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I implore the devs to work on archetypes and classes before it's too late.

You guys are doing cool shit here, but there seems to be a lack of urgency or transparency on how classes are coming along. As the 64 classes was the exact issue that garnered my interest, I am becoming increasingly alarmed at the lack of info. I am worried that you will come up with a cool game world, but not be able to fit the class system into the core game systems well because it is an after-thought.

You can say that you are working on this, but you need to check out the arguments happening around projected classes. We arent tearing the community apart or anything, but people are solidifying what they think a class will be in their minds. If you let someone have a solidified concept of something, but then your vision doesnt line up with theirs, you will be left with a disaffected customer who may just leave because of an avoidable misunderstanding.

If you dont believe me, just take a look at the aftermath of CDPR's Cyberpunk. Most of their player's vitriol was because of unmanaged expectations.
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Comments

  • CawwCaww Member, Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    The Alpha 2 will likely have many alterations and iterations to the archtype and class structures. There may well be some disappointed players but really it is 8 classes archtypes with variations so it shouldn't be too far from what most people envision a class archtype to be.

    Edit: To conform to proper nomenclature.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    The expectation is: the game will come out in several years. Any other expectation is people's fault. If you sit there and come up with insane shit in your head - that's on you, not on Intrepid. And if you then cannot adjust what you came up with to what the game will have - that's an even bigger issue.

    Cyberpunk failed at that exactly because they promised a shitton and then didn't have most of the things they promised. Intrepid haven't promised anything concrete so far, they've only vaguely described what they wanna have in the game. Now, if Steven goes on the next dev stream and says "the Necromancer will have 20 skelingtons following him around and can then combine them into one 20ft skelington from target" and then on release we don't see that feature - that'd be a Cyberpunk-like failure.

    But so far we've only seen this: Steven says that they have a weather system unlike any other game's - and then we fucking got a weather system unlike any other game's. So I'd suggest trust the devs for now, wait until they're ready and keep your wild imagination calm. At least that's what I'm doing, even though I'd love to come up with all kinds of cool shit.
  • superhero6785superhero6785 Member, Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    Murdach wrote: »

    If you dont believe me, just take a look at the aftermath of CDPR's Cyberpunk. Most of their player's vitriol was because of unmanaged expectations.

    I think it was because the game was only 1/2 finished. Expecting a game without game-crushing bugs, T Poses, and PS2 graphics on anything other than a PS5 isn't "unmanaged expectations" 😅

    They're working on classes. Alpha 2 will have more available and have the subclass system in place. Patience.
  • Murdach wrote: »

    If you dont believe me, just take a look at the aftermath of CDPR's Cyberpunk. Most of their player's vitriol was because of unmanaged expectations.

    I think it was because the game was only 1/2 finished. Expecting a game without game-crushing bugs, T Poses, and PS2 graphics on anything other than a PS5 isn't "unmanaged expectations" 😅

    They're working on classes. Alpha 2 will have more available and have the subclass system in place. Patience.

    Actually, those bugs and graphics did not stop people from loving the Witcher series. I played every Witcher from launch and already knew CDPR made eurojank. The problem was most fans jumped in at Witcher 3, after they hired the cats that modded 1 and 2 into a good shape.

    That being said, even though Cyberpunk has reportedly been modded and fixed cats still dont want to go back and play because they feel they got burned the first time around.

    Ashes of Creations very first advertising point was the Class system and having 64 of them. I dont think it's unreasonable for them to put effort into more than 3 of the base archetypes 5 years later.
  • Thanks for the responses fam, but I was hoping more for one from a dev or an Ashes employee. I think the only specific example we have gotten all of these years is a Fighter augmenting their Dash with Teleport. Just the Necromancer arguments alone should be worrying the dev team. The imagined powers being bandied about are wildly outside of the current class parameters that are known.

