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Controversial: Augmentation might be a bad idea if set to 25 and later
Kesthely
Member
First of all let me asure you that i personally think that augments are a nice idea. However, i fear for its design implementation if not done properly
What we currently know is that at lvl 25 you get to choose your secondary archtype, and then can augment your primary skills. While this sounds great at first glance their isa major drawback of this system: It changes the fundamental game mechanic of the game after dozens of hours or more of gameplay.
A game is designed around a certain concept. Ashes is designed around archtypes and augmenting the primary archtype with a secondary class, or racial / faith or other rare augments. And while that design is interesting, and comprehensive for those who have been following the game, its not comprehensive for the starting new player.
Most MMO's have a leveling curve that slows down the leveling experience as you level up. They unlock more abilities as you grow stronger. And everyone interesting in playing an mmo knows this. However Ashes is going to be one of the, (or to my knowledge the only) few exceptions to this. At mid level the entire class design, up till that point changes. No longer are you a tank, but your a Tank Fighter, or a Tank Tank, and unlock the Augment system. And this is where the augment system might fail enormously.
Switching a design philosophy at mid tier might result in a lot of player drop off at that point.
Example:
You love playing elves, and you want to be a bad ass fighter with a bow. But up until level 25 you cannot augment your skills to be workable with a bow. While you enjoy your fighter, something is missing so at lvl 20you reroll ranger. You've spend about 20 hours into the game, and being an average player this has taken you between one or 2 weeks of real time. You've rerolled Ranger, again an elf, and you are enjoying your archery lifestyle. your slightly faster in leveling this time and just before your monthly subscription is up you reach high enough level to gain access to your secondary archtype. You enjoy augmenting your skills but then realize something that basically made you abandon your first character. after lvl 25 you could finally augment your skills with skills appropriate to how you actually wanted to play. Upset you decide not to resub scribe for next month. because the "stupid game should have let you do it from the get go"
And this is where i think that Ashes augment system might fall short. It starts for the average player a week or 2 after creating your class, and fundamentally changes it. Your class becomes a total new class (literally) with new options and playstyles. And while this is in one way good, its also bad in a way. The average gamer decides in the first 2 hours if they like a game or not. Not after 20 or 40 hours of playing. The average gamer also tries out different classes, to get a feel of the playstyle. They don't appreciate that you can completely change a playstyle only after 20 + hours.
So what can Ashes do to prevent this?
There are numerous ways.
Allow players to immediately augment their skills, so they understand the interface and that your secondary archtype will gratly enhance this later on. Each player should have racial augments that affect their skills from th start. Maybe the race has 1 or 2 favorite weapons and can alter the skills to be used trough those weapons, or a favorite damage type and can augment to that damage type.. In short, let the '"new player experience|" EXPERIANCE augments and let them create elven fighters with bows from level 1, instead of having to wait till 25 and force it to Fighter / ranger archtype.
After much discussions i've included a list of what different people want augments to be able to do:
Augments should:
Retain the primary archetypes role
Offer a way to change playstyle while retaining the role
Might lead to having to use different gear
Some want augments to have major effects
Some want augments to have minor effects
What we currently know is that at lvl 25 you get to choose your secondary archtype, and then can augment your primary skills. While this sounds great at first glance their isa major drawback of this system: It changes the fundamental game mechanic of the game after dozens of hours or more of gameplay.
A game is designed around a certain concept. Ashes is designed around archtypes and augmenting the primary archtype with a secondary class, or racial / faith or other rare augments. And while that design is interesting, and comprehensive for those who have been following the game, its not comprehensive for the starting new player.
Most MMO's have a leveling curve that slows down the leveling experience as you level up. They unlock more abilities as you grow stronger. And everyone interesting in playing an mmo knows this. However Ashes is going to be one of the, (or to my knowledge the only) few exceptions to this. At mid level the entire class design, up till that point changes. No longer are you a tank, but your a Tank Fighter, or a Tank Tank, and unlock the Augment system. And this is where the augment system might fail enormously.
