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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Lessons from WOW: Shadowlands that Ashes should be considering
Xeeg
Member, Alpha Two
I started playing WOW again (stopped at Panda expansion) when my buddy was trying to rekindle the good ole days. It was about midway through the Shadowlands expansion and so we had a good time. The start of Shadowlands was hated by many and I fear Ashes can fall into the same trap.
Essentially, there were a 6 main systems that stacked player power:
There were 4 covenant factions, and it took about 10-20hr to complete a faction.
At the start of Shadowlands, if you changed covenant you had to start all over from scratch. You could only change soulbind trees like once a day or something.
The problem was, with so many compounding player power systems it was impossible for Blizzard to balance. So if you arbitrarily picked the wrong covenant at the start, your character could be massively gimped by the time you had spent all the time working towards completing your trees and finally saw your character at full power.
People were pissed to find out that their characters sucked compared to others who had arbitrarily picked a different covenant. What should they do? Redo all the work to farm up the "meta" covenant just to find out that blizz patched it and now its nerfed?
It was ridiculous and people were rightly outraged.
Now let's talk about Ashes. With so many systems influencing player power, balancing (even within the same class) is going to be next to impossible. I don't care what anyone says about the meta, there WILL be some builds and team synergies that are objectively better than others in most scenarios.
Ashes has many compounding systems.There is your primary class, your secondary class, your primary class tree, your secondary augments, your weapon, your weapon trees, your equipment, possible node buffs, possible racial modifiers, possible religion/etc modifiers...
It's a big list.
Not every system has to be a "meaningful decision". The more compounding systems you have, the easier it should be for the player to change and play around with them.
I had a blast trying out different covenants and playing around with the skill trees in Shadowlands. Coming up with unique builds and different ways of doing things. But if I had joined at the start, I probably would have quit once I realized how hard it was to test different builds.
Sure, race and primary class are locked in, fine. But talent trees? 2ndary class? Augments? Weapon skill trees? All of these should have varying levels in how easily the character can change them. Augments likely should be changeable outside of combat. Talent tree, maybe you need to be in town.
Primary class and race - unchangeable.
2ndary class - ~10 hours to unlock each one and then an hour or two to swap them.
Augments - in town.
Talent trees - in town.
Weapon trees - in town.
Weapons/Armour, should be able to swap anytime that you aren't in combat.
Whatever you do, don't have players make "meaningful decisions" about arbitrary and unbalanced abilities or you just gimp them and create a lot of angry players. I don't want to be locked into a "meaningful decision" that is objectively bad because the game designers didn't do their jobs.
Essentially, there were a 6 main systems that stacked player power:
- Player level
- The main class spec trees (sub/assa/outlaw Rogue, etc.)
- Covenant abilities (necrolord bone spike, etc.)
- Covenant soulbind trees (increasing character ability power)
- Player equipment (haste/crit/mastery)
- Legendary items (greatly increasing the power of specific abilities)
There were 4 covenant factions, and it took about 10-20hr to complete a faction.
At the start of Shadowlands, if you changed covenant you had to start all over from scratch. You could only change soulbind trees like once a day or something.
The problem was, with so many compounding player power systems it was impossible for Blizzard to balance. So if you arbitrarily picked the wrong covenant at the start, your character could be massively gimped by the time you had spent all the time working towards completing your trees and finally saw your character at full power.
People were pissed to find out that their characters sucked compared to others who had arbitrarily picked a different covenant. What should they do? Redo all the work to farm up the "meta" covenant just to find out that blizz patched it and now its nerfed?
It was ridiculous and people were rightly outraged.
Now let's talk about Ashes. With so many systems influencing player power, balancing (even within the same class) is going to be next to impossible. I don't care what anyone says about the meta, there WILL be some builds and team synergies that are objectively better than others in most scenarios.
Ashes has many compounding systems.There is your primary class, your secondary class, your primary class tree, your secondary augments, your weapon, your weapon trees, your equipment, possible node buffs, possible racial modifiers, possible religion/etc modifiers...
It's a big list.
Not every system has to be a "meaningful decision". The more compounding systems you have, the easier it should be for the player to change and play around with them.
I had a blast trying out different covenants and playing around with the skill trees in Shadowlands. Coming up with unique builds and different ways of doing things. But if I had joined at the start, I probably would have quit once I realized how hard it was to test different builds.
Sure, race and primary class are locked in, fine. But talent trees? 2ndary class? Augments? Weapon skill trees? All of these should have varying levels in how easily the character can change them. Augments likely should be changeable outside of combat. Talent tree, maybe you need to be in town.
Primary class and race - unchangeable.
2ndary class - ~10 hours to unlock each one and then an hour or two to swap them.
Augments - in town.
Talent trees - in town.
Weapon trees - in town.
Weapons/Armour, should be able to swap anytime that you aren't in combat.
Whatever you do, don't have players make "meaningful decisions" about arbitrary and unbalanced abilities or you just gimp them and create a lot of angry players. I don't want to be locked into a "meaningful decision" that is objectively bad because the game designers didn't do their jobs.
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