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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.
Levelling and what goes with it
Myosotys
Member
1. Reset skill points
Levelling increases skill points. Resetting skill points is possible, but how often and at what cost? Skill points are one of the things that can be reset, but I think it would be a bad idea to be able to change skill points anytime, anywhere. An unlimited reset for Alpha - Beta, ok.
But once the game is up and running, in my opinion, skill resets should only be possible through quests that require materials and that will keep the trade going. The idea is to keep in mind that characters are semi-permanent and reflect an in-game identity.
This identity is very important in a PvP game, and it's quite frustrating when an enemy uses a different skill tree every 2 hours, as it impacts on strategy.
2. Leveling and secondary archetype
I am not convinced that we should be able to change our secondary archetype after level 25. I think it should be forever.
But if changing archetype is part of the game's core and if the majority agree with that, then I'm all for a long, complicated quest that requires a significant number of materials. For the same reasons as resetting skill points (semi-permanent decisions, keeping the economy healthy and for all items, levels and zones).
3. Levelling and gear
"There are no stat requirements for equipping gear, but there are affiliation and level requirements" according to Steven. But this point, I need your help to understand.
Does this mean that the equipment will have a minimum level to be equipped, but will remain unique? Or does it mean that equipment with a minimum level is not unique, but exists ad infinitum at all levels?
Imagine a sword called "Sword of Chaos", portable from lvl 30 upwards. Is this sword unique and exists only at level 30? Or can I find a better copy of this same sword at level 31, 35 or 40?
I ask because I think it's a shame to have a rare or legendary item at level 30 that will already be obsolete by the time I reach level 31. Whereas if the item only exists at level 30, it will be much more interesting.
This also ties in with the next point (Level cap). The faster you level, the less interesting weapons below level 50 become. So in the end, the longer the leveling, the healthier the economy. Ideally, some rare level 30 items should still be of interest, even at level 50.
I don't know if I'm making myself clear...
4. Visibility of level/progession
Steven want to keep a part of mistery but the level will be visible. Is this component still relevant today? Why not keep it a complete mystery? In my opinion, the level should only be visible if a player is a member of a group/guild, but invisible to strangers.
As some equipment/weapons have a unique skin, it's possible to get an idea of what a player is wearing, and thus assess his or her power. This is also why I'm against cosmetic items that totally change a player's appearance, making it impossible to guess what he's wearing.
After that, I'm not opposed to the existence of skills for certain classes that allow you to analyze a character and find out more about his level.
5. Level cap 45 days
The max level can be reached in 45 days. I am aware that the content of the game is not levelling and that there are dozens of other activities necessary to progress. But 45 days is far too short! Why rush levelling? In my opinion, levelling time should be exponential (much more exponential). For example, 45 days to reach level 30-35, but the last 20-15 levels should be extremely long, so that there's no max level for at least 6 months. The idea is that levelling should be one activity among others, and not the main, priority activity of every day, which will push rush level 50 before the rest.
Levelling increases skill points. Resetting skill points is possible, but how often and at what cost? Skill points are one of the things that can be reset, but I think it would be a bad idea to be able to change skill points anytime, anywhere. An unlimited reset for Alpha - Beta, ok.
But once the game is up and running, in my opinion, skill resets should only be possible through quests that require materials and that will keep the trade going. The idea is to keep in mind that characters are semi-permanent and reflect an in-game identity.
This identity is very important in a PvP game, and it's quite frustrating when an enemy uses a different skill tree every 2 hours, as it impacts on strategy.
2. Leveling and secondary archetype
I am not convinced that we should be able to change our secondary archetype after level 25. I think it should be forever.
But if changing archetype is part of the game's core and if the majority agree with that, then I'm all for a long, complicated quest that requires a significant number of materials. For the same reasons as resetting skill points (semi-permanent decisions, keeping the economy healthy and for all items, levels and zones).
3. Levelling and gear
"There are no stat requirements for equipping gear, but there are affiliation and level requirements" according to Steven. But this point, I need your help to understand.
Does this mean that the equipment will have a minimum level to be equipped, but will remain unique? Or does it mean that equipment with a minimum level is not unique, but exists ad infinitum at all levels?
Imagine a sword called "Sword of Chaos", portable from lvl 30 upwards. Is this sword unique and exists only at level 30? Or can I find a better copy of this same sword at level 31, 35 or 40?
I ask because I think it's a shame to have a rare or legendary item at level 30 that will already be obsolete by the time I reach level 31. Whereas if the item only exists at level 30, it will be much more interesting.
