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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Basically.
Even as someone who has literally done this (the taking some time thing), and believe it's possible, there's a massive difference between 'I can get this to work and people can enjoy it' and 'I can get this to work and people will consider things viable'.
So if the point is 'hey, play what you want, there's some content for you, just not razor edge content, have fun', then fine. "Shadowmancer Has Entered The Battle!"
But if it is 'hey, play what you want, there will be a place where you are viable, maybe even optimal, consistently', then it's relying on something I don't like to see MMOs rely on.
"Players who already have friends who will let them experiment or who understand and really trust/synergize with their off-meta specs."
And then you say this
If that's the case I could mix and match all that stuff and have every style of tank on one character. Please tell me how this is easy to balance whereas mixing and matching primary secondary archetypes would just be too complicated...
If anything what you're suggesting here would mean if I wanted to make a competitive evasion tank build I would have to have a pyri, thief guild, tank/rogue so I can collect all of the evasion augments to properly be an evade tank. You just removed so much player choice.
Or else if I don't need all of them because they do the same thing, then certain augments won't matter because they're redundant?
Also by this logic that would mean there's also probably a guild, race, religion, whatever that offers tank-oriented augments I could still use a primary rogue and load them up with all the Tanky stuff and make him a tank. Congrats, you just made a rogue/tank work.
What I WANT is for that gap to be closed by skill. This build is 'off meta' so isn't as EASY skill cap wise to to the higher content. But if I live and breathe broodwarden, I want to use skill the gap of fun to viability...
I'm not a fan of this design style personally.
1. Players who can do it treat players who can't do it for whatever reason, fairly dismissively.
2. It does nothing to convince most people that it's viable at all, so players who can do it still have issues with perception.
3. It limits players who want to play as a thing which is only enabled by very high skill, if they don't have it, in ways that are very negative to their experience.
Most of the time, if not always, the argument is 'yes I see you can play X at a high level but that just means you would play Y, the meta build, at an even higher level, so by choosing not to do that, you're limiting us'.
That said, I do want the gap to be closed by 'group synergy' and 'instinct'. The closer they can get to 'synergy with some subset of groups is a known thing' the better for everyone.
I would love for some summoners like Necro and broodwarden to do something swarmy (having various zerg/Tyranid monsters would be sweet)
But for some, like summoner/mage I could see just one big summon, like a fire/ice/storm/void elemental depending on the school chosen.
Summoner/summoner is a good point too. Maybe that will be the weakest summoner secondary because it it's just too neutral. Or turns the summoner character into even more of a support for his pets? Super solo'er?
I think you're already in my dataset, and any discussion on this path will turn this Tanking thread into a Summoner thread quite quickly. My 'opinions' on that are known, though I still would rather call them my expectations, I know better than to try to convince most people of that.
If you don't remember posting in any of the threads I took the data from, then let me know, you might not be in any of them. Cursory grep of my files doesn't return your name, but I didn't store the summoner dataset properly so I'd have to run the script again.
You have some really good points there.
I guess, though, the opposite end of that spectrum is that all the classes are 'easily playable and no one really wants that. I mean, shifting from fully tab Target to action combat makes it more skill-based than build based.
Also some classes are just going to have a higher skill cap than others. Harder to play but more rewarding when you get it right.
So we are probably going to end up with that anyways... For example a rogue is harder to use than a fighter, but if you get all the hits in right for the bonus backstab and crit multipliers you can end up doing more damage through that skill difference.
I don't have a problem with that aspect of it. I just feel that the thing we're discussing should be 'within the class'. Let's go back to Tanks, for example.
A Tank that chooses to go without a Shield, using Greatsword or something instead, perfectly handling their mitigation cooldown timers and for example, knockbacks or Greatsword skills, to prevent some damage, actively doing that instead of 'Sword and Shield, passive increases to block chance' is harder, but could be equally or slightly more effective.
That part isn't a question of secondary Archetype though. That's a player 'looking at how complex Greatsword Tanking is and deciding they can handle that', or 'choosing which abilities within their build to take.
If that's what you meant, and that's all people need, I'm sure YouTube will provide lots of guides, but as Dygz would often tell you, that's a different kind of skill. Character skill over player skill.
But a Brood Warden might need to do considerably more than that, and have many less skills available as 'backups' when something goes wrong.
