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
I dont think the main difference will be into Tank/X - X/Tank. But the way u build your character. Cause they said there is no limitation on usable gear. So I think tanking will vary in so many ways compared to other MMORPG.
Like if you build your mage/tank with Plate and shield and put stats into Def and such. Maybe using earth magic to create shield and armor around him. With taunt added effect to his Original mage spells. Could be quite a viable way to tank.
Same could be said with a Cleric/Tank wearing Plate and shield. His way of tanking would be more around self heal (Like Blood DK in WoW maybe)
I really dont think tanking will be restricted to Tank/X but more in the way you decide to build your character. I might be completly wrong but thats what i understood when they said there would be no restriction on gear
What's the divide between a Fighter/x and an x/Fighter?
What's the divide between a Cleric/x and an x/Cleric?
Such that Cleric augments will not replace the need for a Primary Archetype Cleric in an 8-person group.
I'll leave it up to the devs to figure out the details.
But, it seems as though the devs are balancing encounters around the Active Skills; not the augments.
Even tho there will be no limitations on usable gear, the 1° archetype will have the core of your skillset in which augments from your 2° archetype will be applied, i don't think tank 2° archetype augments will be superior to Tank 1° archetype core skills in terms of tanking functionality (Aggro Generation, CCs, damage mitigation, passive skills and etc) and i don't think gear will be able to compensate for this gap enough to the point where a off-tank performs the same or very similar to an actual tank.
I understand what your expectations are, but it's important to take in consideration what implications this could mean to the Trinity system, like a Tank/fighter through gear and 2° archetype fighter doing the same or very similar damage to a Fighter/Tank, the informations and statements we currently have don't support such ideas.
Aren't we all sinners?
But, based on what the devs have said, you should do so with the expectation you MIGHT find a way to do that, rather than you SHOULD be able to find a way to do that.
I mean, I think you can easily find some fairly strong x/Tanks. But, Steven and Jeffrey have said x/Tank will not replace the need for a Tank/x in an 8-person group.
Cause the way I see it, I might be completly wrong, it will be more like Guild War 1 type of archetype for the character. Like Main class will have Unique effects related to this class but is still viable as Off spec if u combo with the Unique effect of another main class
-Like in GW Paragon would regain Mana on end effect of Buffs (Battle cry/Hymn) So if u were a Paragon/Warrior using Warrior spell but gaining Mana for buff would work differently then Warrior/Paragon of the same build cause the combo synergy isnt the same.
So the way I see it like I said might be wrong. But will be more around the synergy and combo u make more than just the main class used. Cause in the Alpha 1 there werent much spells. Unlike in the game you'll have to choose and discard somes
While I don't disagree here, there's one 'problem' with this that is specific to Tanking and actually is probably the entire cause of the discussion.
Right now what Tanks do is only distinguished from what other Archetypes do by a little bit. This may change, but that's where we are currently (discussions of base Archetypal stats aside).
We have Javelin and Ultimate Defense. Everything else is 'I hit the thing and generate extra Threat' (dismissing the Block Chance one because Tanks could choose not to use Shields).
So it's easy to come to the conclusion that if a different Archetype could get close to the base defensive stats of a Tank by putting on Plate Armor, they could just /Tank, 'generate additional threat' on their own abilities, and the result would be the same.
I expect that once Intrepid unveils more Active Skills that seem like more than just 'Yep, here's some damage and threat Generation', people will naturally see whatever gap exists between Tank Primary and Tank Secondary.
Until then, experience has taught many that in 'freeform' games, anyone can tank if they can get enough mitigation, it's just not always a good idea because they would be more effective gearing to do their primary role. But not that many games offer build freedom but don't also let you manage to do this, do they?
But we can expect it, since the concept of the effectiveness of Tank in PvP scenarios also relies quite heavily on those things.
Sure, you are correct, right now the alpha 1 lv15 tank is extremaly simple in terms of its tanking resources, simple class augments of threat generation and damage mitigation would do the trick for an off tank in this comparison(tank passive skills).
But, i really don't see that being a thing in the future taking in considerarion the trinity concept and Steven's statements, how far exactly will be able to push a X/tank in off-tanking is still a mystery.
Btw Azherae, what is my Class forum personality?
Aren't we all sinners?
That said, I've just checked my data files and it appears you are in fact undecided about your Class and were leaning toward Knight, so maybe I should just stick with my perception of 'Defensive but brutal Fighter who drops their guard only when the other side agrees to drop their weapons'.
If you don't think of yourself as that, I'll keep trying to understand you properly.
Edit: Though, as my last post surely revealed, I am still likely to TREAT you as that for the time being, hence 'approaching with open hands and no weapons' when engaging you in conversation'.
Aren't we all sinners?
So what dps/tanks need to function is damage mitigation or avoidance.
I disagree.
: is superior to .
