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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.
Support classes in Parties vs in Raids
Ludullu
Member, Alpha Two
All the recent discussions about zergs and smaller groups (mainly this one) made me think about the ways that different mmos approach support class design.
I'm used to party-based design (with a single exception in the form of a class that's meant to buff the entire guild), so healers/buffers/tank buffs/etc - all only affect their party members and the only way to cast stuff outside of your part is to directly target someone (aoe positive effects don't work outside the party at all here).
Quite a few games seem to have gone the way of WoW (maybe there were others like this before it) and have given support classes the power to affect the entire damn raid, so, instead of being responsible only for your own mates, you're now responsible for 40 (or whichever is the max raid size) people.
I'd assume this was done to make the game easier to complete, because majority of people don't want to play the support classes, so designing your game around a single one of them per raid is easier than around one per party. But here's where AoC's design comes in. Intrepid want to balance the game around the 8-man party, with one of each archetype as somewhat of an optimal build. To me this implies that classes will be balanced around supporting your own party and not the entire raid.
But here's the, now usual, contradiction in design. In the world event stream we were shown and told that newcomers will just get added to the raid group of the event. Which means that majority of players in that event will most likely be random non-support classes (as it usually is with random pugs). This implies that mobs will be balanced around this possibility, with lower attack power and potentially lower overall complexity and difficulty (or that support classes will be able to support, potentially, an entire raid solo).
During that event showcase when another group joined the event raid they didn't join as a new party, but immediately got their members added to the initial party. I'd hope/assume that this was the case because it was a 4+4 situation and that if either of the parties had >4 members - they would've joined as Party2, but I don't think that was stated anywhere.
In the latest cleric showcase there was a single party heal. Everything else was either single-targeted or "any ally receives this effect" (with "ally" seemingly meaning any unflagged player). Obviously WIP and all that, but as someone who's used to party-based balancing, a single party-based ability out of 18 shown kinda hints at a more raid-leaning balancing to me.
My point here is this: in your opinion, should support effects only influence your own party in the raid or the entire raid? And if you want a variety of applications - what in your opinion would be a good mana cost difference between a party effect and a raid-wide effect (x2? x3? higher? lower?).
I'm used to party-based design (with a single exception in the form of a class that's meant to buff the entire guild), so healers/buffers/tank buffs/etc - all only affect their party members and the only way to cast stuff outside of your part is to directly target someone (aoe positive effects don't work outside the party at all here).
Quite a few games seem to have gone the way of WoW (maybe there were others like this before it) and have given support classes the power to affect the entire damn raid, so, instead of being responsible only for your own mates, you're now responsible for 40 (or whichever is the max raid size) people.
I'd assume this was done to make the game easier to complete, because majority of people don't want to play the support classes, so designing your game around a single one of them per raid is easier than around one per party. But here's where AoC's design comes in. Intrepid want to balance the game around the 8-man party, with one of each archetype as somewhat of an optimal build. To me this implies that classes will be balanced around supporting your own party and not the entire raid.
But here's the, now usual, contradiction in design. In the world event stream we were shown and told that newcomers will just get added to the raid group of the event. Which means that majority of players in that event will most likely be random non-support classes (as it usually is with random pugs). This implies that mobs will be balanced around this possibility, with lower attack power and potentially lower overall complexity and difficulty (or that support classes will be able to support, potentially, an entire raid solo).
During that event showcase when another group joined the event raid they didn't join as a new party, but immediately got their members added to the initial party. I'd hope/assume that this was the case because it was a 4+4 situation and that if either of the parties had >4 members - they would've joined as Party2, but I don't think that was stated anywhere.
In the latest cleric showcase there was a single party heal. Everything else was either single-targeted or "any ally receives this effect" (with "ally" seemingly meaning any unflagged player). Obviously WIP and all that, but as someone who's used to party-based balancing, a single party-based ability out of 18 shown kinda hints at a more raid-leaning balancing to me.
