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.
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I can't neglect mentioning Kunoichi in Black Desert though. The sheer joy just from MOVING makes me giddy. She has a short dash she can do with shift every second, where if you do it left or right she does a freaking cartwheel. You can also double jump without losing speed AND do your dash while you're double jumping. I have so much fun just running around town with her!
Honorable mentions to Assassin in Blade & Soul and Monk in World of Warcraft, with a special shout-out to Mesmer in Guild Wars 2 for being such a well executed unique idea.
The area where the tank class can really struggle if not designed well is PvP in some games taunts are 100% useless against other players. So there needs to be a good amount of versatility with tank skills so they are just as viable in PvP as PvE. Tanks need to be a concern for enemies on the PvP battlefield not just something that can be bypassed because hey they are just a tank.
I should add my preference is for a paladin tank thus tank/cleric for ashes.
You really do paint such a vivid picture as to why you love the Necromancer so very much, thank you for sharing
JK
Mechanically, I like classes that build up resources or combos for a big hit at the end. Or really anything with a good rhythmic flow to it. (Tera's Warrior and Valkyrie classes are good examples.)
I enjoy all three trinity roles, and I play healers and tanks a lot. But mostly that's because they interact more with the enemies and with with allies. (And they're more in demand for group content.) But none of those classes has really struck me as amazing. Astrologian from FFXIV comes closest though, since they have a lot of different tools, and aren't as restricted by long casting-bars.
All together, I'd say my ideal class is a flexible, melee spellslinger, who has cool ways to interact with enemies (perfect dodge or counter mechanics are cool, hint hint), and some kind of resource/combo mini-game that builds up to a big finisher. And it would be a nice bonus if this hypothetical class had a team-focused ability or two, but the other things come first.
Ok Ill take my time and upload some pictures this time.
Line][Age Gladiator
Tera Online Warrior (ok.. a bit oversized weapons.)
ESO Dual Wield DragonKnight
In some games twin weapons are attributed to rogues and stealth play. In other they represent a wild furious warrior.
In a perfect twin sword class I would represent a master swordsman, wearing heavy armor, dealing high conditional damage, high HP and CC resistances, but low defence physical and magic.
The warrior doesn't have to have the best mobility nor too many CC options.
I like the concept of Riposte Stance in which you strike back when your enemy does, and a couple of counter attack CCs.
ESO for example has the weirdest combinations of:
huge reliance (up until recently) on range attack when holding two weapons (why not play bow..)
the sole reason for using two weapons was a strong bleed effect in the past (DoT should be a tanks wear-them-down style) until the sole reason for using them became a damage mitigation BUFF ) again a tanks feature.
Black Desert online has very strict classes, so unless you want a Giant with two axes or a female char you can't play with two swords. A samurai looking class would summon the power of WIND in his left hand for a few seconds and that was considered two swords.
Is it possible to enjoy again a warrior with two swords? Not an assassin, and not a barbarian. Let's see what happens with AoC
I liked L2 class more than any other mmorpg by far.
And I loved how a character became a class through a series of quests and choices.
Would like to see and try the summoner if the summons are actually powerful.
My deciding factors on picking class apart from fun -
1) I want to be useful to other players
2) I want the fashion to look gooood. If the threads aren't lit, the class don't fit.
Plus it used to have really cool sounding ding or sheild of rigtheouness and hammer of righteousness. Got changed. By the way I give WoW A plus as far as sound is concerned but how do you teach sound to another developerer.
Game play felt solid. You had opportunities ot do high burst damage using stacks of holy powe and while tanking shield slam was offensive but also defensive so had to time it with high damage out put from bosses. So there was some strategy to it. Other classes more like same rotation cycle over and over again. Plus came with good cc and interupts really important for pve and pvp.
Pally is a hybrid class dps tank off heals which I really liked but some how this proved to a a game design problem not sure why. Problem was hybrid dps class did to much healing with proper set up and still put out pretty good dps. Not sure how that applies to Ashes of creation but may be something to look out for.
