Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Then, you may be familiar with this squirrel! Since all rodents are the same.....
In a mmoRPG we get to know the character and not specifically the player behind the screen. I think that WoW vanilla is a good example. Everyone knows swifty, the human male warrior with the "banana" set. Or the big Tauren warrior tank, Kungen.
We meet the character, remember their names, their race and their class. If we can change that then we will become a totally new character, and all our passed interactions will have gone to waste.
In a RPG game the most important thing is, what you want to play and not what is the best. However, I know that there will be a "bis" race for curtain classes or specc. But as long as those race benefits don't for example give you 10% more dps or what ever, then it's fine.
I think that racial benefits should be interesting and "quirky" to "spicy" up the race and what it can do. Giving it +Mana or whatever is lazy and boring.
Well I mean bunnies are rodents too If I was a mouse I would feel honored to be part of the same family as the killer rabbit from monte pythons search for the holy grail. but as a superior lizard person you all fill me with disgust and give me heart burn
Tree Rat is still a Rat.
This. Are you a meta slave?
I, for one, think that the racial differences will not go far enough!
There should be a difference between an Orc Mage and an Elf Mage, and it should go way further than the damage calc on their lightning bolts. Their entire magic schools should differ. In essence they should be different classes, not different visual wrappings. They should be primarily driven by their place within their race's structure and secondary by their mutation once introduced to the multi-race environment.
Here's an instance(and this goes in a direction that AoC is not going for, so it's more theory-crafting for the sake it, so feel free to disregard, I just like worldbuilding):
On the opposite side of the spectrum, the Py'rai(your classic wood elf), fight predominately at range as they have the mobility to kite their opponents. So maybe their magic should damage in AoE, as they're not expecting to have their mates in the thick of it, or they have low cast-time magic, so that they can move with the kiting archery squad.
The Vek have their race keywords as "Celestial. Purpose. Fate.", so although I have no idea what their army behavior is, I imagine their magic having a lot to do with confusing the enemy, countering/negating magic and long cast-time/hit-time devastating celestial magic that's AoE and is cast on a location rather than a target, so it takes skills to use effectively by herding the enemy within the area you've "divined" will be hit by that meteor shower or whatever.
I can write forever on how having diverse race driven classes does more for the world you're creating than the "everyone can be everything, but like with a +1 to that one thing because they picked to look like that." My examples were Mage only, but you can easily imagine what buffers that evolve to synchronize with race traits or negate shortcomings would look like and how that would be a good thing.
And as to player choice, if there are no wrong choices then choices do not matter. If you want to create a unique combo like a... idk... Orc Bard, you should face the difficulties of that character not fitting in the world as well as his Elven counterpart.
All that said, I'd likely be looking to be a Ren'kai Debuff/Healer/Mage on my main, and that's going to be underwhelming as far as power goes, since Ren'kai look like a fighter-first kind of race, so I'll be looking for a guild that's not into minmaxing and will accepting me for my personality(which is also not great).
"There should be a difference between an Orc Mage and an Elf Mage, and it should go way further than the damage calc on their lightning bolts. Their entire magic schools should differ. In essence they should be different classes, not different visual wrappings. They should be primarily driven by their place within their race's structure and secondary by their mutation once introduced to the multi-race environment."
Not that I disagree that it'd be cool to have more significant racial differences (Warhammer Online was one of my favorite MMOs just because of how far they went in trying to differentiate races and classes), but I think it's beyond the scope of this project. The thing that allows games like Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online to have realm divided classes like that is that they had a ton of preexisting lore to work with. (Yes technically speaking DAoC was original, but it at least had Arthurian legend to call on). Ashes of Creation is working off of purely original lore, which makes it very time consuming to get enough lore together to make distinctive and interesting classes for all the different races.
I think it'd be a lot of wasted energy, personally.
