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
The only time I see horizontal enchants as wanted or useful is if I got a legendary loot drop and did not like the stats.
All a horizontal enchant would affect is the q weapon skill which would be removed to accommodate further skill abilities anyway.
Now if you're right and the only way to obtain an item that we need in tier 5 gear crafting is to deconstruct a piece of tier 3 gear - then yeah, this would solve the issue over overabundant low tier gear. But we'll have to wait and see how exactly the crafting will work to know for sure. I'd rather have both. Just as L2 did in its later updates. We could add elemental dmg/resist into our gear while also boosting its flat stats through vertical progression. Horizontal stuff added depth to the RPS system, while vertical could still help you out in an unfavorable fight. These systems can coexist and work just fine together. It will though. If you're in a top guild you'll be required to have different horizontal gear in order to participate in pve content, while some combinations of augments and horizontal enchantments will provide the biggest dps in most pvp matchups, so that'll become the meta build. Yes, you'll be free to try out other stuff to counter some particular enemies, but I'd assume that even this system will fall prey to the meta.
And as for FF14, that's exactly why it's so successful. It's super easy at its base so it's appealing to an overwhelming amount of people. Yoshi P loved WoW and knew what was good and bad about it. He took the good parts, made the bad parts better and easier and you got yourself a mega popular easy mmo. Yes, there's complex and diffcult raiding scene for the top 0.01% of people, but even it was simplified in multiple ways to appeal to the hardcore raiding scene (mainly the quick resets between tries instead of wasting 10 mins running through trash mobs). In this we are definitely the same.
The Chaos Cauldron will also allow horizontal changes to soulbound items and dropped legendary items.
The two systems are now independent.
All the best,
Neurath.
About vertical enchanting, I dislike a lot « +X » enchant systems.
In my opinion it's not appealing, not immersive and not very interesting of a system.
In a word : it's bad. And it doesn't suit at all the great ideas and mechanics that make Ashes Ashes.
I'd rather much prefered a system which :
- Feels great to play as an enchanter.
- Makes overenchanting and NOT overenchanting two viable options.
- Offers a crap ton of enchanting possibilities that would synergize nicely with weapons/skills + some cool exclusive mechanics for tryhard players / great enchanters.
In order to do that, I'd imagine a system based on Diablo 2 Runeswords, but a bit more refined.
Basic enchants / Advanced enchants / Overenchanting
1) Items can have up to X « basic enchants ». A basic enchant would be a "raw" boost of power.
2) A given set of basic enchants can be combined/consumed by Enchanters to make « Advanced enchants ».
3) A given set of advanced enchants on differents items can be combined/consumed by Enchanters to « Overenchant ».
Advanced enchant would :
1) Add some synergy effects with weapons / proc / skills.
2) Decrease the effects of the basic enchants of the gear piece (their power is consumed in order to activate the advanced enchant).
Overenchant would :
1) Add some a new mechanics such as an activation effect / passive effect / new proc effect.
2) Decrease the effects of the advanced enchants and decrease even more the effects of the basics enchants.
--
In addition to that, we would have a « grade » on basic enchants (like « normal » is +4 STR, « rare » is +6 STR, « epic » is +8 STR....).
And activating Advanced and Overenchant would result in not being able to use all the « basic enchant » spots.
--
Example :
Let's say I have :
- A sword that can be enchanted 3 times.
- An enchant-friendly armor that can be enchanted up to 6 times.
On my sword I'll put :
- A STR bonus basic enchant : +4 STR
- An armor penetration bonus basic enchant : + 5% armor penetration
- A fire damage basic (rare) enchant : +2% fire damage
This combination can be activated by an enchanter (advanced enchant) in order to make that my 4th hammer swings have 5% chance to increase a stun duration by 0,5 sec, and make stunned foes to have an armor malus of 10%.
But it would also decrease by 50% the bonus of the basic enchants of my sword.
On my armor I'll put the exact same basic enchants (so just 3/6 enchants used). The advanced enchant would enhance by 5% my damage mitigation and fire resist when I'm stunned.
Having these 2 items equipped, an Enchanter can then « Overenchant » them which would allow me to activate a 30 secs aura burning nearby ennemies and restoring health for each ennemy that has been burnt.
