Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
combo it with the slow and you have a really good tool for dealing damage while avoiding damage and waiting for cooldowns. sounds great for pve.
Yeah, a Hunter will be a kiting beast.
nope. 15+ years of mmorpg experience and a top pvper in many of them. The point of this discussion is to help the developers see other perspectives, to give my opinion on the topic and have a discussion on the topic. My complaints hold value and is "warranted" where your criticism lacks open arms and mind. you provide no solutions or seem to understand that in order for classes to function a spell or ability can't be ignored. As if mitigation, sustain, and defenses can be ignored and that you can take a glass cannon arch-type into pvp without getting blown up by mass AoE. Be better in discussions. Help the game grow.
You get it, you're a gamer.
thank you for contributing nothing of value.
Warriors could use bandages and well... the ever healing food that is universally agreed upon as a scource of healing in games. That or a healing potion.
I agree that a physical class should not possess a strange lifeheal that befits a supernatural creature and not an average species without vampiric abilities.
That's ironically what I am getting at. Class fantasy should be chosen BY THE PLAYER. If my vision of the fighter were made true and it was just a bare bones being who mastered the art of physical combat and a medium sized HP pool to compensate for it's lack of defenses. IT WOULD BE UP TO US THE PLAYERS, to select necromancer as secondary to be a vampiric warrior, or select cleric to become a healing paladin warrior, or select bard to swing a sword, play a song, and magically heal in combat. I am saying that the archtypes should be archtypes. I am saying the fighter should be a fighter and not a fighter/vampire/necro down to the classes core.
Thank you! At least as the players selected archtype! WE the players should have the choice to be a vampire IF WE WANTED to select Necromancer, Cleric, Bard, etc as our secondary. A fighter should be a bare bones fighter/warrior.
you get it
Except we got no clue what shape all those archetypes' augments will look like or how they will apply to fighter abilities.
"Using blood to heal" could be AoC fighter's "thing". All archetypes will use The Essence in their own way, and this could be fighter's. This would also balance him out against other archetypes. All of them could provide some self-sustain, but all in their own way. Rogues could provide stealth/evasions, tanks - defense, rangers - mobility, bards - hp buffs, clerics - direct healing, mages - healing off of elemental reactions (or interaction with mana directly), summoners - split incoming dmg with the summoned being, and fighter would be "dmg dealt into healing".
This way the very thing you are scared of (meta classes) would be addressed, because when a party needs someone to survive an encounter when the healer is preoccupied - any X/fighter class would be able to do it, because they have a form of self-sustain.
In other words, we don't know the full picture of the design/lore to judge whether vampiric fighters fit the Ashes world. You can always dislike the sheer concept of a vampiric fighter, but that's simple preference rather than a design concern.
Funny that you mention it since Aszkalon just told me this IRL. LoL
We are all "essence users" which means even selfheals will be a thing somehow.
Dunno if I like this. In the end I will not play a Warrior/Fighter anyway cause the very concept bores me.
I like Rogues more when it comes to closecombat and Bow-users more when it comes to range.
And with all the mix & match that is in the game, who knows what truly awaits us?
But selfheal for everyone? In one way or the other? Ngl I respected Warriors for their levelingprocess in good ol' classic WoW back then. The fact that they had been very reliant on a healer nearby.
Which allowed them to focus solely on attacking and when a warrior had a dedicated healer nearby, they basically had no real downtime with their ressource.
The healer was the downtime when HE had to refill mana. I found that pretty cool.
Ashes will be group oriented I hear knowers say again & again.
So I expected the Warrior, or Fighter in that regard to go the same route.
Welp. Looks like that won't be happening and leveling all by oneself pretty effortlessly, no matter the class choice, will be a thing too.
This mostly comes down to mob design rather than class design. Mobs that are easy to kill for a fighter could have wound/bleed resistances, so the vampiric side of the fighter is not as strong against them, while mobs that are weak to bleeds could have higher phys resistances (though I do realize that this would be kinda counterintuitive).
And that skill could not be meta or not meta for different builds. We are not even in alpha 2 yet we cant be saying "meta".... Like what.
I prefer IS vision and not yours as honestly you are just whining and you don't like solutions given to you already. I'm going to have to say cap on that mmorpg experience cause i can start listing off a ton of mmorpgs where u don't get all the skill on classes and you have choices on builds....
You are free to name the mmorpgs you played though, if any of those mmorpgs do not allow you to use every single skill on the class its going to raise a red flag if you actually played them.
Do i really need to reference rift as a mmorpgs, like are people really not playing mmorpgs anymore?
Notice in this mmorpg you don't have access to all skills? Notice the skills at the top that would all be the best skills but the game does not allow you to have everything.
