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
Aren't we all sinners?
14:45 < GM> Response: YESSSS
14:47 < GM> Throwing weapons, 'summoner' implications, movement speed confirmations, stealth being magical
14:47 < GM> Group movement and synergies
14:47 < GM> everything
14:47 < TheOtherInnocent> well that was fancy
14:47 < TheOtherInnocent> indeed
14:47 < GM> this looks more like FFXI with every trailer
14:51 < GM> I can do deeper analytics if anyone needs them, but the blanket data is 'looking good, no notes'
14:52 < TheInnocent> Id like time stamps mostly
14:52 < TheOtherInnocent> my main takeaways were 'group magic stealth', 'true birb transform confirmed in case it wasnt', 'hey that golem summon looked like, player-scale'
14:52 < GM> hmk
14:52 < GM> I assume 'throwing weapon possible' doesn't require one, so
14:54 < GM> 0:30 gives a really good impression of movement speed and requirements, for a moment
14:54 < GM> 0:34 is definitely 'group magic stealth'
14:54 < GM> with a really nice windup and a big requirement, so it can't just happen randomly
14:55 < GM> 0:42 is complex because I'm NOW pretty sure that thing is a Player Golem/Summon
14:55 < GM> the 'one that looks like it has two huge metal doors as shields on its arms'
14:55 < GM> whereas the other purple one you saw back at 0:30 is an enemy type
14:56 < GM> you see it again at 0:50 fighting the 'DoorArm' one, so either both are summonable or at least one is
14:56 < GM> and we see most if not all of the player attacks in that case focused on the Purple one
14:56 < GM> SOMEONE is either in the form of, or controlling, 'DoorArm'
14:57 < GM> and that's it.
15:02 < TheInnocent> Siege golems are confirmed player controlled in one of the director interviews
15:02 < GM> yes, but the thing is, this doesn't appear to be a siege
15:02 < GM> that's what makes me think slightly differently
15:02 < TheInnocent> True!
15:03 < TheInnocent> You said summon?
15:03 < GM> which implies a BIT that you just get 'to either transform into or summon it for a fight with a big boss'
15:03 < GM> and based on what I know of their design, Summon would make SLIGHTLY more sense for this kind
15:03 < GM> not at ALL suggesting that it will happen, but this KIND would be more of a 'point it at a target and it fights'
15:04 < GM> whereas Siege Golems need to be 'properly controlled at all times, even movement'
15:05 < GM> And it isn't highly mobile, which is normally the 'limit' a Summon has in a high precision/skill game
15:05 < GM> no one is likely to have incorrect expectations of it.
15:07 < TheInnocent> I see
Laziness!
They are hiding their T&L monetization plans so much, that no matter how i look at it, i expect Pay2Win Clown Fiesta entrenched within the game systems.
Aren't we all sinners?
Yeah I am now absolutely certain that this is either going to be the most complex 'Battle Pass' + 'Cosmetics to not look like a hobo' game ever, or straight P2W in all cases and forms.
They used to hint that it would be the first (and I've seen a LOT of weird cosmetic options) due to basically knowing that it will not properly resonate with the global audience if it is too raw on the P2W aspects, but that sort of talk has suspiciously vanished, with no discussions of outright Subscription to replace it.
On the other hand, they're pretty aware that if they want to compete with the Big Boss of MMOs at all right now, they are better off leaning on 'Battle Pass'/semi-optional Subscription, now that FFXIV has made that 'the norm' again on that end.
7:37 onward if you are familiar with the other recent videos.
Important stuff:
AoE damage absorb on Tanks.
Special augmentations on some stuff.
Elixine high healing is bought in the 'Event shop' (basically something you can snag in PvP scenarios) with a cooldown of 15s, heals 1125, so the implication, since health ranges up to about 8k, seems that they don't want high speed 'potion spam' at least in some of their PvP contests.
So far, everything lines up exactly with my expectations @NiKr, for combat design.
Making no comment on P2W stuff or expectations on that front.
Scope of some of this stuff is even better than I expected, but this isn't really the place to babble about that. Just keeping people up to date in case it inspires any actually useful feedback to Intrepid.
As for the hp pots. There's a chance that they'll have that instant version and a regen over time version for a smaller price or more easily available. At least that's what L2 had and there's been just too many similar things between the 2 games. Even the cd of 15s is kinda same, because that's the time of effect of L2's healing pots (though you could recast the pot within the last 5s of the effect).
