Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Please include your idea on how to fix the issues.
It just simply doesn't get better than this.
Great job, OP.
I think the 2005 part and it looking archaic explains some things.
Again, it's not really a combat reveal.
The only things we can accurately say is that it looks good/bad and whether or not we think nulling LOS and player CD is a good/bad thing.
And ponder devs openly admitting it's their favorite class.
I usually play mage classes. So far I think they are on the right path. I really liked the skill synergy effects and look forward to experimenting with them and the archetype augments.
Except for shooting around corners. This removes strategy. Being able to LOS and force your opponent to move is a big part of combat. If this is something you can spec into at the cost of something else and it is limited to a few abilities then maybe.
Yup, I don't like the lack of tactical acumen, seems way to damn easy to apply certain abilities. Removes the meaning and the impact of any strategy on a large scale.
Ashes takes it a step further yes, but as long as it's limited to *just* around the corner out of LOS and not 15+ feet to the side, I actually kind of like it. It goes both ways and I don't think it removes strategy or tactics, it just changes them a little. People can shoot back around corners, presumably.
It does remove strategy and tactics if it's that easy to apply. It circled around an entire rock.
I'll use a simple tactic like the turkish retreat, it's already going to be hard to perform in terms of smaller vs large scale zerg busting but when you add spells that actually don't LOS properly when you're trying to kite a large group into smaller areas to focus, now all that large zerg has to do is cast some lightning without any effort and people will be getting walloped.
Turkish retreat is the tactic to use against Zerglords, stretch them out, isolate the fights and thin their numbers.
I do not feel like type of direction is good for the game and anything that acts like snipe from ESO should have never made it to the discussion, it should have been, "who thought this was good. *trashcan*".
That's where I'm very skeptical of the combat team, they don't really have the diversity in combat I'd like to hear about.
Ok, fine, if you want to be semantic about it, it removes some tactics and replaces them with others
I've never heard it called turkish retreat, nor does google or chatgpt help, can you explain it more?
I mean, I've done roughly what you describe many times in MMOs, using LOS and such to split and stretch zergs out, but I don't see how curving spells a little around a corner makes that impossible. It just means people will have to adapt and tweak. Most of the time it's done just out of range of all but the forward most part of the zerg anyway.
It's just a tactic the Turks used when battling the West, they'd bait people in palpable groups and use guerrilla warfare against them. When I first heard about it I didn't know fuck all of it either but my buddy is a historian so the nerd had one of those obscure books with details from battles the West doesnt talk about.
The devs can make the best combat system in the entire fucking genre.
The systems are already going to be good, so meh. But exquisite combat with zerglords getting dunked on will always be the goal.
I think it shows off the awesome work they put into the effects they used to have the electricity arcing to the surroundings. It looks better than lightning in any game I've seen.
You say loss of tactical play, but if anything I think this is adding to it. If there are a few limited attacks that can for example go around LoS that opens up another layer of counterplay options.
I want to use ice shard/fireball... He's ducking behind a rock, now I have to use my lightning ability to bend it like Beckham...
Maybe a ranger will have a trick shot too?
I'm sure these abilities will have enough of a cooldown to where you can't have someone standing permanently out of LoS and spamming "homing" shots at you. Or require spec'ing heavily into to get the tracking effect, or maybe some prerequisite ability for a 'tagging' mechanic to get follow on shots to chase the target.
Of course it will need play testing and balancing, but I can dig the idea of it.
You’ll see when you have all the Zerglords syncing the spell from a place of los and abusing the dogshit out of it.
I just know what kind of groups actually permeate the MMO genre who will abuse certain types of skills.
Because we have seen them in other games with similar combat systems do the same shit.
Also, it might feel great from the mages perspective, but gotta see it from the other players perspective too.
I think the round corner shots is exclusive to electricity spells which i think is fine, we only saw that mechanic used with chain lightning in livestream so might be a spell exclusive thing which ithink is fine
I think that's better known as a Mongol retreat. It's a feigned retreat. Feign retreat, entice enemy units to overextend in chase, turn around and obliterate them before they can get back to their main force.
The Mongols are a Turkic related ethnic group though, so it's kind of the same thing. Turkish/Mongol, just better known by Mongol I think. They were really good at it with their mounted archers and lancers. For many armies it's one of the most difficult maneuvers to pull off because there's a chance in the fog of war that a feigned rout becomes a real rout. lol history's cool
Compare to mage showcase we kind of know nothing about these 4 archetypes and we still don't know anything about bard, summoner and rogue.
I think it's too early to say that something is too easy to apply to some tactical plays or strategies.
Because designing things is hard, they want to be somewhat unique, and the main designer at the moment is a Mage 'at heart'.
Mages are easier to design in terms of 'number of abilities you can show people', particularly for MMOs. They don't require the whole combat system to be done, just the basic pillars defined, and not even all of those.
I can only assume all archetypes are develop at the same time by different team members.
And they present those things they feel comfort to show us at that time.
It's the bad effect about open development. Design those foundation stuffs melee/ranged attack animations maybe looks minor but it impact very large and very hard to do it right and good, so not even mention how many things they need to figure out about class skill set/kit on the development side.
I believe that Intrepid doing their best to make a game they love and want to play too.
Plus consider they update information to community every month with that transparency, I feel they are doing very very good job.
There is not much to discuss here. Pace will depend on itemization, skill set (of which we have seen way too little to actually judge) and talent speccs.
The "it looks like 2005 combat" comment is just words designated directly for the bin so I'm not even try to pretend that there would be a sliver of substance in that.
"the mage could be so much more" line without any explanation other than "wow classic" once in the beginning is just lazy complaining without flashing out the "better / more" idea. I played WoW more than enough to know that the mage wasn't half as fun as what I've seen in this alpha showcase.
I know this is not hate on your part but its not sincere criticism either. To me it seems like another one hitting the burnout on all things games and internet. After years and years of absorbing games nothing really flashes like those first games, nothing comes close to the awe you felt when playing your first games - I get it. But that has nothing to do with this showcase which was objectively good for what the showcases are said to be. And without any effort put into suggestions for what you think are improvement I cant see anything but burnout and sensory overload induced numbness in your post.
Yes, there is … but players who enjoy healing will just have to be patient and understand the archetype will be ready when it’s ready.
Which would be fine if the topic of this thread discussion was on the Cleric.
A lot of the abilities had 20 second cooldowns which seems excessive.
I don't know shit about Eastern Europe and North Asia, I'll take your word for it.
It's not though, if people have been around MMO development they can guess where things are going.