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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.
AoE dmg. PvP and PvE implications
George_Black
Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
Do you find that AoE spam on demand makes PvP feel less skilled and just a clash of zergballs?
Do you find that PvE leveling up becomes faster when a tank pulls a whole area of mobs for the DPS to spam AoE?
Should there be a limitation of AoE dmg in the form of a cooldown of 10s and mediocre dmg.
Or class restriction in which some classes can make slightly better AoE usage, but struggle with other features?
Personally I dislike blank point AoE combat.
I always invision a more movie like battlefield in which warriors fight each other and then move on to the next target. In mmorpgs latelly all I see is people spamming AoE buttons and just roll up and down.
What do you think about AoE gameplay for PvP and for PvE?
Do you find that PvE leveling up becomes faster when a tank pulls a whole area of mobs for the DPS to spam AoE?
Should there be a limitation of AoE dmg in the form of a cooldown of 10s and mediocre dmg.
Or class restriction in which some classes can make slightly better AoE usage, but struggle with other features?
Personally I dislike blank point AoE combat.
I always invision a more movie like battlefield in which warriors fight each other and then move on to the next target. In mmorpgs latelly all I see is people spamming AoE buttons and just roll up and down.
What do you think about AoE gameplay for PvP and for PvE?
1
Comments
(Disclaimer: if I am remembering that correctly, it's been almost two years)
@Shoklen The original idea for clerics and others that buff or heal was that they would need to do damage in order to heal or buff. No more sitting in the back and spamming right or left click while some Healbot addon throws your heal where it needs to go. Whether they manage to pull that off in a way that works, again, have to wait and see.
AoE with damage equal to a single target ability is unbalanced. AoE with minimal damage but evasion bonuses (a Rogue’s smokescreen), AoE with no damage but a brief cc (a Warrior’s intimidating roar), a moderate damage AoE with a cost to the user (a Mage’s channeled spell). Things like that sound more interesting and more easily balanced than AoE spamming with damage on par with single target.
@Damokles
Interesting
But lets be honest... the moment gameplay is AoE spam fest; something went seriously wrong and combat design failed. Intrepid seems well aware of that in my opinion😅
I definitely agree with you here @Wololo - AOE has a place but it shouldn't be the only tool you need in your arsenal.
I like the way Warhammer Online had the mechanic where the longer you were in combat the more a special bar (pool) would rise.. You could then slot special abilities into this bar at 25, 50, 75, and 100%.. You could only use those abilities when the pool raised to that amount.. At which point the pool/bar would drop to zero.
it was a nice solution that gave nice abilities which could not be fired off very often or even at the start of combat. You want that big insane ability at the end of the line? Got to wait for it and not use any of the lesser abilities... Not always an easy choice.
We had something similar in the past (might still be in). In earlier builds, we had focus, which was a resource that you gained by doing basic attacks (similar to rage) and was used for ultimates. Later on, we also saw some other abilities requiring different amounts of it. Example(if my memory serves): ranger had volley as an ultimate that used all their focus but they also had the ability explosive shot, that used less of it (or at least required less of it to activate). Thinking about it now, I don't think we had a clear indicator of how much focus we had so it's hard to say if abilities consumed all of it or only a set amount.
I agree this kind of system is nice so you can have a variety of impactful abilities that can't be fired off in quick succession at the beginning of combat.
If there's a bajillion trash mobs in every dungeon, then AoE is going to be very important and powerful in that content. If PvP battles involve lots of players focused around singular objectives (especially when choke-points are involved) then again AoE will be overpowered in that situation.
But if more of the content is focused around single-/dual-enemy boss battles, or large battlefields with many objectives to spread out the fighting, then AoE will naturally be less important, and it will only be situationally powerful.
Maybe if you possess super high-level artifacts and things of that nature, you could be able to cast these powerful spells, but they should not be common place.
It would be interesting, if casters could work together to create mega aoes.we know for example, tht summoners can work together to summon siege creatures etc, so why should mages not be able to pool together their mana, for larger blizzards etc
Also, All classes should not have AOE. And finally. Players under an AOE should be able to avoid it somehow.
It would be cool if you could channel your aoes.
At the beginning the aoe would be small, but it would grow with the channelduration.
The channel would also exponentally increase the mana cost per second.
The aoe channel could have stages: early stage (5m radius, 50mana per second, 2min cd), medium stage (15m radius, 200mana per second, after 10sec, 3min cd), late stage (30m radius, 500mana per second, after 15sec, 6min cd), catastrophy stage (60m radius, 1k mana per second, after 20sec until no mana, would need multiple mages to channel together, 10min cd)