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
sure lets go. lets ignore feeding points for a second.
in l2 you have a buff called mental shield that protects you from mental attacks (fear, silence, etc). only a couple of classes have this very good buff, but there is a weapon that has a chance to cast the buff on someone (including you) when you use a buff on your target. there is bless the body too, which basically just gives you extra max hp. when you go into the olympiads (the arena) you have 1 minute to prepare before some gates open and the fight starts
lets say you are an overlord. you are strong in 1v1 arena, but your skills use a lot, and i mean a lot of mana. so its common for overlords to go into the arena using a weapon with mana up (30% more mana) or conversion (60% more mana but you lose 40% hp), ten you buff yourself and use npc buff as well. now you switch to your mental shield up and try to buff yourself again, basically spamming the same ability over and over until you get mental shield, and do the same bless the body. sometimes it takes 10 buffs, sometimes it takes 1-2 buffs, its random but it uses a lot of mana.
if you are going against a class that has no mental attacks, such as a gladi, tyrant or destro (and they have lots of hp and do high damage) you dont want to waste mana on mental shield. you save it for your debuffs and your heal and drain, which use a lot of mana btw. this can be the difference between having enough mana to drain or not. against mages? yeah you want that mental shield, but they also have less hp. but you cant know who you are fighting unless someone spectates and tells you (or you pay another subscription to dual box and spectate yourself)
another more general example. if you are against a soul hound, you need to use your important buffs first and the least important buffs last, and also berserk. why? because they will steal them and the way it works is the last few buffs get stolen. you also dont want to use your important self buffs at the start of the match. you want to wait after they steal your buffs.
on the other hand, if you are against an elder or prophet, you want to use your more important buffs last, to prevent them from removing your essential buffs by overbuffing (it removes the first buff).
you also need to know if you are fighting a destro and he is gonna start frenzied or not.
the game doesnt let you know any of this, but a spectator will.
also, if your friend fought someone and figured out what element they had on their weapon, they can tell you and now you equip armor with elemental defense against that weapon, basically negating the other person's effort instead of figuring it out yourself in the middle of the match and switching. some people might have different weapons with different elements and switch enchantment paths every day of the olympiad and this extra effort to win is negated because someone told you what they are using. maybe you can use the appropiate armor on your 2nd fight with that eprson if you fight again, but you will have an advantage on your first fight that you shouldnt have had (unless you were wearing the same element by luck).
also, if i remember correctly (but i could be wrong on this one) in the earlier versions you couldnt see what buffs your opponent had when you clicked them, so the only way to know was via a spectator. but i dont remember well about this one.
edit: these are just some simple examples. the reason i mentioned this is because aoc is basically l2 l3 so its reasonable for me to expect a similar arena
do you know how apis work? have you built one, have you consumed one?
Technically that's how combat systems work. You learn about classes and the games design around the system to do your best to counter the opponent or opponents. There's visual queues and the UI can provide some details with buffs and status effects depending how liberal they choose to be. This can all be handled relatively by preventing unnecessary access to the API as well as UI allowances. I already said you can make it so the audience cant interact with the contestants to prevent this so they cant inspect to learn details while the combatants are in the arena/system. It would be no different than watching people having a 1v1 duel in the open world or players surveying what kind of opponents they're about to engage with in the open world conflict. The game probably wont be perfectly balanced for 1v1 through various systems like gear, actives, passive, augments etc. The games balance is around open world and group synergy. This is why I mentioned intra-archetype pools for 1v1. To be honest, if the game was hypothetically so imbalanced to the point where someone knowing that I was using a pillar to LOS them or they knew I had a strong counter to their build (assuming I dont ever change my build) then it probably could've gone back in the oven for a bit metaphorically speaking. If players strategies are that fragile then perhaps they should just get better. As mentioned, there is nothing stopping them from live streaming to various people in discord regardless of 1v1 or 8v8. If cant figure out what kind classes/archetype you're competing against within the first moments of the encounter you may need to practice more through experience.