But it would also decrease the basic enchant effects by 80% and the advanced enchant effects by 50%.
–
Otherwise I could just put 9 health enchants in order to get a way better health pool for PVP for example.
--
So that (conclusion) :
1) Having only « basic enchants » give more « raw power » but no synergy and no new mechanics. It remains an interesting choice. Getting overenchanted would not always be a « must have », but would still be rewarding for the tryhard players.
2) Advanced enchants would open a lot of vertical progression options.
The same goes with overenchanting, which would in addition add some cool mechanics/effects. Like set bonuses, but enchant-related.
3) Enchanters would have several progression paths : unlocking better basic enchants, new basic enchants, discovering advanced enchant and overenchant combinations (which could also be rewards for advancing in social organizations and so on).
4) It's way cooler that any « +X » boring enchant system ?
–
RNG could be added (or not?) for advanced enchant and overenchanting success... or in order to make any type of enchant bonus better/weaker based of the quality of the basic enchants for example.
The Chaos Cauldron will be a pvx zone with no active flagging system. All guests to The Chaos Cauldron will be active combatants.
Have fun,
Neurath.
Nah man, it was definitely the RNG that killed it. The cash shop was a way to make the system bearable, which is obviously by design. Whether it was time spent grinding, or money spent in the shop, in the end it came down to a roll of the dice, with no amount of player or character skill affecting it. It's a system that is antithetical to good gameplay.
I mean, when you boost something the goal is to get happier or at least keep the state xD but not lossing the mood...
Circular island surrounded by the sea. Pvx naval zone and pvx island. Active combatant naval zone.
The Chaos Circle Landing Zones:
North East
North West
South East
South West
East
West
Top
Bottom
The Chaos Cauldron Entrances:
North
South
East
West
Adios amigos,
Neurath.
This could be a potential problem in a PvP MMO- but I have faith that Intrepid can balance it well. If the difference between an over-enchanted item and a zero-risk max enchanted item is small enough, I don’t think it’ll be an issue. Obviously the problem at that point becomes making over-enchanting worth it.
My initial response on enchants is no RNG. However, the more I think about enchanting relative to the risk v. reward theme, the more I lean toward introducing risk and extra rewards. I mean, you’re attempting to channel the root forces of the universe into an item. That’s risky.
Just to be clear - I flatly do not want any possible outcome where the item being enchanted would be destroyed permanently.
Here are some of the potential non-zero probable risks:
- the complete fizzle. All enchanting materials are lost and the item remains unchanged
- the whoops. Some enchanting mats are lost, some damage is done to the item’s durability
- the well-that’s-not-what-I-intended. An entirely different enchant is placed on the item.
- the Well… fuck. Item durability goes to zero, some stat loss (like damage, secondary stat, or durability denominator)
- the Yes-Yes-Nooooooo! Enchant isn’t successful, no mat loss. Enchanter dies immediately
- the well…technically. Enchant is successful. Mats are used. Enchanter is fine. However, the first time the item is equipped it instantly kills the wearer.
- the Errutu’s Revenge. Enchant is skewed, the item is unharmed, mats are lost, and the enchanter is cursed - with a new quest to remove it (and a reward that may increase overall skill in one school)
- the Horcrux. Enchant is successful. Mats are used. No item damage, but a shard of the enchanter’s soul is placed in the item. The enchanter then receives random whispers from the Aether and might receive some knowledge from the beyond.
- the Keanu. Mats are used, enchant is successful, item is unharmed, but now appears as a spoon.
I rate this suggestion at about 135°, it'd have been more obtuse but the preamble was really intelligible. I don't like rng, but the yes-yes-noooo! is something I could roll with. Not sure about the rest, as I'm not currently in the mood to stare at where ever in the eldritch abyss some of these arrow points came from.
I don’t know what this means. But I bake pies at 425 degrees, and you know how I feel about pie.
So is this a 135/425? 😉
Alright, i already understood you personally dislike such enchantments systems even in games where P2W shop isn't entangled in it, but would you say the enchantment system killed/ruined Aion and TERA as mmorpgs overall as the main factor?