Switching a design philosophy at mid tier might result in a lot of player drop off at that point.
Example:
You love playing elves, and you want to be a bad ass fighter with a bow. But up until level 25 you cannot augment your skills to be workable with a bow. While you enjoy your fighter, something is missing so at lvl 20you reroll ranger. You've spend about 20 hours into the game, and being an average player this has taken you between one or 2 weeks of real time. You've rerolled Ranger, again an elf, and you are enjoying your archery lifestyle. your slightly faster in leveling this time and just before your monthly subscription is up you reach high enough level to gain access to your secondary archtype. You enjoy augmenting your skills but then realize something that basically made you abandon your first character. after lvl 25 you could finally augment your skills with skills appropriate to how you actually wanted to play. Upset you decide not to resub scribe for next month. because the "stupid game should have let you do it from the get go"
And this is where i think that Ashes augment system might fall short. It starts for the average player a week or 2 after creating your class, and fundamentally changes it. Your class becomes a total new class (literally) with new options and playstyles. And while this is in one way good, its also bad in a way. The average gamer decides in the first 2 hours if they like a game or not. Not after 20 or 40 hours of playing. The average gamer also tries out different classes, to get a feel of the playstyle. They don't appreciate that you can completely change a playstyle only after 20 + hours.
So what can Ashes do to prevent this?
There are numerous ways.
Allow players to immediately augment their skills, so they understand the interface and that your secondary archtype will gratly enhance this later on. Each player should have racial augments that affect their skills from th start. Maybe the race has 1 or 2 favorite weapons and can alter the skills to be used trough those weapons, or a favorite damage type and can augment to that damage type.. In short, let the '"new player experience|" EXPERIANCE augments and let them create elven fighters with bows from level 1, instead of having to wait till 25 and force it to Fighter / ranger archtype.
After much discussions i've included a list of what different people want augments to be able to do:
Augments should:
Retain the primary archetypes role
Offer a way to change playstyle while retaining the role
Might lead to having to use different gear
Some want augments to have major effects
Some want augments to have minor effects
0
Comments
I disagree.
You are basically saying that games should throw everything they have at new players within the first hour or two of game play. In any real game - a game with both depth and breadth, this would overwhelm even a seasoned gamer.
Every MMO has things that players gain access to as they progress in level. This is not unique - in fact it is a near requirement in order to hold player interest.
If a player would quit Ashes because of this, they would not have stayed in the game very long anyway, and are not the kind of player the game should be altered to suit.
Augments come from many places. The only ones that come from secondary archetype selection come at level 25. Are you proposing that Intrepid allow secondary archetype selection at level1?
One of the reasons that Ashes allows every race to play every archtype and let every archtype be augmented by every other archtype is to allow that freedom to create that "D&D" feeling of truly making your character your own.
Were not talking of implementing new systems in here, were talking of allowing a set amount of options in the game design that's going to be inherent to each member of that race to be implemented at the start instead of after x hours of gameplay.
Another example: At some point Staff combo was featured a ability for the cleric that when using staffs when doing basic attacks with that staff you would get mana back (it didn't make it to Alpha 1 but its unsure if its going to be implemented later on) You play a cleric, and you invest points in staff combo to allow your attacks to regain mana. but you also want your racial favorite weapon to be able to do so. So you spend additional skill points to augment that skill even further so it now uses your racial weapon for that ability instead.
Its an introductionary way of how augments work and race and fate are an excellent way to implement such features without overwhelming, or unbalancing the game.
Edit: If we go by Alpha 1 a starting character starts out with 3 skill points to spend. They can choose to get one passive and one active skill, or spend points on 2 active skills, potentialy maxing out one of the skills immediatly. if we assume that augments are also going to be costing 1 or 2 skill points instead of getting an active skill and a passive skill this would allow the player to get one active skill and augment it with a racial augment.
