Incorrect. Steven clearly stated that augmented abilities will have CLEAR vertical progression, along with flavor. So yes, whilst you won't be designing new abilities for all 64 classes, its still a lot.
Assume that you design about 7 augmented abilities for every school of every class. Also assume that a class's augment gives similar augmented abilities to all classes. This means that you have to design 64x4x7/8 abilities, which is about 250 distinct abilities. (Assuming some variance)
That is still A LOT to balance.
0
Options
DrokkMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Incorrect. Steven clearly stated that augmented abilities will have CLEAR vertical progression, along with flavor. So yes, whilst you won't be designing new abilities for all 64 classes, its still a lot.
Assume that you design about 7 augmented abilities for every school of every class. Also assume that a class's augment gives similar augmented abilities to all classes. This means that you have to design 64x4x7/8 abilities, which is about 250 distinct abilities. (Assuming some variance)
That is still A LOT to balance.
What is balance? See, that's the heart of this issue. Mmo players, largely thanks to WoW, have a distinct definition about class balance. Essentially that every class has to be equally viable in every role in every type of content in the game.
But why is that the standard? What is it besides 15 years of being brainwashed that that constitutes 'balance'?
People obsess over that word. Fun doesn't matter, immersion and rpg aspects don't matter. Oh no, my class does 3% dps less than that class. The game is broken! It's such utter nonsense. Balance it like an actual rpg. This is an mmorpg, it's right in the name. Some classes excel at certain things which other classes are weak at. There are niches. Classes rely on each other to compensate for what one class lacks in a certain area.
We need to drop this absurd e-sport mentality. It's a video game, it's supposed to be fun. You can obsess over numbers and min/maxing and efficiency but none of those things makes the game more FUN. WoW is the most obvious example of this. Players complain now more than ever, when things are objectively the most 'balanced' it's ever been. Because the emphasis has been turned away from simply playing a video game and having fun to obsessing and nitpicking over this red herring called balance. Ultimately it leads to mass homogenization, and sucks the immersion and rpg elements out of the game. WoW isn't even an mmorpg anymore; it's an interactive calculator.
So my suggestion is chill out and relax. Enough of this fascination with balance. Are you having fun? That's really the only question that matters. Now, I'm not saying it should be a crazy free-for-all of absolute chaos. But there's a difference between that and breaking out pie charts and spreadsheets to calculate the perfect composition for maximum efficiency. Let me put it this way: balance should never have priority over fun. That's something other mmos (WoW in particular) have lost along the way. And I hope Ashes doesn't make the same mistake. But it also requires the playerbase to unlearn this nonsense they've been programmed to think over the years. That's the tough part.
@CaptnChuck I mean eliminating 1 second of charge time is obviously an upgrade, vertical progression so I don't see where I am incorrect there.
You can assume all day long, we got a few examples and none of them change the core of the ability or dramatically as you claim. It gives something extra and as stated before you will see repeats because they will be economical with those augments. The blink will surely come up in a lot of appropriate skills.
Something else to point out is that augments ARE the "vertical progression" enhancing combat skill progression.
Quote:
These archetypes represent the staple fantasy classes; Fighter, Tank, Rogue, Ranger, Mage, Summoner, Cleric, Bard. As the player progresses vertically with their primary class, they will have the opportunity to add a second class. This second class will be chosen again from the 8 archetypes, and will follow more of a horizontal progression. The second class will allow the player to augment their primary skills from their main class, with effects from their secondary class
Anyway, unless an augment is just wrongly coded and gives more than it should, augments are the least of my worries when it comes to balance. It's synergy that I personally worry about. Stats that work well with specific other stats and blow up exponentionaly at certain thresholds. I worry about skill synergy that will inevitable lead down cookie cutter builds simply because they work way better with each other than the other options.
There are a lot of things to worry about when it comes to balance and augments is certainly one of it, I am just pointing out that it's a more minor thing than people make it out to be. Especially compared to all the other things IS has proposed that they will do.
Skill pool, stat variety, skill progression, just to name a few.
I can be a life fulfilling dream. - Zekece
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
I don't think 8 classes is too many at all. While I also am not arguing about needing more, I do find it interesting that for a trinity based game, there are seemingly 1 (1.5 maybe with Bard?) primary healing option, 1-1.5 (Tank/Fighter?) primary tank options, then 6 damage dealers with varying utility and flavor. Not to say this is a problem per se with subclass options, but I certainly wonder whether there will be class distribution challenges.
The other interesting question is how different the same class/subclass pairings will feel. For example, how different will a Rogue/Fighter (Duelist) feel from a Fighter/Rogue (Shadowblade).
I don't think 8 classes is too many at all. While I also am not arguing about needing more, I do find it interesting that for a trinity based game, there are seemingly 1 (1.5 maybe with Bard?) primary healing option, 1-1.5 (Tank/Fighter?) primary tank options, then 6 damage dealers with varying utility and flavor. Not to say this is a problem per se with subclass options, but I certainly wonder whether there will be class distribution challenges.
The other interesting question is how different the same class/subclass pairings will feel. For example, how different will a Rogue/Fighter (Duelist) feel from a Fighter/Rogue (Shadowblade).
I think 1:1:6 almost fits the ratio of tanks:healer:dps in other games. I'd hope that this alleviates the classic lack of tanks and healers to a certain extend.
Don't bring your personal disdain towards me, to this thread. You made insensible comments on the previous post that I made, simply because you didn't read my post completely. After I stated this, you then wisely chose not to reply further as you realised how dumb you looked. So, keep your salt away from my posts please.
