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
The goal of Ashes is for the gear provided by devs to be PvX: No difference between PvE gear and PvP gear.
I did not disagree that "Ashes will have specialised gear for what you want"... The devs will provide specialized gear: there will be gear focused on Physical stats and gear focused on Magical stats - but the gear they provide will not, from a dev perspective, be specialised for PvE or PvP.
You then made a clarification - that players could make a set of gear that they use for PvE and a set of gear that they use for PvP. And I agreed that is possible.
I didn't see a post that said PvP stats are boring. It's not quoted in the post where you mentioned the antithesis.
I have seen posts that specifically stated Stun is boring. So, I'm trying to understand how PvE or Trinity resolves Stun being boring.
If I want gear that has stats that prevent Stuns because I find being Stunned to be boring, why would I put those stats only on gear I plan to use for PvP and not on the gear I use for PvE? Especially, since I am likely to encounter both when I'm in the open world?
Obviously, I don't understand what you're saying so I'm trying to get you to rephrase so that what you're saying is clearer to me.
That's the way discussions work.
from this post i have the impression that stacking 1 pvp stat is boring, but i never talked about stuns being boring
like i dont what is hard for you to understand on the fact that some stats are clearly better in pvp than in pve? so hence if you focus on stats that are better in pvp then that gear set is your pvp gear and the same applies for pve - especially since the allocation of stats on crafted gear is in some way controlled by the crafter himself so you don't get to situations where for example raiding gear that is optimized for pve stats is so busted that it is also the best pvp gear
Devs dont need to make "special" clarifications or declarations about certain stats being better in pvp or in pve, because it is actually discovered by the players on which stats or combinations of stats give you the biggest advantage in either pvp or pve or pve when pvp happens
open world nature of a game gives 3 different interactions for players and they can optimize their gear toward those different interactions
Like I can definitely see a scenario when a raid is gearing absurdly high amount of defensives so they can survive another raid ambushing them when trying to kill a world boss, but at the same time i can see a situation where they gear pure glass cannon so they can oneshot the world boss in 30 seconds and get out
What I found out from gaming for a lot of years is that when developers "try" to encourage certain stats to be used in a certain way then the players just ignore them if it doesn't line up with what works for them and for their strategies
― Plato
Thought this would be relevant for our continuing discussion. Here's the link if you want to review.
There's things worst than a stun and not even talking about tweaking durations of each one. Everything has his moment.
What the person you quoted was saying is that part of the horizontal progression in Ashes means that if you want to maximize your damage in PvE (perhaps you are in a guild with solid tanks and healers and you are a DPS class), then you can select gear that only has stats that increase your damage output.
Such gear, however, is a liability in PvP combat. Even with those solid tanks and healers, you need more defensive gear than that gear is providing you.
So, you would have a set of gear with more defensive stats on it, meaning you in effect have a PvE set of gear, and a PvP set of gear, even though all items function 100% in both PvE and PvP (which is what the developers have said).
This is just another in the long line of "can someone please explain basic concepts to Dygz, as he really has no idea".
Instead of stunning...:
- ...a frost mage should freeze enemies'
- ...a warrior should throw the enemy on the floor;
- ...a druid's "root" spell should not simply 'hold' peoplo, but instead bind them to nearby trees or whatever nature stuff;
- ...a rogue should not stun, but instead, throw something like bolas to bind the enemy's feet together, causing them to fall;
The classic "stun" mechanics are simply placeholders for things that the developers were too lazy to implement correctly IMO.
In development of a game like ashes, a lot of shortcuts are made and have to be made. You cannot animate every little action. Also, stuns usually only last a second or so, for a good reason. How would animating a 1 second stun work for any of your examples? Not very well.
I disagree that these cc abilities and stuns are mutually exclusive. Stuns are a classic board game mechanic called: "you lose a turn" . You might not like it, but it doesn't invalidate its use or mean that it's the result of laziness.
Fun fact: The board game "Sorry", which is arguably an entire game of CCs was first sold in 1934. I thought it was at most a late-70s thing.
In this case, I don't think it's that stacking one pvp stat is what's boring - what's boring is being forced to use gear with FOTM cookie-cutter stats instead of being able to reliably focus on stats you might prefer otherwise.
And, yes, that clears up the context quite a bit.
Thank you for that clarification.
