About builds and gear

Hi, i introduce myself, i'm a 21 yo player who was played MMO's since 8. The most important MMO in my life has been Ragnarok Online (I have played a lot of them for many hours but RO has been the best and most important in my life).

There is something i'm worried about in this game (Because the game ideas and systems are amazing and i want it to be as good as possible, Im really excited). The thing i'm worried about is this: "¿Am i gonna feel my build UNIQUE in this game?"

I mentioned Ragnarok because i feel is the game who did this thing better. For those who haven't played RO, it has a Card System, which works this way; Every monster in the game has a 0.01% chance of dropping a unique card of that mob, (Including bosses), this card has a picture of the monster and a special effect you can add to an equipment, the amount of cards you can use to enhance an armor or weapon is between 1 and 4, deppending on the equipment level and if it's a weapon or armor. The card may give you effects like; "Make yourself inmune to freeze and 5% resistance to water property attacks", "+3 STR", or "When you deal physical damage there is a 5% of applying Curse status to your enemy" Etc..
(Now consider there are thousands of mobs in the game, so imagine all you could do)

This variety of effects made builds really different, there was not 2 players in the world with the same build. The status system combined with gear sets and card system was great, and i expended many hours on calculator trying to find "the best build", if you include that for every class you have different specializations then you got an impressive unique feeling when playing your class. (With specializations i mean skills. You got 50 skill points when maxed level and getting all the skills of your class would require like 150, so there was around 3 different skill building for each class, you could be a "Shield Crusader", a "Grand Cross Crusader", or a "Lance Crusader" for example)

I explained all of this not to try to apply the same systems on Ashes, but i would really love to get some build, skill or gear system which can make me different from other players playing my same class. I know we have 64 different classes, but being an "Archmage" with the same skills and strategys of other archmages doesn't motivates me so much.

I'm not asking the game to let you be an "Ice wizard" with 50 ice different skills or a "Space-Time Wizard" specialized on space-time magic who attack with portals and stuff. (Thing which i would love) Because i know it's impossible, with the current 64 class system i know you can't go any further than that, it would be crazy and unnecesary, the game is not set that way, but please, add something in skills, gear or stats, which can make me feel im playing a unique build

¿What do you think about this?, ¿Do you consider it something necessary, or is enough specialization with the 64 classes?

P.S: Sorry for the grammar mistakes and stuff, english is not my mother tongue. Greetings from Chile

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Nagash

Well, that depends on a few things really. If you are going for hardcore gameplay then meta builds are a must so they won't be unique. If you are going for a more RP based play style then you can do what you want to your heart's content. Just remember that the subclasses do change some things but the core idea of the class will stay the same.

Kyonsupp

Nagash wrote: »

Well, that depends on a few things really. If you are going for hardcore gameplay then meta builds are a must so they won't be unique. If you are going for a more RP based play style then you can do what you want to your heart's content. Just remember that the subclasses do change some things but the core idea of the class will stay the same.

I'm a really hardcore player, also i was a League of Legends pro player a few months ago, so i do understand that metagames are "inevitable" and how they works. But metagames are boring in just 2 cases

1- They never change
2- The pool size is too small

For games like MOBA's it's easier to change the meta every patch and that's all, they make you learn a new champion every week. For games like MMO's, is better to make a big pool of combination. For example in Tree Of Savior, an MMO from gravity (The ones who created RO), they have a class system with 5 different primary classes, and then each class have around 20 different specialized classes, which you can chosse 3 of them, so for mage primary class for example, you could make a Mage build like: "Cryomancer, Pyromancer, Elementalist" or "Cryomancer, Psychokino, Sage" Etc... So you have to choose 3 of 20, imagine all the combinations... And that for every primary class. And about the meta in Tree Of Savior, it can be hard to believe, but almost every combination works, if you know how to build it with the gear system and you have the resources. So in high end PvP you see a lot of different class combinations, everyone with different builds. Avoiding a small and boring metagame in MMO's is not imposible, you just have to give the player enough tools for creating different stuff, and discovering more with the time.

I think Gravity are the ones who has understood this better, and other developers should learn from them (At least in that part)

Asgerr

You need to consider that the following options are all subject to individual choice (source of uniqueness):

You have 4 augment trees for each skill
Every augment tree offered is dependent on your secondary archetype
There are 8 secondary archetypes to pick from
You can wear whatever armor type you want (with some efficiency differences depending on your archetype)
You can spec different skills for different types of weapon

With all that in mind you have at the very least 64 possible classes x 4 armor types x 4 augment trees x at least 8 different weapon types

= 8192 possible combinations (at least and not counting for the multiple option available within each of the 4 augment trees and weapon trees). There will be some 10.000 people playing concurrently on your server, and there are some 8.000 possible builds.