Allowing character cosmetic changes (easily) such as clothing, hair, makeup, emotes, etc., is a great way to fine tune some of the personal preference & RP soft choices that bond you to your character. Allowing class changes is fine, if it requires conditional elements such as locational requirements (like FFXI requiring you to be in your mog house). Changing classes on the fly might be ok if it was limited to a kit or preset that you have limited “slots” available to setup, that would need to be assigned when in a “safe zone” such as an inn or home. The idea of a fee (gold) to respec, as in the early days of WoW, doesn’t work well in the long term, as it has value based on the inflation of the economy and little value towards the actual gameplay for the end user.
Changing race/sex should be a very limited (if allowed at all) event. If there are racial benefits and detractors, a system in which people exploit switching core elements to be the “flavor of the month” would detract from the decision making process of investing into a character for the long-term. Of course this means that careful attention to balance needs to be made, but that’s on the developers and QA teams to get right before the public has a go at it.
Overall, having unique and defining racial qualities adds another level of excitement and depth to games, especially when the facials are more than just “Taurens get +5% HP” or something blah like that.
So how do you go about racial stats? How do you differentiate a Ren’Kai Paladin from a Dunir Paladin? If it’s only cosmetic with the armor appearance, then it’s not that exciting.
Let’s say you give the Dunir a passive trait “The Mountain” that grants them +damage/defense over time... meaning that they deal increased physical damage with each consecutive hit on the same target, and take reduced damage from consecutive attacks from the same target (up to X%). It could give them more of an impressive, long-fight edge over other paladins.
Now, looking at the Ren’Kai... if they had a passive trait of “Raging Spirit” in which they gain an enraged bonus when taking a critical hit or landing a critical hit, granting them a haste and damage bonus for X seconds. As the character levels up, reaching different iconic “milestones”, this passive buff could improve (duration, damage, speed, etc). This could lead some Ren’Kai paladins to be more crit-based in their builds and change their gameplay to a bursary-quick fight style. Just examples of course, to show variance in design, not intended to be critiqued for buff choice.
Another RP element that characters may chose one race over another, would be the environmental impact on your character, such as weather, light/darkness, etc. if you select a race with Darkvision, then perhaps you can explore caves and dungeons without the need for a torch (which would draw enemies to your location). Another could be that your race gains a bonus to Water element interactions, but suffers a little when dealing with Fire (ie takes more damage).
If you're on the EU server, I'm sure you'd be more than welcome in ours.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/41736/eu-hand-of-unity-pvx-semi-hardcore-hardcore-family
As an example of a working system for such, Lineage 2`s Race Change Service Rules & Requirements are quoted below
It was a nice revenue maker for the company. I imagine at the price point of $50 USD per change, it was a considered decision and not a flippant one.
I am for the AoC having avenues to generate additional revenue streams so am part for providing a similar opportunity.
That being said, there is likely going to be some classes that are more favourable than others. In L2, some classes were great for PvP but slow to level as single mob fighters and some fast XP gainers as AoE capable but poor PvP`ers. So if you were prepared to pay, you could level faster on one class then pay to switch.
In AoC, once an understanding of the faster levelling classes is reached in the game, I can see a similar opportunistic class/race switching which in turn, to a certain degree, gains an unfair advantage.
Sex change, no problem if it has no bearing but just a visual change.
Class & Racial change, whilst I like the idea to be able to change, I feel more comfortable with the idea that someone has to level their own character again and earn it. Perhaps then, if someone has thoroughly played the game, maxed out all characters, then perhaps that might be a reward for dedication, not sure.
Offering it through the cashshop sucks and doesn't have a place in Ashes. They promised a cosmetic only cash shop from the beginning. The moment they deviate from it is the moment they actively went against their promises. Worse even, they lied to the community which makes them no better than the trashy eastern publisher
One can not compare a free model with a subscription based model.
If I remember correctly Linage 2 is free to play, meaning that they need other ways of getting money.
AoC is subscription based to keep have a somewhat constant revenue, meaning that that most likely won't need race change, sex change, change name, and more to get some easy revenue.
