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.
Comments
Apparently people can't understand the shorter posts.
They just added Permutation/Combination to the discussion, with side of marginal probability distrubition. If they continue and I accomplish to read eventually 'till midterms, I think I can finally pass my Statistics and Probability class. I hate that class.
I'm insure why this concept is so hard for people to grasp or accept.
Also......when you have everything at your disposal you are spending more time becoming the master of where every button is rather than actually playing the game. Most of us are not button pushing masters who can scroll through their 10 different menus and hit the correct key or have a special mouse that has 40 different abilities mapped to it. I commend those that can do that but this is not going to be one of those games so maybe AoC is not going to be the game for you.
aight lets stop this, we're on a totaly diffrent wavelength once again.
@Ferryman
I can't write small text's as Dygz twists every word i dont say into a mechanic that would be counter productive to my statement. So apparently my text is still way to short.
Guess this time the main part was that he's thinking every extra skill would be a solution to a totaly new problem, which never was my intention at all, but one cant talk about way deeper mechanics if theres the need to talk about minoritys every time.
@Dolphin
I just made use of one formula so it wouldnt be enough to pass your exam, but gl anyway
@PlagueMonk
Its hard to accept, because there is a solution to get people that like small skillbars and people that like big skillbars into the boat.
But guess your right this wont be the long term game for me, i never thought dev's would change their system depending on our discussion anyway.
I will enjoy alpha and beta regardless.
I'm sure you would say that each person could use as many ability buttons/bars as they are comfortable with but it once more comes back to the fact that only those who are using all of their abilities at once are going to be the best. Those using less are effectively gimping themselves. I think the Devs see that and are trying to avoid it.
I believe we are all on the same wavelength and understand each other, we just want different things. I'm sure if IS was going the every ability route I would be bitching about it and wanting less
Hopefully you can come to terms with it and your experience testing will give you enough of an appreciation for the system that you stay for release
And under this premise, one should be able to make builds that are viable for all game modes, because you can't reskill multiple times per day. And in your words, this requires a bigger toolbox or skill bar.
No one build should be viable for every situation; it takes away from strategic game-play as it makes it so you don't have to plan ahead because you will always have everything you possibly need on hand at all times (again which takes away from Intrepid's vision of strategic situational combat).
You won't have to pay to swap out skills on your skill bar and you won't need to go to a trainer to switch out abilities either. I'm not sure how redoing your bar constitutes going to your class trainer because class trainers just teach new skills (I am not entirely sure I understand what you mean by "reskill[ing] multiple times per day"). Just drag and drop skills from your skill book when you need to change up your build. But alas, some people do not want to have to switch out skills. The only way for that to work is for the skill bar to be big enough for you to have a skill for every situation available to you at the same time, which leads me back to the beginning of this comment.
And yes, there are people that don't want to switch around skills and I'm one of them. I've done that in GW2 and I find it very annoying. Tag along a zerg in WvW, switch to zerg skills. Come near a keep, switch to siege skills. Volunteer to get some more supplies, switch to small group skills. Crossing a bridge, switch to knockbacks. For me, this type of "planning ahead" is very shallow, and mostly busywork.
The requirement to only be out of combat to switch skills is much to lax. In my experience, the risk of getting caught and nailed down with the wrong skill set is negligible.
I never asked whether or not there were people who don't want to switch skills. I acknowledged that there are people with that preference, then explained why they may be disappointed because of the Devs' current game philosophy.
Why on top of that should Intrepid also limit the number of skills available?
When it comes to PvE, it doesn't provide more "build diversity" - theorycrafters are quick to determine which skills don't contribute enough to warrant a skill slot. After all, it's all about numbers and numbers don't lie.
In the end, you'll have people run the exact same builds & most of the "options" go unused.
In PvP, limiting the amount of skills you can have on your bar kills any situational skill & makes sure they're never ever used by anyone.
It also kills any ability with long cooldown, or would force you to get out of combat & swap that ability out whenever it's on cooldown. It's not practical.
This has happened in every game I've played that limits you to 10-12 skills only.
You don't really get "more choices", you get the illusion of a choice
Also to people saying having less skills means more challenging combat: take a look at Blade&Soul (arguably the most skill based MMO out there) - you have dozens of different skills available to you at a time, different stances which swap your skills etc.
I don't think it's fair to say that less skills=more skill
hope they will increase the number from 12 to .. at least 20 : )
there would be still enough space for build variety
There doesn't need to be a fixed number of skills.
You could build a talent tree in a way that lets you choose a kind of augment option for each skill they plan to create.
Till now, you could spend 12 points to select 12 abilitys.
1 point=1 ability.
This could be changed to: you could spend 12 points to select 12 ability types.
1 point=choose between 3 sets of abilitys that look similar to the following example:
You spend 1 point into the actual Fleeting Shot ability of the hunter.
You now have 3 choices A,B,C:
A: You get 1 ability: 1. jump backwards, 20 meter, 10 seconds cooldown.
B: You get 2 abilitys: 1. jump backwards, 20 meter, 14 seconds cooldown,
2. jump backwards, 10 meter, 7 seconds cooldown.
