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.
Jaw dropping moments of combat.
We have seen many great moments in movies or series and video games in which case a warrior, mage, guy or girl kick ass.
Near the climax of the story, against all the odds, for honor for revenge for love.
Because of rage, to boost the morale or to terrorize the enemy army a character would perform a feat that would make you or you and your mates go "oooohhh shieeet no way" and give you chills and goosebumps.
Many games have tried to give such an ability to their character classes, calling them ultimates.
Due to the frequency of usage, or the lackluster impact the feeling of gratification wears of quickly.
In the event that players would save the ultimates and drop them like bombs on the enemy group, instead of a moment of amazement we have moments of giggles by the attackers and annoyance by the defeated.
So....
What if in sieges or raid boss environments in which large amount of players would fight one another there were totally random moments in which a player would be enable to perform a "ohh shieeet" ability? For eg if a siege lasts lets say 2h maybe 3-4 such random moments would occur by random players of a certain, who have completed a certain difficult quest, wearing a certain tier of gear?
These abilities may or may not turn the tide of the siege. I'd like to believe that bad luck or good luck does not determain the performance of good guilds/players.
Again the enabling of these abilities would be in very specific locations such as world boss or siege areas, in which the amount of players would be 200v200 or more so that the impact of the moment will not be determaining victory, but would still make for awsome gameplay videos, cool memories, make the flames of PvP burn stronger and an all in all great day for the playerers that were at the center of it all.
Obviously ultimates would be something different. These abilities would be name "The Calling" or anything like that.
It may not be possible to be implemented but back when we were playing PS1 and older consoles we couldnt expect to be player games with the features than mmorpgs have today.
Feel free to mention awsome moments that you have seen in movies or series, or even perhaps upload an awsome gaming moment.
Mine are too many to mention and I cant p8ck a single one.
Near the climax of the story, against all the odds, for honor for revenge for love.
Because of rage, to boost the morale or to terrorize the enemy army a character would perform a feat that would make you or you and your mates go "oooohhh shieeet no way" and give you chills and goosebumps.
Many games have tried to give such an ability to their character classes, calling them ultimates.
Due to the frequency of usage, or the lackluster impact the feeling of gratification wears of quickly.
In the event that players would save the ultimates and drop them like bombs on the enemy group, instead of a moment of amazement we have moments of giggles by the attackers and annoyance by the defeated.
So....
What if in sieges or raid boss environments in which large amount of players would fight one another there were totally random moments in which a player would be enable to perform a "ohh shieeet" ability? For eg if a siege lasts lets say 2h maybe 3-4 such random moments would occur by random players of a certain, who have completed a certain difficult quest, wearing a certain tier of gear?
These abilities may or may not turn the tide of the siege. I'd like to believe that bad luck or good luck does not determain the performance of good guilds/players.
Again the enabling of these abilities would be in very specific locations such as world boss or siege areas, in which the amount of players would be 200v200 or more so that the impact of the moment will not be determaining victory, but would still make for awsome gameplay videos, cool memories, make the flames of PvP burn stronger and an all in all great day for the playerers that were at the center of it all.
Obviously ultimates would be something different. These abilities would be name "The Calling" or anything like that.
It may not be possible to be implemented but back when we were playing PS1 and older consoles we couldnt expect to be player games with the features than mmorpgs have today.
Feel free to mention awsome moments that you have seen in movies or series, or even perhaps upload an awsome gaming moment.
Mine are too many to mention and I cant p8ck a single one.
0
Comments
They have stated that multiple Mages can come together and perform high level spells like what I think you would mean by 'ultimates.' Having anything more powerful than that, but achievable by one player (even by chance) would seem off to me.
I do think truly awesome moments should occur during boss battles, especially world boss battles, and during sieges. I just don't know if limiting those things to single players or chance is the route I would go.
Abilities with strong real time impact.
I am still on the board with not making them random, quest, or gear oriented. Unfortunately even with quest/gear restrictions if those abilities are stronger than any other it encourages everyone to only where that gear or guarantees everyone does the same quest. To me that would allow it to be more common, which I am under the impression, is something you are not advocating for.
