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.
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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
I mean archetype yeah.
Its early alpha and as you've said, they've yet to create the basic form (yet alone final form) of any class.
So yeah at this point it's just a name.
Thats like opening a pizza restaurant and when people orber pizza you bring them a sandwich and tell them to adjust their expectations from other restaurants.
You use a term/name you assume it and better live up to it.
Intrepid said classes not even specs.
They better deliver classes or at least come with a ''we're sorry, we actually meant specs, we're going to use the correct one form now on''.
Truth is, even then they need to come up with stuff that justifies that name. Look how much the world of warcraft specs make the same class differ.
Yeah well, that would be terribly lazy and bad design.
Way to disappoint fans.
I do feel like we can because there is stuff to indicare this will be the case, such as the devs claiming the class balance will be made via balancing the base archetype abilities....
This implicitly means that there won't be any notable changes to how abilities work.
Which is my legitimate fear.
But yes you're right, it's very early and time will reveal the exact case.
I think a better example is one where someone opens a restaurant where if you order a pizza, you get a donught with mozzarela, tomato sauce and peperoni. If you order pasta, you get smaller donughts with minced meat, tomato sauce and basil. And so on.
Standard names which give rise to legitimate expectations are cheated by being in fact, esentially the same thing every time.
This is how it looks to me so far and its one of the major concerns I have with this game.
As I said, if they just said ''we're going to have 8 classes each with 8 variants'' I would have had no problem with what they're doing.
Sorry if I was unclear.
What I meant with my original post is that Intrepid's marketing is unfair unless they actually deliver classes.
Hope that cleared it.
Yeah we agree but I will add that it sucks more to have a ''trap class'' in the game which will make thousands of people to invest time and emotion into it only to find out later it doesn't work, than to just not have the class in the game at all.
To me its clear they will want to balance the game around fights between very large groups of players (tens/hundreds).
But yeah you've made a very good point because balancing for tens/hundreds of players will mean small-group fights and 1v1s could be really broken because...
... to give an example, if melee don't have good bursts of damage, mobility and are resilient, they're not going to do anything in large-group fights. As soon as they step into ''no-man's-land'' they're going to get ''1 shot'' by 10 ranged targeting them. So melee being balanced for such large fights will mean it will probably be broken in small-group/1v1 fights because you can't have it strong enough to have performance via crossing ''no-man's-land'' in large group fights and balanced by being ''weak'' enough in small group fights.
So, this entire 7-page thread is just: You want them to call it a Class rather than an Archetype...
Intrepid itslef is calling them ''classes'' not me.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Classes#Class_abilities
And no, the topic is about how distinct classes (archetype combinations) should or shouldn't be, what balance means and how it should look, etc
Actually, this is really explanatory and helpful.
Depending on just how sweet the dough used for the donut in question is?
If I ordered a pizza and I got a whole box of donuts with mozzarella, tomato sauce, and pepperoni... I don't actually feel like I'd have grounds to complain. Honestly, I might like that better. No worrying about slicing, no worrying about the crust section...
Similar for the pasta. That's called 'ravioli'. Or 'tortellini' sometimes'. I order this all the time.
I'm not saying you wouldn't be justified in saying 'that's not what I expected'. But I can't say you'd be justified in saying 'that isn't pizza' or 'that isn't pasta' unless the dough was way too sweet or way too thick.
But now I can poke at where I agree with you entirely. I don't know what they can possibly mean by 'we're balancing by how Archetype Abilities work'. If not every ability can be taken, and not every ability can be Augmented (I'll find the quote for this somewhere but idk if this is still under consideration) then the only way to successfully 'balance' these is to 'build what they consider the best one', or to write a Scenario Simulation Neural Network (and I have strong reason to believe that they don't already have any of these) and run it for literally months.
Or maybe they meant 'we'll balance things properly after 6 months when we have all the data from people playing the game'.
