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.
Comments
Sorry for not being clear man, as I said, wrote that whole shit in 10 min. What I meant with "Relevant games" was based on player base and amount of players watching the Esport. For example Starcraft has (had) tons of more people watching it than all those games you listen combined. (BDO, Blade and soul specificly i don't even belive have a pro scene following?).
With easy to master I mean easy to master the classes and combat system. It is very easy to master the WoW combat system (The most popular and copied combat system in MMO history). But, Mastering the game in general, team play, counter play, burst windows, cc patterns and combos etc is relatively difficult for the average player (again only 2-5% of gamers can do this based on statistics on WoW/SC website.
I do agree that this season in Legion is pretty bad. But most high skilled players are still playing, only semi-casual players quit. The top 5% of wow is fairly stable. But, I do agree that my 2430rating would equal around 2200 rating during wrath and maybe 2100 rating during BC (Was only 13 back then so no idea how good I would be today). But still, the game is just as hard as your opponents and I am still statisicly, (as you can see on my character Marzzo on silvermoon EU) one of the best warriors in the world. So it is fair to say that you should atleast assume I am more compentent ont his subject than most players. But I do understand your concern with the slider, most people cant even follow a 4 button rotation, let alone actualy have to look at a casting bar.
But I'll keep this on point myself.
I don't like the combat bar.
I don't need to justify that dislike.
I'm not going to purchase a game that has an element that is really going to affect a large portion of the game and, therefore, my enjoyment of the game.
I hope they remove the combat bar. I hope at the very least they make it so that you can shut it off in your settings if they don't remove it entirely. But if it's left as it is, I'm not going to purchase this game.
There are many others that would disagree with me. That's fine. It's all opinion and based around what we like. But trying to tell me I'm wrong in what I like is not a good way to discuss things. You can say your reasons why you like it. But projecting your own justifications onto me as a player is the problem at the get go with this post.
And yes, it's fine that Ashes would choose to go that way, but if they go that way and I then decide to not give them money because of it, there should be a simple understanding that obviously then I'm not their targeted audience for their merchandise.
To move on to your post, or at least the first part of it. Your point of relevancy seems to hinge on it's E-Sport potential. Based on the post I am quoting, at least.
This is fine, but it's again quite a narrow view on relevance. Numbers are not always an indication either. Though, in a way, there is more to be said for that argument. Ironically, however. WoW's most "Relevant" years, had very little e-sports, it was essentially just beginning someway through WoTLK. And, E-Sports was not a new thing, one need only look at Starcraft 1. Which has an ongoing e-sports scene, as far as I am aware.
Now, that being said, e-sport making games relevant is only the case if you're looking for an e-sport. Starcraft, whilst essentially a strategy game, is really barebones. There are plenty of deeper games out there, strategy games tend to take a long time however, they stretch out over many play sessions, and are somewhat slow paced. Hence they won't make a good e-sport. And many of those games are a lot more relevant to the Strategy genre than Starcraft is. They've had a lot more influence.
Now, to circle back to WoW, and specifically the e-sport scene. You highlighted problems yourself as to why WoW, on the surface, seems simplistic to a degree. You gave a specific example, but essentially it boiled down to, every skill class X has, class Y has a skill that counteracts it, and vice versa. With DR especially, the problem starts to become visible. Every class has CC, Escapes, DPS CD's etc. What this means is that all classes become somewhat blurry. They homogenise a lot. In many ways WoW as it is now, is superior to how it used to be. But the core of the RPG elements of the game, have been lost in favour of turning, the PvP at least, into an E-Sport. Back when, and let's take the Mage as an example, as that's what I played most in vanilla. Frost damage was not all that good. It was decent, you could kill things, and people, but Fire, especially the PoM Pyro was really strong in PvP. It was very damaging, and it had far, far less kiting and rooting potential as Frost. Frost was, damage wise, the weaker spec. It however, had a lot of roots. Allowing the Mage to keep somewhat of a distance, or flee entirely. A tank in PvP, soaked a lot of damage, but the damage output he did, it tickled. Threat wasn't necessarily linked to damage. There were clearly defined roles, and differences amongst classes. And even specs. Although most boiled down to PvE or PvP.
Some of the uniqueness of classes got lost along the way, when they started balancing around e-sports. It's an MMO-RPG, massively multiplayer online. That first part, it's essential to the genre. And whilst you play WoW with thousands at once. If you play, LoL for example, you limit yourself to play with (is it 5v5?) So nine other people. Same holds true for arenas. Essentially, the same holds true for battlegrounds. Though the bigger they get, the more it goes at what the core of an MMO is. WoW, as it is now, has it's PvP designed, and balanced around arena PvP (They used to balance it around 3 v 3 in wotlk, not sure if that's still the case) And I wholeheartedly agree, that, in an arena, being chain CC'd constantly is anti-fun. Because it absolutely is. Especially once you've used your escape and get CC'd again. So for that combat style, DR and all that is good.
