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 can tell you from experience, it will not. Unfortunately, Discord exists, third-party sites exist, and most of all, elitists exist. If you refuse to open your inspection or refuse to send them a screenshot of your gear via Discord you will most likely just be kicked from the group. If we make toggle off inspections or no inspections at all then Intrepid needs to also make it a bannable offense to request screenshots or demand an inspection request. However, trying to make this a bannable offense would be the same as trying to make DPS meters bannable in FFXIV, which they are, which has accomplished nothing. This is a game, and because this is a game we have to accept that certain things are simply unable to be enforced, and instead of focusing on that aspect we should focus on the portion of the player base that will follow the rules of the world and make the world immersive and enjoyable.
I have also seen people mention an investigation-type skill, and while conceptually, I agree with this, there should be some additions, in my opinion. As your character progresses and gains more experiences in the world I would imagine they would recognize more things from the experiences. An example of this would be seeing a tank walking around with a shield made of (insert random metal) looks a lot different than a shield made of a different metal. A description of the *VISIBLE* items would be perfect, and if you want more information of the exact item then you should ask the player, or kill the player and get a full inspection of their gear, regardless of whether or not you can actually loot that gear, you should be able to see what gear they had. Anyone can tell the difference between a bronze chest plate and an iron chest plate, whether or not it's enchanted though? Not everyone can tell.
If we are going to include inspections into the game, I don't believe that potential enemies should be able to inspect us to get thorough details. Descriptions of items and obvious details should be acquirable such as
Personally, I would want to go deeper, give me some method of identifying gear, instead of just having the gear drop and me already knowing that what I'm holding is a "Legendary sword of (insert high-level boss)", but I digress. This is where we run into the issue of cosmetics. Cosmetics make it to where we can't see what the players have on them visually, so we have to rely on some form of inspection or indicator. A game like WoW has player health total to gauge the power of an enemy, this is achievable because higher item level gear always has more stamina, giving them more health, and while it's not a perfect representation, it's close enough. The currently proposed indicator, while obviously not finished, I think will not be up to par with what we want to know about a character especially in a large-scale battle.
TLDR: Not allowing inspections will not stop elitists from demanding a screenshot or kicking you from a group only intrepid can stop that. Instead, make the inspection be more immersive and feel like it belongs in the world.
I would also like the request system mentioned previously for the more in-depth information. So you can right click a player nearby and click "Inspect" for the basic source and type information or click "Request Full Inspection" for the all the gritty details. I also like the idea of adding in the options menu the following checkboxes, "Auto Reject Inspection Requests", "Auto Accept Guild Inspection Requests", "Auto Accept Family Inspection Requests", "Auto Accept Friend Inspection Requests". This would allow someone to check all the boxes and they will automatically reject all requests except those from Guild, Family, and Friends, those they would auto accept.
tldr: I just want to know where they got that cool piece of gear and how to get it myself, stats should require consent to see.
Once again, I am in favor of a request system or a skill based situation.
For gear it’s good to see the actual item, the transmog, the costume, the stats, and who made it. Basically answering ‘how do I get something that looks like that?’ or ‘what does she have that’s doing so much damage?’
For stats primary and secondary would be good. Basically, can I see how someone else is having an impact on the world. It may also be helpful to see crafting / profession stats as well as known recipes.
That said, I want to be able to not be inspectable as well.
If you duel someone, then post duel you should be able to inspect each other
If you inspect another player then your toggle should be turned ON for a pre determined time period
Allow options associated with the toggle eg: allow guildies/friends to inspect but restrict others
Toggling shouldn't prevent another player seeing achievements, titles etc
Nova beat me to it, I feel like a request to inspect mechanic is a perfect solution because it would allow you to share you build with others while still maintaining you element of surprise in open world pvp and duel, but I disagree with nova when it comes to allowing higher up to inspect your build without asking for permition maybe among the inspection settings add an option to block higher ups from inspecting you.
It just feels a little too intrusive especially if you spent a lot of effort testing and working our the perfect off meta build that fits you, it would be a shame if someone could just look at it uninvited.
If an request systems turns out to be a unwanted, at least an option to block all gear inspections would be necessary in my own humble opinion
because it takes away from the element of surprise and compromises your build, people could use it to decide whether they want to gank you or not for example.
people can always just ask you or request to inspect you gear
But other than what it looks like should be it. Seeing a longsword, yes. Knowing it's a +5 vorpal weapon NO!
