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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.
I hope the devs understand that for many its either having fun with class X or quitting the game.
Ironhope
Member
I know the title makes me sound like a whiner but the first thing I want to say is that the reason why I'm writing this is because AOC is the only mmo-rpg with potential that I've seen come out in the last 15 years+ and I want to contibute with as much feedback as possible so it has the best chances of actually being a success.
To get to the topic:
There are a lot of people who will play no other class/spec besides the one they identify with and this applies for all mmo-rpgs.
If any particular class is particularly underwhelming, either because it's boring, clunky, underpowered, lacking in uniqueness, etc, that person will just quit the game.
Some will either play an assassin and have fun with it or they will quit.
Some will either play as a necromancer and have fun with it or they will quit.
In my case I will either have fun with a templar or just not play.
And, as I said, by have fun I don't simply mean ''be at the same level of power as other classes/specs, or above that''.
Because, for example, if your class is powerful but very clunky (stressful) to play, or if its just boring (spam 1 on raid boss for 15 minutes), or if the gameplay simple has nothing to do with the theme, the spirit of the class, or if its very similar to other classes and simply lacks flavor, etc will you have fun playing it?
I mean, probably occasionally beating people in world pvp and being top dps in some instances but generally your experience will be pretty underwhelming just because of that, regardless of how well other things such as world immersion, sieges, world pvp (caravans, ships, etc), etc work out.
So just please devs, keep in mind that for many people, the nr1 thing, the nr1 requirement for having fun with this game (before all else matters) is that their ''heartclass'' work out.
If you mess that up, it won't matter how awesome the leveling is, how awesome the world is, how well your node, siege or caravan or ship systems work, or how alive and well organized the economy is, because the person is just not going to have fun.
So please make sure that no class/spec comes out underpowered, clunky, lacking in uniqueness, lacking connection to its theme/spirit, etc
To get to the topic:
There are a lot of people who will play no other class/spec besides the one they identify with and this applies for all mmo-rpgs.
If any particular class is particularly underwhelming, either because it's boring, clunky, underpowered, lacking in uniqueness, etc, that person will just quit the game.
Some will either play an assassin and have fun with it or they will quit.
Some will either play as a necromancer and have fun with it or they will quit.
In my case I will either have fun with a templar or just not play.
And, as I said, by have fun I don't simply mean ''be at the same level of power as other classes/specs, or above that''.
Because, for example, if your class is powerful but very clunky (stressful) to play, or if its just boring (spam 1 on raid boss for 15 minutes), or if the gameplay simple has nothing to do with the theme, the spirit of the class, or if its very similar to other classes and simply lacks flavor, etc will you have fun playing it?
I mean, probably occasionally beating people in world pvp and being top dps in some instances but generally your experience will be pretty underwhelming just because of that, regardless of how well other things such as world immersion, sieges, world pvp (caravans, ships, etc), etc work out.
So just please devs, keep in mind that for many people, the nr1 thing, the nr1 requirement for having fun with this game (before all else matters) is that their ''heartclass'' work out.
If you mess that up, it won't matter how awesome the leveling is, how awesome the world is, how well your node, siege or caravan or ship systems work, or how alive and well organized the economy is, because the person is just not going to have fun.
So please make sure that no class/spec comes out underpowered, clunky, lacking in uniqueness, lacking connection to its theme/spirit, etc
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Comments
I agree that having a class you can call "home" would be really nice and should be attempted, but it's something that requires a ton of work, patience, creativity, and most of all feedback. Make threads telling the developers what kind of class combinations you want to see do x and y.
Even if your ideas break the pure augmentation of the secondary archetype... The more details you give, the closer they can mold the classes into something you would want to play.
As for:
Balancing is going to be pretty damn hard the more unique the classes get, and with the direction classes and the mass pvp combat is going... You will most likely see reflavoring of most abilities with minimal changes, but in the right amount/combination of these two there is potential for really cool classes even if they might play similarly to their primary archetype counter-parts.
As an example of this sort of thing, Let's take the Mage's Fireball spell and give it two variations depending on the secondary archetype.
First we have the standard Fireball: Hurl a ball of fire toward your target, dealing direct damage upon impact.
