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
Finger in the wind based on their own context and testing (which is more than the consumer will see), If you don't know the context of their own testing you can only come up with incorrect assumptions. And why i say trying to get extra details in a wrong environment is not the way that things should be looked at.
Though i guess my own view point is much broader in how i view things. I don't look at anything and take it one for one because that isn't really how it is intended to be taken. If this was a beta and a released game that would be different.
Again TTk is faster in a good way, i except it when balanced /tested to take longer to kill people. I don't expect a 8v8 group fight to take 10 minutes for 8 people to die. Those most likely will be around 5 min fights (depending).
Using your active skills and evading attacks will increase the time it takes for you to die. If you stand still and take all takes and don't use any amount of skill than ya you prob will die fast.
Ie in a 1v1 situation he cleric would be avoiding attacks and healing himself, not getting blasted by multiple people and standing still.
They had more than double, pretty sure it was about 26-11
Ah, look at my faulty memory being at work. :'] Well, in that case - my stance in this matter remains.
You can scream the Sky is Falling if you wish... but there is insufficient evidence to support your claim.
We will test it and see.
Dygz, we are providing the feedback that Intrepid requested, they did not say "don't worry about it and wait for testing" Steven said the TTK shown was indeed representative of what they want from a finger in the wind perspective and requested feedback about it, they know better than you or me if what was shown is sufficient or not, and asked for our thoughts, no one is screaming sky is falling
If both Players have the same Level and comparable Gear, then : " 10 Seconds ". Especially when the targeted Player doesn't fight back. Doesn't struggle. Just waiting there for Death on his own Choice.
Around 5 Seconds when the own Gear is exponentially stronger, or the Level is higher.
When several People attack a single Person and that Person fails to fight back and/or defend properly, two to maybe Three, m~aaaybe a maximum out of 5 Seconds.
Assume all Players involved are about equal in Gear and Level.
It should take more than just a few Seconds to kill an Enemy Player - but it also shouldn't take an Eternity. This is what ruined so much in WoW in BC when "Resiliance" got patched into the Game -> making Healers nearly invincible.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
This is a great point, in a lot of MMOs TTK is higher at lower levels, and gets shorter at higher levels, if this is what we are getting by levels 15~20 its going to be Archeage TTK with oneshots at endgame for sure.
What I said is that you have insufficient evidence to support your claim about the general/typical TTK being too short.
And that the Caravan Demo cannot provide sufficient evidence for us to meaningfully determine the typical TTK of balanced PvP combat.
Attempting to claim that the TTK is objectively to short is the equivalent of screaming the Sky is Falling.
Especially when you say things like "for sure".
There are too many unknown variables to adequately evaluate the balance of combat in that showcase besides the fact that we know it was rigged to fairly quickly and easily demo what happens when a Caravan is looted and that loot is trasnported to a Node via land and water. That is objectively true.
And I'm gonna leave you to continue QQing if you wish.
Have fun.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
Well based on what we saw a 1 v 1 will be around 20 to 30 seconds. It took 6 or 7 people to kill a character in 3 seconds. So do 1/6th damage and its 18 seconds, do 1/7th its 21 seconds. Plus the fight was rigged, so you can add a few more seconds for that. Its a different scenario when people are actively specing and gearing to defend the caravan (not to mention trying).
A cleric standing alone on a ledge, wearing paper armor and not trying to defend himself should die about as fast as he did. So that example is fine too. Healers should never be John McClaneing.
60 seconds is only reasonable when two players who don't have a lot of dps and plenty of tank and healing are fighting each other. Even then its a yawn fest.
As far as I can see, you are at the shorter side of the timeline you wanted. I'm sure gearing and balancing will tweak that further to get to 30 seconds if they are not there already. We are in good shape.
Alrighty so, you aren't listening to the person you're responding to. This isn't just the timeline he wanted, it was the timeline stated by Intrepid, straight out of Stevens mouth, for years. And this wasn't this weird random statement that people disliked. People don't like getting killed in a few seconds, especially those with experiences in Archeage. It's demoralizing, unfun, and just bad design in general. Liniker showed an easy problem of someone taking over 1 third of their health in one hit. And that wasn't dred, the mage getting lit up on the snowy ridge. It was nestharus, playing a TANK.
60 seconds of combat is a yawnfest for YOU. Which is fine, everyone is perfectly entitled to enjoy what they want, how they want. But if Intrepid have decided to pivot on how they want the flow of fights to go, also 100% fine, then They should say that, especially when it is in fact a pivot. Then Lex can go update the wiki since Lex is the awesomest, and people can re align to the new game plan, and give their feedback accordingly. But telling someone with valid misgivings basically "Don't worry about it" isn't helping anyone.
