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
Well, you might be easier to have a certain type of conversation with, so I'd like some brief education if you'll give it.
How many skills does AA actually have, that people keep saying this? The number I get from basic checks never seems to go very high, so I know there must be a bunch of non-obvious stuff.
I'm at least somewhat interested in these games and I can do fine with up to 50 on a controller... is that not enough? Is it related to items and consumables, or special buff activations that a basic check doesn't show?
As a general rule, eastern (specifically Korean) games focus more on bow things look, and less on how things play.
This is largely a result of how games are played in Korea.
Generally speaking, in the west, people play an MMO at home, on their PC, by themselves.
In Korea, MMOs are generally played with friends in what we would consider to be an internet cafe. Playing a game in Korea is more social in terms of people physically with you, but as a result these people are less social in the game itself. It isnt at all uncommon for people on Korea to be playing with someone looking over their shoulder, and so they want that person to be able to see something cool.
The games designed for the Korean market reflect this. Developers put more emphasis on looking interesting than people making games for Western markets do, becausenin a western market you dont have someone looking over tour shoulder (usually) and the player it more interested in how the game plays than how it looks (usually).
Right but just for a moment humor me and assume that I already play games with 50-60 abilities on controller without issues.
Can you clarify if those 'side bars' are things you need to activate with single presses quickly? I don't really need an explanation on how exactly it is done, I know it differs by people's setup. I mostly just want a number and it's hard to find an exact one, even from watching videos.
Don't get me wrong, given it's Kakao it's going to be a mess one way or another. But a large part of making a good MMO is looting good ideas made by other MMOs. If AA2 is iterating on design systems that Ashes can make use of, that's good for Ashes because Intrepid can see what they're doing and copy it with their own touches and improvements. Similarly, AA2 can take bits of what Ashes is doing and iterate on it.
Iteration is how MMOs as a genre develop and improve. Competition drives games to be better, and they stagnate when they don't have anything to compete against, as we've seen for a long time with the MMO titan WoW. I don't really have any doubts that Ashes will be the better game, given AA2 is likely to be a flash-over-substance game as well as being another Kakao special, but even a broken clock is right twice a day - I imagine there'll be some good ideas mixed in there.
I can answer your question, all players/classes have 20 active skills,
only consumables that deserves keybinds are your 2 emergency HP potions
(other consumables have long 20min durations),
as for special item buff skills there are very few people use(2-3),
then there are the keybinds dedicated to Gliders(2-3 gliders)(pressing spacebar twice for the one already equiped)
(usually a defensive disengage glider and an offensive engage glider) + the keybinds of the gliders skills(2-3)
then people have the keybinds dedicated to their mounts(1-2 mount with hiding skill, 1-2 aquatic mount and 1-2 with short duration invulnerability) + around 2 keybinds for the mount skills.
The rest of the slots in the bars goes for non-urgent stuff that people don't even set a keybind for and just clicks.
So around 30-40 keybinds,
for your average console player that don't play Fighting Games, i believe it would be kinda convoluted,
for people whom are used to fighting games with 50+ keybinds it would probably be fine tho.
Aren't we all sinners?
Nothing to even suggest fun mechanics.
Nothing to even suggest a cool story.
It looks visually nice but kind of shallow, with little spirit of its own to make it distinct.
Can't say I even particularly liked the combat it showed. Just over the top, hard fantasy, epilepsy simulator.
The best game trailers were and remain WoW Classic's (Vanilla - TBC - WOTLK).