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.
Reasons to have high TTK!
Peregrinum
Member, Alpha Two
I know it's still "early" to give feedback on TTK, as we can't yet test how in-game combat currently is and we'll only be able to test it after A2 (which I'll be attending). But I want to highlight a few points that have become real concerns for me and for some people I talk to who, like me, have been following the project for years:
1) The TTK initially proposed was around 30 seconds to 1 minute.
As this proposal (said by Steven in an interview with Lazy Peon on April 20, 2019) has remained unchanged for years, it was exactly one of the things that struck me most about the game right from the start. Precisely because I was completely dissatisfied with the ridiculously low TTK of other MMORPGs, which is disheartening. The proposal of a high TTK was something that reminded me of the good old days of long PvPs where strategy, knowledge of your class and your individual skill defined the winner, rather than who attacked first, taking advantage of a few seconds and managing to cause enough damage to have no way of reversing the situation. However, we've gone from 30 seconds to 1 minute to a TTK that is "lower than usual for current MMOs" and this was said by Steven on January 31, 2024, in the monthly live... I know that "plans can change", but the moment a company proposes something that has become one of the most attractive points for part of the community and that idea has remained "fixed" for years in front of that community and the company not only goes back on it but plans a drastic change on that point, it's worrying and I would even say dangerous for the image of the company that has made an effort to listen to its community like very few companies do. "Dangerous" because the change is not taking place during A2 and with the feedback of the community that is actively testing the combat (as it should in theory), the change is taking place unilaterally without the community even having tested the combat in both PvP and PvE.
2) The level of penalty for each death in the Ashes is disproportionately high if we take into account a low TTK.
It has been mentioned that the amount of loss of collectibles upon death (which is subject to change) can vary between 20% and 30% (which was said by Steven on March 29, 2024 in the monthly live). With this figure in mind, if we consider the disputes for good collecting spots between the collectors themselves (the famous PvPs per spot), the ganks that the collectors will receive from those who will prefer to kill the collectors rather than collect properly, under these circumstances, having a low TTK, the chances of dying "a few times" a day become real and with that the losses of collectibles can be considerably high (not to mention the loss of XP involved as well, which will not be small). And don't get me wrong, I really like this premise of death in the Ashes not being trivialized and that it should be something that players should avoid as much as possible. I also know that the motto of the game is "Risk x Reward", but from the perspective of a low TTK, the risk can far outweigh the reward. Because gatherers (who are one of the pillars of the game's economy, since everything starts with gathering materials) will individually be the most constant gank targets of everyone in the game and without a TTK high enough for them to have time to react and reverse a gank situation or time to summon their mount and flee whenever necessary, they will suffer constant losses.
3) An "oldschool" style game needs oldschool combat.
Anyone who has been following the project for years in the community knows that Ashes is inspired by old-school MMORPGs such as Lineage 2, ArchAge, Eve Online and Star Wars Galaxies, which take us back to the good old days of this genre of games. And as I said in the first point, a high TTK (as it used to be in the old days) provides us with memorable moments of hotly contested PvPs, in which each player's strategy based on their own knowledge of their class and their individual skill defined the winner of the PvP, an experience that unfortunately I haven't had for many years due to the current wave of MMORPGs with low TTK. In fact, the last time I had this experience was playing old Lineage 2 servers, which has now also been "corrupted" by this "instant combat" fever and has lost much of what it once was. And I know that many ArchAge players were also frustrated by the combination of the game's low TTK and certain high damage classes that didn't even give them time to react and reverse the situation. I vividly remember the PvPs that lasted minutes in Lineage 2, yes, minutes, where each potion taken, each skill activated at the right time and the strategy behind the equipment used to deal with each type of class made the thrill of each combat become a "good reward" for the dozens of hours of grind and effort to create each piece of equipment and armament for the character. Ashes has given me and many others the "hope" of reliving that time of good battles, where P2W doesn't interfere. And for that, for all the effort put into creating the equipment, for all the strategy behind each skill chosen in the class, for even the mount chosen to deal with each situation, for all this to be valid, time is needed in combat to put it all into practice properly. That's why a high TTK is essentially necessary. A high TTK in Ashes will differentiate it from the vast majority of current games, in addition to what already makes it unique in the eyes of the community, which are the systems, the mechanics, the clear fight against RMT and P2W before it even launches.