Looking forward to more info on it and hope that I can try it out on EU servers.
I trust them there won't be any real pay to win.
Any specific reason for that trust?
Aren't we all sinners?
My make up
I will make sure to buy the most colorful in-game cosmetic to match the IRL attire i will be wearing when login into it.
Aren't we all sinners?
Dividing the player base > I think there is significant risk that this would only split the players even though the day-and-night cycle to my awareness is 4 times as fast as in real life. Most people won't play 6h a day and if their time zone happens to put them in the unfavorable ingame time, they would probably just switch to a server in a time zone that favors their game style.
Lore implication > And we might also ask ourselves if it would make sense from a lore perspective. The corruption comes from somewhere and why would the Gods all go to sleep at night an not care about corruption when the sun is down when they just finished creating an interdimensional Arche to help their children survive? I'm not sure whether it could be explained within the story of this world.
Suggestion > What I think would work better and might actually be interesting would be (story) events where certain zones get corrupted by the Others and that disables the corruption system temporarily until they Others are being pushed back. This incentivizes the PvP zealots to protect this zone of chaos, while PvX and PvE players would get new interesting targets to take out before the corrupted zone shifts the power balance of the Nodes so much that one of the greater ZOI fall.
Conclusion > There is merit to the mechanic but in my opinion only on an event based system rather than as a continuous mechanic with regular predictable reoccurrence.
That looks like what I'd expect, yeah. That said, my experience on this front is pretty small so I only mention it to clarify why this doesn't make me expect a delay nor consider the term 'Alpha' to be incorrect.
There's some other leaks floating around on Reddit that imply things will be basically an L2-BDO Hybrid, but with mostly the better aspects of both, and possibly one bit of staggeringly annoying P2W (or more accurately an RNG game mechanic that may or may not have a P2W aspect but only makes sense to implement if you intend to use it to get money from desperate players)
Also there are now four implications that the economy will be bad/sub BDO tier, but none of them guarantee it, and I don't think the Korean MMO market 'evolution' would ever fix two of them anyway. Surprised they added two more though, so I'm basically expecting to ditch this game (as a serious form of entertainment) too after a few months, but have it take up my 'BDO' slot for studying at least.
Hoping for the best, expecting the worst, unlike around here (for Ashes I hope for the best and expect mid-tier!)
https://throneandliberty.online/alleged-alpha-tester-give-details-about-throne-and-liberty/
We did not.
It's not that strange though, it's common in MMOs to have one for balancing the whole 'zombie zerg' attempts on bosses, right?
BDO had penalties before they made the game 'palatable to whales' and FFXI exp loss could delevel you outright (and make you unable to wear your level 75 gear if you deleveled to 74) so raids and similar content was stricter.
This really is still 'Lineage 3' under it all in terms of most functions, which is why I relied on you and James so much for clear data.
Hoping for no Soulshots personally though.
Yeah, I don't think I've heard of any other mmo where you pretty much HAD to have a resource if you wanted to play the game in a normal way (obviously not counting arrows). While I appreciate the interconnectedness of the crafting system that SS provided, I do think that we were all just too used to that mechanic to objectively judge its true value.
I do not enjoy when games create unnecessary noob traps, nor when they balance content around a mandatory item, because it creates a duality.
If you have the item, the content is trivial, if you don't, it's very punishing OR 'have item = reasonable, without item borderline impossible'.
I think it's an unhealthy game design, but it's moreso that SoulShots, as they originally existed, are such an incredibly convoluted function taking up such a disparately large portion of the economic structure of L2 (this is based on that video you had me watch).
I just think that it can be done better, and I see why it wasn't in L2, but seeing them in a fresh game would imply that they are explicitly trying to hit the L2 nostalgia vibe or couldn't come up with the alternate better methods, or worse, both.
I'm no stranger to 'having an item that is required to do a lot of things in a game', FFXI Ninjas have to carry around one type of consumable 'tool' for every jutsu option (so about 13 inventory slots dedicated to just ninjutsu) but those are specific to the jutsu and you can do without them, you would just not choose to.
Everything I understand of SoulShots indicates that you could use less POWERFUL ones to save money, but using 'none' would limit you.
Anytime the game requires you to pull out the spreadsheet to figure out the optimal amount of money to spend in order to fight enjoyably, there's going to be a large subset of people who just end up being exploited by the sort of people I compete with.
