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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
This is exactly what I've been trying to say.
If I failed it, I'm sorry. I assumed everyone here is faimilar with the WoW hybrid system which is exactly what you described now Conrad.
Yeah the rock paper scissors thing can be taken to an extreme and ruin things. DoW2 (I know it's an RTS not MMORPG) did this and it really ruined the game how one sided some fights were because of the matchup.
The only good thing about Dow 2 was the arena mode, besides that, the game was a mess xD
Augments don't only change spells a little bit.
In Ashes, classes are sub-classes; not dual-classes.
I'm sorry, but it really is not an exaggeration. as I said in my example of an augment, if you're only adding elemental damage to an ability that is only changing the spell a little bit... Most examples that have been given are just minor addons to an ability. If tank into tank/mage means I can only add some fire ice or lightning damage on impact after charge that is only a minor change. If that is the only style or level of change that we will get with augments, that won't give us any great separation between the eight 'subclasses' of an archetype.
If it's a tank/rogue and it adds some Shadow damage or bleed or poison
If it's a tank/Hunter and it adds a snaring slow to the end of it
Sure these are all valid differences, but you haven't really changed the FEEL of this class at all...
If you want a new set of animations, then some augments will make this happen - like charge turning into a teleport, but, if you expect 64 unique classes then the work rate will be tremendous, the balance will be non-existent and the class roles will be in peril.
The tank has a charge. I don't know why the fire (or ice or lightning) school would make the whole ability fire. Stephen has even said "adding some fire or elemental damage". And I'm sorry but that isn't a significant change. Some games accomplish this with "here hold this firey sword." I have also said for some schools I'm completely ok with this approach, these mage elemental schools are a perfect example of it. What I'm concerned about is if every school for every secondary is just as minor, they're not going to feel all that different from each other, and it's going to be a "I need to go switch my secondary if we are doing that dungeon this week" and I switch from mage to cleric to change my fire damage to holy damage so I can kill undead instead of plants or whatever...
If that's all the degree of change you're looking for, games do that with just their crafting alone. Look at monster Hunter world for example if you want a weapon to do fire damage make a weapon out of a fire monster, there you've added fire damage. Copy and paste for whatever element you want. You don't need a crazy subclass augment system if that's all the degree of change you're looking for.
What I want to see more of with the augment system is similar to the skill runes you see in Diablo3. Where it's the 'same base ability' but depending on the upgrade CAN cause widely different applications. Zombie charger for example, all of its iterations are effectively summon a zombie that does something, but they all play different.
That kind of usage for this system will give you meaningful choices that change up your gameplay.
But again we haven't seen an augment actually used in game, haven't seen a secondary archetype in action. So we have no idea what it will actually be. This is all speculation.
I have never expected 64 Unique Classes, I have only expected 8 Unique classes with 8 additional flavours. I do not know the budget form Combat/Combat Animations, and, with the combat iterations already requiring changes, and, have had changes, I doubt the Devs have the appetite for a continuous change to the combat systems. We haven't even settled on Hybrid or Tab yet, we are still battling with the basic combat parameters.
We often go around in circles because the devs don't respond to the issues in a direct manner unless the Q+A is a good Q+A. I'm not sure why we have the 64 Amalgamations in the first instance. 8 Classes would have been enough with Racial, Social, Religious and Node additions. In my mind, there will be a majority of 8 Classes: Tank/Tank, Rogue/Rogue, Mage/Mage, Ranger/Ranger, Bard/Bard, Cleric/Cleric, Summoner/Summoner and Fighter/Fighter. I can't tell you if these amalgamations are overkill or if the hybrids will even be viable.
I have theory crafted my toon with the current information we've been given. I have come to the understanding that due to the current stat allocations, the nature of Min/Maxing and the propensity for Crafted Armour, I have shunned anything with a Magic/Physical Mixture and I have also shunned anything with a Ranged/Melee Mixture. I do not see how you would effectively build a hybrid with the limited stats we currently have information on. I do not see the 64 classes as being viable with the current information either.
I guess my bar for videogames isn't as low as yours.
I'm not expecting a wildly unique collection of 64 classes, I expect 8. I guess I want subclasses to at least feel like different specs do in other MMOs. Blood, frost, and unholy all feel different, but they are all DK's and they all use death n decay, and deathstrike. There is plenty of overlapping flavor, but just enough to make them feel different from each other. And in the case for ashes you don't have to come up with three unique 'subclasses' for each archetype, because you're just smearing the flavor from a different archetype over.
Honestly I don't even care if certain body animations get recycled with different visual effects swapped out. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm often too busy multitasking or looking at the big picture of what's going on to pay attention to how my character is swinging his sword left to right or the color of particles coming off of it.
As far as the social, racial, religious augments go I don't see there being an abundance of options for each of them. I see that more like a racial ability being added, or if you're a part of this religion having a holy smite ability or augment to add into the mix, where as a different religion does Y effect instead.
They have a lot of potential with their 8x8 matrix of primary and secondary archetypes (class/subclasses) to make an amazing system for player control of character growth. I'm just hoping they go that extra little bit to make it fantastic, rather than settle for the bar that dygz has for his games.
I'm not afraid, just disappointed
#dadbard
But seriously tho afraid of what?
Lol
And you don't have any fear that this system could devolve into something subpar?
Let me rephrase...
You arent afraid that any system in this game will under deliver?
You just think everything will come out perfect?
I expect Ashes to meet its designs.
Meeting the design goals does not equate with perfection.
If Ashes doesn't meet its designs, we can expect it to fail accordingly. There's no point in belaboring all the ways the team might possibly not meet their design goals.
If Ashes goes P2W, then...
Augments could meet the design goals and still not be fun.
