Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!
Options
eSPORT worthy PvP?
We have seen gameplay videos of how the healthbars, inventory, and party/raid frames look.
I am not impressed at how "finished" the interface feels, and I know its only alpha but I hope they dont make it feel like a solo player console game because it looks like one now.
Enemy target/health bar looks pretty bad and you cannot adjust it's placement on the screen. Also, party/raid frames do not show debuffs or mana information. The simplicity feels like a mobile/console game tbh.
How about the inventory interface which cuts-screen like a "pause" menu. This is an mmo you need to be able to view your surroundings as you have the inventory open. Basically you are at risk of a player surprising and killing you everytime you open your inventory.
You claim this is a PvP based game so I strongly urge you to learn from what Blizzard got right with their targetting interface in WoW. Ashes of Creation seems like a very good idea with well-thought out mechanics to the open world and multi-classes dynamics. The interface just feels very plain and primitive. The map looks awful as well, please fix this before release!
I would like to play a game that has a practical and clean interface that takes into account different PvP scenarios like healing/dpsing/debuffing/crowd control/focus targets/objects(health). Animations aren't enough we will need detailed information on the interface that allows us PvPers to respond to those scenarios I listed.
I am not impressed at how "finished" the interface feels, and I know its only alpha but I hope they dont make it feel like a solo player console game because it looks like one now.
Enemy target/health bar looks pretty bad and you cannot adjust it's placement on the screen. Also, party/raid frames do not show debuffs or mana information. The simplicity feels like a mobile/console game tbh.
How about the inventory interface which cuts-screen like a "pause" menu. This is an mmo you need to be able to view your surroundings as you have the inventory open. Basically you are at risk of a player surprising and killing you everytime you open your inventory.
You claim this is a PvP based game so I strongly urge you to learn from what Blizzard got right with their targetting interface in WoW. Ashes of Creation seems like a very good idea with well-thought out mechanics to the open world and multi-classes dynamics. The interface just feels very plain and primitive. The map looks awful as well, please fix this before release!
I would like to play a game that has a practical and clean interface that takes into account different PvP scenarios like healing/dpsing/debuffing/crowd control/focus targets/objects(health). Animations aren't enough we will need detailed information on the interface that allows us PvPers to respond to those scenarios I listed.
0
Comments
I know one of the things I spoke of on my last podcast when discussing Ashes of Creation and their world of consequence article was that the flanglers would only work as a trap if they handled the UI and nameplates better such as "hidden" monsters not have name plates until they aggroed.
To the point of eSPORT PvP, I wouldn't bet on ANY MMORPG having that kind of following. The only reason that World of Warcraft did is because Blizzard as a whole funded the majority of the tournaments. That is the one and ONLY reason that there is even a presence of WoW in the eSPORT arena and even less of that since BLizzard is now focusing more on Overwatch. I wouldn't count on ANY MMO being something eSPORT worthy again because the type of play required to be an MMO isn't conducive to the eSPORT arena nor should it be. Leave it to the MOBAs and FPS games for that.
They say it again and again that this is just a placeholder, that they don't(didn't) have an UI artist yet.
This is pre-alpha, the state where nothing is set yet, and already people act like this is the final product we will recieve.
There are at least 5 Forumtopics about the UI already, all saying it sucks. Of course it sucks, it's just a visual placeholder nothing more.
They say it again and again that this is just a placeholder, that they don’t(didn’t) have an UI artist yet.
This is pre-alpha, the state where nothing is set yet, and already people act like this is the final product we will recieve.
There are at least 5 Forumtopics about the UI already, all saying it sucks. Of course it sucks, it’s just a visual placeholder nothing more.
[/quote]
Exactly! UI is one of the last things that ever gets tweaked anyway. I have been in a TON of alphas in my day and LONG before it was this pay to get into alpha stuff. Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, Rift, The Elder Scrolls Online, to name a few and I will tell you those GUI looked nothing like the final product but in such early stages of testing that is the least of your worries. You need it functional and that's it to test major systems and content. Even less so if they allow for modders to access the API and create their own GUI. At that point 90% of your playerbase wont use the stock GUI anyway.
I hope they prioritize fun over perfect balance and seasonal PvP tournaments.
