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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.
Concerns about class utility skills
ArchivedUser
Guest
From what we saw on PAX for now, and from streams, my concern is that mage may have more useful class utility compared to other classes.
This is why:
- (low usability skill) TANK has utility to warn you about dangers around and incoming attacks, but even without this utility (if you are some other class) you still get to fight what attacks you, it may catch you at surprise, but if you are good player, no problem, you fight it and are ok.
- (low usability skill) RANGER has tracking skill, so you can faster find what you are looking for, for example in caravan stream, but even without this skill, with trial and error you will find stuff, could just take more time, so again you can do without this skill.
- (medium usability skill) CLERIC can cleanse an area of a poison and stuff, but even if you don't cleanse, and you are good healer or have pots, you can perhaps survive through it, or you can go around poisonous area, and again you would be OK (not sure if there will be such poisonous areas that instant kill you and there is no other way around, but I doubt that).
- (possibly high usability skill) MAGE can unlock hidden passages, or other terrain that leads you to places you can't otherwise reach. Some places you can probably reach by alternative routes, but the main question is can ALL places be reached by alternate routes that don't require having a mage? For example, discovering hidden entrance to the cave. Does every such cave have another entrance that is not hidden that you can venture to if you don't have a mage?
Lets say that all routes that mage could uncover have alternative ways, only in such case his skill wouldn't be unbalanced and might be ok. But will everywhere be such alternate routes?
But now we jump to PvP perspective!
- Tank skill warns about incoming danger (useless in PvP? How can system know if player wishes to flag on you and attack you or just wishes to pass through). Can you detect rogues? Maybe then skill would be ok.
- Ranger tracking also seems it will be useless in PvP. Can you track where people you fought with run away? (I doubt it... only in this case ranges skill would be somewhat useful, or if you can detect rogues be seeing their tracks when you use this skill).
- Cleric can cleanse area poisons... I also doubt this will be any useful in PvP, since PvP is mostly too fast paced for this to be worth it even if it would function in PvP, and people will rather just move away from poisons than spend time cleansing the area. Maybe if tanks can detect traps placed in advanced by PLAYERS (for example placed on caravan routes), and then cleric can "dispel" those traps so they don't activate, then maybe this skill would be somewhat useful in PvP, but still PvP action is usually too fast paced for this to seem usable in middle of some action.
- MAGE... summons floating rock at a distance, and then bubble floats to it, or teleports to it, and shoots people from above? (Can anyone reach all floating rocks that mage uncovers everywhere regardless of class? Or some rocks are further apart and only reached by floating / teleport?) --- Or mage flags on someone and kills him, uncovers secret cave and hides there. Does this cave entrance disappears (is re hidden) after a while, so people can't follow mage inside? How long it takes for uncovered secret entrances to close again? -- If nothing else mage as higher mobility class could have a lot easier time jumping around summoned floating rocks than some other classes, and may use those to kite them easier, gaining advantage from his class utility skill, while from example, other classes would have completely useless their skill for PvP.
Mage may seem for now to could have more usable skill than rest of classes. This is just my opinion, and maybe it's wrong. It depends how this skills will be tweaked, and how will world be designed with them. But due to my concern I'm raising these questions here.
This is why:
- (low usability skill) TANK has utility to warn you about dangers around and incoming attacks, but even without this utility (if you are some other class) you still get to fight what attacks you, it may catch you at surprise, but if you are good player, no problem, you fight it and are ok.
- (low usability skill) RANGER has tracking skill, so you can faster find what you are looking for, for example in caravan stream, but even without this skill, with trial and error you will find stuff, could just take more time, so again you can do without this skill.
- (medium usability skill) CLERIC can cleanse an area of a poison and stuff, but even if you don't cleanse, and you are good healer or have pots, you can perhaps survive through it, or you can go around poisonous area, and again you would be OK (not sure if there will be such poisonous areas that instant kill you and there is no other way around, but I doubt that).
- (possibly high usability skill) MAGE can unlock hidden passages, or other terrain that leads you to places you can't otherwise reach. Some places you can probably reach by alternative routes, but the main question is can ALL places be reached by alternate routes that don't require having a mage? For example, discovering hidden entrance to the cave. Does every such cave have another entrance that is not hidden that you can venture to if you don't have a mage?
Lets say that all routes that mage could uncover have alternative ways, only in such case his skill wouldn't be unbalanced and might be ok. But will everywhere be such alternate routes?
But now we jump to PvP perspective!
- Tank skill warns about incoming danger (useless in PvP? How can system know if player wishes to flag on you and attack you or just wishes to pass through). Can you detect rogues? Maybe then skill would be ok.
- Ranger tracking also seems it will be useless in PvP. Can you track where people you fought with run away? (I doubt it... only in this case ranges skill would be somewhat useful, or if you can detect rogues be seeing their tracks when you use this skill).
- Cleric can cleanse area poisons... I also doubt this will be any useful in PvP, since PvP is mostly too fast paced for this to be worth it even if it would function in PvP, and people will rather just move away from poisons than spend time cleansing the area. Maybe if tanks can detect traps placed in advanced by PLAYERS (for example placed on caravan routes), and then cleric can "dispel" those traps so they don't activate, then maybe this skill would be somewhat useful in PvP, but still PvP action is usually too fast paced for this to seem usable in middle of some action.
