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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.
Comments
seems like ur journey ended there xDD
1. Healers in pvp can not outheal dedicated dps on a toon. You will lose players through coordinated attacks. You just can't heal fast enough and cleric is a particularly slow healer from what we've seen.
2. Healers can not dps like a dps player. You will lose in a one vs one fight although the fight will be protracted. What we don't want is damage and heals to boost from the same stat lines.
Yeah, hopefully this SH°T won't happen again like it did in World of Warcraft when "The Burning Crusade" first released and a whole stat was introduced that made Healers basically OP in PvP.
It was called "Resilience".
A state that nerfed the critchance on all players by another player and also quite the chunk of overall damage, which made it feel like Healers had a higher maxlevel than anyone else in general.
Anyone should die quickly if they are falsely placed.
PvP combat should feel dynamic and very DANGEROUS! No sleeping on the job.
There is nothing more sleep inducing than me having "maxgear" and not being able to one- or twoshot someone who only has "midgear".
To give an example, if my "gearlevel" is a 10 and that of my opponent only an 8 or less, than I do not want a melee tradeoff to take more than 6 or 8 seconds for me to have him almost dead while I still have about 50% of my lifepoints or something.
Asuming whe used the same skills.
With "Resilience" back then this 1-vs-1 would have taken 20 seconds MINIMUM which would give even the laziest, undeserving healer enough time to heal my opponent back up.
... making me dependent on such a healer too.
Which will result in that one side winning who still does more damage and depletes the enemys healer's mana faster, which will result in no more heals and a victory.
There is nothing more boring if EVERY battle is only a battle of attrition.
Repetitive and foreseeable. The perfect recipe for agonizing boredom.
GREATLY HOPE THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN ASHES.
Looks like PvP won't be that lit then after all. Well not like I expect it to anyway.
I thought op-clapping some unsuspecting victims would be fun but if it is too much of a drag, guess the amazing PvE gameworld, worldevents and nodes will do.
aside from back when tanks were one shotting ppl cuz of rly high damage, healers were the most op in alpha 1, even winning 1v2 easily cuz of heals.
weve only seen a level 15 healer. casting speed is a stat in aoc. i imagine a higher level cleric will heal much faster (and yes dps will dps faster too) but for example, that aoe no cd heal from a1 could potentially be spammed at light speed at higher level...
So iff you want a relativly easy fight designed for 2 healers and the DPS output is roughtly 100 dps then u want the boss doing roughly 200 dps, and if u want a more healer challening fight you can increase that to 300-400dps for say a boss fight tops.
the issue is in say WoW when bosses do like 5times the dps on the main tank of any dps player then the healer need to be bumped up to accomodate the PvE dmg which then makes them unkillable in pvp unless have like 4 DPS hitting them to out dmg there healing output or CC lock them.
TLDR Mob dmg towards tank players and player dmg output on non tank players shouldnt have a huge gap sp healers can be balanced around both situations.
Cleric was op in a1 but the other two classes were absolute trash which only compounded the opness of cleric in a1. Doesn't matter how much casting speed you add if the heals are not instant.
eh the mage did pretty good damage, but the heals over time kept you alive xD
anyways heals dont have to be instant, especially in a game with high time to kill. and well, lets look at l2 again, bishops didnt have instant cast and they could keep their party alive pretty well in pvp (unless you got one shotted). i mean balance life was pretty op and even major heal on 1 target ;3 and thats a game where you can die in 3 seconds lol
I'm playing 2 healers in pvp on guild wars 2. The delayed heals, even with quickness, mean death before the heal even triggers. The firebrand instant heals and tempest instant heals perform much better. Still, neither are able to dps or win 1vs1 or against multiple foes in a targeted disposition. I have requested the devs balance like guild wars before. Both of my healers can keep a team alive for long periods but only if my team covers my healers.
gw isnt the only mmorpg...just because something is one way in one game, doesnt mean it is like that in other games
Your wow example doesn't include any form of cc. It was very common in those times to see a cyclone into a fear into a death coil into a sheep into a bear bash into a dead opponent.
Ashes needs to lean into cc chains and viable counters while still accounting for group scale. Make single target, cleave, target capped and non target capped crowd control while also giving access to viable counters in the form of cleanses and cc break items.
Resilience helped counter burst and acted as a stop gap so abilities worked the same way in both pve and pvp. Ashes would be wise to include an easily accessible gearset with this type of stat so new players and those with less playtime have the perception of a winning chance.
