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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.
Should Intrepid Test The Application of Cosmetics in Alpha 2?
Sengarden
Member
As we (steadily) gear up towards A2, I was wondering what you all thought about testing the application of cosmetics before the betas.
One major concern I have is the effect which the current rules on mount cosmetic application could have on PvP. Currently, I can expect to be able to apply any land mount skin to any species of land mount. Same for gliding mounts, aquatic mounts, and flying mounts equally.
On their socials today, Intrepid asked players what sort of combat abilities they would imagine a monitor lizard having. I said a venomous bite to slow enemies, a tail whip to fend off pursuers, or a speed buff that causes the lizard to rear up on its hind legs for a short time.
Those all sound awesome to me, but… what if I wanted to put a hippo cosmetic on my monitor lizard? Does my speed buff now just make my hippo run ridiculously fast? Does the tail whip just… I don’t even know. I can’t even think of how that would be handled animation and spell effect wise.
There’s also the issue of clarity in PvP. I understand the team is planning on having “gear quality” indicators above people’s nameplates (which honestly just sound like clutter to me) and maybe the same could be done for mount species, but it would be a major pain to have to check that stuff every time I engage with someone, especially in group fights. It keeps me from instantly knowing what to expect by getting a glance at my enemies on screen, and sometimes that split second decision making really counts.
I’m sure some of this stuff applies to character costumes as well, but the combat mount issue just came to mind again after seeing the social media post today.
What do you all think?
One major concern I have is the effect which the current rules on mount cosmetic application could have on PvP. Currently, I can expect to be able to apply any land mount skin to any species of land mount. Same for gliding mounts, aquatic mounts, and flying mounts equally.
On their socials today, Intrepid asked players what sort of combat abilities they would imagine a monitor lizard having. I said a venomous bite to slow enemies, a tail whip to fend off pursuers, or a speed buff that causes the lizard to rear up on its hind legs for a short time.
Those all sound awesome to me, but… what if I wanted to put a hippo cosmetic on my monitor lizard? Does my speed buff now just make my hippo run ridiculously fast? Does the tail whip just… I don’t even know. I can’t even think of how that would be handled animation and spell effect wise.
There’s also the issue of clarity in PvP. I understand the team is planning on having “gear quality” indicators above people’s nameplates (which honestly just sound like clutter to me) and maybe the same could be done for mount species, but it would be a major pain to have to check that stuff every time I engage with someone, especially in group fights. It keeps me from instantly knowing what to expect by getting a glance at my enemies on screen, and sometimes that split second decision making really counts.
I’m sure some of this stuff applies to character costumes as well, but the combat mount issue just came to mind again after seeing the social media post today.
What do you all think?
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Comments
That’s a fair point! That being said, I certainly wouldn’t expect a “slow”, sturdy creature such as a tortoise or a hippo to have a speed boost, nor would I expect to have a short-tailed animal push me back multiple yards without turning around. Perhaps you could argue some animals with strong legs like horses could kick someone back, thereby making somewhat of an equal ability without a perfectly equal animation, but that doesn’t apply to many animals in this case, at least.
The freedom Intrepid is promising ti cosmetic purchasers right now just presents a lot of aesthetic issues in my mind conceptually. It sounds messy. I just hope I don’t have to wait until launch to find out how justified my concerns were.
Personally I like it.
We can have alot of fun and gimmicky meme mounts running around to joke about. Like imagine speed boosted turtle races or your dragon glider skinned with pegasus making a horse that breathes fire. Or like the forest guardian skin on a spider mount shooting speed reducing webs
I think it'd be so fun to see what combinations people would come up with.
Yeah… to each their own, but having ridiculous meme-tier mount combos that make zero logical sense isn’t exactly the vibe I was hoping for with this game. I get it, it’s a fantasy world. But having elements of the real world in your fantasy that operate mostly as you’d expect them to is what keeps it somewhat grounded. Otherwise it turns into a bizarre dream world where you never know what to expect.
I don’t want to see regular tortoises that look exactly like regular tortoises running as fast as a cheetah. I don’t want to see hippos shooting webs like a spider to lock down their enemies. I don’t want to see armored war bears leaping forward 10 yards like a frog.
At a certain point, in any fantasy, you have to deal with suspension of disbelief. How far are the bounds of reality and the expectations I have for this world based on those I have of my own able to be stretched until they break and I lose all immersion? These examples and similar problematic crossovers would certainly constitute crossing that line for me.
I hope to find a cosmetic pack before A2 that has some items I could actually see myself using. If I have to pay for A2 access with a cosmetic pack I’ll never use, I’ll be pretty sad. I know Steven said not to buy the packs just to support them, that the game will be made anyway. Still, having a more educated, experienced voice while opining on how I think parts of it should be made is important to me.
Edit: I should mention that I myself am not interested much at all in buying cosmetic packs. This isn’t really me trying to ensure that all the cosmetic packs I buy have proper animations, more so me trying to make sure other people buying cosmetic packs aren’t being given “ability stealth” advantages in PvP or creating immersion breaking visuals in the game world.
Pretty much this yes. The game has to essentially be finalized and all systems tested fully during A2. The betas are for polish and minor bug fixes. No new features.
the point you are missing with the husbandry system, is that the system is made so you Can have a turtle with a speed boost or any stat or skill you want, you just need to breed correctly to get what you want
so, even without cosmetics, the visual means nothing
To breed new animals of a species, you generally need two animals of the same species to get offspring, with a couple slight exceptions. You breed to imbue the natural traits of the parents with each other. Any new traits not found in either parent are mutation, which is highly varied, random, and typically very slight when it does happen. You mostly end up with what you started out with, or at least with some of each input in your output.
By that logic, are you insinuating that there are tortoises or hippos in the wilds of Verra that can run as fast as a cheetah/wildcat could sprint flat out or that can leap the same relative distance as a frog? Because I highly doubt it. And that’s the only way you’d logically be able to produce those traits in a bred animal. Unless there’s some magical system in the game that lets you force animals to mutate insane degrees of illogical physical variance from their base forms in the wild.