever situation ur facing in combat. As example Skill A: swing ur sword from the right side to the left; Skill B: Swing the sword from left to right. maybe skill A has a little higher base dmg if u happen to be right-handed or so. The real diffrence between these skills would be: what happened before, aka where do u hold ur sword at the end of ur previous attack? this could reduce the animation time if u use the correct skill either a or b. And dmg could be modified depending on how the enemy is positioned toward u, is his weapon to parry your attack on the side ur swinging from? Since the developer choose tab targeting they could use the huge advantage of latency.
Notice that this is only one simple example of 1 possible type of skill. There are endlessly more possible types of variations to all kinds of skills.
With 20 skills u wont ever be abel to create such an interesting gameplay.
The balancing issue isnt really an issue. There will be multiple alpha and beta phases and changing numbers in code is done within seconds. One guy can do this easily within a few weeks if he has enough ppl to test it. Would be clever to have by start of the first alpha a kind of gladiator arena implemented already which makes sure that alot of diffrent classes fight each other and make a (internal) listing what class won, maybe with some additional data which shows if the fight was decided by dps/cc/heal so he knows what to change immediatly.
They said they want to make mmorpg's great again and i dont see beeing lazy and implement only a weak balance and simple skills is a reasonable way to do so.
With 15-20 skills u would necessarily have basic skills all very diffrent from each other with each of them to a unique purpose with only little space for further customisation which isnt totaly boring or changes its use completly.
By allowing each player to use a totaly diffrent set of abilitys the balancing will be incredibly(in relation to possibilities) harder to do. I give an example:
A: players choose 20 out of 50 skills; B: players get all 50 skills. There are 8*8=64 classes.
A: 50!/(20!*(50-20)!)=possibilities for each class. -> 64*4.7*10^13=3.0*10^15 possible specs in total -> (3*10^15)!/(2!*(3*10^15-2)!)=~10^40 possible 1v1 pairs. -> 10^40 combinations to balance. (whole humanity would spend rest of their life balancing this
B: 1=possibility for each class. -> 64!/(2!*(64-2)!)=2016 possible 1v1 pairs. -> 2016 class combinations to balance 1v1.
U can easily see getting all abilitys is in no way as hard to balance as choosing 20 abilitys only.
Also i came up with these ideas just as i wrote them down and i expect game developers to know at least better than me if they want to develop a game thats sold for money.
In D&D, characters were limited to a fixed amount of spells per day - based on class level. They had to memorize spells or pray for spells each day. If it turned out you hadn't prepared spells suitable for the encounters you faced that day, you might have to retreat and return a later day with spells prepared specifically for that encounter.
The hotbar is the MMORPG equivalent of prepared spells/abilities.
Back in the day, we tended to swap abilities throughout a play session.
Typically while meditating to regen mana faster.
As the years progressed, we no longer had to meditate to regen mana at a reasonable pace and we gained access to more several more hotbars.
Preparing spells/abilities became more a matter of swapping specs.
But, Ashes is returning a bit to traditional RPG concepts.
The immersion factor for Ashes lore will be closer to preparing what you need in advance. Just because you have memorized the formulas for the spells you know, doesn't mean you have all the components for every spell readily available.
You might have to search for components and swap stuff around.
Just because I know the recipe for apple pie doesn't mean I brought along the apples.
Or, if I did, doesn't mean they're handy at the top of my bag.
Same for the components for Frostbolt.
If it's not on your hotbar, it's probably because you planned to use Fireball and Earthquake and Mirror Image and Ice Prison instead.
Or, if you consider yourself a Frostmage so you have all your Frost abilities on your hotbar, that means you probably have Frostbolt on the hotbar, but not Fireball, Mirror Image and Detect Magic.
There is no difference between PvP combat and PvE combat.
People who cry about being forced to participate in direct PvP combat don't like being forced into direct PvP combat - optimization has nothing to do with it.
If you force me to eat fish eyes, I'm going to be pissed off - doesn't matter how well you cook the fish eyes. Same if you feed me monkey brains.
Optimization is irrelevant when it comes to that.
We will have to determine which abilities are best suited for the specific encounter.
You might have to retreat and try again. We aren't entitled to win every encounter.
We will lose some encounters. And we should expect there to be negative consequences when we lose some encounters that have a significant impact on ther world, rather than being able to rinse and repeat encounters and come prepared ahead of time with the optimal abilities chosen.
Ashes is a dynamic world. We will not be optimally prepared for every encounter.
And we will not simply be able to hit one key to instantly respec or access five more hotbars of abilities.
