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.
Comments
Besides healing my other favorite class to have played was Scholar (support) from Ragnarok Online. The idea that you can switch your mana for someone elses, both friend and foe, while being able to eat health for mana recovery is just a fun added layer to normal boring stereotypes. It also had a few other fun mechanics such as stopping casts with a skill and being able to utilize an anti aoe both offensively and defensively.
In all I just love Healing and support. It might be because I am terribad at dps, but you play to your strengths and if I get a choice I will go Heal Support Buff builds with as little damage as I can get away with.
However I love to min. max. my Caracters so that they exell at specific tasks rather than being your all round packeg for every situation.
Especially if you have to think out side of the box and adobt a "unique" playstyle in order for your min. max. to actually work out.
My main character in SWTOR is also a merc healer which is the closest thing I have ever played to a tank healer. Take damage, mitigate or lower it with defenses, heal through the rest and get more powerful the more they try. Says something about my playstyle.
I am hopeful though that you guys will do a great job of this between the class sub spec and ability augments. Cheers. Cant wait for the Alpha demo in March!
Ahsoka, out
well... my first one was paladin in wow. Since it was only class where weapons + "magic" + armor got combined. And my mindset was... accepting for it. Later after some IRL fluctuations, i guess minset got changed. I became really hooked to Death Knight idea to play with death. No shield, only you and boss. Your HP jump up and down, you cast dark magic and slash enemy with sword. And while not feel like you "cover" someone as paladin do, you still protect your party. Since then it was hard to me to find game with such class (and not be old enough)
Death Knight. No shield. Heavy/medium armor. Weapons and dark magic. Lifesteal tanking. Dance with death.
My hope is a build a druid character in a manner that is akin to the EQII Warden/Fury or WoW Druid. I'm looking for a strong natural aesthetic to heals/buffs (vines, leaves, trees, rain, moon/sun) as well as damaging spells (lightning, wind, water, moon/sun). As a healer, I am not expecting to keep up with DPS damage but it's been frustrating in other games to struggle to solo mobs in the world due to really bad damage and would like to be able to avoid that in this game.
*Shapeshifting* is a requirement in my mind for a good druid. With each form possessing some passive buffs that aren't too OP or game-breaking. For example - a healing form that gives +5% to healing, a dmg form +10% to dmg, a travel form +XX% to speed. I really loved spirit of the wolf from EQ and hope something similar makes an appearance in AoC.
Heal wise - Some nice HoTs and direct heals and AoE versions of both HoTs and direct heals will suffice. I'm sure you can do that in your sleep. The trouble will be making healing fun. The only game I enjoyed the act of healing in was TERA. The combination of action combat with very few lock-on spells meant I had to pay more attention to what was happening in combat rather than playing wack a mole with health bars while standing in a safe corner away from everything. If you make it so spells are aimed (not all heals of course) and heal at a higher percentage that corresponds to the difficulty of properly landing the spell it makes things more interesting. TERA's priest had AoE HoTs that were nearly impossible to miss because of a very large AoE but they weren't always worth casting for that very same reason. The conal or small range AoE heals were more worthwhile but they also meant to had to be in thick of combat with your tank or melee DPS dodging boss cleaves like everyone else. It made the fight more exciting and the role of healing more challenging at the same time. Can we get some of that, please?
Future Crafting Plans: Herbalism > Alchemy & Scribe or Mining > Metalworking > Jewel cutting (Pending)
I enjoy learning new content with others as a Tank too, can be ever so enjoyable, but at the same time I kind of like doing old content too and using knowledge gained for a better experience, or using such to help newer people out as well.
That being said.. never fun if Tanking is just.. smashing one taunt button or something, a decent kind of threat battle should be needed without it only on the tank for threat is boring. An experienced Tank should be able to make these things easier, but if it is easy from the get go.. well that makes it dull.
Hell, I play every role in an MMO.. just to be a better Tank, so. I wish you folks the best of luck in making the greatest experience for Tanks as well as everyone else. #Tanks&DwarfsForever
I think my idea class is your tradional dark/death knight class. Heavy armor, Big weapon, and dark magic. I like a very greedy playstyle. A class that is focused on damage, defense and vamp with little to contribute to groups. No CC.
I like to improve the game experience and ingame relationships between players and within groups, in spite of my strong desire to remain under the radar. Riding yet another gaming hedonic treadmill of short-lived thrills-of-acquisition bores me.
Specific to Ashes of Creation: I am leaning towards a Siren or a Soul Weaver.
I think a healer / summoner will be fun. Summon a little fairy that goes around healing would be amazing!