I can use the same incorrect logic "wand is the best weapon on fighter and does the most dmg, if you dfon't have a wand fighter you should kick them". This is just made up head cannon at this point that is being used to push a incorrect point.
I'm going to make this even more clear Anyone using "meta" in an argument alpha 2 let alone PRE alpha 2 needs to seriously consider the difference between an alpha and a beta. And adjust how they look at the content, and lower their expectation when they are playing it.
***Edit since I'm going based off people have not played other mmorpgs All those 3 are warrior***
If Ashes ends up having several abilities that all do the same thing (in this case "+hp through dmg") - that question would be valid. But do you believe that Intrepid will have that kind of design? Because if it's not that kind of design - having an ability that directly provides self-sustain on a dps character would be a near-must in majority of party setups.
And that's what the OP meant when they said "mmos don't work like that".
So if we take your rift example, do all 3 columns have the exact same effects or do they differ? And if they do differ - is there any kind of meta in Rift, when it comes to picking a build? And if there is meta, do people ask each other "what build do you have?" before inviting someone into a party?
If they are all different but Rift still has no meta - awesome, hope Ashes manages to be the same and we'll all live happily ever after. But in majority of games where you gotta make a choice between A and B, and one of those choices is seen as the better thing - that better choice will not be seen as a choice by anyone who's trying to find a strong party to play with.
And to return to AoC's vampiric fighter, if there's no other self-sustain abilities (or if everything else is weaker) - Blood Fusion will be a required ability for majority of fighters, because it not only lets you player solo more, but would also decrease the healer strain in your party, which allows your party to perform better.
Again, just to be clear here, I disagree with both the core premise of the thread (that fighters shouldn't be vampiric) and the thought process of "if this was an augment instead, it wouldn't be as build-restrictive as it is as a skill". I'm just pointing out that your current argument is pointless and you should've critiqued the OP better
Last i checked Mages and rangers didn't have a healing skill hence this point doesn't hold any weight. Its reaching into head cannon to attempt to deflect a issue. On top of 0 quote on devs saying all classes can have sustain based on their own skills without relying on anything else.
Having self sustain does not make a skill mandatory if you have a choice of skills that means other skills will be powerful in their own right based on different builds.
So again I need to make it clear it seems people do not understand how mmorpgs work or just being ignorant. The reality id you as well are trying to push an argument of either 1. The devs won't balance the game (which looking at balance of skills in a alpha means you are not looking at the game right). 2. Assume there is little customization (which seems backwards after seeing their skill tree with expectations it should be getting larger for higher levels of course and again their own quotes about upgrading skills)
I'll say the op doesn't know what they are talking about, they really don't like elements about the class and want it reworked. As they have said warrior with just attacks and 0 magic (even though all these other mmorpgs have interesting warriors that are not boring). So they will say anything or like anything that makes it feel like people agree with them (anything to get the job done).
By your logic paladin should be S tier on everything and i highly doubt that is the case do to all the customization in the game and different effects of souls and how they work together. There is also like 7 other souls you can pick from and pulls skills from besides those 3. Which means a lot of skill you don't have access to.
Again talking about meta in alpha is one of the most short sighted things ever. I guess i didn't make this point clear enough...so we can base this argument around the life steal skill "not" being meta with other skills being better. Because any of us can make up anything at this point pre alpha 2 with 0 balancing.
The issue is you are looking at things on a surface level. I'm basing my take off mmorpgs with customization and quotes on the devs saying you won't have access to everything and/or your skills will be limited if you are more spread out. As you work towards lvl 50 you are going to have a large sized skill tree with many choices they have not shown and/or being developed still.
Again this is why i really think its a bad idea some people are saying i want to see 3v3 or 1v1 duels in steams. Even this feedback people are trying to talk about balance and "meta" as their points. And not view it as one of many skills you will have a choice to pick like any other mmorpg.
My critiquing skill issue is fine, the issue if people don't' want critiquing or their points being challenged they want yes men. Its clear by the title the the vibe from it and the op. That is why people are trying to talk about what is meta pre alpha 2 which is an actual MEME.
So I'll just ask again. Is there a meta in rift? Or hell, are there metas in any other mmos? You claim to be the mmo player, while none of us play them, so I'm sure you can tell me if there's metas in mmos.
It is also a "yes or no" question. Alpha stageness of Ashes has nothing to do with this particular question.
I've not played rift in years i don't know what its current state in the game is, it really has nothing to do as my point is you don't have access to everything.
You are trying to look for a loop hole to suggest one group is better than everything and people only use that. In my experience playing the games people used whatever they wanted to use and were fine. If you are trying to talk about what is best for end game than to be that is a red flag and you are losing context of not only the conversation but also the fact we are talking about pre alpha 2.
That is as much as I'm going to say on that as you are really trying to avoid the main point of the conversation and bloat it out with multiple paragraphs on something that doesn't matter.
