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
Please post the source for that quote. Looks like an attempt at a paraphrase to me. And that "paraphrase" makes no sense.
How can an Alpha run up the "launch"? And how can there be a "Beta window mid way through alpha 2 testing"?
I am not thinking about a "big window", whatever that is. The devs are not going to say it's too late to make changes to the secondary archetype system before external testing of that system. The last release schedule we saw states that Alpha 2 is when external testing for the secondary archetype system. So, it makes no sense for the devs to say, "It's too late to make changes to the secondary archetype system." The devs are not going to say that before a considerable amount of external testing has occurred.
You assert that without citing actual dev quotes along with adequate context.
When Steven answered what, specifically?
Many of us already know that Steven is now resigned to delays in the schedule, which is why the team is very reluctant to provide dates before they are sure they can meet those dates. Currently, the team hopes to give us a heads up about one week before delivery.
Ha. That's basically the summary I posted as my first response to the original post.
Articles about the classes are supposed to be provided after the Know Your Nodes series is completed, but there is already a 6 month delay for the 3rd article in that series, so... don't hold your breath waiting for articles about the MMORPG classes.
I expect to see articles about the Castle Siege Class Kits first - possible we could get all of those in one article.
I expect the devs to start with one article per month for Tank, Ranger, Cleric and Mage. Which means, we will most likely have to wait 6 months before we get an article for Fighter, Rogue, Bard or Summoner. IS couldn't even stay on schedule for the quarterly Creative Director's Letter - they skipped the Q3 letter.
It's possible that they could speed up delivery of articles to once a week or once every other week. But, Steven has been holding up the Divine Nodes article for months due to significant tweaks in the designs for Divine Nodes and Military Nodes... I wouldn't be surprised at something similar occurring with articles about classes. I also expect to see articles before being shown gameplay.
But, yeah, Steven has been learning to not make statements that can be misconstrued as promises. And some designs have been tweaked in 2019. Subclass affecting stat progression is one of the tweaks mentioned in the last dev livestream, IIRC.
Unless something has changed since the last time I asked Steven to clarify this point when everyone went down the wrong road with their thoughts:
Steven has confirmed that anyone with "Tank" in their name will be viable as a tank, to one degree or another. This includes Tank/XXX as well as XXX/Tank
The augmenting class will have a direct impact upon the skills. One example he provided was with Tank doing a grapple hook skill to pull an enemy towards him/her. With certain secondary class augments, it would become an AoE pull. That is a MASSIVE change to that skill. HUGE reason to choose that secondary class.
If all of the above applies to Tank, it would be only logical that the exact same applies to all other classes.
i.e. (using your example list):
Tank - Anyone with Tank primary/secondary will have some Defensive & control (Tank Duh)
Cleric - Anyone with Cleric primary/secondary will have some Life conversion (Healer)
Bard - Anyone with Bard primary/secondary will have some Manipulation (Buff/healer)
Fighter - Anyone with Fighter primary/secondary will have some Mobile sustained Melee
Rogue - Anyone with Rogue primary/secondary will have some Deceptive Burst Melee
Mage - Anyone with Mage primary/secondary will have some Elemental Range (Possibly AoE Based)
Ranger - Anyone with Ranger primary/secondary will have some Cunning Range (Focuses / traps)
Summoner - Anyone with Summoner primary/secondary will have some role that changes every time someone asks
As has been mentioned, I think that adds plenty of diversity to classes. You, essentially, have 8 core tanks, with 7 kinda off tanks. Out of 64 "class combinations," 15 can tank to one degree or another. 23% of the class choices can tank, many of which can also perform other role tasks to similar effectiveness.
I like that type of variety, personally. You can choose to dilute your effectiveness on any certain role to provide more flavor and utility.
NO in fact he has said the complete opposite to people also... ONLY Primaries have roles not secondaries!
- Core abilities that define a tank, healer, mage, rogue are not transferred via Sub classes..... Steven said "we will have to limit what is shared in subclasses or it will just be every going DPS + Support and DPS + Tank for dungeons and raids that everyone picking the most OP combo for PvE and PvP so no there will be limits like only 10% of the augments added by cleric will heal the others with be thematically Life and Death benefits that are not healing"
But that's ok cause remember as people KEEP DMing me "EVERYTHING IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE" so until Intrepid commits "On paper" nothing is right either way..... also love those that DM me on fake discord accounts and dont face me on here.. (not directed at you all here just wish some people would grow up)
Makes no sense to state that only primaries have roles. Secondary archetype means there can be secondary role if you don't double-down on your primary role by choosing the same archetype twice.
Active skills are not gained when choosing a secondary archetype, but a Tank/Cleric gains augments that can Heal and a Tank/Rogue gains augments that allow them to Stealth.
What a character can do with with an augment is a lesser degree than what can be done with an active skill - which is why Virtek said that those who choose Tank as secondary archetype can tank to some degree...which means they can off-tank to some degree.
The only way that can change is to not have secondary archetypes at all... which pretty much negates a core pillar of the game design.
Again that is the point of this Theory Craft / Hypothetical topic due to the nature of the ever evolving classes and that Steven has said to us while play Civ5 in VC these things which put previous statements as something many heard as incorrect including the old "Big topic Mage/ Tank can tank" in stream to then later say that "the augments of tank add survival and control affixes to the current mages abilities and possible a survival/control passive" and again You / Me and others all stated the way that works and we all want it the same way... like in the old post please intrepid prove me wrong cause every one of us can scream and say shit until we are blue in the face but that will be for nothing thinking it is "A" if in fact it is going to be "B" and worse is the when we find out..... but you will keep going back and commenting cause there is not way in hell i am right about any of this....... well then i hope i am made out to be an idiot by @Steven Sharif and the Intrepid team cause that is 1 Million times better than may concerns being facts !! Keep up the good work everyone at Intrepid AND in the community!!!!
Rather people have said that Mage/Tank can off-tank to some degree. A tank control augment affixing to the current Mage abilities and Spellshield possibly gaining a control passive is not new or contradictory info.
Tank/Mage will be a viable primary Tank.
Mage/Tank will be able to off-Tank to some degree due to having some augments that, when affixed to a Mage ability, will also utilize some control effects.
10% of Secondary Cleric augments healing others is not really new info - other than that's probably higher than I originally expected. I have never expected a Secondary Cleric to be as good at healing as a Primary Cleric. Even having one augment that can heal others has always been good enough.
Sounds to me that whatever Steven said in Civ5 voice chat is not contradictory info.
If there is contradictory info, that's going to add months to the schedule of releasing info on classes.
Especially since, if what you believe is true, the devs would have to spend time re-naming the majority of the class list.
Combos while doing certain actions feel very good to use, and sub class should have a noticeable impact on what you do, not just the same but with different types of damage.
For example, use a water spell and then lightning to increase the overall damage, and make it aoe, things like that.
I also think that they should allow to respect secondary class without any problems.