Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
My PAX Experience [Long as f*ck]
ArchivedUser
Guest
I figure I should start this off by prefacing that I am in no way a professional be it at video games or reviewing, most if not all of this will be opinionated in some way. I'll be doing my best to describe my experience without typing as much as I know I could. Also do note this is pre-alpha, literally everything here is subject to or "at risk" of being changed, take this all with a grain of salt. Also do note that info was gained both from playing, as well as hovering over people playing as I started to walk around and help out players who hadn't gotten to play yet. (If you can't be bothered to read this all, I don't blame you, skip to the bottom for the TL;DR)
First off PAX was a blast, that's easy to believe I'm sure. And I have to say I missed out on experiencing the PvE content first hand. but there are a few reasons for that, the PvE was harder to get into due to length of time spent in it as well as it was the more popular choice as I'm sure most avoided PvP figuring they'd learn the classes in PvE first. I myself took the opportunity each time it was available to shortcut the line to play PvP as they commonly needed more players. I got to the point where all I know is I probably played PvP 20+ times, all the Devs knew my face due to this. I primarily played Cleric, if I had to guess I'd say I played 3 games as mage, 2 as ranger, and whatever the rest (15+???) as cleric.
I personally loved playing it, I went in knowing it was not going to be perfect, and that was fine with me, I thirsted for more gameplay. It got to the point where I started playing solely to see how I could break the game, what bugs I could find, and then talk with the Devs about it, which got most of us a laugh, and as a side reason of possibly propelling myself into the industry by doing more QA for Intrepid studios. (waiting on that reply from Jeff
) As far as class balance went it was common knowledge by the devs that Cleric was strong as hell, and Cleric + Tank was probably only beatable by another Cleric + Tank. Cleric could basically 1v1 any of the other 3 classes, and was to be feared. For me of course that was fun as I primarily and almost exclusively played Cleric, and that made the class feel impactful for a mix of good and bad reasons. This of course being pre-alpha you can expect that to get touched on. With that being said Ranger was commonly noted to feel clunky/unimpactful, I'd say that's due to the Ranger's kit being set up to play more rogue-like for this. I personally loved playing the Hunter in the short amount of time that I did. Before I get onto another tangent I'll move on.
To get more in depth with things I will start with Cleric, it is the class I played the most, and one that I often play (Clerics and Rogues being my top played roles). Cleric was beyond satisfying to play, I felt I could both thrive in the background and maintain a wider view of the field, or up close and personal to maximize the raw aoe damage that the Cleric could pump out.
For those of you wanting some numbers I will input those now before continuing.
Staff combo: 0 sec CD (there is a slight delay before you can use it again if you fail to combo)
Righteous Blessing: 15 sec CD
Lifeline: 25 sec CD (the aoe dmg this ability can do is nuts)
Endow Life: 40 sec CD (when they said massive heal, holy crap it is massive)
Life's Balance: 35 sec CD (my favorite spell alongside Lifeline and Stolen Blessing)
Stolen Blessing: 22 sec (standing in this as an enemy was a bad idea)
Divine Form: 70 sec + focus requirement
Cleanse: n/a for PvP
Harvest: n/a for PvP
Now as I was saying with Cleric, being in the frey was not forced, but you were greatly rewarded for it, the damage and additional healing you did when you were up close was intense. And the Cleric only became more scary if you were CC'd at all. As well as trying to 1v1 the cleric was a waste of time, you weren't going to win unless the Cleric was on their 1st or 2nd game. There were not many that were as adamant as I to keep playing. If a Cleric and Tank coordinated well the fights were always in their favor.
Next I'll talk about Mage as I feel I played enough to at least make some decent comments though not as in depth as with Cleric. Firstly Mage was pretty scary, the amount of damage you could deal (that is if you landed your skillshots) was beautiful. I've personally one shot all four enemies as a mage because I was able to line up all my abilities on the enemy team whilst I had the enemy Cleric frozen. The Mage came equipped with 2 forms of back up, in the form of ignoring damage for 4 secs and a medium range blink, knowing when to use these was important to not getting one shot. The biggest balancing factor to Mage was going OOM which was highly likely if you were not careful, as well as if you weren't weaving in your basic combo ability between spells you were wasting a lot of damage. Another thing that was nice (sorta) for Mage was there were a few bugs/exploits in the Mage's favor, but as those aren't important to the overall feel and will be expected to be removed as I made sure to make the devs aware to each one I found and tested. Overall I'd say Mage was second only to Cleric.
