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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.
Will the Flagging System Negatively Impact the Way Classes Function When Engaging PvP? *edited*
Dolyem
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Long time no see everyone. Figured I may as well toss another topic out since its been so long.
Its a simple idea. Seeing as traditionally rogues are all about openers and getting the jump on players in PvP, will this simply disincentivize players being attacked by rogues to fight back when Rogues get the jump on them, pushing said rogues to gain corruption or disengage? Would this pretty much nullify the classic rogue mechanic of stealth attacks in PvP? Will the potential loss of materials be enough to push back against a rogue doing this? I plan to test this in alpha 2 quite a bit but any feedback or suggestions to test are welcome.
This is also just theory, seeing as we dont know anything about ashes rogues, its just speculation using what rogues have been in mmorpgs traditionally.
*****EDIT******: This has become less about corruption and more about the non-combatant CC immunity system preventing players from using their full skill-kits for many classes when engaging a PvP fight
With the parameters I propose:
-balancing will prevent initial attacks from outright deleting a player
-initiative is earned, and it wont always be in favor of the attacker if the player who is the would-be attacked sees the player and can engage first. The current system in this scenario now puts the would-be attacked player at a disadvantage since if they preemptively strike, they don't get to utilize their CCs to not only attempt to fight it out, but they could very well choose to CC that ambusher on initiative to escape more easily even though they are now a combatant, this is likely a dependent on class matchup decision.
-Non-combatant players should get the choice to fight or flight. Fighting is simple, they turn and engage and fight to win, risking win or loss. Non-combatant players who don't want to fight at all or don't believe they can win the fight can activate a CC immunity that functions as the current passive, breaking any current CCs and allowing them the ability to attempt an escape at the cost of committing to that non-combatant state for a period of time that prevents them from turning on their attacker to utilize their CC immunities in the initial combat.
I predict any system that limits your toolkit in combat will feel bad. It is objectively a bad call to give someone abilities, and then say "yea but they dont work if you attack first". And one way I would say it is an advantage for the defender is that it gives them the ability to close any sort of distance or create distance unhindered before they react, which for certain class matchups could be the deciding factor. So I believe it is bad to pitch that against someone for being the one who engages. You're automatically punishing them. Attacking a player isn't supposed to be something the game punishes, that in itself will deter engagements from happening. Griefing is the only thing that should be punished.
You should absolutely be capable of reacting and fighting against a player attacking you, but not by preventing a player from playing their class at 100%.
Its a simple idea. Seeing as traditionally rogues are all about openers and getting the jump on players in PvP, will this simply disincentivize players being attacked by rogues to fight back when Rogues get the jump on them, pushing said rogues to gain corruption or disengage? Would this pretty much nullify the classic rogue mechanic of stealth attacks in PvP? Will the potential loss of materials be enough to push back against a rogue doing this? I plan to test this in alpha 2 quite a bit but any feedback or suggestions to test are welcome.
This is also just theory, seeing as we dont know anything about ashes rogues, its just speculation using what rogues have been in mmorpgs traditionally.
*****EDIT******: This has become less about corruption and more about the non-combatant CC immunity system preventing players from using their full skill-kits for many classes when engaging a PvP fight
With the parameters I propose:
-balancing will prevent initial attacks from outright deleting a player
-initiative is earned, and it wont always be in favor of the attacker if the player who is the would-be attacked sees the player and can engage first. The current system in this scenario now puts the would-be attacked player at a disadvantage since if they preemptively strike, they don't get to utilize their CCs to not only attempt to fight it out, but they could very well choose to CC that ambusher on initiative to escape more easily even though they are now a combatant, this is likely a dependent on class matchup decision.
-Non-combatant players should get the choice to fight or flight. Fighting is simple, they turn and engage and fight to win, risking win or loss. Non-combatant players who don't want to fight at all or don't believe they can win the fight can activate a CC immunity that functions as the current passive, breaking any current CCs and allowing them the ability to attempt an escape at the cost of committing to that non-combatant state for a period of time that prevents them from turning on their attacker to utilize their CC immunities in the initial combat.
I predict any system that limits your toolkit in combat will feel bad. It is objectively a bad call to give someone abilities, and then say "yea but they dont work if you attack first". And one way I would say it is an advantage for the defender is that it gives them the ability to close any sort of distance or create distance unhindered before they react, which for certain class matchups could be the deciding factor. So I believe it is bad to pitch that against someone for being the one who engages. You're automatically punishing them. Attacking a player isn't supposed to be something the game punishes, that in itself will deter engagements from happening. Griefing is the only thing that should be punished.
You should absolutely be capable of reacting and fighting against a player attacking you, but not by preventing a player from playing their class at 100%.
2
Comments
As long as the green stays green, it can avoid snares.
I think players will decide in advance if they flee, flag or fully fight back in case of an attack.
Maybe the attacker being a rogue or something else will count more as part of the rock-paper-scissors relationship vs the defender.
- We don't know how Intrepid plans on turning the corruption "levers" towards the red player or the green player. Sure, we can test in Alpha 2 ... but that may not even be the corruption level the devs want for launch.
- We haven't even seen the Rogue showcase yet.
- Game combat is intended to be balanced around eight (8) players. Solo encounters are not in scope (although I'm sure the Combat Team will have a cursory look at some point).
Bottom Line: Rogues will also be engaged in other PvX and PvE content. Given that PvP stealth attacks are only one type of specific gameplay in Ashes, I'm skeptical that it's going to make or break the class.
