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
Since gear is the key to content, you can't really have it so that top tier gear of one cycle sees you through until the top tier of the next cycle.
In terms of treadmill design, it is only treadmill if you consider the gear to be the point. If you consider the content/experience to be the point, it really isn't.
This is something that is much harder to donwith a PvP game, but the itemization Archrage had would have translated well enough to it, if Archeage wanted content driven itemization.
Cause if the devs can max out the mechanics of the fight to a point where anything else will just kill even the savants that Azherae talks about - the only way to "add" difficulty would be to change hp/dps ratio.
But I personally don't find "this new boss now has more hp/def, so you gotta go get new gear" as all that exciting as a form of content progression.
And if it's not that kind difficulty increase, then do we really need to keep pushing the gear obsoletion at breakneck speeds?
That isn't directly a factor in difficulty at all, generally speaking.
It is just a factor for duration of encounter. The only way more HP in relation to DPS adds to the difficulty is in the encounter taking longer, thus meaning the gmeaid needs to maintain that somewhat chaotic state we have talked about in the past for longer, or need to maintain somewhat hyper concentration on specific things with other encounters. Basically, more HP on the encounter gives players more chances to mess up.
The way gear helps with this (since we have been talking about it) is that it allows for faster casting, or lowers damage of various abilities, or allows for some mechanics to be dealt with faster - these things all generally lower the chaos happening at any one given point in time. This is why it's quite possible to have "better" gear that simply won't help you with these encounters - if you need to be doing this fasted, for example, you want gear that makes you do this faster, not gear that makes you do things harder.
For the most part, difficulty was added via timing (putting abilities closer together, generally), or by simply adding more mechanics to deal with.
I do want to point out (mostly to others, you realize this) that I am talking about a specific game, at a specific point in time. Not all raid content is designed this way - some games do lean heavily on DPS via rage mechanics and such.
And this would align with Steven's desire to have majority of gear be acquirable through ow means. If majority of the server can't just equip themselves in penultimate or BiS gear quickly, then the super hardcore content will only be cleared by either super high lvl players who don't even need that gear to clear that content or by those who've struggled their way to that gear (though they'd still need to have skills to clear).
But I think we won't agree on this point either way. We'll just have to see what Steven ends up putting as instanced rewards. Right now my assumption is "passable gear". Smth that'll let you farm some ow bosses, but you'll still have difficulties against people who've been farming those instead of instanced stuff (though most likely they've been doing both).
But do they spark joy?
So, you'll be the one following Steven in Sandals and Shorts.
Good camouflage for those snowy peaks.
I was waiting for someone to say this.
Legendary gear will either be crafted or drop on legendary world bosses ... or at least that's the current plan according to Intrepid.
Which means there aren't plans for legendary gear to drop in instanced (exclusively PvE) dungeons.
The devs have made several quotes that the game will have instanced dungeons ... but the core values are PvX and it's just not a content emphasis.
It wasn't super fast, it was just consistent.
If we look at that ring we've been talking about that was relevant for 4 years (may be longer, we just got stuck on four years) as an example.
You've said that a 2 - 3% jump over the item it replaced is about what is expected for an item like this. So, in 4 years, that is a 2 - 3% increase (note that I am talking about the quality of BiS gear here, not one individual persons gear).
In EQ2, you would expect that every 3 months on average, meaning over four years you have ~16 increases of 2 - 3%.
As I said though, Archeage had about similar top end gear increases in power to EQ2, so it isn't as if it is impossible for a PvP game - its just unusual. I don't think I ever equipped a single item from an instanced dungeon in Archeage.
You are probably right about how Ashes will end up - but the downside of that means that instanced content won't be valued at all. It won't be worth players running it, and since players aren't running it developers won't bother putting time in to it.
It would be good if developers could learn from previous developer mistakes though - there is a reason almost every MMO out there has moved more towards instanced content over time.
If the instanced content is the best pve in the game, then why wouldn't players want to enjoy that for what it is? FF14 was pointed out as an example of this, because Ultimates provide cosmetics, but they're still beloved for what they are - top lvl content.
I think it'll just be the same case as with the pvx. People will have to partake in all content to progress, not just one type of content. Though even then, I'm sure that instanced rewards will be bind on pick up, because otherwise it would just be a gear printer.
