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
Well I recommend designing the support classes in the following manner. Think best think to do is to make the tank support dps composition the ideal and most effective comp. One way to do this is if
1)support classes in this case bards and clerics had buffs that increased overall party dps and tank defensive cool passive abilities.
2)had buffs that are crucial like a hast spell that affects the entire party for a dose of busrt dps when critical in dungeounsand andraids.
3) If support class could do things like target a freindly toon and cleanse them of all cc and make them immune from cc for let say 4 seconds could be useful for pvp and pve.
4)brought significant dps to the table
5) Had an array of utility buffs and debuffs
6) Brought usuall heals to the table that tank needs for difficult fights
Then support classes would heal. buff, debuff, have utility abilities and contribute dps.
But lets talk about something else real quick if IS designed the dungeouns so that support classes were almost necessary but could be done without a dedicated support class. (already posted extensively on this topic on another thread). This way there would no shortage of support class because if you had to you could just tough it out and do with out. But at the same time almost every one would want a support class in their group because of all the cool things that they contribute to the party. So support classes would still be greatly sought after but would not stop a group from doing a dungeoun if they did not have one.
Seen posts from people that play healers (guessing) that they want healers that are not just unending fountains of heals this would in fact solve that problem.
So tanks would need heals (or the extra support) from such classes for difficult conent and welcomed for easier content, but it is not neccecary for tanks to mitigate ridiculous amounts of damage that require a ridiculous amountof heals. This really goes well the PvX philosophy. Becuase if you make unkillable tanks in pve well and unkillable tanks in pvp are devastating. Yes he does low dps but if he cannot be killed then he will eventually just kill everyone. (Actually real problem with blood dks in pvp in WoW in MoP and Cata eras)
Now with the suggested tank archetypes to put in terms of percentages it is like taking a mage and making it 75 to 80 percent tank and 20 to 25 percent dps while a tank as far as how effective a tank is they would be at 100 percent. But just to be clear there is no need for a hunter rogue to be 75 percent rogue and 25 percent hunter.
So the rest of the archetypes do not need to be as impactful as a tank archetype.
While it may seem kind of weird to do what I just posted it actually works really well with PvX, there will be no shortage of tanks cause every one will be able to tank, and there will be no shortage of support classes cause while it may take longer and maybe group may wipe a little more technically support classes would not be neccessity. Just every one would want one cause all the cool things they contribute to the party.
Also would like to mention that i used tems like buff and debuff and utility abilities, well while this words do not sound to exciting the actual abilities that IS could come up with could be very exciting.
Lasty I forgot to say that in the case of the tank rogue, rogues or notorios for using poisions so that represents and additional debuff like slower attack rate, Actually could have a little be of Rng and have random effects that are related to poisons. Plus Rogues can usually disarm humanoids so really while using traditional rogue abilities and using dual weapons When you put it all together rogues could be devasting tanks. In PvP rogues can be devasting in the hands of the right palyer and do 1 vs 2 so concept is not to far fectched.
Thats why I always say that the classes should be divided into pairs of two depending on their rolls.
Tank and Fighter are Tanks. Fighter through mitigation like Parry or dodge and Tank through Mitigation of blocking.
Rogue and Ranger are physical DPS. If they keep the direction of the last reported ranger gameplay, then they most likely specialise in harrassing the enemies and halting their advance (Traps and slows or ambush).
Mage and Summoner are magical DPS and battlefield control. The summoner could do cool stuff like summoning walls for a short duration, while the mage deals with aoe effects that hinder enemy movement or make terrain unpassable (Blackhole spell that they show all the time)
Bard and Cleric are Support. The Bard deals mostly with Buffs while casting HoT's and the Cleric deals with main healing and small scale buffs to HP and Mana regen.
The problem is, Then why would you ever play tank? Unless you lowered the damage potential of fighter, which draws it out of what most people will think when they hear of that class. I like the way they have it now personally. One dedicated tank one dedicated healer and varying shades between those and dps.
Why do people play a Warrior Tank or a Monk Tank or a Paladin Tank etc in WoW and not just everyone the same class? Because they have a different approach to solving a problem.
Also the dps class times the dps Archetype does not need to be that impactful either but can be based on the needs of the class. Like if a class needs a little more depth and imersion the archtypes would be a good way to remedy this.
Also the Cleric Archetypes like Ranger Cleric well having a Ranger going around playing the support role does not make sense to a lot of people but since support roles would not be absolutley necessary then no need to make cleric archetype that impactful. But it could work Ranger going around shooting holy arrows or bolts of holy pulsating energy to freindlies. Power shot becomes Power heal and so on. Would like to use the staff that Stargirl uses as a reference point for pulsating energy but would be arrows of course. But lets say Ashes of Creation decides agains that. So every class would not fill the support role but may ahve minor support ability. . There are already 2 classes that do that and would just over lap roles. Not so in case of tanks.
So that leaves warrior tank which in my opinion easy to turn into tank and the four other dps classes Rogue, Mage, Summoner, and Ranger. So really you could in fact only have five tank Archetypes to buff one of them being real easy.