Look...that mage has a wand. But without witnessing it's use it's just a wand.....etc.....
As for hiding builds, people will always find ways for optimizing them even without the inspection of another character. Either certain players will be posting builds on websites publicly or kept secret until theorycrafters figure them out.
I think the biggest worry people have with inspection is the PVP aspects of the game. I personally think inspecting someone is not going to make a big enough difference when it comes to a PVP fight. A good pvper will carry all types of armor in an endgame to go against their type of opponent. If the goal is to hide hp and level during PVP, then possibly have inspection off while PVP flagged to not give the level away from the gear. But I am sure the combat alone will give it away almost immediately due to the damage/healing/hp that you are clearly out leveled.
Giving the player the free option to toggle inspection kills the immersion of playing an MMORPG. I like giving the example of a lowbie checking out the high-level character that looks badass. I know when I was that lowbie in the scenario, it gave me the incentive to level up and have a goal to reach their level.
That's why I'm against inspection altogether. Guilds will just say 'allow inspection or get booted'.
C'mon, you're taking all the fun out of it! Its like car jacking someone in Texas. Are they packing a .44mag or not?
-I think it would be great to be able to see Gear (item including enchant, gems secondary stats), Stats (defensive, offensive, healing etc.), Talents, total Mana and HP, Pvp rating.
Also having a detailed option to see for example: how much armor rating the tank has and how much physical damage % that armor prevent.
Should you have the option to allow or disallow others from inspecting your character? Why or why not?
-That's the tricky part. it would be great to have a detailed character inspection window, but not if the enemies can use that to know whether or not they should attack you. Maybe if you can only inspect players that are in your party, raid, alliance, or guild?
-We could also use an inspection window with minimum details for anyone to see, then get the more detailed window when in the same party, raid, alliance or guild.
Admittedly, this makes guild management more chaotic and difficult, but on the other hand this creates a challenge that affects mega-corporate guilds and has less of an impact on smaller guilds who would do these things anyways (go through a build with you, negotiate a disagreement, sus out espionage). In effect, implementing these tools would give mega guilds an advantage over smaller guilds, and encourage corporate behaviour in guilds - which is a bad thing in my books. (Maybe a guild perk that mega guilds can unlock?)
Otherwise I really like everyone else's thoughts on proximity invitation to inspect.
I would prefer if you can see WHICH gear, but not the stats on the gear - you can only see the specific stats if the item is put into your inventory/crafting window/equipped.
This. I get that you want to show community involvement by putting these topics up for discussion, but you make people nervous that you plan on changing things that would be core to what was sold as a concept years ago. No addons, gearscore, and limited information shown for threat determination. We have already seen the creep go from no info unless in party to now showing level, gear type, and class displayed. The oft repeated mantra of no dps meters is because they breed toxicity. As others have pointed out, having an inspection mechanic that cannot be stopped will only lead to other metas of exclusion. "Oh, I just looked at your chest and shield, it is obvious you have no idea what you are doing as a tank. No group for you! Get bent noob!"
While I don't necessarily disagree with what you are saying here (I disagree with some of the points you have touched on, but not on the fact that others have made those points, which is all you are saying), I have a question for anyone that thinks toxicity is a good reason to exclude inspections.
That question is simple - why is it that this toxicity is worse before the group starts than during the content the group is running?
Because if we are being honest with ourselves, this is all we are doing. We are moving that point of conflict from happening before the group gets going, to while the group is going when it becomes obvious that the tank in question indeed does not know what they are doing.
In my mind, that point of conflict is better off happening as soon as it possibly can happen. If the tank isn't up to par, then the group is better off knowing that before they set out, and working on getting a better tank. I'm not overly concerned about the tanks feelings here, because regardless of which way it goes, they are going to get kicked - they are probably better off getting kicked from the group in town after being inspected than in a group dungeon and being left to fight their own way home (which is what I would do if a tank isn't up to par and we only find out mid-content, if they waste my groups time, they can make their own way home).
