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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.
Suggestions and things I want in the mmo
Aloreal
Member
So i didnt find a suggestions subforum so im adding this here. This is a post full of what i believe it would be good for the mmo to have. If you have any additions, agree or disagree with my points add it.
1. Weapons.
Please have a large number of weapons for us. Swords, maces, hammers, axes, daggers and bows have long plagued the mmo genre as the only available weapons.
Edit: We got told already that Ashes will have a large variety of weapons. Since "large" is subjective my point stands
As Ashes is going to be a sandbox we need a larger variety of weapons. Spears, Halberds, Rapiers, Chain and ball to add a few. Anything more than standard mmo weapons. Bows and any long range weapon should have an x,y,z indicator.
2. Range of weapons, Hit distances.
Spears and halberds should have approximately double the distance of swords. they are longer weapons. they should also be able to hit behind a friendly unit. swords and daggers are short range.
But the greatest thing that could be done is regarding bows, especially longbows. Excluding skills, a primary longbow attack should be able to snipe across a very large distance (modern longbows have an effective range of 200m) and make arrows follow gravity. Castle sieges are going to be prevalent in the game, why not have players that want to, to train as longbowmen (no game assistance other than an x,y,z indicator) that can hit over a wall and rain arrows across the map, if they can of course.
Edit: Changed the large amount of different types of damage as it would make balancing a lot harder for mostly minimum return. Lower edits that refer to here is about the large number of primary and elemental types of damage (crush, slash, pierce, penetration, and magic types etc)
3. Weapon Animations.
Every weapon should have their own animation. Forget using the sword animation for a spear. or the same animation for a greatsword and a double hammer. Thats just sloppy.
4. Generals, Commanders (platoon leaders) and phalanxes.
In a big fight you are going to have a general directing the whole group for a cause, either that cause is killing a raid boss, or sieging a castle. And in every group that makes the whole lot you are gong to have a commander that gets direct orders from a general. And of course the rest of the players that make the advancing force.
Generals and Commanders can have group buffs (trained after a long time but small so that its not totally broken) Generals buffs are bigger than the Commanders but the General needs to either be on line of sight to the fight or have scouts (players or disposable NPCs) on certain positions for the buffs to be "transferred" over to the troops on site. if the line is broken or the General dies the whole of the troops can lose all their buffs including the Commander buffs and maybe give them a debuff. It will make smaller strike groups more prevalent and have more footprint in a big war.
Continuing on the theme of large battles and strategy a General can issue a Military Manoeuvre.
This move highlights positions of where each troop needs to be at any given time for the Manoeuvre to succeed . Each player will only see their own position and not the whole. And each Manoeuvre will have their own buffs and debuffs. A defensive Manoeure can have a -25% all attack but a +50% on all defenses making it excellent if the players keep positions and are defending a castle ramp. An advancing Manoeure the opposite. a Hold the line command can give extra HP, defense and engage but only if x amount of people can do it at a time. A turtle move can give immunity to bows and range magic but only if 50% of the people making the move are shieldholders scattered into the total position and they cant act while holding said position other than walk (mines can knockback and remove them from position)
Generals and Commanders should only get experience by how many people in their platoon/army are damaging/killing/dying and you have to be a Commander of a certain level before choosing to become a General or increasing the effectiveness of the Commander subskill.
5. UI
Give us a fully custom UI. I want to move everything, everywhere. Resize all or individual components of my UI. Its 2019, Let me snap on grid (on that matter, give us a grid when we choose to edit UI) or free move. Let us save UIs with custom names and make UIs and skill bar keyboards transferable to other characters on my account (or other players as well, that would be good).
We need a fully customisable interface. If i want to change the colour of my HP to blue and mana to green i should be able to do it. Colours and intensity of colours as well for telegraph abilities. Area of effect abilities should be a skillful use of the enemy member, not me not noticing if there is an AOE on the ground because the team making the game thought it would be best that AOE should be as discreet as possible so its a dull purple at night time in a forest thus missing the AOE area.
Adding to the UI, give us as many shortcut boxes as possible and let us use them for everything possible. not just items. If i want the Marking options on a shortcut box i should be able to put it and just press and use it, not just have a convoluted shortcut somewhere.
