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.
Getting insight of secondary archetypes before choosing one
Ael
Member, Alpha Two
Hi friends,
I'd like to share a few thoughts about this question from the last AMA (great one by the way
).
So basically the question was "Will there be any kind of trial quest to test all the secondary archetypes before making a final decision at lvl 25 ?"
Steven answered saying that :
- There is no plan to provide this kind of preview period for players at the moment.
- We will be able to change our secondary archetype.
- Changing the secondary archetype will be a long process (because this is a very meaningful choice about our character's identity).
--
I'm aligned with the "Meaningful choice + identity" component.
But I think it would be very helpful to give players a more or less detailed preview about :
1) What kind of augment we will be able to pick from "this particular secondary archetype" ?
According to the wiki, each secondary archetype offers four schools of augments. It would be a good thing to be able to check, for each secondary archtype, what are these schools of augments.
Ex :
If I pick mage as a secondary, will I be able to add some "Ice augments" on my skills ?
2) To explain, to some degree, what would each school provide to the players skills.
This one is a huge deal to me.
Ex :
- If I'm playing a Cleric, will a secondary Tank archetype provide me a school of augments that adds some damage mitigation to some of my healing skills ?
- If I'm playing a Mage, will a secondary Fighter archetype give me access to the "open wound / healing malus" debuff ?
- If I'm playing a Ranger, will a secondary Bard archtype provide me some "attack speed / crit buffs" ?
--
I'm fine with not having the possibility to test all augments from all secondary archtypes before choosing one (that would not be immersive at all).
Plus some archtype name give a good idea, to a degree, about what we can expect from some schools of augment (Necromancer and Paladin for example).
But I believe we all have different ideas about what most of the archetypes will grant our character on an "augment perspective"... and it's setting us from a possibly great amount of frustration if we can't have some insight about what these augments schools are, and a general "what this augment school might actually add/change about my skills and gameplay" BEFORE we pick a secondary archtype.
Since it's such a meaningful choice about our character, I believe we need to have at least these levels of understanding before making such an important decision.
What do you guys think about it ?
---
That's unrelated with the main topic, but I also believe it would be cool to have some little (or not that little) class quest in order to unlock some skills, like the "ultimates" of a given talent tree branch
The idea being that spending a talent point for the first time in an ultimate would not automatically grant the skill, but would give us this little quest.
That's a thing I liked in wow for example, that we had to go through these quests back in the day in order to unlock the Aquatic form from the druid for example, or the demons of the warlock.
That's immersive and that's cool !
--
P.S. : the "Preview" button on the forum makes previewing way better than it was before, good job
I'd like to share a few thoughts about this question from the last AMA (great one by the way
).So basically the question was "Will there be any kind of trial quest to test all the secondary archetypes before making a final decision at lvl 25 ?"
Steven answered saying that :
- There is no plan to provide this kind of preview period for players at the moment.
- We will be able to change our secondary archetype.
- Changing the secondary archetype will be a long process (because this is a very meaningful choice about our character's identity).
--
I'm aligned with the "Meaningful choice + identity" component.
But I think it would be very helpful to give players a more or less detailed preview about :
1) What kind of augment we will be able to pick from "this particular secondary archetype" ?
According to the wiki, each secondary archetype offers four schools of augments. It would be a good thing to be able to check, for each secondary archtype, what are these schools of augments.
Ex :
If I pick mage as a secondary, will I be able to add some "Ice augments" on my skills ?
2) To explain, to some degree, what would each school provide to the players skills.
This one is a huge deal to me.
Ex :
- If I'm playing a Cleric, will a secondary Tank archetype provide me a school of augments that adds some damage mitigation to some of my healing skills ?
- If I'm playing a Mage, will a secondary Fighter archetype give me access to the "open wound / healing malus" debuff ?
- If I'm playing a Ranger, will a secondary Bard archtype provide me some "attack speed / crit buffs" ?
--
I'm fine with not having the possibility to test all augments from all secondary archtypes before choosing one (that would not be immersive at all).
Plus some archtype name give a good idea, to a degree, about what we can expect from some schools of augment (Necromancer and Paladin for example).
But I believe we all have different ideas about what most of the archetypes will grant our character on an "augment perspective"... and it's setting us from a possibly great amount of frustration if we can't have some insight about what these augments schools are, and a general "what this augment school might actually add/change about my skills and gameplay" BEFORE we pick a secondary archtype.