Every class should have the option of building towards one. Then maybe make it random during certain events, but even then someone who never gets to use it would likely feel cheated.
Meaning a guy dressed in villagers garments and a wooden sword should not jump amidst 50 enemies and kill 2(and then get killed because he might be out of reach from his group...)
Quest X required. Those who put the effort should stand out.
A set number of awsome skills, behind an equal set of quests.
Obviously a warrior will not be able to unlock abilities that are themed for mages.
From our convo I think 2 random abilities, sharing the same random rare mechanic across all numerous players pressent in the area should be allowed per category of classes.
Eg mages-> Gandalf moment.
Tanks/healers protection moment.
Warrior roque rage moment.
Archers legolas moment.
The randomness and location restrictions are to prevent predetermained and steategic use of such abilities. Also the impact of the ability can be absorbed by the amount of players present.
Obviously it should not be something that can be used in small scale encounters, 1v1 etc.
The call should happen. The player has a very short window to choose which ability of the two (asigned to their type of character) and do something awsome before the call is over.
Maybe 6s or so timeframe.
Call-> choose ability-> aim and perform.
If the 6s pass without action, welp. Thats it
If it is gear score related then you have everyone rushing to a specific gear score to get it.
Then with a specific small window, a player who misses that window will feel bad. Or groups will only form with players that have achieved their ultimates and the servers become a segregation of those who have their ultimates vs those who don't when doing any large scale organized event.
All of this would equate to any skill like that just being inherent in the skill tree for a class, but then it becomes too common which is your other issue.
While it might work in a game where everyone has access to every quest and every inch of the game world through fast travel I think for AoC it kind of falls apart because of the way quests develop with nodes, seasons, and the fact that there isn't fast travel.
This reminds me of the last straw that broke my heart with EQ2, years ago.
As a paladin, my favorite skill was Consecration. I loved it because it had "impact."
It was a holy damage over time AOE that shook the ground (your camera view would shake) while sending waves of blue flame on the enemies around you with every thunderous boom. I LOVED it.
I set up a macro so my character would say, "I consecrate this ground in the name of Brel!" every time I used it. It felt like one of the most impressive feats I could do and doing it brought me joy every time.
That is, until one day there was a "patch."
Under the guise of "client optimization," Consecration no longer was thunderous, no longer shook the screen, and the blue flames were smaller, hardly even noticeable.
Im sure the damage was the same, that the "numbers" were good. But it no longer felt special, quite mundane in fact. Suddenly my favorite ability became a sore disappointment. That was a eye opening experience, realizing that the developers vision and my own were no longer in agreement on what was "better."
So, if you ask me, that epic feeling of battle can be achieved with good combat design - as long as the right vision is behind it.
In this encounter, every class does minuscule damage to the boss. A small number of people are able to get hold of an item that is able to deal a single, massive hit on the boss though - the kind of numbers that at the time, would have been jaw dropping.
Thing is though, it wasn't. It wasn't simply because that is what the mechanic was. Rather than being jaw dropping, it was just *meh*.
That is exactly what the general feeling would be if Intrepid added in abilities along the lines of what the OP wants. They will just become abilities that players will add to their expectations of what characters are capable of doing, and as such, become "meh".
It is never game mechanics that turn peoples heads, it is player skill when using the same ability set as everyone else.
This is not what I am talking about.
My point is that if you use the games mechanics in the same manner as every other player uses those mechanics - even if players only get to use that specific mechanic infrequently - it has no real merit as a head turning event.
No one is left in awe of a player winning at RNG - which is essentially all getting that ability is.
I feel that good game-play and coordination will be able to produce epic moments (minus the awe-inspiring visuals, of course) without IS needing to insert them. Couple 'epic' gameplay with the kind of combat animations Rumbleforge referred to when talking about 'Consecrate' and perhaps we can even have epic moments with awe-inspiring visuals.
Of course, it is a little early to be discussing combat animations, but this would be something to mention when AoC reaches that stage of development.
I don't think there will be something similar to 1-guild to rule them all in this game. There are lots of dynamics that could prevent that including max guild roster limits.
If I am wrong, for me, this game took a bad turn.