    I'm just saying. It's gonna get ugly if it's left to fester.
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Murdach wrote: »
    I'm just saying. It's gonna get ugly if it's left to fester.
    The only ones making it ugly are the entitled people who think there's some arbitrary time limit that they themselves have put on Intrepid. The only thing that can prevent the game from coming out whenever it wants is if all the whales stop buying monthly cosmetics, and I somehow doubt that's gonna happen just because Intrepid haven't shown classes or augments before alpha2.
  • PenguinPaladinPenguinPaladin Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    These conversations happen all the time. Im assuming you're talking about the summoners having even more pets topic. I think its unrealistic in general, i think 3 summons and a combat pet are more than should be expected to begin with. The forums are a place to discuss ideas.... the thought, what they are talking about scares me, and the potential of scope creep can ruin the game. Intrepid has a vision they are going towards... and most of them have mmo experience. The people that get too wrapped up in hyping themselves up and then get disappointed, are going to happen... thats part of hype. Its why no game ever lives up to expectations.
  • SongRuneSongRune Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    The "big plan" after Alpha 1 was a full combat revamp. We don't know anything about how it's doing because they've moved away from transparent development (for perfectly legitimate reasons, imo), but between that and the fact that Alpha 2 is supposed to have all archetypes available, along with some secondary archetypes and augments (ref), I feel it's reasonable to conclude that they are working on it.
  • superhero6785superhero6785 Member, Alpha Two
    Murdach wrote: »
    Murdach wrote: »

    If you dont believe me, just take a look at the aftermath of CDPR's Cyberpunk. Most of their player's vitriol was because of unmanaged expectations.

    I think it was because the game was only 1/2 finished. Expecting a game without game-crushing bugs, T Poses, and PS2 graphics on anything other than a PS5 isn't "unmanaged expectations" 😅

    They're working on classes. Alpha 2 will have more available and have the subclass system in place. Patience.

    Actually, those bugs and graphics did not stop people from loving the Witcher series. I played every Witcher from launch and already knew CDPR made eurojank. The problem was most fans jumped in at Witcher 3, after they hired the cats that modded 1 and 2 into a good shape.

    So people liked one buggy 1/2 finished game in the past & therefore if people don't like it again then it's their fault for having "unmanaged expectations" for a finished game? Makes sense.
  • ImonuallImonuall Member
    edited June 2022
    I guess the problem with too many combinations of classes in pvp is that it's impossible to balance all the possible skills interactions. one skill can be too op used with another one, so they nerf it and basically it becomes too weak for anything else.
    in pve it doesn't really matter if some skill is more op than another, but in pvp balance is too crucial and the more combinations you have, the more impossibile it becomes to balance them all.
    we'll see.
  • NishUKNishUK Member
    edited June 2022
    Even though I love class and skill diversities and I'm totally against people saying "8 classes with a bit of variation" without them knowing themselves how deeps the variations will turn out like, at the end of the day, the combat and details aren't in yet.

    Even though marketting/advertisement has been stale for the average gaming audience, it appears as though they are going to stay shut on that front and weather the storm when their Alpha 2 is quite the polished beast and then the opinions and criticism's will rain.
  • PenguinPaladinPenguinPaladin Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    NishUK wrote: »
    I'm totally against people saying "8 classes with a bit of variation" without them knowing themselves how deeps the variations will turn out like, at the end of the day, the combat and details aren't in yet.

    The reason why people say this is because your main class decides all of your skills. Your second class "changes nothing" when it comes to what you can do. It changes "how" you do what you can do.

    And making that very clear to try and keep people from running off into fantasy thinking the enchanter is nothing like the mage. But yeah, who knows how deep it will go in the end
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    Murdach wrote: »
    Thanks for the responses fam, but I was hoping more for one from a dev or an Ashes employee. I think the only specific example we have gotten all of these years is a Fighter augmenting their Dash with Teleport. Just the Necromancer arguments alone should be worrying the dev team. The imagined powers being bandied about are wildly outside of the current class parameters that are known.
    Haha!
    No! We also have the example of applying a Mage's Fire or Lightning augment to the Fighter's Charge Active Skill.
    :)

    Devs rarely respond here.
  • TalentsTalents Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    They're working on combat. They can't work on classes before the combat is done.
    nI17Ea4.png
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    They're working on combat and classes.
  • CROW3CROW3 Member, Alpha Two
    I just finished Cyberpunk 2077 (v1.5). I thought it was a fantastic game, it's launch was a disaster though. I'm not sure how much of that disaster was missed expectations on features versus little things missing feeling MUCH bigger because the game performed (technically) like crap. Either way it was a big miss from the CDPR W3 wins.

    For Ashes, I think most of us are drooling to see the other archetypes, and the interaction (synergies + advantages/disadvantages) between the archetypes. Just to note - because this always comes up - there are only 8 core classes with 8 variations each, Not 64 completely distinct classes. Think 8 base ice creams with 8 different toppings.
    AoC+Dwarf+750v3.png
  • SinderSinder Member, Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    CROW3 wrote: »
    Think 8 base ice creams with 8 different toppings.

    *Drool* making me crave icecreams now.

