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
Completely agreed, I personally would rather that the concept of 'horizontal' and 'vertical' be left out of this discussion entirely. I understand what people are distinguishing between, but what happens in practice matters much much more. As a BDO player, I'm sure you know this, due to the difference between some of their gear pieces.
For reference of others:
The game's mechanics invalidate any meaningful use of the second, so it is relegated to second tier. The first is therefore 'one tier of progression' higher than the second, because the game's OTHER systems don't support what the second is offering.
Owning both of these gear pieces is not even horizontal progression, except relative to one of the least interesting or profitable forms of activity in the game.
Utility would be the usual stat booster or ability enhancer
Cosmetic would be visual or auditory
Allow for enchants to be able to be completed through a UI window, via scroll or through a vendor station
Utility type scrolls would have a more restrictive stack limitation than cosmetic scrolls.
Provide weapons and off-hands with two enchanting slots - one for utility enchants and one for cosmetic enchants
Non-weapon gear would have a cosmetic enchant slot
Boots would have both types of enchanting slots
No enchanting outside during rain or snow, or at sea at all, due to the moisture involved
Allow for a bonus chance, and depending upon the enchant, a higher chance for critting during storms of related types (indoors)
Enchantments could have a lifespan and still be sold by npc player stalls.
I realized that this response was probably too short/caustic, and didn't convey the feeling I was having at the time, so please allow me to make another attempt.
I don't want us to hold Steven, or Intrepid, to their old words/terms on everything, if they haven't confirmed them recently, because it leads to a form of rigidity that is dangerous in game design.
By his own admission, Steven has been learning a lot, about many things, since this project began. Sometimes, that probably means that he learns different or improved terms for things, different ways of thinking about problems, and so on, from more experienced people that he brought on as Seniors to assist him in making his vision come to life.
But originally, it was just him, and Jeff, basically, and that meant that anything that they both had 'weird terms for', or any situation where Jeff didn't 'push back on a term', it would become the parlance of Ashes. I would like for the parlance of Ashes to not be locked into being 'the reality of Ashes' unless it is a real intent. Particularly in discussions like these where the feedback is important.
Intrepid may not have time to always update old concepts, and certainly it is difficult to 'pull back' old QUOTES.
But in the end, the reason Steven needs actual Senior Designers instead of just doing it all himself, is because he wants the best, and he doesn't strike me as a person who is unwilling to believe that someone else knows the best way. Now, that doesn't apply to 'just people on forums' like me, but it's still important not to end up with illogical design goals because of what... Steven happened to use some ambiguous words that one time?
I have faith that Intrepid will create true Horizontal Progression within the GAME. I'm just saying that the term doesn't apply properly to the enchanting SYSTEM.
RNG and progress
The most important part for me is that we don't see a reset or delevelling of progress in enchanting. Ever. For any reason. People WILL quit the game over that type of punishing system, and it doesn't add positively to the game overall. Please drop any idea of items breaking and having to be enchanted all over again from +0 after a reforge. It's not a good game design.
Some RNG for overenchanting is ok as long as players can affect the percentages directly. I don't mean by reducing the failure chance to zero percent, but players should be able to reduce it significantly by supplying extra resources. Player agency is paramount here.
For example, let's say vertical enchantment goes up to +10, with +4 being safe/0% failure rate. For +5 and above the failure rate increases per +level, and the item is damaged and needs repair upon failure. All the materials used for enchanting go poof. The amount the item is damaged upon failure keeps going up, making it more and more costly to reach that +10. Players can mitigate failure rate by significantly increasing materials used for the enchanting attempt. Even if the item reaches 0% durability, the enchant level should never go down or be reset. For legendary items, it's more than painful enough to have to get new legendary materials to repair. The resource sink shouldn't be any more brutal than that.
Vertical and Horizontal power levels
Please make sure to limit the vertical power creep. A max enchanted weapon should not do more than 5-10% more damage than the base weapon. It's more than enough for people to want that +10, but not enough for people to completely overpower newer characters without enchants yet.
The power increase from horizontal damage type enchants is arguably harder to balance probably. If by changing the damage type of a weapon you can increase damage against an enemy player by 40%, because they don't have resists against that type, that is too much IMO. Please do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.