That's fine if they decided 'I want to Tank, I'll work hard for it', but less fine if they went 'Brood Warden sounds cool, I want to play it' and then could only get invited as a Tank because the community 'expects Brood Wardens to tank because of that one really good Brood Warden on Twitch' and 'the spec isn't good for anything otherwise'.
Basically I'm saying there should be a 'simple' effective Brood Warden as well as a 'difficult' effective Brood Warden, and if anything the first should just be less versatile than the second. That's what I'd hope for in all cases.
Which isn't much of a concern, with the Augment system, and I consider that to be the main benefit of it. Things can be designed such that a certain amount of base effectiveness is equal between two players using the exact same choices in abilities. After that if you want to 'gear for Evasion' on your Nightshield, no one has to worry that you won't generate enough hate through abilities, they only have to 'worry' about if you figured out a way to mitigate sufficient damage with your Augments+Gear.
Yes, I know you have been saying OR.
The thing is, a cleric/tank isn't a cleric/tank. They area cleric that has currently selected tank. That player can - basically at will - change to be a cleric/cleric.
If a cleric/tank can tank content, then that character has access to two roles.
Again, this is my assumption just based on trying to apply logic.
I posted a thread about having every class be allowed to spec into at least 2 of the 4 primary roles and it didn't get very far unfortunately. Being able to fill 2 primary roles will give every single player the chance to breath every once in a while when not wanting to fulfill their "primary" role. It also opens the opportunity for more unique group compsitions.
I don't see how this could possibly hurt the game in any way and balancing it would be the same effort as balancing any version of 64 classes. There are a lot of NO BRAINER classes that just simply cannot fill specific roles. On top of all this, specific classes will also have class specific world abilities that alter the way the game is played as well (finding hidden rooms, making platforms, detecting traps, etc).
bard - primary support but 1-2 of the specs could lead them to being more of a healer (or dps depending on what the bard community is feeling)
cleric - primary is healing but they could have 1-2 dps specs (much like shadow priest in wow) - to me, cleric and tank are the dumbest classes to have in this system because you don't make a cleric to dps in this system. You make a cleric to heal. If they can't match top dps by being a cleric/dps, they are useless players with bad specs.
summoner - primary should be support (sum/sum) but they should be able to spec into their secondary role and drastically alter the skills. sum/rog should be a dps summoner. sum/cleric should be a healer (player on single target and summon on raid aoe's or set to tank), sum/ranger for dps etc. There is a ton of opportunity with this class.
fighter - primary dps with a couple options to support the raid or focus more on CC
ranger - primary dps with options to support/cc and "maybe" tank. Similar to how a sum/tank would be
rogue - primary dps with options to tank as a rog/tank (evasion)
mage - primary dps with the options to mage/tank (magic mitigation bosses or diving enemy back line to beat other casters) or mage/cleric to heal.
tank - primary tank but give the option to dps or support.
Obviously a very rough idea of what could be done but what this does for the game is more beneficial than not having it.
When organizing a raid group, if we go to take "proper" comps we will have 5 of each class. 5 tanks, 5 clerics, 5 bards etc. In a 40 player group, this would give us every opportunity for best comp but also for loot distribution. So picture this if the game only allows for primary roles in the current setting (1 tank, 1 cleric, 1-2 supports and 4 dps). There is no possible way a guild would tank 5 tanks, so loot is already going to be less favorable for some. Would only 5 healers be enough? One healer for 8 people? We don't know yet. If summoner indeed leans support, are we going to need 10 supports?
On the flip side, if players were able to fill other roles, we could be taking 2-3 tanks for off tanking and taking 2-3 tanks to fill in support roles. Protecting healers and doing objectives. Instead of bringing more than 5 clerics to get more healing (or having some whack ass lower dps self healing rogue), we could have a bard and a summoner both cleric secondary to fill in additional healing needed.
The roles being filled needs to make sense obviously but it can be done and I feel will make this game much stronger than the current expectations.
The way I see it, Intrepid currently only have 8 classes to balance, not 64. Each class has 8 main builds within it to balance, but balancing a DPS build of a class against another DPS build of that same class is quite easy.
Giving each class a second role would then mean balancing 16 classes. 8 of those classes would each have 7 builds that need to be balanced against each other, and the other 8 builds would need to be balanced against a totally different class.
This is a much harder prospect. Not impossible, but much harder than what Intrepid have on their hands without it.
