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
Something you need to avoid unless you have no choice.
Where its not a question of 'if' the team will wipe, but how long you can survive and if you can survive long enough to either backtrack or pass through.
Do you take the risky direct route.....or take the long way around with less risk ?
Seems far more engaging then leaving your avatar on autopilot while you go AFK out of boredom to watch some telly.
Making it out of the Dragon's Lair without the Dragon's Egg being destroyed could be highly difficult, too.
However since it does not work that way, and mobs will increase by general node leveling, it does not really matter. But it would have been interesting to see how the map would look like if it did work that way.
@Svartie
I would be fine with having some areas being easier, but having other interesting stuff, like more exploration content or resource focused stuff. As long as there is a good balance between the two and I am not forced to go through hours upon hours of boring content before I can have "fun".
@Rune_Relic
I would be all up for that, the only problem I see is that idiots like me will bash heads against a wall that can be toppled
Need to gain entry to a bandit fort? just sneak by the guards, or maybe bribe the guards? Or just bash their heads while kicking down the front door.
Funny how it always comes back to there being multiple options to achieve the same objective.
Each challenging in its own unique way...which is probably more fitting for the varied build types, node types and roles.
Intrepid have said there are more than one way through a dungeon via magic doors, or trapped routes where mage and rogue would be invaluable.
So we can only hope its a sign of how things will be across the board.
If they establish a good framework to work from...they should nail that one good.
That gets me rather excited to be honest.
(lol it takes no skill to aim in a 3th view game. In a fps, it sure takes skill though.)
Also you are wrong about tab targeting. You didn't need to aim that's true, however in a tab based combat what matter is the time and the way you use your abilities. Unlike in mindless button spamming a.k.a aim&combo based combats, in tab targeted game, you are heavily limited by cooldowns, so it's important to predict your opponent's next step and use or keep your abilities for later to counter it. And there comes your skill. A random noob (like 95% of players) just put everything on cd, and then die afterwards...
I would have to disagree, even a game in 3rd person, a player still hast to take into account, cast time, projectile speed, and enemy movement into account when trying to hit someone with a skillshot, next time having the correct timing. Furthermore you seem to assume that skillshots won't have cooldowns. So with the added cooldown to a skillshot the decisions when to use it and how will also come into play.
Guild Wars 2 has showed that a hybrid systems works well, and I would not mind having a similar system in Ashes.
There are enough games in 3rd person which show that skillshots add to the depth of gameplay. (Gigantic, The exiled, Black Desert online etc.).
Additionally tab targeting has the issue in pve that once a player knows his optimal rotation you basically repeat that ad nauseam, and it turns into a shin kicking competition, with the winner being decided with the larger boots (better gear).
A good example of this is when I was playing Warhammer return of Reckoning. I was fighting a mob and I got killed, I looked at my rotation asked some people for some advice. In the end my victory was determined by obtaining 2 new items, which was a really disappointing feeling. I did not overcome the challenge by adjusting my tactics and/or play style, but by obtaining gear which boosted my stats.
Should be no surprise their.
Bringing the right gear is a fundamental strategy.
Gear should be a key factor in an actual battle, naturally it should have an impact on decreasing the risk of failure. However if gear becomes a key factor in success, you are taking away control from the player and putting it on the gear. And this will have a highly negative impact on pvp. At least 75% of the success factor in winning a battle should be player actions 20% up to a maximum of 25% should come from character build and items.
Personally, a player should always ask himself : "what did I do wrong in that battle?"
not : "oh I just need better gear".
Additionally in my example case, there was no strategy involved, I just bought some gear with better stats from the vendor and that was the reason I overcame the "challenge"; which resulted in a dissatisfied feeling, since I didn't really do anything I just bough some better gear.
I hope and I think, most people want battles to be determined by the action and skill of players, not by which gear they are wearing.
In RPGs, wearing the right gear is as key to success as equipping the right skills and know when to use those skills.
A huge part of "what did I do wrong in that battle?" is "did I equip the right gear?"
That is part of the strategy to success in combat in RPGs.
Knowing how to maximize your stats is also a key strategy in RPGs.
I get that you seem to just want to focus on ability rotation - but that is really just 25% of what it takes to win battles in RPGs... at most.
Knowing how to gear your character to maximize your character stats and abilities is an important part of the player-skills that helps players win battles.
Some people will want to rely more on twitch skills or a massive number of slots on the hotbar. Typically gear, alone, is not going to determine whether you win or lose a battle.
It's not like you grabbed some gear that made you completely impervious to the mob.
