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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.
Potential problems with some of the systems
Spurius
Member
First of all, happy new year to everyone.
There were a couple of things I was wondering about with regards to the systems announced so far.
I am new on the forums, and I don't know if it is appropriate to post this here. If it is not, feel free to move my message anywhere else.
Disclaimer: I am not a hater
I like the vision of the game, I like Steven as a person, and oh boy can a relate to "there are no good MMO's left" problem. Most of the things Steven is saying, I've been saying for years to my friends, or in other close circles.
So no. I don't think the game will "suck". I just would like to look at the systems from the point of view of how they can be broken - by insane min-max performance-oriented omega-pro-gamer-cybersport culture, that I was amazed to observe in classic WoW, and some other games I've played, or in any other way. I am interested in the project, and would like for it to succeed. But here I would try to present worst-case scenarios, in case some of them can be avoided. In the interest of us all.
I included my ideas about what potential solutions might look like.
I understand that all of these things might've been already discussed 100 times over, by developers inside close doors, or here, on the forums, so I am posting it while keeping in mind that maybe I am not contributing at all to anything... But in hopes that I am... Here we go)
1) Instanced boss difficulty
From my understanding, instanced bosses difficulty and loot-tables on the last bosses are going to be scaled based on your party's performance on the first bosses.
My question is: what would be a good way to measure the performance, except for a raw DPS-check?
In case of a ladder, a problem of class-disbalance arises. We would like for every class to be needed in some way, to fill some niche. If the loot you are getting is determined by successful DPS-check at the beginning of the raid, I can see people taking 1 tank, 3 clerics and 829384 mages (or rangers), to get the max loot-table, thus making the high-dps classes way more desired in raids, guilds, and so forth.
Possible solution:
Alternative ways of performance-measuring. Make sure to include (somehow) every way, in which different classes contribute to the raid is useful into the measurement process.?? Maybe
2) Node-type "meta"
I am not sure if there even is a way to prevent this, except for just having the community that enjoys the game, instead of enjoying their "performance", but...
What if node-type "meta" is going to form over time? For example, part of what scientific node type offers to players, is information about the world, which will all be eventually available to players through wiki "wowhead"-like websites anyways. And if militaristic type node will have some actual +stat, or other combat bonuses, won't all players just want to be a citizens of militaristic nodes?
If the node-type will be determined by citizen's choice, eventually we will see the world filled by only militaristic-type nodes, which will destroy the fun and beauty of the whole system.
But even with the node-type randomized, the consequences of that kind of node-type "meta" can be quite unpleasant.
Your node levels up to stage 3. You are happy about that, you rush to player-houses to get yourself a house. You are now a proud house-owning citizen. But in a general chat everyone is upset for some reason. They say, that the "right" node-type didn't "proc". It's "divine" instead of "militaristic". Now we have to start all over. The siege is scheduled right away. Defenders surrender. The node is destroyed with no resistance. We start from the begging. Hopefully militaristic will "proc" next time. We all need these sweet +5% dmg bonuses. Instead of... a temple. Pff!
Possible solution:
One of the solutions, I suppose, could be not only randomising, but also locking certain number of node-types in the world. Just like there can only be 5 metropolises, maybe there should only be "n" scientific nodes, and "n" militaristic.
3) Real-estate click-competition
As far as I understand, there will be great benefits of owning a house on a village stage, to then see it progress to a mansion on a metropolis stage. We should expect to see an intense competition for who would get these village-stage houses first. But that competition is going to be a... clicking competition.
Whoever clicks first gets the house, right? And potentially, a mansion. Are you seeing what I am seeing?
Yes. Hose clicker-scripts. And no, if you don't have one, you are not getting a house. Or a mansion.
And yes, maybe you are going to have to pay real money to some dude to buy the script...
Possible solution:
Come up with some other way to decide who gets the house. But what could this way possibly be??
There were a couple of things I was wondering about with regards to the systems announced so far.