I would argue that it's less immersive to have all of your abilities unlocked at once than it would be to have a limited number. To take your frost mage example, it wouldn't make sense for a frost mage to also have access to fire and lightning spells at the same time as their frost mage. But also, here we're delving too far into saying you're just a 'frost mage' all mages will be mages, and they may just have different item sets for different specialties (like frost, flames or lightning). Also, while you may argue that you can know dozens upon dozens of spells, in the case of mages, or that you can carry 10 different types of arrows for ranger, it's more immersive to say that they're carrying a spellbook to help them fastcast certain abilities and that the quiver holds a limited number of arrows. If you look at it from this perspective, that abilities aren't like something you remember how to do but rather you bring equipment and spellbooks to suit your needs, it's actually more immersive. When universes don't have everyone be a mage, like Harry Potter, then it's usually more immersive to have the characters only able to use a limited selection of abilities.
Also, in regards to the non-combat abilities, I expect them to have their own bar or dedicated space that does not take up combat slots. This is usually the case in most games.
In regards to you not wanting to choose between PvE and PvP skills, like gear sets, skills are going to be game-mode agnostic, meaning they could be used in either type. That lasso ability the tank has will work just as well on mobs as it will on players, That ability rangers have to immobilize a target will work on both monsters and players. Sure, some skills will be more useful in some PvE situations compared to some PvP situations, but the same can be said within PvP and within PvE themselves. The tank's wall skill might work wonders during one PvE encounter, but then is negligible during the next. The mage's ice field that roots might be effective against an immobile tank, but it won't work against another mage who can just teleport away. This is why I used the example of someone having a lot of AoE versus someone who has a lot of single target skills. Using AoE skills you sacrifice overall power for the ability to affect multiple foes, so it would make sense to be slightly weaker.
Also, in regards to 20 skills being too little to be useful in both PvP and PvE, I believe you're dividing the 2 too much. The majority of conflict is going to be open-world conflict where you will fight packs of mobs, other people, and probably some bosses. If you're running around in the open world fighting mobs, you shouldn't be terribly surprised if someone runs into you. As such, you should choose to be prepared for this eventuality if you don't want to lose. This, combined with the idea that skills will be just as effective in PvP as in PvE means that you shouldn't really be gearing exclusively for PvP and PvE separately, rather you're gearing for what you plan to do and then bringing some additional skills to prepare for the unexpected.
Although, let's get down to the real base of it. I myself find that experimenting with using different abilities, and gearing to optimize those abilities and then determining which combinations are most effective where. I don't like to keep track of dozens upon dozens of keybinds and hoping that I don't fat-finger or misclick, or forget where I put that one ability. I like the idea that, if I lose a fight, if I change my abilities to suit that fight, I can overcome it and improve myself via changing how I play the game.
You sound like the kind of person who enjoys growing your knowledge of all of your abilities, learning ability by ability which one should be used where, and then mastering each ability individually to be then used together, rather than mastering different builds as a whole. You sound like you don't like the idea of being limited to the amount of abilities you have access to, as this limits the amount of possibilities and counters in a fight, and perhaps devalues skill in favor of 'who has the better build?'
And that's really what this comes down to. What you like, versus what I like. However, we already know that we'll have limited ability bar space. Now, the PAX demo will currently have 5 abilities, with 1 ultimate ability and 1 non-combat ability, for each class. I think something both you and I can agree on is that this is too few. The only question is if and how much they'll increase this between PAX and release.
Reposition skills was never fun to me, also none of my friends think its fun.
Its not immersive for the player nor reasonable for the character, its not all about mages applepie reciepes and applepie, what would prevent a warrior from swinging his sword horizontally but not verticaly?
U shouldnt put boardgame mechanics into an realtime open world online game,
limiting the aviable spells could be done with so many better mechanics then making ppl swap buttons from a list all day or letting them roll a dice.
As example: very low/no mana regeneration. There could maybe be a class specialized to heal mana, bard-bard or so.
Preparing for battle dont need action bar swap too, u can make the players gather various potions, one use weapons, require them to learn to form a certain formation synchronized so u survive special boss attacks or get a pvp buff while performing in that exact formation or visit the church all together to recieve a specialized important buff and so on.
There is a huge diffrence between pvp combat and pve combat, idk how u could come to another solution.
1. pvp has way more various cc included. This is required since pve enemys would be permastunned otherwise.
2. pvp enemys have a brain. They wont go for the tank, no matter how loud he taunts.