To me, holding attention is the primary role of a tank. Damage mitigation is secondary, and can be backed up by a healer if that damage mitigation isn't up to par. In most games, no one is able to back up a tanks attention holding ability (there are some exceptions to this, but not many).
To me, a class that prevents an enemy from attacking a player is not a tank (I don't really care what MOBA's call them - I'll get in to that soon). To me, this is a CC class.
A tank is a class that pulls the attention of the enemy so that it attacks them and only them, focusing the damage on one target for the healer to heal. A CC class can perfectly well prevent that enemy from attacking the tank, and so calling that class/role in a group a tank seems somewhat redundant to me.
MOBA's don't have tanks in the way MMO's do because MOBA's don't have PvE like MMO's do. It is easier to just not have a hate system and associated mechanics than it is to develop one with the complexity that would be needed to function in an MOBA setting, so they just don't have one. MOBA's are, after all, simple games by design (their complexity comes in the combinations and possibilities, not in the system design).
However, this doesn't mean hate has to be artificial, or has to be PvE only. All an MMO developer needs to do is make it so taunts force targets to target the tank for a second or two (basically turning taunts in to a soft CC), and most players in PvP would opt to target tanks first to get them out of the way. Since most taunts are very short range, this would result in PvP playing out somewhat similar to PvE for tanks, which is something no MMO has really achieved.
Well its kinda Impossible to have real tank in PvP than in PvE setting. Cause in PvE the AI in meant for focus the one with the Highest threat. while in PvP player usually know there is no point to focus a tank. So When u play Tank in MOBA u have to really be in the ennemi legs to be a tank even tough u cant taunt or Taunt them for a few moment.
The main issue is Threat system doesnt work well in PvP content. Otherwise any combo PvP agains one who doesnt would win or fight would be really boring.
While players are not going to follow some hate list based on a threat score, the will target a tank if that tank is preventing them from targeting a healer or a DPS.
Make it so the tank can force you to target them, and you will opt to kill that tank first.
Haha Oops ^^. Im not native english speakers and im a bit tired. I guess I got comfused in your post earlier
We'll have to see if the devs can come up with some other "Threat" emulators vs player characters, but...
The other areas of focus for Tank/x are Damage Mitigation and CC. We will have to see what the 4th School for x/Tank augments will be.
Because now I'm just picturing rammus' taunt and saying "hey let's Walk this Way for a few second". You can still cast abilities and attack and everything but it all has to be aimed at me?
That sounds really powerful, but would definitely make an attacking team want to remove tanks first, which would make the tank happy that all eyes are on him.
'a better design'?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the Secondary class system hasn't been tested yet?
None of us have first hand knowledge of how this feature will present itself. That being that case, isn't it premature to decry that its already lacking compared to 'a better design'?
Can't we all just, get along? Honey rolls, anyone? /e looks around hopefully
In this case I was referring specifically to the (probably misinterpreted) point from Dygz that the reason to take a Ranger was based entirely on '
You can entirely ignore my misstep, the meta-word in my mind for the thing I was trying to say was:
'singular indicative positive current intentional non-abstract value with previous reference based on observable knowledge, toward progress, emphatically so'. (yes I know this seems very unrealistic, but in my mind this is actually either a string of syllables, or a string of numbers, depending on which linguistic system I was last working on, e.g '0101001000010', I won't bother with the syllabic one)
But the 'emphatically' part came out as 'better' instead of 'great' because I had already started the sentence with 'whereas', which is an implied contradictory, leading to the 'carrying forward' of the contradiction implication.
If I had said 'great design' or 'really good design' would your response have been different? What if I'd started with just 'A good design' for that sentence and no 'whereas'? I think that normally implies even stronger contradiction to most English speakers, doesn't it? To make one's point by using "a positive X would" when drawing it as a contradiction to a situation asserted by another? Because I wouldn't want to lose the contradiction aspect and risk any ambiguity about whether or not I was trying to make a counterpoint, or my 'target' would not 'evade' as intended.
If not, then it's probably fine. If it changes only as far as 'how do we know their design won't be good?' then that's its own thing and I'll reassess if there was a better structure that would achieve the goal while avoiding your reaction.
Appreciate the data if you give it, know that somewhere in this world, three random chatbots will be better for it.
Sounds like a situation where you may want other primary classes capable of tanking/off-tanking for those situations <.<
So everything the devs have said aside, do you think this is a good system design then? As far as the Primary/Secondary has been described thus far? Is it perfect as far as what has been described to us until now? Should new ideas for it not even be mentioned even though the studio claims to encourage criticism from their players?
This discussion thread asked why would the Rogue ever take Smokebombs and Invisibility if the Tank is doing their job. My answer is that they might come in handy if another group comes in to the dungeon content...
And your answer is that the Tank should be able to Tank all of the dungeon mobs and rival PvP group so weel that a Rogue will not want use Invisibility?