I am new on the forums, and I don't know if it is appropriate to post this here. If it is not, feel free to move my message anywhere else.
Disclaimer: I am not a hater
I like the vision of the game, I like Steven as a person, and oh boy can a relate to "there are no good MMO's left" problem. Most of the things Steven is saying, I've been saying for years to my friends, or in other close circles.
So no. I don't think the game will "suck". I just would like to look at the systems from the point of view of how they can be broken - by insane min-max performance-oriented omega-pro-gamer-cybersport culture, that I was amazed to observe in classic WoW, and some other games I've played, or in any other way. I am interested in the project, and would like for it to succeed. But here I would try to present worst-case scenarios, in case some of them can be avoided. In the interest of us all.
I included my ideas about what potential solutions might look like.
I understand that all of these things might've been already discussed 100 times over, by developers inside close doors, or here, on the forums, so I am posting it while keeping in mind that maybe I am not contributing at all to anything... But in hopes that I am... Here we go)
1) Instanced boss difficulty
From my understanding, instanced bosses difficulty and loot-tables on the last bosses are going to be scaled based on your party's performance on the first bosses.
My question is: what would be a good way to measure the performance, except for a raw DPS-check?
In case of a ladder, a problem of class-disbalance arises. We would like for every class to be needed in some way, to fill some niche. If the loot you are getting is determined by successful DPS-check at the beginning of the raid, I can see people taking 1 tank, 3 clerics and 829384 mages (or rangers), to get the max loot-table, thus making the high-dps classes way more desired in raids, guilds, and so forth.
Possible solution:
Alternative ways of performance-measuring. Make sure to include (somehow) every way, in which different classes contribute to the raid is useful into the measurement process.?? Maybe
2) Node-type "meta"
I am not sure if there even is a way to prevent this, except for just having the community that enjoys the game, instead of enjoying their "performance", but...
What if node-type "meta" is going to form over time? For example, part of what scientific node type offers to players, is information about the world, which will all be eventually available to players through wiki "wowhead"-like websites anyways. And if militaristic type node will have some actual +stat, or other combat bonuses, won't all players just want to be a citizens of militaristic nodes?
If the node-type will be determined by citizen's choice, eventually we will see the world filled by only militaristic-type nodes, which will destroy the fun and beauty of the whole system.
But even with the node-type randomized, the consequences of that kind of node-type "meta" can be quite unpleasant.
Your node levels up to stage 3. You are happy about that, you rush to player-houses to get yourself a house. You are now a proud house-owning citizen. But in a general chat everyone is upset for some reason. They say, that the "right" node-type didn't "proc". It's "divine" instead of "militaristic". Now we have to start all over. The siege is scheduled right away. Defenders surrender. The node is destroyed with no resistance. We start from the begging. Hopefully militaristic will "proc" next time. We all need these sweet +5% dmg bonuses. Instead of... a temple. Pff!
Possible solution:
One of the solutions, I suppose, could be not only randomising, but also locking certain number of node-types in the world. Just like there can only be 5 metropolises, maybe there should only be "n" scientific nodes, and "n" militaristic.
3) Real-estate click-competition
As far as I understand, there will be great benefits of owning a house on a village stage, to then see it progress to a mansion on a metropolis stage. We should expect to see an intense competition for who would get these village-stage houses first. But that competition is going to be a... clicking competition.
Whoever clicks first gets the house, right? And potentially, a mansion. Are you seeing what I am seeing?
Yes. Hose clicker-scripts. And no, if you don't have one, you are not getting a house. Or a mansion.
And yes, maybe you are going to have to pay real money to some dude to buy the script...
Possible solution:
Come up with some other way to decide who gets the house. But what could this way possibly be??
0
Comments
Regarding node type meta, yes there will likely be the type which is the best for min-maxing, but there are 2 things to combat this. Firstly, the majority of players will want housing, preferably in a level 6 node. There won't be able housing for everyone on a server, which means there will always be people wanting to tear down the already existing metros so they can build up their own in its place. This constant struggle will (hopefully) keep things from becoming too stale on a server.