This also ties in with the next point (Level cap). The faster you level, the less interesting weapons below level 50 become. So in the end, the longer the leveling, the healthier the economy. Ideally, some rare level 30 items should still be of interest, even at level 50.
I don't know if I'm making myself clear...
4. Visibility of level/progession
Steven want to keep a part of mistery but the level will be visible. Is this component still relevant today? Why not keep it a complete mystery? In my opinion, the level should only be visible if a player is a member of a group/guild, but invisible to strangers.
As some equipment/weapons have a unique skin, it's possible to get an idea of what a player is wearing, and thus assess his or her power. This is also why I'm against cosmetic items that totally change a player's appearance, making it impossible to guess what he's wearing.
After that, I'm not opposed to the existence of skills for certain classes that allow you to analyze a character and find out more about his level.
5. Level cap 45 days
The max level can be reached in 45 days. I am aware that the content of the game is not levelling and that there are dozens of other activities necessary to progress. But 45 days is far too short! Why rush levelling? In my opinion, levelling time should be exponential (much more exponential). For example, 45 days to reach level 30-35, but the last 20-15 levels should be extremely long, so that there's no max level for at least 6 months. The idea is that levelling should be one activity among others, and not the main, priority activity of every day, which will push rush level 50 before the rest.
4
Comments
There are plenty of other things to progress besides Adventurer level.
And many of those things rise and fall.
Even with Adventurer level, Primary Archetype leveling has a vertical cap of 50, but Secondary Archetype progression can be reset. And the wide variety of Augments that can be acquired means that horizontal progression for Adventurer level continues indefinitely even after max vertical progression for Adventurer level.
And, then... seasonal updates are also intended to provide more horizontal progression, while we wait for an expansion to provide a new vertical cap for Adventurer level.
About 1. et 2., I think it's fine to be able to reset but as you say, changing must be a meaningful decision, reflected by a (long) quest and/or materials, but if materials are involved in the process, it must be considered rich people / big guilds will be able to respec more easily.
Maybe specific materials that can be only dropped during the quest and which can't be traded ? (Tbh, I hate when items can't be traded, but at first glance, I don't any other way to do in this case)
About 3., I can't agree more. I hate those new MMO which have a ton of gear, asking for changing every 2 levels during leveling. I think it's remove the meaning and the importance of the gear. I really prefer a system where there is less gear, harder to get, that we keep long enough to be proud of having it.
Lineage 2 had a limited number of gears but obtain / craft it offered a sense of accomplishment and you wanted to keep it.
Finally, about 5., as you, I'm for a leveling longer than 45 days (For the reasons you exposed, but not only). There will always be rushers as the leveling is vertical, but I like to believe leveling is used to create friendship / antagony, anchor in the world, a kind of guideline / "background task".
A middle ground must be found so as not scare off more casual players either imo.
Why is outleveled gear automatically crap if there is very little bind on equip?
"A lot of what we experienced in games that usually come before us is that many things are account bound and they're soulbound to your character. They force players to relive the same content over and over, mindlessly...is not what we want in the game. Instead, very little here is character bound. Very, very little. The vast majority of gear - yes you will get quest related gear as rewards - but it won't be, let's say, one set in one dungeon and you must run the dungeon over and over. Instead, we want to really emphasize the reliance on the economy and crafters and gatherers and processors to support a majority of the gear structure in-game, combined with that of world raid bosses and dungeon bosses; not a repetitive quest line through a single dungeon."
---Interview (QnA) with Steven Sharif 25.08.2018 Radisson Blu
But... Ashes has many forms of progression besides just Adventurer level where friends and enemies can be acquired:
Metro progression
Node Type progression
Freehold progression
Artisan progression
Social Org progression
Religion progression
Racial progression
Naval progression
The concrete mechanics I have read and mentionned upper doesn't really match with these abstract sentence dated from 2018...
Do you think it's tedious? Or is it written somewhere that it will be tedious?
Because fighting someone who comes back 10 minutes later with a completely different build, it's going to get boring fast.
you suggested a tedious process in your original post:
2. Leveling and secondary archetype
I am not convinced that we should be able to change our secondary archetype after level 25. I think it should be forever.
But if changing archetype is part of the game's core and if the majority agree with that, then I'm all for a long, complicated quest that requires a significant number of materials. For the same reasons as resetting skill points (semi-permanent decisions, keeping the economy healthy and for all items, levels and zones).