C: You get 3 abilitys: 1. jump backwards, 20 meter, 16 seconds cooldown,
2. jump backwards, 10 meter, 8 seconds cooldown,
3. jump backwards(+higher), 15 meter, 32 seconds cooldown.
If one of these spells get triggered, all of them get the cooldown:
if you pick C and use jump nr. 3 you wont be abel to use jump nr.2 for 32 seconds.
Everything would need to be balanced ofc, so option C would only end up beeing ~3% better than option B and ~6% better than option A. And only if the player makes use of the extra choices perfectly.
With that system included into every skill, all players can decide how many skills they want to play with (between 12 and 36 atleast).
It doesnt have to be just about diffrent cooldowns and range, subject to change could be probably everything, dmg output, mana costs, cast times, duration, and whatever other things a skill might do.
The talent trees are way more than 12 skills.
And there are an extensive number of augments available - tons.
With the design as is, players can already choose how many active skills they want on the hotbar - 10-23 at least.
Based on what we know so far.
You get 3 abilitys: 1. jump backwards, 20 meter, 16 seconds cooldown,
2. jump backwards, 10 meter, 8 seconds cooldown,
3. jump backwards(+higher), 15 meter, 32 seconds cooldown.
Those are not augments. And they're not the way augments work.
Augments are different abilities.
Adding a self-heal or Invisibility which will also trigger with the primary ability of Shield Might.
Such that triggering Shield Might also triggers the Invisibility augment. Both will be on the same cool-down.
A Tank/Tank could potentially augment Shield Might with Shield Might and increase the damage of that ability. Sure.
Or the Tank/Tank could augment Shield Might with Hatred - and free up a slot on the hotbar might normally hold Hatred.
Here we go again, this wasn't what im talking about AT ALL.
ofc you will still be abel to put your 12 points into the 30? skills they're planning to implement anyway. Theyre just given another plateau into the tree.
If i call it augments or blue apples doesnt matter at all.
It is definitely compatible with their augment method and in no terms ment to replace it.
The system without my idea:
you have 12 points.
you choose 12 skills out of ~30 by spending 1 point.
you will then be abel to augment your 12 choosen skills.
.
The system with my idea:
you have 12 points.
you choose 12 pools (out of ~30 pools) of skills that contain a choice between 1, 2 or 3 skills that are more or less the same and reasonable balanced approximately as described above.
you will then be abel to augment your x choosen skills. (x ∈ [12-36])
We have 30 points for skills; not just 30 skills.
Augments are a whole different feature that includes a much larger set of effects and abilities. So what you call augments matters very much.
Your vision of how skills and augments work is misinformation.
You keep trying to "fix" a system that you don't even understand.
But they are literally different abilities rather than upgrades of the same ability.
"I'm saying there will be more than 30 skills."
Yes maybe, the number isnt set and is going to be around 30 and 40 from what people know. thats why i wrote ~30 not 30.
"We have 30 points for skills; not just 30 skills."
If we'd regulary have 30 points in the way i used these measurement, we'd all have 30 skills. This is just wrong.
"Augments are a whole different feature that includes a much larger set of effects and abilities."
Yes i'm aware of that, and it has its well defined and untouched place within my idea.
"So what you call augments matters very much."
We can pretend i never mentioned augments in my 2. sentence of my initial idea, it wouldnt change any meanings. So no it doesnt matter.
I just thought, a familar name that has a similar functionality would make it easier to understand. That why i said "kind of augment option" with focus on "kind of like the option part of augments".
I dont want to talk with you anymore.
From what i understood, augments enhance an ability and aren't seperate abilities in of themselves. They are more like the morphs in ESO.
They also aren't full versions of the primary ability.
Tank/Clerics can augment their primary abilities with Cleric heals - but they will be self-heals only.
Tank/Rogue can augment their abilities with Invisibility.
The augments cannot be slotted on the hotbar by themselves and they won't be as strong as the primary versions of those abilities.
We will have 30 points for skills. Skill trees will be way larger than 30 skills.
The way you are using these measurements is just wrong. That is exactly my point. Yes.
Your idea is still completely unnecessary, counter to the devs' objectives and shows a poor understanding of the current design.
Regardless of the terms you use.
(up-down-left-right on D-pad, L1&2, R1&2, A, B, X, Y, start, select, and each stick on click.)
now for most games thats good enough and in some cases more buttons make it better such as weapon swapping in twitch FPS's.
But when you start having over 2 rows of active skills and half are a once in a blue moon use I feel your really just making crap for the sake of making crap instead of improving on what you really have.
also not saying I plan on using a controller for this game, but I would give it a try, just making the point most games start counting things as in excess when they run out of buttons to click.
Even games that used the active skills around the WASD (ctrl,shift,tab,1,2,3,4,Q,E,R,Z,X) get annoying trying to hit 4, then tab, then ctrl, followed by X and not C, all in combo order all while trying to still move with WASD, its a crappy time and you just end up getting a mouse with extra buttons to program. Once again ignoring move and camera your under 16 buttons with that controller set up.
i thought they try to make combat fast .. not like FF or Eso or any other Crap game out there.