And also give us quality of life stuff, an ingame notepad and a calculator come in mind. The map should be able to accept every note under the sun and save it as is forever unless i delete it. Let me write a note on the map.
6. Chat
Disable explicit filter is a must. We need control over the background of the chat as well as the colour of the letters and the size of them. Let the chat be as big as we want it, dont limit it.
I also suggest a customisable music tone for whatever we need. Eg. Party member says something, 1 second bongo tune plays. Guild member says something, 1second flute tune plays, that guy that i hate so much but hasnt done anything wrong and i dont want to block him because he is in my guild, 1second toilet flush. Give us a large number of tunes to choose from.
7. Keyboard and mouse shortcuts.
As said before, this is 2019. Mouses especially come with more buttons than 2 extra on the side. be up to date and let me keybind everything.
8. Macros
Yes, macros. give us some limited macros to use. If i jump using a skill into the face of a dragon i want my character to shout "OPEN WIDE"
Edit: We got told that macros will not exist due to being similar to scripts. I advocate for one skill one chat macro. Just something to say while i skill jump onto an enemy. Should be simpler.
9. Power creep.
Apparently Ashes is against power creep. Good to know.
I dont know how they are going to go about it but as a suggestion making more weapons with differing type of damage should help in the long run against power creep. Raid bosses with high defense on one element but weaker on another, adding to the fact that weapons break over use should help immensely on the power creep issues.
Edit: See edit at point 2. Without different player generated types of damage it also means that different types of resistances might be moot. Elemental defenses might be different. Still gonna leave all the point here.
10. Bosses and other strong monsters.
Hard and varied mechanics. We as players have come to expect boss mechanics in the game. I personally enjoy the dance of the raid boss in FFXIV. Nothing wrong suggesting as hard mechanics as possible on the raid bosses.
11. Lore and written text ingame.
This is a continuation of point 10. Dont give information on the bosses outside of the game. But in game library-like buildings should hold some kind of record of different bosses in the world. Scattered, most of the times incomplete records and sometimes completely wrong. "Oh, the sacred text said that the Fenrir is weak against poison. But poison heals it"
Shenanigans galore when all the raid is equipped with poison gear.
Edit: See edit at point 2. Different types of damage might not do the trick. Doesnt mean the whole point is moot and that the general idea is scrapped. Information regarding a boss should only be given through ingame means only and those times mostly incomplete and sometimes wrong.
12. Crystal Weapons
Damokles wanted them. Who am I to argue on suggestions?
13. Tulnar Railway System
perseus01 Suggestion. Since Tulnar have been living in underground isolation for as long as they have, it would make sense if they have an established underground system of such capacity.
I think thats enough for now. If i remember anything ill add it either here or a post under it.
Edited to remove Different Types of Damage, added other suggestions of other forum members
1. Weapons.
Please have a large number of weapons for us. Swords, maces, hammers, axes, daggers and bows have long plagued the mmo genre as the only available weapons.
Edit: We got told already that Ashes will have a large variety of weapons. Since "large" is subjective my point stands
As Ashes is going to be a sandbox we need a larger variety of weapons. Spears, Halberds, Rapiers, Chain and ball to add a few. Anything more than standard mmo weapons. Bows and any long range weapon should have an x,y,z indicator.
2. Range of weapons, Hit distances.
Spears and halberds should have approximately double the distance of swords. they are longer weapons. they should also be able to hit behind a friendly unit. swords and daggers are short range.
But the greatest thing that could be done is regarding bows, especially longbows. Excluding skills, a primary longbow attack should be able to snipe across a very large distance (modern longbows have an effective range of 200m) and make arrows follow gravity. Castle sieges are going to be prevalent in the game, why not have players that want to, to train as longbowmen (no game assistance other than an x,y,z indicator) that can hit over a wall and rain arrows across the map, if they can of course.