    But on a serious note this is one of the better descriptions I've seen for how classes should be thought of.
    9u9aa7k6gdsu.gif
    I long to imagine a change, my heart is frozen by the winter rain.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    Murdach wrote: »
    You can say that you are working on this, but you need to check out the arguments happening around projected classes. We arent tearing the community apart or anything, but people are solidifying what they think a class will be in their minds. If you let someone have a solidified concept of something, but then your vision doesnt line up with theirs, you will be left with a disaffected customer who may just leave because of an avoidable misunderstanding.
    If people are forming solid opinions on what a class will be, without input from Intrepid, that is on them.

    Someone involved in those conversations should probably try to stop that from happening.

    As an aside, the reason we don't have solid class info as yet is because it isn't finalized. Intrepid don't want people forming solid opinions on things that are still changing.
  • BalanzBalanz Member, Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    Talents wrote: »
    They're working on combat. They can't work on classes before the combat is done.
    Dygz wrote: »
    They're working on combat and classes.

    Pretty much.
  • I really dislike the wording where they said "64 classes", because in essence it is only 8 classes with a choice to double down on your class fantasy or to steal stuff from another class

    yes you have total 64 RP variations, but from gameplay perspective you will not have 64 unique classes - just 8 with customization options to steal stuff from the other 7 classes
    “Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.”

    ― Plato
  • SjeldenSjelden Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    Too late for what, exactly? For people to build expectations? Hype?
    Regardless how many hoops Intrepid jump through, people will always set unrealistic expectations.

    I would like to see the skills, augments, and combat system as a whole, laid out in detail for all to see and experience. But only because I am curious.

    Steven gave a perfectly good explanation as to why they choose to wait before they show off the new combat system, and I support that decision.
  • MahesMahes Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    It would be nice if they started going over the rest of the core classes.

    We have not seen anything new for over a year now regarding a key part of the game. Weather and super detailed character creators are nice but for me that is icing on the cake. The core classes are part of the actual cake.
  • PenguinPaladinPenguinPaladin Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Mahes wrote: »
    It would be nice if they started going over the rest of the core classes.

    We have not seen anything new for over a year now regarding a key part of the game. Weather and super detailed character creators are nice but for me that is icing on the cake. The core classes are part of the actual cake.

    Cant make a class without finalized combat... cant make skills without finalized combat... and they are doing a combat overhaul? Hmmmm.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    I'm not overly sure people are being realistic with their expectations here.

    I don't expect to see any solid information on classes in their finished form until the game is heading in to beta - potentially even in to public beta.

    Releasing class information is a solid hype move. You want to build hype leading up to the release of the game - meaning you want to release class information leading up to the release of the game.
  • AtamaAtama Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Tragnar wrote: »
    I really dislike the wording where they said "64 classes", because in essence it is only 8 classes with a choice to double down on your class fantasy or to steal stuff from another class

    yes you have total 64 RP variations, but from gameplay perspective you will not have 64 unique classes - just 8 with customization options to steal stuff from the other 7 classes

    Yes, Intrepid seems to have Obi-Wan Kenobi's philosophy when it comes to facts. "So, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."

    Step 1: Redefine what the word "class" means even though it's a very well-defined term in role-playing games going back 50+ years to the original D&D game.
    Step 2: Create a system with 64 "classes", which aren't really classes, we just call them that.
    Step 3: Advertise that "THIS GAME HAS 64 CLASSES OMG!!!!111".
    Step 4: Let the community patiently explain how the game really has only 8 classes.

    Yes, it's a pet peeve of mine. I really don't like when Intrepid has these used car sales tactics when promoting their game. :(
     
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  • Taleof2CitiesTaleof2Cities Member, Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    Atama wrote: »
    Yes, Intrepid seems to have Obi-Wan Kenobi's philosophy when it comes to facts. "So, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."

    Given Intrepid's recent track record of under-promising and over-delivering (e.g. Dynamic Seasons), we may be surprised at what the Archetypes eventually turn out to be, @Atama.

    You remember the very first Star Wars movie title, do you not?

    "A New Hope."

  • AtamaAtama Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Atama wrote: »
    Yes, Intrepid seems to have Obi-Wan Kenobi's philosophy when it comes to facts. "So, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."

    Given Intrepid's recent track record of under-promising and over-delivering (e.g. Dynamic Seasons), we may be surprised at what the Archetypes eventually turn out to be, @Atama.

    You remember the very first Star Wars movie title, do you not?

    "A New Hope."

    This is why these pet peeves are just pet peeves. They've blown me away many times. Heck, I played Alpha 1, which has a tiny bit of the content the final game will have, and it was actually fun. Really fun.