I also give no credence to the idea that the tank could be better than they appear once inspected. In a game like Ashes, people will give others the benefit of the doubt more than they would in a game like WoW. This is because WoW doesn't give people the chance, generally, to group with the same people again in pick up groups. This means there really is no reason not to pass on someone if you are at all unsure about them.
On the other hand, in Ashes, with a more limited pool of players to group up with (likely generally consisting of the few thousand people in the nodes around you), This means that if you do give a player that seems borderline a shot, if they fail you can just blacklist them. You may fail this piece of content, but they will miss out on many more content opportunities in the future. They stand to lose more in the long run than you do.
This leads me to believe that the only time you would refuse to take someone along on a piece of content is if they are blatantly under-prepared for it, in which case it is inevitable that things will go badly.
So really, all we are achieving by not allowing inspections in terms of toxicity is moving it from before the content to during the content, and I fail to see why that is desirable.
1.) fully see everyone's gear all the times.
2.) toggle
This is an easy one for me personally, as its completely unimportant. I get that it may be so for others though.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP31ixSBO7GHKLBefWVcJaA
The second thought I had here would be to also restrict it to towns or freeholds, any 'safe' areas, and allow the ability to easily swap (or automatically swap) to a set you designate as your town outfit when you enter one. That way those who want to keep strength a secret can just swap gear in towns and those who don't care can wander in their full setup and show off. Ideally for this there would be a system in which your town outfit just acted as a sort of second set of cosmetic gear slots you always have equipped as well, so you're not clogging inventory to keep it on you.
The only reason I want this is cause I'm an older mmo player who remembers the fun in having 0 transmog in the game. If I saw someone who wore better gear than me - that's a challenge I wanna try. If I see a dude in super low gear - I ain't touching him cause I don't want corruption. With transmogs all of this decision making goes out the window.
Yes, there's the risk and the reward in a system with no inspection, but the risk outweighs most of the rewards for everyone. A hardcore pvper might PK someone by mistake just cause he did a warning attack and killed his target with it. And a casual player might finally try to stand up for himself when he's getting attacked out in the field, but choose the wrong time and get absolutely demolished by a high-lvl player with a low-lvl gear transmog. Both of those player will feel like shit.
By having even just a gear set indicator you can solve that problem. The hardcore pvper will choose better targets to have more fun in his pvp, while the casuals can better judge their surroundings by checking other people's estimated strength. And people who couldn't care less about their opponent's gear won't even pay attention to the info icon. So I really don't see any downsides to having it.
Tread lightly.
Of course in a guild group you can't really hide your gear but in pick-up group it's another story.
Let's say you are able to inspect gear just by clicking on someone's name in chat, wouldn't you use this feature to choose who to invite in your party? I would.
Would it be good for the community? Unlikely.
CLICCA QUI PER UNIRTI ALL'ORDINE
The main reason I believe in no gear inspections at all is that I want character reputation to really matter in the game. And I want to reduce toxicity in the community.
PvP Scenario
One or more people out gathering. People passing by have no idea just by looking at them if they can kill the people and take their stuff. They have to either know the characters already, or spend time observing the characters more to see if they get attacked and how they handle that monster.
This follows the Risk vs. Reward mantra instead of being able to just click and see if they can take the fight, eliminating the risk element to a large extent. Good gankers will gain infamy and reputation by their willingness to take those risks and getting away with it. Strong gatherers will gain fame and reputation by being able to fend off the gankers, either killing them or getting away.
PvE Scenario
An unknown character wants to join the group for a dungeon or raid. Having an inspection option, through toggle or not, creates an expectation in the game that gear is a thing you check for. People will get rejected due to gear alone. It's a toxic system that undermines the community in several ways.
Yes, there are elitist people who will demand screenshots or gear links in chat if they can't inspect, but, they will be the exception and not the norm. And that is the important part here.
Gear inspection fosters an unnecessary toxic elitism that is unhealthy for any game, because toxicity tends to breed more toxicity. People get angry being rejected due to gear without even being given the chance to prove themselves otherwise, and arguments and name-calling ensue over a BS system.
It undermines the whole reputation thing. There is a risk involved in inviting an unknown player to your group. The reward is getting to know another person, for better or worse. Maybe they lied about how good they were, and now their reputation suffers for it to a much larger extent than simply being rejected due to perceived inadequate gear. Or they do well and their reputation increases among your group. Either way, it's based on their actions and skills, not an impersonal gear score-like system.
