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
You can change that in the settings of the bot. I'd assume that people with above average gear will set their bot to hit others' mobs.
So the standard is if the mmo feels like a mobile game it is ok?
Sounds like it is time for me to quit mmorpgs now.
If Ashes failed I'm destroying the whole industry and rebuilding it from the ground up.
Though AoC should be fine as long as it keeps up with the feed back and pushing the combat. Some people are too harsh on it with it being lvl 15 characters. As long as they have movement on skills and keep working on it, things will be amazing. Ranger showcase with jump skill is best example of that imo.
Though i don't judge failing based on hate trains but how i see it and how it feels to play it. T&L will be a good reality check to a lot of people on what consumers are wanting and not wanting now adays.
Korean markets just have different flows for their MMOs.
Ashes is still made by a Korean MMO fan though. I hope that Steven has enough people on the team to help him understand the gaps.
If Steven ends up being another Creative Lead/Lead Designers who is just trying to recreate feelings that he doesn't understand the technical levels of, we're in trouble unless he has people who will push back very strongly.
It's easier to make a bland MVP hack like TL and at least grab some portion of consumers, than it is to build something that replicates a full old MMO experience, and succeed enough to grab those consumers. Especially because you have to surpass FF14.
If Ashes fails I will bet big money on it being because of the above. There's no way for this game to fail except by Steven not 'getting it' and trying to recapture some stuff based on 'how it was done' instead of 'how he wants it to be done'. Ashes is too strong as a premise, for that.
If you watched that Asmon vod, he compares TL to BDO and shows a super messy aoe fight where you can't see shit and says "look how great this is, I'm sure there's no one who'd prefer TL over this". And I'm pretty sure that the longer we wait the more people there'll be who completely agree with that. And Ashes won't be that, or at least I don't see how it can become that.
no you don't get it, that's not the standard. that's a segment of the market. there's a desire for that type of games, otherwise no one would make it. you cant change peoples desires, you can only ride the wave or not. if you don't like that game, its fine, we still have ashes.
Anytime i see asmongold react to BDO i find it funny since he didn't really play it lmao. I think he is mostly just memeing so i can't take it that seriously. Anytime he brings it up, it isn't n a detail level but more so just very surface level based on the look of it being flashy. There are good points and bad points, to bdo combat but it needs to be focused on you can't just show it randomly and say this is better.
If bdo at auto combat it be better ;o
BDO does not have anything beyond the surface level in the PvE though, which is the segment of gaming that Asmon and 90% of MMO players care about more.
Even I care about the PvE more than the PvP. There are enough PvP non MMO games out there that there is nearly no reason for anyone but the most diehards or the most middling players who can't hack it in actual PvP games, to want an MMO for it (for the PvP part of it).
Asmon likes to say this himself. PvP MMO players are, in his opinion, degenerates who can't hack it in other games, or degenerates who need a way to stroke their egos even harder by becoming god-tier unkillable instead of just 'the top 10%'.
Until something or someone proves Asmon wrong in that, he'll always treat PvP MMO games as just flashy Dynasty Warriors PvE stuff. Because he has basically no respect for PvP MMO players who focus on the PvP.
Ya there needs to be a balance on "how it was done before" honestly i believe they will have the balance in doing things right and not just a copy with old school stuff.
The feedback part is pretty important I know this is a project close to heart. No one is going to want to see it fail or make it fail, feedback can sting even more for things like this and they have gotten a lot of it over the years and continued to improve / develop their product. I don't think they will be stuck in the past too much.
But we can only wait and see how things turn out so far I personally don't have any bad vibes. This is the only game I've supported thus far because of their passion, transparency and progress. I have a strong good feeling.
Yes but in a way, that lowers your 'usefulness' to Intrepid.
You APPEAR to be easy to please. You mostly just 'support whatever they do' with strong faith, which is good, I guess, but it's not really 'feedback'. Sometimes you just 'assume they won't do a thing the way you would dislike', and that helps a bit, but then you don't usually want to debate/discuss it with people who don't agree with it being done that way.
I bring this up because you're actually the only person I know on this forum with a certain subset of stances, and we might have better conversations if you engaged without as much 'apparently blind faith'.
But even this is moreso 'me communicating the feelings of my group towards you' than anything else, so I guess I'll leave it there.
Relevant to the topic at hand therefore...