My point here is this: in your opinion, should support effects only influence your own party in the raid or the entire raid? And if you want a variety of applications - what in your opinion would be a good mana cost difference between a party effect and a raid-wide effect (x2? x3? higher? lower?).
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Comments
AoE heals should be (by my preference) group only, but single target heals should be able to be cast on anyone not in combat with you.
In EQ2, the exact makeup of your raid, which DPS classes you bought, which healers and support you had, and specifically which group each of them were in, were all fairly important aspects of running a raid. You could have the right classes, but if players were in the wrong group for what ever reason, it would be really easy to outright wipe in the first 15 seconds of most boss pulls.
However, since Ashes is looking at having the content types you are talking about - community content where people just show up and join - that kind of system really won't work. There is no way it could have worked in Archeage - the game that type of content seems to be derrived from.
So, in my opinion, a game should have buffs and heals largely (but not completely) restricted to the group the character is in. However, that simply won't work in Ashes, so Intrepid will need to compromise in order to make the game function.
you can do both. for example, chain heals that bounce and heal less people the more it bounces and it can only bounce 3-4 times or whatever. you can also use proximity based skills. for example, one bard might not be able to buff everyone in the raid because people have to spread out, heals might not reach other members, etc.
there are also mana and cooldown issues. a bard might be able to buff everyone in the raid if he moves around and casts his buff multiple times, but because the buffs will have a cooldown, you might not really be able to do this. healers will most likely run out of mana if they try to heal 40 people and not 8, etc.
so you can still have that component of supports being able to assist everyone in the raid, and this can be good for those random events, and people who are a bit more organized can still from their cp and simply do party play in the raid. so while you could heal or buff everyone, you will focus on your party.
But I understand that you're ok with support effects going outside of your party, as long as they're balanced properly.
no, i prefer party only (aside from single target skills obviously).
im just saying why it would be good if they affected the whole raid, which is because of the random events and people who group up randomly. also, the augments system might make it so you need more than one bard, for example, to be able to have all the buffs you need, but you probably dont want 2 or 3 bards in one party if you are just playing with your cp
1. Do not like buffs with debuff elements from my raid ("Rage of Pa'agrio")
2. Do not like raid-wide low cd restorations ("The Honor of Pa'agrio")
3. I am fine with very limited (high CD, hard to execute) raid-wide full HP and MP restorations ("Sublime Self-Sacrifice")
4. I am fine with limited (high CD) raid-wide helping without directly restoring HP or MP ("Mass Resurrection", "Purification Field" or "Flames of Invincibility")
If the game has AoE, the effects should be applied to whoever is in the area.
If I cast an AoE heal I would not like to see players dying because they were not in my team.
So AoE healing should be applied as I want, depending on circumstances. I might want to heal the almost dead first or I might want to heal the 80% full to bring it up to 100% because I might know that anyone at 90% will die the next few seconds, and I need to maximize the number of survivors.
If I cast a single target spell, it should affect that target, no matter if is in my party or not.
Yes. Take as much mana as needed.
But give also a few bards to sing and replenish it fast
Also if a bard is not in my team, I want to be able to hear his song.
I would also accept if the enemy members are healed/damaged by AoE too.
Makes no sense some players to pass through a fire wall or poison cloud and stay invulnerable.
How will you know if it is your party firewall or enemy one?
Let them all get damage equally if they are flagged for combat.
I'm also in the AoE camp for allowing heals in large groups.
The usual ways I've seen this is that (while not group restricted) had to balance mana cost, amount healed, number of people included and, as always, cooldowns.
The mana vs HP has always been set so it cost more than a single target and heal for less on individual players but more when considering the total amount. So the more targets you heal the more efficient you are mana-wise.
The number of players healed depended on the size of the AoE, or a chain heal (WoW shaman healer). The bigger the AoE, the smaller the healing is per players.
Cooldown that add another balancing variable.
If I wanted to suggest an alternative (not sure if it has been done in other games), I'd propose a healing spell where the total amount was fixed for mana, and then equally divided to those in the AoE. So the less people in the AoE, the bigger it would heal. It makes it harder to use, demanding more skill on the healer to place the spell to affect the right people, but allowing more control, on the fly. Rewards good group formation too.
