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.
Take inspiration from the OTK Mak'Gora Tournament
GrappLr
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
So the Mak'Gora finals just happened (Classic WoW, to the death tournament). It was pretty awesome, tons of viewership, all classes looked awesome. Lots of good things to say.
I bring this up for another reason though. The trinkets. The potions. The armor/tools. Half of everything being used for PvP was non-endgear stuff. Lots of it farmable as early as level 20.
This is was AoC REALLY should strive to accomplish. Lots of cool things to collect along the way to your journey to level 60, that WILL be viable endgame in niche scenarios. Things like Really Sticky Glue (1 time quest reward at level 7, 10 charges, but broken for PvP), things like Magic Dust (Farmable, very low drop rate, off level 19 mobs), things like Engineering Gear (multiple different ones), BiS trinket Tidal Charm (1 week respawn mob, 1 per server, but level 34, ultra rare).
This is what makes leveling so much more fun, knowing that tons of things you do along the way still matter once you're max level.
Current MMORPGS really fail to capture this. You hit max level, and THEN you start to collect gear that matters. Everything until then becomes useless within days.
I bring this up for another reason though. The trinkets. The potions. The armor/tools. Half of everything being used for PvP was non-endgear stuff. Lots of it farmable as early as level 20.
This is was AoC REALLY should strive to accomplish. Lots of cool things to collect along the way to your journey to level 60, that WILL be viable endgame in niche scenarios. Things like Really Sticky Glue (1 time quest reward at level 7, 10 charges, but broken for PvP), things like Magic Dust (Farmable, very low drop rate, off level 19 mobs), things like Engineering Gear (multiple different ones), BiS trinket Tidal Charm (1 week respawn mob, 1 per server, but level 34, ultra rare).
This is what makes leveling so much more fun, knowing that tons of things you do along the way still matter once you're max level.
Current MMORPGS really fail to capture this. You hit max level, and THEN you start to collect gear that matters. Everything until then becomes useless within days.
2
Comments
Lots of crafted items were good and worked similarly. Crafter made roots like throw nets, weapon chains to prevent disarming etc. Just depends if they really want to go down that route with quest items or crafted because this essentially changes the entire dynamic of the game allowing every class to essentially have a root as an example if they don't have one through abilities by just farming it or buying it.
I definitely see what you're getting at though.
But yeah, I get what you're saying also.
Still, one can be careful about what kind of abilities are available from consumables. And should it be quest rewards/crafted/etc. can all be up to the devs.
What I'm arguing for is that things we do from levels 1-40 should matter, and in a way shape our characters. It shouldn't be "race to 50, then finally start getting things that matter". The items I get at 20, 30, etc. (a couple of items, doesn't have to be 20+), should have their niche uses, even a year later. Big emphasis on NICHE.
"advocate for" not "argue for" haha
But yes, things we do in the lower levels should matter. I believe this is why they allow repurposing and breaking down items for crafted gear in different recipes. That way rewards obtained can be useful later on to some extent.
I'm not necessarily against the idea it would just cause it to become a staple for many. If you think about roman gladiator times, they had combatants use spears and nets.
In some games fist weapons couldn't be disarmed due to the fact that they were bound to the user and not held. Weapon chains became that equaliser.
Thanks, I'll try to incorporate that into my vocabulary, English isn't my first language.
It would only become a "staple" if they were generally excellent, which rarely happens. Which is why I think they should be excellent in niche scenarios instead. That way, they still hold value due to being BiS for very specific scenarios (but rare ones at that), although weak enough that they're rarely used.
no worries, advocate is more in favour of supporting where as argue is more of a negative context.
true though. the class could just have a throw net unique to their design or a talent that allows weapon chains. and they can be greatly game changing in turning the tables if every class gets them. Restrictions would need to be in place for them such as:
a single unique slot to allow either a weapon chain, a throw net and even perhaps the choice for a universal combat pet. I really dont like the idea of universal combat pets personally i believe the only classes that should have any form of pet is summoner archetypes and crosses.
If every tank/fighter was running around with a he-man battle cat that would just get old quickly and quite lame. Would definitely need a choices matter scenario and restrictions like cool down and uses. But then we would just get into the whole, "why cant I switch my items in combat blah blah blah". lol it must not be a liberal system where it's just a I have it in my inventory kind of thing.
Then we also get into the controversy of how the CC system works too with it currently
I think a lot of it can be solved with items sharing cooldowns, not being able to swap mid combat, and ultimately, designing them in ways that they're never default equipped unless the certain circumstance can be foreseen where they have good use.
but hey, who knows
Would this be an issue if you can't swap gear mid combat, and if these "niche" consumables mostly shared the same long cooldowns, so only one can be used per average fight?
potentially as you can bring a wide range of supplies to pull from the inventory regardless of cd's to use situationally.
The other issue is, over time people will want those restrictions loosened for the sake of QoL.
As to the first point, true. So make the important ones only usable if equipped (in a slot that you usually want something else on).
As to the second point, who cares? Dev team should never cater to people asking for QoL stuff, if that QoL stuff is bad for the game long term.
yet they always do after time. that's why I'm always skeptical about implementations because they will snowball.
Using wow in relation to subject. Look at how it snowballed to where it is today to all the QoL changes. Every system from vanilla to retail keeps changing the game.
M+ used to be 4 affixes with tougher scaling, now it's 3 and much easier and people still complain. You dont even see the 3rd affix until a +14. which you technically only need to time a few for KSM with the two weeks of +13's timed. Just need to hit a 250 io average across 8 dungeons for weeks.,
horde vs alliance essentially died when they got rid of PvP servers and created pve servers with warmode.
world pvp died with instanced arena/battle grounds
lot's of examples that just kept snowballing. Dev's end up listening eventually because player retention and money.