Ashes combat sucks.
It is faith with what I see and the progress, If i feel the need to have a stronger stance there needs to be enough of something and it developed enough for me to be more critical on feedback.
Example being if i see a class preview and it seems fine and you only see a few skills, at that point it is not worth being critical or making me feel i should doubt. That feels to early and I'd rather see more of what they are going for before I reevaluate how I will look on the content. That or I'd need to know brief design goals. But there is too much information missing and I'll know it when they show it.
I also wouldn't say it is that much blind faith, that is earned based on what I see and how certain things are approached. Nor does it mean it is unmoving, it is reevaluated when it needs to be. They can do things I dislike that is 100% positive, my outlook isn't just about me solely of course there is bias though. But I try to step away from me or my exact play style to as large a degree as my bias lets me.
So it is, then (this post is mainly so that the people who rely on me take the time to read your response).
So now, to have today's real discussion, if people are interested...
We've had some people noting that Ashes combat is better than TL for sure, but most of the people who talk to me (including the random posters who PM me about stuff) have the strongly opposite opinion.
Now, from my standpoint as a person who dislikes the type of combat Ashes has but can see how it is not horribly technically flawed, a comparison to TL combat based on that is unfair. To me, Ashes combat is not better than TL combat in any way. TL's flaw is in the poor PvE it seems to offer based on what we saw in the beta but the combat core doesn't seem like it will lead to something that most Tab Target players dislike heavily if their side content/hidden content/boss content is as good as their trailers suggested.
TL combat looks boring because people just do Astral Hunting on easy mobs (the PvP is more interesting but most of the streamers weren't good enough at it). But Ashes is a Tab Target game on the PvE side so it's incredibly likely to look exactly the same. Just review the Tank Showcase for that.
I see no meaningful difference between the Tank Showcase and TL Combat.
So I would like to hear from anyone who does. I will 'warn' that I'm likely to be picky about this. Telling me that you 'can' move means nothing to me. You 'can' move in combat in FFXI and FFXIV, doesn't mean you ever have a reason to do it, so you basically don't. It's for repositioning without losing your DPS and nothing else.
If anything, TL is better for everyone I talked to recently about it. So what's the draw here? I'm fine with theoretical answers since those tell Intrepid what all the 'faithful' are expecting to see from combat, that we're not seeing.
@NiKr @JamesSunderland - secondarily, as L2 fans, a game that looked to ME as though you couldn't attack while moving, the combat isn't necessarily the part of TL that you have issue with, right? Or were you 'expecting a move to FFXI style split body' from Ashes and disappointed that TL doesn't have it either?
Yeah, that combat didn't upset me at all. The only thing that upset me is the absolute absence of abilities shown. I'll check out TL streams closer to the end of cbt to see the variety (if there is any), cause by then people will probably farm some books and lvl up properly.
L2's combat greatness came from how classes worked with each other and from general ability interactions. Main concern related to that in TL for me is the "everyone can use any weapon and gets abilities for it". I just don't know if this kind of design can be as deep as L2's was (at least as I saw it).
I definitely decided to play this game when it comes out, thanks to this cbt. It'll most likely be just a timekiller before Alpha2, because western servers will die faster than you can blink and I definitely don't want to play on ru servers (I assume there will be some, cause I feel like TL will be popular here). And I'm 99% sure that it'll also be p2w AF, so it'll be better to just play it to the best of my relaxed abilities.
Regarding movement in Lineage 2 combat it was most limited to kiting opponents that required to be kitted or in moments kitting is advantageous,
even tho there where movement skills mixed with damage, the only classes that was forced to constantly move between skills to better perform and forced its enemies to constantly move to properly perform against them was Daggers that would constantly be moving to opponents sides and back for high damage and higher blow chance.
So for me TL combat is not an issue because of "lack of movement giga action reasons" but due to it being slow(atleast till lv 30 not sure if it insanely speeds up on higher levels like L2) and mainly lack of "class" diversity/skill diversity, lack of interaction between said "classes" and skill(all types), lack of the complexity of said classes/skills, its combat just feels shallow, like it usually is in Mobile games...
Aren't we all sinners?
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My group and I have opinions about 'shallow' vs 'depth' in Combat, but in the end, modern gamers cannot easily handle complexity (not because gamers got worse, I think, but because gaming extended its umbrella over more people by increasing accessibility in exactly this way).