But I ask you, is that what you want from an MMO? Or do you want, like Ashes suggests, to form a raid on a caravan to garner resources, or stop enemies from getting resources at least. Work in tandem with countless other people who live in the city you and your friends live in, in order to take down the enemy node level? And don't have the PvP balanced, and in my subjective view tainted, by small scale, e-sport-esque. Balancing and homogenisation? That melee guy should not have a chance against that frost based sorcerer who keeps rooting you. But that same Frost based sorcerer would get annihilated by a Rogue sneaking up on him. Whilst that rogue would not do too well against someone actually prepared for melee combat. All classes and specs should NOT inherently be able to stand up against all other classes and specs. Unless your mastery and skill is through the roof.
And if it is, why bother playing an MMO? When there are countless other options, like FPS games, or MOBA's? And if you like to do other things too, why not play two games? I play RPG's like Oblivion, Skyrim and Morrowind because I like the genre. I'm not going to complain about it's lack of strategic depth, or that I feel that using two daggers and sneak feels less effective than being a mage at the later stages. If I want the reaction and twitched based gameplay, I'll play some CS, or Overwatch, or whatever. I recognise that the systems that are in these games, when brought over to the MMORPG, it will water down the core elements of what makes RPG's so enjoyable.
And as a final note. Action based combat is very fun, even in RPG's but not if that means unfair advantages for me because I have a strong internet connection and live close to the server. Or the opposite
No I'm with you, I'll wait and judge it once they have built their version of combat. Also it may be more fun to play than watch also, we just don't know that much right now, beside a very far from finished demo at PAX.
If anything now IS the time to provide feedback. One need not have played the game itself. The system as it currently stands with QTE things, has been done before. @DeathsProxy has mentioned several examples in previous topics.
We've all been around long enough, and tried enough systems to be able to extrapolate. And thus the argument "You can't really speak because you have not played it." is not only very weak, it's false, as there are examples of it being done already. And one needs to mention this as EARLY AS POSSIBLE in a game's development, because during a beta (which is what most people will have) it's already way too late.
Personally I want to come to the game to enjoy it in a hardcore/casual way....casual when I want it that way and hardcore when I see fit to put in that kind of effort....what you would like is hardcore 24/7. Sorry but I do not want to spend 8 hours painting and sculpting only to come home and try to get sore/swollen hands zipping around my keyboard competing with someone who spent the day napping like a cat. Is it action filled? Certainly so. But I already spent the day being active.
One idea being they could make the quick time into a color based event. Such as it changes the color or transparency of your spells / abilities. This way you don't have to stare at an ugly bar at the bottom of your screen, and in the process allow you to watch what Is going on around you, or be able to enjoy the world while you are in combat.
They are creating such a beautiful world, I just don't want to see that ruined by such an ugly little thing. Also I'd like to add that such a small thing as this could potentially push so many potential players away. I realize some of you may think that's ridiculous but I've been through many, many games and the combat has been a huge deciding factor, even for MMORPGs. Just seeing most people's reactions through plate forms such as YouTube, and Twitch, shows how critical people are of combat in games.
I realize some in the community wants to sit here and praise everything that is being released thus far, but you need to point out the flaws such as this in the early stages before it's to late. We all know how the gaming community is as a whole. The smallest of bad choices could cause a fatal blow before the game is even out of the alpha. I want this game to be the successor to WoW, and eventually take the top spot when WoW steps down from the throne. I will with confidence say that if this old way of quick time events stays in. It'll be one more reason for people who want good combat to not even bother to give it a chance.
First alpha is soon, hopefully there is a good spread of players who can offer constructive thoughts and testing on the systems.
I was top 5 on my WoW server in vanilla. Time spent ftw
/tl~dr
this thread should be renamed "Blow ones own trumpet"
We had a very limited number of skills at PAX.
Just as we only had one weapon ability at PAX even though we were told that an advanced weapon can have as many as five weapon abilities, it may be that we will more than one ultimate ability and that we can have more than one ultimate ability slotted on the hotbar.
Actually, that seems likely for a variety of reasons.
Which is why people really need to play in order to provide meaningful critiques.
And have in depth conversations with the devs about the specifics.
And... see how the mechanics develop over time.
But, while we wait...
speculate, speculate, speculate.
Now we can once again sit back and wait for their iteration on it to see if it might work in actual play.