Both vertical and horizontal enchants should be able to be on the items at the same time.
Skill buff and proc enchants
Instead of the damage/resist type horizontal enchantments, I would like to see enchantments that proc certain effects, or buff certain character skills. A weapon proc that provides a self-heal or life-leech. A shield enchant that boosts passive block chance a little. Or increases active block damage reduction. An armor enchant that reduces stamina cost for active dodge.
I might be able to agree with you, but my mindset is that OF a 'Senior Designer' because that's my role in my work and 'indie' teams. It's my job to take the vision and ideas of people like yourself, and turn it into something that works and is balanced.
So I have to stop thinking about what I want, and focus on what the visionary says they want, and only 'push back' when I know for sure that it won't work in tandem with their other goals.
I am definitely not sure that any aspect of Enchanting, even as described, won't fit Intrepid's goals, but it definitely seems to go against the majority of feedback in the current form. My own suggestions and concepts are 'to fit within what Intrepid seems to want', and I'm always looking to be corrected on what that is, even if I don't like it.
I'd have to think more about if I would prefer Ashes to have 'no enchanting' and focus on actions and playstyle without enchanting, but I assume that this wouldn't be in the cards at all, therefore my thoughts focus on 'what makes Enchanting work within the rest of the game?'
In my opinion it would be interesting to put the visual effects based on the element you put on your weapon/shield.
For example, red = fire, blue = water, yellow = holy, purple = dark... and the glow and effects got more intense with each level of enchantment of the item.
(You can set a default color like white for enchanted items that don't have elements)
For the enchantments this is my suggestion:
For example, if the maximum enchantment is +10 we can put a safe zone up to +3 and decrease the chance of success with each enchantment, where if it fails the item is destroyed and you will receive the fragments of that destroyed item that can be used to create others items.
It is also interesting to have a blessed enchantment scroll (rare item) that if the enchantment fails, the item will not be destroyed, but will be punished with -1.
I've built balance in the concepts already. Armour pen can't get through magic resistance for example.
Stat numbers on base weapons are lower because I had to accommodate for vertical enchantments. The current concepts do not allow armour rating to be boosted by enchants. Armour rating also does not change dependant on type of armour.
If it goes to horizontal the weapon stats would all be 25% one handed and 50% two handed armour pen for base legendary.
All enchantments do in my current system is boost stats to mid ranges. Without enchantments mid range would be the base range.
All the change would do is remove rng from max base (rng from drops woukd remain of course).
I see.
I'd love to theorycraft with you about balance but there's insufficient information, and I feel like I don't agree with many of your combat designs from the other thread for various reasons, but there's no reason why you should be concerned about that relative to the current system.
It just reminds me that this is all very abstract, without many more concepts than we have available. In some games, Armor Pen would be the most overpowered, obvious-choice stat imaginable, and in others, it would be borderline useless.
I'll stick to 'Imagining an Unnamed Augment/PowerUp Of Average Effectiveness' for Ashes. Those numbers, I already have equations for, and so, since this topic has come up before we saw the combat revamp, I can only give feedback based on the numbers I have, if we get to the point of needing them.
Sorry, I probably am not getting on this particular train at this particular station. Maybe we can discuss that in another thread, but I'm trying not to derail this one.
One thing I think modern mmo are missing is the "click" items on gear.... would be neat to have earrings, rings, necklaces, weapons and trinkets that had effect/skill use on click like back from some of the older MMO like EQ days...
This could be part of the enchanting system where you can add on an effect or over enchanting could power up these effects instead of giving direct stat increases, giving more utility and diversity to gear acquired for horizontal progression during a given expansion.
You could make it where you can only equip so many items with effects/skills to hot bar slot to utilize at any given time when in combat, say a special maybe two or three item hot bar.
An option would be to have three different types of enchanting click effect that can be applied when enchanting an item as well, when you go to over enchant as an option to make it even more interesting... Possibly make it so it is a power trade, maybe where you lose stats but gain the ability for click effects and over enchant gives you those lost stats back.