Next we choose two mage classes, I will choose the Spellhunter and the Shadow Caster.
Spellhunter's Fireball turns into Flame Arrow: Draw back as if firing an arrow from a bow, letting loose a penetrating arrow of fire magic in a line dealing damage to all enemies in it's path.
Shadow Caster's Fireball turns into Umbral bolts: Hurl three bolts of shadowy energy towards the target, each dealing a moderate amount of damage upon impact.
So that's the sort of thing I would hope for, but again, these things are difficult to balance. Especially when its not just reflavoring the spell to look different. I hope we can get some really cool classes and interesting augmentations but I wouldn't be surprised if there is not much variation between the same primary archetypes with different secondary archetypes.
So you're saying people should have keep playing their underpowered class for years waiting for the Devs to get around to balancing them properly?
Combat is a very large topic and is updated a lot. The combat is make or break and still not clear how much change will happen before launch.
My loyalty to elemental shaman lasted waay too long.
@Ironhope - I hear what you're saying about classes 'being fun,' and appreciate the 'OMG this game is going to be awesome' quality to your post. We've all been there (some just started earlier on the road). With 8 archetypes with 8 flavors each there has to be more than one option to gravitate to over time as class mechanics change.
To borrow a Wattsian adage - in AoC alts are food, not medicine.
As a fighter main I know that I am not the optimal dps for group content. I wont be picked to tank anything serious. I also know that I wont be the best ganger.
I know that I will be great at 1v1 within the rock paper scissors construct.
I know that I wont be able to play harry potter or Gandalf and that if I was playing tank or ranger I'd be better with sword shield and bow respectivelly.
People need to be realistic about their choices.
Having said all that, I hope that the fighter will never lose its unique features the same way the Dragonknight did in ESO, which was stripped of all its tools. Chains, reflect, tank suprimacy. All these tools were nerfed or deleted and given to new class additions.
In ESO every melee class was forced to use two handed for atk and swordShield for defence in PvP.
Every melee class in PvE was forced to DW for main dps and bow for DoT applications.
I understand what you mean.
I'm primarily interested in the healer class, High Priest, but right now my hopes aren't that high that this 'healer class' will be much of a healer.
What I've seen so far is that they are a run-of-the-mill dps class with primarily 'dark' dmg skills and a few heals.
Someone who likes to play a healer is interested in supporting their party, not necessarily engaging the mob, and for that reason I feel that a Healer's job, while in a party, should be healing, not dps.
If an appropriately skilled party undertakes an appropriate challenge, and the healer is not required to be primarily engaged in their job of healing, the Devs have failed to make the healer class fun.
Healer having fun = healing!
Whereas I feel exactly the opposite, in both senses. The healers in Ashes are primarily Healers and I'm left hoping that Augments let me work on 'group flow', 'damage prevention', 'status removal' (you might still be counting this).
In the end though, I definitely want my 'actual total healing done' to be as low as possible because I prevented healing from being needed while still being on point whenever it was needed.
So it goes.
Look man, I wasn't rude in any way and I didn't insult anyone and I'd appreciate if you did the same because otherwise there is nothing we can discuss.
I don't know whats so hard to understand that in an mmo-RPG there will be people who have one preference when it comes to roleplaying and only one.
Calling someone dumb for not wanting to play (I repeat, in an RPG) something that just doesn't have flavor for them, that just doesn't attract them, is utterly unreasonable.
I don't have the statistic right now in my hand but Blizzard-made statistics showed that the nr1 reason why people quit World of Warcarft was their class-spec no longer being viable after a patch-balance cycle.
This isn't a niche-player problem. Its a fact that the vast majority of rpg players have a clear preference and that many of them have very strong feelings when it comes to that preference.
Even for people who have no such preferences (lets say first time mmo-rpg players), if they pick up a random class and spec and it isn't fun they're just going to believe the game isn't fun and quit.
So its really important for devs to do this thing well because its the basis of their game, before the innovative aspects of their game, such as large scale castle sieges, ships and caravans world pvp, node systems, etc
As @Azherae correctly pointed out, whats your point? That people should play something they dislike for months or years before it gets fixed? Its the devs job to do a decent job (at least) from the start.