Edit: Changed the large amount of different types of damage as it would make balancing a lot harder for mostly minimum return. Lower edits that refer to here is about the large number of primary and elemental types of damage (crush, slash, pierce, penetration, and magic types etc)
3. Weapon Animations.
Every weapon should have their own animation. Forget using the sword animation for a spear. or the same animation for a greatsword and a double hammer. Thats just sloppy.
4. Generals, Commanders (platoon leaders) and phalanxes.
In a big fight you are going to have a general directing the whole group for a cause, either that cause is killing a raid boss, or sieging a castle. And in every group that makes the whole lot you are gong to have a commander that gets direct orders from a general. And of course the rest of the players that make the advancing force.
Generals and Commanders can have group buffs (trained after a long time but small so that its not totally broken) Generals buffs are bigger than the Commanders but the General needs to either be on line of sight to the fight or have scouts (players or disposable NPCs) on certain positions for the buffs to be "transferred" over to the troops on site. if the line is broken or the General dies the whole of the troops can lose all their buffs including the Commander buffs and maybe give them a debuff. It will make smaller strike groups more prevalent and have more footprint in a big war.
Continuing on the theme of large battles and strategy a General can issue a Military Manoeuvre.
This move highlights positions of where each troop needs to be at any given time for the Manoeuvre to succeed . Each player will only see their own position and not the whole. And each Manoeuvre will have their own buffs and debuffs. A defensive Manoeure can have a -25% all attack but a +50% on all defenses making it excellent if the players keep positions and are defending a castle ramp. An advancing Manoeure the opposite. a Hold the line command can give extra HP, defense and engage but only if x amount of people can do it at a time. A turtle move can give immunity to bows and range magic but only if 50% of the people making the move are shieldholders scattered into the total position and they cant act while holding said position other than walk (mines can knockback and remove them from position)
Generals and Commanders should only get experience by how many people in their platoon/army are damaging/killing/dying and you have to be a Commander of a certain level before choosing to become a General or increasing the effectiveness of the Commander subskill.
5. UI
Give us a fully custom UI. I want to move everything, everywhere. Resize all or individual components of my UI. Its 2019, Let me snap on grid (on that matter, give us a grid when we choose to edit UI) or free move. Let us save UIs with custom names and make UIs and skill bar keyboards transferable to other characters on my account (or other players as well, that would be good).
We need a fully customisable interface. If i want to change the colour of my HP to blue and mana to green i should be able to do it. Colours and intensity of colours as well for telegraph abilities. Area of effect abilities should be a skillful use of the enemy member, not me not noticing if there is an AOE on the ground because the team making the game thought it would be best that AOE should be as discreet as possible so its a dull purple at night time in a forest thus missing the AOE area.
Adding to the UI, give us as many shortcut boxes as possible and let us use them for everything possible. not just items. If i want the Marking options on a shortcut box i should be able to put it and just press and use it, not just have a convoluted shortcut somewhere.
And also give us quality of life stuff, an ingame notepad and a calculator come in mind. The map should be able to accept every note under the sun and save it as is forever unless i delete it. Let me write a note on the map.
6. Chat
Disable explicit filter is a must. We need control over the background of the chat as well as the colour of the letters and the size of them. Let the chat be as big as we want it, dont limit it.
I also suggest a customisable music tone for whatever we need. Eg. Party member says something, 1 second bongo tune plays. Guild member says something, 1second flute tune plays, that guy that i hate so much but hasnt done anything wrong and i dont want to block him because he is in my guild, 1second toilet flush. Give us a large number of tunes to choose from.
7. Keyboard and mouse shortcuts.
As said before, this is 2019. Mouses especially come with more buttons than 2 extra on the side. be up to date and let me keybind everything.
8. Macros
Yes, macros. give us some limited macros to use. If i jump using a skill into the face of a dragon i want my character to shout "OPEN WIDE"
Edit: We got told that macros will not exist due to being similar to scripts. I advocate for one skill one chat macro. Just something to say while i skill jump onto an enemy. Should be simpler.
9. Power creep.
Apparently Ashes is against power creep. Good to know.
I dont know how they are going to go about it but as a suggestion making more weapons with differing type of damage should help in the long run against power creep. Raid bosses with high defense on one element but weaker on another, adding to the fact that weapons break over use should help immensely on the power creep issues.