I know WoW have this and a subscription, which is not a good thing xD
Level fast one way and pay-to-switch for an advantage? That sounds like pay-to-win, which I doubt would be in line with the dev team’s vision of this game.
From the dev streams, it sounds like your racial impact on nodes’ progression will be pretty significant, and I can’t see a way in which changing a core identifier to your character would be an on demand feature (costing money or not). Possibly a small or rare allowance of changing races after certain progression milestones are achieved would be okay. However, max-level seems to benefit a quick path from advantage of one race and not engaging a player’s choice...
If there was a racial quest line you could execute, that would take time and effort, I could get behind allowing race change. That would eliminate the pay to win component, require player investment of time/effort, and serve as an introduction to the potential race one is changing into. If it is somewhat time-gated, then people would be less inclined to switch for PvP one day and then PvE the next, just to take advantage of different racial benefits for each scenario. This concept wouldn’t necessarily warrant a specific level for entry, but it may have dangerous or difficult components for a brand new character vs someone who is more experienced with the game.
For example if you are a dwarf but like some aspect of the elf racial passives, you need to get the highest reputation with the elf faction (or similar) and follow a number of quests to train you so you can in the future unlearn a dwarf racial passiv and learn a elf one.
This won't be a fast or easy thing to do, but if you are really interested in the game and want to mid max fully you can.
It just inconviniences a part of the playerbase
Well my example atleast keep the racial benefits and some uniqueness between the races. If you can pick and choose in the character creator then you lose that.
especially since wiki says this about stats:
So I suppose that racial augments are some going to be raw stat % increase, some might be increasing a secondary stat like only crit dmg bonus etc
I would definitely hate for racials to be a subject of indirect buff/nerf changes of the builds that are being used
for example if there would be 2 races that enhance avoidance tanking in a different way then the best avoidance tank race would change on the meta build that favors one of the races.
If there are going to be "unclear" augments like get some flat crit, because you are an elf then an elf would become the best race for fighters, because i suppose they are going to be heavily focusing power stat with their balance being about "not critting often, but for a lot" and the elf racial would radically help mitigating their weakness from not having a lot of chance to crit.
This is an example, but if the build system tries to be open ended then for sure there are going to be a lot of unintentional best races for builds that are totally unintuitive - like mountains of meat being the best spellcasters and vice versa the smallest creatures bench pressing giant equipment, because their dexterity bonus outweighs the ogre's power bonus, because of synergies.
TLDR:
So all I want to say is that racials should be simple and intuitive so that once you chose your primary archetype you don't come to a realisation that the build you are going for would actually benefit much more from being a different race even though it doesnt really suit your archetype.
Back to the fantasy that strongest the most brutal fighters are big muscled races and not some hobbit
― Plato
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Racial_appearance
Racial influence on node development
What has kind of been unlocked is the ability to do things more dynamically and more procedurally so that when a node spawns there is the opportunity to have different layouts and have different buildings and have different architectures; and each node starts to feel like its own place, so it's not the same node over and over again. Now we've got a node that kind of evolves and changes depending on where it's at and what the environment is and what race has procced it.[59] – Jeffrey Bard
Racial architecture styles in an Alpha-0 village node. Empyrean Elven influence (top). Kaelar Human influence (bottom).[60]
The layout and architecture within a Node’s development area are determined by influential race. For example, a stage 3 Node with the majority of player contribution being Py’rai would have a Py’rai village with Py’rai architecture. Most NPCs would be Py’rai elves, and offer questlines within the Py’rai narrative.[61] – Margaret Krohn