Up next is Ranger, which I enjoyed but honestly it felt like Ranger was better off sneaking around and doing the objective (which most people ignored), Ranger felt very outclassed as far as the power level of each class in a solo scenario. That being said, Ranger was beautiful when with another class, I never felt like I was pumping out major damage like I'd want to but I felt illusive and at least useful in fights due to the damage increase from my mark, and the CC from my snare ability. A marked target was doomed if the Mage was nearby. I may be extra bias as I did say Ranger felt like playing Rogue a bit and that is a class I enjoy, so take that as you will. I'd still say Ranger was the weakest but I enjoyed playing it...bias op?
Lastly Tank, I did not play tank, most of my info will be based from playing with the tank (the tank player was seated next to the cleric) and playing against the tank. So you may want to ask someone who played this class more. That being said, Tank was pretty scary, not as much as the Cleric, but a monster in his own right. Put him with any of the other 3 classes and you're dead if successfully impaled, or even in a 1v1 if you were Mage or Ranger, you had to play it safe. Arguably this got harder against someone who knew some exploits around the impale; once again not truly important but I figure I'd mention it as both Ranger and Mage had an(a few) exploits to avoid the pull of the impale. IMO he was most scary with a Cleric at his side, though I believe most people knew this; those two together were nearly unkillable.
To quickly talk about PvP itself I like the idea of how the control points were handled, even if the skill level was one-sided the "noob team" could easily win if they at least knew to keep objectives. Which let me say that in a more friendly manner, the objectives were emphasized, sure killing the enemy team was fun, but in the end it was pointless unless you were holding more control points otherwise you could be the higher skilled team as far as team combat goes but if the other team held more objectives you were playing yourselves and wasting time that could have been spent trying to recapture enemy points. As a side note, the UI was basic, as to be expected, that of which I had no problem with, I realized fully what to expect and what to not expect. I can expand more on this if you'd like.
TL;DR
-Fear the Cleric; Cleric could deal nearly as much damage as the Mage. A Cleric who managed cooldowns well and was patient could 1v1 anyone. (Cleric v Cleric was a waste of both of their time)
-The Mage was highly glass cannon with 2 good back up plans for disengage. Being mindful of your mana was a must. Did not fear tank due to exploits, otherwise you would have. Keep in mind that being pre-alpha bugs were to be expected.
-The Ranger, had some clunkiness which caused it to feel like the least powerful class, was powerful when paired with the Mage as you enabled the Mage to one-shot a target with ease. Also lacked a fear of the tank if you knew the exploit(s).
-Ahhh poor Tank, took the bad end on a lot of exploits, albeit having a massively game breaking one himself. If we took a step back from that fact, then the Tank was a menace to be avoided. His lockdown and combo potential was gorgeous, and well as I've mentioned more than needed, Cleric made him even crazier.
I'll likely make another or more posts, idk we'll see. I'll answer whatever questions I can below or feel free to PM me at Sithis#4168 on Discord, I do have a google doc on the bugs/exploits I found/tested so PM'ing me would be the way to go if you would like access to that. I surely missed something even with all the notes I took. If you take nothing else from this, just know I loved every moment of PAX, PvP was enjoyable, finding all the bugs and exploits I could and breaking their game was fun in it's own right. 10/10 would do again, I can't wait to see what's next. (HMU with that Alpha 0 :^) )
First off PAX was a blast, that's easy to believe I'm sure. And I have to say I missed out on experiencing the PvE content first hand. but there are a few reasons for that, the PvE was harder to get into due to length of time spent in it as well as it was the more popular choice as I'm sure most avoided PvP figuring they'd learn the classes in PvE first. I myself took the opportunity each time it was available to shortcut the line to play PvP as they commonly needed more players. I got to the point where all I know is I probably played PvP 20+ times, all the Devs knew my face due to this. I primarily played Cleric, if I had to guess I'd say I played 3 games as mage, 2 as ranger, and whatever the rest (15+???) as cleric.