No, that's you assuming something that doesn't seem to have actually been said.
And positioning perfectly, my thanks.
You can't put a value on the instanced content in this WAY unless the game gives you some other meaningful reward for doing it, but any reward that could be obtained from Instanced Content OTHER THAN GEAR would be terrible design.
The reason is that if Instanced Content worked to give you gear that then helped you unlock the next Instanced Content tier, then you'll get a subset of players whose only wish is to do that.
If you give those players 7 encounters, but they don't need SOMETHING gear wise to formulate a new strategy against the encounters (and relearn some skills), they just burn through it all and ask for more because as soon as they have enough skill for Encounter 2 they probably can get through Encounter 7.
Ashes has some pretty easy 'TCG-style' solutions to this, but Noaani's comments are entirely right from the other perspective, you're just 'mismatched' again.
Well technically he is saying devs won't make good instanced content since players won't feel it is worth running.
Only for whatever reason EQ2 has all their content worth running end game wise even though I'm pretty sure he said players didn't get better gear from it.
But also if you go back in the past messages, he also suggested less care on detail, animations, etc and make it more rough and pump out more content. But than technically that is devs kind of not caring as much as well....
If instanced content is supposed to be essentially third tier stuff, that prevents Intrepid from being able to add any new tiers of instanced content unless they are also adding an entire new tier or two of contested encounters.
That isn't going to happen - we both know that.
This means that instanced content would be exactly the same as it is in Archeage - you do it to see it, perhaps do it again, realize its fairly low quality and don't do it again.
I mean, it should stand to reason that in order for content to be appreciated, it needs to be both plentiful and good.
So which is it? I asked this before and you implied that even if Intrepid had the best pve in instances, if those encounters didn't give good rewards - you wouldn't care about them.
I'm just trying to understand. Does the gear matter, the content or it's simply both and no other way around it?
If it's both then that would be the end of the story here, because Steven doesn't want best rewards in instanced content. If it's the content, then Intrepid could still design instanced stuff to be fun and great and people would enjoy it. If it's gear, then we're back to the first sentence of this paragraph.
Also, here's another angle at this. What if instanced content grew and changed with your raid's "gear score"? So it'd be smth that you can do throughout your entire leveling process and the dungeon would check what kind of gear the members had and would adjust to it through mechanics/timers/hp values. And at certain steps of progress the composition of the instance itself would change.
In other words, the instance would reflect your progression w/o having any direct influence on it. Would that be interesting to you or would you still require gear as reward to enjoy it? Again, in the context that the content itself is always top notch.
Are you talking about this or smth else?
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Instancing
Instanced content will contain scripted and difficult boss fights that drop gear, but the gear drops will not be best-in-slot items.[6]
Cause I don't think I understand this post outside of that contenxt.
Personally I am happy with the hardest instance content giving cosmetics. In PvE focused games I feel that way, and in ashes where PvP is such a huge part of the game I feel even stronger about it.
I want to face my enemies on equal gear footing. BiS vs BiS. If I am clearing the top instanced content and they arent, I shouldnt have a gear advantage. But, I do expect to look cool af while Im killing them with my hard won cosmetics.
The mismatch here is in what you consider to be 'content', I'm reasonably certain of that.
If you give me a boss and I can figure out how to beat it quickly in one go, and I do so and win, across most games, I do not feel like I experienced 'content'. My only option is to make the fight 'unnecessarily' harder on myself. I'm not going to assume Noaani is NECESSARILY the same, but if the encounter does not require me to think and adapt repeatedly, then it is harder to count it as 'content'.
This means that the better one gets at synergizing, and on-the-fly strategizing, the harder it is to create 'content'.
When the boss poses a challenge that requires thinking and adaptation and preparation, those things are 'the content' and the boss is normally the 'test' for whether or not you did the 'content' part correctly.
The new gear's job is to make you 'think about how to adapt the new gear into the build'. The 'next boss' requires it, for some reason, while usually being 'sort of unfairly strong against a reasonable base kit that lacks the integration of the new gear'.
it's a way for the Devs to go 'ok, here's a thing you need to equip in place of one of your strengths, just to get through here, which creates a weakness that you should then adapt around'. That part is the content.