I'd say odds are you're going to be somewhat unique.

Now, as our lovely resident necromancer to be, Nagash, pointed out, some options are likely to be better at synergising than others, and might create some sort of meta that will reduce your viable options. But that is a choice on how you want to play the game. Min maxing isn't necessarily fun for everyone nor the sole way to play.

Kyonsupp

Asgerr wrote: »

You need to consider that the following options are all subject to individual choice (source of uniqueness):
You have 4 augment trees for each skill

Every augment tree offered is dependent on your secondary archetype

There are 8 secondary archetypes to pick from

You can wear whatever armor type you want (with some efficiency differences depending on your archetype)

You can spec different skills for different types of weapon

With all that in mind you have at the very least 64 possible classes x 4 armor types x 4 augment trees x at least 8 different weapon types

= 8192 possible combinations (at least and not counting for the multiple option available within each of the 4 augment trees and weapon trees). There will be some 10.000 people playing concurrently on your server, and there are some 8.000 possible builds.

I'd say odds are you're going to be somewhat unique.

Now, as our lovely resident necromancer to be, Nagash, pointed out, some options are likely to be better at synergising than others, and might create some sort of meta that will reduce your viable options. But that is a choice on how you want to play the game. Min maxing isn't necessarily fun for everyone nor the sole way to play.

I have a question about the armors, when we are getting into high end, ¿Are they gonna be just one better than others, or are they gonna be different? For example in Black Desert (The last MMO i dedicated thousands of hours), there is one ultimate armor, the "Fallen God Armor" there is no armor better than fallen god, not even in specifical circumstances, it's just the ultimate armor. and that apply for many part of the gear. So the gear turns more in what AMOUNT of gear score you have, instead in what TYPE of gear you have and what combinations you did with your equipment.

If armors and every part of your gear will have different effects, making them not one better from others, but one better in different circumstances then i'm ok with the gear system. It would be even better if you can enhance every part of your gear in different ways like Ragnarok's Card System, but it's fine if it's just not like Black Desert

Nagash

Kyonsupp wrote: »

Asgerr wrote: »

You need to consider that the following options are all subject to individual choice (source of uniqueness):
You have 4 augment trees for each skill

Every augment tree offered is dependent on your secondary archetype

There are 8 secondary archetypes to pick from

You can wear whatever armor type you want (with some efficiency differences depending on your archetype)

You can spec different skills for different types of weapon

With all that in mind you have at the very least 64 possible classes x 4 armor types x 4 augment trees x at least 8 different weapon types

= 8192 possible combinations (at least and not counting for the multiple option available within each of the 4 augment trees and weapon trees). There will be some 10.000 people playing concurrently on your server, and there are some 8.000 possible builds.

I'd say odds are you're going to be somewhat unique.

Now, as our lovely resident necromancer to be, Nagash, pointed out, some options are likely to be better at synergising than others, and might create some sort of meta that will reduce your viable options. But that is a choice on how you want to play the game. Min maxing isn't necessarily fun for everyone nor the sole way to play.

I have a question about the armors, when we are getting into high end, ¿Are they gonna be just one better than others, or are they gonna be different? For example in Black Desert (The last MMO i dedicated thousands of hours), there is one ultimate armor, the "Fallen God Armor" there is no armor better than fallen god, not even in specifical circumstances, it's just the ultimate armor. and that apply for many part of the gear. So the gear turns more in what AMOUNT of gear score you have, instead in what TYPE of gear you have and what combinations you did with your equipment.

If armors and every part of your gear will have different effects, making them not one better from others, but one better in different circumstances then i'm ok with the gear system. It would be even better if you can enhance every part of your gear in different ways like Ragnarok's Card System, but it's fine if it's just not like Black Desert

We have no idea as of now.

Asgerr

Nagash wrote: »

Kyonsupp wrote: »

Asgerr wrote: »

You need to consider that the following options are all subject to individual choice (source of uniqueness):
You have 4 augment trees for each skill

Every augment tree offered is dependent on your secondary archetype

There are 8 secondary archetypes to pick from

You can wear whatever armor type you want (with some efficiency differences depending on your archetype)

You can spec different skills for different types of weapon

With all that in mind you have at the very least 64 possible classes x 4 armor types x 4 augment trees x at least 8 different weapon types

= 8192 possible combinations (at least and not counting for the multiple option available within each of the 4 augment trees and weapon trees). There will be some 10.000 people playing concurrently on your server, and there are some 8.000 possible builds.