"long, complicated quest that requires a significant number of materials" The very definition of tedious
But why it shouldn’t be tedious ? I think it should. You think we should be able to change second class just by clicking a button ?
from the wiki: We don't want you to be able to change your secondary class or the augments you have applied out in the open. We want you to have to make a conscious choice somewhere at a NPC. The level of node necessary for that particular NPC to be available will likely be either at the Village stage or above. So, if you are far out in the wilderness exploring – and we have no instant teleportation in the world – you need to be conscientious of what your choices are; and not be able to change them on-the-fly.[5] – Steven Sharif
The above plan seems fine and allows the exploration of options within the archetype until you reach your comfort zone with the toon and its capacity.
Question on point 3 : leveling and gear.
Thank you in advance, I couldn't find how it works on the wiki.
The first is that it will be broken down for raw materials to make other gear.
The second is that the item itself could well be a component as it is for other gear.
The likely scenario is that both will exist in Ashes - both existed in Archeage.
Thank you. Are items a locked on a specific level ? or the same items exists at different level ?
well, steven said that even low levels items will be useful. maybe they will serve as materials for other items.
also, depending on what type of effect we get on the gear, it could be that lower level items will be prefered over level 50. for example, you lose a bit of defense but get more stun resist.
also, depending on how hard to get and refine the best gear is, people might use lower level gear for quite a while and / or refine it.
Agreed there should be costs associated with changing skill points but as far as I am aware this has been mentioned alongside the Node system as a religion associated feature, which will require quests and/or favor to be accessible.
Strong disagreement. The very purpose of players being able to change their secondary archetype is to adapt to a world that is constantly changing around them. Along with that change come new requirements for equipment and also the necessity for new structures to be built - revitalizing influences for an economy. The idea of linearity and stability have become quite popular in economics IRL, but reality is that change is very nature of economy, as "economy" only is a fancy word for "observing peoples decision on how to spend their resources" and humans most definitely are creatures that change a lot.
The changability of the secondary archetype in my opinion is a vital cornerstone to help players adjust to the circumstances in the world as in their playergroup.
I would think that there will be legendary weapons that can be "reforged" for higher levels. From what I've read in the Wiki it surely sounds to me like we will be able to obtain blueprints that will produce unique weapons, with unique skins and a specific, unique skill associated with that items history, while depending on the smiths rank, the stat buffs might be different (and with it the level requirement).
Regarding the usefulness of such items, I doubt that a high quality item like this will be instantly outclassed by an item with a level requirement slightly higher than it's own.
In general I have the distinct suspicion that it will be that case that player during most of their leveling time will wear a mix of "brand new" gear (that they couldn't have worn any earlier due to level requirements) and old armor. The whole concept of Ashes doesn't strike me as very WoW-like "new level, new gear in 24 seconds". For things like gear to matter again, it will have to be more scarce and each piece will have to be more impactful for the characters power. We will see how far this is possible with gear making up around 40% of a characters overall power.
Very good idea, that would be very interesting, especially when it comes to cross level interactions. Players of higher levels and Head Hunters in particular would have an incentive to provide ingame accessible skins (and compensation) to low level players as bait so to speak to corrupt others by killing a seriously underleveled character.
Tons of interesting dynamics would be possible if we indeed had to gauge the opponents power without given specific numbers.
I think its fine given that a key resource will be a character reputation with factions and nodes which will not be strongly rewarded in a "level up rush". Especially, since the game will reward exploration while limiting the functionality of traditional level guides by changing what is available at times. Of course we still need to test these systems but I think the basic idea is good enough.
3. Levelling and gear
The important thing is that INTREPID succeeds in restoring the original meaning of the words uncommon, rare, epic and legendary
4. Visibility of level/progession
I would love to wear noob gear to look level 5 and kill a FPK trying to kill me without becoming corrupted )))
I agree with 1 and 2.
Regarding 3, would be cool to have the incentive to obtain certain weapons or gear while leveling but this game allows you to go farm them later too. Unless the drops are manipulated and will be different when mobs are killed by high level characters.
Regarding 5, would be cool to have the incentive to level up slowly and enjoy each stage. But this is so only for PvEers who do not care about being rich or defending their nodes.
PvPers want to become effective as fast as possible. And everyone who want a freehold will also rush to level up to get one.
Regarding 4, I understand why the level difference visible. If Steven decides otherwise, the change will require more changes. Those might have big impact. Maybe the game will change too much for some people.
Agree, 45 days is plenty for leveling … and Steven has been pretty forthcoming about not wanting to change that.
I cannot imagine an incentive to level up slowly if others can up level faster... Or it's for every one, or for no one.