Since it's such a meaningful choice about our character, I believe we need to have at least these levels of understanding before making such an important decision.
What do you guys think about it ?
---
That's unrelated with the main topic, but I also believe it would be cool to have some little (or not that little) class quest in order to unlock some skills, like the "ultimates" of a given talent tree branch
The idea being that spending a talent point for the first time in an ultimate would not automatically grant the skill, but would give us this little quest.
That's a thing I liked in wow for example, that we had to go through these quests back in the day in order to unlock the Aquatic form from the druid for example, or the demons of the warlock.
That's immersive and that's cool !
--
P.S. : the "Preview" button on the forum makes previewing way better than it was before, good job
5
Comments
Up to this point, we’ve been told that the secondary archetypes merely “add flavor”. In other words, there aren’t 64 clearly defined classes … but there are 8 clearly defined archetypes with several options for customization.
But, a long quest to change your secondary archetype doesn’t make sense if the choice merely “adds flavor”.
So, that’s one of the riddles that I’m trying to reconcile … and we may not fully understand the full impact of secondary archetypes even after Alpha 2 is over.
Each archetype would have their own huge quest that does this, which would not only show people what they'd be getting into with their class choice, but would also make alts more interesting to play.
8 one-time huge quests doesn't seem all that bad in terms of devtime, so I think this is doable. And creating mobs that have playable abilities would also make the game feel more immersive and interesting imo, so ideally the mobs from the quests shouldn't be unique.
id also like a way to know before making a decision. sadly, the only way would probably be trying out all archetypes or going to a website and reading about them xD
That should be common knowledge in the lore.
Players will have that knowledge before Launch.
We will have to play with the Augments to see how they will affect the Active Skills we like to use.
Not wanting to sound a little bit to crass here,
but my " Insight " of secondary Archetypes was done, when i was looking at what a Base of Summoner with secondary Archetype Cleric creates.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
Only those who go out of their way to go learn that stuff outside of the game would know this information. Why make people learn stuff outside of the game, when instead Intrepid could teach them that stuff inside of the game?
Depending on the cost to switch your class (time costs included) - people might choose the "wrong" (for them) class and then will have to spend time/resources to even just try and see what the other class does.
If you're giving players a choice - why make it an obfuscated one?
But I totally agree with @NiKr about the fact that it should not be mandatory to search outside the game in order to have enough information to make such a choice.
As for testing augments before committing to a secondary archetype choice, I like your idea of adding mobs (or a friendly NPC to do the quest with ?) with augmented abilities in some specific quests. It sounds way more immersive than being able to test all skills + augment combinations in an arena of some sort.
Plus some augments are level-dependant, meaning we would not be able to test the "full kit" before reaching "last augment unlocking level" anyway.
The "arena part" aside I totally agree with @Saabynator :
Although some of us will definitely want to have literally all the required information in order to make a "full pre-set" on a "skill + augment" perspective, I personnally like this "semi--blind" idea.
--
So, assuming there will be some level of information available in game before making a choice here :
What kind and what level of information would you guys like/need to have in-game about your secondary archetype choice, on a "what will it change to my base archetype gameplay" perspective ?
- A general "flavor" ? ("Dear Mr. Ranger, if you want to lean on the Mage side of the Force, with our Ice school you might be able to add some elemental ice damages to your skills, and you would also have access to additional snare/root abilities in your kit !")
- The status effects / buffs / debuffs available in a given school of augments ?
- Skills that would radically be changed through augments ? ("your "Hunt of the Raven" ability might evolve into adding magical penetration instead of physical penetration.") ?
Any other ideas ?
It's not mandatory to go outside the game to make a choice. You can make your choice with however much information you like.
If you want to make your choice based off very little information, then go for it.
If you want to do the research so that you can make your choice based off more information, then more power to you.
All the info needed is going to be available before launch. I don't see why Intrepid should have to try to counter laziness.
It's kinda wild to me that people have completely dismissed even the possibility that the game should provide information to the players that is INSIDE the game.
And if you decide that you got it wrong, there's a way to change it.
A ton of people will simply hear about the game, will have no guild when they start the game and will most likely play completely solo for as long as they can, because that's just how people play these days. And w/o an in-game "tutorial" for all other archetypes /augments - you'd have 0 damn clue what they can and cannot do.