I personally loved playing it, I went in knowing it was not going to be perfect, and that was fine with me, I thirsted for more gameplay. It got to the point where I started playing solely to see how I could break the game, what bugs I could find, and then talk with the Devs about it, which got most of us a laugh, and as a side reason of possibly propelling myself into the industry by doing more QA for Intrepid studios. (waiting on that reply from Jeff
) As far as class balance went it was common knowledge by the devs that Cleric was strong as hell, and Cleric + Tank was probably only beatable by another Cleric + Tank. Cleric could basically 1v1 any of the other 3 classes, and was to be feared. For me of course that was fun as I primarily and almost exclusively played Cleric, and that made the class feel impactful for a mix of good and bad reasons. This of course being pre-alpha you can expect that to get touched on. With that being said Ranger was commonly noted to feel clunky/unimpactful, I'd say that's due to the Ranger's kit being set up to play more rogue-like for this. I personally loved playing the Hunter in the short amount of time that I did. Before I get onto another tangent I'll move on.To get more in depth with things I will start with Cleric, it is the class I played the most, and one that I often play (Clerics and Rogues being my top played roles). Cleric was beyond satisfying to play, I felt I could both thrive in the background and maintain a wider view of the field, or up close and personal to maximize the raw aoe damage that the Cleric could pump out.
For those of you wanting some numbers I will input those now before continuing.
Staff combo: 0 sec CD (there is a slight delay before you can use it again if you fail to combo)
Righteous Blessing: 15 sec CD
Lifeline: 25 sec CD (the aoe dmg this ability can do is nuts)
Endow Life: 40 sec CD (when they said massive heal, holy crap it is massive)
Life's Balance: 35 sec CD (my favorite spell alongside Lifeline and Stolen Blessing)
Stolen Blessing: 22 sec (standing in this as an enemy was a bad idea)
Divine Form: 70 sec + focus requirement
Cleanse: n/a for PvP
Harvest: n/a for PvP
Now as I was saying with Cleric, being in the frey was not forced, but you were greatly rewarded for it, the damage and additional healing you did when you were up close was intense. And the Cleric only became more scary if you were CC'd at all. As well as trying to 1v1 the cleric was a waste of time, you weren't going to win unless the Cleric was on their 1st or 2nd game. There were not many that were as adamant as I to keep playing. If a Cleric and Tank coordinated well the fights were always in their favor.
Next I'll talk about Mage as I feel I played enough to at least make some decent comments though not as in depth as with Cleric. Firstly Mage was pretty scary, the amount of damage you could deal (that is if you landed your skillshots) was beautiful. I've personally one shot all four enemies as a mage because I was able to line up all my abilities on the enemy team whilst I had the enemy Cleric frozen. The Mage came equipped with 2 forms of back up, in the form of ignoring damage for 4 secs and a medium range blink, knowing when to use these was important to not getting one shot. The biggest balancing factor to Mage was going OOM which was highly likely if you were not careful, as well as if you weren't weaving in your basic combo ability between spells you were wasting a lot of damage. Another thing that was nice (sorta) for Mage was there were a few bugs/exploits in the Mage's favor, but as those aren't important to the overall feel and will be expected to be removed as I made sure to make the devs aware to each one I found and tested. Overall I'd say Mage was second only to Cleric.
Up next is Ranger, which I enjoyed but honestly it felt like Ranger was better off sneaking around and doing the objective (which most people ignored), Ranger felt very outclassed as far as the power level of each class in a solo scenario. That being said, Ranger was beautiful when with another class, I never felt like I was pumping out major damage like I'd want to but I felt illusive and at least useful in fights due to the damage increase from my mark, and the CC from my snare ability. A marked target was doomed if the Mage was nearby. I may be extra bias as I did say Ranger felt like playing Rogue a bit and that is a class I enjoy, so take that as you will. I'd still say Ranger was the weakest but I enjoyed playing it...bias op?
