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Fighter Preview Stream (Pre-'Complaining'/Advice)
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
Hello, Intrepid!
I figure you can't have recorded this yet, given GDC and all, so I'm here with some of my patented unsolicited advice!
You probably are already planning it, but a general reminder that this stream needs to have PvP on a little higher tier than the Ranger one. And specifically, it needs to show us a few scenarios where a Fighter and Ranger are fighting on something other than 'easy open ground'.
If you show us Fighter's kit in the context of 'how they can deal with enemy Ranger who is being protected by Tank/Healer' that would be ideal. I don't need balance, I don't need numbers (if you have those though, massive increase in faith in your spreadsheet at least existing).
This is because for Fighter specifically, this function is the identity of the Archetype. PvE mobs are not yet shown to move enough (if you've got those, bring those too!) so the only thing that 'being a Fighter' means in Ashes for all those sorts of people who complain that your combat isn't good yet, is 'their ability to perform this function' either in offense (disrupting some situation) or defense (protecting in the case where PvE is happening and they're guarding or something).
Alpha-1 Siege Dragons equivalent would do, I think, even if you didn't get a bunch of other people and Steven has to go 'ok now imagine the dragon was attacking Tank A' when it isn't actually. I'm 'complaining' in advance because if this showcase is the same type as the Ranger one where we just get 'they can do these things and respond if CCed and here's how they stop an approaching target' it will get worse feedback. I'm not actually criticizing the Ranger stream here, just saying that this one has to be more. Feedback on the Ranger stream was hard, and you still got a lot of 'I have to see how it feels' and 'people having to guess how a specific thing would work'.
I also presume you know but this is basically 'defining your game's combat' finally. The Fighter is 'the central point of all other combat', in much the same way that you can 'understand what Predecessor is by just watching Grux', in terms of timing and flows and requirements.
I applaud the boldness to go with this stream now, because it implies that the combat design whiteboard is 'ready', but just in case it isn't allow me to arrogantly advise on the stream style, as above.
Good luck with it, hope everyone enjoys making this one!
I figure you can't have recorded this yet, given GDC and all, so I'm here with some of my patented unsolicited advice!
You probably are already planning it, but a general reminder that this stream needs to have PvP on a little higher tier than the Ranger one. And specifically, it needs to show us a few scenarios where a Fighter and Ranger are fighting on something other than 'easy open ground'.
If you show us Fighter's kit in the context of 'how they can deal with enemy Ranger who is being protected by Tank/Healer' that would be ideal. I don't need balance, I don't need numbers (if you have those though, massive increase in faith in your spreadsheet at least existing).
This is because for Fighter specifically, this function is the identity of the Archetype. PvE mobs are not yet shown to move enough (if you've got those, bring those too!) so the only thing that 'being a Fighter' means in Ashes for all those sorts of people who complain that your combat isn't good yet, is 'their ability to perform this function' either in offense (disrupting some situation) or defense (protecting in the case where PvE is happening and they're guarding or something).
Alpha-1 Siege Dragons equivalent would do, I think, even if you didn't get a bunch of other people and Steven has to go 'ok now imagine the dragon was attacking Tank A' when it isn't actually. I'm 'complaining' in advance because if this showcase is the same type as the Ranger one where we just get 'they can do these things and respond if CCed and here's how they stop an approaching target' it will get worse feedback. I'm not actually criticizing the Ranger stream here, just saying that this one has to be more. Feedback on the Ranger stream was hard, and you still got a lot of 'I have to see how it feels' and 'people having to guess how a specific thing would work'.
I also presume you know but this is basically 'defining your game's combat' finally. The Fighter is 'the central point of all other combat', in much the same way that you can 'understand what Predecessor is by just watching Grux', in terms of timing and flows and requirements.
I applaud the boldness to go with this stream now, because it implies that the combat design whiteboard is 'ready', but just in case it isn't allow me to arrogantly advise on the stream style, as above.
Good luck with it, hope everyone enjoys making this one!
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
7
Comments
You might want to scroll through the Forums of the Community itself as well and read Stuff about how Players from which Class tackle Fights with certain, other Classes. You will also quickly find out then, which Tactics might be the most efficient against with Class,
with of Course -> "Secondary Classes" interfering somewhat and keeping the PvP-Gameplay always somewhat fresh and surprising, because not every Ranger and/or Summoner for Example will possess the exact same Skills as any other Ranger and/or Summoner.
Steven cannot tell you how to use the Fighter kit, he can only show you how the kit behaves. Remember, Steven might have the vision of a Fighter behave like a samurai out of an Akira Kurosawa movie, timing powerful strikes and deleting people in a flash. If my math tells me a Fighter does better damage and plays better for my taste with a bow and the Fighter kit, I will be playing Fighter with a bow, going Green Arrow people, just so they can get mad at me for playing Fighter with a bow.
devs could stand in an empty graybox arena hitting dummies to showcase skills and looking at the visuals, audio, tooltips thats enough to get the preliminary feedback they are looking for,
I also do believe the Fighter to be "the central point of all other combat" and if a class is able to "define a game's combat" it would most likely be the Fighter.
Sadly, like Liniker, i also expect that "its just going to be another pre alpha early archetype showcase".
Aren't we all sinners?
Though I do agree with Azherae that, considering what they showed before - the Fighter showcase should have a better presentation. If they wanted to just be in a greybox - they shouldn't have shown a party vs party pvp during caravans.
They're obviously ramping up their presentations before A2, either to show more of the progress or just to get more and more hype for A2, so this fighter showcase should follow that ramp-up.
To me, an ideal presentation would be a solo location with a good number of obstructions, where Steven shows off fighter skills against mobs and then gets ganked by a ranger, at which point Steven has to utilize the surroundings to win. If he doesn't believe that he can pull off this kind of showcase - I'm sure they have either a dev or a tester who could.
The second best way to present it would be the "protecting the party" thing Azherae mentioned. For me this is second because I'm sure there's fuckall in terms of proper synergies in the game, so seeing a fighter just running around chasing enemies would be no different from fighting mobs.
Furthermore as much as I'm looking forward to it, I'd love to see a new class, second takes on classes we have already seen are getting a bit boring
A big thing I am wanting to see is how does fighter handle verticality? With the ranger being able to use mobility spells up terrain and have a ranged advantage with the high ground, what counters or capabilities does a fighter have for normally impassible terrain? Or will they have utility in their kit to prevent such escapes in the first place? I am hoping we get to see something along those lines.
Sure but we don't know how much work it is to enable character choices other than Kaelar and Empyrean.
Imagine getting 'Dunir Fighter vs Ren'Kai Ranger' as a showcase...
What would be the point? We can't see them over the tall grass, so it's not much of a demo. I suppose the floating damage numbers would give us at least some info.
Dünir overpowered confirmed !! (lol) The People will overflood the Forums to beg Sir Steven to nerf Dünir Fighters. To balance them, they will now be as huge as Houses so that Players can not overlook them anymore.
You get orcs instead
Zug zug !!
I am just glad we get something at all.