So even outside of the bad representation of pvp (cause supposedly the defenders were overly fucked over on all fronts), this is still a change from the previously promised goals. A change that kinda came out of nowhere and the only acknowledgement of that change happened exactly because people asked "is this shit for real?"
Obviously all yall BDO people and zoomers want super fast snappy fights, but one of the reasons I got interested in AoC's pvp was the ttk. Cause, once again, it was close to L2 (and even better in theory).
So yes, sky is falling because the literal god of that sky's world said so
thats a weird comment coming from you
And, sure, it's of course fine to say that if the typical TTK is now intended to be less than 30s or less than 60s - whatever is your threshold. State that.
But... the dev goals for the Caravan PvP showcase were to demo what happens when a Caravan is destroyed and looted and the Bandits transport the loot to a Node via land and water. And to give us a peek at the Black Market.
Demoing balanced PvP combat so we can meaningfully evaluate the typical TTK was not a dev goal for that demo. That combat was set up to allow the devs to win fairly quickly. Also... that was mostly devs vs PI - with the devs "scripted" to win.
Also, the "gear" that seems to look the same are probably cosmetics; not actually gear. So, again, we have no clue how their actual gear measured against each other. Devs v PI players.
In order for us to evaluate the typical TTK in any meaninful way - we really need to see 30+ minutes of a Siege where the Levels are matched and have some indication that gear is also reasonably matched.
And then we have to hope that the opponents are reasonably familiar with how to build their characters.
Which means literally players v players rather than devs v players.
Again... I never said don't comment at all on the TTK.
I said we can't meaningfully evaluate the TTK based on that showcase because there are too many unknown variables and it was devs v players - with it really being rigged for the devs to win fairly quickly so they could demo what happens after the Caravan is looted.
You claim 1v1 with equal gear/level/stats...
But all you really know -maybe- is equal level.
You don't know what kind of gear that Cleric was wearing.
You don't know how or if they specced their Passive Skills and stats to mitigate those Ranger attacks.
You don't know if the TTK might have been significantly longer if, after respawning, the Cleric adjusted their build to combat the Ranger 1v1.
There are too many unknown variables. You asserting that the gear and stats were "equal" does not make your assertion true.
Sounds like many want spongier combat for ashes "end-game".
Seemed like a direct responce to me. Unless you are equating not agreeing to not listening.
The demo showed about 18 to 21 second TTK 1 v 1 in a rigged fight. The example looked like a crit so you are conflating the example to politic your point. Hits like that also make it worth playing a dps, you do have to think about them too.
I think you guys are quoting the 30 seconds while really wanting and pushing for 60. A high end of 60 seconds can be ok but averaging about 60 seconds per fight would not be popular.
I played most of the older MMOs too, and loved them. However they didn't do all things the right way.
Because the typical combat is intended to be balanced for an 8-person group.
And in an RPG, the ideal is to have enough time for groupmates to react and synergize abilities in order to shore up each other's weaknesses and enhance each other's strengths.
In an MMOFPS or MMO Survival Game.... 30s or less TTK can be OK.
also gotta take into account one side pretty much had 0 healers which would extend time to kill outside of initial ambushes cause they get caught off guard.
So it hard to tell how much TTK realy is, Steven side allies died slow however they had a bunch of healers the other side died fairly quickly however some of them didnt die fast at all so it hard to tell until we get in the game.
Im happy how thing are to keep it as for A2 initial
One your not taking into account of healers and 2 ur basing adverage HP off a mage which is typically the weakest class HP and armor wise, Steven for example had 2.3k hp seems like he had god armor though so he didnt die in showcase, Dred had 1.7k as a tank
if u watch steven side in the combat there loosing hp realy slowly and get healed up now the other side keenan dies rather slowly too outside of initial pick off the target the difference is they have 0 healers and yeah there probaly be a 20-30 second time to kill if they got healed in this situation since they have 10 second or so without any heals it seems and there almost outnumbered 2 to 1 aswell
like chibibree at trhe end of first engagement had 24 people focusing him being last one alive and he ended up living for 9 seconds which is a long time with that many players hitting him.
So as it stands now i would be happy to push this to A2 with 0 changes in regard to TTK and adjust from there when players get there hands on the game and thing are a bit more organic/not staged
And that depends on their plans, which appear to be "current ttk is the approximate plan", which is why we've been saying that ttk is short, because the plan for it is shorter than what was supposedly planned before.
If the devs state they have shortened the intended goal to 20s - 40s - or whatever - OK.
But stating "the current TTK is the approximate plan" doesn't necessarily even mean that their plans have changed from the goal of 30s -60s.
That Caravan PvP Showcase is not indicative of balanced PvP combat.