But it shouldn't be as simple as 'we're going to limit augments on abilities so we know the balance works' other than by the numbers method because... you can't know what abilities someone will take. A High Priest doesn't currently have to unlock any damage skills. Whereas a 'Templar' could take almost all damage skills. If they face 'whatever archetype Cleric is considered to counter' (or even what archetype each of these two is considered to separately counter) what does 'balance' mean?
What about people who do the 'obvious' thing and take half and half of each? Will these people also be 'balanced' correctly? It's hard to imagine a situation where a High Priest and a 'full DPS Templar' both manage to 'balance out' in a group combat situation if they are the only Cleric, based on 'Balancing around their Active Skills'.
In a way, Intrepid terminologies are 'fighting it out' against each other. 'Balance', 'class', 'lack of endgame', 'anti-meta'. It's not impossible to believe in these things exactly as the words mean, but it can be difficult to believe in all of them at the same time. The difference between us is that you believe that they mean it when they say they will aim for balance, but don't believe that they will aim for real classes, and I believe they will aim for real classes, but not for real balance.
Hopefully we're both wrong and they're geniuses so we get it all.
Dear Intrepid Devs,
Please take it to heart.
I want it ALL.
Choosing a Rogue/x focused entirely on stealth and not damage is like choosing a Cleric/x focused entirely on damage and not healing.
How many Rogue Active Skills will provide stealth with no damage?
If the answer is 2 out of 10, then, yes, my question is why would someone do that.
That is not merely a sub-optimal build. In Ashes, Stealth is not the primary role of a Rogue/x.
Having sub-optimal builds in Ashes is fine. You don't have to have optimal builds - you just need to have viable builds.
That's not my question.
And... I think you haven't addressed my actual question.
My question has nothing to do with the meta.
In Ashes, the meta is irrelevant.
I'm definitely not doing that.
That Rogue would still likely have plenty of points in other Rogue Active Skills that provide adequate damage...and Stealth. They just aren't focused on Bleeds. They could be focused on Poisons instead of Bleeds, for example.
We would also need to know what that character is using from Racial, Social Org, Religious and Node augments.
Say that someone says "rate this build on a scale from 0 to 10", is that a question that makes sense in your head? Or is that something that fundamentally doesn't make sense in your worldview?
To be Honest that view is a bit toxic tough. I would rather have feed back of what that person would improve than straight up rate without testing it and such.
I see so many people in trashing my builds in Moba just cause I dont do Meta cause I know Meta isnt always optimal. It is for someone who made it cause they can play with it. But not always the people who try to replicate it
I think each player should make their own build with what they like and are comfortable to play with before focusing on ''Whats the best streamer does''
I believe the answer was actually given though?
"Doesn't make sense in my worldview because they're irrelevant."
This isn't worth pursuing. 'Mechanical' players all know why Dygz' perspective is wrong. People who don't know how to make builds for themselves will also all conclude that Dygz is wrong. Then they will say the same things Dygz says, and there will be a concept, correct or otherwise, of a meta.
By virtue of Dygz' own Bartle score which we know directly from Dygz, it's not productive to have a discussion about this with Dygz.
Someone who has nearly no head-to-head competitive instinct isn't going to understand why 'Tiers' are a thing.
Please please please move on before the water gets muddied again.
It could be interpreted a couple of ways. "The question definitely makes sense, but I refuse to answer it because the answer doesn't matter because the score is irrelevant." Or: "the question doesn't make sense because rating builds doesn't make sense because something about them being irrelevant". By not answering the question directly, it sidesteps.
I don't think I mentioned anything about trashing builds or talked at all about streamers or toxicity. Dygz claimed "there is no such thing as a mediocre build", and I'm trying to figure out if Dygz thinks that build can be 'rated' at all, if that's even a coherant concept to them.
To maybe make this more concrete and less competitively jarring or toxic, let's say that you're playing a rogue, and you've selected a whole bunch of talents.