In terms of mechanics, I am all about cooldowns. The notion of resource building classes is innately boring as far as I am concerned - as even if there is a big payoff at the end, there is no thought in how to get there. The payoff is a foregone conclusion, and assuming you can press 1, 1, 1, 2 - you get that same payoff as every other member of your class.
Such classes have their place - namely, a means for less good players to cover up the fact that they are less good.
However, to me, any class where you use the same spell twice in a row is a non-starter. I should have to think carefully about every spell I cast. If I can go in to an encounter knowing the first three spells I am going to cast, I consider that a failure in terms of that class' design.
While some players like to put their reflexes up as the thing that separates a good player from a no-so-good player, I'd rather put my brain up as that deciding factor.
for example:
in SWTOR: my favorite class was Commando Hybrid, design to heal and deal burst aeo damage.
Sorcerer and Scoundrel are full time healing with good CC skill and aggressive single target damage. Sorc DPS in PvP is outstanding, even tho it is a healing class. I mostly shuffle through this 3 class.
in LOTRO: i like Mini heal tank because of good group support and can solo most PvE. But my favorite class was Lore Master because of strong burst AOE damage, Healing, Tanking and lots of CC. To be honest, i was still learning LM when i last played LOTRO and that was almost 5 years ago. LM is very complicated class. Easy to play, hard to master.
Guild wars 2: almost 4 years and still learning. Every class is hybrid here. Thief and Mesmar is my all time favorite. Sneak, Shadow, Range, Burst DPS.
Some people don't like "easy to learn" class. Some don't like "very complicated" class.
While a lot of the Mesmer spells were pretty niche and limited in their application, it was fun to mix and max based on the situation and what kind of enemy you wanted to shut down.
I love this dynamic as a playstyle. It for so much variance for what skills to run and what armour to wear that will benefit your group the most while keeping you alive. Do you need to minimax for magical damage or physical damage? How hard does this boss hit? Do I need to add management skills slotted? etc.
I hope that tanking in AOC won't just be about being a meat shield and keeping taunt.
What I like about healing is, that it requires more "brainwork". As a healer your job was never about pushing out the most possible healing, but about distributing healing the most effectively without wasting healing (overhealing), or letting anyone die. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZiO-J60fMG8#t=29m40s
I hope Ashes will bring around many hibrid classes that can be used both for healing and damaging/tanking depending on the equipment the character is wearing.
Allies have no idea that you even contributed, it matters not that you silenced/slowed/rooted/reduced the healing of a few enemies, it's all about the DPS guy yelling "I KILLED 5 OF 'EM".
The silent UNguardian, the dark knight (might as well make it super OP and make it tanky as well, heh).
In GW2, the Scrapper is my favorite defense ability class. They can create anti-projectile shields that follow them around, give others within melee range the ability to absorb some damage, and can mitigate more damage if they attack enemies up close with their hammer. This is kind of what I would expect a tank to be like given the spells we've seen so far, but with an actual shield being involved.
The other classes are fairly generic and are very common in games, but they work well and I love them for it.
My ideal class would be similar to Musa. The class should utilise its relatively high movement ability so that it can reposition and find the ideal time to engage onto the enemy. I think it should be somewhat squishy as the player should rely on the class movement ability and positioning to avoid damage. Some amount of of CC to interrupt enemies and medium damage so it can easily kill weakened/squishy targets. Additionally it would be nice if it had utilities to track enemies in some form or other scouting abilities that would give vital info back to the shotcaller.
I rlly like to play mage characters but it would be awesome some kind of mage that is not only DPS but also some kind of utility for the open world and exploration, that kind of character would be so cool, i've alwas liked the flashy spells and the idea to spend some time casting one big-ass magic or a quick one to have some mobility.
I'm really excited about this game and i can't wait to play any kind of mage you've designed.