Rather, you acquired gear that allowed you to defeat the mob - just like in a story where you need a couple of quest items to help you to defeat the boss.
Sometimes you need Excaliber. That's how fantasy stories work.
Even Superman sometimes needs the right gear to win.
-most skillshots travels extremely fast
-have irreal big hit box
-have very high dmg (or other effect)
-with low or no cooldown
Also skillshots almost never have cast time, the delay is usulay based on the traveltime alone.
You sure need some prediction, but most of the skillshots are very easy to hit, thanks to the casual deseign.
But in the end they works. They aren't targeted abilities, so the casualscan think that "look, I can hit with a aimed ability, I'm so skilled", which boost their ego and keep them playing, while in the reality those skillshots takes a joke amount of skill to aim compared to a fps game....
Also yeah, it really worked in gw2, care to present how much players does it have? And how much the very easy, noskill, shinrolling (dfq?) top MMORPG?
LMAO, i just read your example, lol, Yestreday I watched a PvE encouter in Black Desert... so much deepth... so much skill, and tactical gameplay...
rofl... not..
The npc just did sit in the same spot like a piece of shit, and the player keep'd spamming one or two ability at him. What a deep gameplay...
I periodicaly check BD streams, as I was looking for a worthy mmo, but I onyl see a mass produced eastern mmo, with close to zero deepth. lol just the fact alone, that mobility ability is so cheap, that you can just spamm it, instantly destroy any deepth that this game could have. That's just zero risk spamming...
Also the fact that you try to sell PvE as something that requires skill is a joke anyway. Every PvE encouter is scripted by a set of posible options. They can try with a few randomness, but in the end, onoce you learn it, it will be a noskill spamfest anyway...
Also dfq, the whole of a MMORPG is run by the act of gearing, the need for a better gear. If the gear wouldn't matter a lot, then there wouldn't be a reason to play it in the first place omg...
of course gear needs to have some sort of impact, but player skill should come always first in determining victory. Gear should help you maximizing success and minimizing failure. It should help you maybe survive that 1 more hit, or squeeze out that bit more dps to finish off an enemy before the other ones can engage. But if you put an over emphasis on gear you are taking away control from player actions in a battle.
And taking away control is game design no no.
In my opinion a worse geared player should always beat a better geared better that is less skilled not the other way around.
on the statement of "but that is really just 25% of what it takes to win battles in RPGs... at most." I think the Bloodborne would like to have word :P a good example of where character builds and items matter to a good degree, but where the determining factor of success are the player's actions.
@MADE
Again you are making a lot assumptions you state that :
-most skillshots travels extremely fast
-have irreal big hit box
-have very high dmg (or other effect)
-with low or no cooldown
lets look at 2 skill shots in GW2
Dragons tooth is a skill which is an AOE skill,
it has a cast time of 1 second, and spawns a projectile above the targeted location, in turn before the projectile drops it takes a couple of seconds. The skills has a recharge time of 6 seconds. and it does have high damage.
So you cannot spam this, it has a cast time and animation telegraph which can be interrupted. it can be evaded since it takes a couple of seconds before damage is being dealt. So while it does deal high damage, one can interrupt it during casting, or dodge out of the way while being cast.
Lets look another skill called Phoenix
This skills has a cast time of 1/4 sec and a recharge of of 20 seconds. This is a classical projectile which travels to the targeted location. The projectile itself has a huge tell as its the projectile is a huge flaming phoenix. Sadly don't have the info on the exact traveling time but most of the time its about 1 - 1.5 seconds.
Like the dragons tooth, it deals huge damage but is easily avoidable.
In regards to the GW2 comment, seeing as it recently got its 2nd expansion, and there are no issues for queuing for dungeons and pvp, I would say it has a healthy population. Even Black desert Online with its extremely lackluster PVE and borderline P2w mechanics seems to be doing pretty well.
For the Black Desert example, yes the PVE is not engaging but that is because of the enemy design. And it does not warrant a immediate write of the combat system. engaging PVE is a factor of both. Look at pvp and it's whole other thing.
For the PvE there are enough games that show that pve can require skill, Souls series for example.
And I am well aware, that progression and character building are important factors in an RPG. The point I am trying to make is that Player skill should always comes first instead gear. Gear should make enough of an impact that it does not devalue or even trivialize but it should not be a determining factor in the outcome of battles.
Even in Bloodborne, character build, proper gear and proper supplies are going to be more important than just "player actions" - and, players are very likely to have a difficult time if they don't bring the proper gear and supplies to a fight.
Adventure games, like Tomb Raider, is the kind of game where player skills can trump gear.