Come on Raven, telepathic singing and air guitar mandolin. It can be done!
Now bard... Just an aura. If we want a twist we can decrease the strength of the effect with range.
So based on this goal I'll expect what we've been shown. Mostly single target heals and 'formation based' buffs.
I don't see why it means either of those things or why anyone has to care about that. The game functionally communicates to players repeatedly 'form your groups and don't just wander around in the world by yourself if you expect to be effective'. So I don't see any reason the mobs would be balanced that way. You'll just lose the event.
A raid-wide effect should be a channeled sustain with a mana cost that 'ticks' as it ramps up to its completion.
You have a full raid, so it's fine to have these moments where support has to 'stand still for max effect', and any instant 'drop this buff or large heal on 20+ people and then reposition away' is stupid and leads to issues, on both sides. Either it has a huge cast time and can be interrupted, or it doesn't and they just get away with it. A binary outcome that doesn't enhance anything.
Now I do agree that both the pushing and the failure-into-more-content should definitely be the case, but I'm not sure if either will survive testing and feedback. Definitely gonna be giving my feedback for them though.
Regarding supporter impact during world events & in raids: I think that the RPS-system is not limited to PvP. Therefore I expect some world events to become significantly easier with support classes present (not necessarily only to heal but maybe in some cases just to purify stacking debuffs). On the other hand there will be events where supports won't have as much to do in the ways of support and might be required to contribute with dmg or operating other objectives.
As an example for the latter case mentioned above: A small siege event may allow tanks, rouges and mages to just do their thing and earn contribution, but it does not require much healing; so a cleric/bard may decide to operate one of the defense contraptions which raises his dmg potential beyond that of his archetype and therefore increasing his contribution to the event objective. For other archetypes these contraptions are at best an optional thing to use during the quest without offering them the chance to earn more contribution than they could by just relying on their skill kit, however for low dmg classes (& builds) this would be a vital way of increasing contribution.
Regarding scaling of mana costs in raids, I think the focus should remain on the group, mainly because it allows for better competitive ploys in raids. A "heal all" spell would thereby still affect only ones own group. AOE healing however is still just that: Basically an enchantment of an area with a certain effect. This should be almost completely decoupled from group association, except if you are an enemy of the character(s group).
This leads me to my first major conclusion: It might be worth remembering that Intrepid, while certainly interested in players having fun and progressing, designed this game to be cooperative but also difficult. World events might turn out to have a bigger fail rate than people might think based on the showcase. Meaning failure is a legitimate outcome for a world event that can occur more often then most think and may be intended to occur when certain roles remain unfilled. Which in turn could mean we get more support augmented classes than we are anticipating for now.
Regarding group arrangement during world events: I agree it might be better to start off by not "filling up" existing groups but rather see new groups being established first. Group leaders should still exist during a raid. As part of their position, they can switch or transfer group members to and from other groups, however similar to the looting system it requires the others consent; a raid leader could be the one deciding whether group changes need group leaders to agree, all affected group members to agree or whether the raid leader alone can divide members in the raid (and changes to this policy have to be voted on by all raid members). This certainly will require more organization during world events but I think with due time servers/regions will establish some sort of general "code of conduct" like micro cultures as part of the greater significance of social gameplay in general. This would also explain what the longer waiting times between world event stages are for - besides PvP.
My conclusion here is: There is room for improvement regarding group and raid management, but ultimately I think the "best" practice will only be established through feedback during Alpha 2
Considering the world events and that 1 Raid consists of 5 Parties i see 2 possibilities:
AoE Party Heals/buffs also affecting the whole raid but with a up to 5x lessened effect to non-party members in the raid(depending on the amount of parties in the raid).
Specific Raid wide Heals/Buffs with up to 5x mana cost and cooldown (depending on the amount of parties in the raid).
Aren't we all sinners?