Limiting it would be essential by making it so you can only utilize so many active combat abilities to make it manageable for the player. Can also have it where some items can be utilized anytime for non-combat specific things like, run speed increase when out of combat etc.
Maybe not something for launch, but as a progression system later in-game as more content is added might be interesting.
Continues to ramble on with totally non-specific and unrelated ideas in head while baking cookies for the AoC community
If I release all balances and checks then my whole combat system can be poached. As it stands, the concepts are quite vague for a reason and the reason is to protect the potential.
I can't explain how the removal of enchantments would affect the old combat system because I haven't seen it since A1.
Peace,
Neurath.
Altough it would make sense that an item could be destroyed in the progress (by an inexperienced enchanter?). maybe it is rendered 'unavailable' for 30 days and needs to be repaired etc. Or maybe destroyed for real. and what about the blueprint?
Maybe the first enchant is a 100% hit and will work and dwindle down.
Im all down for enchantment and RNG elements. But it should be very well tought out because it has a great impact.
Ah, my bad, I was actually arguing from a different perspective, the things I said were moreso targeted at 'people who misunderstand it', not Intrepid. I was saying that when Intrepid uses the term, it can cause confusion in people who misunderstand it.
e.g.
Person gives feedback that they 'don't like vertical progression and lots of meta choices' and 'prefer horizontal progression'. Intrepid references their plans to have multiple options, but then that person plays the game and finds that their class, or their Node, only benefits from one of the many options.
They still have only one weapon, they still are 'meta-locked'. Their response then is 'frustration', and even though they usually don't claim 'you lied, this isn't horizontal progression', it gets confusing in feedback terms, because one can't know if the person means "I want to be unique and different and I really don't want too much power gaps or efficiency gaps in the game" or if they mean "I want to have to collect lots of gear for different activities".
The definition Intrepid uses, in conjunction with the rest of their intended design, is imo a poor terminology to use in the way it's used on that page, it's too ambiguous, even with the 'holy damage, incorporeal entities' example.
Maybe I'm not making sense on that front, but tl;dr I was not arguing that the enchantment system as defined by Intrepid is not what I was talking about (especially relative to the rest of the game), but that the term is too ambiguous to be used in a feedback situation.
e.g. I consider 'HP regen' to be a Horizontal Progression option in fast games (or useless, depending), and a Vertical Progression in slow games (particularly ones with smaller group PvP).
That has me thinking of the Darkthorn Academy novels.
The characters there would direct their internal flow of mana to their eyes to gain DarkVision or to their ears for heightened hearing.
You've got me thinking of jewelry doing something similar with a click to activate.
Earrings or noserings for heightened Perception/Tracking. Wouldn't have to be that on-the-nose, of course.
Having situational/utility uses for Jewelry sounds like fun. I'm not sure if that would be Jewelcrafting as a subset of Enchanting or if Jewelcrafting would be its own Profession. Enchant while making the Jewelry or add Enchants onto already crafted Jewelry.
These days we need slots for lip rings, and eyebrow rings. Might have piercings elsewehere, too.
Well going by that explanation I think it's important then to share Aion's system if this is what Steven was thinking. Personally I (and I suspect many others) are thinking WoW/ESO type "horizontal" enchanting where it's an easy, guaranteed extra effect on our gear that amounts to build choices more than any sort of progression.
But the L2 system is likely similar to what I saw in Aion because that's what NCSoft does. You had 4-6 or so slots in each piece of gear (more slots for better quality gear) and you'd enchant them with manastones. You could mix/match but most people would do all one type, like all Crit or all Attack stones (you could also do stuff like HP, Accuracy, Parry, Block, Evasion, Magic Boost, etc.). But of course it was RNG. So each slot had a chance to fail on slotting the stone, and every time you failed a stone, every stone already slotted would break and you'd start from scratch. I think, can't remember, but I think higher quality stones had a higher chance to break as well. So getting all 6 slots with Green Attack +5 or Crit +15 was difficult - lots of RNG and lots of money.
Needless to say this was a terrible system that made you want to bash your head against a wall, especially mixed with the vertical enchanting. I think getting to +5 was fairly easy IIRC, +10 failure was higher but you didn't lose anything, and +10-15 you'd go down to +10 if you failed and that was the hardest.