First Person Shooters, like Call of Duty, is another genre where it's OK for player skills to trump gear.
In RPGs, character build should always trump player twitch skills. That's the whole point of building characters.
And in Bloodborne even if you bring the correct gear and build, if you reactions and timings are bad you are going to get destroyed, and that's how it should be.
I do not see why gear and builds should trump player actions. Especially in a pvp focused game it will lead to frustration when a player is defeated and he knows the reason of that is because the other player has "better gear". The major factor in defeat or victory should be the ability of a player to outplay another player.
In RPGs, character builds should always trump player twitch skills.
That is the whole point of building characters.
Ashes is not a PvP combat focused game.
Ashes is a PvX MMORPG.
but that does not mean that gear should be trivialized, it should still have impact, and offer a good sense of progression and character building. However in my opinion it should never ever trump player skill since it takes away the control of the player. I don't want to be able to inspect a player and determine on the basis of his gear wether I am going to win or not.
Like I said we have to agree to disagree here, it is up to the devs and their vision if it will turn out : Gear< Skill or Skill < Gear
Objectively speaking, in RPGs, character build should trump player twitch skills - and a key aspect of character builds is bringing the proper gear and supplies - because the foundation of RPGs is war games - where armor, weapons and supplies are the keys to winning battles.
Not how quickly players can mash buttons or manage a rotation on hotbars.
You can disagree if you wish.
Just like you can disagree that the Earth is spherical if you wish.
Additionally if the importance is focused on gear and builds, the value of the actual combat diminished greatly, which creates a high risk of the action feeling bland and unimportant.
saying that that style of design (gear<Skill) is objective is highly far fetched.
I hope that I have the bigger boots in most situations.. and you have some very valid points
In my mind, there should be some principles that underpin successful combat in an MMORPG:
- Rotations are not linear and not reliably the best thing to do always.
- Spells/abilities interact with one another to create combo-based combat (requiring an understanding and knowledge of various abilities and their intertwined nature).
- A range of spells/abilities need to be aimed and have the potential to miss if poorly timed, otherwise the risk of casting is non-existent.
- Classes should have spells/abilities which enable counter-play and combo-breaking capacity when timed correctly.
- The strength of spells/abilities are felt when successfully landed, creating a satisfying feedback from equipped items. (We all know that feeling of a giant crit after you've equipped your gorgeous new staff/sword!)
The above offers interesting and engaging game play because it creates an environment where players have to react to one another but also where they feel the impact of their previous adventures. Combat begins to feel stagnant, repetitive or routine when:
- A small pool of abilities are viable.
- There are clearly powerful rotations that outstrip other rotations.
- Player skill is not the predominant factor and therefore factors outside of the player's control determine outcomes.
- There are too many counters and therefore players do not feel successful feedback regularly.
- statistics constrict creativity in favour of DPS numbers.
Drawn from this, I think, once again, the experience of combat comes down to mystery:
- What spells/abilities will be most impactful against this enemy?
- What might they try to do to me?
- How can I counter-play what I've seen in this fight?
- How much will I need to do to overcome this enemy?
When these questions are in our mind, we're engaged and we're critically thinking about the experience. Imagine, instead, the following inner dialogue:
"Okay, they're going to open with frost nova, then frostbolt and ice shards. I need to blink out of the frost nova and silence them during frostbolt. Their other spells aren't viable, so I can now land my rotation of charge, stun, mortal strike. This has worked everytime I've encountered a mage, so it should work now".
I know which offers me more sense of engagement.
Oiraeket's post is pretty spot on, but...
There should be no surprise if, when you ask why you keep losing against the Ice Dragon, people looking at your gear and stats tell you that you need to increase your Ice resistance or that you need a weapon that wields more DPS.
@Tasamuel
It could be possible, however there are a lot of "ifs" involved (personally I would love it that way). I depends on the target audience firstly, if Ashes is going for a more common target group, then it is unlikely to happen since it will drive casuals away. And I can't deny that the casual group is larger than the more hardcore focused group.
Now if the devs would be able and willing to implement hard mode servers then it would be possible, however that depends on the development time and resources needed. Furthermore the population for the hard mode servers would need to be sufficient enough.
So yeah a lot of variables involved, we will have to wait and see how it turns out once development progresses. But man I am with you a world were I constantly have to pay attention? count me in
@Oiraeket
No arguing there, great example as well, if that player fails to blink out of the nova, or fails to silence the enemy when he casts frost bolt. All the points you made put the power and success factor mostly in the player's hands which I support
@Valentines
No arguing there, The number vs number situation is what I was trying to convey, with who has the bigger boots during the shin kicking competition :P