3. pve dps classes focus on a small number of skills which they spam repeatedly in the same order all day. Exept for game mechanics that require u to dodge or so, but after these back to 12345. This is absolutely not the case in competive pvp.
4. pvp enemys can possibly die much faster than pve encounters. (weak open world mobs which u have to kill 10 of for every random quest dont count as pve encounters to me, theyre just an insult to everyone by stealing time)
5. U always go prepared into pve battles. In pvp ur perfectly prepared in max 5% of all fights. Given a choose 20 of 50 spells scenario u will never be perfectly prepared for any pvp oponent ever.
Ppl who hate pvp from the bottom of their hearts wont do pvp even with pvp abilitys true, that wasnt exactly what i meant however, crying pve ppl was a bad example i guess. My point is if u a) refuse to respec all day or b) are limited to do so by a mechanic that prevents respecing at all times, u will necessarily exclude player from participating in either pvp or pve; as u urself mentioned, dying is punished so noone would engage into a fight he has no chance winning.
While loosing a fight is totaly normal ofc, loosing a fight because player xy attacked u and u couldnt shake him off to drag abilitys from ur ability list to ur hotkeys and then loose all ur gear or whatever is.... meh.
Take off your pink glasses, a dynamic open world thats so dynamic that u cant prepare for each pve encounter would require at least 10 times more developer working on the game then ppl playing it at a time.
U couldnt say how to balance 10^40 various specs either, thats only 2,5 choices per hotkey so its not really oversized. Note that balancing isnt just about numbers equaling but also giving every choice a purpose somewhere in the gameworld. gl implementing that :')
All this discussion aside, i have a feeling that everyone including me has a totaly wrong picture of what the developers are planning to do, theyve been talking about so many things which may sound totaly awesome but could mean anything really.
This leaves huge space for imagination and as everyone is painfully waiting for a good mmo to finaly be released they bend all said words so it fits into their imagined perfect game.
I can only hope that they will change anything massively exept the open world visuals from what they have shown in gameplay videos. But idk the visual objects could be modified too, as ive noticed in one video when the mage tried to get back into his village with levitation, either the invisible pathblocking object of the wall or the collision model of the player was smh chunky which is a immersion killer to me, which totaly annoys me in tera too which is also made in unreal engine..
Another example i hardly remember is when he used the monster coin, ran into a tree and glitched to the side instead of running through the leaves.
Time will tell, cant wait for my alpha access to find out :x
So is fun.
Limited hot bar is immersive and fun to me.
It is immersive and fun to SconeOfDoom.
It is immersive and fun to Sidilston.
What's most important is the devs' gameplay and game design philosophy.
Who says that a Fighter will have separate abilities for swinging a sword horizontally and for swinging a sword vertically?
Even if it were separated that way, it's likely a Fighter/Fighter would be able to augment her Horizontal Sword Swing with Vertical Sword Swing.
We will also have to see how combos work mechanically. Do we have to have ultimates slotted on the hotbar or are they triggered by a specific order of ability combos?
Ashes is adding back in some PnP mechanics.
Some people will that.
You might not like that.
You are simply asserting that the game will make people swap abilities all day. Without knowing the details of how abilities are triggered in Ashes and without taking into account how augments affect abilities on the hotbar.
There are other mechanics for limiting abilities besides limiting access to hotbars.
There also are other mechanics for triggering abilities besides having access to more than 10 slots on the hotbar.
Combos and augments being just two easy examples.
In Ashes, PvP combat isn't mechanically different from PvE combat. The gear is exactly the same. The abilities work exactly the same.
Taunt and Lasso will work the same on a PC as they do on an NPC.
Players have a brain, but in Ashes, Taunts mechanically force targets to focus on the Tank. Kind of the opposite of Fear.
Part of the reason for tab target in addition to action combat.
Humans are more versatile when it comes to tactics and strategies than AI. True.
But, both PCs and NPCs will be limited to the 10 abilities on their hotbar.
So, both PCs and NPCs will be spamming those 10 abilities repeatedly rather than players having access to 20-50 abilities while NPCs are limited to 10.
Therefore, the difference between PvP combat and PvP combat will not be as significant as you think.
Also, players will sometimes be driving NPCs and mobs, so it "PvE" won't always be against AI.
The devs will tell you that Ashes is really PvX.
An in-game day doesn't match a real life day. And I don't expect Ashes to restrict us to only swapping the abilities on our hotbars to once every 24 hours of in-game time (6 hours IRL).
I do expect the devs to restrict us to not swapping during combat. Again, the equivalent of not being able to search and find all the specific tools you need in the midst of combat.