So I'm really hoping Ashes stays far, far away from both of these systems.
But I also agree with @Azherae because that system rewards people and gives them an advantage randomly, and then you're at a disadvantage on the individual levels compared to others solely due to RNG. So, I just hope they go with a more SWG system and make gear max durability % decay over a long period of time.
At this point, I don't see the point or game design goal over-enchanting is accomplishing. Any RNG in this manner is just going to frustrate people who aren't lucky, and item decay can be a good gear sink in of itself, and is governed solely by player behavior and not RNG. If I don't want a weapon to decay, I simply don't have to use it.
Format could be:
HP
MP
Phys. atk
Magic atk
Phys defence
Magic defence
Crit chance
Shield def bonus
HP regen
MP regen
Etc etc etc
Another topic could be what type of self buffs seem balanced, and what type of group buffs seem balanced. These empowerments can be different than main player stats or gear bonuses. ESO had done a bad job mixing the two.
Another topic could be bonuses tied to active abilities:
Double slash (deals 2000dmg with a chance for crit). I would slot that and use it first against robes and leather.
Crushing blow (deals 2000dmg and penetrates armor for 15%). Slot and use against tanks mostly.
Low slash (deals 2000dmg with chance to slow enemy)
Well, I don't personally see why you think you would need more hard sinks than are already present.
Exhibit A: "Specific and necessary crafting materials for higher tier items can only be obtained through the deconstruction of lower-tier items. This is designed to keep lower tier crafted gear relevant through progression and across expansions." There is definitely going to be gear repair and crafting that require deconstructing
Exhibit B: "Players gain craftable items and recipes from deconstructing (salvaging) completed items." It's been stated that high end gear such as world boss gear will have possible recipes you can get via deconstruction.
I personally hate hard sinks, but @Azherae has explained to me enough times why they must exist. So I guess my real question is 'do we really need more than we have?'
Therefore i believe improving gear needs to have 2 simumtaneous routes:
RNGless resource dumping upgrade route (Possible related to crafting)
[Gear Grade upgrade(Ex: Uncommon Rare to Epic)/Tier upgrade(Ex: T1 to T2)]
RNG + Direct Power upgrade route
The already expected good old Road to +X, possible main inspiration being Lineage 2 enchant system.
As for the questions;
Q: What aspects of the Enchanting system are important to you?
A: Mainly the Risk vs Reward concept and the resource sink potential, those are certainly the most important aspects for me.
Q: Are there Enchanting systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes Enchanting in those games good?
A: Yes, Lineage 2 Enchanting system, it pushed Risk vs Reward and resource sink to its edge.
Risk: Even with up to +3+4 safe enchant Lineage 2 Enchanting risks were high Starting at ~66% success chance which would go down with every enchant success and straight up destroying your item on failure.
Reward: Around ~3.3% to ~6.6% increase in the item's base stats per enchant after +3 which might not look like a lot, but would make numbers go through the roof in the bigger picture taking in consideration Lineage 2 multiplicative stat buffs.
Resource Sink: The L2 enchant system was easily one of the biggest resource sink in Lineage 2 along side with the chance to fail crafting an item and the chance to get an improved version of the item in crafting,
That combined with the original scarcity of resources made L2 economy to always be Healthy and Active as demand was always on the rise.
As Ashes currently isn't expected to have RNG in the crafting system, RNG in enchanting becomes an even more important additional "resource sink motivator".
Even tho repairing is a resource sink, it simple isn't a "Reward" its just a set in stone punishment for death.
Q: Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding the Enchanting system?
A: I'm excited by the thrill of gambling for power and concerned that the sorrow of those who fear RNG will deter from it.
Aren't we all sinners?
And as I said, if repairing a fully decayed item is the same as crafting it from 0 - I'll be completely fine with no destruction on a failed OE.
What those stats should be.
What those stats should be on the character + gear set bonus.
Gear sinks do need to exist though. I only ask that failing an enchantment downgrades gear rather than destroying it. Or maybe only the final upgrade has a chance to destroy.