Be careful not to get too angry over this. It's not worth it at this stage of development.
The problem is, as @Neurath said, a lot of people backed Ashes becuse of an idea. The extensive class system was one of those ideas. Some of us are still very passionate about what was promised. We remember the old MMOs, and want a return to what we consider "the good old days".
I'm not saying others should be able to be aggressive towards you, but trying to suggest radical changes to Ashes now is going to get that response from older members of the community.
We all want a good game, so let's keep the community spirit.
@CaptnChuck what do you disagree? i don't understand, I'm not a soothsayer, can you be more precise pls? thz
Most of the things i said where your idea ... so i don't get what you disagree .
y
so you don't like a finished game with a finished design .. instead you prefer to chance it overtime. Actually you are not going to set a prize for each game/expansion you make, as i understood. So it make more sense. Becouse if i have to pay a game that i Will lose, it sound pretty bad XD like WoW has done.
So are you going to make different servers for older expansions? like Classic WoW
so is this the only thing we disagree? Will we have each class unique .. or the mixed one are going to be an hybrid with already existing features of the second class?
i absolutelly agree to add new ones only after balancing the already-existing ones, that's awesome. Otherwise it means you will never balance the game xD .
what do you mean about limiting the specs to 2/3? so are you planning to add specs for each class? i didn't want to limit anything ... i want to build a better and more efficient way to develop the character , adding specs to the game and deleting meaningless and extra classes like summoner and Bard. As you already said, you don't feal them to be too much important for the first launch of the game. They are an extra.
Anyway i have one more question right now ... how are you going to balance the game if you remove or add a dps / healer / tank? Becouse the ratio of the characters rule in combat is going to chance ... for example ... with 6 classes is 1 tank, 1 healer and 4 dps, but with the Bard is going to be 2 healers every tank and 4 dps. And this will happen every time you add a new class with his single and monotonous rule. Are bosses and enemies suitable for every type of group composition?
thz
I don't think 8 classes is too many at all. While I also am not arguing about needing more, I do find it interesting that for a trinity based game, there are seemingly 1 (1.5 maybe with Bard?) primary healing option, 1-1.5 (Tank/Fighter?) primary tank options, then 6 damage dealers with varying utility and flavor. Not to say this is a problem per se with subclass options, but I certainly wonder whether there will be class distribution challenges.
The other interesting question is how different the same class/subclass pairings will feel. For example, how different will a Rogue/Fighter (Duelist) feel from a Fighter/Rogue (Shadowblade).
I'm curious about the trinity ratios too. I almost think there should be another class that heals and another that tanks.
In most other MMOs you would have a warrior and a paladin, maybe even a shadow knight. As well as a cleric there will also be shamans and druids.
After 25 there will be more options to just clerics, but I wonder about pre-25. Will clerics be numerous enough to cover all the healing? Can tanks handle all the tanking, or can fighters tank a group?
I'd actually like to have seen two more primary archetypes, taking things to 10 by 10. Druid would have been my second healer type and shadow knight my second tank.
Have the druid combinations along the lines of aspects of nature or wildlife. Druid/Tank = Bear? Druid/Rogue = Cat? Druid/Mage = Storm? Some work needed there.
For the Shadow Knight I feel this is where necromancers would come in. I never understood summoner/cleric being a necromancer. Shadow Knight/Tank = Brute? Shadow Knight/Summoner = Necromancer. Shadow Knight/Mage = Cultist?
Summoner/Cleric should be more about summoning such elemntals as wisps, who could aid healing.
I'd also like to see two stages to augmenting your primary archetype. Maybe give some basic abilities at 10 or 15 and more augments at 30. That gives more to look forward to throughout progression. I don't mean having two augmented classes; still just the one.
So my suggestion is chill out and relax. Enough of this fascination with balance. Are you having fun? That's really the only question that matters. Now, I'm not saying it should be a crazy free-for-all of absolute chaos. But there's a difference between that and breaking out pie charts and spreadsheets to calculate the perfect composition for maximum efficiency. Let me put it this way: balance should never have priority over fun. That's something other mmos (WoW in particular) have lost along the way. And I hope Ashes doesn't make the same mistake. But it also requires the playerbase to unlearn this nonsense they've been programmed to think over the years. That's the tough part.
I agree with you, except for one thing: I don't think that having fun and having balanced combat are mutually exclusive. Even though obsessively focusing on balancing the game has its flaws and can remove the fun of games like you pointed out, the lack of a balanced combat can make a game just as bad.
"Fun" is something subjective, and while some people will gladly play a class that sucks and still have fun, other people would like to play that same class and wish it didn't suck.
You never said there shouldn't be any balancing at all, so I'm only trying to convey that, although it could indeed be the result of 15 years of brainwashing, I do believe it's possible to have a balanced game without mass homogenization and without removing immersion and RPG elements which should be fundamental to Ashes.
I don't think 8 classes is too many at all. While I also am not arguing about needing more, I do find it interesting that for a trinity based game, there are seemingly 1 (1.5 maybe with Bard?) primary healing option, 1-1.5 (Tank/Fighter?) primary tank options, then 6 damage dealers with varying utility and flavor. Not to say this is a problem per se with subclass options, but I certainly wonder whether there will be class distribution challenges.
The other interesting question is how different the same class/subclass pairings will feel. For example, how different will a Rogue/Fighter (Duelist) feel from a Fighter/Rogue (Shadowblade).
I'm curious about the trinity ratios too. I almost think there should be another class that heals and another that tanks.
In most other MMOs you would have a warrior and a paladin, maybe even a shadow knight. As well as a cleric there will also be shamans and druids.