Again this Idea may seem kind weird but it is a solution that works withing the guidelines of what is already there. Plus you get to keep the trinity while allowing evrery one to tank.
Very true, but in this case the change in how a thing gets done is tied to the the subclass. And even in wow, they failed to keep any real difference between the majority of the playstyles tanking. My dk tanks just the same way my pally or warrior tanks. some amount of healing, some type of stun or mobility boost, and various mitigation. They're all heavy up front fighters. (Monk was a breath of fresh air that actually played differently)
It's not that hard to come up with different styles of tank classes. I could imagine the 'tank' class to be more focused on damage mitigation and actively blocking damage, while the warrior class might be able to tank through health leeching abilities and higher damage in comparison. Give the tank class some group utility so his role is more about protection and defence, and the warrior could be more about damage and (AoE) control.
In an ideal world it would be balanced out so all 64 classes are equally useful but we all know that won't happen with current MMO player mentality. All it takes is for a big streamer to say 1 is best and all the sheep will follow.
WoW is a bad example for a game, especially since Ashes isn't a WoW Clone.
tank/cleric or cleric/tank should not be enough to fill both rolls as you will gain an extra DPS. If a DPS/tank or DPS/Cleric is enough then why would you not chose them as you will yield a higher DPS and clear faster.
If you are worried about finding a Tank then play a Tank don't lobby to trivialize the class.
Dont forget: Certain things are main class locked!
Straight up heals are cleric locked and block or straight up damage mitigation is most likely tank locked.
A x/Tank would give the class some more selfdefense so that they dont take AS MUCH damage as normally.
A mage would take it if they knew that they would play a anchor role in PvP for example so that they wont get one shotted by enemy rogues.
The thing is that we dont know the fighters main feature. bards buff, clerics heal, rogues can stealth, rangers can place traps etc and the tank can mitigate direct damage. I would say that the fighter can use parry as his main feature.
Fighter/Tank and Tank/Fighter will be like Bard/Cleric and Cleric/Bard in my opinion.
I'm sure we'll get all our class questions answers by the next year.
U.S. East
Warriors and rogues are melee classes and support classes usually ranged so you would have to be really creative to have them do support role but is possible. Tank class really should be tanking.
This is actuallly a continuation of a question from one of the dev discussion of well should classes be allowed to do everything or have demarcated roles. So answer is ......
Dps times dps archetypes should be significant and represent variety and playstyles and the things noted above
As far tanks and support classes Well the game needs as many tanks and supporters /healers as it can have.
Those should be put in game as applicaple without regard to how impactful or demarcated an archetype should be.
Every class class does not have to do everything but there needs to lots of tanks and support choices. Warriors could in fact play support as Paladins but in case Rogues seems like you would be forcing the issue so you could have them just tank and dps. But rogue suppurt class could work with things like darts that inject healing syrums into you and smoke bombs that have some benificial effect like maybe throwing some mushrooms and the spores come out and have healing properties. Plus one heal from being a rogue cleric and that might do it. Just seems to far away from the norm but if you never get away from the norm them probably just be like every other MMO.
DPS in itself is the art of maximizing the health reduction of the enemy to a point of neutralization. If this can be done with a single button push in a fraction of a second, you have completed your role to maximum efficiency.
Having more roles than neutralizing a target in the most efficient time possible begins a hybrid path apart from true DPS. What I mean is when a DPS scans the battlefield they are rarely looking to even CC. They are trying to bring health bars to zero in the shortest amount of time possible in a pve scenario.
Concluding, DPS is not boring for me even if it only requires one button due to the process of preparation, positioning, and coordination that results in the most efficient kill.
Well some classes can be that way . Lets say class with mostly dps abilities then those classes should have pretty interesting choices on how to punish the enemy and not just push one button per say but full array of abilities like damage over times areas of effects, single target damage. Guessing rogue would fit discription ninjas fall under rogue category. All that being true.....
Tanks and Healers (not a healer myself) just have a lot more to do which makes those classes more interesting and fun Just saying that as a matter of persanal opinion. I do tank and my main is dps ranger or hunter there are two totaly different experences would recomend multiclassing as in healing tanking and dps to anyone.
You could add or adjust to the skill tree in later patches.
Very little
I wouldn’t say they are 64 classes in the traditional sense. There are 8 main classes to choose from which give you your main skills and skill trees. Then each of those have 8 archetypes to choose from which give access to 4 schools of augments which change the way your main abilities work and we as of yet don’t know if every skill in the tree can be augmented or just certain ones. So really they aren’t coming up with mechanics for 64 classes
They dont implement 64 independent classes.
They have 8 classes with their distinct skills, which you then adapt with your secondary choice.
A Bard/Fighter has the same base bilities as any other Bard/Anything.
Yes I get what you are saying the more impactful and more signaficant that arhetyps are the more work that will be required. Can be likened to specializations in wow but times Eight.