I can give examples of many polished games. Your example comes from a1 of an unpolished game. The formula is 2 dps to 1 healer. L2 even stuck to the formula. Unfortunately the devs had no solid combat oversight which still plagues the team to this day. It is a bad notion that we discuss pvp without any recent pvp footage. The classes are all well and good on paper but I haven't seen the healer, dps or tank in a pvp environment in Ashes.
A1 classes were literally just a mashup of abilities that were in a somewhat ready state for display to the public. There was no intention at all of them being representative at all of the finished classes - no5 even for that level.
also, if the game is being balanced around 1 of each archetype in a party, and the cleric is the healer, it makes sense that the healer can keep 8 people alive to a certain extent since you have only one healer.
if we are talking about something like a 3v3, and you have 3 dps hitting one target, then we cant i have 3 healers healing that target?
i think you guys are too used to games where 1 class can do everything to an extent, heal, dps, tank, cc, cc break, buff, debuff, etc. thats not how it works in games where each class has a role and each role has a specific task. they cant do everything.
and no in l2 it wasnt 1 healer for 2 dps. 1 bishop could keep a party of 9 alive pretty well against 4 dps + whatever noodle damage the bd, sws and orc were doing unless people were getting one shotted. again, there isnt any formula, it depends on the game.
Oh, i know it started off that way. As with many things on these forums though, it got zero on instead of a more valid point. I just figured it was worth pointing out to all that it wasnt worth the discussion ao you guys could all move on to one of the more valid points.
well, using that logic we can say that discussing anything until the very day the game ends its service isnt valid, since games will receive updates, more classes will be added, more skills, level increases, bug fixes, rebalances, new content, etc. you never really finish developing and maintaining the game until you end the service.
imagine if we said: "well, discussing classes right now seems pointless because WoW just announced 2 more expansions, and there will be a level increase, new skills, etc and all the skills that we are using now wont be in use next year". thats basically apoc and aoc.
up to that point, that was aoc (and even got a rebalance since the tank got nerfed) even if it didnt have a lot of content, that was the game, as it was shown to the public (as opposed to confidential spot testings with players or internal tests with the staff). the game had received who knows how many iterations and balance passes. it was a build that went from developing to staging to production that people could play, access and use.
sure you can say that it will receive some more balance in a2 and release, and maybe the animations werent that cool, and more content will be added, but guess what? that will also happen, and most likely every month, for the next who knows how many years, lets say 20, until the game ends its service. the game will still receive balance passes, but doesnt mean we can use an old patch as an example.
we also dont know if all the skills we saw in a1 are gone or not. many of those skills were present in the class showcase they did a while back in one of the trailers, so i doubt they will all be gone. we saw class updates and how more skills were added, but nothing indicates that a1 skills are gone, as far as i know, so they are still valid.
We all know what one of the biggest allures in an MMO is.
And that is to totally overpower your opponent to the point where it is not fair anymore.
Cause you are more of a no-lifer than the other player and that's it. That is the main goal!
A lot of MMO players want this exact powerfantasy.
Of course with a certain threshhold but still something that rewards giving your life to the game so that you can be a MONSTER in PvP.
Players with lesser playtime have to adapt, deploy underdog tactics and group together to fight back.
And woe those who encounter an entire group or guild of no-lifers. But that's just how it goes.
If it gets too bad hope there are server-swaps so that you do not have to start anew from lvl.1 on another server but if one server has too many no-lifers who gatekeep everything and do not seem to go anywhere, bet those servers will be very boring.
But a dumb stat that slows the battles down and stops a series of crits that can end someone in two to five seconds and does not even change the final result of the battle but drags the battle out to x3 times the amount of time instead... is just boring, cringe and pretentious.
What does this amount to?
That someone who knows they are gonna lose, can watch it unfold in detail?
So that they can savour their powerlessness more? And look on as the inevitable defeat arrives?
Tactic is good I guess. But too much tactic is sleep inducing.
Battles are tense because they are fast. Because "the meta" is to simply kill faster before getting killed.
Not how to stunlock. Not how to spell-lock! Not how to heal-lock! Not how to use crippling effects each & every single time and be a cooldown wh°re.
I will never forget how Retributionpaladins in WoW were called "5 minute Paladins".
Because the 12 seconds complete imunity bubble they had a 5 min. cooldown and most Retripaladins could only win a 1-vs-1 against another class when this ability was ready and allowed them either one round of free healing up again or to negate crowdcontrol.