It would be kind of weird in a PvP MMO to level up slower than others just because you like it. No one can agree with that
I used to play some MMO where the last levels were very long, it was kind of pushing players to do something else than PEX till max level. For example in Ragnarok online (one of my favorite game), the majority of players were level 90+ but not 99 and they were competitive in PvP. At the same time, they still had a goal of max level on the long term. The guy level 99 was kind of respected for his level 99 and his shiny aura surrounding him.
Don't forget that 45 days is for an average gamer playing 4-6 hours a day. Some other guys will certainly reach 45 in one week. It means also that everyone will rush 45 to be competitive in PvP. Ultimately, exponential leveling reduces the gap between the casual player and the try-hard gamer.
3. Levelling and gear
I'm fairly confident that Intrepid is aware that games like WoW have ruined the meaning of especially epic and legendary equipment in their particular game loop.
But I think there is one thing to keep in mind: The more stable a servers Node, the more epic and legendary gear there will be. Once war breaks out, new Nodes emerge and get into wars of succession with each other, new equipment will render the gear of the "old meta" less useful - not completely waste but PvP gear will need different stats than e.g. the PvE gear which was focused on raiding the Tower of Carphin and Volcano dungeons that the old Tier 6 Nodes opened.
If I am right that this is Intrepids intent, what we might see is high and low tides regarding gear quality, depending on the speed of change on servers - if we have somewhat equally strong factions fighting each other, gear quality will automatically drop through destruction of nodes, high danger when collecting resources, less access to those resources and the need for quick adaption to the enemy forces. Servers with lots of change might see guild treasuries filled with crazy legendary heirlooms from all the epic changes the servers has gone through, while more static servers will see armies of "younger" players fight to take down the old, insanely powerful guilds that have dominated and stabilized the server.
Suffice to say: PvE will create incentives for PvP and PvP will create incentives for PvE. A lot is possible but my suspicion is it will be up to players to determine what will be the case on their particular server - and quite frankly the variety the systems make possible has me thrilled about this game, servers could be feeling so vastly different depending on their players, having their own reputation from merit rather than Intrepids design.
4. Visibility of level/progession
To my knowledge that should be somewhat possible even without concealing ones level, but it would certainly be an improvement for ones disguise.
cant reach max level in a week (unless you exploit something). you will get shit exp if nodes arent leveled up (in theory)...
maybe if start the game after there are metropolis, you might reach max level in 2 weeks, and it takes several weeks for a node to become a metropolis...
Ok, let's tell two weeks. It's way too short.
Mathematically impossible.
6 hours x 45 days = 270 hours
270 hours / 24 hours/day = 11,25 days (11 days and 6 hours)
1 week = 7 days < 11,25 days.
And that's by playing 24 hours per day. But we get your point: some will progress much more quickly than others.
not even 2 weeks bruh. we have explained you this before. you cant level up if nodes arent leveled. well you could, but imagine having to level up killing monsters 10 levels below you and getting less than 1 exp per kill and you needing a million for 1 level.
exp in ashes is tied up to nodes development.
What do you think you will be doing at max Adventurer level while you wait for Nodes to progress to Stage 6?
You can't even occupy a Castle 2 weeks in. Castle Sieges occur every 4 weeks.
It's even worse, castles are occupied by NPCs that are villians in the story line and basically function as a raid dungeon. Even if someone rushes to level 50 in 2 weeks - they are not a raid. They will have to wait for players, their gear, the story and nodes to catch up before they can go to war against these Kings and Queens.
As stated before, there is reason to believe that rushing numbers in Ashes will be nor half as rewarding as in other games.
The Max Adventurer could skillshot throwing daggers !!
( I should insert a gif here but I don't have any
But, once you've done that, there's still Social Org progression and Religion progression and Racial progression and Artisan progression to max out.
If the level of an item matters less than it's rarity (for stats and DPS), then you could be a L25 using a L20 blue item, because the L20 blue is still better than a L25 green. To turn it into a numbers game:
Imagine if a green level 10 sword had a DPS of 10, and a green level 11 sword had a DPS on 10.2, IE, item power grows 2% per level. Then a green L15 sword would have a DPS of 11.
Now, if a blue L10 sword has a DPS of 12 (IE, a blue item has a 20% stat increase over a same-level green), then it wouldn't be overshadowed by a green until L20 when the green would have a DPS of 12.2)
The above shows gradual vertical progression for item levels, but fairly steep progression via rarity.
I personally hate endless vertical progression via ilvl. Let me get my gear setup and do other things. IE, limited vertical progression, then horizontal for all the other things in a game. Skill points in ESO was a decent example of that. You could get enough skill points to max your build easy enough. But with more skill points you could fully skill alternate weapons or spell lines to swap in skills for different situations.