Your point about raid composition - I disagree with the loot aspect of it in regards to Ashes. Most loot is going to take the form of materials. If we kill a dragon, it may drop a scale or some such. While this may be able to be turned in to a tanks shield, it may also be able to be turned in to a mages ring, or a rogues dagger. Essentially, us players will determine the distribution of loot among classes, not the drop table of mobs.
Assuming I do play this game, I have no intention of taking more than 1 tank along on any content that doesn't specifically ask for more than one tank - much as has been the case in every game I have led raids in.
Where I don't see any particular need to give each primary class a second role is in the fact that people wouldn't want to take them, generally speaking.
Since all classes have a non-combat ability that all groups are likely to want, all groups are going to want to take one of each class. If you take a second mage instead of a rogue, you do so knowing that you will miss out on opening up the hidden door that you all know is there, but that can only be opened up by a rogue.
While some groups may find that they occasionally can't find one of each class, that is where the summoner seems to me to fit in. Groups will try their best to get one of each class in to the group, but if it fails, a summoner can fill in that missing role if it is a tank or healer, or can just be DPS if both are present.
If all classes can be two roles, the point (as I see it) of summoners is essentially lost. They seem to be trading having a primary role for being the one class that can perform multiple roles when the specific situation calls for it. In order for that trade off to be worth it, that situation needs to come up - as in, there needs to be times when the summoner tanking or healing the group is the only option available to said group.
Also, don't expect a Summoner/Mage with a DPS oriented Summon to out DPS a Mage/x.
You invite a Brood Warden because you want a Summoner/x. Just as you invite a Magician because you want a Bard/x. If you want a main Tank, you invite a Tank/x.
Any Mage/x is a viable Primary Archetype Mage. Any Summoner/x is a viable Primary Archetype Summoner.
If you want a main tank, you should invite a Tank/x; not an x/Tank.
I've already explained this.
A Teleport on a charge makes it so the target basically cannot Evade you, even if they go Invisible. You would teleport past any wall placed between you and your target. Getting hit by a Snare would be irrelevant because you instantly Teleport to your target.
That's not just cosmetic.
You don't lose Damage Mitigation to heal. Augment heals add on to the Damage Mitigation from your Active Skills. And, yes, the augments from the Life School would effectively be the equivalent of the augments from the Damage Mitigation School.
It's not clusterfuck to balance because the balance is with the 8 Primary Archetypes, rather than 64 sub-classes.
You don't really have shitty-specced players because any Primary Archetype is viable - especially in PvE.
Risk v Reward means that your choices matter when you choose your primary role via the choice of Primary Archetype.
Also, again, Tank/Rogue is just as viable as Tank/Tank - they just play differently. Just don't expect a Rogue/Tank to tank as well as a Tank/Rogue.
Can we both agree that creating a class for the sole purpose of 'being the last resort' is a bad design for any class?
It's not that a summoner 'can't be that' but summoner has a clear and obvious role to me and the thing you just wrote down is a side benefit of that.
A summoner's role in my mind is to help the group adapt to a dynamic situation created by either a complex enemy set or chain of different enemies. They usually achieve this by giving a certain set of utility buffs and through switching which summons are up depending on the phase of combat/enemy type.
To put another way, a bard buffs your teams base strategy/capabilities. A summoner can alter that strategy beyond what would be otherwise possible. Summoners with fewer summons limit their flexibility in exchange for amplified effect. Presumably because they are in a team or like a set of activities that doesn't require that dynamism.
Also sorry for derailing the thread for tank with summoner yet agaim, but in this case I felt like it was worth possibly extending Noaani's perception since they may not have actually played with a summoner main or had the FFXI summoner experience.
They aren't going to care if you aren't the best healer ever, or the best tank ever, or if you can do the most damage. They're not going to be picky. They want to get it done. That's how PUGs usually are.
That doesn't mean I'm guaranteed to play a Summoner. I haven't seen it in-game and I might hate it. But I really like the idea of it. And I'd worry that maybe being "second- or third-best at everything" seems like it might keep you from participating in end-game content where you really need to have everyone at their peak to succeed, I just remember that one of the core design goals is for every archetype to bring something unique, so while I have no idea what that will be for Summoners I'm sure they will in some way be attractive to bring along if not absolutely necessary.
Right and what I am saying is that 'attractive feature' shouldn't be 'pick up group champion' it should be what I described above. 'The one in charge of adapting the groups strategy to the new situation for optimized advantage' for lack of a better short description.