By the way my own Paladin was such a beast he could win even without it.
And I was never respected and always only hated and made fun of for it. Is there any other true confirmation that you are the hot sh°t when you are mainly HATED instead of respected?
But it was true. And it annoyed me greatly.
That I had to wait for 5 minutes everytime for an effect that lasted 12 seconds, to have my maximum potential cause about 3 or 4 horde players on my server were so good and so geared, I needed this bubble to defeat them.
Slowed the battle down. And no one enjoyed it. Neither my enemies nor I.
The best PvP is the quick & explosive one. Similar to what I've seen in Heroes of the Storm.
Where coordinated attacks killed an entire team in seconds.
And where a greatly dominant team could still lose the whole match if they are all killed once during the latest quarter of the game.
Resilience was a false saviour. A false hope. A bringer of boredom.
It was solely invented for Arena and due to Arena granting the best PvP gear, world-PvP and battlegrounds devolved into a timewaster. A slow paced mockery of it what it once was.
World-PvP was never that rewarding anyway.
But now it became a bore.
With even mid-gear equipped players being able to often escape highend geared players due to resilience.
Leaving no victor anywhere.
No quick kills and of course the inferior geared player would never try to turn the tide.
Cuz it was impossible. As it should be, in an MMORPG.
So now no one had what they wanted and everyone was equally miserable. " Fun detected, innitiate nerf. "
Same old meme that shows up every so often.
The idea that healers should be a free kill in PvP while not being able to kill anyone is ridiculous. AoC will fail miserably if healers are a free kill solo, because no one will be a healer for PvE.
People complain about MMOs being solo games, and then make silly posts like this.
I wouldn't say unkillable. Very hard to kill and have abilities that give Healers an crowdcontrol effect that allows them an easy getaway. If it is only one player attacking the Healer that is.
The horrors that I've seen had burned their way into my memories.
Druids shapeshifting back & forth for seemingly no mana-cost, spamming heals over themself, then turning back into travelform... and FIVE MELEE DPS's unable to catch up to that lame cheese and inflict enough coordinated damage to kill that creep.
I killed many midlevel Druids in The Burning Crusade solely out of hatred. Went out of my way for it too.
Then a guildmate asked me why I always kill them if it does not give me anything? I told him
" Oh it does. It gives me a sense of fairness. If they are maxlevel too they are unkillable.
So they must have their many deaths in advance to make up for this injustice. "
He laughed. Glad he had a good time.
I too had a good time and never regretted anything.
Healers should be able to die if they are being pressured. They should have a couple "Oh Sh" buttons but ultimately go down if they are being sat on. Tired of this "yes finally got him to 20% hp let me ju---"
*pushes button to insta heal to 100%hp and its off cd in 12 sec so u better hurry"
it just annoys me. Healers who sit back and get to freecast... sure keep your team alive with ease but if someone is on you, interupting your casts... slowing you down... CCing you.. yes that 1 person should be able to bring you down. Your heals should no always just shoot you back up to full hp. Like you said, the team thing works both ways. And the PvE argument makes no sense, you will have a tank to draw aggro off of you in PvE. in PVP yes people will gun for you, it's up to your team to keep them occupied so you can heal freely. Under no circumstance should it be near impossible for you to die 1v1 just because you are a healer.
As is unfortunately the case in WoW and gosh was it ever the case for monks in gw1, without a mesmer or curse necromancer there was the "immortal monk" build that could stall groups of players for. quite some time.
Not a Leather-Wearer,
not a Chainmail-Wearer,
not a PLATE-Armor Wearer,
can " tank " -> a for Example Damage Dealer - like a Rogue. Who is giving his best to stab and slash the everliving Hell out of the Healer,
then the Game is doing something wrong.
The Healer should run. Use every Ability he has. Run to Friends. Tanks. Warriors.
Not just " effortlessly and calmly " stand there - healing himself - making an absolute Mockery out of the Damage Dealer.
I am talking about People of the same Level - and Level/Strength of Gear.
When a Healer is clearly higher in LvL and better equipped with Armor and Gear - > Nobody sane would ever have a Problem with that.
But imagine a Healer who could " LITERALLY JERK OFF " with One Arm - while healing himself with the other - and at the best "Yawn" into the Face of the Damage Dealer attacking him with all of his Might. 😅
In WoW, " Druids " could do this for a time. Please dear Gods in the higher Planes - Please don't let this absolute Cringe Festival repeat itself. 😅
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)