We as 'hardcore' gamers can put up with their simplistic growth curves as long as it eventually reaches a high point, but most people cannot 'start at that point' and reach enjoyment within the 10 hours required to get someone to feel good about an MMO.
That's why I'd say that a CBT is insufficient to judge anything. It would literally not be possible to play through the 'growth curve' in the timeframes available for many people. NiKr lmk if you find anyone past level 25. According to my parsing of the 'datamine', 'gameplay' starts there.
I was noting that in TL despite the flatness of mob combat you can get situations where just 1 enemy in rotation can bring your health meaningfully into the health zone of PvP threat. So it fits pretty similarly to what I see in PvP mmos like Lineage. Ashes as a 'high ttk' 'party' oriented, but still very PvP mmo, the number seems to consistently be 3 enemies to get you in a meaningful health level for PvP threat in showcases. The reasons I don't expect this to change for AoC but could see it improving in TL are pretty integral to the way AoC wants to approach fundamental systems.
assumption 1. the ability to 'claim other peoples targets' makes the mob ttk harder to increase even if they wanted to 'make PvE harder'. Still a problem for TL I don't expect to change, but it sounds like a simple setting change on the bot.
assumption 2. parties are designed to handle multiple targets at once. every showcase of AoC has given us that. TL's party content looks pretty centralized to certain objective based content not a core part of the open world content currently.
assumption 3. AoC's 'intended 8 archetypes for 8 members' design approach to content in AoC means that some enemies will always 'need' to be easier to solo for some classes than others with lower health risk.
Which of course has the downside of being amplified by
assumption 4. the ability to kite is possible in a high mobility game, reducing health threat further. An issue TL does not currently need to deal with.
Enjoy your Korean auto-battler egg on face.
Please dont take ANYTHING from Throne and Liberty XD
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T&L is pretty much linage something AoC is inspired by and drawing their system from.
Have you watched the gameplay videos? its nothing like Lineage.
Its a mobile autobattler.
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The biggest difference is probably the "class" design.
Which in some post i heard buff and such replaces the more customization details between classes before? Don't quote me on it though lol.
@Selo
Also me saying it is pretty much linage or inspired doesn't mean it has the same level of depth etc. Granted we need to see if it improves end game or not, but I'm not going to assume it is or isn't.
L2 just told you "this class is exactly what this class is, that's it". TL kinda says "here's some stat points and weapons. Do what you want with them". And I feel like it's easier to make a good class/combat design when the devs can control it all. Will have to see if TL pulls off the freeform design.
There is a lot of depth in it, again, if we take the datamine to be accurate or mostly-accurate.
It isn't very different from my own designs at all, which is why I'm still interested.
I think it's fair to say about me/the way I design things that even if you don't like the depth it provides, you'll definitely get it.
It's there, it's kind of more than I expected them to do, actually, given the target market requirements, but they did warn people that it is supposed to be a 'real MMO' i.e. not easy stuff for too long. That's actually why the initial 18 levels seemed like such a contrast. None of the decently complex stuff seems to be visible early. That's good for the current market though, I would guess.
In other words, the game will definitely fail in the west due to its base design, but I think it'll be super fun for those who don't care about that. Well, p2w notwithstanding.
Well, since you're probably tracking it more, have you seen anyone actually try to play in a coordinated group to kill things above their level yet?
This is the thing I generally don't expect from streamers, which really limits how much you can actually get in terms of impressions.
Saw that world boss from the trailer (that has stones around him to "dodge" the attacks). The boss' dmg was not high enough to kill everyone who didn't dodge so everyone literally just stood in the same place and unloaded. I really hope they at least put some scaling on the attacks or smth, cause even L2's bosses felt a bit better
And the bigger pvp fights that I saw were mainly outzerged by either side, so couldn't notice any proper movements yet. I'll go through more of the streams later on and will keep watching till the end of the beta, but I doubt we'll see anything really skillful, just cause you need a proper coordinated group and afaik there's no such thing on this cbt, due to the invitation limitations. Maybe KR players have that, but there was maybe 2-3 kr streamers and they didn't seem to play in parties, from what I saw, so I dunno if they're at a higher lvl of skill.
I hope they have obt soon or smth like that, cause we'd get way more info about the depth that way.