The gear never has to be BiS for ... anything really. But it is always progression, because gear that does SOMETHING particularly well is always progression in some situation. It's really hard to make gear that isn't 'sorta BiS for some situational build for some niche person/class'. And so, every time anything is added like this, it's an 'upgrade' for SOMEONE.
Shield Tanks beat most big bosses by blocking with big shields. Evasion Tanks do it by using an ability on a long timer to absorb the unlucky hits that their Evasion stat doesn't work on, and both rely on healers to keep them topped up.
You use the standard style to beat Encounter 1 of the Progression and it drops two really weird looking things. A Small Shield with 'Resist Drain' and an Earring that raises Evasion by 10% when Blinded. Why would anyone need these? The BiS large shield is great and while that Evasion earring would be great, being blinded sucks for Evasion tanking 90% of the time... what's going on here?
Next boss is a Vampire with Triple Attacks that drain your health into itself, massive movement speed, good evasion but lower Magic Defense, and AoE blind.
So if you use your Big Shield, you don't die, but it never dies either. If you don't get more Evasion on your Evasion Tank, they get deleted randomly or they can't hold hate. If you try to use Mages to blast it down, it rips through them and heals itself for more than they even managed to do to it.
New requirement: "Use these gear pieces to Tank Differently. You lose [Special Effect of BiS shield] and [Standard approach of Melee DPS]"
Content: "Strategizing how to deal with the losses."
Wouldn't it be fine to separate the two completely? The content itself is designed very well and it's then on the players to try and figure out their approach, with whichever build they can get in through the ow means.
And then taking into account your later comment, wouldn't it be fine for instanced content to drop certain types of mats that crafters can use to modify the gear, that you'd have to get through ow means, so that it helps in the exact way you described?
The reward itself is somewhat meaningless outside it (well, outside of maybe a few super specific circumstances), but it would be very meaningful for people who'd want to keep progressing their instanced content.
The question applies to @Noaani as well. Would you be ok with that instead of my previous suggestion?
p.s. going to bed now, so will answer later.
When I look at a new game, I'm mostly looking at the drops from different content. This tells me what content types the developers value. If the instanced content they have at launch has rewards that are significantly lower down than other reward types (say, for example, quest rewards), then this tells me that the developers have no intention of making instanced content a valued part of the games content.
Based on that, why would I play?
Put another way, it isn't because of the rewards, it is because of what the rewards mean.
Yes, for me, this would be fine, this is what I'm used to on my end.
The only reason I find it doesn't work well or becomes difficult is that 'BiS' is almost defined by how 'generally effective it is against the game's core mechanics'.
What you described is what I expect and hope for, relative to Ashes. I wouldn't want Instanced Content to drop ANY gear, just materials to Enhance/Enchant gear you already have, if possible.
If the Enhancement is good enough for the instanced content progression without you also having the BiS gear piece, or the Enhancement is sorta like "Here is the generally best shield in the game, I have two of them, one that I Enhanced for my current Content Progression and my Generalist one, but I can't seem to beat the content with the Generalist one', then I'm good.
This is the point I was somewhat trying to make in my first post in this thread, too.
One of the weirdest things that comes up in games with 'Full Raid Progressions' but also 'Full Economy' is that players can effectively 'buy their way through' any gear-power-based stuff.
If gear power is enough to meaningfully help in OWPvP, it's not much different. Basically if your horizontal progression itemization isn't either on point or a strong Gear Sink 'incentive' in some way, you'll end up moreso shuffling money around than anything else.
This is fine, but games with minimal Bind on Pickup and 'Free Trade' of gear, feel to me as if they're not suited for the 'unlock next Tier' content progression type to begin with, so I never expected that approach from Ashes.
It's because of that fact, that I 'assumed we were gonna get FF style boss content' instead of what I have now learned is the possibly the 'standard' type.
i enjoy killing queen ant. i dont do it for the ring. i do it because its fun. so why i cant run old content because its fun?
You can run it for fun.
However, it has been said many times by many people here that they run it for the loot.
That is the part that is bad.
If old loot is added to make new loot then the old dungeons should always be relevant in Ashes of Creation.
This is something I am actually a fan of, but it should be done in a way where players that don't have the first item can skip that aspect of it in some manner.
An example of that would be a quest that can be run to get a stat-less version of the older raid dropped item, with either item then being able to be upgraded via the same process to be made in to that upgraded version.
Absolutely a fan of it with this provision in place.