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Min max players!
Mrhubbard
Member
This is for the min max players! What class/augment are you going to go? What weapons would you go for? What stats will you specifically go for. What is the purpose of your character?
Btw this is just theory crafting. You can express all your ideas on what your ideal character is even if some of those aspects won’t be in the game.
Btw this is just theory crafting. You can express all your ideas on what your ideal character is even if some of those aspects won’t be in the game.
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You heard it here first.
(More seriously, any number of things could change, but if Ashes were to release 'right now' with most people 'not immediately complaining about balance at first', that's the answer)
Not a bad guess
Either a scion or a spell sword would have been my guess.
Although I do see a bunch of crazy possibilities coming out of summoner depending on how open ended it is.
Come back during or after Alpha 2, and we can probably have a better discussion.
U.S. East
If you're really a min/max player, you'd wait until you see the numbers and abilities before picking anything.
That is, after they also clip out of bounds to skip quest requirements and get an early 148,000 exp boost at level 5.
Haha thats true. I aint picking a class for Min/Max. Im picking cause i like the idea of the class.
Actually this is only true up to a point.
The absolute min-maxiest will do simulations even before any numbers are available. Because the 'head start' of 'leveling the correct class' in a game like Ashes is huge.
Now, it'd definitely be speculation, but guessing doesn't hurt. So anyone who has played the Alpha or understands enough to reverse engineer the formulae on their abilities and balance design would definitely choose a min-max before even the Beta, and would just go into the Beta ready to spend most of their time testing it.
So even though I don't actually play min-max, I still do this automatically, therefore, Scion, until something changes (abilities nearly never make as much of a difference as design loopholes, and abilities get patched much faster and more comprehensively than design loopholes)
I'm only going to min/max to a certain point because if I fully min/max the game won't be fun. xD
U.S. East
True. Most don't min-max at all.
Of those who min-max, some wait for someone else to tell them how to do it.
Some smaller percentage don't wait for someone else to tell them how to do it and start working on it themselves.
And some smaller percentage of those start working on it as soon as they possibly can once they have numbers and data.
And some incredibly small percentage of those can write frame data based combat scenario simulators to start working on it with much less data.
Not that any of us know anyone like that.
I'd explain it to you, but it would take 3 pages and then you'd respond 'LMAO' and possibly something about speculation.
Are you familiar with the concept of 'frame data'?
Aren't we all sinners?
Imagine "Statistics say Nikua Spellsword is the least popular; it is bottom of the "least used" 58 race/class combinations (roughly 10% of total combinations)" - mass exodus of META chasers to the Nikua Spellsword to revel in those lovely buffs. If enough jump to the new race/class combo then the buffs slowly diminish because the race/class is no longer in the least used bracket. The META chasers jump to another unloved combo.
This kind of system could give Intrepid some really useful data that would allow them to bring the game closer to balance over time.
Naturally there will be classes that are underused for thematic purposes only. Like if there is one class of rogue that is a pirate compared to a hobo with a speed decrease. People are probably going to head into the pirate direction. The hobo class could have a skill called shank that stuns a target for 10 seconds though. The pirate players may never even notice until way later when people start exploring more.
Though I agree with the sentiment to some extent. They should probably look at data related to losses for things instead. Since if there are imbalances with the game then the same classes should be popping up more often when comparing loss data.
U.S. East
― Plato
Let them META sheeps do their thing when the time arrives.
Not sure what it should be. Any suggestions?
Bleed augments with no bleed abilities
NAH
but I want to see a tank bowman
In a game where balance on the damage front is not built to be completely ridiculous, the character with the best frame data advantage on average, wins, if you subtract any single outlier from their frame data interactions.
So first thing, what does 'balance on the damage front not being ridiculous' mean. It means that if the opponent stands there and does nothing, and both characters wear the same or appropriate level armor, that Fighters don't kill twice as fast as Tanks. This is, again, assuming 'both sides just go all out on their offense'.
It's explicitly around 'twice as fast'. Most people won't argue if a Fighter kills even up to 50% faster than a Tank because if they were dueling properly, the tank would mitigate some amount of the Fighter's damage. This isn't part of the min-maxing, this is a prior. This means you can argue with it if you want, it's 'rejecting a prior', and would just be 'a valid explanation of why you don't understand'. But of course, note that there's a difference between 'this is not true' and 'this might not be true.
Next, what does it mean to have Frame Advantage in a Split Body Combat MMO? First one measures the distance at which two characters would fight. Then you measure the time required for a player to strafe from 'directly in front of an opponent' to '45 degrees off' in frames, at that range. For Ashes right now this number is 118-ish, but of course, what it is now doesn't matter. What it is in Beta-2 will matter, which is our point of discussion. That's when min-maxers would be doing their work.