I'd say odds are you're going to be somewhat unique.

Now, as our lovely resident necromancer to be, Nagash, pointed out, some options are likely to be better at synergising than others, and might create some sort of meta that will reduce your viable options. But that is a choice on how you want to play the game. Min maxing isn't necessarily fun for everyone nor the sole way to play.

I have a question about the armors, when we are getting into high end, ¿Are they gonna be just one better than others, or are they gonna be different? For example in Black Desert (The last MMO i dedicated thousands of hours), there is one ultimate armor, the "Fallen God Armor" there is no armor better than fallen god, not even in specifical circumstances, it's just the ultimate armor. and that apply for many part of the gear. So the gear turns more in what AMOUNT of gear score you have, instead in what TYPE of gear you have and what combinations you did with your equipment.

If armors and every part of your gear will have different effects, making them not one better from others, but one better in different circumstances then i'm ok with the gear system. It would be even better if you can enhance every part of your gear in different ways like Ragnarok's Card System, but it's fine if it's just not like Black Desert

We have no idea as of now.

All we know is:

There is no "endgame" as the endgame content develops depending on Node development and will thus be variable
Crafter gear is on par with raid gear
Crafters can choose the stats on a piece of armor or weapons

So even though we're not sure about horizontal diversity in gear, you could still craft the gear that will hypothetically benefit your build the best.

Dygz

Primary Archetype + Secondary Archetype + gear + social augments + religious augments + naval augments + node perks + guild perks + castle perks + unique resources dropped from mobs + unique recipe drops.

You should be able to make your character build unique if you want to.

Kyonsupp

"Crafters can choose the stats on a piece of armor or weapons"

This sounds good. Well, i hope we can get more information about this soon, is something really important to me for a "perfect game" and Ashes is in the road of that. Thanks you for answering

Nagash

Kyonsupp wrote: »

"Crafters can choose the stats on a piece of armor or weapons"

This sounds good. Well, i hope we can get more information about this soon, is something really important to me for a "perfect game" and Ashes is in the road of that. Thanks you for answering

Welcome to ashes then ^^

Asgerr

Kyonsupp wrote: »

"Crafters can choose the stats on a piece of armor or weapons"

This sounds good. Well, i hope we can get more information about this soon, is something really important to me for a "perfect game" and Ashes is in the road of that. Thanks you for answering

Feel free to drop a question, or like one you're interested in, in the following thread: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/48981/next-live-stream-q-a-submission-friday-april-30-2021-at-11am-pdt/p1

I and a few others have answered some of the questions that have an answer available on the wiki, but some of the rest will be answered on the livestream this Friday.

Kyonsupp

@Asgerr Okey thanks, then i will read what questions have made the people and probably gonna ask something related to this post

Rinta

Hi @Kyonsupp !
As a fellow fan of Ragnarok Online (pre-Renewal) - I also consider RO being the best MMORPG that I know of in terms of build variety - for stats, skills and equipment alike. And best in many other regards, obviously

Having recently played Black Desert - I attest that their armour progression is mindnumbingly boring, for the exact reasons you mention.

So far my impression is that Ashes are not going to be nearly as versatile as RO in terms of character builds, however there is still some hope that it won't go in the direction of Black Desert either.

For example, Ashes won't let player distribute their own Stats. Skills & secondary archetype can be reallocated (although supposedly not on the fly). Gear is split into tiers, which so far smells of themepark approach with its gear treadmill.

On the bright side, it is confirmed that Best In Slot items will not be universal, and different ones will be useful for different types of monsters. The skill trees seem to be versatile enough, too - not like WoW, where everyone gets same exact skills.
I'll wait and see.

Khronus

@Kyonsupp Hey Kyon! I love your question as this is something I am interested in learning about as well. From what I have been reading, I can see the opportunities for all of us to be as unique as we want to be BUT there will definitely be best options for pvp and for pve. I think the PVE aspect of it will have more meta builds than the PVP.

In pve you want to max your dps, healing or mitigation.

In pvp you want to customize your build to be how you want to play the situations. Being that game is 80% PVP, I feel like most of my guild will be speccing into pvp heavy builds while sacrificing damage or healing a bit. It all depends on how the game turns out. Crowd control will play a CRITICAL role in who wins or loses I think.

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