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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
No.
Oh fuck, your ass is falling off. You need to be shielded.
For me personally, I would prefer indicators because I think "Hard Core" just drives players to a weird research wiki "meta" like some players were complaining about online for New World. With that in mind I don't have a preference between "Old School" or "Intended Audience" so long as the UI is clean, polished, and in line with overall game aesthetic.
Finally, I do think nuanced party indicators either solo, small party (2), medium party (4), large party (8), small raid (20), and or full raid indicators (40), or some sort of by player calculation would be more helpful than just group/raid with the 8 player max group size.
Chose one system and stick with it. I m not talking of how cleaned up the ui is (thats fine if you make it configurable) but about which and through which media (artificial or immersive indicators) information is conveyed.
I prefer immersive indicators over artificial ones and would love to see more interaction for players talking about which spots are nice to level and farm at for a certain class or group combination instead of a dead zone chat because it is written on the mob whether you can kill it.
I could live with an indicator like a flashing red window border, dangerous background music or even NPCs telling you it is maybe no the best idea to be here when you are in an area that is way out of your league but I'd reserve that for regions where things 1hit your tank and consider everything else as doable
My point, that I have repeatedly made, is that MMO combat is not supposed to be a puzzle. Aspects of it can be made as such, but we are not talking aspects of combat in this thread, we are talking about every encounter, every time.
I'm honestly unsure at this point how you do not understand that I have twice (now three times) put this to you, and you have basically come back with - but why not argue against the point I made?
If the point you think you made is anything other than Which I should add is the exact and specific point I rebuffed above, then perhaps you should make your point again as I am quite frankly sick of rebuffing this same inane point.
There are some games in which I can see it not being an issue. However, these are games in which PvE is relegated to a third rate aspect of the game - or games in which levels just don't exist at all.
In Ashes, PvE is supposed to be first equal along with PvP, and level will indeed matter.
2. This bleeds into an idea a few comments have mentioned about discovery. THere is a real opportunity to add codex like extra info and background on the enemies. Perhaps not lore that no one will read but actual tooltip that can also be quick viewed perhaps by pressing ALT for an expanded plate and also in a bestiary menu out of combat.
A mini progress system could also unlock more info E.G
You kill 50 of this enemy you discover they have a slight vulnerability to X
You kill the unique version of this enemy called 'coolbob' you find out they are stronger when injured or some other mechanic relevant info.
You kill 1000 of them (some stretch goal) you gain a taxidermy trophy and that enemy type is more vulnerable to your debuffs.
Yeah the first time I got one slapped by the frost troll in skyrim on my way up to the Greybeards was a very memorable moment!
Is this assumption true or not?
Have you encountered mobs in an MMO's world that forced you to adapt after learning their skills, behavior, or resistances?
I suppose I could also guage how an opening volley affects the mob's health bar.
That said, it's important that players can easily find the name of the thing they are fighting (maybe that's the first thing you unlock for the mob doing the research quest?) so people know what to call it.
I also like an idea mentioned earlier to embellish mobs that are not intended for solo play, because the gap between solo and group content is *quite* large. (That said, players will eventually solo group-content anyways coz of scaling)
I still wonder how close I can get with mobs that con slightly above my level.
I dunno why I would want to waste my time poking at mobs that are way over my level to try to see if I'm finally high enough for a fair match. "Am I there, yet? Am I there, yet? Am I there, yet?" Doesn't sound like fun to me.
Research questlines to unlock the mob's threat level indicator could be fun.
But dont make turning them off only an option in menu, cuz then it makes no point of turning it off.. everyone see indicators or nobody
The problem I have here is that this happens with mobs when developers want this to happen. When this does happen, it's great.
What we are talking about here though is not developers adding in an additional dimension to some mobs - it is literally every mob in the game, all the time.
And no, I have not played an MMORPG where mobs do not have their level clearly displayed to players, and I doubt you have either (which is why I asked you to name the games you claim to have played with it).
If Intrepid want to add some surprise to mobs, great. This, however, is NOT the way to achieve that.
Now I’m thinking on this. Plenty of RPGs don’t show levels, but MMOs…
DayZ?
Did UO?
The early mmos had the beginning CON system, and I just can’t remember if DAoC or AC made levels obvious. They probably did. The only other one that comes to mind was Vangaurd. But given where standards were in that 2001-2004 period they probably did.
We figure these things out in single-player games all the time. Not sure why we couldn’t set the same expectation for an MMO where there’s even greater opportunity to lean on the MM part of the equation.
We figure these things out in single player all the time and have jo issues with it because there aren't any consequences in single player games.