After 25 there will be more options to just clerics, but I wonder about pre-25. Will clerics be numerous enough to cover all the healing? Can tanks handle all the tanking, or can fighters tank a group?
I'd actually like to have seen two more primary archetypes, taking things to 10 by 10. Druid would have been my second healer type and shadow knight my second tank.
Have the druid combinations along the lines of aspects of nature or wildlife. Druid/Tank = Bear? Druid/Rogue = Cat? Druid/Mage = Storm? Some work needed there.
For the Shadow Knight I feel this is where necromancers would come in. I never understood summoner/cleric being a necromancer. Shadow Knight/Tank = Brute? Shadow Knight/Summoner = Necromancer. Shadow Knight/Mage = Cultist?
Summoner/Cleric should be more about summoning such elemntals as wisps, who could aid healing.
I'd also like to see two stages to augmenting your primary archetype. Maybe give some basic abilities at 10 or 15 and more augments at 30. That gives more to look forward to throughout progression. I don't mean having two augmented classes; still just the one.
That highly depends on how different the classes with the same primary archetype end up being. 8 classes for healing and 8 classes for tanking in the end are plenty, as long its not just a recolor of the other classes.
1-25 is the halfway point. I've compared it to the EXP distribution of other games. With the promoted 250 hours to max level, we'd end up at level 25 after 20-30 hours, if they were to adapt a similar EXP curve. 20-30 hours to unlock your subclasses feels like a reasonable time in my opinion.
Also, i'm not sure if you know that, but each secondary archetype will have 4 schools of augments. Not just 2 like you asked for.
I'm curious about the trinity ratios too. I almost think there should be another class that heals and another that tanks.
In most other MMOs you would have a warrior and a paladin, maybe even a shadow knight. As well as a cleric there will also be shamans and druids.
After 25 there will be more options to just clerics, but I wonder about pre-25. Will clerics be numerous enough to cover all the healing? Can tanks handle all the tanking, or can fighters tank a group?
Having another archetype of each tank and healer really isn't needed. People will have to settle with a little uniformity pre-25. The differences between all the tank and cleric classes after that will spread things apart. It's all going to depend on how unique each subclass can make the primary one feel.
Normally, (outside of a few circumstances, such as not liking the feel of a particular class) adding another tank or healer archetype wouldn't really bring more players to those roles. You might get some, if the archetype was super appealing to certain people, but mostly you'd just a portion of the people originally planning to be tank/healer roll the second archetype instead of the first.
In most other games, non-tank classes can at least off-tank for a short duration if necessary (i.e. the main tank dies). Every class has to be able to be at least somewhat survivable against regular mobs, so they can afford to take a few hits before dying. That doesn't mean that you could have, say, a mage tank a raid boss. But even in those situations, besides tank-buster attacks, it is pretty rare for any classes to be instantly one-shot.
I never understood summoner/cleric being a necromancer.
Summoner/Cleric should be more about summoning such elemntals as wisps, who could aid healing.
My guess as to why Summoner/Cleric is a necromancer, is because the Cleric heals get turned into lifetap spells, which is almost a staple of necromancers.
I could see the Shaman (Cleric/Summoner) being more of the type to summon wisps or the like, for healing aid.
Initially, IS was planning to have 12 base archetypes in the game. This would result in a whopping 144 classes. Obviously, this was an almost impossible task to take on and hence they removed 4 of those archetypes, leaving us with 64 classes.
I feel that 8 is still too many FOR LAUNCH. I feel like the ideal amount of base archetypes should just be 6 for launch: Tank, Cleric, Mage, Fighter, Rogue and Ranger.
The reason I say this is because designing and balancing abilities is something that you improve at with experience. Having 64 classes to do this for, is simply too much. If you only have 36 however, it gives you a lot more room to better design and balance these classes. This will result in the newer classes being much more better designed and balanced from the get go, as IS will have more knowledge and experience doing this.
That's why, I feel like there should only be 36 classes for launch. Every 6 months, they could add a new archetype. So we'll get bard and summoner a year after launch. After releasing bard and summoner, they could create polls to ask the community what class they want next.
What do you guys think?
Taking out 2 of the best classes? Bad idea. Especially when those 2 classes are either not done in other MMO's or not done well. Taking out things that make AoC stand out above the competition is not how you make players happy lol.
Not to mention if you want to design a game where the class roles involve more than just the trinity - tank/dps/heals/support/jack of all trades - then you have to do it at launch so the playerbase embraces the idea and content can be balanced around those roles. If you try to stick them in later, they'll never catch on.
Incorrect. Steven clearly stated that augmented abilities will have CLEAR vertical progression, along with flavor. So yes, whilst you won't be designing new abilities for all 64 classes, its still a lot.
Assume that you design about 7 augmented abilities for every school of every class. Also assume that a class's augment gives similar augmented abilities to all classes. This means that you have to design 64x4x7/8 abilities, which is about 250 distinct abilities. (Assuming some variance)
That is still A LOT to balance.
Let me put it this way: balance should never have priority over fun. That's something other mmos (WoW in particular) have lost along the way. And I hope Ashes doesn't make the same mistake. But it also requires the playerbase to unlearn this nonsense they've been programmed to think over the years. That's the tough part.
Some balance should exist in order for fun to exist. Having classes that are just simply better than yours is not going to make the game fun for you. This statement doesn't just hold true for just hardcore players, it holds true for all types of players. With 64 classes, and over 500 abilities to design, I find it difficult to imagine how they're going to balance them.