Why would you assume that the one you mentioned as "the weakest" a.k.a "player retention" does not apply to Ashes, when Ashes will be a subscription based game and player retention becomes as important as the one you considered number 1 "attracting new players" to maintain the highest number of subscriptions possible?
As for the second, "Maintenance of power gaps" can be done through balance changes, offering catchup mechanics through P2W methods is just predatory design.
As for the third, Player behaviour type is something that a lot of times is far beyond the devs reach players are excelent at deceiving devs expectations, when devs try to meddle with that or try to pigeon hole players in a certain way they are just met with backlash, and the behavioral example you gave is just one of many, such senario can motivate the player especially if there are catch-up mechanichs to iincentivize it even further.
RNGless systems are bound to boring repetitivity and to be trivial or obsolete, more of a task you have to check than something that can provide you excitiment. Which nonetheless demotivates players as they perfectly know what the outcomes are and the system turns into a simplistic spreadsheet.
Oh, smart move, fled away from the enchanting system being the only executioner of the game to it being its hardcore systems overall...
All mmorpgs were "the game of nolifers" pal people still have this approach to mmorpgs even till this day and age, but you definitely have a point in people fleeing L2 for easier games, but completely disregarding L2's downfall starting at the same year of the introduction of their cash shop is just disingenuous.
Appealing to personal experience just doesn't do the trick, if L2's downfall started with the introduction of thei enchant system that could make sense, but as it currently stands, might aswell do a Narc reference with something along the lines of "If you think L2's enchament system was its downfall perpetrator, you're probably just too high on copium."
Aren't we all sinners?
Impressive, do you truly believe RNG was the ultimate killer of those games and not their monetary methods and bad company management?
Would you please be kind enough to provide data to back-up such a bold assumption?
Aren't we all sinners?
Exactly, SWG had it right. Items need to break for the sake of a balanced Economy. I think we need a society arranged like our very own. There should be a system to allow each player the distinction of quality in their chosen profession. Players should be able to make names for themselves, according to the condition of their enchants etc... Let there be footnotes with player names attached to enchants.
If a profession lacks players, The economy will create demand on its own. Less competition means more profits for low numbered professions. Low numbered professions create demand to players unwilling to compete with an already saturated market. As well as, allowing the opportunity for players to exploit larger profits from a less concentrated market. This is assuming that all professions are a necessity and vital to the game. Once again if you follow our current social structure, society has instinctively resolved the need for required professions. Consistent with a games lore, the structure of our social order can be retro fitted and implemented into any fictional world we wish to create. I don't understand why game developers look for the perfect way to balance the economy and professions. The American dream is a model blueprint for any artifical game economy. Our society intuitively creates supply and demand.
Nothing in this world lasts forever, so in order to create a healthy economy and an established balanced profession base, you need what's called turn over and reinvention. Turn over ensures that the cycle of the economy keeps moving. Without the need for new equipment and gear, less currency will be circulated within the game. This can cause several problems when attempting to create a stable economy. Reinvention allows the ability to make things better over time. There should be the ability to create things bigger, faster and better. Depending on your understanding of the craft and the amount of work put forth.
In your own profession, personal achievement is only half fullfilling without the ability to excel beyond average. Yes its true when we set goals and accomplish them, we feel a sense of fullfillment. However, we are only human. We also seek superiority because we have learned since a young age that self-esteem is linked to how much better or worse we are, compared to other people. And when we seek superiority, we create a distinquishing reality between being average and above average. Its a desire to be best.
Yes, we play games to relax and unplug from the world around us. However, what really motivates most players is the idea of being the best. This is how Veteran gamers are born. This imaginary objective is what propels most avid gamers through the endless grind of every MMO. Otherwise, why would we do it. This purpose is what makes MMo's successful today.
Please only allow 1 or 2 professions at once.
Every craft needs a LITTLE luck, thats what helps seperate them from the rest. Let people create vendor stands and sell their own items. Ever MMO I play fails because the core prinicples break down. Balance is the main principle in an MMO that is almost always Broken. When there is a transfer of balance in a game too much one way or another, it spells doom. Yes bugs, content, graphics, gameplay, ETC are all very important, but when the core concepts go, so does the demise of the game.