Lastly Tank, I did not play tank, most of my info will be based from playing with the tank (the tank player was seated next to the cleric) and playing against the tank. So you may want to ask someone who played this class more. That being said, Tank was pretty scary, not as much as the Cleric, but a monster in his own right. Put him with any of the other 3 classes and you're dead if successfully impaled, or even in a 1v1 if you were Mage or Ranger, you had to play it safe. Arguably this got harder against someone who knew some exploits around the impale; once again not truly important but I figure I'd mention it as both Ranger and Mage had an(a few) exploits to avoid the pull of the impale. IMO he was most scary with a Cleric at his side, though I believe most people knew this; those two together were nearly unkillable.
To quickly talk about PvP itself I like the idea of how the control points were handled, even if the skill level was one-sided the "noob team" could easily win if they at least knew to keep objectives. Which let me say that in a more friendly manner, the objectives were emphasized, sure killing the enemy team was fun, but in the end it was pointless unless you were holding more control points otherwise you could be the higher skilled team as far as team combat goes but if the other team held more objectives you were playing yourselves and wasting time that could have been spent trying to recapture enemy points. As a side note, the UI was basic, as to be expected, that of which I had no problem with, I realized fully what to expect and what to not expect. I can expand more on this if you'd like.
TL;DR
-Fear the Cleric; Cleric could deal nearly as much damage as the Mage. A Cleric who managed cooldowns well and was patient could 1v1 anyone. (Cleric v Cleric was a waste of both of their time)
-The Mage was highly glass cannon with 2 good back up plans for disengage. Being mindful of your mana was a must. Did not fear tank due to exploits, otherwise you would have. Keep in mind that being pre-alpha bugs were to be expected.
-The Ranger, had some clunkiness which caused it to feel like the least powerful class, was powerful when paired with the Mage as you enabled the Mage to one-shot a target with ease. Also lacked a fear of the tank if you knew the exploit(s).
-Ahhh poor Tank, took the bad end on a lot of exploits, albeit having a massively game breaking one himself. If we took a step back from that fact, then the Tank was a menace to be avoided. His lockdown and combo potential was gorgeous, and well as I've mentioned more than needed, Cleric made him even crazier.
I'll likely make another or more posts, idk we'll see. I'll answer whatever questions I can below or feel free to PM me at Sithis#4168 on Discord, I do have a google doc on the bugs/exploits I found/tested so PM'ing me would be the way to go if you would like access to that. I surely missed something even with all the notes I took. If you take nothing else from this, just know I loved every moment of PAX, PvP was enjoyable, finding all the bugs and exploits I could and breaking their game was fun in it's own right. 10/10 would do again, I can't wait to see what's next. (HMU with that Alpha 0 :^) )
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Comments
http://aocwiki.net/Main_Page -Comprehensive guide to Ashes of Creation.
Ba dum bum! Thank you! I'll be here all week.
Yeah, the strength of the Ranger in PvP at PAX was playing the objective...which is what I prefer to do in PvP anyways.
It was common for most people to "waste time" fighting each other while I racked up points capturing pylons. (I only played Ranger)
One important key to roleplaying is knowing what your combat/group role is.
It's not always about fighting you're opponents.
The nice thing to note of course for everyone here again is this is pre-alpha it was goinf have flaws, but going in knowing that helps make it more fun
Also, I didn't figure out how to mouse-steer my avatar until my second play-through (holding right mouse button) which felt very clunky to me.
I prefer to steer the character solely with the mouse and use my right hand on the number keys above the letters or...
Steer the character with WASD and click the hot-bar buttons with left-mouse click.
Neither of which seemed to work.
Moving the character with WASD while trying to reach number keys -especially 6 and 7- felt way too clunky.
If they keep the controls like that, I'd probably hope to be able to map and switch to a console controller.
Really indepth and fun to read feedback! Thankyou so much for taking your time and giving such a wonderful reflection of your time at PAX!
Sounds like you had an amazing time and I really wish I was with you!
Thankyou for the detailed descriptions of how the archetypes felt! Much appreciated especially for us that could not attend!