Initially, IS was planning to have 12 base archetypes in the game. This would result in a whopping 144 classes. Obviously, this was an almost impossible task to take on and hence they removed 4 of those archetypes, leaving us with 64 classes.
I feel that 8 is still too many FOR LAUNCH. I feel like the ideal amount of base archetypes should just be 6 for launch: Tank, Cleric, Mage, Fighter, Rogue and Ranger.
The reason I say this is because designing and balancing abilities is something that you improve at with experience. Having 64 classes to do this for, is simply too much. If you only have 36 however, it gives you a lot more room to better design and balance these classes. This will result in the newer classes being much more better designed and balanced from the get go, as IS will have more knowledge and experience doing this.
That's why, I feel like there should only be 36 classes for launch. Every 6 months, they could add a new archetype. So we'll get bard and summoner a year after launch. After releasing bard and summoner, they could create polls to ask the community what class they want next.
What do you guys think?
Taking out 2 of the best classes? Bad idea. Especially when those 2 classes are either not done in other MMO's or not done well. Taking out things that make AoC stand out above the competition is not how you make players happy lol.
Not to mention if you want to design a game where the class roles involve more than just the trinity - tank/dps/heals/support/jack of all trades - then you have to do it at launch so the playerbase embraces the idea and content can be balanced around those roles. If you try to stick them in later, they'll never catch on.
You're going to add them within just a year of launch. I don't know about you, but I will take ANY 6 well designed classes over 8 unbalanced classes that get balanced as the game goes on.
Don't bring your personal disdain towards me, to this thread. You made insensible comments on the previous post that I made, simply because you didn't read my post completely. After I stated this, you then wisely chose not to reply further as you realised how dumb you looked. So, keep your salt away from my posts please.
I have no hatred towards you. You have issues with me. When you refer to me as a Bounty Hunter and ignore what I say you will be met with pity. You always try to one up me but you fail because you use flawed logic, the wiki without specific knowledge and inflammatory threads which are designed to flame bait.
The good news is your nonsense is still nonsense and should be seen as such.
@nidriks we had the same discussion about Ragnarok and Ragnarok 2 lol. I still call Everquest 2 Everquest like I call Ragnarok 2 Online Ragnarok. Trojan.
Don't bring your personal disdain towards me, to this thread. You made insensible comments on the previous post that I made, simply because you didn't read my post completely. After I stated this, you then wisely chose not to reply further as you realised how dumb you looked. So, keep your salt away from my posts please.
Be careful not to get too angry over this. It's not worth it at this stage of development.
The problem is, as @Neurath said, a lot of people backed Ashes becuse of an idea. The extensive class system was one of those ideas. Some of us are still very passionate about what was promised. We remember the old MMOs, and want a return to what we consider "the good old days".
I'm not saying others should be able to be aggressive towards you, but trying to suggest radical changes to Ashes now is going to get that response from older members of the community.
We all want a good game, so let's keep the community spirit.
I'd rather take the hate and try to get my thoughts heard. I'll always take lesser classes and better design/balance over more classes and worse design/balance. Limiting it to 36 classes, gives them ample time to design and balance these classes well without sacrificing too much variance. You can always add them later on and doing so results in the new classes having better design/balance from the get go itself.
They don't have to balance 64 independent classes, they have to balance the skills of 8 archetypes and the effects of 8 sets of archetype-themed augments.
Don't bring your personal disdain towards me, to this thread. You made insensible comments on the previous post that I made, simply because you didn't read my post completely. After I stated this, you then wisely chose not to reply further as you realised how dumb you looked. So, keep your salt away from my posts please.
Be careful not to get too angry over this. It's not worth it at this stage of development.
The problem is, as @Neurath said, a lot of people backed Ashes becuse of an idea. The extensive class system was one of those ideas. Some of us are still very passionate about what was promised. We remember the old MMOs, and want a return to what we consider "the good old days".
I'm not saying others should be able to be aggressive towards you, but trying to suggest radical changes to Ashes now is going to get that response from older members of the community.
We all want a good game, so let's keep the community spirit.
I'd rather take the hate and try to get my thoughts heard. I'll always take lesser classes and better design/balance over more classes and worse design/balance. Limiting it to 36 classes, gives them ample time to design and balance these classes well without sacrificing too much variance. You can always add them later on and doing so results in the new classes having better design/balance from the get go itself.
So saith the dude who sends private messages which declare you will make me eat my words.
You are free to post and free to make threads. You must learn when to take the opposition and when to heed advice. I suspect you are very young, very raw and very impudent.
They don't have to balance 64 independent classes, they have to balance the skills of 8 archetypes and the effects of 8 sets of archetype-themed augments.
You have to design/balance around 250 abilities just when it comes to augmented abilities.
They said that there would be not more than 30 abilities per archetype. So 250 + 240 = about 500 unique abilities. I don't know about you, but 500 abilities is A LOT to design/balance.
Don't bring your personal disdain towards me, to this thread. You made insensible comments on the previous post that I made, simply because you didn't read my post completely. After I stated this, you then wisely chose not to reply further as you realised how dumb you looked. So, keep your salt away from my posts please.
Be careful not to get too angry over this. It's not worth it at this stage of development.
The problem is, as @Neurath said, a lot of people backed Ashes becuse of an idea. The extensive class system was one of those ideas. Some of us are still very passionate about what was promised. We remember the old MMOs, and want a return to what we consider "the good old days".
I'm not saying others should be able to be aggressive towards you, but trying to suggest radical changes to Ashes now is going to get that response from older members of the community.
We all want a good game, so let's keep the community spirit.
