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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
This mentality is what leads to homogenization and the death of a game’s fun. Complex rotations cannot be mastered by everyone, why shouldn’t a game reward those who can master them. Why the hell would anyone play a complex class if its potential didn’t beat out the potential of simple class by a decent margin?
By definition of a class having a high skill cap, not everyone can use it effectively. A mediocre player will get better results from a simple class than they will from a complex class. But a skilled player will get better results from a complex class than they could from a simple class. That is a good thing and should be present in every game.
In games that have classes that are somewhat harder but perform better, and have easier classes that perform reasonably, the bulk of the playerbase go for the easier class.
Archeage is a prime example of this, Darkrunner and Daggerspell were never the best classes, just the easiest.
This means that the players that take the harder classes have even more ability to shine, but it also meant that people seeing a different class dominate them and try to emulate that without knowing what they were doing would fail miserably (and often make statements about cheating).
If you think that the meta of a game revolves around the best output rather than around the easiest class, then you haven't been paying attention.
I think you are twisting the meaning of what meta means. Its not the most popular spec, meta is the spec or build that allows you to preform the best in a certain situation. The meta for raiding will be different than the meta for pvping.
Just because everyone plays an easy class does not mean its the best class. Thus if all the hard classes performed better than the easy classes you would have all the competitive players playing the hard classes creating a meta of only bringing the hard classes for whatever situation they perform the best in.
I was replying to the fact the poster seemed to suggest that if there was an easy class that performed fairly well, and a harder class that performed better, the meta would be everyone playing the harder class.
This is not the case.
I'm not sure what the point of your last paragraph here is, to be honest.
Those of us that are more competitive (or more accurately, those of us more successful in being competitive) are this way because we drop the ego at the door, and make the best decisions we can.
Since Ashes PvP content will mostly not be restricted by player count, guilds are not going to *only* take specific players along - they will take everyone available to them. If those players are making the correct decision rather than the decision that best suits their egos, most of them would be playing the easier class rather than the harder one, as even top guilds are made up largely of average players.
Those that do make decisions based on ego will likely drag their guild down, which is how it should be.
You vastly underestimate how meta games can get especially when there is no limit to how many players can be brought.
If there is a build that is easy to use, those guilds bringing many people along will use that easy build to a very high degree. They may not start off using it, but it is the build they will have the best results with - because when you have large numbers of players, you have a greater probability of having an average ratio of average players.
This average ratio of average players simply isn't going to be able to function well with the complex build, leaving the guild in a position where they have three choices: keep running the difficult build and be a large amount below their theoretical best; switch to the easier build and be closer to their theoretical best; drop the players that aren't good enough to run the harder build and greatly reduce their theoritecal best.
There is only one of these three options that is even remotely viable.
If a guild is going to focus on a meta, and is going to ask/demand players run specific builds, the build they will get the best results out of is the easier build. If the classes are designed well, and this large group of players with an average ratio of average players tried to use a build that is harder to master, the results would likely be fairly poor.
Basically, this works as a punishment to guilds that demand players follow the meta - though many guilds absolutely still will.
That is the optionI would go with - only assessing the output.
I was not super clear above that I was talking about guilds that insist on sticking to the meta.
EXAMPLE 1:
The elementalist sword power build has a 38 step rotation.
EXAMPLE 2:
Chronomancer Power Boon Support has a 24 step opener and a 3 part 16 step rotation.
Example 3:
Power Rogue has a 5 step opener and a 3 step rotation. Love that class. xD
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
At least for raiding groups. It was... traumatizing, especially because your dps REALLY felt it when you missed your rotation.
Some on cooldown, others after another, but strict rotations end up being something someone else makes and I have to memorize.
And I can't possible understand them because the person who did them knows everything because plays 24/7, and I don't, so I end up doing something just for the sake of getting the best DPS possible.
Totally agree, a combat system made where rotations simply aren't viable, leaving players to have to use a priority system is far superior.
