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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.
My predictions on AoC
Daedrik45
Member
The mmo players from the 90’s and the “immersion elitists” are going to kill this game. “Animations don’t seem realistic” “spells are too much”. Boring bland combat will kill this game before it even arrives. Pantheon to me has old boring bland combat and there is no real hype for that game. I’m playing a fantasy game with elves dwarves orcs and dragons and things of that nature, if my character isn’t doing some legolas killing an elephont type stuff then it’s going to kill my immersion. Some of you guys and gals who come on her complaining about literal pre alpha and place holder affects are pushing people away from this game!! Whatever happened to letting the artist create art and people enjoying it? Too many people want to hold the artists hand while he paints... if you want to do that then become an artist or wait till atleast alpha starts my gosh.
1
Comments
Hey there buster, you’re not quite right on these assumptions.
- I started playing MMOs in like 2010 or 2011
- I like the combat in Black Desert (not boring or bland at all, very action packed)
- I still think the animations on nearly every skill we’ve seen so far is way over the top and too much in general, let alone for a low level skill. Also need more skills that don’t root the character in place during a long animation while casting, wouldn’t you agree by your own logic?
Entire point of including us on the pre-alpha testing, class showcases, etc is to get player feedback on things as early as possible. So people can and will express their opinions, and it seems most players, regardless of when they started playing MMOs, are agreeing on the animations.
🙂
One point I do feel you hit on the head is the community. The "old guard" needs to be willing to experience change and not get stuck in the conventions of what they believe should be.
I'm also not quite sure of the OPs direction BUT I was following Pantheon for a time and agree with the assessment it looked boring. I watched them kill mobs for 10 mins and was ready to move on.
Now if the intention was to draw a line between Pantheon and AoC, I completely disagree. AoCs combat looks engaging and interesting even at this stage in development. It can only get better as they tune and refine.
Intrepid consciously chose the route of open development, so that they can have input from players. As of now some major features got reworked because of player feedback, such as the action bar combat.
I hope they will listen to the current feedback as well, as i think it´s legimitate.
I disagree. Looking at neutral sources such as Youtubers, r/MMORPG and even this forum i see overwhelmingly concerns voiced. The only overwhelming positive place seems to be Intrepid´s YT channel and maybe the english part of the ashes discord.
That aside if you compare ashes current stage of combat it does not come close to anything that was released in the last 10 years in the MMO genre, which is indeed a bit concerning as Intrepid is 4 years into development. Steven always emphasizes he wants to push the boundaries, the core gameplay loop should be at that center of that and have gotten more attention by now.
But it´s nice to some real good progress compared to the last itteration! I applaud that.
Mabye Intrepid should make a discussion round about this topic, but it seems that format got hijacked as community retention marketing tool.
You know, thinking about it a bit more I believe that some people maybe put too much emphasis on the combat. Yes combat is important as you do a lot of it in an mmorpg, but to me, the main draw of an mmorpg isn't the combat, it's the world building and social interaction. That is where an mmorpg needs to truly shine. If you want super amazing spectacular combat, go play something like Devil May Cry 5 or Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. A pure single player game just has so many more options when it comes to combat than an mmorpg does.
Of course, Ashes is a game, but the graphics are much closer to reality.
For this reason, even though it is a fictional story set in a fantasy world, I think we may be looking for a certain amount of "realistic movement.
However, I know that what we are currently seeing is not the finished product, and the feeling we get from actual gameplay may be different, so I personally think it would be better to play the alpha version myself before I formulate my thoughts.
Too much heated discussion may lead to a loss of motivation for creators ......
It might also be the fact that WoW (the primary Western MMO) is far more grounded than we've seen Ashes been and it might be throwing people off.
gotta sign up for their onlyfans if you want the answer.
I do think that the mage i think is rising too often in the air for no reason. Personnal opinion so who really cares.
As to OP's post, he seems to think that people are commenting too much on the combat anomations and such. That being said, who really cares. The BIGGEST draw of Ashes for me is that the dev seem to put an huge emphasis on community interactions. The one thing that killed WoW for me was the dungeon finder and raid finder. It killed the server communities. After a few weeks, people would join groups and not talk. I remember the rivalry my horde guild had with that one alliance guild, soldiers of light. There was this constant competition on server first between them and our guild. the instant pvp when we saw each others and, from time to time, we'd goof off with each other. That's what i think Ashes is trying to bring back which is why i invested in the game as much as i did.
I love the dev's vision in that regard and i don't see that changing as i think it's a the core of what they hoping for.