That's pretty absurd.
Rogue's tend to like to use Invisibility in any case.
The reason a Rogue uses Smokebombs and Invisibility is because that's the way they like to fight.
But, we can expect that in Ashes, by Rank 2 or Rank 3, Smokebombs will be adding damage - possibly burst damage. And dealing damage while Invisible might also add a damage modifier - especially coming out of Invisibility Rank 2 or Rank 3.
All of the other members of the group will be fighting opponents the way they like to fight.
Tank won't be the only person in the group using CCs.
Also, if it's a group that thematically likes to stack Shadow damage, and there are several x/Rogues in the group, Smokebombs, especially, could be helping to stack Shadow damage by Rank 2 or Rank 3. Tanks don't make it so that Rogues don't want to use Invisibility or other Evasion skills.
Instance dungeon with a 4-person group is not the primary scenario the devs are designing encounters for.
In Ashes, you should not be expecting that the Tank will typically be able to hold off all attackers such that no other person in the group will be attacked. Other people in the group who rely on Evasion will still want rely on Evasion because that's how they like to play their characters. But, the Rogue may not always be close enough to the Tank to rely on the Tank's abilities.
You can't just think, "Well, this is the way tanking worked in other games so it's going to work exactly the same way in Ashes.
You hae to think about the overall Ashes gameplay design and gameplay philosphy.
And to do that, you should be very well versed in everything the devs say about their game design and their game design philosophy.
The way we're approaching it philosophically is not 1v1 combat. That would be an impossible thing for us to do and it's not really a direction we want to go with the game. We're really focused on mass PvP, not one 1v1 encounters; not really even party v party encounters, but these big, big fights around Nodes...these fights around Castles, these big fights around Caravans...
So, a lot of it is trying to figure out balancing ways for classes to work together synergistically. So that, your focus as a team is building out the comp that synergizes best for what you've got. And we balance it that way.
So, we balance party on party, group on group and different configurations of those things. We look at it more as a macro scale balance problem rather than a micro scale balance problem.
----Jeffrey
The main tank should be tanking, but if there were other tanks present specifically to help deal with PvP intervening in the encounter, I was simply implying that this is just another reason to have 1 or 2 other options for Tanks. Even in the case of emergencies where a main tank gets bursted by another raid and the raid boss or whatever needs to get managed fast. Perhaps a Ranger/tank could have ranged threat augments that would allow it to kite the boss away while the PvP is going on? Or does this just mean there should be several tank/tank or tank/* players lined up just to fill the spot if the main guy gets wrecked by some enemy players? Just seems like a wasted opportunity to utilize this chance to make some interesting and effecting tanking options outside of "Big tough strong boi can take hits while pissing off the boss and Crowd control go brrrrrrrrrrr!". Just seems like another variable that would allow more/different tank types to be fun and useful.
Rather, you have to include everything the devs have said because that is how they are designing their game.
You are asking, should the game design be the game design or should we try to get them to change their game design before we even test it?
And the answer to that is...you should test it before trying to change it.
This is true for any of the mechanics, like Corruption.
But, here, people are saying, "We don't really have enough info to understand how combat dynamics work in Ashes, but...we should probably change the fundamental design of combat dynamics before we have a good vision of what that is...especially before we test it."
There is no way to know whether the current system is perfect. But, there also is no way to meaningfully critigue it in a manner that says it must be changed.
So far, the current design sounds reasonable.
Tank should be the master of tanking. Other people in the group will also be doing some tanking.
Mage should be the master of magic. Other people in the group will also be doing some magic.
Cleric will likely be the master of healing. Other people in the group will also be doing some magic.
Summoner should be the master of Summoning. Other people in the group will also be doing some "summoning".
Why would we not expect the Tank/x to be designed to be the best at tanking?
In Ashes, all of the other Primary Archetypes have a variety of ways to be great off-tanks.
If they truly want to focus on being an off-tank they can become an x/Tank.
Ashes already has tanking overlap.
How can you offer meaningful critiques for a system you don't fully understand?
-Should the Cleric Primary class be the only and/or most dominant healer choice?
-Should other, not necessarily all, Primary Class variants have secondary options that make them just as viable as healers.
-Should the Cleric Primary class have some variant options to focus more on other roles than simply healing all of the time?
-Should the Cleric Primary class be renamed assuming it can fill other roles besides simply healing?
Sure. It's fine to start a thread that critiques the Corruption mechanic. It's fine to start a thread about needing a separate PvE-only server. People start those threads and we participate in them. This thread is not much different.
