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
If they do end up in game, Santa Claus and Easter Bunnies have no place on the battlefield imo.
I could see a case for merchant clothing in regards to caravans, but only if the merchant clothing serves an actual purpose - negating the need for it to be a cosmetic item in the first place. For the most part, people running caravans would want to be ready for battle.I personally agree in general.
Open PvP breaks down in to two things, as far as I am concerned. Small scale and large scale.
In small scale PvP - no more than 6 players participating - it really isn't much to ask for players to have to target each enemy to discern the information about them that they would want. However, in large scale PvP, this is a totally unrealistic thing to ask.
To me, the information that should be readily apparent in large scale PvP is the following 4 things - enemy player numbers, player locations, cohesion and a rough breakdown of character types.
None of this is information that should be displayed in the games UI - as every piece of this information should be available simply by looking at the game world. It's usually easy to see roughly how many players you are up against and where they are. It's not hard to tell if they work well together or not, and that just leaves character type.
Unlike small scale PvP, in large scale, the exact class of a single opponent isn't that important. What is important is knowing who are melee and who are the casters, who are the stealth players and who are the healers.
This information *should* all be plainly displayed in the game world.
Now if there is a minimum of 2-set bonuses for same armor buffs I'm on board for this. Have different tiers rewarding different bonuses. That way when fully decked you could have a t-3 light, t-2 medium, and t-3 heavy buffs going on at the same time. If you are really ambitious you could have qualities to the buffs as well. Like where the buff is the same quality as all the minimum levels of quality gear. Example would be an common t-6 light armor, a uncommon t-6, a rare t-6, and an epic t-6 buff. I doubt there would be enough legendary gear out there to be able to achieve a legendary set of gear... but maybe a small legendary t-1 buff for having two same-armor-type.
I guess this would be a more extreme version of what you are asking... unless I just don't understand AA and maybe it is the same thing... where it tells you exactly what armor type and quality the gear is.
I just don't see that it is so dang important to absolutely know without a doubt what the other guy is wearing. It should be considered a skill to figure that out what class someone is if you want to engage them. As has been pointed out, if your good enough at your own class that shouldn't be a problem.
Every player in the game, whether they know it or not, will approach a player with plate armor and a giant hammer differently than they will approach a player with robes and a staff.
The better you are at your class, the bigger the difference in how you approach each of the above.
But as I've said, this kind of in game feedback is *far* more important in large scale PvP than it is in small scale PvP. It isn't about seeing what one player has on, it is about seeing what 10 players have on.
I don't see how Intrepid will be able to allow cosmetic slots to always be visible in a game where they claim Pv Pis integral, and threat assessment is important (two claims they have made). It simply doesn't follow that such a thing could exist in such a game.
Sure, it works in games without PvP, but that isn't Ashes.
This conversation shouldn't even be about whether or not there should be ways for people to see what item types you are wearing, the conversation should be about how that should be implemented - as it actually *has* to be implemented if PvP is to be meaningful in Ashes.They did.
However, in at least one quote I read, they specifically left the door open on things like this to change later on - should Intrepid change their mind.
Fully opening up the API is unlikely, however.
I think that my basic position would be this - I would like to be able to mask my gear. Not as in "I look like an acolyte in a robe, but I'm really Dreadnought in seven hundred pounds of steel armour" way though. I think that kind of thing would just get tiresome.
What I would like is something like the option of throwing on a cloak. Say I'm some kind of corrupted PvP assassin. I see some guy in a cloak waking down a path in the middle of a forest. At that point, all I see is a cloak and their face.
If I attack them and they go to fight, then they basically throw off the cloak, revealing what they're wearing. That way I go in with no info, and gain it when the fight starts, rather than this "I look frail but I'm actually the hulk" thing.
Or I could take time and use some kind of observation skill to get clues about what they're wearing. Maybe I take 5 minutes to stalk them through said wood in stealth, and my observation skill gives me broad info about their equipment - stuff like "wearing heavy plate, has a helm, steel boots, etc". I don't get the full breakdown, but I can get the gist of whether I'm fighting a dreadnought or an acolyte. Then when I go into combat, again, off comes the cloak, revealing the gear.
A good example would be from the Sword Art Online: Phantom Bullet anime. There's a bit where a group are planning to ambush another group. But there's one guy who they can't see because he's wearing a cloak. They can tell he's big, they can tell he's moving slow, so he's probably carrying some weight, but its not until he throws off his cloak that they can see he's actually carrying a minigun.
In my opinion it really detracts from the immersion of good quality pvp. Original SWG devs understood this well, and only wanted people to see only whatever the character looked like, but have to guess as to the rest. When going against an opponent you had no idea what skill lines they had, or quality of equipment they were using, but you figured out through the course of the fight if you were over, under, or equally matched. And it was fantastic! It made every encounter unique and unpredictable, which is what we should have here.
Constant predictability in pvp becomes really boring, really quick, and only serves to turn people off to it. If it is unknown, then it makes you look at all enemies equally, and teaches you not to underestimate players, and to judge them more fairly on skill rather than looks. It allows players to perform based on their merits and not what other people think about the gear they had equipped.
Sorry, but in my experience being able to do that leads to a large number of gankers roaming the land looking for easy marks. And that breaks the game immersion for more people that are easy marks, then it adds value to few who are indulging in the ganking.
Thieves and assassins and rangers are good at disguises. There are magical abilities to change appearance, as well as the skins. Gankers should not be able to look though these things to gain an insight into risk factors.