The faster a character can turn to track this opponent, the more likely the opponent is to be hit. Any time you attempt to strafe and your strafe does not result in you evading, you have wasted the frames spent evading and should have spent them trying to get into position to hit.
Except that for Rangers, in fact, any bow using class with a backward movement ability, evading can be done backwards, and not only will this help them evade melee classes, it also will increase their frame advantage, because the further back you are from your opponent, the further they have to move to get out of the 45 degree angle (this amount is arbitrary btw, but it's good to have a baseline for certain other abilities relative to hurtboxes, at close range, the real amount is 'whatever it takes to dodge something like a mage's fireball or a downslam or a small ground AoE).
So the Ranger uses a backward movement, and they lose the frames it took to execute that, from their damage, but they gain damage because the opponent functionally doesn't evade without losing their own Frame Advantage. So Rangers 'always have positive Frame Advantage' when retreating. Anything that makes this retreat more effective, faster, or more likely to succeed, increases this (hence, Scion, as example, but it could be anything).
Now this could easily be countered by gap-closers and other ranged weapon users. But Scions probably also do the most damage at range, right? Their shots are line of sight and can be led or predicted, unlike a Mage who telegraphs things and might be dodged by the Ranger. The mage might be best if it somehow uses less energy than the Ranger, and then Mages would be the best, because we can calculate that from the Frame Advantage (Mages basically being able to force other people to enter Frame Disadvantage in order to dodge their attacks - note, only if the Mage class is designed for PvP).
Rangers and Mages almost always have 'high tier' status in PvE also. Not solo, just 'I have big damage and someone else is taking the hits'. The easier Tanking is in the game, the more likely this is true even if their damage isn't as high as melee because Melee are in AoE range and properly positioned Rangers and Mages are not. Add a multiplier for if it's safer for the Bard to buff the backline DDs. If enemies have elemental weaknesses, Scions edge out here too. Just max single target damage from range. This is the basic version. Is this how it would work? Not necessarily, but the enemy design required such that a Scion is not the favored DD for a party goes against Ashes' design vision so far. This doesn't matter. You can 'look at the design' when it's in Beta and calculate 'how much is elemental damage bonus going to help on the average PvE leveling target?' and 'how much does PvE leveling need to avoid AoE?' For raiding, it's almost always good, but there are ways for it to not be.
So that's a metric for calculating PvP advantage, I believe it favors Scions but it doesn't matter if that's right, just plug in the numbers according to the combat design.
And a much easier one for PvE advantage, I believe also favors Scions but you can put in the 'values' for the PvE and Boss combat design.
Node Sieges and so on, Scions are the hit and run long range sniper support, and those characters are almost always heavy hitters in those situations that worry only about one counter, whereas almost every other class would worry about two or more counters.
That's page one.
You can look at the design to min/max when we are in Beta because we're supposed to have augments in Alpha 2.
I agree that by Beta-2 people will have enough data to meaningfully min/max.
You didn't even need one page or frame data at all to get us there.
and you dont need augments to setup base comparisons between available classes and their approach to gameplay
― Plato
Azherae then replied with Scion. Which, in Ashes, is a class; not an Archetype. Which means the context of the OP is being followed.
The subsequent replies also discuss Ashes classes: Dreadnought, Spellsword, Minstrel, Shaman...
I then said, "I dunno how it's possible to min/max or simulate any class prior to having augments - Alpha 1 did not have classes."
And Azherae agreed: "What it is in Beta-2 will matter, which is our point of discussion. That's when min-maxers would be doing their work." "You can 'look at the design' when it's in Beta and calculate 'how much is elemental damage bonus going to help on the average PvE leveling target?' and 'how much does PvE leveling need to avoid AoE?'"
If you want to discuss Archetypes - that is actually a different discussion which has nothing to do with my question/observation.
Like, would a sufficient amount of people being like "I don't like this, I don't appreciate this sort of behavior" get you to change course, or would you just keep doing it? If I could get a moderator to step in and talk to you, would that get you to change how you interact with the forums?
Just curious
Just so I'm clear, your entire original point was 'We can't discuss which classes are min/max because we can't discuss classes without knowing Augments and therefore discussing classes in this terminology is impossible'?
If I said "The ranged class that has the best augments for retreat abilities balanced with their best damage" would that be a semi-acceptable answer?
It's moreso that I was saying 'a methodology for min-maxing is available based on data we have now', and I failed to grasp that your post was a tautology based on that reaction you have to definitions, instead taking it to mean 'It isn't really possible to develop a min-max strategy this early', for which I apologize, since it assumed a level of contrarianism that I unfairly associate with you.
EDIT: Also, sorry for the dismissive Meme response, it's Melty Blood release day so I'm busy.