- MAGE... summons floating rock at a distance, and then bubble floats to it, or teleports to it, and shoots people from above? (Can anyone reach all floating rocks that mage uncovers everywhere regardless of class? Or some rocks are further apart and only reached by floating / teleport?) --- Or mage flags on someone and kills him, uncovers secret cave and hides there. Does this cave entrance disappears (is re hidden) after a while, so people can't follow mage inside? How long it takes for uncovered secret entrances to close again? -- If nothing else mage as higher mobility class could have a lot easier time jumping around summoned floating rocks than some other classes, and may use those to kite them easier, gaining advantage from his class utility skill, while from example, other classes would have completely useless their skill for PvP.
Mage may seem for now to could have more usable skill than rest of classes. This is just my opinion, and maybe it's wrong. It depends how this skills will be tweaked, and how will world be designed with them. But due to my concern I'm raising these questions here.
0
Comments
Mages cant summon these rocks just everywhere, there are hard scripted places for these effects and the abilitys can only blend them in.
The other abilitys can be very useful if implemented well:
The tank ability could warn from instant death trap triggers.
The ranger ability could show the way throug complex labyrinths.
Depending on %poison dmg, the clerics ability could be very important too.
If the developers implement such ideas will be seen, but it is possible with these skills...
Imo a huge labyrinth that includes all of these 4 spells regulary would be awesome
However none of these skills provide any advantage in pvp and theyre not meant to do so, theyre used to make the environment more interesting.
I disagree with this. I believe the World of Ashes will have many equal opportunities for all classes to use their utility skills. I believe they all are balanced - for instance if they all can use their utility skills at any given time, then:
[Tanks}
IF there is danger near > (distanced or hidden enemies) the party will be warned of
[Rangers]
IF there are tracks nearby > they will be revealed
[Cleric]
IF there is any type of poison or toxic environmental substance > It will be cleansed
[Mage]
IF there is any nearby (lets say) magical portals within an environmental blockage> It would be revealed or removed
I would expect the world of ashes being so vase and broad that there will be an extreme amount of times where all classes utility skills will be needed and just as important. Maybe different circumstances, but the same importance. In the case of a party protecting a caravan trade route, you'd want rangers and tanks to use their utility skills to locate nearby danger and see if they're any recent tracks that could warn the party of a possible threat.
Also, the ones that were available at PAX were simply to give us taste of their vision.
Balance will come later - of course!
Which is why people keep saying over and over and over again - that the PAX demos are pre-alpha demos.
My concern was kinda more oriented if some classes utilities could be usable in PvP as well in some way, while other classes utilities not, which would make certain classes more OP in that aspect.
I realize this is pre alpha and things will change. This is just a discussion thread aimed at giving heads up to people, and let em be heared.
The Mage utility at PAX was:
Mage's Detection: Reveal secret passages and magically hidden terrain around you.
Mage's Detection reveals the passage or terrain to the Mage's entire party/raid. Has nothing to do with summoning a boulder to a place only Mage's can reach.
Mages will very likely have that float spell - they may have more mobility than other classes.
Rogues have the Climb skill, so they also have more mobility than other classes.
So what if mage (alone or with party) is engaged in PvP with some warriors... he uses that skill and reveals hidden floating rocks that might be there, then jumps on one of the rocks, and shoots a warrior from there, while warrior either does not see that rock (so he sees only mage in air) or he can't reach the rock due to insufficient mobility.
Skill to reveal rocks is only "PvE" but it was just used to gain advantage in PvP situation.
These issues I am talking about.
Hopefully we will not see such issues in Ashes.
Sure, Tanks could try the lasso chain to get the mage down, but that still doesn't justify the mechanic abuse.
Such skills should be limited to instanced dungeons and raids only, as in an open world pvp scenario it would obviously be unfair.
We will need to wait for an official statement about this. IS probably has something in mind regarding this.
Its the principle that classes should be able to utilize utility to their advantage that I am excited for, not this particular scenario.
The point being, devs will need to care to tweak these skills, and these discussions are good to bring light on some possible issues, like this one.
And this is a possible issue. Where a workaround can be by tweaking this utility skill, that when used, it reveals hidden rocks not only to mages party, but to everyone around, for example.
And it's better to think about possible issues early on, while game is still being developed, than later on when changing things would be much harder, and more "expensive".
The point is that mage might have utility skill completely abusable in PvP, while for example archers utility skill being completely useless.
It's about balancing the usability of utility skills of different classes, and not about finding solutions around mages OP skill.
As Zastro said walk away from them. If your dumb enough to stay in their range in a large open world then you deserve to corpse run.
Odds are there won't be gated content behind which only one path through.
Also make friends and get your on mage.
Lastly mages should be OP.
Two classes Mages and those that wish they were.
All Intrepid would need to do is make all utilities also have an indirect effect on pvp as well. Like, ranger's people able to track other players. Clerics being able to cleanse a ground fire aoe or poison on their allies. Tanks being able to "sense" any players around them in a 50 yrd radius for a few seconds.
Probably a good idea to include someone who has Mage's Detection is party/raid only.
I think effects that physically alter the terrain would alter the terrain for everyone in the area.
Cosmetic changes, like highlighting tracks, are more likely to be party/raid only.
But, again, Mage has that Float skill, so might float out of reach anyways.
While a Tank would have a variety of shield abilities to soak damage rather than avoid damage.
I would not say that the skill to reveal rocks is PvE only. It's a non-combat skill.
But, non-combat skills can probably be used to some advantage in PvP, sure.
Even if everyone can interact with the revealed rocks, I can still use them as obstacles and/or high ground.
To know if the Mage's skill is OP, we would have to know -at the very least- what the utilities of the other four archetypes are.
And we would have to know whether the archetypes that were at PAX are keeping all those utilities or whether they will be replaced with new ones.
That's assuming that each archetype only has one utility during Alpha 1, rather than each having 2 or more.