We also don't know how fast the augments will come online and what kind of progression path they'll take. Nor do we know what will be required, in terms of time/resources, to change your class, so saying
Is not really helpful to people who have already put in dozens of hours into progressing one way and might now be required to spend several more hours "fixing the problem" of a bad choice.
We do know that Steven wants the class choice to matter to an extent, so I'd assume that means a non-negligible cost to switch the class, otherwise everyone would flip them every damn time they're at a node, which would go directly against Steven's wish.
And if we get some kind of lock--out mechanic for frequent switching - that's a yet another stopgap preventing people from simply enjoying the game to the fullest.
Considering that we're yeaaars away from release, I really don't see why Intrepid couldn't just add ways to let people know what their "meaningful choice" will lead to.
Well, you dont know all the spells and abilities before you choose a class. You have an undestanding of what a mage is, and the direction of the class. So, you choose you main class semi-blind. Why not your 2end, and less important class?
A tutorial is not the same as a try out. I am sure there will be a tutorial on the secondary classes, anything else would be weird. But a tryout is quite different.
In my ideal world we'd have instanced siege "servers" for everyone who's in the login queue. And in those sieges they'd be controlling a lvl25 char of their choosing. This would give people a feel for what the archetype does, would keep them in the game during their queue and would let people get accustomed to how the game plays before starting the game itself, which would help them have a more streamlined start rather than seeing hundreds of people jumping around and testing their characters right at the starting portal (which would probably overload servers even more).
That is why I put tutorial in ""s. I've also never said I want a tryout for classes, so that's an argument for other posters here.
Fair enough about your last pointe. I do think, that there will be a toturial, everything else would be really weird. But its probably more of a description, than direct numbers, graphics & effects.
I undestand the fear of making a wrong choice, and having to respec down the line - its annoying! But I think alot of players actually wants to explore their classes, like you would an area in the game. I makes for some good "ohh shit!" moments, when you try out your new abilities and effects. Having to figure out a viable spec and so on. Maybe they will throw in a free respec or something, with each char, just to make you less locked in. Its a love/hate thing.
Seeing effects that your class will have down the line would create a controlled build-up of excitement of "oh shit, I can't wait to get that cool effect that I experienced during the quest", while also preventing people from creating random insane theories of what a class should be able to do (in player's opinion), but then these theories getting destroyed by the game, which leads to a feeling of disappointment that appeared purely out of lack of knowledge of the future.
We've already gotten a shitton of opinions on different class themes on these forums, from "why is the fighter a vampire" to "my necromancer should be able to raise ALL THE DEAD!!". And I'm sure that a ton of people on release will project their own expectations onto class names, because that's what people do. And then when these expectations are not meant (for one reason or another) - people will get upset not only with the class itself, but potentially with the game too, because they'll perceive this situation as the game "lying to them", even though no such statements were made by the game.
That way we get the fine-grained detail that I'm gonna need before deciding on a secondary. Actually using the abilities in a preview goes a bit too far, IMO.
I dont think it would be a different discussion, no. We are discussing the topic, no? They obviously went a different route than you want, I undestand the fustration. People have a ton of ideas, does not mean they are good or in Stevens vision. I was only trying say, that i suppose the fact, that we do not get to try out all abilities before choosing a class. Infact, I have never seen this in a game before. If you want specifics and numbers etc, there you can do the research, and you can watch streamers,youtube etc, and get way more details. I think its fair enough, that if you want the class in complete details, that you need to research it.
If I think about it. I would bet that Steven is the type of dude, who does not want to many details. He does not like agro meters, dmg counters and the like. He wants an MMO to be an adventure, not a pure numbers game. But this is just speculation, ofcource. I dont know the man.
We learn plenty of lore straight from Steven outside of the game.
Just as we learn plenty of the Active Skills and Weapon Skills and even Passive Skills from Steven before we access the game.
Why did you introduce the concept "make"?
Players and gamers will learn about the basics of the game before they play.
It's the Internet Age.
You can't actually make a wrong choice. You know whether or not you want to skew your gameplay more towards a different Archetype or double-down on your Primary Archetype.