SWG had the best concepts for professions, crafting, enchanting, and buffs. I really don't believe any other MMO has ever completely replicated or expanded swg's profession and crafting ideas. Developers could elimante all questions and theories by following something that already works. Nothing works betters then our social society and the ability to do things we never have done before or enjoy the skills and professions we are already enjoy today. Obviously, Lore professions. Not saying the social structure and job descriptions have to be the same. Only the concept!!!
Lets hope professions are implemented in Ashes of Creation, because I can't see a successful game without them. Unfortuantely, SWG made one of Jedi's Character introductions to the game connected to professions. In order to garantee a Jedi character, all professions had to be completed to max level. This decision destroyed the intented purpose of professions within the game, creating huge imbalances almongst crafts. Adding to SWGs problems, WOW, a reasonable alternative, was released soon after the introduction of the jedi character and history tells the rest. Don't get me wrong not all aspects of SWG was great. However, they absolutely nailed professions and crafting.
I'm curious as to why or what purpose a mechanic like "enchanting items can break them" is supposed to serve?
Is it supposed to be a form of gold and or time sink?
Because to me this just sound really annoying and like an arbitrary gate keeping.
I would be very upset if I spent a month farming materials and gold to craft an epic sword, but when I try to enchant it to the max, it breaks and becomes degraded or even unusable. What purpose would this serve other than making players upset?
This sounds like a classic example of punishing players to force them to play a certain way instead of rewarding and incentivising a way to play the game. Rested EXP in WoW is a good example of this where in the beta of WoW, players were hit with an EXP reduction if they played too much in order to prevent players from just blasting through the game. This was of course faced with backlash and in the end Blizzard created the rested EXP system to allow players to play as much as they want, but at the same time rewarding players for logging out for extended periods of time.
So, if you want enchanting to serve as a time sink you might as well just lock the enchanting behind a reputation grind or material grind instead. At least this way players can make consistent progress towards their goals and plan accordingly instead of having to rely on RNG to get that BiS item + enchant.
I would, however, be fine with items breaking or degrading if there was a way for me to repair them so I can try enchanting again with an increased success chance with each repair. For example, if I spend tons of materials to craft an epic weapon, but it breaks when I enchant it, I can then spend a comparatively small amount of materials to repair it. In doing so I also learn why the weapon broke and strengthen the weapon accordingly because I learned my lesson and improved my skill as a crafter. So each time the weapon breaks I can make it better until the point where I get 100% success chance on my enchantment. This would be similar to the Lost Ark gear upgrade system (but the materials needed should reasonable).
Another way I would be fine with is if lower quality items will break if enchanted with a high quality enchant.
For example, a low level weapon will have a high chance of breaking if enchanted with a powerful enchant, since the weapon was crafted with poor quality materials and a lower skilled craftsman. But a high level weapon crafted by a master blacksmith using the best materials should be able to be enchanted without risk of breaking. This would make sense since better materials could inherently have better properties and affinities to synergize with magic from enchants. This also provides clear and consistent ways for players to upgrade their weapons without relying on RNG.
TLDR:
Items breaking when enchanting them sounds like a bad idea and will just punish players arbitrarily for no clear reason. Is it a gold and time sink or what is the purpose of items breaking when enchanting them? Essentially sounds very similar to a pure RNG loot system like in Destiny or Titanforging in WoW, both of which are just awful, but with more steps.
Who wants to spend a lot of time and gold to get an epic item just to have it break when I try to max out it out with a powerful enchant?
Breaking when enchanting could be alright if I can repair the item and try again for a significantly lower cost than crafting the item, and also with an increased chance of successful enchant with each repair.
Alternatively, high level and quality items can't be broken when enchanted with powerful enchants because they have been crafted by master craftsmen using the best materials, which is why they are more expensive in the first place. Low quality items can be broken if enchanted with powerful enchants.