Each player’s contributed experience is flagged with their character race and other identifiers. When a Node advances, the race with the highest experience contribution determines the Node’s style and culture. This style and culture change can happen at every Node Stage. For example, if a Node advances to Level 2 - Encampment Stage and 51% of all experience was earned by Ren’Kai players, the Node will be a Level 2 Ren’Kai Node. If that same Node advances to a Level 3 - Village Stage Node, but the Py’Rai contributed 62% of all the experience earned, then the Node will be a Level 3 Py’Rai Node.[62] – Margaret Krohn
Node layout and style is determined by several factors:[59][63]
Environment and location of the node.[59][63]
Node type.[63]
Race that contributed most to the node's advancement.[59][63][64]
Racial appearance of a node's buildings and NPCs.[65][64]
This applies to all nodes, including castle nodes.[66]
The rest is determined by the node's mayor.[63]
Some parts are determined by the area it's in. Some parts are determined by the type it is. Some parts are determined by the race it is; and then the rest of it is determined by the mayor.[63] – Jeffrey Bard
All nodes whether they're associated with a castle or associated with normal node structure has cultural influences that replicate over to the buildings that are produced and the NPCs that are present.[66] – Steven Sharif
Cultural influences bring more than just the aesthetic and storyline changes - benefits are granted to the dominant culture within that node's Zone of influence.[62]
There is an attrition mechanic that affects experience and influence to curb a single race from dominating the entire world.[67]
There is an attrition and that attrition on experience and influence is heightened based on the performance of the race in the world. So if all these nodes are Orc nodes then their attrition rate is very high to compete with the cultural establishment of new nodes because they have more influence in the world and a popular opinion is against them in their outlying regions that they do not have influence in.[67] – Steven Sharif
For example race 1 has strong racial synergy with cleaving attacks for a fighter, but race 2 has strong synergy for a single target piercing attack fighter build
I just really like what ESO has and that is that races are either good for stamina builds or for magicka builds
― Plato
While I do agree with you, things are usually more complicated than that.
If we assume that we are making a character on launch day, we will not really have any idea of things like stat caps.
If a race has a bonus of 50 strength, that may well be a great bonus to start, but if characters are able to easily hit a strength cap (either hard or soft), then that bonus may well be near worthless.
The problem here is, you won't know the stat caps at launch (most players won't ever know them), and even if you did know the stat caps, you wouldn't know if you could expect to achieve them or not.
This is why top end guilds in most games don't pay any attention to your characters race. It isn't a choice you can make an informed min/max decision on unless you are playing a game that allows race swaps (which none should imo), or you are playing a game with a very fast leveling up process.
― Plato
Man I don't even have to be here to have my work done for me
And just so you know, in Japanese they make no distinction between rat and mouse, they are both "nezumi", so welcome to the club pal, we will find a spot for you somewhere.
I'm not Japanese...
Thanks Toast! Glad to know that the thread has been seen.
Not totally true, the Katakana term “ratto” can be used to distinguish a rat from a mouse. You might say that’s cheating, but that’s like saying that English has no word for “sushi”. There is a word for sushi in English, it’s “sushi”.
Nuzumi can be both, but the language can distinguish between them. Think of it like a mountain lion in English; we know the difference between a mountain lion and a maned lion, and we also call mountain lions “cougars” or “pumas” if we’re trying to be precise.
Fun fact: in Japanese, the word “sozoku” means both “rodent” and “petty thief”.
@Atama Does Atama have another meaning other than "Head"?
Katakana is used for foreign words (for the most part) and all "ratto" is, is "rat" pronounced with Japanese phonetics. So yes I consider that cheating. There are obscure ways to distinguish between the two but it's perfectly acceptable to call both a rat and mouse "nezumi".
Let's not turn this into anything more that it was intended shall we? (which is to show Daveywavey can't escape being a part of the rodent collective)
Even were it to be so, honestly, just sitting here pre-thinking on min-maxing is an odd concept to me. I would first worry about being able to respec if you mess up your choice of augments, before I worry about that extra 1% gathering I might get from X,Y or Z race.
I don't think anyone will discriminate on race outside of Role Play reasons.
And if someone gatekeeps you out of content for your racial choice, well F'em. You go play that beautiful character to the best of your ability. Cause statistically, your skill and decision making is much more likely to stop you from being the tip PvPer on the server, than your racial choice.