When I came back a few years after launch I also made a song weaver and had a blast playing it. It really nice to have a little bit of everything in your kit. Alright heals, alright damage, and alright CC. It was great to have to fill all of those roles in order to come out on top. Having to use your CC to either get off cast times, or heal up and get distance, it turns into a very enjoyable ebb and flow of gameplay.
I played almost all of the classes in Aion tho and they just really had a fun style of combat in the beginning. It got weird later with all the transformations, but still just really well done classes, and I think that’s partly because a major focus was PvP.
I’m really hoping to find something close to the songweaver in this game, and I think it is really going to come down to how the bard ends up playing. I’m hoping it gives me that ebb and flow feel of switching between buffing/healing myself, keeping the enemies locked down to the best of my ability, and still dishing out damage when I can. Just have to hope they don’t take the approach of “jack of all trades master of none” too seriously like a lot games, and actually take the time to balance around it.
Imagine a Rogue/Ranger: ranged backstabs, slows, bleeds etc *shudders in euphoria*
Some people just think of invisibility and poisons, but there's much more that can be done.
Techniques could include:
Throwing a cloak over yourself as cover,
Throwing the cloak (or anything) at an enemy to break his line of sight,
Tangling up an enemy's weapon to close range.
Acrobatic clinching maneuvers to turn an enemy, following with attacking their flank, or using them as cover. All of those options could also be done after impaling the enemy with one of your knives. (Impale becoming a single target CC state with options from there.)
Throwing one knife at their face as a feint and then leaping into them, impaling them with the other knife.
Crippling attacks focusing on the enemy's hands, working as a temporary disarm, or attacking the knees, slowing them.
"Bleed" damage from these skills would be much better than "poison."
All these abilities would be focusing on crippling a single enemy. Acrobatic escaping skills and stealth would complete the concept. Instead of poisons you could have alchemy healing skills and smoke shrouds. Toxic gas in your smoke shroud would also be a good twist on poison.
One Ultimate Skill I can imagine would be a warp strike where you throw one knife at an opponent, missing just over them, and then teleport to the thrown weapon, impaling them with each knife.
I'm really hopeful to see the concepts you put out to make your rogue class exciting.
My Ideal class that i've always wanted to see in an MMORPG would be a Geomancer in the liking from Final Fantasy Tactics. A Geomancer is a type of mage. Depending on the terrain it is currently standing on depends on the Magic it can use. This magic damage is at a lower damage scale in comparison to a normal "wizard", however it's magic has a somewhat low chance of causing enfeebling effects, such as Sleep, poison, slow, berserk, etc...
I've always wanted to see this class and Main it in a MMO. I believe it would give great variance =^_^=
With that in mind, the class from D&D that seems to match my playstyle the most is Paladin. Ironically, since I'm agnostic (or a godslayer, depends on the setting). A heavily armored, sword toting frontliner with healing, support and offensive magic.
I have a certain playstyle I actively aim towards, and some accidental playstyles that I try on a whim and just click with. What I always aim towards is a versatile swordsman: this means having a sword for more than decoration and any other skills, abilities, spells or weapons to round out the character. "My greatest strength is I have no weaknesses; my greatest weakness is I have no strengths." I always use stealth early on, as information gathering via scouting is vital to survival. You can pick and choose battles, getting a preemptive strike or bypassing the encounter entirely. Healing magic and heavy armor are also early game musts for the same reason: less damage taken and regenerating HP. As my skill improves and my character levels, I lean into higher speed and elemental damage and away from sluggish armor and cautious stealth. I ultimately end up with a spellsword, capable of self-buffing, self-healing, ranged attacks, non-physical attacks, physical attacks, and a healthy dose of evasive mobility. It's a powerful all-rounder that class systems tend to deny the existence of.
What I would not expect to click but did and does when I tried it is archery and conjuration. The game of keepaway as you land precise shots is a kind of fun sword swinging and spell slinging doesn't provide. I seldom stick to archery as a primary attack method, but gladly keep it as a secondary. Conjuration comes from the Elder Scrolls - no, not the Elder Scrolls Online, the single player ones. The ability to summon weapons, armor and allies out of thin air just directly appeals to my desire for self-sufficiency. I don't need to pack a bow when I can conjure one; I don't need to bring a companion when I can summon one; I don't need to be disarmed when I can rearm. It admittedly falls off at the higher levels when you grow strong enough to 1-man-army everything, but even then... I still keep the bound bow ready to cast and occasionally summon daedra with a "you kill it" as I keep walking.
In groups, I take the same philosophy of versatility and caution by shoring up survivability with defense and healing first, then feel out what's needed from there, ultimately shedding defense and healing to the bare minimum as I/we maximize speed ...in movement and killing. Which means I'm always the tank. My own desire for survival ends up placing me with the right stats for it and from there I try to omni-role. I first add self healing, then try to squeeze in damage. After a while, I may even try fully switching to healing or DPS, in order to better understand the specialization and bring that knowledge back to tanking.