In vanilla wow it took like 3 years for them to fix ret and prot paladin.
Either way, I feel like you sir simply didn't read my whole post.
I did not talk and focus purely on objective performance.
How fun the class is to play (mechanics, smoothness, potential for higher performance when used with higher skill, etc), how well it relates to its theme to its spirit, how unique it is, etc are just as important at it... well, not sucking when it comes to walking the walk.
While it is totally possible to debate about having fun playing a "underperforming class", the gameplay itself has to be fun.
Give me the game with best ost ever, best story ever, best graphical ever. If its gameplay is shit, ill stop after 1 hours. I disliked BG1/2 gameplay, never went over first 1/3 of both. Prefered go back to game where i had fun.
While i hope a game with a real class identity (in aesthetic and what you do in a group) i really hope all will have an enough fun gameplay. Either in the way you will have to use your button (not a brainless cycle like in FFXIV, but also not a totally cluncky mess i already saw . . . ). If the skill rotation is far too hard to do, or too brainless, yes most people will respec or leave. (and "leave" is a big risk, because classes will be mainly specialisation of primary archetype, there is risk that the whole primary archetype have this gameplay problem).
The "fun way to play each class" is the first thing people will feel entering the game. If they get bored even when getting more button, or it seems to complicated, most won't even try to push. and not only because "they don't want to play anything else". But because for many people, if their first character feels boring, probably the game is boring. And they won't wait month to see if what they picked becomes fun. Also people discovering a game won't come on forum asking "is it normal i don't have fun while playing [class] ?" they will just leave.
I'm really glad you threw this comment because its something important I forgot to add to my post.
I really hope this game won't be like
''OKAY SO YOU CAN USE ANY WEAPON/ARMOR YOU LIKE MAGE but you will be trash if you use anything besides cloth armor and a staff/wand''
Make different combos actually viable not just open to try out.
I'm not naive to believe 100% will be viable and fun and awesome and... no, thats basically impossible uneless we steal some super AI from the US/Chinese army and use it to design this game.
But if the devs actually try I'm sure we can get enough workign diversity the vast majority of people will be satisfied (yes you won't ever satisfy everybody but if you really try, as I said you will satisfiy most).
Here's hoping.
It isn't that impossible to make every unique combination viable. I know a person who has achieved that type of balanced design for different game types. It just requires high skill and clear design parameters.
The real reason this doesn't normally happen in games other than modern fighting games is that once you get enough combinations, what makes a combination unique or viable is subtle and not immediately apparent to some people. This leads the options to those people, to feel samey and bland.
Making things not feel bland to those people or unobvious is itself extremely difficult. Especially if you want a lot of options. Not only is it difficult, the people you are accommodating the design for will whine, complain, and attack the very concept. But it's not impossible with clear design parameters.
Intrepid set the expectation of a lack of balance of weapons and classes because they know without a good combat director and a clear set of design parameters relative to combat, that it won't be well balanced.
We don't know who their combat director is or if they are well skilled. Additionally their design parameters are really ambiguous. So they rightfully decided to not set a bad expectation.
Tl;dr currently possible. But who they listen to and how skilled those people are is a big IF. We will just have to see what happens at this Q&A.
If you come into the game saying, "I want to be just like my Hunter in WoW!" then you will be disappointed. And in that case, go back to WoW.
But if you like stealth gameplay, or healing people, or being a tank, or nuking things with fireballs, or summoning pets to attack stuff, or destroying people with a 2-handed weapon, I'm sure you'll find a way to do it. Probably more than one way with the augment system.
That Mage/Rogue could use Daggers to stack bleeds with the Rogue/Fighter instead of a Wand.
It's not just about how the Mage deals damage on their own; it's also about how they coordinate with the other people in their group.
I'm really not worried about main-role characters, I'm worried for us hybrid fans.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/312093#Comment_312093
As I said in this thread, I hope the AoC devs will understand from the start (instead of making the same mistake Blizzard did with Vanilla WoW hybrids) that nobody wants to be a 5/5 + 5/5.