If we get killed by a mob we misjudged, we just reload.
That isn't an option in an MMO.
Now, of those games you listed, DayZ is a survival fame and not an MMO. It asks completely different things of its players, and it's players have different expectations for it than they would a survival game.
Vanguard did show level as well as if a mob was intended for solo, group or raid.
The other three games you listed (UO, DAoC and AC) are all games with no real focus on PvE (which was a point I originally made when asking what games didn't show mob level, though didn't repeat it in the post you quoted). While Ashes isn't a PvE game, its PvE should stand on an equal footing to its PvP.
Even if we wanted to ignore the above games lack of PvE focus, we can simply look at how early they were in the grand scheme of things. Games have learned from the mistakes of that generation. Just as we have learned to not use lead for water pipes from those that have gone before us, we can also learn that giving players basic I formation about how difficult a mob is supposed to be makes for a better game.
Or colour of health bar, background of nameplate, or dot (skull) beside the name.
I don't want to see level of things in the UI. level, weakness, strength, armor rating, stats maybe even a drop table, should all be unlocked in a creature catalog for kills. What would be unlocked for 20,000 kills?
BDO does a fairly good job of this, as do other games, but it could be expanded on and improved.
Ashes of Creation is the next level of MMORPG and should leave people's mouths hanging.
Go big or go home !
white, light grey and dirty grey for weaker then character. (reduced xp for killing)
yellow, green and blue, for equal to character (minus or plus a few levels)
purple, orange and red for stronger then character. (you'd better have friends)
dark red, brown and black for stronger then party. (your friends better have friends)
It’s rare when you and I agree on most points. So I’ll lean into that. Thanks for the correction on Vanguard - I literally just can’t remember.
To your point on the single-player curve, I wonder if we can still port that learning to an mmo where the curve will be steepest at the beginning when it doesn’t impact our drops / xp / etc. But it’s mostly just wondering; I can totally see (and concede) the point of having level on the target.
If you see wolves for the first time, you may think that you can take them and you are not sure how strong they are. After you fight with a few, then you can see how relatively strong these wolves are...
The question I have is - would failure early on in an MMO turn people off?
It doesn't in a single player game because no one is there to see it. However, in an online game, would that be different?
For PvE, intended audience method is what i like: level of the enemy, and difficulty type (regular, veteran, elite, boss) should be visible, while some information like maximum resources (health, mana, stamina) is completely hidden.
In an era where people can just search everything up, i see no point for a full hardcore approach, especially IF the game design will be around some progress loss on death (imagine being one shot by some random trashmob while exploring which is actually a high level elite) or if the player has to pass between areas as they progress separated by a high level area intentionally placed between the two.
As for PvP (where i does not necessarily mean the "versus" part, but also just players being neutral to each other), i prefer the near full hardcore approach, with the only visible information if the target player is way below your level, signaling that ganking will have a significant negative impact, or for group content the player is clearly too low level.
While in the other hand i can foresee a lot of trolling from players where you need to co-op for some content (group dungeons, raids, guild events) of the game, i would add an opt-in system where players can share some basic information (their level and maximum resource values) with group, raid, friends or guilds respectively, with guilds having the option to have some control, example pirate guilds can force to hide player information within their members, or PvE focused progress guilds forcing player information to be visible inside the guild.
It's not all the time. The first time you encounter a mob, you have an understand of it's level and will know for future encounters. It's also not every mob since mobs will be grouped around similar level mobs. You fight one and you will know the level range of the others.
As i said before, you will have quests guiding you towards level appropriate mobs so you will learn most of this info by playing the game.
This is essentially how Valheim works. There are no levels noted on mobs, but you learn how powerful those mobs are by encountering them. Deathsquitos particularly can sneak up on you and 2 shot you depending on your armor and food prep. But once you upgrade everything, learn how to detect and defeat them - they really aren’t an issue.
I’d much rather have that experience instead of the ‘I’m 2 and their 5 - won’t even try because this site tells me exactly what to do.’ At what point are you still playing the game?
Valheim is a survival game, though. It's not an RPG.
Well, it’s important to survive in Ashes too. 😉
My point is that as gamers, we’re familiar with this type of interaction to sus out the strength and power of a monster. That can translate to mmos.
I may not play soccer on a baseball diamond, but I can still kick a ball from home plate.
Players should be able to just roam around and find level appropriate content in any MMO, but especially in a game like Ashes.
Sure, if it's a game where all you're relying on is tiers of gear to defeat mobs and what determines mob level is distance from starting zone - you don't need a threat assessment tool.