But, the design goals are not to only add a little bit of elemental damage to an ability.
Considering the developers have no idea I exist, I didn't expect them to design anything with me in mind.
This being said, every piece of data available right now indicates you will be able to take a support class (for example) and customize it into a dps direction, obtaining a hybrid.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to even mean.
I didn't say anything about dual classes.
@Conrad perfectly explained what I meant with hybrid classes.
Anyone who is even a bit faimilar with Wolrd of Warcraft should have gotten it.
If being rude was an argument, you'd have a pretty solid one right now.
This being said, being rude is not an argument and you have brought nothing else up in terms of explanations.
Giving an ability some slight elemental damage bonus is a very small change unless you have a very weird definition of ''little'' which would be your personal matter, not ours.
This is not quite true.
A Mage's abilities, for the most part, do come down to this. The difference between most Mage offense abilities are 'just' which form of elemental damage they do in most games, and maybe a status attached to that elemental damage.
Therefore it would be incorrect to say that any player who explicitly chooses to add Fire(and perhaps +Burn) to their Tank's Weapon Throw is not achieving their goal of 'using their Secondary Archetype of Mage'. It mirrors the progression when using the Primary Archetype of Mage.
That would probably be exactly what that person wanted.
Similar things are true for a /Cleric. Clerics heal. If using Lacerate causes the player to Heal, then they have achieved their goal, and this is different than the Tank/Mage.
One 'did a fire Attack' and one 'did a heal'.
What would you consider a 'meaningful change'? Or are you of the belief that Augments cannot offer those regardless of what they are? Range? AoE radius? Summoning a Copy of yourself for 2 seconds when you use it?
If they set out to make this over ambitious system and fail at it, so it turns out the game isn't fun I just won't play it.
That goes in line with feelings for every system of this game. If the nodes don't work as advertised and the system is clunky, or their big battleground PVP is always just a hot mess.
Or their naval content, etc.
But talking about character design and classes and how people enjoy them was literally this threads name. So yeah, I voiced a concern I have based off of the VERY limited information we have.
If you disagree with the whole premise of this thread, since
Then why are you even reading this thread let alone posting anything?
Okay let's see if we're on the same page.
What I said is that the class combination should be distinct enough and that the gameplay should fit their theme.
I said that if the changes that come from combining two classes are minor, like some minor extra fire damage on an already existing ability, then thats going to be pretty bad.
Clerics heal sure, but they might also have a dps school to them.
We might see, for example, dps focused high priests.
Too early to tell, although the clues we have so far indicate the second option.
I actually gave some examples earlier on in this very topic, look I'll copy paste:
(we're working with) very vague explanations.
If you change an ability enough, even tho its the same ability (skill), it can be so radically different in the eyes of everybody it will be something new.
If the necromancer class for example changes the ressurection so that it loses its cooldown at the cost of increased mana and from then onward it raises players and npcs are ghouls and other monsters, its technically still the same skill.
It still does the same thing, it ressurescts.
But is it really the same thing?
Its radically different from what it used to be.
If the templar class for example changes the castigation so it no longer has a range but deals notably increased damage, while appearing as a sword of light now as opposed to a whip of light, its technically the same skill, it does damage.
But is it really the same thing?
Its basically completely different now de facto.
And we can go on with examples.
Based on the vague explanations given so far the devs could do anything.
I just hope they put the effort and time into giving their fans actual necromancers, templars, warlocks, brood wardens, paladins, etc as distinct classes, with distinct gameplay fitting their theme and which are viable.
[end of quote]
So yeah they can absolutely do massive stuff with the system they (the devs) explained so far.
Will they?
I sure hope they do.
This is why I said this works for mage which is the most fleshed out example of a secondary archetype. But I voice my concern in hopes that they will not work that way for everything. Going back to charge as an example
Tank/mage
Add fire ice lightning damage
Tank/rogue
Add Shadow poison bleed damage
Tank/cleric
Add a heal or absorb shield or curse
Tank/fighter
Add a disarm or a stun
Tank/Hunter
Add a snare or slow
Those are all little addon effects. Now when you mention. Those are getting into some actual changes, and I'm hoping we will see more options like these that either change the scale, scope, or application of a spell. Rather than just added effects.
Would you find it acceptable if the player had options of 'small effects' and 'actual changes'?
I am clarifying because I don't actually see the two as very different, so I honestly appreciate the clarification of what you consider 'a big change' vs 'a small change'.
If an enemy has relatively low accuracy, I only want a change to an ability that lowers that enemy's Accuracy further, for this to make my fights into what I desire. I don't want 'range' or 'summoning', or AoE Radius.
What about changes to Crit Rate of the ability? Is this a small change or an 'actual change'?
This is perfectly ok, and why I said sometimes it works great. I'm going into a dungeon with a bunch of plant monsters, I just want to add some fire damage. I'm cool with that.
Depends on how it's implemented.
Just a 5% bonus chance to crit? Minor.
Something like 15% bonus crit chance or increase from 150%>250% damage on a crit when target is below 30%hp. Making the ability now function as a good execute instead of a normal hit. That would be more than a minor change
Major changes to an ability to me means that you would actually change up when or how you apply that ability in a fight.
I understand you can't do that with every ability, but as they've said, wide or deep with this system. Maybe you'll have to put in a few points to evolve that 5%>10%>15%excecute with bonus damage.
We have quite a few great examples of how augments are designed to change active skills.
Now we just wait to see how well the implementation works - same as we do for features like Corruption and Node progression.
Can you link these great examples of how augments are designed to change active skills? Because they aren't here.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Augments
There is one actual example, and it's the fighter/mage one.
Have you watched all of the interviews?