Anyone scripting will be dealt with by the built-in security systems and active GMs that will be around.
Just a heads-up
Not just follow up bosses will scale in their difficulty based on performance. Also subsequent phases within a single boss encounter will scale baed on it. Also, scalability isn't restricted to instanced content. At least nothing intrepid has said so far indicates it.
More infos here:
https://de.ashesofcreation.wiki/PvE
In regards to how I'd personally evaluate:
With DPS just being a factor in determining whether you get the second highest or highest tier if you manage to go deathless without failing the mechanic threshholds.
Failed mechanics could relate to cleansing certain buffs within a timeframe, dodging certain spells, doing side tasks, killing Ads...
(In its essence, make the key mechanics of a boss fight mandatory - so people can't just ignore them while overgeared)
2)
What do you mean? Information isn't even a noteable contribution of a Scientific Node. Sounds like you should read up some more on the nodes, as the example you have brought is horrible at best.
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2019-04-10-know-your-nodes-scientific-node-type
If you think, that 5% more damage outweighs that, then you (and your server) might just have a rude awakening once nobody on your server can craft legendary equipment as nobody bothered cultivating a legendary node.
(Also, you already see the node type at stage 1. So that example feels also rather lacking)
In its essence, corner stones how i'd design it and how intrepid has also presented it so far:
3)
That's a rather simple one. Make the static in-node housing expensive. So expensive in fact, that players won't be able to wait for the node to pop to buy in instantly on release.
Or additionally (if needed) make it an auction instead of an outright purchase. Everybody can bid on it within 24 hours after the node has popped. Which extends to 5 minutes whenever a new bid is given in the end.
I don't think you could be more wrong about nodes.
I really think that with the number of restrictions that are currently in place that any one type of node will be preferential over another.
Even if you imagine that the guild system is really tightly knit (allowing a few dedicated players to shepherd much larger numbers) and that the Ashes playerbase is particularly invested in outside resources, doubled the usual number of people that research these things, the now 40% of people trying to manipulate the node system is still outnumbered by the 60% of players who will just do whatever feels good at the time.
There are a lot of things to investigate about the node system, but given the scale of the game's population and the relatively small number of people who care about that degree of large scale optimization, I don't think cheesing the node system is something we're likely to see. It'd be like convincing everyone in a fairly sized town to change how they drive - it might be more efficient, but herding 1,000 cats in the same direction is nigh impossible, and the ones that fail to comply will disrupt the process for those who are trying to make it happen.
If you're interested more in this idea of 80-20-5 there's a pretty good explanation here.
If my guild is in an open dungeon and we arrive at a boss at the same time as another guild and we both attack the encounter, which guild does this encounter use the performance of to determine the difficulty?
Then, if we both kill it and then both go off in different directions, how is the performance of that encounter factored in to the next encounter that each newly separate raids face? If deaths are a factor in determining this, is it only deaths in my raid that affect my raids next encounter, or is it any death?
The idea of it seems to me to not be suited to open world situations at all, and Ashes as a game isn't well suited to multi-encounter instances
Yeh I was going to say the only real measures to determine performance based loot would be either speed or potentially a death check or even a culmination of the both. ie. a group could stack glass cannons and burn the boss down however have a bunch of deaths thus impacting loot slightly when compared to their good clear time. Idk ahaha
Also, are you under attack from the Mongols, or something? That's one helluva great wall you've put up, in your original post.
But i have some "broblems"/fears.
The players nowadays are not role players. They just simply capitalistic brats so the pvp content will be sub optimal.
The world will be ruled by 2-5 big clans who owns nodes and castles. They split it up by the way its the most profiting them. Aka witch nodes produces the more goods being by the type. And they will form an alliance to hold it the way. So these hardcore guilds will rule. The casual guilds or solo palyers have no chance to interfere in the world. It happened in every MMO-s Lineage2, Aion (heck the Asmos and Elioses split up the Abbyss and rotate it). So some mechanism should be implemented to avoid it.