So, what kind of class would appeal to me the most? Well, it needs a swordsman as a base. I won't give up the longsword - it's my one arbitrary demand. From there, something with high speed and versatility. A kind of "support vanguard," probably a Paladin in D&D.
My ideal classes are probably both the Cleric and Chanter from Aion (just way too many abilities, and the rest of the game sucks). I love playing healers first and also supports and they do those styles the best.
The classic 1h Mace/Shield heavy armor wearing Cleric is so fun as a tanky primary healer class that can also get in melee to help dps if needed and is very survivable, with a few ranged dps options as needed (although Aion might have given them too many ranged options for a heavy armor class - that I might reserve for mixing a cleric with a mage and having to downgrade their armor or some other penalty to balance that). Also just a really well rounded, powerful healing toolkit as well to serve as a backbone to their group. Many other games have done this class in fun ways as well, but I don't always see it with a) heavy armor or at least chain mail, and b)1h mace/shield.
Secondly I love the Chanter for two reasons - I love using staves/quarterstaves in melee as a primary means of dps and I love supporting (the often unused 4th role). It's the sort of monk style of dps but in a class that has heavy armor along with off heals/buffs/debuffs/cc. The debuffs applied primarily in the staff dps moves was cool and made your dps feel more purposeful and helpful, but I also just love the idea of a class that's more survivable - as opposed to your more traditional medium armor wearing monk class that has to rely on dodges to survive and is super squishy. It was a great way to mesh several fun class archetypes - your bard, your cleric/paladin, and a monk all in one.
Edit: THE AURAS! How can I forget the auras/mantras the Chanter had. I LOVE THOSE so much. And I loved that they had a ton to choose from and you could toggle 3 at any given time. Designed properly it really gives you a choice in what buffs you give your team at any given time - depending on content, group make up (or lack thereof), etc.
Really, I loved and still do love that game. Grew up playing it and loved the PvP. The best part about it was that each class was so unique and really separated themselves in PvP and PVE combat.
I find too many MMOs just taking classes and essentially giving a map of abilities and then you just pick and choose, not really allowing a story to be created for that type of class. EQII had class specific looks, mythical weapons that were unique to each class that took a while to quest through/create/etc. Regardless, here are my favorites from the game:
Mystic (Shaman): From their website: "The Mystic is a shaman of spiritual preservation and enlightenment. Mystics are known for their poverty warding spells that protect allies from harm. The Mystic can enhance the party’s attributes and provide magical protection in combat while inflicting debilitating weakness upon the enemy."
The mystic's primary value to the group was strong, slower casting time wards, and powerful debuffs - while wearing chain armor to not be to flimsy. Additionally, the class had a great amount of utility in group buffs and temps like Bolster (enlargen and strengthen the tank) and Torpor (powerful regen ward that actually made your ally slower). You just had a sense that the mystic was using these spells for healing but only how a mystic would. Mystics were great to have in PVP because they helped to stabilize the health of the group, so that everyones HP bar was not flying everywhere.
Templar (Cleric): From their website "Templars use divine power to mend the wounded and cure the suffering of the afflicted. They can enhance the fortitude of their allies while making their opponents more vulnerable to attack. Templars can pacify foes, nullifying their normal combat attacks for a short time."
The templar is reactive healer class who had the strongest heals in the game and wore plate armor, albeit the slowest casting times and probably the lowest DPS. Again, the templar had some unique faith enemy impairment spells that would "cleanse" harmful effects (Involuntary Gift) or help heal the group based on damage done to the enemy (Healing Fate). The reactive heals took a lot of skill to master since dot damage would eat them up. In PVP, the Templar would basically save the group with a big emergency reactive when needed in a way that no other healer could.
I could go on for other classes in EQII that I love - however I think that highlighting different types of healing, like was done previously with HoT heals and druids would be great.
I enjoyed the Abilitie to craft your own magic ( & Scroll Creation) in Asheron's Call. It was unique and a fun way to have variance. Yes other than the meta or endgame content, many mages had various magic spells at their disposal depending on how they wanted their build. Some had more support spells with less DPS spells, while others were more balanced, and some were of course all dps or all support. But scroll/spell craft was a big part for mages in AC.
Personally I'm drawn to support roles or jack of all trades types rather than a straight up healer. While no they're never the best on their own it's good being the backbone of the team providing buffs, debuffs or crowd control something along the lines of a Bard, Dancer, Enchanter, Druid, Summoner etc.
One major drawback of playing this type of class is they usually never get to do much outside of controlling things besides one or two spam skills. It's dreadfully boring when you're only reduced to a few buttons out of 20 or 30 because you lack the ability to do decent damage in fun ways when the situation calls for dpsing and not supporting.