I know that I don't speak for everyone and that there are people in favor of a low TTK merely because they prefer it that way, and I respect that. But I ask that, if possible, at least during A2, the TTK initially proposed (from 30 seconds to 1 minute) be tested by the community and that any changes in this context come after feedback with enough time for everyone to form a concrete opinion about it.
1) The TTK initially proposed was around 30 seconds to 1 minute.
As this proposal (said by Steven in an interview with Lazy Peon on April 20, 2019) has remained unchanged for years, it was exactly one of the things that struck me most about the game right from the start. Precisely because I was completely dissatisfied with the ridiculously low TTK of other MMORPGs, which is disheartening. The proposal of a high TTK was something that reminded me of the good old days of long PvPs where strategy, knowledge of your class and your individual skill defined the winner, rather than who attacked first, taking advantage of a few seconds and managing to cause enough damage to have no way of reversing the situation. However, we've gone from 30 seconds to 1 minute to a TTK that is "lower than usual for current MMOs" and this was said by Steven on January 31, 2024, in the monthly live... I know that "plans can change", but the moment a company proposes something that has become one of the most attractive points for part of the community and that idea has remained "fixed" for years in front of that community and the company not only goes back on it but plans a drastic change on that point, it's worrying and I would even say dangerous for the image of the company that has made an effort to listen to its community like very few companies do. "Dangerous" because the change is not taking place during A2 and with the feedback of the community that is actively testing the combat (as it should in theory), the change is taking place unilaterally without the community even having tested the combat in both PvP and PvE.
2) The level of penalty for each death in the Ashes is disproportionately high if we take into account a low TTK.
It has been mentioned that the amount of loss of collectibles upon death (which is subject to change) can vary between 20% and 30% (which was said by Steven on March 29, 2024 in the monthly live). With this figure in mind, if we consider the disputes for good collecting spots between the collectors themselves (the famous PvPs per spot), the ganks that the collectors will receive from those who will prefer to kill the collectors rather than collect properly, under these circumstances, having a low TTK, the chances of dying "a few times" a day become real and with that the losses of collectibles can be considerably high (not to mention the loss of XP involved as well, which will not be small). And don't get me wrong, I really like this premise of death in the Ashes not being trivialized and that it should be something that players should avoid as much as possible. I also know that the motto of the game is "Risk x Reward", but from the perspective of a low TTK, the risk can far outweigh the reward. Because gatherers (who are one of the pillars of the game's economy, since everything starts with gathering materials) will individually be the most constant gank targets of everyone in the game and without a TTK high enough for them to have time to react and reverse a gank situation or time to summon their mount and flee whenever necessary, they will suffer constant losses.
3) An "oldschool" style game needs oldschool combat.
Anyone who has been following the project for years in the community knows that Ashes is inspired by old-school MMORPGs such as Lineage 2, ArchAge, Eve Online and Star Wars Galaxies, which take us back to the good old days of this genre of games. And as I said in the first point, a high TTK (as it used to be in the old days) provides us with memorable moments of hotly contested PvPs, in which each player's strategy based on their own knowledge of their class and their individual skill defined the winner of the PvP, an experience that unfortunately I haven't had for many years due to the current wave of MMORPGs with low TTK. In fact, the last time I had this experience was playing old Lineage 2 servers, which has now also been "corrupted" by this "instant combat" fever and has lost much of what it once was. And I know that many ArchAge players were also frustrated by the combination of the game's low TTK and certain high damage classes that didn't even give them time to react and reverse the situation. I vividly remember the PvPs that lasted minutes in Lineage 2, yes, minutes, where each potion taken, each skill activated at the right time and the strategy behind the equipment used to deal with each type of class made the thrill of each combat become a "good reward" for the dozens of hours of grind and effort to create each piece of equipment and armament for the character. Ashes has given me and many others the "hope" of reliving that time of good battles, where P2W doesn't interfere. And for that, for all the effort put into creating the equipment, for all the strategy behind each skill chosen in the class, for even the mount chosen to deal with each situation, for all this to be valid, time is needed in combat to put it all into practice properly. That's why a high TTK is essentially necessary. A high TTK in Ashes will differentiate it from the vast majority of current games, in addition to what already makes it unique in the eyes of the community, which are the systems, the mechanics, the clear fight against RMT and P2W before it even launches.