But, again, that doesn't necessarily mean that access to abilities during combat will only be limited to the 10 slotted in the
In Ashes, you only lose fear from combat if you die with a high level of Corruption, so I don't know why you mentioned losing gear.
It seems like you're complaining about the mechanics of other games rather than the mechanics in the Ashes game design.
Well my frostmage example was just that, a general example. Im aware frostmages are not in the game. Even if id like to see seperated elements for mages instead of everything mixed together, as its going to happen. But w/e i wont play a mage class anyway so i dont care.
Bringing items to the fight to enable ur skills is a good mechanic, but why couldnt it be used with a bigger actionbar?
I just think that u have too few choices during a fight, with limited actionbars.
I get that most ppl repeat the same 5-10 skills over and over again anyway.
But when i play wow as example, i really use the ~45 skills given to me and would be very happy for another 20-30..
I dont really care if the icons for noncombat abilitys are on a seperate actionbar, as long as i can customise each hotkey freely.
Ofc u could use the same gear and skills in pvp and pve. I even require all mmos to do so to consider them any good. The point is that many abilitys are useless in pve or pvp. U wont use many long cast time attacks in pvp, u wont use much crowdcontrol in pve. Dps classes would eventualy want a decent amount of self heal but none in pve.
I think having all skills aviable means something diffrent for you and me, im fine with having a large array of aoe attacks only or single target skills.
As example Mage-bard could have 25 skills suited to do aoe dmg while mage-warrior has mostly singletarget skills.
Experimenting with skills is a good thing and still is required with alot of skills aviable, each one has a cast time after all so u couldnt just use them all at once lol. The diffrence is that u need to figure out the optimal choice in real time.
"You sound like the kind of person who enjoys growing your knowledge of all of your abilities, learning ability by ability which one should be used where, and then mastering each ability individually to be then used together, rather than mastering different builds as a whole. You sound like you don't like the idea of being limited to the amount of abilities you have access to, as this limits the amount of possibilities and counters in a fight," thats true.
But it doesnt devalue skill, as u mentioned urself its all about knowledge.. The one with more knowledge and practice wins. Instead of the one who accidentaly happen to have the better suited build atm wins.
Ye i really hope they wont stick to 6 skills.. I will still play the game with 20 skills for about 3-4 months i guess as it will be too repetive after some time.
@Dygz
"Immersion is subjective.
So is fun."
Ofc i am just pointing out my personal opinion and i am aware no dev is going to read this to get new ideas anyway.
If the fighter wont have 2 diffrent attacks for his sword, i will be really sad.
I am curious how they will implement boardgame mechanics to extend the value of realtime gameplay, but that wont hold me back, i usualy like boardgames.
If it in any way increases my chance to win a fight and would be possible, i would swap ability after each use of a skill. I take diying in games seriously and am used to prevent it as much as i can, wont stay away from hard challenges like bosses with oneshoot attacks however.
Combos which are all triggered by a certain always same hotkey are such a bad invention which came to mmo's recently... Dumbing the game down even more as all u do is spam that button every 2. time u click something kinda.
Augments will be more static as i understand it.. u will choose a class and a secondary class and ur skills will alwas get the flavor of ur secondary class, unable to change during combat.
Taunt has always been useless in pvp and will be in ashes too. Even if they decide to lock ur target to the tank for 5 seconds, i would still run away hiding behind something and/or heal me up/ use aoe skills. so taunt would still be way weaker than any stun or even root.
The amount of abilitys a npc has is totaly up to the devs and has nothing to do with the amount of abilitys a player has. Wouldnt make any sense to equalize them aswell.
The monstercoin mechanic seems to be some special minigame which i have no interest in at all, i either play against difficult designed pve enemys or pvp enemys with generaly equal chance to win.
"An in-game day doesn't match a real life day. And I don't expect Ashes to restrict us to only swapping the abilities on our hotbars to once every 24 hours of in-game time (6 hours IRL)."
Not sure why u come up with day time, prob because i said i cant use frostbolt 'today'?
U shouldnt take my examples like i want them to implement them 1:1 into the game, its just simple general examples for visualation and understanding purposes.
I think they mentioned, that u still loose stuff if you die with no corruption, even if its no gear, something else then w/e.
I am arguing for huge actionbar space to not dumbing down choices during actual gameplay/combat instead of 10 hotkey spam party.
For that i include stuff the devs want to do and my experience with other games.
I am not complaining about anything thats going to happen, this is just a discussion and im pointing out the advantages a big actionbar can have while beeing aware that many aviable spells are expensive to code so im making compromises too like small range of customisation only (besides secondary classes).