I just don't like games where 'being a good economy player' basically comes down to 'figuring out how to take advantage of other people's ignorance en masse', and while SoulShots were not that because of the way they were introduced over time, it feels like it would be a bad idea to start with them.
But yeah, I get your point. There's definitely much better systems out there, so starting out a game with this kind of stuff would just lead to even worse design decisions later on.
Ashes theoretically has multiple superior models baked into the design right out of the gate, or so I assume because of my difficulty imagining a system that is NOT an improvement/hybrid of L2 and FFXI (based on what they said).
Basically, I truly believe that a hybridization of those two games, based on everything I've learned from you, is a perfect game, not just 'for me', but as an MMO in general. Obviously there's some bias, but in the end, if you take 'the best from everything' you should reasonably end up with 'the best', and FFXI doesn't so much 'do stuff that L2 does but worse', it's moreso that it has a lot of 'gaps' in its design due to not being PvP oriented, that L2 fills in automatically, whereas other games moreso 'compete'.
SImilarly, L2 has a lot of clear gaps that FF fills, so the two games' 'child' would be all-powerful.
The issue, ofc, is that this is all just my imagination of what could/should be, and doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of Ashes at all.
I don't think an L2-BDO hybrid can be as effective because they'd have sections where the two games' implementations will clash, fail to mesh together properly, and create potential for really broken things. I'm already expecting that from TL meta-combat, but to be fair I never delved into how much '6s CD AutoPotion spam' is in L2, I think you mentioned it at some point though.
L2 mainly relied on 10s cd 15s effect hp regen pots, with 6min cd big hp and mp pots, super rare no cd direct heal hp pots and a whole separate "health" bar with no cd low/mid pots for it.
If I saw correctly in the TL videos, it does seem to just have direct healing pots. Maybe that was just the ones they had in their testing or maybe these ones fit their combat design better, I dunno.
L2 added the second hp bar with its pots to prolong ttk by quite a lot, so TL might be going for the middle point, because they only had one bar. I personally liked the ttk with two hp bars, so I'd assume I'll like TL's combat if they do in fact have direct healing pots on a shorter cd.
Though again, I'm mainly looking at it from a pvp perspective. I'd assume that this kind of healing design brings a ton of potential design issues to the pve part of the game. Oh, I forgot to mention that the second "hp" bar only applied in pvp, so for pve you still only had 1s tickrate hp regen pots which would help if you were kiting mobs or just running away, but would not keep you invincible against mobs of your lvl.
The game was plagued with Chinese gold farmers at launch too. Global chat always had ads by them for gold. In my mind, at the time, SS were part of the incentive buy gold.
Then I definitely hope they don't appear in TL.
Anywhere I say FFXI I think you can mostly substitute EQ2, though I'm not entirely sure, since I think FF is more 'focused' in terms of how moment-to-moment combat goes and the economy might have been a little better around the middle of development.
In terms of content release timings I think they were similar, but the fact is that there's no way to know because they both released 'more content than a person could seriously remember all of'.
As for the healing balance and TTK, I'm going to remain skeptical mostly because I don't think Korean MMOs have the same goals at all usually in terms of player engagement, but I'm hopeful because I just naively assume that they really can't be expecting to have sub-MOBA level combat in 2023 in a fantasy game and expect people to take it seriously in a game where you basically have no real consequence.
That's the underlying structural problem with MMOs on both 'ends' right now. Those that appeal to the 'I want to relax and RP and craft ONLY' crowd have combat that puts the 'I want to functionally fight a high stakes tactical battle every 10 minutes' crowd to sleep and vice versa. Only BDO and Albion seem to get into the middle properly and both of those are missing the spark of 'lasting consequence on the world/character technical progression' that keeps people playing more than 4 months.
But I'd have to detail another huge BDO flaw for you to understand what I'm getting at. Basically they added a 'fairy' that follows you around and autoheals you with the potions in your inventory at some point... but you have to do stuff to even get it, and the strength of Fairy you get is RNG, as is the result of trying to level up a weaker one to be stronger, and the abilities they get, and you can only have one I think so if you had a mismatch you have to 'rebirth' it which then is most efficiently done byyyyy...
Good ol' P2W.
As for TL, I haven't followed news about it, but from the little I've heard it hit a lot of my boxes, I'm just on the wary side, well, it's a NC Soft game and although I don't mind some level pay for convenience, I'm much more reticent for P2W.