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
Nothing else.
If you think IS intends to do nothing about balance then why did you even bother investing in the game’s future?
Considering the amount of people asking for a DPS meters, I don't see any other way. It will happen, and the rest of the player base will follow.
Cookie cutter builds will be there, and eventually it will permeate to the rest of the player base, and we all be running the same things if we are interested in doing some content.
No that’s not even remotely what that means, unless you believe IS to be entirely incapable of developing varied content. Any guide you look at has caveats such as “built assuming raid support” or “can sub out this gear for that gear or that other gear for more sustain/defenses/etc” or “specifically for this boss” or “option A for more AoE, option B for higher single target”.
Your issue apparently comes from your unique for-fun builds not being the most efficient. If it can clear content, you won’t be lacking for other more casual players to group with. Don’t blame your own personal issues and preferences on the players dedicated to making the most of the game.
Changing specs won't be easy, that has been said. Therefore you either run the most optimal build or risk being left out in lots of content.
Even semi casual guilds will require you to run the most optimal build.
If you don't raid or do some hard content, it won't matter. But in any place where people need to pull their own weight and there's a party size limit, well, not much options left open.
Except changing specs will be plenty easy? You can change gear and what abilities you take at will. There’s nothing stopping your from carrying a couple gearsets that fit different scenarios.
You can’t instantly change the fundamentals of your class, or instantly alter skill augments, but that isn’t going to make or break your effectiveness unless, again, you assume IS will fail spectacularly at balancing.
A semi-casual guild isn’t going to mandate optimized gear. If they do, then they’re definitely not a semi-casual guild. Casual guilds and PUGs don’t care unless you stop them from clearing.
I’ve been in enough PUGs to know. I’ve been a healer pulling 40% of the group dps in a hardmode 4-man dungeon, no hard dps checks so no one bothered saying anything. I’ve seen a player taking dirt naps, get rez’d, and immediately die again in a 12man raid, left him on the ground but no one bothered suggesting to kick them. I’ve had people be literally afk from 30s in, unless the group needed the body to open a door or something, we always left them to loiter offline.
The only times I’ve kicked or seen someone kicked from a PUG is when they inhibit progress. If they ignore mechanics that kill groupmates, or they ignore mechanics that heal the boss, or we literally just need a 12th body and they’re afk at the start of the raid.
I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen anyone kicked for bad dps outside of hard dps checks.
Even though i believe in Intrepid as a game developer, they are going to have to come up with some next-gen class ideas, that will fully get me on board with the mmo and the combat of the mmo.
I have seen this wide gamut of a primary class and secondary class system, tank very harshly just because of balance issues. Guild Wars 1 was very prolific in identifying itself as a mmo with this type of class system (it wasn't an exact match), it took Arenanet years past the mmo's life cycle to finally balance the entire system.
Gear is already going to have changeable stats on them. What would having specific weights to armor even do? If Light Armor can be heavy whats the point? You'll almost certainly be able to get high-defense gear and enchant it with magical stats.
This seems like a decent single player idea, not so much for an mmo
Gear and specs will be easily changeable? Since when?
Last I heard is that changing 2ndary classes will require quite a process.
They don't want people to have tons of armorsets cluttering their inventories and do a one fit all situation.
Gear itself comes mostly from crafting which is supposedly a deep and intricate process. Assuming you can just buy a complet revamped set for different stats is quite a bold statement for casual players that don't go out of their way to hoard money/ materials.
Last I heard is that they want every decision to have lasting effects on every scale, from personal to server wide.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Yes, gear will come mostly from crafting. No, that does not mean people will not have two or three gearsets to swap between as needed. At the very least you would want a set for general solo play and another for any group play.
Yes, some decisions like class selections and augment choices will have lasting effects. No, equipping a piece of armor is not a lasting decision.
You can change out which skills are on your bar whenever you want, not augments, but skills. We know we’ll have access to plenty more than will fit on the skill bar.
You’re asking to remove classes entirely, which are the most important player decisions in a game like this. Why should the most important decisions be tired to gear that is by design not a lasting decision?
That is contrary to what Intrepid has stated in the past multiple times as I have pointed out with 2 separate approaches. If you just deny that without providing new statements from them that this philosophy has changed than you have no ground to stand on.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
I have heard they want to encourage grouping. I have not heard anything about every aspect of the game requiring group support.
If you have evidence otherwise that we should expect material gathering, arena based PvP, or basic exploring to require grouping (where you might want mobility over offensive stats, or more defense since you don’t get healer support in a 1v1 arena tourney, and even in 3v3s or 5v5s you may plan differently), then by all means, but it is sensible to expected to have to use multiple setups at various points of the gameplay experience, whether that consists of gear or just slotted abilities. Even in group play with other games, I always carried an extra set or two depending on what the other healer(s) planned on wearing.
As I said in another thread, if one gear setup will address every part of the game, then something has not been designed well. Either the gear setup is overpowered, or the game’s content is not demanding enough. at the very least, you would be changing out enchantments on the gear itself depending on your needs.
It is sensible, I agree there, I think gearing up for different hazards for example is a good enough excuse to gear into various things, but it is nonetheless against what intrepid has stated in the past with gear itself.
They did say that you can enchant horizontally to make your sword attack do more magical damage if you feel yourself fight a lot of things more suspectible to it, but gear itself isn't switched out. (it's counter intuitive, I know, I am not happy with it either and that's why I wanted to know if their stance on gear itself changed) and even that horizontal progression is considered time and effort consuming.