It wouldn't even invalidate the Fighter / Ranger choice for example if the racial augment that does the same as one of the Ranger augments costs more. (eg Elven racial augment to use your skill trough the use of the bow costs 2 skill points, and the ranger archtype allows you to do the same with the use of 1 skill point)
Allowing the choice of a Secondary Archetype at Level 25 isn't "changing a fundamental game mechanic".
The Secondary Archetype IS the fundamental game mechanic that you yourself are trying to change...
I disagree.
lvl 1-24: you buy you buy (passive abilities) and get x skill eg the fighter's charge.
eg in 0.5 seconds you travel to your target within 30 ft. This is blocked by obstructions. then make your attack
25+ you uagment the skill with an augmentation, making it work different. You augment it with mage teleportation:
eg you instantly teleport to your target and make your attack. This works even if there are obsturctions between you or the target is at an elevation where you would normally be unable to reach.
That is a fundamental change in your class gameplay.
And some of the archtype / augment options lets you drastically change your playstyle. From making physical attacks magical, or vice versa (requiring completely different stats of gear) making some abilities from melee to ranged or vice versa (which with hybrid combat will feel completely different to play) or changing some abilities from single target to area of effect or vice versa.
If you discover 20 hours in that your character can suddenly change from physical to magical, and you end up liking that playstyle you'll need a completely different set of gear. If you go from melee to ranged or ranged to melee that requires a different weapon, I can forsee a "fighter" planning his character around an archthpe, focus on a staff, and then take mage abilities so he can teleport charge and then smack it with a firedamage dealing attack that makes his fighter abilities completely magical, and be very effective because against other fighters his magical attacks bypass most other fighters defense, while his plate holds up against them.
At 25 suddenly having 8 archtypes available to use on all your then active abilities, with l hundreds of build options per class. That's what going to overwhelm players. NOT the fact that you start out with a racial introduction augment so you learn that you can augment your skills and thus form your own unique playstyle, and then gradually open up more and more options
The idea that someone might find they prefer their new playstyle isn't a good enough reason to modify the existing design. It's the design's purpose.
No, WE know that that's the case, there are going to be a lot of players that go into the game blindly by all kinds of references, marketing or word of mouth. Most players don't follow development years before launch, they don't deepdive into the game before they get a chance to play it. They install it and then start playing. That's why that is called the "new player experience" Those who've familiarized themselves with the systems, races, classes, builds, abilities, are the exception. We enter the game as veterans of the system even before we've had a minute of game time. Sure we still need to get accustomed to some things, and get our bearings. But we know and understand the underlying systems. a new player doesn't.
Look at this article: https://www.limelight.com/resources/white-paper/state-of-online-gaming-2019/
The average game time per day is 1 hour 22 mins, They don't spend that precious time deepdiving into the mechanics of the game, they log on, play have fun, and 20+ days later they suddenly realize that they maybe wasted 3 weeks of their time playing a game that if they knew of it would have done differently.
Now you can say: But i don't need someone that only plays 1 hour a day in my game. But that's where your wrong. Those players help build up the node, they contribute xp, that either levels it up, or refrains it from leveling down, it provides people with a market to sell goods, or buy resources from, eventually they'll also participate in dungeons / raids / pvp. the average player is the backbone of a game its integral in its design in game, but also for development. Such a player that doesn't complain on the forums, and just consumes content for an hour or so a day doesn't require much developer time. they assist in paying the sub, and because that the average player is in his 30's and has little time, they also buy cosmetics to show for their effort. They are the corporate money maker that Intrepid will need to maintain the servers, to keep game masters active, to pay developers for new content. and the studio for new innovative games.
Why would Ashes all of a sudden add extra hand-holding for those decisions?
If you're going to just start playing a huge game like this without doing any research, then you can't expect to get everything right first time. Even we, who will have been following the game's development for years, and who will have joined in the testing of the game, will still get things wrong the first times through.