While not a very good game Forsaken World has a Bard class. They have different skills that produce different cords (A,B,C,D etc) when you use a certain skill tied to a certain note, the note will pop into the little song UI element. Once you've used the proper skills to produce a cord a song will go off (C>C>D=Song). While it might seem basic it actually does a lot to keep the gameplay interesting when you have to pay attention to which skills you're using in which order and what songs are currently playing so you keep the buffs rotating throughout the encounter. If you have lets say 5 songs under different button presses and each song lasts for 30 seconds it's rather boring to just press the button for the song and let it go off rather than making the song happen yourself by using your skills in the correct order. In the long run it makes each encounter far more engaging.
This brings me to the other main point I would like to mention when it comes to classes we'd love to play as. Honestly I really want to play as a Witch. There are very few if any actual MMOs and not ARPGs where you can play as a Witch class. It would be something unique and you can even get inspiration from the Bard in Forsaken World using ingredients or potions instead of songs. Give a skill-set of 10 different ingredient abilties (outside of their usual 20 or however many skills each class gets) some do damage, maybe cc, heal, dot what have you but give another button that allows you to mix two of them to make a new flashier potion ability. Call it an Alchemist, Soothsayer, Witch, Clairvoyant, Psychic really I don't care what name you go with this type of Chemist job hasn't ever really been done or done well in an MMO but it plays very well with the midevil setting while allowing for some more unique ability themes plus using the Witch as a backdrop would allow you to keep an Alchemist job for crafting while having the potion brewing aspect of the Witch for an actual battle class.
One thing I would like seeing added is skill combos, it makes button mashing far more enjoyable when you know x skill + y skill = z effect. Something GW2 actually did semi-decent in the early days was their ability combo system between different party members. Think about it... Priest casts "holy flame" on a boss causing burning, Wizard has a skill that exploits burn for extra damage (I dunno if they do just giving an example sorry) well those two abilities would make for a great combo between two different classes allowing for more gameplay advantages depending on which classes you have together in a party. Think back to the SNES/PS1 RPG days, how fun was it in Chrono Trigger to use Flame Whirl and Ice Toss or in Chrono Cross X-Strike or Delta Force? It would be a such a fun way to keep fights interesting in the long run.
Sorry for the long winded post but I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to listen to the silly ideas of the peons!
In older games where role-playing actually mattered, a sneaky Rogue was ideal for me. I loved the concept of being able to spy on others, collect information, then when it mattered, and do lots of damage on a single target. If running around solo, you could also use traps and other abilities to solo almost any content in the game if you had the skill.
I also like the possibility of being a traditional Fighter (think D&D), where you can hyper-specialize in a certain style or weapon to do crazy amounts of damage, but still had resilience. You could literally be walking destruction, like Conan the Barbarian! ...but haven't really seen that done well in any game recently.
In newer games, I love playing mages with big spells and high impact/damage. I love the glass-cannon style of play of high risk and high reward. However, it drives me absolutely insane when everybody in the game only focuses on pure DPS numbers, or raw damage numbers, and somehow want them to be equal across every class in the game. To me that defeats the whole purpose of picking a class. The only different thing then is the utility or spell graphics. (Simplifying to make a point, but if all the numbers are the same, why would you bring a class with lower utility, movement, or survivability?)
My ideal class would be like the traditional D&D Wizard.
At lower levels, you're so fragile, a house cat is a viable threat. But if you used your creativity with your spells, like Sleep, you could do survive almost anything. It was also made the class about preparation as well as creativity. With enough adventuring, you could amass almost every spell in the game you could think of, and even create new spells. Then, your play style can either be preference or situation. And feats (probably talent trees in-game) to further specialize.
I don't mind casting a spell for 10 minutes that I know will kill one creature no matter what. But, if I'm not stealthy enough during those 10 minutes, it might mean certain death if I'm caught.
I would also like to be a mage that helps boost everybody else's effectiveness. Perhaps using a clever spell like Grease to cause every creature to stumble or fall in an area, allowing the Ranged attackers to sit back and shoot them. Or use a mass invisibility spell on my party to create a massive advantage to a deadly enemy. Or perhaps give the party the ability to fly and take the fight to the dragon in the air, or quickly Teleport (or Dimension Door) away to a safe place if we're in trouble. I would also love if the Wizard (or spellcaster in general) was necessary in all Enchanting. (Could be active casting to help create, or just making scrolls to sell for others to use. Being a Wizard/spellcaster for the sole purposes of Enchanting things, or making magical items, weapons, and armor just to make money sounds amazing. If the crafting systems are done correctly, just doing that would be amazing.
Over my dead body