Edit: See edit at point 2. Without different player generated types of damage it also means that different types of resistances might be moot. Elemental defenses might be different. Still gonna leave all the point here.
10. Bosses and other strong monsters.
Hard and varied mechanics. We as players have come to expect boss mechanics in the game. I personally enjoy the dance of the raid boss in FFXIV. Nothing wrong suggesting as hard mechanics as possible on the raid bosses.
11. Lore and written text ingame.
This is a continuation of point 10. Dont give information on the bosses outside of the game. But in game library-like buildings should hold some kind of record of different bosses in the world. Scattered, most of the times incomplete records and sometimes completely wrong. "Oh, the sacred text said that the Fenrir is weak against poison. But poison heals it"
Shenanigans galore when all the raid is equipped with poison gear.
Edit: See edit at point 2. Different types of damage might not do the trick. Doesnt mean the whole point is moot and that the general idea is scrapped. Information regarding a boss should only be given through ingame means only and those times mostly incomplete and sometimes wrong.
12. Crystal Weapons
Damokles wanted them. Who am I to argue on suggestions?
13. Tulnar Railway System
perseus01 Suggestion. Since Tulnar have been living in underground isolation for as long as they have, it would make sense if they have an established underground system of such capacity.
I think thats enough for now. If i remember anything ill add it either here or a post under it.
Edited to remove Different Types of Damage, added other suggestions of other forum members
0
Comments
1. Already discussed and we have been told there will be a large variety of weapons
2. I personally am not a big fan of this as I believe it is adding complexity just for the sake of it. The same goes for resistances. Remember that the more stats and gameplay options you put in, the harder it is to balance. Also are you expecting players to carry around every type of weapon just in case?
3. It's impossible to have unique animations for every weapon, so there will be some sharing of animations.
4. You are assuming that when node sieges happen that there will be a completely united force under a single chain of command. I guarantee this won't happen, so I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't many systems put in place for it besides the standard raid leader tools.
5. We've already been told the UI will be "fully customisable", whatever they mean by that. We'll have to find out I guess.
6. I usually play with in-game sound disabled so this doesn't bother me at all.
7. Again confirmed that there will be in some form.
8. They have already said macros won't be a thing, sorry.
9. Having even more weapon types, etc will only increase the power creep, not decrease it. Power creep is inevitable as long as they add more content.
10. I'm not sure what you are suggesting here to be honest....
11. This is a given in any mmorpg, although it won't stop players from producing out of game libraries of information just like they do with every other game.
You all know that i really want to be a jeweler ingame, so imagine this:
Crystal. Swords. I know... best idea ever!
1. Good to know. Hope its true.
2. If your not a fan your not a fan. Nothing wrong with that. I dont suppose people will have a problem carrying a few extra sets with them for the sake of adventure but thats me. I assume they are going to balance alot of different damage potentials anyway so whats another couple in the long run. The point is choice for the player either attacking or defending players and of course to give bosses something more for them to have if possible.
Would like to know your thoughts on the bow mechanic i discussed in as well tbh. I quite like the idea of someone sniping me from like 200m away using his/her intuition and lucky charm without the aid of skills. Also see the note about castle sieges longbowmen using gravity to shoot past a wall on the backline.
3. Is it really impossible to ask unique animations on a game thats still in development?
4. I dont assume anything., In fact that will be the case most if not all of the time. Does not mean that a well organized group cant have a small bonus and a well thought out plan using the mechanics i outlined out though. One doesnt exclude the other.
5. Its been said, but never touched upon. Just outlining a few things i would like to suggest and see in the game. Such us adding permanent points on my map.
6. Thats you and you do you.
7. Some form. Just exasperated that modern games cant seem to handle my mouse having 4+ extra buttons.
8. I get the script avoidance. Maybe a compromise between a macro only using a chat toggle and a skill. But it really doesnt matter in the end. If they wont they wont.
Of course they have done or not have done things they said they would in the past. Just saying.