I love Crit, so I focus on Crit regardless of whether I'm wearing PvE gear or PvP gear.
I almost exclusively play objective-based PvP...and I focus on the objectives; not the PvP... so I don't really care about the differences in stats on PvP gear. So, no, I don't think about which stats are better for PvP or which are better for PvE. That is irrelevant to me.
But, this thread topic is about Stun being boring.
You were on a tangent and I missed the tangent.
Though, still, because Ashes is a PvX game, if I was concerned about PvPers spamming Crits, my PvX gear would have stats that mitigate Crits. Because even when I'm focusing on PvE, I might get ganked by PvPers.
In veyrah's example, that should be sufficient since they seem to be concerned with just one stat, and we will likely be able to have Artisans put several stats on our gear.
Sure, but... if you hate a stat like Stun because it's boring, you're probably going to have the stat that mitigates Stun on all of your gear, without regard for whether you're doing PvP or PvE. Same if the FOTM PvP stat is Crit.
Because you will be getting peanut butter in your chocolate and chocolate in your peanut butter.
Um. Seems like a stat to mitigate Crits would be something you'd want in that raid as well as in PvP.
A raid with a World Boss seems likely to include Stuns and Crits.
Yep.
It's actually because of this that would allow me to support a movement to just have no hard CC at all.
Now, everything I say is biased by my fighting game/TCG playing and seeing human game psychology through that lens, but so far it hasn't steered me wrong...
Games that reward execution skill first and understanding notably second are pain for new players, leading to being very niche, and recent developments in both 'worlds' have indicated that this is just unnecessary design.
"This opponent is better than me already, and one of the ways they demonstrate that skill is in preventing me from playing for short periods of time." if this happens because 'I took an action that was a mistake', demonstrably, as in 'I took an action that I can see I shouldn't have taken', then it's fine. "I was trying to defend myself, but as soon as I figured it out, my opponent made me unable to defend myself", is... less fine, speaking purely from the perspective of 'the loser wanting to continue playing'.
MMOs have no matchmaking. They have no guarantees that you won't be outmatched by pure numbers before you even begin. They have no guarantees that you will be able to coordinate, far less understand, a team strategy. I'm not arguing that those things should change.
I'm just giving background for where I am coming from, going forward. If Ashes says 'oh if your aim is better you get an advantage that explicitly stops your opponent's actions from happening', I see this as the same as a dominating player in Dragon Ball FighterZ. You can say 'there's ways to beat it', and I'll say 'sure, but there's no incentive to play long enough to learn to unless you definitely believe that one day you will get to enjoy the game too'.
(Similarly, if your response to that is 'Well they can just play the same class' or 'they can work and enjoy it eventually', we're back to the 'MMOs have no matchmaking' paragraph)
What I 'hear' when you say that is 'I need to stop people trying to escape from me, from being able to do that, and also prevent them from being able to kill me while I kill them'.
So, if that was directed at me, my response is 'mu'. i.e. 'the question is wrong'.
This is a fine lens to look at a combat system through, but you still need to keep an eye on the rest of the game.
While it may well be true that in a fighting game or TCG, going up against someone that prevents your actions in combat from being effective would deter someone from playing the game - but that is because that combat IS the game.
In an MMO like Ashes, PvP combat is actually only a small percentage of the game. Players either are right in to PvP combat and so will do what is needed to be as good at it as they can, or will not be that on to PvP combat and consider it something to endure in Ashes.
To these people, the detraction is PvP combat, not being CC'd in PvP combat. They have other reasons to play the game besides PvP combat, so not being great at it isnt a reason to put the game down in the same way it is in a fighting game or TCG.
Depending on the game and player population, this statement ranges from true to false.
I think for Ashes that percentage is not small and greater than medium at least.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I'm talking the game over all, not one individual players perception of the game.
I would assume that the total time all online players will spend actively in combat with another player would amount to less than 5% of the total online time of all characters.
Even in a siege, there are things other than direct PvP against other players that you should be able to do - things that need to be done.
Even someone that is all about that PvP life is likely not going to be engaged in direct combat with other players for more than 10% of their total online time, even if the rest of their time online is spent improving their ability to fight in PvP.
You could say that MOBA only have a small percentage of their time spent on actual PvP. Due to the time spent in the lobby, farming lanes, "jungling", attacking towers, and just moving around the map to get to the next fight.
If you want to sit back with a stop watch in a siege and say someone is not PvPing every second, they are not using a skill on an enemy, then your definition of PvP is too strict.
For me, I would more realistically Agrue that if someone spends 8 hours playing smite and none of the games were bots, then that person spent 8 hours PvPing. If they spent 2 hours in a Siege in Ashes they spent two hours PvPing.
I make this distinction because If Spend 8 hours engaged in caravan PvP. I am not going to stop the timer every time there is a momentary break in the action. If I am spending all of my time on caravans because I like to PvP then PvP is not a small part of the game for me.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
You could, but I wouldn't.
Reason being, MOBA's dont offer anything else to do, just as fighting games dont offer anything else to do.
I dont know anyone that plays MOBA's for the PvE, or for the crafting.
To simplify my point. If I rush to cap in two to three weeks. Then spend the next six months doing nothing but caravans and sieges. A huge portion of my gameplay experience is going to be PvP. I don't think this play style is out of the question for many people. In fact, I think many people are going to play like this.
There is also the raw fact that trying to do anything in Ashes is going to potentially lead to PvP. Want to fight a raid boss? You may have to fight other raids to get to it. Want to gather? You may have to fight other groups of gathers for the nodes. Want to grind mobs? Be prepared to fight for the good mobs.
Unless you are in an instance, you may have to PvP for access to any content. Which is why I think PvP is much more than a "small" part of Ashes. Potentially, anything you want to do in Ashes is going to lead to PvP conflict.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
The preparation time for a siege is likely to be massive - months if you are talking about a metropolis. Even while in a siege, you aren't going to be directly engaged with other players for goof portions of it.
Since we are talking about how not being effective in PvP when someone keeps you CC'd will or will not see people leave the game, it is just that portion of the game where you are literally engaged with other players that we are really talking about here - not the time spent in activities where engaging others in PvP is likely to occur.
Someone can literally spend their entire life attacking caravans. That would be a player who spends all of their time on PvP.
The player who does that is going to be very concerned about how CC works, since PvP is likely to occur all day for that player (Not a small part of their playtime). Bad CC balance would be extra annoying for someone who fights all day because they are getting put in time out constantly for just trying to play the game. I think it would make people quite Ashes.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
As I did say in my original post on this point though, people that are specifically all about that PvP life (as this person would be) are the people that would be putting that CC to use, rather than having it used on them.
They are still going to have to deal with getting CCed. If the CCs are bullshit like Op fears. The game will suck.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
PvP combat will suck.
PvP combat will suck.
I guess we can all just stop caring about what happens when a player gets CCed then.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Not at all, I never said or suggested that. If I did think that, I wouldn't have even posted the CC list I did to try and get conversation heading more towards what a good CC scheme in a game could look like, let alone make it somewhat balanced, completely cutr out the possibility of being stun locked, and also suggest that players should be able to make choices to decrease how often they can be CC'd even more.
My point in this small discussion was that you can look at things in fighting games and TCG games and compare them to MMO's to an extent, but only to an extent.
In a fighting game the entire game is the fight. If you are constantly CC'd while fighting, you are obviously not going to stay in the game. The same concept holds true in TCG's.
This doesn't hold true in MMO's though, because fighting is not the whole game. PvP in Ashes is a means to an end for most players, not the end itself. In fighting games and TCG's, it is the means and the end.
The shorter version is that you can compare fighting games and TCG's to aspects of combat in an MMO, but nothing more - including player motivation.
same with stuns in pve - if you have a raid boss that does unavoidable stun on the whole raid then either he has to keep the raid in stun for an absurd amount of time or the stun is absurdly long so healers need to have that stat to keep tank alive and neither is liked by players and such encounter would be universally hated
because even 1% more crit for dps has more value than having 20% stun duration reduction especially for classes that have pooling resources or long casts
― Plato
I think your point holds true here too.
Just because you think PvP is a smaller piece of the pie in Ashes than a fighting game does not mean people are going to put up with it.
The PvPers were the first to go in Wildstar too.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
But the PvP will always be a permanent "possibility" (due to the fact anyone could decide attack you at anytime for any reason)
This is how the game will be, at least how i see it. I intend to do many RP time, but even i nthose, will be "PvP risk"