With some hard facts and some of my very own opinion mixed.
Pvp gameplay beeing very diffrent from pve gameplay is a hard fact as example, i dont understand why u guys keep arguing against that. Im not saying one is better than the other, theyre just diffrent. And opinion wise id like to see the developers coming up with ideas to get them closer, so skills useful in pvp will be usefull in pve and the otherway around. Like let the bosses move fast + ignore the tank while he doesnt use the taunt ability which also happens to have a longer cooldown so ppl would instantly have to move way more even without dozens of boss mechanics implemented(which still could be implemented ofc).
I think the systems we want to see are not too diffrent, u guys want many skills to choose before combat starts and i want many skills to choose during combat is the only real diffrence in short words. Or?
1; I didn't say that a Fighter won't have more than two sword attacks. I said they won't be as simplistic as Horizontal Sword Swing and Vertical Sword Swing. But, even if they were, Fighter/Fighter will be able to combine those abilities by augmenting one with the other, only needing 1 slot rather than two.
2: Triggered combos came to MMORPGs in at least as early as 2005 with EQ2. That's not particularly recent given that EQ launched in 1998.
3: Remember I said that Taunt is similar to Fear but it locks you to the Tank. With Fear, you character is forced to run away. With Taunt you're character will be locked on the Tank and unable to run away.
4: Everyone understands that in previous MMOs PvP combat and PvE combat are significantly different.
We are telling you that the Ashes game design changes that - not by changing the behaviors of the AI but by changing the behaviors of the player... as I explained in the previous post.
5: The systems we want to see may be very different, but I'm not discussing systems I'd like to see, rather I'm sharing the details the devs have shared about the Ashes game design.
Which is clearly different from systems you want to see.
The game design limits us to 10 slots on the hotbar. The system you want would more than double that.
The systems are significantly different but that doesn't mean we will be limited to just the abilities slotted in the hotbar because Ashes also includes augments and combos - doubles our abilities at the least.
6: Your fear about the frequency we will be swapping abilities into the hotbar is just a fabricated fear... because you don't have enough details about Ashes combat and gameplay for you to meaningfully support your claim.
What you're asking is for Ashes combat to be like combat in previous MMORPGs...
The reason most of us are here is because Ashes game design is considerably different than what's been provided by previous MMORPGs.
We will have to play the game before we can be sure how fun the implemented features will actually be.
1. Why wouldnt a fighter have simplistic attacks? Do u want to lock him in place to perform a complex attack pattern after 1 button click? Thats not gonna work in pvp, enemys would just go away/be locked in place and die depending on dev choice.
Guess at least one of us didnt understand how augments work, i thought it would work like a static talent tree where u choose which spell gets an augment of ur secondary class and which doesnt. That means u can either use the augmented spell or the standard spell but never both.
As u explain it, its like if u shift+hotkey trigger a spell it would behave augmented or so??
2. Well then i still dont like it, unless u can bind a diffrent hotkey to each combo.
3. so its basicaly fear with glyph from wow. Nice work around i guess.
4. Players wont just change their behavior if theyre not forced to do so.
5. Yup will see if i can enjoy this.
I have seen all streams and read most other stuff too, he was potentialy planning to double the bar to about 20. Cant tell u where he said that anymore however.
6. The combatsystem i would like to see isnt implemented in any mmo at all. So im always dealing with compromises.
Actualy the skills theyve been talking about almost all exist mostly in wow or other mmos too if i remember correctly. Exept the wall effect thats been around in games of other genres only i guess. So we will see if the combat is any diffrent at all. To me it sounds like wow combat with 50% of its skills removed+little innovation for autoattacks.
But if they keep the general look of these futuristic hexagonal blue/transparent wall theyve shown in the mage combat video.. meh.
You act as though there are only two ways to design combat mechanics - either an ability is as simple as "Horizontal Sword Swing" and "Vertical Sword Swing" or so complex that the character is locked into a stance while several animations of attacks play out.
We do get to choose which ability augments an ability from our primary class.
Such that a Fighter/Rogue would be able to augment "Horizontal Sword Swing" with Invisibility... Invisibility would be triggered after after HSS. Rather than Invisibility being slotted on the hotbar.
The same would happen if a Fighter/Fighter augments HSS with VSS. VSS would trigger after HSS and VSS would not have to be on the hotbar. Freeing up an extra slot.
But augments are different from combos.