Like:
NPC uprising (helped by the players), Sabotage events if the Node is in a specific form or in one Mayors hand for a long time.
The influenced regions should emptying in ceratin resources(materials, tax, buff strength etc) over time if the node doesn't change type and/or owner. Combat nodes will be ruled by the hc guild. They will protect each other at the Batlle royale and make the guild leader to the mayor (I know this because we did the same). This needs to be countered at the begining.
Also voting will be the same. Allied large pop guilds will determine the Mayor.
This could be hardened if the votes from the same guild would be wekened for example: after 10 guild vote the next votes from it would coutn as 0.8 and after 20 count as 0.7 and so on. Also you should be alloved to vote per account not per character.
Base classes should be changable too. Off course in expense of a very hard long quest. But as the Balance rotate some base classes and class combinations would be obsolate. I have seen this many times.
Castle sieges:
Will these be in a separate instance? In Lineage2 the Allied hc goulds helped each other. The owner deffended the castle and the others (not officially participated in the siege) Ambushed the attackers and spawn camped them outside the castle. 0 chance for a succesful Guild. Of course they had the Karam System (very similar to this) but if they can't touch you it doesn't matter.
Also my dream feture in MMO is not present.
Nostalgic system.
It allows the player to temporarly reduce their level to a lower one. Completed quests can be done again but with low or no reward. Also as the level locked instances. This will allow casual players to play with their friends. We all have different life and different amount of time to play. Many times it happened that someone in the group went up in level and we couldn't play together anymore. Also alts are not solutions for it. Because if you play more time with your alt than your main the alt will be your main.
Economy/Money sink.
Is there a constant money sink mechanism? You need to subtract money from the game. In Lineage2 it was shoul/spirit shots witch are doubled your damage but you consume X amount of them per attack. These only can be made by players. It helped the flow of money but high tier crafts vere very expensive so these items subtract money from the game. In Aion the over complicated and uselessly hard crafting system did this at the start but the high grade crafted items were so hard to make that everybody stopped crafting them and changet to potions.
I hope my fears are pointless but I am speaking from 18 years of MMO experience.
Why should casual guilds who don't put the effort in get the same rewards as a hardcore guild who does put the effort in?
Only in Scientific nodes. The election process is different in each node type.
What? That's just weird.
No. AoC will be mostly Open World, with a small number of instanced dungeons.
Just make a new character. Why restrict yourself to just the one?
They have the Mentor system for players who are over-levelled compared to their friends. You absolutely can play together.
Why is that a problem?
Every game has these. I'd be shocked if this one didn't.
I'd strongly suggest you have a good read of the wiki, as you'll find all the currently released info in there: https://ashesofcreation.wiki
Note types dont "proc", each node has a predefined type. A node will always be the same type, it doesnt matter how often the are rebuild.
Yeah I have been playing with the wrong people for 18 years 6 MMO-s. Sure. The system will be heavily expolited if there is a chanche. And than any nerfing nad fixing from the devs will end in player rage and quits. See Guild Wars 2 crafting hard levelling expoliting.
They won't have the same rewards. Only the chache to dethrone the hardcore guilds. And they have to have a chance because there are far more casual players than hardcores. And they bring money to the devs. If they see their progression is pointless they will simply leave the game. The hardcore guilds will still be hard to deal with but not impossible. And this is a game changing difference.
I have been in both ends. In top Guilds where we just simply so strong we don't bothered. It was boring. And also I leaded a rebelling guild who tried to dethrone the big ones. And of course with almost no chance becaue their Allies (not officially Allies in game) instantly came to rescue them by Ambushing us. In pone world PVP or at Castle sieges. Open World PVP I don't care its open world but at sieges its a dick move. I had to convince 6 members to stay in the guild. They just started to give up. And many of them just simply don't showed up in the next siege. You can guess we were ambushed again. In the next month they put non pvp zones near the castles at siege time nad we almost took the castle. And no this guild wasn't a hc guild. 3 of us (the leadership) was hc. And we put shit tons of hours improving the guild increase our numbers in a way to stay invisible and surprise the big guilds.
