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.
Do you think that racial passives or even abilities is necessary?
George_Black
Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
Or even a good idea?
0
Comments
I would be okay with minor racial passives.
I think they once said that races seed the beginning stats or something.
Any more than that and people will start wanting specific races for specific roles.
If neither of those exist then there’s not even a point to having varying races in Ashes.
Yep.
It always ends up with Meta choices otherwise which is ugly.
Well, i believe that it all started with Dungeons&Dragons. I personally think that racial passives give the whole game a bit more depth.
What do you mean by depth?
"In keeping with our theme of Consequence, and unlike other games, race won’t just be a matter of look, with relatively inconsequential abilities tacked on. Instead they integrate deeply into our class system, augmenting and changing the basic chassis provided by our eight core archetypes. Our goal here is to create a system where an elven fighter feels different, but serves the same role as a dwarven fighter."
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Racial_abilities
Does it though? Let's take combat stats as an example since a lot of mmorpgs give slightly different stat values to each race. If you make these variances too large you completely unbalance the game, so most developers do just tiny differences (an Orc may have 1-2 more points of strength than a Human for example). The thing is, in normal gameplay it's almost impossible to feel the difference in those racial stats, and if you can't feel the difference between playing as a Human vs an Orc, what's the point in having those stats in the first place?
We were by passive, but fair point with the stat points.
I like the way how WoW handled passives for the most part at the beginning. A dwarven priest had a antifear spell, while a night elf priest had a aoe dmg spell. Darves could see treasures on their map, while elves had more speed and could turn invis while standing still.
Ok, what do they add to the game?
They add a sense of consequence to the game.
To quote Steven: "Our goal is to create a system, where an elven fighter feels different, but serves the same role as a dwarven fighter."
I like that idea.
I also believe they are a monumental undertaking and something that Intrepid didn't think about before they posted their timeline.
It is already established: Tulnar.
well a ork is going to be stronger than an elf but an elf would be faster
Intrepid has already committed to either:
1) Vast imbalance,
-- Which gets boring as soon as everyone figures out the best builds,
-- But isn't hard for newbies to keep up;
2) Rapidly rotating metas,
-- Where they constantly nerf what is strongest and see what pops up next,
-- Which is more interesting, and probably best long-term,
-- But more difficult to keep up with, and especially hard on players with less time to min-max; or
3) An impossible and unending task of actually balancing 1000s of builds in a hugely complex world,
-- Which is just not feasible, unless they become the largest MMO on the market and can afford to hire 50 devs whose sole job is to monitor and balance every skill and build in the game over the course of 5 years,
-- Essential doing 10-100 times the balance work of DotA or LoL (100+ characters, 5 abilities each).
So yeah, knowing that, it really doesn't hurt to have a little bit of extra flavor thrown in via racial abilities/stats. Some people will enjoy the "consequences" (I would prefer the term "identity") of their racial choices. The meta will be a mess with or without racial deviance.
1. You a racist
2. corrupted ugly animal beings are the master race? Please. gtfo furry
3. I am not racist. Just stating facts
It is the best way to balance the game (sure, you may suck this patch, but I'm sure you'll be all good next patch), but it is also probably the best way to guarantee that no one is left out due to class - at least on a guild level.
If patches are once a month, and players know that the meta will change at least a little bit then, guilds aren't going to ask someone to reroll or sit, because who knows what will happen next patch.
I can see this being the case in both PvP and PvE.
Filth
1. We at least didnt run like headless chickens, you all ran while we stayed.
2. You are not even undead Nagash, we all know that you are just a normal human with a superiority complex!
Gotcha good.
This is going to be one of their biggest challenges - How does one define "feels different"? Example; Higher weapon speed but lower damage versus lower weapon speed but higher damage - Near equal DPS but a "different feel"?
Will there be a racial specialization in two-handed weapons versus another races' one-handed and shield specialization? Can a race that has a bow specialization serve the same role as either of the two previously mentioned? Again; same role, different feel?
And as posted above - How does this take into account "meta" builds?
There will be much to be fine tuned during testing.