In order to really work, I would think summoners need to have a way to change their build mid-continent. Even if they only have two builds that they can switch between, I can see it working. Though three would be ideal.
What this then means is that every group would want a summoner, as it would mean the group could carry on if the tank or healer had to run off for what ever reason. This is an added use for them on top of outright filling in for a tank or healer if the need arose.
I honestly can see it being a fine class if this is how it worked.
If it turns out that summoners have to take their spec in with them and are stuck with it, meaning groups had to pick from an actual tank or a summoner tank and they were basically stuck with it (which I would assume is what you are thinking) then I agree it is probably a bad idea.
Many ways to diversify even when you double-down on Archetype.
As for the whole "Why only 1 tank when we get 4 DPS types" argument, well, those 4 DPS types aren't the same. As you can see on the classes page we have arcane and martial classes, which I translate into physical damage and magical damage. We also know players have different defenses against those two types, so it stands to reason monsters/bosses have the same.
So even though ranger and mage are both ranged DPS, they are not the same at all even if only looking at DPS. Both may be needed for a dungeon run, where they shine in different encounters. One does physical damage and the other does magical damage. And that's ignoring all the other stuff that differentiates the two ranged DPS classes, like the ranger traps, roots, bleeds, and burning, and the mage with the snares, knockdown and higher AOE damage.
Where I see the augment system coming in is, for example, adding magic damage to a ranger skill, so it does a mix of physical damage and magical damage. In this case it adds versatility against different monsters (or player gear/specs) at the cost of doing even more physical damage with a different augment. Or for a mage, it can add a physical damage element to the fireball for example, so they still do some damage to monsters with really heavy magical damage mitigation.
I posted some thoughts on a broodwarden a while ago
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/50881/a-different-type-of-tank#latest
A ranged tank that could tank through pets sounds fun.
I'd actually like to make a point about this which I want your opinion on explicitly, because I see it as a contradiction and I want to know how your specific style of thinking resolves it.
So, it's implied that Ashes will be balanced/designed such that an 8-person group takes one of each Archetype. Let's assume for a moment that this won't be 'for their special skills in a dungeon run', stuff outside of the combat (if this is your resolution for what I ask, just say and move on and you can ignore the incoming essay altogether)
How does this interact with the multiple ways to play, specifically the 'ability to take builds that are drastically different from some expectation'. It seems a contradiction to me, particularly in the case of Clerics and Rogues, but it applies to all. I'll use them as the example though.
If a Rogue's Active Skills are evades and smokebombs and similar, and a party is marching through an open area with strong enemies, fighting for exp, and the Tank is doing a good job at tanking and therefore holding attention all of the time... what did you need the Rogue for? If they 'didn't take Backstab' and 'didn't take heavy Bleed related skills' and let's say the enemy is spiders or anything with so much health or so relatively 'little' health that poison/attrition skills, even if taken, don't matter.
Why is that Rogue there? It's a valid build of Rogue, possibly, but this isn't a question about balance, valid builds, etc. It's entirely 'what did they mean about the strong suggestion to take every Archetype?', unless they mean for one or two skills that either 'are always available to the Archetype' or 'every member of the Archetype is expected to unlock'.
The opposite situation happens with a DPS Cleric, and I mean full 'mace swinging Templar who basically just heals as an incidental thing'. You've certainly met one now, potentially. How many direct healing abilities does this Templar 'have to take' before they are 'what is expected in the Cleric slot'? Are they supposed to be in a DPS slot instead? But that would mean 2x Cleric and -1 of something else. But let's be 'generous' and remove our 'no backstabs, evasion-master Rogue' since they were going to do about as much damage as this DPS Cleric anyway.
I'm sure that it's fine for this party composition to exist. In the open field, fighting Trolls or Griffons or Sladeborne... what are they 'losing' that would make them ever go 'man it would be nice to have a Rogue now'?
And what about secondary class combined with talents combined with gear combined with tattoos, combined with node affiliation combined with organization/religious affiliation, racials, etc?
Should all these less important than base class (original choice of class) or not?
Less important by how much?
Whats important is that they be viable variations, not memes like WoW Classic's enhancement shamans/retribution paladins/dps druids/etc
How did I throw what around?
You're the one (one of the people) throwing it from game development to personal attacks all the time?