I mean... The entire point of this post was to discuss whether or not Tank Primary should be the be all end all tank, or if there should be other Primary class options based on player builds and subclass. Not to say "WELL THIS DEVELOPER SAID THIS SO THATS WHAT IT SHOULD BE!" but to make a decision based off of what experiences in other MMOs and games have taught us. By your reasoning you are simply accepting what you are being fed by the development team instead of stopping and saying "Hey, this may not work because ____." I mean come on, most of us know what has been said by the dev team, this is just a chance to say "Yes I agree with the Devs system design because____." or "No, I think this needs to change because____." If you only accept everything based off of what you are being told that just leaves for less room to create and think. So far all you have really done is tell people their ideas are trash because the dev team said one thing or another thing that was the opposite of what that person proposed. I really like Intrepid so far but to act like a development team is infallible is absolutely ludicrous. Sure we should test it, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't already start making back-up plans just in case it goes to shit in the tests.
Because Ashes is not trying to be other games. You should be critiquing the game design based on the Ashes game design philosophy.
It's like asking, "Should Ashes have a separate PvE-Only server. Because that's what other MMORPGs have done."
Again, people do start threads like that. And people participate in those threads.
But, it's basically going to be a similar answer...we should let them attempt to implement their design and then test it to see what we think.
At least, if you are going to start a thread that critiques how the Corruption system works, try to be cognizant of how it's intended to work in Ashes.
You don't HAVE to do that, but...I mean... you know...
Same with critiquing other systems, like Primary Archetype roles.
I don't think I have said other people's ideas are trash.
What I have said, if anything, is that does not seem to fit the game design or the game devs' gameplay philosophy.
-only? I would hope not, but likely a Cleric/Cleric is the meta for most heals I would say
-Yes, likely 1 or 2 that can be efficient and viable at healing could be beneficial to the way people play thier characters over long periods of progression.
-Again, yes because a player may tire of being stuck in one role and not want an entirely new character, so they can change up their secondary to affix a new role and that would be beneficial and allow the player to further their characters progression in the game as far as how they play it.
-Well no, seeing as a cleric is known to be able to both heal and destroy, so cleric is pretty spot on as far as flexibility goes.
And we should change the name Summoner because they will be doing other things besides Summoning?
As far as I can tell, from what you just answered, this basically amounts to another thread asking to be able make the secondary role (Secondary Archetype) as viable as the Primary Archetype.
You want an x/Cleric to be just as viable as a Cleric/x.
Because all the other stuff is already in the game design for Tank as well as Mage or Summoner. Or Fighter.
But... it is like other MMORPGs... it takes inspiration directly as a result of what other MMORPGs have done. Every experience Steven and the intrepid has had in other MMORPGs is directly influencing this game. So why should the players criticize it any differently?
Should the be a PvE server? Well no because PvE doesn't actually exist in the game, its PvX. There's always an environment or a enemy player factor to be considered when you log into the game. PvE and PvP servers were just made as a forethought in games that weren't design to require them both, PvP was optional in the design of the games, so the option was provided as a server type.
In this role/class design argument, you have roles directly influenced by other MMO games. There are always healers, damage, and tanks. Ashes is no different in that basic aspect. The difference in ashes is that with the proposed primary/secondary class system along with the many other variables of augments and other customizations, there is far more potential than simply "This class tank, this class heal, this class hit monster.". It has a baseline of 64 BASE options, not including racials or tattoos or node features, etc., that could have the potential to expand that thought process to "this tanks, but so do these if you choose a tank secondary, and if these supports are built this way they can actually deal significant damage, while this class uses magic damage but when paired with this class can be an effective healer. While at the same time, this class tank, this class heal, this class hit monster if you go all in same/same with them" I would say that is a mold breaking design philosophy.
And sure, argue intent all you want, sure I can agree that at the moment Tank is the be-all-end-all tanking option. This thread is all about discussing if it should be. You don't HAVE to discuss it... but...I mean...you know. But sitting there and repeating what developers think isn't exactly critical thinking or constructive criticism on your part. You're just reading a codex instead of trying to debate if one of the rules may be flawed in it. And I welcome debate, give me reasons through personal experience why something would work in these sorts of discussions. But spouting things like "NOPE NOT HOW ITS HAPPENING BECAUSE THIS WAS SAID BY THE DEVELOPERS!" in a thread that is gathering opinions based on experience or preference is just a waste of energy on your part. Now if I said, "TANKS WILL NOT BE THE BE ALL END ALL TANKING CLASS!" Then you would be relevant in quoting and reciting everything you have heard or read the developers stating about the game. But I didn't. And just because the developers are currently saying one thing, doesn't mean it is right, it also doesn't mean it is wrong, but it should be debated regardless because it allows for all sides to express their views and experiences which are valuable to the developers in one way or another. That being said give them praise if you agree with them and provide your reasonings from personal experiences as to why, enforcing their decision. But reiterating the developers words instead of having original viewpoints in discussions like this doesn't offer any new data to them.
I am tired and probably worded some of this wrong but I am headed to bed and look forward to reading more tomorrow.