You've selected a bunch of passive skills that buff the effectiveness of your bleed effects (among other stuff), and then you selected a bunch of active skills that let you backstab (but not cause bleed) and stealth well and poison. You equip a weapon that poisons. You don't currently have a way to cause bleeding, so you're not currently getting any use out of your passive skills that give you bonuses to bleeding damage.
All in all, your build is viable and you're able to clear the content. You forget about your build for a while. One day, you start thinking about your passives for a while and realize "Oh! my build could be better if I move these points out of bleed effects into something that helps out more".
What I'm saying is that by making this incremental change, you would have improved your build. Whatever "numerical rating" you would have assigned your build must have just increased in some small way, right? Your build just became "better". If your build can become "better" by shuffling points around, then we need words to describe this other than "viable" and "not viable".
Maybe instead of just two buckets like "viable" and "not viable", you try out five buckets like "not viable", "bad" "mediocre", "good", "excellent". That's all I'm saying. Mediocre builds are middle of the road. There's probably some stuff that you could swap around to make them better. They aren't bad, but they aren't good. If you have a "good" build, you could purposely swap around some skills into intentionally worse places to make it "mediocre".
Does this all make sense?
No mention of meta, no streamers, no toxicity, etc.
Even a noob would understand how to synergize Passive Skills with Active Skills and Weapon Skills in their own build. But, what would really matter is how that specific Rogue is using any of their skills to synergize with the other player characters in the group - especially during massive battles, like Sieges.
All that matters is viable; not meta.
My bad - "talent" is a WoW word, means roughly the same thing that "skill point allocation" or "feat selection" means in other games.
Despite your assertion that noobs would understand to synergize Passive skills with Active Skills and Weapon Skills, what I'm saying is that in this particular situation, this particular player has found themselves in a place where they have some passive skills that aren't doing anything for them. They're currently viable, and they're synergizing with other players. They could shuffle some passive points around and be marginally more effective during massive battles, like Sieges.
Like, surely we all agree that as a fundamental concept, this idea of "build improvement" makes sense, right?
If so, what I'm saying is that some of the builds that still have a lot of room to improve from could be "mediocre". Maybe it turns out that even when you put all the pieces together correctly, the "poisoner stealth rogue" just isn't all that effective relative to the "bleeding backstab rogue" at siege battles, so the "poisoner steath rogue" would be "mediocre" and the "bleeding backstab rogue" would be "excellent". Does all of this track? They could both still be totally viable, it's just that you can be more descriptive within the huge bucket of "viable".
Yeah see that whole 'even a noob could understand how to do X'?
That.
And you have 24/25 Levels to play with that before you choose a Secondary Archetype.
They could be marginally more effective in a number of ways; not just by respeccing Passive Skills.
Moving your points around is fine and expecting gameplay. I don't understand why you mention this.
Build improvement is subjective.
And, in Ashes, understanding how to synergize what your current build is with the the builds of other player characters is at least as crucial, if not more crucial.
Again, it's like a card game...
What matters is whether the builds are viable.
Relative to other builds is irrelevant.
What matters is whether your build is viable, that you enjoy playing it, and that you some understanding of how to synergize your skills with the skills of other player characters.
Again, like a card game... "If my partner plays that card, I'm going to play this card..." If my group-mate uses that ability/augment, I'm going to use this ability/augment."
Even in the case of a Rogue/x maximizing Evasion/Stealth, that should mean the player does that in order to sneak in behind the gates and capture the flag/pylons. In that case, it's not as much about the Damage as it is keeping the flags/pylons captured. That's more about gameplay prowess than build-by-numbers...and, even so, we can expect that Rogue/x to have fairly decent Damage and to know to synergize what Damage they have(Poisons/Bleeds/Shadow) with other allies.
I don't think I claimed somewhere that synergizing with other people is relatively less important. You claimed that it's not it's possible to have a "mediocre build". All you have to do is say "that was a silly claim - of course it's possible to have a mediocre build", and this stops.