So, if anyone in the raid is purple, I won't cast the raid heal and that hurts the raid as well.
Additionally, if you only need one or two healers for a 40-man raid, less people will choose to be a healer which is bad for guilds, raids and the whole game.
damn, thats a good point. i had completely forgotten about that.
My assumption here (since I assume they will need to have raidwide heals even if I don't like it), is that healing a corrupt player will function the same way as attacking a non-combatant. If Intrepid are making it so AoE's won't affect an unflagged player accidently, they should be able to make it so AoE heals don't heal a corrupt player accidently.
However, it really is a good point to bring up.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_flagging
Players will be able to opt-in (via a checkbox) to allow their beneficial spells, or non-beneficial AoEs to hit combatants.[17][18]
If you have that check-box for flagging with your AOEs and heals available then you will flag. If you do not have that box checked then on completion of the skill it will not flag you because the check was made at the start that there was a flagged party member; and then he will not he or she will not receive the beneficial effect as a result or the damage, if it's an offensive spell.[18] – Steven Sharif
This would make big fights very deadly and blatant zergging could be discouraged, smaller parties would have better support than larger groups
someones angry he got banned.
r u tired of spamming the forums and posting songs now?
Sounds like you are part of a chaotic raid that doesn't communicate well.
I don't suppose I could get you to narrow down which part of it sounds like that?
Since I'm (in my mind) definitely not, it's harder for me to make the connection between the things I said, and your conclusion, on my own.
I was referring to the part where you explained an oxymoron of the support of 20+ people standing still being fine. Then you said that it's actually stupid and leads to issues. Not what your point was, nothing personal, just had a hard time understanding your point.
Ok, thanks, I'm noting that I should have been clearer either way, so thanks for pointing it out.
I agree that I would prefer to stay in my party regardless of the size of the party, if we join an event in the open world. I don't mind if Ashes has a system to 'shuffle other participants of the event into my party', especially if it mostly does it for solo players joining with the missing Primary Archetype(s) of my group at the time.
I definitely was saying that I don't mind if a support character (let's assume me, the Cleric) can't 'hit a raid-wide healing Ability with a nearly instant cast'. I would expect to need to 'stand still, and something like waves of regen come out from my position'.
If it just automatically hit all my raid members within a huge range, but required me to stand still and the regen required time to 'tick up' to powerful levels until the end of the cast (and it consumed more of my mana on every such 'tick'), I don't think that would be a terrible option for a raid-wide healing option. Assume the same for 'Chain heals' and 'Bard Buffs' and so on.
I don't think the game should have too many of these, either, but if it is considered important for them to exist for tactical reasons, I don't object to them. Even the thing I described would have been a bit strong in Alpha-1 Siege defense, but maybe that would be a good gameplay type, constantly 'rotating the Cleric who is channeling the Blessing' as their MP ran out and they had to fall back to get it restored.
We've seen healing abilities in livestream demonstrations that evenly distributes the maximum output of the ability based on how many players are in proximity for the effect.
Since bards and their songs work similarly with aura's and proximity to some degree, I imagine it will be party/raid wide considering how the flagging system works. Since it's not a faction based game, I do not see the need to passively buff players outside of the party or raid.
I imagine proximity buffs like songs will work the same as the more players near the support player, the weaker the effects for everyone within range it will be. Never allow the same buffs to overlap or stack. Player collision and bad choices will solve the rest.
Shouldn't make much of a difference regardless of Ground Target, Area of Effect, Range or Proximity.
No need to overcomplicate it.
Dual Tier Proximity.
Direct party members gets tier 1 of the buff, anyone outside of party in raid group gets tier 2 assuming they're in range/proximity. Tier 1 could be 70% of max buff and Tier 2 could be 30% of max buff as a simple example.
Equal Max Output Split
Based on numerical value in proximity of party and raid members split evenly amongst. If buff says tier 10 then it is split 10 ways evenly as 10 players are in proximity.
Dual Tier Equal Split
Pretty much the first two options combined.