I'd rather take the hate and try to get my thoughts heard. I'll always take lesser classes and better design/balance over more classes and worse design/balance. Limiting it to 36 classes, gives them ample time to design and balance these classes well without sacrificing too much variance. You can always add them later on and doing so results in the new classes having better design/balance from the get go itself.
So saith the dude who sends private messages which declare you will make me eat my words.
You are free to post and free to make threads. You must learn when to take the opposition and when to heed advice. I suspect you are very young, very raw and very impudent.
If you're being toxic, then why do you expect others to be nice to you? If you're disagreeing with me that's okay. But if you're flat out being rude, don't expect me to be nice. And yes, I will make you eat your words regarding Streamer privilege.
My guess as to why Summoner/Cleric is a necromancer, is because the Cleric heals get turned into lifetap spells, which is almost a staple of necromancers.
I could see the Shaman (Cleric/Summoner) being more of the type to summon wisps or the like, for healing aid.
A summoner who augments their abilities with the powers of life and death is categorically a necromancer. That's what necromancy is.
A cleric who augments their abilities with the power to summon creatures is not necessarily a necromancer, and fits far better into the concept of a healer who summons spirits to aid with healing.
I'm happy with the proposed system, I wouldn't want to see it trimmed or reduced, games that have gone in that direction have generally gotten worse over time- there is a consensus in a lot of cases about the golden era of games like WoW, and when they started homogenizing and pruning classes down, removing consequences, and making everyone a swiss army knife - I'd say the game got worse. I've played a metric ton of mmo's over the years - the majority of which have failed certainly, but it never really hinged on whether or not my class was tuned properly from the get go - for me at least. Just as with some other topics, throwing my grain of sand into the scale
You have to design/balance around 250 abilities just when it comes to augmented abilities.
They said that there would be not more than 30 abilities per archetype. So 250 + 240 = about 500 unique abilities. I don't know about you, but 500 abilities is A LOT to design/balance.
Don't forget, every class has 5 stats that need to be balanced because your stats increase when you level based on your class so that's another 300 numbers you have to balance, what a workload!
Just declaring the number of elements to factor into the balancing process doesn't really say all that much about the difficulty inherent to balancing the game. Every game has hundreds of abilities that all need to be "balanced". Every game with so and so number of classes will have so and so number of skills to tune, every game with so and so number of enemies will have so and so number of enemy skills to tune.
WoW vanilla almost two decades ago had, what, 9 fully independent classes each with several dozen skills? With each class also having three separate talent trees and each tree with new skills and skill modifiers and dozens of talents to get and points to spend to create a distinct and unique playstyle?
If you are simply focused on the number of numbers that may need to be changed in the name of balance than you're focusing on the wrong thing, because Ashes really is not going for anything particularly unheard of with their class system. They are going for a rock paper scissors dynamic, they do not need to make every class combination equally as combat effective in every scenario as every other class combination.
Don't bring your personal disdain towards me, to this thread. You made insensible comments on the previous post that I made, simply because you didn't read my post completely. After I stated this, you then wisely chose not to reply further as you realised how dumb you looked. So, keep your salt away from my posts please.
Be careful not to get too angry over this. It's not worth it at this stage of development.
The problem is, as @Neurath said, a lot of people backed Ashes becuse of an idea. The extensive class system was one of those ideas. Some of us are still very passionate about what was promised. We remember the old MMOs, and want a return to what we consider "the good old days".
I'm not saying others should be able to be aggressive towards you, but trying to suggest radical changes to Ashes now is going to get that response from older members of the community.
We all want a good game, so let's keep the community spirit.
I'd rather take the hate and try to get my thoughts heard. I'll always take lesser classes and better design/balance over more classes and worse design/balance. Limiting it to 36 classes, gives them ample time to design and balance these classes well without sacrificing too much variance. You can always add them later on and doing so results in the new classes having better design/balance from the get go itself.
But there is nothing to say they are going to be poorly developed. It's only your concerns saying that. This game got funded on the promise of depth, and Steven wants a return to immersion. The studio is ramping up in terms of employees. Have faith, buddy.
2
Options
AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Don't bring your personal disdain towards me, to this thread. You made insensible comments on the previous post that I made, simply because you didn't read my post completely. After I stated this, you then wisely chose not to reply further as you realised how dumb you looked. So, keep your salt away from my posts please.
Be careful not to get too angry over this. It's not worth it at this stage of development.
The problem is, as @Neurath said, a lot of people backed Ashes becuse of an idea. The extensive class system was one of those ideas. Some of us are still very passionate about what was promised. We remember the old MMOs, and want a return to what we consider "the good old days".
I'm not saying others should be able to be aggressive towards you, but trying to suggest radical changes to Ashes now is going to get that response from older members of the community.
We all want a good game, so let's keep the community spirit.
I'd rather take the hate and try to get my thoughts heard. I'll always take lesser classes and better design/balance over more classes and worse design/balance. Limiting it to 36 classes, gives them ample time to design and balance these classes well without sacrificing too much variance. You can always add them later on and doing so results in the new classes having better design/balance from the get go itself.
But there is nothing to say they are going to be poorly developed. It's only your concerns saying that. This game got funded on the promise of depth, and Steven wants a return to immersion. The studio is ramping up in terms of employees. Have faith, buddy.
We haven’t even seen much of anything on the class details. I agree, it’s way too early to stress about this. 8 is not an obscene number of starting classes for an MMO, it’s a pretty normal amount.