You have to constantly supply yourself with materials to repair it so I Wouldn't want to run around with my highest gear items built from a boss item constantly and rather have a spare, not so good set to use on everyday content.
That feels like a logical conclusion, but it nevertheless is against what IS has stated that one gear set will be your gear for all activities whether it's pve/pvp/ large small scale.
It wasn't so much about it being strong, but it reflecting your play style in all circumstances. So there wouldn't be a stat like "resilliance" that specifically reduces damage from other players. It's all still a little vague and conceptional.
I am trying to find the exact quote, but I have yet to dig it up.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Switching gear between solo and group though? I've not heard them say anything about it.
I may have missed it, that's happened a number of times. But when you specifically said about switching out gear, it did make me recall that comment about not switching out gear in combat.
What I gathered from them saying you won’t have different gear for PvE and PvP, is that it’s a PvX game and your gear should probably be planned with the assumption you will end up PvPing in it, even if you intend to use it for PvE content.
I’d be incredibly surprised if they expected each player to have only one frequently used gearset.
Edit: Retrying it in here instead of youtube it seems like it won't start. so 14:05 if you want to check it out. I'm pretty sure that was the exchange I had in mind for this topic. I really just can't remember any more, too much information floating around in too many livestream qna that really isn't organized yet despite of having the wiki.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
From that exchange, it seems even more like they simply want all gear to generally be usable to either type of combat, aka you’re not wasting stats from strictly-PvP gear or strictly-PvE gear when you enter the “wrong” type of combat.
My question is answered, they didn't change their philosophy so take from it what you will.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
They clearly said that in the context of pvp-exclusive or pve-exclusive gear. For example one game I played (I think it was FFXIV) had pvp-stats on their pvp gear and the normal pve stats were not usable in pvp. You could still use the gear in the content it was not made for but the stats would be around 10% of what the right gear would be.
Them not making the differentiation is all i hear here.
Going throug the game without multiple gearsets depending of the situation is very unlikely in my eyes for two reasons.
1. Most games, even games with the most boring equipment system, allow you some range of customisation be it just a bit more attack or a bit more defence it could also be more intersting since from faster movementspeed, lower attack dmg in exchange for lower cooldowns, special efects or resistances, ....
The only way to make it not the norm for players to have multiple gear sets is giving every gear a single stat that is the same on every gear (so no strenght, defence, but just gear score or something) and if one item has 100 and the new item has 101 then you take the new item.
To make an example. In FFXIV I played a shield tank (paladin) and the shields had two different stats (that were important for me). Block rate and Block efficencie. One decided what percentage of attacks I blocked and the other what percentage of dmg I blocked. I gathered ALL shields that were roughly at the end level range (normaly 4-5 different shields) and used them depending on what set up i used and what I was figthing. (they pretty much simplified it later on so there were one shield for all solution... boring as hell for me).
2. Crafting.
From the wiki:
If crafting really allows for customized items then (depending on how much customisation they allow) the number of items will be much larger than it is in other games. There is not one "iron dagger" but 15 or 50 different "iron daggers" that are all slightly different. If one single item could have many different custom builds then the different equipment sets one could design are limitless.
Of course there will probably be some go-to stats that are more desired than others but how much that weigths is hard to say.
They've said that they will balance classes for group content and that every class will have a way to complete solo content, but that doesn't mean classes will be balanced for 1v1 situations which they have also said that they won't be. I don't remember exactly what they said about metas - something about flavor of the month is going around in my head.
Classes shouldn’t be balanced for 1v1s, that’s how you get stale combat. But IS plan on having carousel balancing, adjustments from patch to patch so nothing is best in every situation for an extensive length of time.
Their biggest balancing challenges are going to come from single-roll groups, and how they decide to address buff/healing/debuff/DoT stacking.
None of this has any impact on your idea of “cookie cutter” builds based on generally good stats. There will be room for unique builds if you put in the effort and data crunching to make them work, but people who actually put in a lot of research and number crunching into developing accessible effective builds deserve praise whether they share those builds or not.
Because at the end of the day, you can call a build “cookie cutter” or “unique” or “cheese” or “niche”, but everyone who made them put in the effort and research to make them work, and that deserves praise whether 5 people run their build or 500.
Rock, paper, scissors balancing is by definition not balanced for 1v1s.
If a class is based around (or even based heavily on) group buffs, that means the more people in the group, the more useful that person is.
In order to balance for 1v1, those group buffs that the support player has would need to be strong enough for that support class to be able to take on other classes by themselves. When you then take that same support class with those same group buffs and apply those buffs to 7 other characters, that would mean that the support player is adding far more to that group than any other class, meaning a group with a support class in it will always beat a group without a support class.
Basically, there is no way to balance a class that is based on supporting others for both group and solo play in any aspect. The only way to even balance for raid level play is if the buffs only affect a single group or a single target within the raid.
Basically, any developer needs to decide where they want the balance of their classes to be based, and then simply attempt to keep a sense of balance in the rest of the game.
Since the meaningful PvP in Ashes will happen at the raid level as opposed to the solo level, there would be no reason to balance things at that solo level at the expense of any other level.
No.
The game shouldn't attempt to balance things out based on how many people are present. That is ridiculous and arbitrary.
If you bring more people, you win. If you bring a lot more people, you win fast.
PvP in Ashes is about the outcome more than the fight. If you can bring people to kill you opposition in a few seconds, more power to you.