I've only seen it in one game to date myself (EQ2), though I am sure there would be other games out there with it.
I think you overestimating how difficult learning a rotation is. Something I think ashes should consider is implementing a system of dynamic rotations. Dynamic rotations are rotations that change and are different everytime. A really good example is a magsorc from eso. Magsorcs have an ability that has a 20% chance of getting enhanced everytime you cast another ability. This enhanced version is significantly better than the non enhanced and essentially you want to cast this ability enhanced as much as you can and ideally never cast unenhanced.
What it does it reduces the tedious nature of memorizing a rotation as everytime you do it will be slightly different.
The problem with skill priority is usually one skill is significantly better than the rest. If it lacks a cooldown people will only spam that one ability and if it has a cooldown you end up using it on cooldown. Which in the end becomes rotation as that's really what rotation is. Lining up your dots so you get the most out of them and prioritizing skills based on their effects or damage done. It's about the timing your skills so when they expire you have either maximized their duration or using the best ones as much as possible.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
An example of this is the oft referenced (by me, at least) EQ2.
As a wizard, I had a few major spells, a few abilities to maximize damage from spells, and a few short duration buffs from other classes to even further maximize spells.
Of my two major spells, one had a standard 45 second cooldown (able to be reduced to 22.5 seconds) and the other had a 180 second recast timer (able to be reduced to 90). The short cooldown ability was single target, the longer one was an AoE of sorts that fired in a cone shape, but only had a 5 meter range from the caster, and could only hit 3 targets max - but it did a lot of damage to all targets.
To play the class well, you had to try to always use the abilities to enhance spells with these two specific spells, but you also needed to try and have both (ideally) ready to cast when you were about to get that short duration buff from a raid member. But, in order to not be shit, you still had to use these abilities all the time - it wasn't worth holding off on casting one of these abilities for more than 10 -12 seconds.
On top of that, there were various buffs and item procs that would make spells have halve the cooldown.
Between these two factors and the dozen or so other abilities the class had, it meant you were never able to plan more than 2 or 3 spells ahead, and you had to make decisions about spell priorities and character positioning essentially on the fly.
Basically, a good spell priority system is ESO's Magsorc on steroids.
That sounds badass as fuck. Imma check that out.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
I honestly cant suggest to anyone to attempt to get in to EQ2 at this stage.
It is a great game, but it will take a whole lot of effort to get to the point where you are able to actually see the game in that specific light, and that is assuming you are able to find a reliable raid guild - which isn't a given.
The game honestly has the best combat of any MMO. No qualifiers or exceptions to that statement, and honestly second place (FFXIV is my current second place) is not even close.
The issue with the game is that it is on its 16th or 17th expansion, each adding a new layer of complexity, and unlike WoW, EQ2 dont assume their players need things simplified for them.
This means the game is cumbersome and overwhelming to newcomers - even those with years of MMO experience.
If EQ2 ever do another round d of fresh start servers though, it absolutely would be worth spending some time to play.
Agreed. I would also like to speak against front loaded damage and burst damage that depends on cool downs and global abilities, and instead encourage steady, consistant damage.
Now this doesnt mean that there cant be burst classes, but dont homogenize all classes this way.
Rotations are not an option. In the end, people will figure out which abilities to use and which order (by prioritizing as you say) and bam, we have a rotation.
You cant avoid rotations, but you can make them fun and dynamic and different from fight to fight.
Sure you can avoid rotations.
All you need to do is have enough going on that can change what ability you should use and the notion of a rotation looks as antiquated as it actually is.
Enough going on? 60+ abilities like some MMO classes have where good people still only use the same 5-7 spells in a rotation? Give me one example of a succesful MMO with more than 6 abilities per class that does not have a meta rotation please
I've given one in this thread already, EQ2.
Classes have an average of 24 abilities, and while there can be a rotation if you want to perform poorly, the top 50% of players all know better.
The game doesn't even have standard "best" builds for each class, let alone rotations that need to be used. There are simply too many variables for these things to exist.