0
Options
SussurroMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
To me, the game seems to have only 8 actual classes. The variance that comes from choosing your second archetype will likely just give you a set of 'transformations' to your current skills (i.e. a graphical and spell effect change). I hope we will also receive an avenue to learn skills not available to the base archetype but I understand the developmental constraints if those skills aren't simply ripped from the second archetype. The hybrid combat system may detract from this as well.
At this point, I believe that our environmental/traversal skills will probably be informed by our base archetype. I have no other reservations about this system (if I'm understanding it correctly).
The way Steven describes it makes it sound somewhat like the build/progression system we witness in ESO. AoC's system appears to be abstracting their transformations behind a hybrid class gimmick; it makes it sound more daunting than it is but this may actually be narrower than the builds that ESO creates (I have no knowledge of AoC's skill trees, though I hope for developement's sake they're manageable). We see another of ESO's design philosophies reflected in any class being able to use any gear.
AoC departs from ESO in terms of combat. AoC's combat, this early in development, feels miles better than the floaty combat in contemporary ESO.
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” - Terry Prachett, Reaper Man
To me, the game seems to have only 8 actual classes. The variance that comes from choosing your second archetype will likely just give you a set of 'transformations' to your current skills (i.e. a graphical and spell effect change). I hope we will also receive an avenue to learn skills not available to the base archetype but I understand the developmental constraints if those skills aren't simply ripped from the second archetype. The hybrid combat system may detract from this as well.
At this point, I believe that our environmental/traversal skills will probably be informed by our base archetype. I have no other reservations about this system (if I'm understanding it correctly).
The way Steven describes it makes it sound somewhat like the build/progression system we witness in ESO. AoC's system appears to be abstracting their transformations behind a hybrid class gimmick; it makes it sound more daunting than it is but this may actually be narrower than the builds that ESO creates (I have no knowledge of AoC's skill trees, though I hope for developement's sake they're manageable). We see another of ESO's design philosophies reflected in any class being able to use any gear.
AoC departs from ESO in terms of combat. AoC's combat, this early in development, feels miles better than the floaty combat in contemporary ESO.
This is how I view it presently, at a glance I wouldn't say the classes seem more complex than something like Diablo 3 - and the "augments" are simply the runes, where often it changes an aesthetic/damage type/etc - but from time to time it changes it in a core manner. D3 classes were something like 20+ abilities, at six or so runes per ability, and this game looks to have less abilities per class, but would have far more changes via augments. Honestly I preferred something like EQ(or at least casters in EQ), which had a boatload of abilities, utility, flavor, hidden and otherwise, etc. Will just have to see how this system goes, I think I'd be happy with most things they might implement if there's a semblance of permanence to it - but if it's both super limited/simple, and can be changed on a whim - I'd be less a fan. I didn't play ESO, so I can't respond to similarities there, I have a computer that still runs everything on ultra - and I just could never get that game to run.
I read tons of fixes/work arounds going through steps as deep as registry edits and other crazy stuff, nothing ever worked.
Comments
Incorrect. Steven clearly stated that augmented abilities will have CLEAR vertical progression, along with flavor. So yes, whilst you won't be designing new abilities for all 64 classes, its still a lot.
Assume that you design about 7 augmented abilities for every school of every class. Also assume that a class's augment gives similar augmented abilities to all classes. This means that you have to design 64x4x7/8 abilities, which is about 250 distinct abilities. (Assuming some variance)
That is still A LOT to balance.
But why is that the standard? What is it besides 15 years of being brainwashed that that constitutes 'balance'?
People obsess over that word. Fun doesn't matter, immersion and rpg aspects don't matter. Oh no, my class does 3% dps less than that class. The game is broken! It's such utter nonsense. Balance it like an actual rpg. This is an mmorpg, it's right in the name. Some classes excel at certain things which other classes are weak at. There are niches. Classes rely on each other to compensate for what one class lacks in a certain area.
We need to drop this absurd e-sport mentality. It's a video game, it's supposed to be fun. You can obsess over numbers and min/maxing and efficiency but none of those things makes the game more FUN. WoW is the most obvious example of this. Players complain now more than ever, when things are objectively the most 'balanced' it's ever been. Because the emphasis has been turned away from simply playing a video game and having fun to obsessing and nitpicking over this red herring called balance. Ultimately it leads to mass homogenization, and sucks the immersion and rpg elements out of the game. WoW isn't even an mmorpg anymore; it's an interactive calculator.
So my suggestion is chill out and relax. Enough of this fascination with balance. Are you having fun? That's really the only question that matters. Now, I'm not saying it should be a crazy free-for-all of absolute chaos. But there's a difference between that and breaking out pie charts and spreadsheets to calculate the perfect composition for maximum efficiency. Let me put it this way: balance should never have priority over fun. That's something other mmos (WoW in particular) have lost along the way. And I hope Ashes doesn't make the same mistake. But it also requires the playerbase to unlearn this nonsense they've been programmed to think over the years. That's the tough part.
You can assume all day long, we got a few examples and none of them change the core of the ability or dramatically as you claim. It gives something extra and as stated before you will see repeats because they will be economical with those augments. The blink will surely come up in a lot of appropriate skills.
Something else to point out is that augments ARE the "vertical progression" enhancing combat skill progression.
Quote:
Anyway, unless an augment is just wrongly coded and gives more than it should, augments are the least of my worries when it comes to balance. It's synergy that I personally worry about. Stats that work well with specific other stats and blow up exponentionaly at certain thresholds. I worry about skill synergy that will inevitable lead down cookie cutter builds simply because they work way better with each other than the other options.
There are a lot of things to worry about when it comes to balance and augments is certainly one of it, I am just pointing out that it's a more minor thing than people make it out to be. Especially compared to all the other things IS has proposed that they will do.