I don't see the need to change the design of the game for in case new people decide not to read up on it first.
Teaching the basics of the game to a new-comer is the job of the Tutorial.
That's not really the point though.
In terms of any design, the question should always be 'can I make this better without really compromising anything'. It's bad to get stuck on any of your own arbitrary things. Not to say explicitly that the decision given here is arbitrary, but someone would have to explain to me why it stands up to scrutiny, because I can't find a reason yet.
We don't know if it could change, we don't know why Intrepid chose level 25. None of my guesses as to why it was chosen as 25 are particularly charitable, since I know why developers and designers normally do this sort of thing.
So if it could be changed to 15, without seriously affecting anything, there's no reason they won't change it. If changing it to 15 alleviates some of the problem for new players as @Kesthely described it, then one should check if the original reason for setting it to 25 is worth the 'damage' that is being predicted. Something that generally would be done by experience. Experience that might not have been available at the time of the decision.
"When you get to start Augments" isn't exactly a 'core game mechanic'. Fortunately I guess we can just 'ask Steven why it's level 25' and hope we get an answer. The discussion itself isn't necessarily invalidated by the fact that 'lowering it or adding something that introduces it earlier would be different from what was said before'.
Max Level is expected to be 50 at launch. You start with half your archetypes. You get the other half when half-way through at Level 25. Doesn't seem too incredible.
I think @Kesthely's outlined explanation is entirely correct and is technically conservative.
My various experiences back this up, though of course they are anecdotal.
So, I'm not 'assuming', because the argument here is 'people who would otherwise remain, would leave', and I'm adding 'the game might not be compromised by solving this problem in a way that causes less people to leave'.
Edit: In general 'other people in the thread don't see a problem' is not a response that is useful when it comes to me, because the 'easy' answer, which I just don't use, is to 'call all the people that trust me to speak for them relative to game design to also verify that they see a problem'. Let's not clutter the thread with that.
This is an argument used a lot in design, it's unfortunately ruined by survivor bias.
The majority of people one talks to about a game are those who get over any rough patch they have and continue playing. Those who get frustrated, and 'go do something else and then just never bother to come back', move on to the community of the 'something else' and you don't get metrics on their loss from just commentary except the ones who are so salty and mad about it that they complain too hard and then get disregarded for that reason.
You'd have to gather a lot of data about 'players who stop playing games because of patches and changes' from the internal metrics side to know that what you've said isn't the norm. Because it isn't. Let me know if I should start citing examples, and let me know if they 'must be MMOs to count'.
The point being made is that 'picking up the game and then playing one way, and then changing that way of playing much later in a way that meaningfully affects your tactile experience with the game', can cause disruption and disinterest. Add the time investment required to get to level 25, compare to the general player's ability to play, and then basically go 'will this person understand the media they consume'. Especially since players of the type we're talking about, rely heavily on other people with analytic skills or at least strong personalities who just 'tell them what to do because it's clearly good'.
The things you say are 'likely' are not necessarily more likely than the other way. It might be that 'those are the people that you prefer would continue to play Ashes and you don't really care about the other kind of person', but it's just not true to 'claim what players will be like' in that way.
The only thing saving this whole thing is the fact that you can just double down on your Primary and hopefully that will be 'what you signed up for', because a player of the second type will probably not lose out on anything by doing this. Presumably this is why the specific example was used. I expect that Rangers and Bards are going to have the hardest time of this, based on the data collected.
Now if i for instance want to make a ranged dps, i have the primary archetypes of Ranger and mage, and potentially summoner and bard as my options to try out. I would not assume fighter, rogue or tank or cleric would potentially be on that list. due to the build diversity augments might give me later on.
If however i would see at character creation for example on the woodelf as a racial augment "this augment changes your skill so that it is attached to your quick bow attack" or a similar skill, or tooltip i would take note of that. Even if i select a different race, and i would see similar racial augments for specific weapons pop up, it would peak most peoples interest to check the different races out for their racial augments and plan their character accordingly.