I know that I don't speak for everyone and that there are people in favor of a low TTK merely because they prefer it that way, and I respect that. But I ask that, if possible, at least during A2, the TTK initially proposed (from 30 seconds to 1 minute) be tested by the community and that any changes in this context come after feedback with enough time for everyone to form a concrete opinion about it.
7
Comments
I don't want to be a glass cannon tank in another game
In an open world setting, where you can be flagged at any time and you actually have punishments for death (material loss, exp debt, gear degradation etc...), you need to have enough time so that even in a reasonably unbalanced scenario (1v4s, 2v5s, etc) you don't get deleted and have no opportunity to at least try and react. You might not have a chance to win the encounter, but at least you might be able to escape if you're clever enough. If all it takes in a 3v1 for you to die without a reaction is one guy with stuns and one of the dps skill rotation, than that feels incredibly bad when you're being punished for death. And all of this is when we are talking about even leveled players.
The situation is worse when we have level gaps. This game doesn't plan to be a fast leveling process, so we are going to see for maybe months players around lvl 30-40 fighting each other. And when TTK is low and you have a wide gap (around 10 lvls give or take) the feeling is even worse because you have players being one tapped. I'm not advocating for equalized power or anything, but when TTK is higher, even with a bigger level disparity you give the lower-level players more time and opportunity to outplay the higher-level opponents.
Low TTK is also a problem on group pvp. When ttk is low, all it takes is a few dps to focus on the same person and they get demolished. Depending on the scenario the healer doesn't even have time to react and their friend is already dead. Low TTK on group pvp destroys the tactics of party synergy and composition. Higher TTK on the other end, requires the groups to organize in order to win, employing smart crowd control, anti healing spells and target focus with the big damage skills in order to beat the opponent. With a high TTK, the chance for lower-leveled and/or smaller but better skilled/organized groups to beat higher-leveled/bigger groups is way higher.
Low TTK also is also really detrimental to class build composition. With a lower TTK all you need to kill someone is one stun and a high dps rotation. With a higher TTK you need to think about sustain, anti healing skills, a wide array of crowd control and gap closers/disengage. With a higher TTK damage over time builds become viable instead of burst being the only possible way to play the game.
I could go on and on about TTK in mmorpgs, but I think this covers the most important parts of it. Please, keep TTK high.
If you are being jumped while green you can't be CC'd meaning you have plenty of time to react and not be stunned to death.
This argument i need over 30 seconds to be able to reach is also silly. The only reaction you need is to be able to survive a cc. Meaning as long as you are alive for prob 4 seconds or however long cc chains will last you are good. No one should be killing you instantly in a 1v1 setting.
Any talks about you should survive longer because people can out level you is also silly. That is what corruption is for and that is the competitive part of the mmo when it comes to pvp. You don't get a hand out because you are weaker than someone (Else you need to advertise for level scaling so people are scaled down or you get scaled up lmao).
Not all elements of old school is good its not a argument to make ttk longer. Where they have it right now without anything being balanced is roughly fine from what I see. You will have plenty of time to react
Honestly wondering if people from pantheon are jumping ship and trying to get AoC to make the ttk like that game lmao.
back in the day people died pretty quickly in l2 open world PVP...hell you could even one shot people XD
but depends what patch we are talking about, gracia, interlude? older?id say old school games didn't have a high ttk...
This applies to games I love like EQ and EQ2 as it does to games like L2.
If a game with the same gameplay as any of those games were released now, they would fall in to the same category as Bless.
Having fast ttk makes combat feel better. PvP or PvE doesn't matter in this regard, it just feels better. Steven knows this, it is the abated reason for why the change was made.
The thing is, while an individual fight feels better, the game itself feels worse. It feels less rewarding.
A games ttk is a straight trade off between short term "feels good" and long term "feels rewarding".
Intrepid are currently leaning towards the short term.
People should struggle to kill other Players who give their best to resist.
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