But I have seen many guilds fail this way and almost all non HC members lost the interest in the game.
You can argue but the thruth is casual players keeps the game alive. They are biger in numbers and because they are progressing slower the devs have more time to develop new contents, fix bugs. HC guilds and players rushing throught the game and demand more content, highel level cap sooner = casuals wil always e left behind. Also using more server resources because they are always online. See Tera Online just the hardcore fans stayed and they almost closed the servers. Aion don't even bother to start as a new player. WoW is strugling too.
I have heard it will took 45 days to reach the max level with 4-6 hours of play a day. Thats insanely fast. Which is good for casuals too but hardcores just rust the top accure everything and stomp the casuals. The casuals simply need a chance to catch up and interfere the world.
In this case I meant non PVP zone as an instance.
Because many people don't have time for shit tons of alts. I will make a new one if I want to try out new play styles. But if I want to playa tank its stupid to start 2 tanks 2 identical characters. Also frind lists become un managable and the guild members can reach you that well. I have many friends who just simply don't want to join a guild. Because they don't want to play the x amount of hours waht the guild require, don't want to play tax or don't want to dragged into a war because someone in the guild had too big mouth and too small brain.
I still want to play with them but I want to be reacheable to the guild if I needed. (I usually play tank or healer so I will be needed)
Sounds good.
Se above.
Not every. Aion once you stopped bothering any craft than cooking or alchemy its done. With those you would be illionare in no time. Tera Online I never had money problems. I always had top gear at my level and i had nothing to spend my money. Not bothered with crafting and I was able to solo the group Instances even at the lowest entry levels.
I am reading. On paper it looks good. But I have seen may of these promises before. Trust me if wasn't interdted in this game I wouldn't write to this forum. I really want this game to be succesfull because its something (on paper) I have been waiting in a long time.
Thats insanely fast??? I mean in what world is that fast. In most MMORPG's you dont even need 1/10 of that.
Yes Casuals do in fact provide a lot to the game, the difference is though, it sounds like you had more carebears in your guild than casuals. That is a guild problem and not a game problem, vet your people, find where they need to go (if they're only crafters then that's where they will be). This is going to sound really shitty but, run your guild better and understand your people better.
No, more than likely you'll be sanctioned off so you can watch and such from the side lines. This is still being toyed with. If this is the case then you don't need to be this system that you are wanting, if you don't have time for an alt you don't have time to go back and "relive" that situation on your main. This is the truth of the matter.
This is not a problem, hell you might find you like your alt more anyway.
It does have gold sinks.
I hope you keep reading the wiki then (as it gets updated) as a lot of your complaints are in there. Ashes isn't for everyone and that's ok. What isn't ok however is claiming there is an issue when it's already been made clear that it's been resolved, or finding an issue where there is none.
Do try and have a good day, relax a bit.
It is about 10 days ./played, which is about the same to WOW-classic, for example. Are you saying, that WOW-classic leveling is insanely fast?
I would take that quote with a massive grain of salt, to the point where I would honestly disregard it completely.
On a side note, gotta be a little bit more careful with using the inbedded quotes as I never actually said anything about the time to reach max level....
You mean his quote or mine?
Oh damn, I just realized. Sorry, my bad. Fixed it.
Now can a coalition of guilds team up and do it? I’m sure that would be technically possible but l have trouble believing that you’d have enough separate groups of players cooperating with each other long enough to pull it off. Players get snippy, drama happens, and things fall apart. It’s inevitable. It’s the Law of Gamer Nerd Entropy.