If someone is, for example, a healer + damager combo who specialized into damage, let him do 8 or 9 out of 10 damage and let the rest of his performance come from his healing, dual-nature.
A dedicated, pure-breed dps can meanwhile do 10/10 damage and the rest of his performance can come from stuff like stealth, mobility, crowd control (if you're an assassin for example).
Nobody will want to be a jack of all trades, good at many, great at none, in a team game where by nature, people want to excell at things.
So let hybrid players excell at what they want, the rest of their abilities coming from their hybrid nature.
I disagree because, as mentioned earlier, this is what happened in Classic WoW and the hybrid classes (made in the way you think plenty of people would be OK with) were very very very underrepresented (people simply didn't play them... so yeah, plenty of people turned out to not be OK with it) and had bad performance.
People want to excel.
Its human nature.
Let them excel in the way they choose as opposed to forcing them to be jack of all trades.
And its a fact this is going to be a team game.
Well, a team full of specialized people will always outperform a team made out of jacks of all trades.
Sure, you could argue WoW Classic is WoW Classic and AoC will be AoC but at the end of the day human nature is the same everywhere and group organizing is group organizing everywhere.
Hence why I'm not exactly exited about "talent trees". There is plenty of classes and their augments to worry about before additional layer of build variability is introduced.
Some people want to excel at their roleplay.
Some people want to excel at fitting into their world.
Some people want to excel at being specifically something that other people aren't.
When you say 'outperform', you refer to their mechanical ability to achieve a mechanical objective in the game. And while I will fight any day to bring the two closer together, I understand and respect your perspective.
A game should aim to make sure that their mechanics are so razor focused and their environments and encounters so varied, that there will be a place in the world where the hybrids are the optimal. Where the specialists struggle. Even if it is some out of the way mountain cave.
Ashes is already on this path. There's a chance that the design isn't even about 'optimal' as a core concept in the mechanical sense.
Being the rarest class combination on the server doesn't mean you aren't effective, it means that the way you chose to be effective isn't the commonly pursued target.
I disagree. Lack of talent trees really cuts down on customization, and talent trees DO offer uniqueness. Wow builds turned super boring when they yeeted the og talent tree. Now it's just 6 major choices and no spec spdcific specialisation
My actual qualm with the talent trees in ashes is their design, not the fact that they use them. But it's just alpha, so maybe they have plans for better skill flow down the line.
What WoW Vanilla did with the talent system was great.
Every time you leveled and received that talent point (on top of new abilities) you felt like it was your birthdat.
The world was harsh and unforgiving back then and every bit of help counted.
The diversity of choices and the lack of a meta back then also made the mental tinkering a really awesome experience.
''What do I really need? Man that extra self-heal sounds nice, I die quite a bit in these quests, but... wow, that extra stun duration really sounds nice, maybe now I can take those pesky rogue gankers down every time instead of most times''
We really didnt play the same Vanilla... a meta began to be clearly see during T2, when we began T2.5 raids, the meta was totally known. (and lets not speak about some classes on MC/BWL who couldn't play what they wanted because of all those fire imunity) many didn't care (and i always said that meta was not to be followed all time). But was not because people didn't care about meta it didn't exist...
And talent tree in WoW were never real choices... for most classes, 80% or even more of point you didn't have lot of choice. There was one optimised way, and then, like 5-6 points free to use on more utilities talent.
And you know what, human want to excell yes... But were you are false, some are not brainless big number hunters. there is far more way to excell than this.
You consider all people like to play the way YOU like. You consider your view on class design as the "true". "Hybrid didn't give better buff than healer" ... not exact and you couldnt have too much healer... but needed more buffs that just healers one for all raid...
On other topic you said uniformisation doesnt come from end of hybrid... proving you didn't understand what happened. Each class came with specific tool to the raid. some giving raid wide buffs, other party wide buffs. and also finally some specific crowd controll (all had it). The more a class has DPS, the less it can buff all other... Else you gives all class tool to buff others. One side or the other : you are on uniformisation way.
WoW began to lose its salt with WOTLK, when devs decided to end with a global balance to go to class balance. When the game stopped to be thought as group of players, but addition of different characters.