Accusations which, of course, when asked to support, you fail to.
Then why did they open an early Alpha forum and explicitly ask us to say how we would like things to be?
Why didn't they open a late Alpha or Beta forum?
And people got mad because I have concerns and suspicions without seeing a more final product.
Of course I get suspicious when it is implicitly said the secondary archetype implicitly won't matter much.
I'm just looking forward to the game that is Stephen's vision.
I have found that some of the best things are the realization of one person's passion.
I have also found that working around and through constraints add to the enjoyment, challenge, and ultimately the overall experience of an undertaking.
I fully agree that many of the best things are the realization of one person's passion.
But that's a fallacy in its own way. That's like saying 'some of the greatest games of all time were on the Super Nintendo'. It has no bearing on the average quality of games, or the quality of any given SNES game. 90% of them were terrible.
It's just natural curation. One person working alone can have terrible ideas, mediocre ideas, great ideas, suspiciously plagiaristic ideas, etc. A group may have the same outcomes.
To each their own, but you basically took two entirely subjective stances and gave them as response to a much less subjective stance.
To put it much more harshly, weak logic never saves anything that wasn't already going to do well. There are many people like you who 'look forward to a thing that is someone's vision' and the thing turns out to be not worth their hope. That outcome is completely unconnected to both the things you said. If you prefer to 'have weaker opinions on subjects and take what you are given', that's valid, like 'trusting a chef to make something you will like'. But there's no argument that 'doing so will result in something you like' unless you're just not very picky, and that approach has no benefit to people who are.
EDIT: My data indicates your preference is High Priest, and that you had this response type there too. There's no need to respond to anything I said, I should have checked the data before saying anything.
Similar to the Tank Active Skills - most of them generate Threat or provide Damage Mitigation.
As with Cleric, many of the Active Skills Heal and deal damage or deal damage and also Heal.
The primary role of a Rogue is Damage. You seem to be discussing a Rogue who chooses not to perform their primary role? This sounds like what Ironhope was asking for... a Rogue who wants to be able to switch their primary role from Damage to Support...or...Tank? That doesn't seem wise to me, but sure, someone could try that.
If I were to group with such a person, I would try to have some x/Rogues who focus on DPS/Bleed augments along to compensate.
I don't understand your question about one of every Archetype.
The design expectation is that a Rogue/x will fulfill the primary role of Damage.
I don't really understand what you mean by a DPS Cleric who basically heals as an incidental thing.
The primary role of a Cleric is Support. DPS would be a secondary role.
So, we should be expecting any Cleric/x to be primarily providing Support and secondarily providing Damage.
If what a person wants to do is primarily deal Damage and incidentally Heal, they should choose a Primary Archetype whose primary role is Damage and, perhaps, Cleric as their Secondary Archetype.
If I were to group with such a person as you describe, I would try to have some x/Clerics who focus on Life augments along to compensate.
The devs are balancing the game for an 8-person group with one of each Primary Archetype who fullfills their primary role. Anyone could try to find alternatives. That doesn't mean they will be successful.
If they are successful - that's great!!
But, the devs are not designing the game to ensure that Primary Archetypes trying to make a secondary role their primary role will find success. They are balancing the game around Primary Archetypes and their primary roles...while allowing some ability to move closer to a secondary role via augments. It's still expected that each class will primarily fulfill their primary role - but adding a secondary roll in addition to the primary role creates diversity.
What I'm about to say may be ... 'offensive' to you by certain standards (I don't know for sure) so I put it in tags in case you prefer to read it at a time when you are less likely to perceive it as an attack on you, just in case that helps.
And that would mean that Ashes has the potential to be developed with this (in my mind) lack of internal logic. So it's concerning. It fosters 'fear' as you have pointed out multiple times. Yes. I outright fear the concept of a game developed by someone with your ability to bypass things I consider logical. Now, this is obviously no big deal, I don't have to play it, but I started without this insight. I saw what Intrepid offered, and I followed my own logic. Only through you, have I been offered this looking-glass into a world that I can fear. The illumination of my ignorance.
It is possible that Ashes will be designed from the mindset that you use to speak, and so, I cringe, and I doubt, and I consider my options. Because whether you are right or wrong to hold the perspectives you do, you are the reminder. Caveat emptor.
Knowing your flow, it won't matter, I will hope for just the usual dismissive 'lmao' equivalent.