Players and gamers who don't want to waste resources will look up the gameplay outside of the game: Google, Wiki, YouTube, Twitch. Just as people use some form of Dictionary to look up definitions.
This is especially true of RPG players.
It won't be obfuscated.
You already know whether you want to Heal more; Summon more or Tank more.
You also won't be able to try out Racial Augments before you choose a Race.
That doesn't mean that Racial Augments will be obfuscated.
Though it is funny that the most avid supporter of "people should be seeing what their partymates do and then decide how they wanna act" and "rpg don't need dps meters because it's not about that" is somehow also completely fine with metagaming
To me those things are almost identical. All three involve the player going outside of the game to get information about the game to make their gameplay experience better.
And just as I want quests to show me augment effects for classes, I'd prefer if methods of acquiring religious augments showed me their effects during the process, so that I knew what I'd prefer to choose later on (if there's a choice rather than a "you get everything" situation).
Same applies to racial stuff as well, though I'd personally prefer if that kind of thing was included in the character selection screen (or at the very least heavily hinted at).
And why dev teams provide demos. And why content creators create content.
I don't know what any of that has to do with DPS meters or being able to synergize abilities with others in your group.
There might be Quests that help you understand how the Augments work in the Schools of the Secondary Archetype you've chosen.
Just as there might be Quests that help you understand how the Racial Augments work for the Race you've chosen.
But those Quests will come after you've chosen your Secondary Archetype and after you've chosen your Race.
Just as the Quests that help you understand how your Active Skills and Weapon Skills and Passive Skills work will be accessible after you've chosen your Primary Archetype.
You also aren't going to get to try out all the Primary Archetypes before you choose a Primary Archetype.
As far as I know.
Like I said, if there's a choice later down the line - the choice should be informed. If, say, we have 10 religious augments in any given religion, but a player can only choose 5 of those to use. I want to have quests that show off all 10 of those in some way, so that the player can know which one they like before they need to make the final choice.
Which I personally see as a bad thing. I'd prefer either an in-depth showcase within the game (namely the greyed-out tooltips blat mentioned) or a direct tryout of the archetype as I've described above.
Metagaming is cool and all, but I hate that it's become the norm, which let devs completely fucking skip good explanations, let alone in-world immersion, of the skills.
This has also been discussed countless times in the context of WoW and its dungeon clearing, where if a newbie has not seen every damn piece of media on how to beat a dungeon BEFORE EVEN ATTEMPTING IT - that newbie will get absolutely shat on by other raid members. To me that is absolute bullshit, and it's supported by the thought process of "well, the information is already out there, so just go read it INSTEAD OF PLAYING THE GAME"
In new games when you're in that discovery phase; usually you get a theme of what the class/role is about, without specific details. Maybe some examples of skills - but otherwise you would level up and in that process, find out more.
As game knowledge increases, all the information you might want will inevitably end up online and will be readily accessible. For that reason, I don't think the game needs to go into so much effort of providing every drip of information.
We know that the design intent is that you can swap between secondary archetypes - so I think that the theme/vibe of the classes should be the main selling point not the intricacies of the spec.
If I pick a tank secondary, I know there will be defensively-themed augments, but also some more offensive ones.
If I pick cleric secondary, I know there will be some heal/support based ones.
Thief, maybe stealth or control.
Summoner - minions.
Intuition will go a bit of the way - and I suppose min maxers will care more but even as someone who will be a casual, I think that discovery element is part of the fun and I don't think choice of augments are going to be an issue - I expect that there will be loads to flesh out your kit.
So is watching Dev Livestreams and demos.
I still don't understand what that has to do with DPS meters or being able to synergize your abilities with your groupmates.
Same could be said about choosing Race and Primary Archetype.
Secondary Archetype choice is not final.
It's typical RPG mechanics/rules. Except Secondary Archetype can be switched.
It's always been the norm for RPGs.
I don't understand how it fucks up in-game immersion.
Uh. No. That's about elitists and not following the META - Most Efficient Tactics Available.
It's not at all the same thing as looking at a demo or a wiki or a guidebook to determine which Race or Class you might prefer before you start playing an RPG.
who said there wont be a tutorial?
what steven said is there wont be a training ground (kind of like lost ark) where you can test all 2ndary archetypes, augments, etc.
Meaning that the word I used is simply the closest term to what I was trying to describe, but not quite that exact meaning.