Steven also could have said... "Yes, we wanted the TTK to be shorter than we originally stated and that is part of what we intended to showcase in that video."
Steven did not analyze what the TTK appeared to be in those conflicts.
Steven was focused on quickly showing what looting a Caravan is like and how it looks for the Caravan to traverse water. The devs were going to win. The PI players were going to lose. And Steven had fun winning.
Presenting a definitive example of the expected TTK in balanced PvP combat was not one of the goals for that demo.
Obviously, the devs were never intended to be at risk of being killed by the PI defenders and make us wait while they respawned and returned to combat (with a fair risk that they might be killed again) so they could, eventually, win and loot the Caravan.
The questioner context and the way Steven looked at in in context are two different things. Asking a question does not mean you are getting a answer based on the context you want.
IF the person asked if ttk was meant to be in -insert seconds- of exact time that is different. Its really easy to get clear answers based on questions, but if u ask questions based on context that does not match the answer you aren't going to get an exactly correct response.
One day people will be level headed and ask more exact questions rather than just assuming everyone is on the same context.
Is time to kill mean ttk be 30 seconds, is it meant to be 15 seconds, player looked like to me they died in 4-5 abilities is that correct and you clarify what happened, is healing accounted for in ttk, is dodging accounted for in ttk.
The goal was supposedly for Ashes of Creation to be strategic and tactical.
Snipe does 340+ damage.
This game has an evasion stat. You play BDO. You know how this goes.
If this were a game with tighter control, with classes/Archetypes that could only equip specific weapons or gear, this design type would be fine. It is not. What was shown to us is slightly below BDO tier, because things like Snipe are tab targeted.
Technically, what this showcase told us is that Intrepid don't actually have any control over TTK in the first place.
It wasn't, you quoted his examples, ignored them, and said the TTK was 18- 20 seconds. We all understand this was not an 1 to 1 fight, and through other channels, likely being told when to move, when to fight, and when to hold, essentially acting, not playing. This however is irrelevant when the CD says this looks like what we want to see for TTK in fights, what do you guys think.
And? Crits are part of combat and normal gameplay. They aren't this, shocking remarkable thing. what is odd is that crit taking 2 out of the 4 bars of The heaviest archetype in the games health in a singular hit. Because what, you've never seen back to back crits? Come on now.
Well here, let me tell you what that statement means to me so you don't think I'm hiding around a quote. In the 30-60, I want 30 to be the average. Two people, without other context, going into combat with an equally versatile Offense/Defensive spread, will get this. Now put one of the players going much heavier on the defense, and the other goes a little heavier on it. Now we have the 60. let's say 1 player goes super heavy, but the other goes glass cannon. Now it's looking more like 40-45.
And as for it not being popular, the previous ttk was either held up as a positive, or a non issue by most communites. Unlike an fps, or even an objective based shooter, If I get killed, A. There is no penalty other than respawn time. B. You are able to be in a conflict again in seconds. There is little to no down time. This is not the case in an MMO. You die, take your penalties, heavier in the case of Ashes, then have to respawn, remount, and run to the place of your death if you want to fight again. If your killer is even there still.
Ok, we understand that the Showcase was not indicative of pure 1 to 1 fairness. But that is made completely irrelevant when the question asked was "Is the ttk seen during pvp in stream kind of, like, where we're wanting it? Or if it's not what changes will we be making" (59:50 on the Youtube VOD). The question was about pvp in general, and while Margaret reminded that balance was not yet the focus of development, which we know, Steven then responded with an explanation of health bars and player info, then said "We're around where we want to be for ttk" (1:02:17 Youtube VOD) Then FURTHER goes into it, saying that the ttk will be on the faster side of MMO's we're used to. But whose we? from all the context shown and in the frame of the question, it appears to be in reference to modern day, popular MMO's people are used to. Which would make it WWAAAAYYY faster than the previous intent of the Studio.
So either, yes the goal has changed, and Steven didn't want to make that announcement fully yet, or Steven was being Steven, and has 16k things to do and on his mind, and misspoke in a very confusing manner given the context literally playing behind his head on stream. Either way, it's completely understandable for people to raise a few eyebrows at the very least, and need some clarification, because as it stands, true or not, the context and phrasing of the question and answer point pretty heavily one way.
Chill you can pvp me in Q3
I truly hate this type of response.
I truly hate the type of person who gives this sort of response.
If you want me to honestly, truly and viscerally hate you, mission accomplished. If you don't care because I'm just some rando on the internet that happens to care about the same game as you, also cool. If you do not, consider not giving this type of response in the future.
A joke that at least halfway makes your point, at least, next time.
We're missing 4 archetypes, multiple abilities, gear, spec, and 25 more levels of balance passes.
Just relax on the TTK talk.