Most likely, nodes will be populated by and managed by disparate groups of players who organically join together either for convenience or in shared goals to work together, which I believe is how the nodes are supposed to work.
The concept of "owning" a node in Ashes simply wont be a thing.
Nodes (at least metropolis nodes) will be the largest 'unit' in the game.
It is more likely that guilds will feel compelled to remain in a specific node (thus, the node will effectively "own" them) than anything else.
I honestly am super positively optimistic about AoC and have seen a plenty MMOs rise and fall within the first month or two. Though, given the background of the leadership from their leads and the open door development has proven to me that this game might actually just make it. So, I took a gamble with some money and backed the game on KS. Since then, not only have they proven to me again that they can pull this off, that it is only a matter of time until we are no longer worried over simple problems with simple solutions (viewed from a gamer's perspective). Don't get me wrong, problems will exist... this is MMO development. Though, time and listening to the player will get us close to where we want to be.
It is good to be speculative and probe for answers and I love that you are creating content here for everyone to add too and discuss... but this game is still far off and I'm sure these guys are going to iron out a lot of the "wrinkles" you bring up from comparisons of older MMOs before most people even get a chance to install the game on their computers. As you probably read, a lot of the forum "Fat Rats" have reassured you that most of these concerns have been addressed and available for view on the wiki.
Maybe this time around, I would try and make some new friends in a world by yourself instead of playing with the normal bros that you do. You will be surprised at some of the cool people you can meet and might see things differently.
Edit: thought I hit quote for Gege57's comment...
Mouse, not a rat, thankyou very much...
The raid group is judged on multiple factors that target specific class roles:
The above are added together and multiplied against overall performance factors:
Plus flat bonuses from boss specific mechanics:
These measurements can be monitored the whole way through a raid, can be used to determine the next boss difficulty and to determine loot tables.
The reason I broke it down like this: having class specific scoring encourages diversity in the raid party - but combining it with overall performance allows for niche tactics. Flat bonuses for boss specific encounters helps to keep the identity of the boss relevant.
Potential problems with some of the game's systems, pt1
The disclaimer stays the same.
1) Tab-target / action combat balance.
It was stated, that the combat is going to be a mix between both action-combat and tab-targeting systems, with players being able to customize their characters up to 75% one way or the other.
This question must have been brought up before, I am sure. But.... balance?
I know any people are tired of hearing the word "balance". Not everything needs to be perfectly balanced, I agree. But this is one of the things that most certainly should be, as if it is not, it defeats the whole purpose of the system being "mixed".
So yes. How can you possibly balance this?
The whole idea of skill shots coexisting with point-and-clicks is that a skill shot hits stronger, but there is a chance that it is not going to hit at all, because you just miss - thus creating a balance between two types. But if you have an option to replace your tab-target ability with an equivalent skill, except it is stronger, but you have to aim it, not doing it would be an equivalent of admitting to your poor aiming skills. Which, at the end of the day, can always be improved. So why would anyone decide not to do it?
What is the plan to prevent "action-type" being for "good players", and "tab-targeting" being for idiots who can't aim?
And if your skill-shots are not going to be stronger then your point-and-clicks, then, of course, why would anyone ever bother with them in the first place?
2) Profession interdependencies.
This one is not as much of a "potential problem", as it is just my line of thinking about the subject, with a suggestion on top of that.
One of the things I liked to hear was that professions in Ashes are supposed to be interdependent. You can't master everything by yourself, and because of that we all as players will need each other to keep the progress going.
The way in which this is going to be achieved, is by players only being able to master one of the artisan paths - gathering, processing or crafting, while still being able to make some progress in all the others.
The question is: how much progress exactly? If a player is 10/10 in crafting, can he be 9/10 in other two? Or 7/10? Or... 5/10?
If you can be 10/10 in one path, at the cost of only being able to be, lets say, 2/10 in all the others, you will highly depend on interactions with other players... but at the same time that drains a lot of the fun out of the system, especially for gatherers. Who would want to be a 10/10 lamberjack at a cost of pretty much not being able to do anything else?