Skill pool, stat variety, skill progression, just to name a few.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
The other interesting question is how different the same class/subclass pairings will feel. For example, how different will a Rogue/Fighter (Duelist) feel from a Fighter/Rogue (Shadowblade).
I think 1:1:6 almost fits the ratio of tanks:healer:dps in other games. I'd hope that this alleviates the classic lack of tanks and healers to a certain extend.
Be careful not to get too angry over this. It's not worth it at this stage of development.
The problem is, as @Neurath said, a lot of people backed Ashes becuse of an idea. The extensive class system was one of those ideas. Some of us are still very passionate about what was promised. We remember the old MMOs, and want a return to what we consider "the good old days".
I'm not saying others should be able to be aggressive towards you, but trying to suggest radical changes to Ashes now is going to get that response from older members of the community.
We all want a good game, so let's keep the community spirit.
The game doesn't need perfect balance at launch, it need continous support. Keep tweaking at it and they'll eventually get there.
Most of the things i said where your idea ... so i don't get what you disagree .
y
so you don't like a finished game with a finished design .. instead you prefer to chance it overtime. Actually you are not going to set a prize for each game/expansion you make, as i understood. So it make more sense. Becouse if i have to pay a game that i Will lose, it sound pretty bad XD like WoW has done.
So are you going to make different servers for older expansions? like Classic WoW
so is this the only thing we disagree? Will we have each class unique .. or the mixed one are going to be an hybrid with already existing features of the second class?
i absolutelly agree to add new ones only after balancing the already-existing ones, that's awesome. Otherwise it means you will never balance the game xD .
what do you mean about limiting the specs to 2/3? so are you planning to add specs for each class? i didn't want to limit anything ... i want to build a better and more efficient way to develop the character , adding specs to the game and deleting meaningless and extra classes like summoner and Bard. As you already said, you don't feal them to be too much important for the first launch of the game. They are an extra.
Anyway i have one more question right now ... how are you going to balance the game if you remove or add a dps / healer / tank? Becouse the ratio of the characters rule in combat is going to chance ... for example ... with 6 classes is 1 tank, 1 healer and 4 dps, but with the Bard is going to be 2 healers every tank and 4 dps. And this will happen every time you add a new class with his single and monotonous rule. Are bosses and enemies suitable for every type of group composition?
thz
I'm curious about the trinity ratios too. I almost think there should be another class that heals and another that tanks.
In most other MMOs you would have a warrior and a paladin, maybe even a shadow knight. As well as a cleric there will also be shamans and druids.
After 25 there will be more options to just clerics, but I wonder about pre-25. Will clerics be numerous enough to cover all the healing? Can tanks handle all the tanking, or can fighters tank a group?
I'd actually like to have seen two more primary archetypes, taking things to 10 by 10. Druid would have been my second healer type and shadow knight my second tank.
Have the druid combinations along the lines of aspects of nature or wildlife. Druid/Tank = Bear? Druid/Rogue = Cat? Druid/Mage = Storm? Some work needed there.
For the Shadow Knight I feel this is where necromancers would come in. I never understood summoner/cleric being a necromancer. Shadow Knight/Tank = Brute? Shadow Knight/Summoner = Necromancer. Shadow Knight/Mage = Cultist?
Summoner/Cleric should be more about summoning such elemntals as wisps, who could aid healing.
I'd also like to see two stages to augmenting your primary archetype. Maybe give some basic abilities at 10 or 15 and more augments at 30. That gives more to look forward to throughout progression. I don't mean having two augmented classes; still just the one.
I agree with you, except for one thing: I don't think that having fun and having balanced combat are mutually exclusive. Even though obsessively focusing on balancing the game has its flaws and can remove the fun of games like you pointed out, the lack of a balanced combat can make a game just as bad.
"Fun" is something subjective, and while some people will gladly play a class that sucks and still have fun, other people would like to play that same class and wish it didn't suck.
You never said there shouldn't be any balancing at all, so I'm only trying to convey that, although it could indeed be the result of 15 years of brainwashing, I do believe it's possible to have a balanced game without mass homogenization and without removing immersion and RPG elements which should be fundamental to Ashes.
That highly depends on how different the classes with the same primary archetype end up being. 8 classes for healing and 8 classes for tanking in the end are plenty, as long its not just a recolor of the other classes.
1-25 is the halfway point. I've compared it to the EXP distribution of other games. With the promoted 250 hours to max level, we'd end up at level 25 after 20-30 hours, if they were to adapt a similar EXP curve. 20-30 hours to unlock your subclasses feels like a reasonable time in my opinion.
Also, i'm not sure if you know that, but each secondary archetype will have 4 schools of augments. Not just 2 like you asked for.
Having another archetype of each tank and healer really isn't needed. People will have to settle with a little uniformity pre-25. The differences between all the tank and cleric classes after that will spread things apart. It's all going to depend on how unique each subclass can make the primary one feel.
Normally, (outside of a few circumstances, such as not liking the feel of a particular class) adding another tank or healer archetype wouldn't really bring more players to those roles. You might get some, if the archetype was super appealing to certain people, but mostly you'd just a portion of the people originally planning to be tank/healer roll the second archetype instead of the first.
In most other games, non-tank classes can at least off-tank for a short duration if necessary (i.e. the main tank dies). Every class has to be able to be at least somewhat survivable against regular mobs, so they can afford to take a few hits before dying. That doesn't mean that you could have, say, a mage tank a raid boss. But even in those situations, besides tank-buster attacks, it is pretty rare for any classes to be instantly one-shot.