    I cut Intrepid a lot of slack because what they've already accomplished is amazing. They've earned passes from me. That doesn't mean I can't gripe now and then.
     
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  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Atama wrote: »
    Step 1: Redefine what the word "class" means even though it's a very well-defined term in role-playing games going back 50+ years to the original D&D game.
    Step 2: Create a system with 64 "classes", which aren't really classes, we just call them that.
    Step 3: Advertise that "THIS GAME HAS 64 CLASSES OMG!!!!111".
    Step 4: Let the community patiently explain how the game really has only 8 classes.
    I still give them a chance to show augments in their full glory (if there is any). Cause quite often there's barely more than 10 "classes" in an mmo either way. You might have several elemental mages or a few flavors of melee fighters, but most of the time their core gameplay is very similar. The attacks achieve same results, debuffs have very similar effect, buffs increase similar (or sometimes same) stats. So in a way those 64 "classes" can still be called classes in their usual mmorpg meaning. But to be sure about that, we'll first have to see waaay more augments than the singular fucking TP dash.
  • AtamaAtama Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited June 2022
    NiKr wrote: »
    Atama wrote: »
    Step 1: Redefine what the word "class" means even though it's a very well-defined term in role-playing games going back 50+ years to the original D&D game.
    Step 2: Create a system with 64 "classes", which aren't really classes, we just call them that.
    Step 3: Advertise that "THIS GAME HAS 64 CLASSES OMG!!!!111".
    Step 4: Let the community patiently explain how the game really has only 8 classes.
    I still give them a chance to show augments in their full glory (if there is any). Cause quite often there's barely more than 10 "classes" in an mmo either way. You might have several elemental mages or a few flavors of melee fighters, but most of the time their core gameplay is very similar. The attacks achieve same results, debuffs have very similar effect, buffs increase similar (or sometimes same) stats. So in a way those 64 "classes" can still be called classes in their usual mmorpg meaning. But to be sure about that, we'll first have to see waaay more augments than the singular fucking TP dash.
    No, they aren't classes. I'm not arguing that there won't be a ton of variety. There will be. I'm excited at the possibilities if augments are at all impactful. And you don't just get augments from subclasses, you also get them from races, I believe religions, and who knows where else. The amount of customization is amazing.

    But they aren't classes. They've been very clear to temper expectations; augments can change the way you do things, but not what you can do.

    What's frustrating to me is that what they actually have is so great, they don't have to lie to market it. Maybe the idea is that you spin a falsehood to draw people in, and once they see how things actually work then players are enchanted and stick around. Maybe that actually works. Maybe the truth is too hard to put in small, catchy terms that work well in ads. But I still just think it's a bad principle to lie to people to sell your product, no matter how good that product really is.

    To me it's like advertising that the game is so huge that it is 1,000 square miles in size. Then you explain that what people on Verra call a "mile" is closer to a tenth of a mile in the real world. But then you show people how much is packed into all of that terrain, it's not empty space like other MMORPGs, there is so much content, and hope people don't feel cheated. (And maybe they won't, but still, it seems wrong.)
     
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  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Atama wrote: »
    But they aren't classes. They've been very clear to temper expectations; augments can change the way you do things, but not what you can do.
    But that's my point though. I can't give an example from other games, and maybe even other games have better "classes", but in L2 there were 5 mage classes. Pretty much all of them had different stats due to being different races, but their base function didn't really change (outside of one of them who got added later on). They had different elemental bases, but outside of just a few abilities they were pretty much recolors. Though you could even exclude one of the mages cause he's in-between a summoner and a mage.

    But even with all of that, they were still considered "different classes" and were valued separately. So if Intrepid manage to make good augments - I'd still consider those 8 "classes" different enough to be considered classes.

    Even if we take that damn TP augment and consider that it's a school of augments, we might be able to apply that school to more abilities, which might create a "teleport-warrior" whose gameplay and party role would most likely differ from smth like a "fire-warrior" and would most definitely make it different from a "life-warrior". So in theory it's not just 64 classes, but potentially even more, if each archetype has several augment schools within them (like mage's TP and Elements). And yes, as you said, augments don't only come from classes so there might be even more depth and variety in it.

    And exactly because of those possibilities I reserve my judgement for class design until we see that design. I'm preparing to just have 8 roles with maybe some variance, but I hope that Intrepid manage to pull off what they want and what they've promised. And so far they've been able to pull off quite a few things already.
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