If you like what someone is wearing appearance-wise, just talk to them and have them be able to drop a link to the piece in chat.
Formerly T-Elf
Your builds are not unique and might not even be a top contender in terms of PvE or PvP.
There will be people out there who will make a build just as good and if not better.
Those people will share these builds, and seeing as there aren't many abilities to utilize on the bars, your build will be figured out very fast, regardless. So saying "I don't want an opposing player to figure out my build", well, newsflash, they will and very fast, too.
We are in a time and age where playstyles can be narrowed down quickly, and abilities be analyzed and countered even faster than before.
That being said:
Request to Inspect works,
regular right click/interact with player to Inspect works.
No inspection whatsoever works.
But, for me just regular inspection is grand.
Get to see gear, talents/build. The overall stat overview and whatnot can be left to the inspecting player to do the math on.
We understand our builds will not be entirely unique, however, there is a difference between not being unique and being completely available to someone else so they can plan a counter build, copy your build or reject you because of your build. We can have multiple hotbars and up to 30 active slots. We can also have 4 Augment trees to choose from. The likelihood you will find an exact match is very finite unless you have used a public build or the devs change the no inspection rule which was one of the reasons I've continually invested.
I'm completely against Inspections about Stats, talents and skills. I'm against any form of Inspection at all. I can accept a toggle and would always have it disabled much like potential proximity chat. So far, these small changes the devs have made to the whole player interaction/player combat side of the coin has made me less enthusiastic and even slightly peeved that I've spent so much money and the core principles are being washed away.
This would be my favorite way to handle it as well. Also, if in a PvP setting, having the option to know when someone is inspecting you would be a bonus. Although, if that starts to get annoying, it would be nice to have the ability to turn off those notifications when we don't want to be bothered. Or, if you put someone on ignore, this is one of the notifications that get ignored from those that are purposely trying to annoy you.
Sacred Haven
TTV/Sarcoth
The inspection should reveal the name of the items, and maybe their general nature (ie. leather boot, pointy hat, one handed sword), but stats and specs shouldn't be that easily obtained, it's an visual inspection, not a magical scrying. These could be shared by the inspected if asked for, something like opening a trade window.
Also, if there are other inspection options, like player history that you make up for your background, would be really cool. Or if they're really well-known maybe have a title or 'received prestigious award' and such show? Or a box where you can enter your role play info, "A young fool who wishes to be a hero. Inexperienced in the world, he often lands himself in trouble." Maybe can introduce a job skill that allows an enchantment or something for a period of time when wearing the armor or equipment that shields everything but it's name? Put it in the players hands for economy.
I pretty much agree with all of this. Toxicity is not a reason to disallow something that the toxic players will simply find a way around. For example, if they don't allow inspections, it's just going to be commonplace to request a screenshot of the character's gear through discord. Though, I do hope that more people would be willing and focused on helping their fellow players get better rather than kicking them from a group and blacklisting them.
@unknownsystemerror IMO, if Ashes is a game that it's obvious that a player doesn't know what they're doing from just their chest and shield, then the game has already failed at what it set out to do. A piece of gear should not be the end-all determiner of how good a player is, it should be their skill.
On the DPS meter argument, unless Intrepid blocks a large portion of combat data from being viewable by the client then it will just run the same course as FFXIV. Meaning someone will just create a DPS meter that pulls that information from the screen or the data being sent to the server. Depending on how they block that data it could make it very exploitable.
All in all, I hope Intrepid will make the right decisions for this and focus more on the world and its immersion than the players who will ruin that world.
1. allow all -> Everyone can see always your data/armor. That would be the option for me, because i dont care what they see. I can still kill them :-D ...... i hope.
2. request -> People have to make a request, which comes as a popup on your screen, so that you can decide in that situation what you want.
3. denied for all -> no popup. No one allowed to inspect. People have to speak with you to activate point 1 or 2 for the moment.
With these simple points everyone gets what he/she wants.
If there are more wishes like only allow to see the armor or only allow to see the skills, then that could be added too, if necessary.
For the question in a pvp situation? Simple solution. Make inspect only possible from near distance. No attacker stands still in front of you before an attack i think. Thats very dangerous, because they dont see if i would attack them first in that moment.