And I already said, if Rift magically didn't have a meta - good for it. If all those abilities in the screenshot were all equally powerful and viable, while also being all completely unique - great. I hope that Ashes manages to achieve the same design.
I'm simply saying that your argument of "you could just not pick that skill if you don't like it" doesn't work (as long as the picker is someone who wants to be stronger than others). And your subsequent argument of "it's all alpha and metas don't exist" also doesn't work in this discussion, because we don't know how the abilities will end up and whether vampirism will be a must-have or a "we're not inviting you if you have it" type of ability.
OP's problem is with high lvls of self-sustain on a class that they're not used to having it on. Having a self-sustain on melee fighters is a highly valuable effect. I know because I mained a class that provided it to them in L2. Which is why I agree with the core point of "this would most likely be a meta ability for a fighter", but I also disagree with pretty much everything else the OP said.
But none of those suggestions are as bad as "you can just not pick the ability" imo, which is why I said that your argument was a bad one.
?
The point fo the thread was he shouldn't spec into a skill he doesn't want to if he hates it because there will be other viable options for his own kind of build.
My point is they will balance the game to what makes sense, if you are talking about complete min - maxing its not about what you like and what you are just going to go with what is best. So if you are going to min-max and start complaining about skills and want them to be changed while being picky on the skills based on min - maxing that sounds like some childish level stuff. IE i want this to be the best but now i want this to be changed so its even better and matches this style I want.
OP issue is he doesn't want to be a "vampire"
MY argument is strong you are trying to look at things like one singular mmorpg than acknowledge the game is going to get balanced. Unless the devs stat that that skill is a main core skill that you need to survive and fight and how the class works. Trying to go off the assumption that you need to skill is not a argument when you don't know the value of skills from 1-50 on top of augmentation.
Your own point is weak because you are assuming things are like L2 than being like AoC when that very skill could end up weak. There is already a scenario in the game that exist to counter it out on warrior already. You don't know what is meta, assuming what is meta isn't a argument to say what is mandatory on a class.
Will some skills be better for being solo.... sure that is obvious but i don't remember AoC being marketed as a mainly solo game. All your choices have benefits and consequences.
But endure damage and passive HP regeneration is the style I prefer, warrior in GW2 for example.
Like endure pain in GW2. But I personally will change it to delay the damage dealt to the fighter instead of making the fighter invincible(and maybe regenerate 5~10% of max HP) for next few seconds. When the skill end, if the fighter doesn't have enough HP to take those damage dealt to him in skill duration then the fighter will die.
And also via the Racial, Social Org and Religion Augments.
And still there will be sheep who choose to conform to what gamers claim is the META.
Even within the Primary Archetype.
This is the same as Noaani seeing the possibility of dps meter existing and asking for Intrepid to address that; Azherae seeing that the recent economy changes could lead to a shitty design; me seeing that corruption will most likely get tuned even harsher; you seeing that all sieges will have limited participants; dygz seeing that he dislikes fish eyes and that open seas will have a ton of those.
All of those are possible directions of the design and we all have different views on how they should be designed. And even if it's, at this point, a classic response - telling people "just don't participate in that part of the game" is ultimately silly. We all have our preferences and if we all told each other "just don't do that" would kill the forum in no time.
And, yet, gamers in MMORPGs will demand that players ignore the RP of a path they've chosen in order to conform with the gamer-dictated META. Because what's most important to them is the game-efficiency, rather than the RP.
Mmorpgs with tons of build variety and CHOICES is the whole point of deciding how you want your character to play. By your logic if you don't like wizard should be completely reworked until everyone in the world is fine with every single skill, which is stupid.
Its like you have not played a mmorpgs with choice that is what its sounding like right now and your are bloating this convo so hard. You are trying to make a a narrative players don't have choice when I've already pointed out a mmorpg that you have an insane amount of choices in.
So you have swapped the narrative that by chance this skill can be meta so he is right. Even ignoring my statement about warrior already able to counter the skill while being hit. Even ignoring the fact other choices of skill can be equally or greater than capable, ignoring the fact devs can balance the game to make things les effective so things are equal, ignoring the fact there was no word that a single skill was the stable of the class and they have to use it no matter what (akin to momentum which is actually a staple part of the class).
Your whole argument is literarily boiling down to what if that skill is meta, while knowing there are counters, and while not knowing much about the overall make up of the classes and their growth of new skills (which again surprise can mean more counters to that kind of move in both pve and pvp).
Already said this before and ill say it again if you are chasing a min-max meta build that somehow does pop up, you have no right complaining about how the class plays since that is not what you care about. But simply just min-maxing. What IF ARGUEMENTS around min-max META in pre-alpha 2 is also dumb since you don't know how anything plays yet..