Eg look at the ranseur of malice, a spear from alpha 1, it has hybrid stats. Physical damage bonus with otherwise magical modifying stats. it would indicate that their will be builds who can make use of both. Getting a limited introduction into what augments will do, and fundamentally change your character, will need to be made clear very early on in one way or another, or your going to have a lot of upset people. They either find out that they want to reroll, or give up on the game entirely. In both cases their reviews and recommendations of the game will be significantly lower
I'm not asking for a change of when the secondary archetype gets introduced. I'm saying that there are different types of augments that can be introduced earlier, to let people understand what augments do, and how they can affect your class, so that they are prepared for the potential choices that the game gives at lvl 25.
The augment system and what it can do is not going to catch anyone by surprise. In order for what you are saying to be true (people leaving the game) the system would need to come as a total surprise to them.
Some examples of a bad system would be at level 25 they just ability dump you. and give you 10+ abilities without a chance to learn them. That would be bad.
Or if you wanted to play a range pet class like falconer and you don't get your pet until level 25. Then discover that you hate pet classes and the only option would be to start over because its hard to change. That would be bad.
But if its just a gradual change (which is my reading of it) then it will be fine. Your play style will be similar but you just specialize a bit further on the aspects you really like about your main class. That's at least how I envision it off of the reading.
And this is how you decided to troll people into reading your website? No tantalizing crumbs, no actual argument, just tearing people down? Big oof.
You level up, you get abilities, you specialise, you get abilities, you augment those abilities based on different sources.
With respect, I find your example far fetched or simply showing the course of action of a twit.
1: If you want to play a bow-centric character, a Ranger should have been your first choice.
2: Choosing a tank and then whining you can't heal is Snowflakism. Mix and match here.
3: If not resubbing for this reason, which is the players fault for lacking common sense... well, bye. Quiters quit.
4: This whole post rests on the premise that the 2nd archetype is going to "CHANGE THE FUNDAMENTAL GAME MECHANIC OF THE GAME".... /whipsers but its not!
So lemme see if I get this...
You're basically calling anyone who chooses an Archetype based on that list that we've had multiple threads about, and then the gameplay doesn't suit their style, a twit?
Including all the Predators, Scouts, Necromancers, Falconers, etc?
Why is this community like this?
"Y'all are stupid, Intrepid should never change anything for you, gtfo with your (insert request for change here)."
Even when nothing of value is being protected, even when the stuff people are poking about is stuff that Intrepid either explicitly said is possible (meaningful changes to Skills via Secondary for example) or would barely affect anything negatively...
Seriously, why?
If someone comes to Ashes expecting to play a Necromancer, rather than playing a Summoner with a death motif, then yeah, they are going to leave the game fairly soon.
The issue there isn't with the class/subclass system, it is with the names of classes.
I disagree.
Necromancer: Summoner / Cleric What we know about secondary archtypes is that they augment the base abilities of summoners. I imagine that next to the usual summoning spells, summoners will have buff spells and even direct damage spells. When you put a cleric augment on those what could happen is that the visual changes from the regular graphics to a darker bolt. And the augment itself, restores life for you just like some of the cleric spells already do. The summoning might also change the summoning to an undead creature. Infact Intrepid already said you can. The buffs spells you'd have could link the summoning to you making a lifelink, so you can heal your summon, and then with above mentioned leeching attack, resotre your own hp again. all based on the standard summoner with a few augments This will play and feel like a necromancer, although ones definition of necromancer might vary
Wild Blade: Summoner / Fighter In Alpha 1 we've already seen enchanted armor fighting. The wild blade might have a similar thing where its summons are now armor (Tank summon) Greatsword (dps summon) or Staff (support summon) and they summon armors and weapons. the standard attack skill that's augmented to drain life for necromancers, could be augmented with a weapon type,, so it now looks like a weapon is thrown, or fighting on its own, or look like a fighter attack. The buff spells change into magical enchantments for its floating weapons, and you become a summoner with a melee or ranged weapon assisted by all kinds of weapons / armors.
