Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
It is not my fault WoW went for easy mode and made encounters which require an addon to explain exactly what's going on. Add LFR and LFG to the mix and you can see why WoW has lost millions of subs. You can claim elitism and claim people 'Haven't raided high level raids' but all raids are 'high level' when the appropriate expansions and item levels are in the game. Mythic Plus Groups are a joke - just re-run the same dungeons on a harder setting, and, I do not rate anything with a Comprehensive Combat Tracker as top tier.
If it will exist either way, better to have a situation where people can report such toxicity, and have it actually have some teeth. If people want to number crunch out of game on a sheet of paper or some spread sheet, that's on them, and if they enjoy it, good for them.
Blizzard could not build raids as difficult to clear as Nathria w/o a tool like DBM and since it's not something that will ever need to exist in AoC using it as a basis for an argument is pointless. There are no "necessary" addons for PvP which is the primary focus of the game and a better place to compare too.
It has not been proven time and again that meters cause toxicity. WoW groups are toxic period and it's largely b/c of your ability to min-max the group in a way that can never happen in AoC. When you remove all the barriers to building your dream group leaders start to use literally anything else they can to continue improving their odds of a win and that's why meters and trackers started being seen as extremely toxic.
Intrepid could put a tracker in Village and higher level Nodes right by the training dummy so that those who like to crunch the numbers of their builds have a place to do so and it would not have a degenerate effect on those who prefer a more intuitive approach.
You call it easy mode but fundamentally have no idea what you're talking about. It's embarrassing man.
You sound like someone who grew up watching action movies and then call Boxing "easy" b/c you don't understand what a real fight looks like.
I was considering returning to WoW before AoC has the Alpha 2 persistent test, but, if the game amounts to addons, dps meters, toxic people and repetitive grinds, I would rather not even bother.
Got some Elitism of your own sticking out there bud. I've played and cleared every WoW Raid at it's highest level of difficulty Since Vanilla, (Not including Shadowlands). There has been a steady march of lower difficulty in both the general game and raiding, by design. They have limited customization, removed skills, proficiencies, entire stat types, and more.
And it is objective fact that having a system that tells you when to move, when to press buttons, what abilities are coming next, and where you need to go or stay is easier than doing the same activity without those benefits, using the bosses animations, tells, and discovered patterns.
Every MMO has toxic people regardless of the addons and dps meters. Addons are not the cause of WoW's PUG community being what it is, that's the LFG. If you want to avoid toxic people the single best way to do so is to be in a guild and avoid PUGs which will be true even in AoC
As for repetitiveness, yea...WoW is one of the worst b/c Blizzard is obsessed w/ keeping you logged in each and every single day and wants to maximise your playtime at the expense of your enjoyment.
For addons in general, the only one that's "necessary" is DBM or BigWigs. The issue is that many people download it and never open it...they're tools so you can track the parts of the fight relevant to you so you know where you need to be and when. WoW's raids are exactly like a clock and anyone being out of place will cause a wipe that costs hundreds (if not thousands) of gold in mats and the time of the other 19+ players in your group. DBM/BW doesn't make a fight "easier" it doesn't hold your hand it merely allows you to know what's happening during the fight so that you have a slim chance at a clear.
If you focus on PvP you can do fantastically well w/ just the default UI...funny thing about anything competitive though is that the more you rise up the more you start digging in and fine-tuning your class/build which is where trackers come in. Do a lot of people blindly download and never really look at what they have? Sure...but it's not the hammer's fault when someone uses it on a screw.
The best players on the planet cannot clear Mythic Nathria w/o someone in the raid having an addon to track timers and that is a fact.
The constant comments of WoW being equated to Hello Kitty Island Adventure is the elitism that needs to be addressed. If you want to say you just don't like WoW do so, I'm by no means a white knight or fanboy...it's just disingenuous to build an opinion when you don't understand the actual difficulty of higher level content.
Either way, it has nothing to do w/ AoC b/c (as I've repeatedly stated) DBM will never need to exist in the game b/c if Intrepid designed boss fights as tight as those found in anything beyond Wrath they'll never be cleared b/c of the inclusion of PvP.
The vast majority of raids will be open world and I cannot foresee anyone having fun fighting bosses as complex as Yogg'Saron while at the same time having to deal w/ fighting other players.
Agree with this.
I just have some arguments against the last part. My points:
Eyeballing creates no rules for interplay 👎
There is no competition 👎
It makes you tunnel vision in 250vs250.👎
Tunnel vision is bad for mass pvp 👎
I think gauging distance is an unnecesary waste of enegy that could be used for tactical interactive gameplay.
Each player has a toogle that display range of 1-2 enemies.
Boom! Fight with or against many becomes more engaging because you can fight wider and ahead.
Tactic and strategy.
I'm playing devils advocate here. I don't actually play ranged characters.
But I do know that tactic and strategy means wide and ahead instead of tunnel vision. And I wish we could all have the opportunity to be tactical and strategical.
Steven had a floating number 20 in his screen and Verra didn't felt apart.
One or two more floating numbers on a toogle won't make it look like a Jetfighter like our friend would say.
The difference between us seems to be that I am a PvP Player first and foremost, and, I only raid when the raid armour is the best in PvP. Too many MMOs have different progression paths for PvP and PvE in which PvE Armour is not good for PvP. This is why I backed Ashes in the first place because the Armour is PvX which means I get to raid for the best armour for PvP.
It can be difficult to discuss WoW Raids because people like to lord WoW raids over others and claim WoW is the best raiding MMO. WoW was a good raiding MMO but even the original raids have people using Comprehensive Combat Trackers. There is a wide appeal for the Classic Renditions and I have thought of returning to Classic TBC. I think most people dislike the direction of WoW raids and WoW in general.
Have a crafted attachment for bows for sights to indicate range. But then also require a draw, hold and aim mechanism that effects accuracy. In other words, no tab targeting for ranged attacks versus a single target. So an experienced bowman could approximate the range through the sites, and have the timing to efficiently draw, hold and aim to hit the target. It should be difficult.
Penalize ranged attacks into melee close quarters fighting by at a minimum applying cover for allies in between the shooter and the target. Hardcore would be friendly fire. Risk versus reward.
Standard AOE range attacks placed a go/no-go target on the ground. So there should be zero complaints on that.
I don’t think there should be an auto-pilot mode to combat. So many things can apply to this. Even rotations can fall into this, and I am sure some will use macros for some of that.
A GCD can brake macros, but you don't even want rotations in combat?
I suppose you could use tape or a wet erase marker to mark your own range finders provided you collapse your field of view. Or have different marks based on relative field of view.
I think there's a pretty big gap between a range indicator and 5 ability macros. You can break those macros which is exactly what Blizz did in BfA which caused everyone to hate the GCD.