Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
If you try to head-canon that Ashes is a low magic setting, yeah, your immersion will be easily broken.
Garish outfits don't break immersion - it's just super-ugly.
However, I understand it.
As to where the player agency is - it is with the players buying cosmetics.
Player agency can be looked at as player freedom. As with most forms of freedom, when you hand people one type of freedom, you are taking a different freedom away from them.
If that's your preference I won't argue it. I definitely understand the benefit that your example proposes. If I'm not mistaken you're hoping to be able to focus the backline during confusing PvP encounters.
I'm sure that you'll be able to identify specific archetypes amongst a group with relative ease. I'm just not certain if the appearance of their equipment will play a substantial role in identifying their capabilities.
The appearance of equipment is proposed to be customizable through crafting and isn't inherently tied to the equipments stat distribution as far as I know.
All gear will be able to be assigned any stat.
Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities on gear.
I'm obviously not entirely certain but it's plausible that a mage wearing crafted plate may be entirely or nearly as effective as a mage wearing the equivalent tier of non-crafted cloth.
But yes, it's mainly just a preference that stems from L2's gear system which I liked a lot, but I'll deal with it if Ashes ends up being very secretive about its gear presentation (clicking a dude in a huge crowd just to know his gear type is still really secretive to me).
I don't think you understood my point entirely. It may be possible that crafted cloth gear could provide just as much or nearly as much defence as plate, via customization during the crafting process.
Personally I wouldn't like this for the game, but reading through the wiki it seemed quite plausible.
It's not going to tell you which Passive Skills they have their points in or which augments they use or what their tactics are.
All 5 healers could be wearing a mix of Physical and Magical gear.
You might want to attack a dude in light gear. You will be able to tell they are mostly wearing light gear even if their transmog is full plate.
Ew.
Maybe just a list of names of the top five highest DPS in close proximity or such.
The numbers aren't as important as who needs to be targeted.
Skins/cosmetics remove sight-reading ability which, imo, is crucial for pvp. But we'll have to see how it works out in Ashes.
We agree!
wtf
Psychological warfare IS a part of PvP.
Why are so many people against luring your opponents into a trap and crushing them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo9buo9Mtos
I'm not against this.
I am against the only way to do this bring the purchase of a skin on the store.
While there are in game cosmetics, Intrepid seem to ha e distinguished between how store bought in in game earned appearance items work.
Would love to see that too
I mentioned this in another recent thread, @Snerel, but the main purpose of cosmetics is to, well ... show off your look to other players.
It might be a cosmetic from a difficult in-game achievement or simply one purchased as a supporter of the fine work the Intrepid Team does.
Either way, allowing other players to disable cosmetics devalues the pride and accomplishment that players have done to earn their look.
I think Steven shares the same sentiment ... especially since other threat assessment tools have been confirmed.
Moreover, full cosmetics have worked fine in other MMOs that were willing to provide other threat assessment tools.
This sounds like a great compromise and more immersive also
I don't mind not knowing if they're stronger/weaker since it feeds into the risk vs reward. But I think it would be fair if I could at least know what kind of kit I'll be up against.
You should have a nameplate and emblem in game that clearly shows your "power level and class" so you're taken care of there.