I can’t count how many devs were surprised how fast we dug into all the combat system flaws once they finally gave it to the players. Landmark, Wildstar, ESO, Age of Conan, Darkfall, Warhammer Online. Devs were like “our combat is awesome!” but then we got a hold of it and were like “Ok, but did you know we can do...THIS!”
that's a fair point, but we are years from actually being able to have access to the game ourselves, so we can only take what we are given and infer with the understanding that this is a work in progress. These are not placeholders, they are the foundation/roughdraft that intrepid are starting with. This means that this is our best opportunity to critique and help fine-tune things that feel, and look off about the animations, effects, and mechanics.
Something about that just creeps me out a little.
That is what we were doing.
If your intention with this thread was to tell us all to wait for Alpha, you basically would have been looking at a group of people waiting for alpha and yelled out "HEY, YOU GUYS! I JUST WANTED TO SAY, YOU SHOULD ALL WAIT FOR ALPHA! NOW CARRY ON WITH WHAT YOU WERE DOING, WHICH WAS WAITING FOR ALPHA." (caps/bold for obvious reasons).
I don't think you understand what an addon is.
I never asked for an addon, I don't want them, I don't like them.
The main draw of most MMOs have been the combat so far because it has been among the only ways you interact with the world in a meaningful way. Ashes certainly are trying to create more meaningful ways to interact with the world but in the end, the best way to progress and do anything meaningful (outside of RP) have always been combat and probably always will be.
Have you seen combat in:
-Lineage 1
-Lineage 2
-EVE Online
-Star Wars Galaxies
-Dark Fall 1
-FFXI
-Ultima Online
All of these games are legendary yet there combat and combat animations are lacking. What makes these games good are the progression systems, economy, and community. Steven has stated many times that he is not trying to make a WOW killer.
(A lot of the systems in Lineage 2 were based around a concept that got lost today in mmorpgs, and that's risk versus reward. You know this idea that the more you risk the greater potential reward should be present is a complete paradigm shift away from everyone's a winner, everybody gets a participation reward, and here you go, congratulations you're a player in this game; and that's boring. It gives nothing for a person to aspire to achieve something, or to feel the bite of loss when you fail. Those are the driving forces of why people want to play games and it's a reason why new games when they come out have such a short lifespan, because they are always competing with WOW. You don't have to compete with WOW. You don't have to be a WOW killer. You can focus on something that is different from a philosophical design standpoint; and I think that's just what a lot of studios today don't want to take the risk on.[8] – Steven Sharif)
Every game I listed above has the concept of risk vs reward at it's core. Not a single game on that list has amazing combat. You could maybe argue that Dark Fall's combat is amazing, but only for a subgroup of people that are into its quirks. Yes, every MMO on that list died except EVE. All of them have something in common too. Everyone of them changed to try and bring in more players. Except EVE, which has stayed mostly pure and lives.
All AOC needs to do is focus on its core design pillars. https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Design_pillars
If it does that it will be fine. They may only land 4th or 5th in the top 5 MMOs, but for everyone who plays the game it will be number one. WOW had what? 12 million subs at it's peak. Now they won't even show the numbers out of shame. Estimates for WOW subs are like what? 4 million?
Success for AOC might just be 10-20 servers at full capacity. That's only 500k-1mill players. Which is fine to be honest. It don't have to appeal to everyone. It just has to appeal to those who miss what made the games that inspired AOC great. EVE, ArcheAge, Lineage2, and Star Wars Galaxies. Again this is fine. This is what I am here for.
As for holding the artists hands while he paints? The artist is stopping after every stroke to show off what the picture looks like now. Then saying "Well after a bit more shading a blending this will be good, but this is a idea of what the final picture might look like.". What is worst is that the artist is doing it in front of a community that could fill a stadium. Would you expect people to not voice their opinions?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Each one is also beloved by its former players. Many of those games live on through countless private servers trying to recreate what once was. I would say that is pretty legendary.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
1. Repeating yourself ad nauseum is just the nature of working online, if he wasn't up for the task then Steven shouldn't stream anything
2. Beta will be when the game is near ready to launch and thus far too late for feedback. It took a loooong time of people talking about Dwarves before Steven finally said they'd do a redesign and if we waited until Betas started rolling then there'd be a big issue
They always seem to start their yet another new thread on the exact same topic with: "I know it's still in pre-Alpha and the animations are going to change, BUT..." and then go on to complain about the animations, which they've already accepted are going to be changed.
And, the "But, they want our feedback" argument just seems a little weak when, before every single video they produce, they make a point of saying that it's still early game footage and is going to be improved.