My guess as to why Summoner/Cleric is a necromancer, is because the Cleric heals get turned into lifetap spells, which is almost a staple of necromancers.
I could see the Shaman (Cleric/Summoner) being more of the type to summon wisps or the like, for healing aid.
Taking out 2 of the best classes? Bad idea. Especially when those 2 classes are either not done in other MMO's or not done well. Taking out things that make AoC stand out above the competition is not how you make players happy lol.
Not to mention if you want to design a game where the class roles involve more than just the trinity - tank/dps/heals/support/jack of all trades - then you have to do it at launch so the playerbase embraces the idea and content can be balanced around those roles. If you try to stick them in later, they'll never catch on.
Some balance should exist in order for fun to exist. Having classes that are just simply better than yours is not going to make the game fun for you. This statement doesn't just hold true for just hardcore players, it holds true for all types of players. With 64 classes, and over 500 abilities to design, I find it difficult to imagine how they're going to balance them.
You're going to add them within just a year of launch. I don't know about you, but I will take ANY 6 well designed classes over 8 unbalanced classes that get balanced as the game goes on.
I have no hatred towards you. You have issues with me. When you refer to me as a Bounty Hunter and ignore what I say you will be met with pity. You always try to one up me but you fail because you use flawed logic, the wiki without specific knowledge and inflammatory threads which are designed to flame bait.
The good news is your nonsense is still nonsense and should be seen as such.
@nidriks we had the same discussion about Ragnarok and Ragnarok 2 lol. I still call Everquest 2 Everquest like I call Ragnarok 2 Online Ragnarok. Trojan.
@nidriks
A cleric can be viewed as someone who is devoted to something. Whether that something is the dead, the light, or the elements, it doesn't matter.
I'd rather take the hate and try to get my thoughts heard. I'll always take lesser classes and better design/balance over more classes and worse design/balance. Limiting it to 36 classes, gives them ample time to design and balance these classes well without sacrificing too much variance. You can always add them later on and doing so results in the new classes having better design/balance from the get go itself.
So saith the dude who sends private messages which declare you will make me eat my words.
You are free to post and free to make threads. You must learn when to take the opposition and when to heed advice. I suspect you are very young, very raw and very impudent.
You have to design/balance around 250 abilities just when it comes to augmented abilities.
They said that there would be not more than 30 abilities per archetype. So 250 + 240 = about 500 unique abilities. I don't know about you, but 500 abilities is A LOT to design/balance.
If you're being toxic, then why do you expect others to be nice to you? If you're disagreeing with me that's okay. But if you're flat out being rude, don't expect me to be nice. And yes, I will make you eat your words regarding Streamer privilege.
A summoner who augments their abilities with the powers of life and death is categorically a necromancer. That's what necromancy is.
A cleric who augments their abilities with the power to summon creatures is not necessarily a necromancer, and fits far better into the concept of a healer who summons spirits to aid with healing.
Don't forget, every class has 5 stats that need to be balanced because your stats increase when you level based on your class so that's another 300 numbers you have to balance, what a workload!
Just declaring the number of elements to factor into the balancing process doesn't really say all that much about the difficulty inherent to balancing the game. Every game has hundreds of abilities that all need to be "balanced". Every game with so and so number of classes will have so and so number of skills to tune, every game with so and so number of enemies will have so and so number of enemy skills to tune.
WoW vanilla almost two decades ago had, what, 9 fully independent classes each with several dozen skills? With each class also having three separate talent trees and each tree with new skills and skill modifiers and dozens of talents to get and points to spend to create a distinct and unique playstyle?
If you are simply focused on the number of numbers that may need to be changed in the name of balance than you're focusing on the wrong thing, because Ashes really is not going for anything particularly unheard of with their class system. They are going for a rock paper scissors dynamic, they do not need to make every class combination equally as combat effective in every scenario as every other class combination.
But there is nothing to say they are going to be poorly developed. It's only your concerns saying that. This game got funded on the promise of depth, and Steven wants a return to immersion. The studio is ramping up in terms of employees. Have faith, buddy.
At this point, I believe that our environmental/traversal skills will probably be informed by our base archetype. I have no other reservations about this system (if I'm understanding it correctly).
The way Steven describes it makes it sound somewhat like the build/progression system we witness in ESO. AoC's system appears to be abstracting their transformations behind a hybrid class gimmick; it makes it sound more daunting than it is but this may actually be narrower than the builds that ESO creates (I have no knowledge of AoC's skill trees, though I hope for developement's sake they're manageable). We see another of ESO's design philosophies reflected in any class being able to use any gear.
AoC departs from ESO in terms of combat. AoC's combat, this early in development, feels miles better than the floaty combat in contemporary ESO.
This is how I view it presently, at a glance I wouldn't say the classes seem more complex than something like Diablo 3 - and the "augments" are simply the runes, where often it changes an aesthetic/damage type/etc - but from time to time it changes it in a core manner. D3 classes were something like 20+ abilities, at six or so runes per ability, and this game looks to have less abilities per class, but would have far more changes via augments. Honestly I preferred something like EQ(or at least casters in EQ), which had a boatload of abilities, utility, flavor, hidden and otherwise, etc. Will just have to see how this system goes, I think I'd be happy with most things they might implement if there's a semblance of permanence to it - but if it's both super limited/simple, and can be changed on a whim - I'd be less a fan. I didn't play ESO, so I can't respond to similarities there, I have a computer that still runs everything on ultra - and I just could never get that game to run.
I read tons of fixes/work arounds going through steps as deep as registry edits and other crazy stuff, nothing ever worked.