Combos appear to be abilities that are triggered after a specific sequence of abilities:
Ashes of Creation Livestream June 30, 2017 mark 26:57
STEVEN: We have a keystroke time-frame that activates based off of your weapon use. So, every person is going to have a weapon and that weapon is going to influence the kind of damage they're capable of doing, it's going to have other conditions and stats associated with it. But one of the most integral parts of having a weapon is your Weapon Use ability.
And that Weapon Use ability contains within it a keystroke driven, precision-timing combat system that allocates energy to the ability to use a certain ultimate skill that your class is going to have.
And, for the Tank, he's using that sword and board, so he's going to initiate an attack with his weapon -and that's going to be some slash effect that's going to come down- and while he maintains parity in relationship to the target (of distance), he's going to have the opportunity to keystroke within a certain window of time -during the animation effect while he's slashing- another keystroke which will initiate a combo effect where he will then hit the target with his shield. And then there will be a second combo opportunity -another window that will populate again for him to keystroke at the right time- and he'll do a final smack down with the sword.
And this system is prevalent in all weapon mechanics. All weapon-based skill effects that you're going to be using in the game is going to share this system where you can combo into additional strikes.
JEFFREY: Right. And these additional strikes can have different riders, they could have different abilities based on what type of weapon you have, what kinds of skills you specced into... there's a lot of different ways that you can change those up.
And it kind of takes the place of, you know, the boring auto-attack.
Like this is kind of the primary damage component of your character and then all your (class) abilities kind of supplement that.
STEVEN: And you don;t have to participate in the combo effects. If you wish, you can just activate the attack and let that be your attack. But you have the opportunity to keystroke at the right window of time, and when you do that, you will be generating energy for another skill and that other skill is going to be an Ultimate Effect. Basically something that's going to be very powerful. It's going to imbue your role, your class role and for the Tank, we have an Ultimate Effect that is called...
AKIL: We're calling it "Super Hero Jump" right now. We'll come up with a better name later on, but right now we're thinking the Tank jumps up in the air and slams down like a super hero and does a big Lasso effect for all the targets around it, so it's like a massive, battlefield control.
Tanks Lasso as well as Taunt, which is why you probably won't be running away from a Taunt in PvP.
It's not about players changing their behavior, it's about the devs changing how abilities work and how those changes brings PvP more in line with PvE.
In previous MMORPGs, PCs can basically ignore a Tank's Taunt and run away if they wish. In Ashes, you will be mechanically locked onto the Tank and incapable of simply running away while under the effects of those abilities.
To you, it sounds like WoW combat with 50% of it's skills removed, but that's because you are ignorant of the Ashes combat design.
The Ashes combat design is considerably different than WoW combat design - especially the methods by which abilities are triggered.
In Ashes, triggering abilities isn't limited to the primary ability slotted on the hotbar.
Also, while both Ashes and WoW have an ability called Taunt, that ability works very differently in Ashes than it does in WoW and previous MMORPGs - especially when used on player characters.
Ur the one who came up with no simplistic attacks, idk what "horrizontal sword swing" means to u, but for me it could be any sword attack which does dmg and maybe a debuff, the character could do backflips while performing it idc, its a general example, u dont seem to understant the meaning of general examples during our whole conversation?
I doubt augmented skills will mean that u 'combo' a second skill after ur first, just without pushing buttons.. but we can only guess about it until they show something real.
I understood the combo mechanic, but thanks for the quote refresh anyway.
the main diffrence in combat design between wow and ashes is its combos, which are said to replace autoattacks that use to do about 7-11% dmg in other games.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vx3rXUjr_8zDet3byITbEkZWzemzZfLIXZVdbS2s9R0/edit
The taunt ability works in pve in about the same way as it does in wow; in pvp it is replaced by fear with motionlock glyph of warlocks.
Lasso is litteraly deathknight grip/ there is aoe grip too.
There is a dmg deflection skill in wow too, as well as shield bash.
The healer doing dmg while chainhealing is also possible in wow if u pick the talent on shaman. U could fight in melee range (even with a staff) as monk (just to regain mana) in wow too.
There is a shaman totem to balance out hitpoints of party too.
wow Holy priest can do kinda the exact same resurection skill.
Druids have this ultimate priest skill.
Purge - never seen before cough.
Wow has various fireball abilitys.
Frostnova too.
wow priests have a attack thats called divine star i guess, it acts just as the lightning bolt.
Looks like all mages can blink.
Mirror image is the same too, as well as dmg negation
The ultimate mage skill is a pretty basic wow shaman skill.
Ashes/wow hunters can both powershot with cast time, snare, hamstring, mark a target, dash, rain of arrows, see animals.