People want to excel and so want to play class with big DPS ? False
Some people don't care about having big damages. they just want a gameplay they like. Some even prefer being support (and no... healer/tanks are not all time support. far from it). Prefer allowing friends doing bigger damages when they are here than doing themselves big numbers...
Also we are on MMORPG, "RPG" ... does D&D bard does big damages ? far less than warlock, rogues or warriors. Does people want a bard in their team? ... FUCKING YES.
So yes, and yes the gameplay of all archetypes have to be fun. But we can have fun gameplay (so a fluid and interesting skill rotation, having to well think about when dropping CD, mana management, etc etc) without having in the end a big personnal DPS. I hope if i go bard or summoner, i will be bad at DPS AND bad at healing. because i prefer personally to play support. And i really don't care other people dislike to have low DPS, no one force them to play support class...
Strongly disagree
They got rid of the parts of the talent trees that basically were mandatory and made it a part of just choosing that spec... Shaman for example if you chose enhance you automatically got dual wielding rather than needing to pick up that talent on the talent tree...
Now I agree I do miss the old trees, but the shift just took away your control over how you blend your specs... They made it to where I can't be half Frost and blood deathknight anymore...
Isn't this like a goal of AoC (to be anti-meta)?
Either way, does it really matter how a good experience was achieved as long as it was?
Also, as I said, it wasn't exclusively a matter of pve, but also pvp.
To be honest, I considered 20% prefence to be a high %. Even tho I'd argue it was slightly over 20%.
Its also not about nr of talent points used either, but the result when it comes to gameplay.
Never said otherwise but at the end of the day if you just cant kill anyone in pvp as a dps and your contribution to instance groups is... questionalbe, will you have a good time?
Some will, especially if other factors are to be taken into consideration.
But most wont.
Just answer me, were ret paladins, kitty druids, boomkins, enchancement shamans, etc popular in wow classic?
No.
They very rare and virtually absent from serious raiding guilds and team bgs unless they were someone's friend.
When did that change and they became popular and liked? In TBC when my point of view was introduced.
Can you give an exact example?
If we're talking about the early period when retribution had Blessing of Kings, okay I agree, (either way it was humiliating to be brought only for that and often people were put in healer gear with ret stats.... which was even more humiliating) but that was a rare case and it was removed.
Okay so yes I did misunderstand.
When people on youtube/forums/twitch generally complain about class uniformization they mean about each class getting basically each and every tool in the game. You mean something somewhat different here.
Either way... why can't you give some dps hybrids the ability to bring a cool buff to the group while giving other dps/dps hybrids some other advantages such as a battle rez or mobility or crowd control?
Do you think people will like being crushed in world pvp and not being taken into pvp/pve groups because their numbers suck at exactly the path the player chose?
Because as I said.
If being hybrid like you say was so fun, why was it so unpopular in vanilla/classic?
I agree.
Didn't claim otherwise to begin with.
Sorry if I wasn't clear.
The difference between your examples and mine are the following:
The player gets disappointed in my example because he chose a dps hybrid path and he didn't get dps.
In your example the player doesn't get disappointed despite not getting dps because he didn't opt for that he opted for buffing.
Which is great, if thats what you like (being a hybrid buffer) then thats what the game should give you.
And if I like to be a dps hybrid, thats what I should get, not a classic wow hybrid scenario where I take a dps spec and end up being trash at the path I chose just because ''well you're hybrid''.
Talents trees result in few or only single 'correct' way to set up the build while everything else ending up as a newbie trap.
I get your point about speccing, as I see talent trees in later iteration could be used to help flex the archetype through different subclasses as a supplement / built on top of to keep the sub-classes viable.
So I'm not against them. But I don't think that adding them for the sake of having them in the game with no clear goal in mind other than 'customization' will bring good results. And I believe it will actually impede the process of moving towards modicum of balance of classes.
Now it's "party balance" which matters. But that does not provide an escape hatch from class balance, only from 1v1. You still have to balance contribution the specific individual class has to the party. If the gaps are wide enough, you simply don't use that class in your party as it does not contribute sufficiently to the strength of the party.
Honestly I'm not gonna play if I feel that Fighter is overall worse than some other class. I believe it might be the same for many others.