Sometimes build improvement is subjective. Other times, you can make objective improvements. For instance, say that you're a rogue who has invested passive skill points into bleed abilities, but you don't have any active skills or weapon skills that cause bleeding effects. Your build will be objectively more effective if you move those dead bleeding passive points into something beneficial.
Other times, the subjective is enough. One build-A will be X amount stronger in type-A situations and build-B will be Y amount stronger in type B situations. Just like in a card game, you have to make a judgement call about how much you think you'll run into type-A situations vs type-B situations, and how much the X vs Y strength difference matters. If type-A comes up way more often than type-B, and X is way bigger than Y, we normally say that build-A is "better" than build-B.
I don't understand the refusal to reason about improvement within "viable". You can clear the content with your passive skills invested into bleeds even though you don't cause any bleeds. Your build is "viable" because you can kill bosses some acceptable-to-you percentage of the time. You're going at an acceptable-to-you pace. You're having fun. Your friends are having fun. Your build would be better if you respecced so that you weren't wasting some of your passive points in bleeds that you weren't activating.
If you agree that there are a lot of ways to make your build "better" and a lot of ways to make your build "worse", and just refuse to call that "mediocre", then I don't know what to tell you.
I'm pretty sure I didn't state "all builds are just viable". That's your misinterpretation of what I said.
Why would I say something is silly when it's not?
Your concept of mediocre build is what's silly.
Yes. You can have a viable builds and make improvements. You don't HAVE to make improvements if it's viable. You may want to make improvements or just make adjustments that are different yet equally viable.
That character might be more effective if they respec those "dead" Passive Skill Bleed points. Or maybe those are "superfluous" and it really doesn't matter much because that build is still viable.
But, it is highly unlikely that by Level 25, even a noob will have invested in Bleed Passive Skills, but no Bleed Active Skills or Weapon Skills. Maybe the player puts those points into Bleed weapons and never uses those Bleed weapons. Same difference.
What matters is how the player actually plays the character.
There can be improvement within viable. But, improvement is subjective.
"Better" is subjective.
I consider mediocre in the context of this discussion to mean non-viable.
If what you mean by mediocre is viable but not meta - that is perfectly fine.
What matters is that the character is viable and fun for the player to play.
So you have a "viable build", and you are having fun with the playstyle.
But the boss on the next floor has a rage mechanic and you just can't deal damage fast enough.
What do you do?
Retreat and bring a partner.
Evade or kite better.
Stack my Damage differently.
Really depends on what it is about that specific boss or that specific environment that is causing me to have trouble beating the boss.
So anything but the build
The build isn't the problem
But, again, that depends on the specific boss and the specific environment.
And...changing my build would not be the only solution.
How so?
Again, your claim is that "There's no such thing as a mediocre build". I'm just trying to show that there is such a thing. It doesn't matter if you don't HAVE to make improvements, it's enough that you can. It's enough that you can go from bad to mediocre, or from mediocre to good, or make a build worse from good to mediocre.
So then wouldn't you say that it's possible to create a mediocre build (by your weird definition of mediocre) by creating a non-viable build? Do you believe it's possible to create non-viable builds?
That's not quite there, but close enough that I think you get it. If you're able to mentally differentiate the viable builds into "meta" and "non-meta", then you already have three buckets, right? You have "non-viable", "viable but not meta", and "viable and meta".
I'm saying that we can separate them into even more buckets. Like "non-viable", "viable but barely", "viable and mediocre", "viable and good", "viable and great", "viable and meta", etc. Other folks might get tired of writing all of that out and call those buckets "F", "D", "C", "B", "A", and "S"-tier. That way when someone's like "how good is poisoner backstab rogue at siege content", instead of saying "viable and great" you can say "A-tier". It's all just labels.
And of course, you can play a "viable-but-barely" build to its full potential and crush someone who sucks at playing a "viable-and-meta" build. Your ability to pilot the build, the gear you have, etc all matter.