What remains is:
Preparing arow shots, Super hero jump which both are 1:1 skills of tera.
and the glorious wall effect ive been talking about already in my previous comment.
What did i miss to be devalued as a ignorant instead of a sceptic by looking at the facts?
I have never seen attack abilities on a hotbar that are that simplistic in an an MMORPG.
Maybe auto-attack is as simplistic as one of those, but typically that's a key stroke rather than on the hotbar.
And even when an auto-attack is on the hotbar, it's not separated by horizontal auto-attack and vertical auto-attack - in an MMORPG.
If you meant some other kind of ability that includes a debuff, you could just use the name of that ability...from whatever MMORPG you like...if you don't have an example from Ashes.
RE: augmentations
http://www.zam.com/article/1449/a-chat-with-ashes-of-creations-steven-sharif
The secondary archetype lets you augment the skills of the first. For example, taking Mage as your secondary archetype lets you add a teleportation effect to your Fighter's Rush skill, letting you instantly teleport to your foe. Alternatively a Rogue's augmentation would grant invisibility during your Rush attack. "It takes another archetype and blends a bit of flavor into your primary skill set," adds Sharif.
I will add the direct quote when I have time to search through the vids.
Saying that you doubt how augments work demonstrates that you don't know much about the Ashes game design.
There is no devaluing in being ignorant.
Ignorant means that you don't have sufficient knowledge about something.
You consistently demonstrate that you don't have enough knowledge about the Ashes game design to accurately relay facts.
In this case, you are acting skeptical because you are ignorant of the Ashes game design.
You have to learn the facts first.
"Ashes/wow hunters can both powershot with cast time, snare, hamstring, mark a target, dash, rain of arrows, see animals."
That shows ignorance of Ashes game design; not skepticism.
Ashes Rangers have some similarities with WoW Hunters, sure.
Ashes Tanks have some similarities with WoW Tanks, sure.
They are also distinctly different. And you are ignorant of the ways in which they are different.
Which is easily rectified by learning more about Ashes game design.
Again, horizontal strike is a placeholder name for any attack that does melee dmg and requires a weapon, throwing a random existing attack name into the conversation would have limited my statement, it was a undefined example for a reason. This goes towards vertical strike too. If u cant imagine such kind of spell we better stop talking at this point.
You say "You act as though there are only two ways to design combat mechanics - either an ability is as simple as "Horizontal Sword Swing" and "Vertical Sword Swing" or so complex that the character is locked into a stance while several animations of attacks play out."
and seconds later u give a example for augments that describe this exactly
"The same would happen if a Fighter/Fighter augments HSS with VSS. VSS would trigger after HSS and VSS would not have to be on the hotbar."
"For example, taking Mage as your secondary archetype lets you add a teleportation effect to your Fighter's Rush skill"
I remember this phrase very well, as well as most other things they said.
But with ur explanation he would rush to the target and teleport away immediately after that. This wouldnt make any logical sense. Instead the rush is replaced by a Backstab ability, which btw is also present in any mmo i played.
Mixing up existing skills (coming all from 1 game basicaly) wont make me say something is 'distinctly different' just because it has little other stuff mixed to it like choosing between 8 instead of 3 skill sets and a new kind of 'ultimate skill-energy gathering-combo attack'.
If thats a bad or good thing is yet to be seen, i generaly like wow combat, exept the easy pve content.
If they manage to make the combat just a little bit more interesting than wow combat, im as happy as u will be.
Theres no more to say from my point, wish u the best.
VSS triggering after HSS does not mean that you are locked into a stance until the attack animations complete.
Ashes is action combat, like NWO.
We aren't locked in a stance during combat, like EQ, WoW and Pantheon.
You think that Invisibility wouldn't trigger after HSS because you have those extremes of thought I mentioned before.
Which is fine - I will hunt and share the direct dev quote regarding the Invisibility augment. When I have the time to hunt.
In Ashes, augments don't simply replace the primary ability.
Ashes combat won't be just a little bit more interesting than WoW combat.
Ashes combat is significantly different than WoW combat in several ways.
JEFFREY: We don't want 30 abilities on your bar. We want it to be contained. We want tactics to matter. We want strategy to matter. And you can't do that when you're just clicking on everything.
So, having a contained bar that has a contained number of skills... we haven't really dialed down what the good point on that is...but it's definitely going to be contained and it's definitely not going to be 30.
There will be exceptional reactives and stuff, that you use in response to what's going on and those might be ancillary that add to your bar, but it's not going to be 30.