You can buy wheels these days.
why do you keep saying inspecting? do u come from wow or something?
you didnt get the point. the olympiad was built in such a way that you couldnt see who you were fighting until the last 10 seconds before the match started. this only gave you time to get in position. however, your preparation changed depending on who you were fighting (such as putting your important buffs first or last) which was impossible unless you had a spotter, and you couldn't re buff in the last 10 seconds (the npc would be gone after u buffed and you didnt want to waste more mana). you had to conserve mana a lot. starting your fight at 50% mana or a 100% is the difference between beating a mana burner or not, for some classes, but these are advantages that you get by having a spotter. theres no inspection on l2, you just look at what they are doing and wearing and thats it. i think there wont be any inspection in ashes.
and before you talk shit again about not knowing what class you are fighting and needing to practice more, etc, blah blah. again, we arent talking about wow. how do you know in l2 when you are fighting a prophet (buffer) a bishop (healer) a sorceror ? you cant because they use the exact same gear and look exactly the same (both human mystic). you have to wait until the fight starts since the game doesnt let you know beforehand and they use a skill, or you have to know them by name in the last 10 seconds, or you use a spotter... and your strategy changes depending on who you are fighting. warcryer or overlord? same thing. elder or mage? same thing, etc, etc.
i expect aoc have a similar strategy since anybody can be of any race and can wear any type of gear. theres no gear / race restrictions like in wow or other games. so i expect players to equip one weapon then switch to their main one when the fight starts. for example lets say you are a rogue but you start the match with a bow, so now people think you are a ranger, and instead of running away from you before the fight starts (what they would naturally do if you were a rogue) they get close to you instead because they expect you to start kiting (like rangers do), then you switch to your dagger and they are already in melee range, easier for you to hit them and you dont even have to waste a gap closer. spotters will ruin this type of strategy since they can just tell you "hey that dude is a rogue with a bow, run away, dont get close".
people who used a spotter had an unfair advantage over those who didnt by bypassing game restrictions. thats the fucking point. i dont even know why we are arguing over this anymore. there is no way in which not having a spotter is better than having a spotter when the game doesn't give you information on purpose so you have to adapt when the fight starts.
cant do much about streaming on discord, but at least, if you are streaming on discord, your friends cant see your opponent. you probably just dont get it because you played wow arena and not l2 arena, which is understandable and everything makes sense now.
you hide vs archers or vs tanks and daggers using ultimate defense/evasion and wait it out. we already saw tanks having ultimate defense in aoc
If that's the case, then they should include at least one arena in the first half of the alpha 2, to let players test and give feedback.
Nope I understood. I took the time to read it and I was not talking shit. Not sure what you're trying to get at. You may potentially be taking this to a personal level.
If I only reply to a part of ampost, it is because the rest of it isn't worth replying to (potentially for a few reasons).
In your abovempost I previously replied to, the part I didn't reply to was at least in part about how you thought military nodes would be "less appealing if they're just a place to queue up for instanced combat and replays haha", as if an arena is the only point to a lilitary node. It wasn't worth replying to at all.
As for I think you've lost it a bit.
It's almost as if you have forgotten that streaming is optional, and if people don't want to give away an advantage they can just not. With live spectating, you take that option away from people - which you simply shouldn't do.
If people want to hand it away, that's their call - developers shouldn't take it away.
Your entire comments about "themepark" here only apply to the existence of an arena - if the game has one, and has a ladder, that is about as themepark as I could imagine PvP content to ever be. Unless you are arguing that there shouldn't be an arena at all, you ay not want to bring up how Ashes is trying to not be a themepark.
I mean, I'm sure if we tried we could.
But why try?
I figured you'd say that haha why I found it funny and pointed it out previously
obviously it's not just the only point to the node but it will be an important attraction for players who like certain features they provide aside from the pro's and con's for the global aspect of the Verra's world building.
To be honest I don't believe I lost sight of the point at all. Contextually it's directly relevant to the queuing and theme park style of arena's we've all experienced even to this date from various games. If in the event they choose to have arena's to what ever degree instanced and queued, they could potentially make it an option if people could spectate but that's not solely what I was more advocating for. Ignorance isn't bliss ansd leaving things optionally never truly solves the issues that will progress from it.
Why go for the same style of arena and segregated pvp systems that clearly divert players from the social dynamic? I dont need to reiterate the foundations for the theme park snowball effect. I'm not saying get rid of arena all together. If they really wanted to design a game around arena combat they could easily do that outside of the regional servers as well. You're not wrong about the weight of the arena systems reward systems impact which I pointed out already. Our main discussion became tangential about the spectator mode during live pvp events.