In a case of distribution being 10/10 - 9/10 - 9/10, you can have a lot of fun with all the different professions, even if you are a master-gatherer... but you will pretty much only need other players if you want to make the most advanced high-end stuff.
So the more you tilt the system, the more interdependent it becomes. At the cost of also becoming less fun.
Here I would like to present to you the way in which the problem of interdependencies was solved by Lord of the Rings Online back in the day.
In LOTRO you had pretty much the same types of professions, except "gatherers" and "processors" where often times merged together. So you had a profession pool, consisting of gatherer-processors, and crafters.
But here is the trick.
1) You can only have 3 professions.
2) The combinations of these three professions where preset.
Jeweller, Prospector and Cook makes a "Tinker".
Scholar, Farmer and Weaponsmith makes a "Historian"
And so on.
And you cannot choose a cook, a farmer and a scholar, lets say, if there is no such "profession set" intended by game-designers.
The thing is, that these "sets" where made in such a way, so that they would HAVE TO BE INTERDEPENDANT. As an armorer ( Metalsmith, Prospector, Tailor) you need leather for you tailoring. But only explorers (Tailor, Forester and Prospector) and woodsmen (Woodworker, Forester, Farmer) can process leather, using their forester profession.
This way, people have to work with each other, while at the same time being able to enjoy developing all three types - crafting, gathering and processing - to the highest level.
What do you guys think about that kind of system?
The above said, action combat in Ashes isn't going to be FPS style. Action combat will include things like AoE's that need to be positioned on the terrain, and other such abilities like this.
There will also be ranged single target action abilities, but these are likely to all be developed with large sized projectiles, rather than single point projectiles as is the case with most FPS games. This means targeting will be somewhat less of a determining factor - though it obviously still will be a factor.
Most players will pick abilities based on what the abilities themselves do, and what augments they have available to add to them, so this issue here seems to be somewhat moot to me.
If we assume that you can get 9/10 of a profession that you are not mastering, I personally don't see this as an issue either.
To me, everything I would want from that profession would come in that last 1/10, meaning someone that is 9/10 of a blacksmith is exactly as useful to me as someone that is 0/10 of a blacksmith.
That said, we don't know any details at all about professions, and it may well even be that Steven mistyped when he said that you can only master one profession, he may have meant you can only take one profession.
But i cant really agree with the other bit about only leveling 1 profession to max. That seems a bit overkill. Lets say i play for i dunno 4 years. In that time im either going to be A. make alts and max every profession anyway. Or B. find ways to train them regardless. They plan to add a lot of features down the road. Id rather see a system where you can find books in the wilds or as unique loot that can allow you to "advance" 1 more skill and just make them exceedingly rare. For example lets say im maxed in 2 professions. But i want them all.... im a bit of a collection guy and for the most part like doing crafting etc myself because other people arent always reliable to be on when i want/need em. Anyway lets say this very rare book simply allows you to upgrade and have 1 more profession capped. You can do this until all professions are done but it would cost insane amounts of money to offset the ability to do it. Maybe the book is a epic drop that only has a small chance from certain raid bosses in each region. Like i said i dont want you to master things overnight but i feel the option should be there.
Plenty of people would do this.
When talking about what professions people want to be, I've often heard people instantly jump to a specific thing they love doing (e.g. lumberjacking, herbalism, mining) - player's have specific favourties.
I think as long as players get to do the thing they like the most, not being able to do other things will be acceptable.
I know there were different conversations going on by now and the "proc" thing was already explained, but I also wanted to make a quick note that in one of the live streams (I don't remember the exact one it's been a while) there was quick mention that there would be subtle hints and clues as to the Node type starting from as early as Tier 1. If a group was hardcore looking for a specific type of node early on they'd most likely know to be looking for these clues. However, I know it was only a quick mention and might have been changed along the development line so take that with a grain of salt.