STEVEN: And most importantly, our class system relates to a primary and secondary class that you choose from 8 archetypes. So, when you first get into the game and you're choosing your adventuring class, you're going to choose from one of those 8 archetypes that include 4 martial classes and four arcane classes.
And as you develop that, you're going to have a chance to choose again from one of those 8 archetypes, either doubling down on the direction you've chosen or incorporating some elements of another class.
And those elements include augmenting your original skills; not adding additional skills, but augmenting those original skills you chose as your primary class with the flavor from your secondary class.
So, we gave a good example a while ago when we spoke about how a Fighter has a Rush ability, where they'll have a target and they'll be rushing towards that target and upon impact will deal xx damage and then potentially a condition modifier like a stun or a trip or something.
Let's say that Fighter were to choose mage as his secondary class and he would have a range of options as his augments that he could apply to his Rush skill. One of those options would be the Teleport augment, where a Mage is versatile in teleportation and mobility around the battlefield. Well, he could apply that Teleport augment to his Rush skill, where now instead of initiating that Rush, he would teleport immediately to the target and then deal x damage and potentially a condition modifier, therefore eliminating that time to impact and potential to be crowd-controlled or damage to himself.
So we want players to have a lot of versatility in customizing their class to represent how they play and getting a little bit of flavor from the other archetypes with their primary class.
JEFFREY: Yes. When we talk about that contained bar, it's not that you're not going to have a lot of choices. You're going to be able to build your character with the active skills that you want, but you're not going to be able to have everything.
That's where the containment comes from.
Ashes of Creation Kickstarter Livestream May 3, 2017 mark 49:48
STEVEN: Stealth as a primary skill is going to be reserved for the Rogue archetype. However, if you have another archetype and you've taken a secondary class and you've chosen the Rogue secondary class, there will be augment ability applications to some of your primary, existing skills.
A good example of that would be, again, the Fighter and that Rush ability:
When I said the Fighter had chosen that secondary class as a Mage, if they had chosen a Rogue, they could potentially have had a stealth ability occur when they're doing the Rush.
As for un-optimized builds being held in low esteem? Pft. Get new friends, and run with them. I've said before and I'll say again, our group absolutely thrives on the knowledge that, even with our "un-optimized" players, we can clear content, and we can make sure everyone had fun doing it and felt they were a vital, integral part of the team.
Cuz, ya know, they were.
Hm.
Rather, Rush is an attack which includes moving quickly to the target and then dealing damage and potentially a condition modifier upon impact.
Augmenting with Teleport does not merely replace the Rush ability.
Augmenting Rush with Teleport modifies Rush such that it gains the additional benefit of immediate movement. Augmenting with teleport makes the Rush ability faster without taking up an extra slot on the hotbar or relying on a hotkey to activate Teleport.
Augmenting Rush with Invisibility modifies Rush such that it gains the additional benefit of Invisibility when Rush is activated. Without the need for Invisibility to be slotted on the hotbar or triggered by a hotkey.
It's not a "combo". Rather it is an augmented ability that has both the effects of the primary ability and some of the secondary ability.
Thus, VSS being triggered after HSS does not inherently mean that a character will be locked into a stance until both animations complete. Nor does it mean that the length of time it takes to complete the augmented ability/animation will be equal to or greater than the full lengths of each ability combined.
When the augment triggers -before, during or after- the primary ability will be different depending on the augment and on the primary ability.
Sure, it could be that the VSS augment is triggered before HSS, rather than after HSS.
The point remains that both abilities would be triggered by activating HSS without the need to trigger VSS separately.
guess that made it more clear, ty.
Even noticed something sweet that i missed before while listening to the stream again. "he would have a range of options as his augments that he could apply to his Rush skill."
Thought i could choose to either use the 1 augment or none per skill
@Isende
Thats not exactly what i said, i made a calculation to point out the difficulty of balancing skills. And as u can see the number, it cant have decent balance optimization. Sure not 100% of all skills will affect each other but the number gives a rough idea.
So the balance will always be a little off, as they wont be abel to calculate instead only use their feeling what could work and what not. This 'can' turn out well, but it can also be horrible for a very long time. And a proudly called great game shouldnt rely on permanent balancing fixes after release in my opinion.
I do like to choose my favorite skills to use as much as everyone else, but to overcome the balancing issue i came up with no customisation but as thats too boring, atleast it would have a lot of skills from the beginning.
Even better would be huge amount of skills and customisation, but thats even more impossible so i dont consider it.
I prob could write a paragraph to each sentence i said with further explanation, but i dont have time for this x.x