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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Gatherer's target acquired(see meme above)
Aren't we all sinners? (meaning it feels so good to be bad)
That's why games die. AoC will die if it supports this attitude.
Don't take it personally, but like Steven said:
"This game is not for everyone."
I would like competitive strategic and skill based combat. A casual can enjoy this type of combat as well, even if they don't dominate it gives room to outplay other casual players and room for them to grow and get better.
Gear/level advantage: As there is a hard level cap, the level won't matter later. Do you want strong advantages with better gear or should you have a realistic chance against better geared players.
I would like for their to be a gear advantage "all else equal", but it should be possible to still win if you are reasonably more skilled than the the player with better gear.
Time: Do you want quick battles, which you can decide with big damage combo, or a two man focus. Or do you want drawn out fights with strong survivability and defensive skills/spells?
I would not like it to be so slow-paced that fights just drags on and on, even after outplaying the opponent many times over, and not so overly defensive focused that you are encouraged to camp rather than to engage the enemy.
However I would like survivability and defense to be viable and balanced with the more aggressive styles. I would also like for the fights to be long enough to give you opportunities to make up for mistakes and require a few outplays to win, rather than outright losing to one big combo the moment you make a small error.
Balance: Do you want the classes to be strongly balanced for duells and arena play? Do you want to have strong countermechanics in the tank/healer/dd trinity? Should individual skill and gear level be more important in large battles, than army coordination and discipline (and numbers if you want)?
I would be fine with a rock/paper/scissors counterplay between classes, as long as there its not too arbitrary and feels like an auto lose or auto win kind of thing, there should be some strategy and decision-making to it. I also dont think that it should be tied to just each overall category (dps/support/tank), to where a tank will always lose to a support or whatever- each category should have a sub-class that can counter sub-classes from each of the other categories- so that you have the option to stay as a tank or whatever you want to be, while being able to counter that other category. For example, if one tank sub-class loses to a certain dps sub-class, then there should be a tank sub-class that wins against that dps sub-class, so you are not forced to change your overall category to win.
Invulnerability: Do you want i-frames and invulnerability skills/spells?
This is just a factor in the overall combat and balancing system, so the role that invulnerability plays depends on what they are doing with the system as a whole- so I don't have an absolute preference for this mechanic outside of that context, and I think others should wait and see before having an opinion on it.
"Not like that."
I was kinda expecting specific names of PvP Focused mmorpgss as your original phrase was "AoC will die, if it tries to please the PvP crowd and thereby compete with AAA-corporate games, that target that crowd." , but with such an indirect broad answer i will simple assume you consider any mmorpg that has any form of PvP to be "trying to please the PvP crowd", and would like to tell you that it is an very unlikely possible cause of death for AoC considering AoC PvX nature such "doomsaying predictions" are unreasonable without proper tests.
Oh, i see that you've liked my signature, don't worry, don't feel threatened by it,
I myself intend to be a master gatherer in my main, as i believe it will be the profession that will attract the most pvp towards me and other gatherer's will certainly be my primary targets in the right situations,
"Aren't we all sinners?" for me means more something along the lines of "there is no saint in this world, only people whom are less evil than others".
It's a dog(Gatherer) eat dog(Gatherer) world out there you know?
it's ironic and quite amusing to see that you believe this "attitude" of mine is what causes the death of games and will cause the death of AoC, when i believe your "attitude" is far more damaging to the game...
I simply see no correlation in your statements:
"if its possible to wipe the floor with/ravage other groups because of gear/skill advantage"
"systems like caravans and open sea won't work."
Do you truly believe it should be impossible to "wipe the floor with/ravage other groups because of gear/skill advantage" even if the gear/skill difference is like a fresh lvl50 in the lowest grade lv45-50 gear and still in the process of learning their class vs the best players of their respective classes with most BiS gear equipped?
if the answer is yes, that Steven's quote might haunt you...
As for me? This quote is a blessing, i wish Steven to never go back on those words and apply them tirelessly.
Aren't we all sinners?
The focus may be different but all of them try to accommodate PvEers first and PvPers second, or the other way around.
All of those games disregard the casual/non competitive players. the players, that want meaningful, social interaction and not just lobbied solo games. That want synergetic gameplay and not just single player content with other players around you, that is disguised as and called group content. Players that don't have enough time or money to keep up their progress.
In other words: Players, that are less milkable. If AoC tries to compete with the big AAA mmorpg in their field it will die, or it will have to adopt their monetization concepts. Or try to and die anyways, because it can't deliver enough new must-be-areas, new classes, new races, new bosses, new dungeons....etc. Absolutely, but they're not less reasonable than assuming, that PvX will support the PvP gameplay you like.
Targeting a different group of gamers is the gamble. Nobody knows, if the crowd I mentioned above will be big enough to make AoC a long term success (meaning profitable enough).
I think it is and that a good part of PvPers and PvEers will be converted to a different gamestyle, than they are used to.
Don't worry mate, you're not even close to triggering me, much on the contrary, it is amusing for me to watch some of the baseless doomsaying predictions you have provided even if they are quite unoriginal around here.
Your consideration even tho predictable, fails to acknowledge that the majority of mmorpgs in the market, do indeed as a main focus, catter to the casual/non competitive players and that those are mostly on the PvE Spectrum taking in considered the Big MMORPGs on the Top, they are also the most milkable targets in general and their numbers don't lie...
It is sad that you was still unable to tell me exactly about which "big AAA mmorpg in their(AoC PvX) field" you are specifically talking about... maybe this time you might tell me?
I don't assume "AoC's PvX will support the PvP gameplay i like" without a solid reason, most of that reason being that Ashes is mainly inspired by 2 games(Lineage 2 and Archeage) that had PvP that i liked.
Aren't we all sinners?
Both. The odds and the stakes don't have to always be the same.
Gear/level advantage
I don't think gear and level can be subtracted from the equation, but I would prefer if it was in providing different options and possibilities rather than in raw power numbers. The more gear and level skewed the outcomes, instead of the skills of the player (timing, positioning, using the right skills or combo), the less I take the battle seriously: too much of the outcome were decided before any action was taken so it's more or less a waste of time (for the victors and the defeated).
Time
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. Time to kill is also not an absolute. I wish fights gave the time for the attacked to at least riposte, but then there are level difference, number of attackers difference, low HPs when attacked, etc. If a 1 vs. 1 as an ideal ttk of 30-60 sec, is a 3 vs. 1 results in a 10-20 sec whimper?
Balance
Yeah, sure, all classes should have their tricks to avoid/escape some situations and their strengths and limitations, but we all know that iT's bAlaNCed fOr gRoUpS NoT 1 vS 1!!!! More seriously, I don't like the trinity, so the less we need to makes all our tactics around it the happier I'll be. Considering my already mentioned view on gear, for large scale battle, I hope coordination and team play trump gear.
Invulnerability
As little as possible.