To IS what I have to say is that time money and resources spent on making great classes is money and resources well spent. Which also includes combat system.
In my opinion your class and options in this case archetypes makes like 50 percent of the game. Fun factor and immersion of the class.
But at the same time they do have a world to make the mobs the PvP and overall in general this is a super ambitious project and some how I think that is an understatement. To that end would like to say to the team that some of the ideas I post about are kind of intended for future expansions.
That said, I'm in favor of a rogue finding a way to spec w/a shield to survive a little more effectively in the wilds. But that same rogue/tank with some highly clever augments and min/max defense gear should not be able to stand anywhere close to the line as a tank / tank.
Like if rogue has backstab skill and a passive skill that increases the damage of backstab. So if fighter grabs a rogue secondary archetype then he could give a special modifier to his skills that allow him to do more damage when damaging from behind.
I would definitely fear just a free for all pick any skill from the other archetype
― Plato
"If a Fighter were to choose Mage as a secondary archetype, the fighter would become a Spellsword. This combination opens up augments that can be applied to skills in their primary skill tree. Fighters have a Rush skill that allows them to rush towards a target; and upon reaching the target, deal an amount damage with a chance to knock the target down. A Mage's escape augment could be applied to the rush skill, which would now teleport the player to the target; thus eliminating the charge time on the skill.[3]"
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Classes
Notes:
The rouge augment applied to the rush applies stealth to the rushing fighter. Augments are a vertical power increase. i.e., For the mage augment in the above example, the fighter rush is now immune to being interrupted, blocked, dodged, the fighter killed, etc.; all of which could have occurred while the fighter charged at the target using the rush without an augment.
My favorite example is a Nightshield, tank + rogue. You keep all the main abilities a tank can offer, then you can augment a couple of the tank's abilities to maybe have stealth in them or backstabs or something a rogue can do. On top of that, then you get to pick maybe a couple skills available of a few made skills from becoming a Nightshield. Something that would allow someone who is a Nightshield to not necessarily have the same exact kit as the Nightshield next to them.
For example, maybe 4 brand new skills and you can only pick 2 like mentioned before. A skill that stealths your whole party after successfully cast. A skill that allows a placeable stealth bubble that hides anyone in it and shields from ranged attacks(forcing melee's to have to go in and aoe or just being a trap to look like no one's there). An attack that makes your target invisible for X amount of time to all ally members, preventing them from receiving healing or buffs or being targeted for a certain duration. And lastly an illusion with an aoe circle around it that you can make that stealths you and forces all nearby targets to attack it for X amount of time.
With these abilities, a Nightshield could pick from 2 to determine their own unique playstyle along with the augments they pick. Maybe one wants to pick the party stealth and the aoe placable hide for helping caravans and escaping when need be or helping ambush on castle sieges or helping healer's have somewhere to stand untargetable in the background to safely heal from. Maybe another would pick the ability allowing them to essentially separate their opponent from receiving support form their party and also have the function to FORCE the enemy to attack their doppleganger.
To me, this concept highlights how 2ndaries can alter your base skills but also give you something unique to the title that isn't just a capability of one of the classes already existing. That was something that bothered the hell out of me in Archeage, was having skills from all 3 classes and... well cool you can build your character around what you think combos well but you don't experience anything interesting or useful for yourself that's separate from others. In the end, their system made only about 10 classes viable because of that even given every situation you could run into. I'd like to run into another class and be amazed how they have something unique that can save everyone or make a strategy/plan... Something beyond just, "yeah yeah you're part mage, we know mages do this"
TL;DR: Augments to the starting class but also a variety of new skills ONLY available from the defined "new class" and only allow you to select a small few of them in the pool of "new skills" to keep the new defined class unique. AKA, this Nightshield isn't the same as THAT Nightshield.
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton
We will have less than 30 skills. We can spend the points available to buy skills or increase the depth of training on a specific skill which will reduce the total skills possible. You can develop a skill at a cost of additional skills up to 2x per skill.
Regardless of how you develop skills, your base skills come from your archetype (the initial class you referred to). Your augments to alter those skills come from your class (that you choose at 25? I think), religion, and some other groupings.
― Plato
Right but the big question is, are we only getting our base skills from our 1st selected class and then just whatever our 2ndary is as well? If so... that's Archeage levels of lame. As the poster below said, I'd like to keep the initial class and have the augments for these skills but still maintain the feel of what it is. Tank becoming an evasion tank with stealth mitigation to me is something a Nightshield would be perfectly sculp[ted for by example. Rather than just tank with also rogue skills. I'm aware of how skill trees work from ye old mmo's but I wouldn't mind there actually being depth to classes than just class skills + class skills and also minor adjustments to your base skills from augments. If I pick a rogue after I picked tank... I don't want to feel like I'm still just a tank but with little to meaningless adjustments no matter which 2ndary I pick. I'd like to actually see unique skills come out of becoming this new defined class that maybe even rogue doesn't have but concepts of it COME from rogue (like stealth).
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton