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Skills pane, quests pane, prestige mode and jumping puzzles
Ryu
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Hello
I was enticed to write this post following the encouragement of Steven Sharif to give any and all feedback on what we would like to see the game become.
Considering the state of the game and the ideas put into place since the beginning, I have a suggestion for a system that in my mind would make the game incredibly enticing in a way that does not really affect any other element of the game as it is planned, but could potentially make the game feel much more expansive.
In another game that I have spent a lot of time on, there is an interface that not only shows you the progression on all the different skills that are possible in the game (skills that are defined as professions in several other games, such as mining, blacksmithing, jewelcrafting, herbalism, but also skills that just make your character stronger, such as agility and stamina)
but also shows you your progression in combat proficiency for each style. In this particular game, you can do anything and everything on 1 character and are not locked out of any combat role.
In the same game, there is another interface that lists all the stories you can do, scattered throughout the world. Some stories might be available straight away. For others you might have to have progressed your mining to clear a cave, your agility to fit through the small gap you created. But at the end of the quest, there will be an enticing reward, unlocking more content to you. Maybe an area that has a unique resource. Or access to a monster that drops a special weapon enchantment.
I have followed the development of Ashes over the years, but I do not know ALL the specifics. I am not fully aware if you will be limited to only doing certain professions at a time, I hope not. I want to be able to do everything and anything with my character. I want to see my progression on all fronts, including combat. Because why, why do we have to limit ourself to a certain way of combat or playstyle and create different alts, especially when our "account" becomes part of the world through the freehold and housing system?
Allow us to Prestige. Allow us to be anything and everything, and show us our progression.
When we start, let us pick a class. Let us climb and reach level 50 and pick our secondary class to add some flavour. Then let us Prestige and become Prestige 1 Level 1. Let us climb up again to reach Prestige 1 Level 50 and pick ANOTHER secondary class, in addition to allowing us to set the class we just Prestiged as our primary, if we wish. Let us then iterate this over and over until we are Prestige 8 Level 50 and can be litterally all 64 archetypes, at our leisure. We have leveled to 400, we deserve it. And show us all this progression in 1 pane, next to all the other professions that we can explore. Show us that trashy level 1 Mage class proficiency as a Prestige 4 Warrior/Bard with Rogue 50 and Ranger 50 in the pocket.
Now since we need to get level 400 and not do the same content over and over, we need a new source of experience.
So, besides the missions we can "generically" encounter in the world where we kill 10 boars or gather 10 stone, create some stories for which you need certain proficiencies to even start them. Lock them to people who have Prestiged Mage, Warrior, have at least 400 mining and 300 jewelcrafting, scatter these missions all over and make the rewards cosmetic, better gathering tools or areas with unique resources, transportation alternatives, armor proficiencies, weapons, enchantments, crafting schematics.
Let me be that Prestige 8 Level 50 maxed out GOAT.
I love the development as it is planned already, on top of the positivity surrounding this game and look forward to it very much, but a man can dream.
Also please add agility to the skills pane and let us get experience for it by completing jumping puzzles (you can put jumping puzzles in these quests too, and add a certain agility level as a requirement, see where I'm going with this??)
I was enticed to write this post following the encouragement of Steven Sharif to give any and all feedback on what we would like to see the game become.
Considering the state of the game and the ideas put into place since the beginning, I have a suggestion for a system that in my mind would make the game incredibly enticing in a way that does not really affect any other element of the game as it is planned, but could potentially make the game feel much more expansive.
In another game that I have spent a lot of time on, there is an interface that not only shows you the progression on all the different skills that are possible in the game (skills that are defined as professions in several other games, such as mining, blacksmithing, jewelcrafting, herbalism, but also skills that just make your character stronger, such as agility and stamina)
but also shows you your progression in combat proficiency for each style. In this particular game, you can do anything and everything on 1 character and are not locked out of any combat role.
In the same game, there is another interface that lists all the stories you can do, scattered throughout the world. Some stories might be available straight away. For others you might have to have progressed your mining to clear a cave, your agility to fit through the small gap you created. But at the end of the quest, there will be an enticing reward, unlocking more content to you. Maybe an area that has a unique resource. Or access to a monster that drops a special weapon enchantment.
I have followed the development of Ashes over the years, but I do not know ALL the specifics. I am not fully aware if you will be limited to only doing certain professions at a time, I hope not. I want to be able to do everything and anything with my character. I want to see my progression on all fronts, including combat. Because why, why do we have to limit ourself to a certain way of combat or playstyle and create different alts, especially when our "account" becomes part of the world through the freehold and housing system?
Allow us to Prestige. Allow us to be anything and everything, and show us our progression.
When we start, let us pick a class. Let us climb and reach level 50 and pick our secondary class to add some flavour. Then let us Prestige and become Prestige 1 Level 1. Let us climb up again to reach Prestige 1 Level 50 and pick ANOTHER secondary class, in addition to allowing us to set the class we just Prestiged as our primary, if we wish. Let us then iterate this over and over until we are Prestige 8 Level 50 and can be litterally all 64 archetypes, at our leisure. We have leveled to 400, we deserve it. And show us all this progression in 1 pane, next to all the other professions that we can explore. Show us that trashy level 1 Mage class proficiency as a Prestige 4 Warrior/Bard with Rogue 50 and Ranger 50 in the pocket.
Now since we need to get level 400 and not do the same content over and over, we need a new source of experience.
So, besides the missions we can "generically" encounter in the world where we kill 10 boars or gather 10 stone, create some stories for which you need certain proficiencies to even start them. Lock them to people who have Prestiged Mage, Warrior, have at least 400 mining and 300 jewelcrafting, scatter these missions all over and make the rewards cosmetic, better gathering tools or areas with unique resources, transportation alternatives, armor proficiencies, weapons, enchantments, crafting schematics.
Let me be that Prestige 8 Level 50 maxed out GOAT.
I love the development as it is planned already, on top of the positivity surrounding this game and look forward to it very much, but a man can dream.
Also please add agility to the skills pane and let us get experience for it by completing jumping puzzles (you can put jumping puzzles in these quests too, and add a certain agility level as a requirement, see where I'm going with this??)
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Comments
I understand your need to not feel limited but being limited to certain things like professions and class roles allows for this game to create something heavily influenced by the social aspect which has been missing from games for far too long. I like the idea to be able to do "everything" but this would diminish my need for others and I dislike that. I want to work as a team with my friends/guildees. I want them to feel special for achieving something that most others have not.
Prestige is best left to shooting games. This was designed to get players further addicted to the game. People love to level up and they love to feel that each game and every kill means something special. Because of this, they made it so you could now level to 1000 instead of just 100 (when I played COD last anyway). I don't even know what it has become now but I absolutely cannot stand prestige levels in games.
Picking more than 1 secondary class does sound pretty bad ass. Maybe a future expansion could allow us to "triple up" and give us further customization. I can't imagine the nightmare it would be to balance but it sounds cool haha.
exp for jumping puzzles? Nah. I'm just here to jump man. Imagine Mario gaining exp on every level completed. lol this is silly.
I like the idea of quests being locked to your profession levels. Special adventures that take you on a lore driven story tied to your professions would be awesome. Class quests hopefully exist also but not the the way you are wanting from your post.
1) You are attached to the character that you already invested in and just having to 'start over' as opposed to 'Prestiging' is a different feeling. One feels like a sacrifice, the other like a pursuit of ultimate completion.
2) The size of the game immediately feels much more massive. You don't have to engage in any of the skills that you don't enjoy, but you are less likely to feel the threshold of having to create a character and start over just to enjoy more content.
The 'skills' pane is just an interface to present this progression.
So, the prestige I am suggesting is not just an increase of the amount of levels you have to get in the way you describe, and you are right that usually this is what the word represents. In this case, I think the meaning is more accurate. Simply getting more levels is not prestigious, but unlocking more archetypes for your character to swap between is. It is not necessary to do, as soon as you reach level 50 you can play certain archetypes and if balance is right, you can be as strong as any other archetype, so prestiging is not obligatory. So prestiging and the level of prestige you reach is nothing more than a representation of how many archetypes you have mastered (because you need to reach level 50 using the class you selected to prestige in, if you choose to play an archetype that you already mastered that you are currently not prestiging, you will not gain exp towards your prestige).
Just imagine Prestiging as exiting to character select after reaching level 50, creating a fresh toon with a different class and starting over again. You just can do it on the same character, but you don't have to if you want to stick to the archetype you already mastered.
Since I feel like this presentation in the skills pane should include all professions, I simply added agility specifically as a suggestion to expand this pane with more and more interesting 'skills' to give you as many pathways as possible to progress your character in, without being forced to pursue any of them. When I said that jumping puzzles should give exp, I meant ONLY for this skill, and not towards your overall level. Increasing agility could for example affect your stamina while using sprint, your recuperation time, it could allow you certain shortcuts in the world when reaching a certain level, ... it's just 1 example of a skill, but there are many more to make. Jumping puzzles just tied into it nicely.
Intrepid has indicated they do not want to go the direction you are proposing with character progression( I agree with this).
Intrepid is working to bring back the community part of MMO's that has been lost over the years. Allowing people to be everything makes everybody nothing and you end up with the same homogenized mess you see in most games that try to claim their are MMO's.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/245534#Comment_245534
I think jumping puzzles are good fun and we have seen it in a few of the streams Dev's falling to their deaths because they miss a jump. Giving XP for jumping doesn't sit well with me. Jumping to find a hidden chest or hidden elite mob in the world does make sense. Gating content behind a jumping puzzle can and should be a thing.
Before people get emotional about that's not fair.
This was new today and make the best point:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Character
The intent is to make it so the players rely on each other vs 1 character being able to do everything like in single player games.
Words help to communicate.
If the social aspect is a consideration, wouldn't the reputation of 1 character be more valuable as opposed to being smeared across different characters? You could be a bleep on your rogue, but be cool on your mage. Remember anyone can still create multiple characters if they WANT to be a bleep. I'm just saying, the intent of having people 'rely' on each other is not strengthened by this limitation, because simply creating an alt gets the same result for the community, but not for the person creating the alt. The person creating the alt is sacrificing, but the net result for the community is the same, because through creating the alt and getting level 50, this person has also made himself equally less dependent on the community as opposed to having prestiged in the way I suggest.
If someone can do all the crafting the you don't need anyone else. Then the game is no longer an MMO but a single player game.
Just because you don't need to interact with other players doesn't mean you don't want to interact with other players. And doesn't mean you're unwilling to interact with other players.
How does this make it a singleplayer game if you can achieve the same thing by creating an alt, just at the cost of letting go of a character you already have attachment to?
And this sentence:
Just because you don't need to interact with other players doesn't mean you don't want to interact with other players.
It works more in favour of my suggestion than opposing it, so it’s a bit confusing what you mean to say ?
From the wiki:
"You are going to create this identity that you can't just change on the fly. This is going to be something that you will know a person and you will know what their base archetype is and they're not just going to change from battle to battle." - https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Classes#Changing.2Fswitching
It's a design decision they've made to say primary class is an important part of identity. That's what differentiates using one character with multiple primary classes from multiple alts with one primary class.
I said what I said. It means what it means.
The only thing I've said regarding your suggestion is, "No".
What? This post is made under 'General Discussion'. I think you should look up the definition of 'discussion'.
The issue isn't about forcing people to give up an identity. The issue would be giving people the option to create an identity with multiple primary classes to switch between, which is, I'm guessing, just not how the devs want to structure character identity.
Thank you. But do you know their argumentation? What does this concept of "identity" mean and how would it improve the experience for the players?
Oh right, you have never played bdo.
Like it or not, the holy trinity is a forcing function for community and replayability.
Cross account crafting / economic dependencies are a forcing function for community and replayability.
The concept of identity in this context is defined (in part) as what a character's base archetype is (and of course we can probably add all their other attributes and skills on top of that).
Having a character be fixed to / known for a single main class is very common in table top and video game RPGs. It's a system that's worked well so far, so I think that, in terms of player experience, this setup will do just fine.
1) How would this approach make every character the same? You can only have 1 archetype active at any time. You just have the ability to activate another one, but only 1 can be active. You should be able to see the extent to which the other player has unlocked the archetype matrix, but what does this do beside instigate wonder and excitement to achieve the same? Why would character progression turn to mush? The experience must still be gained, the class specific quest still be done. I cannot accept your because easily, can you elaborate?
2) What? You only extend the playability of the character you already invested in. Can you explain more?
3) What?
I think someone has to explain to me this "identity" concept and how it affects the game. What is this forcing function you talk about?
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Progression
Progression pathways in Ashes of Creation are per-character.[4]
1:17:40
What about ffxiv?
I don't want my friend Bilbo to be anything and everything.
I also don't want my friend Gandalf to be anything and everything.
I want Bilbo to be Bilbo and Gandalf to be Gandalf.
I don't want Batman to become Superman and I don't want Black Canary to become Wonder Woman.
Nor do I want Black Widow to become the Scarlet Witch or Ant-Man to become the Sorcerer Supreme.
When I need the World's Greatest Detective, I want to be able to rely on Batman rather than Superman.
When I need the Sorcerer Supreme, I want to be able to rely on Dr. Strange instead of Ant-Man.
Secondary Archetypes, Social Orgs, Religions, etc... not to mention Mayors...will provide all the prestige that Ashes needs.
We don't need a cure for a non-existent illness.
I honestly didn't know that, and it's awesome. That game has gotten a lot of attention lately and I am interested, but I am already more invested in this game even though it's still so early hahaha. Truely, I would be happy if the game released without my suggestion. It would just be awesome.