One plays as a magical spellcaster behind a strong undead (or perhaps even multiple undead) having drain attacks and a dark vibe, the other might look valorous and augments martial attacks with floating weapons and change its other skills to resemble weapon attacks etc. The abilities will have the same range, the same origin skill, but differ slightly. The cleric skill does slightly less damage but heals, the figher one changes its damage to physical and does slightly more damage. Its role is preserved, you summon creatures to assist yourself or your party and raid, but the execution of it is completely different. Its playstyles will feel completely different, and since one summoner is then magical based and the other is physical based even the gear required is completely different.
To expect that people understand how this system will work and see its options without a proper introduction is naive. And to place it behind a 20+ hour timeframe is bad game design.
If a games mentality is "it gets better after 20 hours, or 50 hours or 100 hours" you should ask yourself, why is it that the developers need to do that. Do they think i'm to stupid to understand their system? do they think my first 20 hours of gameplay is irrelevant? Do they feel to force you trough an incomplete itteration of the game, or do they just not care about my time, and use artificial systems to try to make me play longer?
If i would make a game, and you' would make a mage, would you be content if i first forced you to play a fighter for a month to only then let it evolve in a mage? Would you play that game?
No it doesn't grant you additional skills, but it does make you feel like its a different skill.
One of the examples given by intrepid is that it might change the type of damage from magical to physical. This allone has major impacts to your playstyle. the base stats that increase damage and crit chance, for physical attacks is different then for magical attacks. You will require different gear.
This might go so far as that certain professions, will be more advantageous. And you find that out after your lvl 25+. This means that you've spend a lot of time leveling the "wrong" profession.
And there are many more examples that you could think of of situations where you would have made different choices early on if you would have know certain things due to the secondary archtype options.
Why do you insist of it beeing locked behind lvl 25? why not at level 2? The system uses skill points where you get to decide which skills you take, Passive active weaponskilsl and augments. Its already been said that you don't need to augment every skill or even any skill.
If i want to play a highsword or a templar, why do i need to spend 40+ hours (2x 20+ hours) to be able to see the difference between the Fighter cleric or the cleric fighter?
The augment system is going to be an integral part of ashes. If you would look at it and say if i remove augment system entirely would it be the same game, the answer would be no. But at the same time your saying Its ok if for the first half of the game ill play a different game.
The augment system should be present from the start of the game. not something that gets unlocked halfway trough. Sure you might want to save the secondary archetype for later, but you should be able to access some augments from the start.
Playing a fighter and playing a cleric will be two completely different things. The secondary will not augment it that much.
"If i want to play a highsword or a templar, why do i need to spend 40+ hours (2x 20+ hours) to be able to see the difference between the Fighter cleric or the cleric fighter?"
One of these is a cleric and a healer. The other is melee DPS.
The only things you will not be able to change is Race, gender and base archetype. Everything else you can change later.
Why should they dumb the game down like every other MMO that most of us here have completely given up on. For me there are no good MMO's anymore because they lack challenge and sophistication. They keep removing anything that allowed you to personalize/customize your character in the name of homogenization(balance) or it's not fair that some one has something I don't.
I think it is a good thing to spread this stuff out and not just give everything right from the start. The microwave, immediate gratification gotta have it right now, NOW. Mind set has killed the genre. Remember when game were about fun , exploration and doing stuff. Facing new challenges and figuring stuff out. They talked about bringing this stuff back to the genre and convinced me to get my wallet out.
Why should everyone have all the answers on day one? Why should there be zero thinking by the individual? Why should everyone be the same? Why should there be no challenges and problems to solve? Why not be locked behind level 25 and enjoy the journey? Should you also have all the skills and abilities of your chosen archetype at level 1? Plus all the possible augments in the game so you can decide what you want to use? Where is the fun in that?