Whether or not eSports is to come, that is a plan for after the game is polished and ready for the public, at least I would think :P
i'm not totally sure about the vision the creators have about this game but it seems they genuinely want to create something a grand, a changing growing world with more of an emphasis on player and interactions with each other and the environment. wasting time and resources on balancing things for competitive pvp would be money better spent in other places. we PvP'd all the time in EQ and EQ2, did it have class balance, heck no. but everyone had their job in a group and raid. most of the classes that were weak in pvp scenarios were most desired in group pve settings, no one i ever met had any issue with it. it created classism within the game. something to josh guildies about and poke around with each other. I was a shadowknight, i could kill everyone...everyone feared my class when it came to pvp night at the guild castle. some of the weakest classes were bards (troubadors and dirges) guess what though...people would fuss over who got to be in the good troub or dirge's groups when it came to dungeon crawling or raid nights.
i do believe there should be a little bit of balance between the classes but most of the focus around group play, tank's shielding and protecting group mates, healers healing/debuffing, crowd control manipulating the battlefield and dps blowin stuff up....i've just been around to long and seen tooo many games go into balancing classes for pvp and seen it slowly decay the quality of the game till there was nothing left but a rotting carcass on the side of a dimly lit digital highway....happens time after time after time...doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity...
For one simple reason. The Toxicity.
Maybe I'm just a salty old man but what attracted me to MMOs in the 90's was the community aspect of the game. Sure there were dicks but not on the level of garbage that is the "gg ez, u mad bro?" community we see from LoL, Dota2 and even Overwatch.
You tack the label of "eSports" on a game and every bottom feeder and rage kiddie will come knocking. I had hoped this game was that mix of old school and innovative as to attract the community of players who remembers what the second "M" and "RP" mean in MMORPG.
But again, I'm essentially old grouchy man whose realized that most games created now are not targeting my demographic anymore... :(
[/quote]
that is it !
I am not impressed at how “finished” the interface feels, and I know its only alpha but I hope they dont make it feel like a solo player console game because it looks like one now.
Enemy target/health bar looks pretty bad and you cannot adjust it’s placement on the screen. Also, party/raid frames do not show debuffs or mana information. The simplicity feels like a mobile/console game tbh.
How about the inventory interface which cuts-screen like a “pause” menu. This is an mmo you need to be able to view your surroundings as you have the inventory open. Basically you are at risk of a player surprising and killing you everytime you open your inventory.
You claim this is a PvP based game so I strongly urge you to learn from what Blizzard got right with their targetting interface in WoW. Ashes of Creation seems like a very good idea with well-thought out mechanics to the open world and multi-classes dynamics. The interface just feels very plain and primitive. The map looks awful as well, please fix this before release!
I would like to play a game that has a practical and clean interface that takes into account different PvP scenarios like healing/dpsing/debuffing/crowd control/focus targets/objects(health). Animations aren’t enough we will need detailed information on the interface that allows us PvPers to respond to those scenarios I listed.
[/quote]
At the end of the day if you want a BIG audience which makes big streamers want to stream the game on Twitch then the PVP in Ashes needs to be skill-based enough for gamers to wanna brag about how good they have become with putting time in the game.
I know the devs are hearing about what the community has to say and trying to cater to that. So I am trying to nudge them in a direction that would make the game successful and maybe even turn into a classic if the combat is good enough.
Gamers these days want a finished and smooth game. As well as a game they can always work to improve at, so don't set the ceiling so low please.
There's two problems I see with AoC entering eSport. First is the balancing issue. The games I know that are in eSport remove the complexities revolving around gear/skills/lvling because it helps them balance the game easier. Blade and soul completely removes all gear bonus and plays like a tekken or street fighter 1v1.
The second issue is to make the game more casual. Being casual = larger audience. Look at starcraft. The game was once an esport legend because it had balance and rules, and skill triumph. But the complexity and micromanaging deterred casual players from joining. This is why games like league of legends is such a big success.
I don't think AoC will be going in that direction, it's not aiming for simplified character progression and it's not catering to the casual player. It's doing the exact opposite of what successful eSport franchises have done. But it's going to gain it's own success as an MMOrpg.
[/quote]
Its not going to happen. They want a MMORPG not a MOBA. eSports is what hurts MMORPGs because you have to balance everything. Guess what they are not going to balance things to that point. This game is not designed to be an eSport game.