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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.
Comments
Thinking further on this while doing other stuff today.
When I played WoW I played Arcane mage. Arcane is way more complicated the Frost. Any 5 year old can do really good with Frost mage. Arcane requires way more thought and timing of your abilities. Instead of spamming 3 abilities as they come off cooldown over and over. You need to manage your mana bar and half a dozen or so abilities.
Should Frost have the same throughput as Arcane?
We are talking about the same class different builds, both have their upsides. Just one class takes more thought and player skill to perform well with and if done right I think should out perform the other.
1. There should be classes that are easier approachable without falling behind (significally) just because of subjective complexity.
(I played stutter step hunter back in BC when hunters were deemed supports and topped the dmg to everyones surprise because I dipped down into it's very different play style that most just weren't willing to do/ to lazy to research, honestly miss it listening to the sound cues of my bow. I know what high complexity looks and sounds like. I personally was never jealous of anyone class that was simpler, I just loved that play style and carried my weight)
2. It's been a while but as far as I remember arcane mages had relative low sustain dmg but when done right got those huuuuge powerspikes that over a bossfight evened it out somewhat while both speccs were considered viable at the same time.
(3. 10g switch your specc for the raid w/e)
For the purpose of pve as said above, yeah totally, same with pvp. In pvp it's a clear trade off. Trading away built in slow and snare as well as mobility of ice shard spamming for potential power spike.
So if you want to make your life more immediate and want the action, there is the arcane mage option, if you want to be more relaxed, there is the frost mage. Neither is wrong and neither should be looked down upon.
If we extend that to Ashes it's double true. If they make several paths possible and you invest weeks into using your skill points and skill progression into it, then it should be comparable to other speccs that craft their identity around the same goal and not just turn out to be a wet pile of goo.
Whether it's harder or easier to pull of is irrelevant. You want to play a thief with aoe traps and explosive bows that offer just pure dmg by carefully placing them risking your life going close enough then you should be able to compare to that fire mage that just spams meteors all day long from a safe ultra distance and not be shat on "beCauSe YoUr ClAsS IdenTitY iS AsSaSsiN and you are ruining class identity cause oyu do comparably same dmg" (this is once again assuming those trap spells are offered and are designed to just do pure dmg like the meteor)
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
There are many more things to consider then just DPS output. Any item, gear or ability greatly complicates the equation. That is why they have testing. Sometimes things look good on a spread sheet the when they hit reality can come across as OP or trash.
Older article(not the one I was looking for) in reguards to Effective Health in MMO's this is also a very large portion of the equation. Vampiric builds are fun unless your fighting them. The basic ideas are covered here but is a lot the devs have to account for.
https://hypixel-skyblock.fandom.com/wiki/Effective_Health
https://youtu.be/5dqOiK3pTnQ
Link stuck at a later start but best watched from the start
The best instances I've seen of balance in games have been where each class/build/character has unique extreme strengths and weakness, allowing them to shine in all sorts of different contexts - open world gameplay, 1v1 PvP, raids, dungeons, gathering, exploration, RPing, and so on for about 2 hours. One thing I've hated about WoW's balance changes over the years is homogenization, presumably because idiots would moan on the forums about how Rogues don't have self-healing but Shamans do and that's unfair, so you end up with a world where every class has a slight variation of every ability that every other class has.
To use the MMO I know best, FFXIV, here is an example using the caster jobs:
Red Mage
Summoner
Black Mage
As you can see, though the balance is very skewed when it comes to numbers, the raid/party utility, every class has their niche and they bring different tools to the table.
This makes all of them viable and valuable to parties. Every raid group will then decide what synergises best with the rest of the group, but the balance is never reliant on DPS numbers alone
GW2 was absolute obvious blatantly inbalanced trash for the first 2 years that I played it less and less to the point I was just sitting around making money trading in the god awful auction house. Quite a few of my comments stem from my experience there. Warriors soloing dungeon bosses, Guardians literally spinning to win. Having the highest armour, highest base health, strongest self heal, and just ridiculous amounts of damage. S++ For 2 years straight. Meanwhile others can't participate in all the zerg events cause their class design is directly opposed to it. Just to give some surface level examples.
Mesmer my god, whoever thought giving a class invis + duplicates that deal dmg needs to be put in jail. AA to death while you can't figure out which clone is the right one with all the teleport and invis and whatnot. Changes? Na those are our favorite classes just buff em a bit more.
They are probably the closest modern take on "we give you so many options" while showing that they actually don't. A thief that didn't go dual dagger for the 21k crit was useless. There were short periods of times where one or another form would be viable, like d-p stealth dot, but THOSE were quickly tuned down into oblivion again and again.
Meanwhile warlocks can die to you and still kill you because of all the dots that last forever. kek.
GW2 did everything wrong you can do wrong.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Let's change wording from easy/hard to simple/ complex.
Your right what I consider hard or easy might/will be different for someone else. Like you I prefer complexe classes that take effort to be good at.
I am hoping there is a difference in this regard to classes in AOC that refects itself in output. Not to the point where your one two shotting people your own level. But maybe 10-12%.