System would be something like organizing 6 different runes into different slots or positions. inlaying them or repositioning them has a chance to break the rune that gets reduced the higher your enchanting. once you've inlayed the runes in a specific order then you consume all six runes to lay that specific enchantment on a weapon/armor/jewelry. While they will grant some power increase, I think they should mostly focus on shifting the power, and only at master tier should they simple be flat power increases
So a novice might convert 10% of your weapons damage to poison damage, where as a master enchant would look like gain 10% additional damage as poison damage. And intermediate would be a 5/5 split. obviously you could scale these numbers to make the system more effective (say 50% increase) but I'd absolutely hate to see just flat bonuses for enchanting like a +1,+2,+3 system might have. it limits the amount of creativity and diversity the game could offer and makes the over all profession bland.
What? I am speaking for myself obviously, just telling you you are wrong. The RNG aspect killed the game and made me stop playing. Source: Me. You are the one who made a claim about why OTHER people (that you don't know) think the game was ruined, making the assertion that: "Its interesting to see people mentioning BDO and AA RNG enchanting systems killing/ruining their respective games as if it was their ultimate executioner, while in reality it was mainly their P2W cash shop intertangled with the enchanting system literally selling power."
So why don't you start providing a source for your claim about what other people think, and how all their opinions and experiences are somehow wrong? You must have a good study to back that up, and I would love to read it.
Or are you simply talking about what YOUR personal opinion is? Because the way you write it makes it sound like you think other people are somehow mistaken about their reasons for not playing those games anymore. As in, you are somehow dismissing their reasons for stopping as factually wrong. Which is a ludicrous take on it, so maybe we are talking past each other?
Could be that this begins with Enscribing the Rune on parchment.
Then we might need to form the Rune with more tangible resources: ruby or emeralds, maybe.
Then we have to attach the Rune onto the gear.
Where the Rune could break during the creation process or be lower in quality, but the chance of the piece of gear breaking is low.
(In general - I don't have a dog in the race about "overenchanting". Other than, just the term implies it's likely to result in disaster. I think we expect things that over heat might explode die or explode.)
Wait, what? You simple did not specified it was your personal opinion derived from your personal experience, in your post you literally just wrote: "it was definitely the RNG that killed it." in general, like a fact.
Without providing any sort of proof for that.
My claim is that people erroneously claimed that games like Archeage or Lineage 2 were MAINLY killed by RNG in GENERAL and not just personally for themselves, like you did!
Personal opinion/experience is personal opinion/experience i would never argue over something that is so far from being an actual valid argument and subjective.
Moving the goalpost them going straight to strawmanning, i wonder what kind of fallacy you will try next.
Aren't we all sinners?
Are you having a hard time reading dygz?
Aren't we all sinners?
Nerror claimed that he was clearly speaking about himself; not others.
I simply posted the quote where he stated what "people" WILL do: not merely what he did.
Nerror did not say, "I quit because of that system". He said, "People WILL quit."
The quote I posted is before your response.
The quote you just posted is a response to your response.
Definitely another example of Nerror making claims in general terms instead of personally.
Aren't we all sinners?
And the gear sink is there to keep said gear in use while preventing its overabundance. If we have a super high upkeep cost on top lvl gear, people just won't use until they know for sure that they can fix it after a fight. And now you made the player that worked so long for that gear feel bad because it's useless.
But if we have the upkeep be somewhat low, while pushing the power of the weapon further is super risky and expensive/rare - we'll have a somewhat level playing field in pvp with singular lucky people being just a bit higher in power. I'm saying this in the context of hope that Intrepid manage to make a balanced gear tier system where tier 5 is not ten times stronger than tier 4. A fair bit of people. And from what I've seen, it's usually exactly the people who have worked they ass off trying to get just a few more % of power over everyone else. But getting more and more powerful should always cost a lot and/or be super rare (though usually that just means the same thing), while also having a risk to it, otherwise, as I said above, sooner or later everyone will get too powerful and no one will be. And as Dygz said, imagine OE being like overheating smth to dangerous temperatures. You might get a better outcome, but you're risking a big boom in your face. Would lead to the same power creep I described above.
There have been several people including Nerror being vocal about it on the thread. So I think that much is fair, nor is it directly tied to claims relative to BDO.
Anyway Dygz now that I have your attention, I was interested in if you had thoughts on Rinta's post a couple pages back. Specifically, relative to the 'on the benefits of over-enhancing', 'mechanics of enhancing', and 'ragnarok shilling' sections. Thought those sorts of suggestions might be something you'd have a reaction to.