9. They did say they will prevent power creep but we still dont know how. My idea is that the more types of damage types and the more varied the equipments are from the beginning they might not need to "add" any more types of weapons and just balance all adding content to the existing sets as is. Since items break and recycled all the time.
10. Hard boss mechanics.
11. Out of game libraries by players is expected. What i meant is that all information should only be gathered by players without any help from the developers except what they put in ingame books. Some developers like to showcase their bosses. Its just a suggestion to prevent that.
Oh damn I forgot about my long-lost WoW profession of Jewelcrafting! I might have to get back to that when the game drops.
I dont mind a macro system, assuming it doesn't allow for more than 1 ability to be triggered per macro.
Being able to tie a chat message to a specific ability or emote is really useful.
In the case of your different types of weapon damage, if you did that then you would need corresponding armour types in a more or less rock-paper-scissors format. For example you have swords that do slashing damage which is strong against leather armour but weak against plate. So when you put in a new kind of damage type you also have to put in the corresponding armour type to combat it. Everything is doubled. Fire elemental damage? You need Fire Resistance of some kind.
All of these things have to be implemented and balanced effectively by the devs. The more types of damage you include the more you have to implement and the harder it is to balance.
Similarly, I see a lot of people asking for tons of different combat stats for their character. Again this sounds good, but in order for them to be balanced effectively you need to implement lots more options. Back in WoW's early days a lot of classes weren't viable purely because they didn't have gear with optimal stats. Even today some WoW specs are hamstrung by not having the most optimal stat distributions on gear to allow them to work as well as others.
Exactly this.
I see your point and I agree.
Since Ashes is not going to be a classless game it makes more sense than haphazardly adding damage types and resistances. I wanted to add them mostly for boss options and to prevent powercreep early on due to more types of dmg means more tools to play with content instead of a general "Character Power level/Item level number"
I will amend my first post for the types of damages in the game
I mostly like to use macros to target specific allies in my party and use one skill on them. Im glad if even a skill and chat is implemented only as well. But if i can target a skill and use it on a single player on my party/raid ill be happy.
As an example, when i was playing FFXIV, i was a tank. A tank has a skill called Shirk which pretty much gives alot of my current aggro of an enemy i have to a single player from my party/raid. Tank swapping was alot easier and that was my only macro on the game. just target 2nd position on party list and cast Shirk.
Too much for Ashes or nah as long as you can macro one skill?
Thousands of years into isolation should have made them masters of exploring their tunnels. at least the "main line" no?
Added your suggestion to the main list
It may be that you group with a mage that has a habbit of taking too much damage, you can then mame a three line macro:
/target mage
/cast single targer heal
/whisper %t STOP GETTING HIT!
This obviously leaves you targeting the mage, and most games don't have any way around this. Since most games execute all commands in the macro at the exact same time, trying to add a line to go back to targeting the tank usually doesn't work.
To me, the aspect that makes macros worth having in the game is that it allows you to portray some personality even during a hectic encounter, which wouldn't necessarily be possible otherwise.
As long as any macro system executes every line simultaniously, it doesn't diminish the skill needed, and since knowing how to program a macro is a skill in itself, it adds to the over all skills possible to make use of in the game.
Now, macros that in any way allow two abilities to be used from one macro would be one of the worst things the game could do, if implemented generally. That said, such a system could potentially be added to the game, but locked on all accounts by default and only unlocked on an account by account basis as an accessability feature, and only after petitioning the developers.
I know a few people that are only able to play games that developers allow for simple macro use in. It doesn't need to be in game, though it is a good accessability feature.
I'd rather not have one than have one implemented generally where multiple abilitjes can he triggered though.
Well I thought about everyone up top that had the airships available to them, so I just thought that there would at least be some form of transit below ground.
Srsly, you should never use a macro that is specifically for one specific person, especially if that person is expendable.
It just takes space away on you hotbar in my opinion(except if it is the main or off-tank)
It would be way better to macro your panic insta heal with a wisper macro to the targeted person or a group message to let everyone know that it is on cd.
It is normal for people to have macros that let allies know if you specific ability is on cd, my healers for example didnt have to speak at all to coordinate with each other for cd usage etc.
I have to agree with you on everything else ^^