LOL - no comment
Players who spend time to play in arenas should get rewards which they would also get from open world, but maybe fewer. Those could be provided by other players who want to support the arena. Or through a tax system. In this case the arena should bring a benefit to the node too or it's citizens.
Sometime ago @Boneshatter mentioned that freeholds may have arenas too:
I am simply pointing out to you that actual live spectating wouldn't be a good idea.
I mean, even if the game just has a stealth based class, a spotter could just tell their allies where that character is - or you could multibox and watch it yourself.
It's just a bad idea.
Additionally to it being a bad idea, you have given absolutely no reason as to why it needs to be live - no reason as to why a two minute delay would be an issue.
My goal isn't to spend the next 20 pages having a pointless back and forth as I have no intention of trying to convince you especially considering you haven't given any (if much at all) merit to your opinion on it. You clearly have your perspective and I have mine lol. I've seen quite a bit of back and forth opinions dragged out on these forums trying to convince each other
I've said my piece, take it however you want.
As far as I am concerned, the fact that with a live arena it would be possible to have a spotter watching a match feeding info to those competing is all the merit that is needed. Adding a few minutes delay completely eliminates this, with no stated detriment.
Honestly, what more merit to a discussion could you ask for than that?
If there's going to be rewards of any kind, I think you can't have live spectating. People just giving real time updates to their mate or pre gathered info wouldn't be fair.
Not that bothered about live spectating if there aren't any rewards but agree with others that a delay then would be fine as it still allows you to see the fights.
My concern with live spectating is how much work would that mean for the Devs and how much load would it put on the systems. If it's a decent amount of work/load then I'd be in favour of leaving it out.
Not trying to pile on this incredibly exciting back and forth. More trying to understand the angle here. I can agree that adding a delay would render all of this moot, but I really have no clue why anyone would even want a feature that is a "movie theater" for arena play. For that matter even watching it live is a bit of a "why are we doing this" in my mind unless there is some other mechanic to make it interesting for the viewer or providing value (rested XP ??)
But how hard is it to just hide information/obscure players until 5-10 seconds pre match or at match start. As an avid PvPer in a myriad of games, I don't see any benefit of a spotter in terms of them providing information I don't already have. Outside of an insane corner case of a stealth class trying to leave combat to heal up or something that I am unable to locate, but I probably am aware of this happening to some degree. It just seems to me that removing the ability for viewers to see them pre match removes any edge a spotter would provide in a game such as this.
More clarity on this would be helpful, not trying to ruffle feathers but I am losing you on the importance of a spotter.
Having to travel to the arena means less people in arena and more ganking outside the arena. Cross server systems would help the first issue I think.
You mean the fighters will be ganked when they want to enter the door into the arena?
As with any activity that some others want in an MMO, rather than asking "why?", i simply say "sure, if the developer considers it worth their time", and then work out if there are any detriments to it that need to be discussed.
As for the value to it, being told where a stealth player is would in itself be insanely useful. Just drop an AoE on them.
That in itself is enough to just not have it.
We either consider this an issue with both PvP and PvE, or with neither PvP or PvE.
I opt to not consider it an issue.
I guess I don't see why the spectator would even see the stealth character in the first place, but that at least answers my question regarding what you are talking about. I appreciate it.
people watch twitch streams with a delay
depending on how the arena is made, a spotter can give you information you wouldn't have access to that would change the way you propare for combat, rendering your opponent's strategy ineffective.
In other words - Entertainment.
There might be a gentleman's agreement whereby the fighters are not attacked. However, it will be dependant on server populations. Also, I think it would be hilarious if spectators of the opposite team ganked the winning team after an arena battle.
You would consider it to be a non issue because you're not an arena junkie like some of us. Don't particularly want to fight 1000 games with only 10 other players.
I mean I understand where you all are coming from, but it seems like a near non-issue to obscure certain features or information. Such as not giving the viewer the ability to see the invisible player in Noaani's example, or in your example mask who is playing until they step out of the gate. Again, it totally makes sense what you all are saying but it seems like a non-issue with minor adjustments to stop a spotter being useful.
I am sitting here watching The International as we speak so I definitely know what you mean by entertainment from watching streams/esports. I guess we will see how they implement it as I will most likely be an arena player if no pvp is happening outside the node walls.
Even if there's some sort of obfuscation of info, w/o delay spectators can still provide some beneficial details about the opponent. Countless such cases were present in L2.