Sure, rogues generally excel with first strike and/or surprise strike attacks, and that may well be something they don't want to do in open PvP where corruption is possible - but then every class in the game will have to play differently in this setting (mages won't be CC'ing targets as an opener, for example).
The stealthy backstabing rogue will make up for this in sieges, wars, caravans, and will probably also be the best class to pair with a bounty hunter.
If I am gathering with a low-level alt and a rouge attacks me, I may well let them go red. Then I'll log in my main and kill the rouge for the drops.
Why does the class make a difference in that decision process? Do you mean because you'd be more likely to see it coming with different classes, and so would have taken less damage by the time you react?
I don't think an extra second of preparation advantage is going to be the difference that will make or break the difference between trying to protect yourself or not in most situations. And for the ranger's build, this should be irrelevant anyway; uness you're saying they should be hoping to bait you into defending yourself by looking less threatening with their opening, but surely that wouldn't work once players have seen rangers try to bait them like that.
Chances are, if you'd fight back (e.g. care more about keeping your stuff than threatening the opponent with corruption) with a 45% chance of turning things around against a mage who opened against you, you'll also fight back with a 40% chance of turning things around against a ranger who opened against you.
Conversely, if you are the ranger, whether you want to go corrupted or not won't influence whether you open combat with stealth burst, or something else. You'll use whatever tool is most effective. If the enemy fights back, you'll have the highest chance of killing your target. If your enemy doesn't fight back, you'll have the highest chance of killing/chasing away your target. The playstyle doesn't get affected.
Unless you're talking specifically about the question whether rogues will be skiling as steathy less often, because the situations where they end up in open-world PvP will more often be dictated by other players choosing to open combat on them? Because the ranger will be discentivised to go corrupted?
But why would the ranger be any more discentivised to open combat than any other class? If every class is less incentivised to open an attack, that leaves the ratio of initiation-specialists and reaction-specialists unchanged...
This just seems like a "does the corruption system incentivise the behaviour it's supposed to incentivise?" thread to me, rather than one that's that much more important for the ranger in particular.
No, it’s a valid question about the OW pvp options for rogues relative to corruption. We just don’t know enough about the class to approach an answer.
Then can you point out how it would affect people's motivations, given what I've just argued?
Sure, it’s pretty straightforward - but this is a low confidence answer given the sheer lack of information.
If the rogue is a front-loaded stealth class (e.g. assassin), then rogues will assume incurring some corruption as tablestakes for owpvp. This is because, if the target fights back the rogue has to end the fight quickly - as the longer the fight, the more chance they will lose against a sustained dps class. If the target doesn’t fight back the rogue can peel off, but this would come with risk of being run down and killed if they can’t restealth quickly.
If the rogue is a sustained dps with some non-stealth burst windows, then ambushing a green may not have such an extreme set of assumptions. In this case, rogues may be able to fight as light-warriors (e.g. thugs and highwaymen) with a broader set of abilities to bleed or cc a target between burst windows.
Finally, the overall toughness of a rogue will be key in choosing who to fight and for how long. The weaker relative to other classes, the more stealth and quick kills will be necessary (incurring greater corruption). The tougher the rogue the more likely an encounter will end without gaining corruption.
So, to exactly what @Dolyem was asking: how the rogue class is constructed - and what options are available with secondary archetype augments - is crucial to player behaviors relative to corruption.
I expect this to be an option as well, but I would hope it would be on the rogue skill tree rather than augments.
The reason for this is fairly straight forward;
Augments are a system where you are picking between different options for one ability. As far as we know, your decision on one ability has no direct impact on what you can do with other abilities you have.
The skill three though, that is a trade off. It is very easy to make a skill tree where two specific nodes are mutually exclusive.
Thus, if a faster rogue stealth is done via the skill tree, they can make that option mutually exclusive with a node that increases damage of rogues largest stealth attack. This leaves rogues in a position where they can chose to either have fast reuse on stealth, or a very high damage opener, but they can't have both.
If these options were augment based, you could have both - which is where things go bad.
Its really just looking at the idea of a class that is focused on getting an upper hand by striking first causing players to potentially default to not fighting back because there is no point to when it could be futile. It can definitely be applied to other classes as well in certain cases. Classes who are CC focused are pretty much restricting their skillset on engagements since they cant CC the target until they return fire. Classes which arent as mobile will also not be able to rely on any CCs. Rogue is simply a class that I have a lot of experience playing and even designing and it popped into my head.
This isn't even a "I should be able to kill the players I want to kill" concern because there should be balances to prevent any one class from outright stomping people in any engagement. It is a gameplay concern. If your initial engagement is widely restrictive and ineffective by default, that will feel terrible.
As for the main question of the OP - rogues will simply be more of a team player rather than an assassin that hunts greens. And teams will have enemies in proper pvp events, so neither the loot nor the corruption would be a factor.
I'm not worried for PvP specific event engagements. This is entirely about open world PvP interactions and how initial engagements are diluted if not neutralized. And its also not about hunting green players either. This could easily affect engagements in conflict over resources and territory.
And if the opponent doesn't even flag up - your team would've been made to go corrupted either way, if yall decided that the goal was worth it. And with a full stealth, the interaction doesn't change at all.
So the only rogues that are negatively impacted by this system are the solo dudes who want to somehow attack a victim for a ton of dmg, but then still hope that they won't become a PKer. And that's a very silly thought in a factionless owpvp game.
This is about gameplay feeling good. You're acting like 1 on 1 encounters wont be a common thing in the open world, and this isn't some in depth 1v1 balancing diverting from 8v8 balancing either. If you make entire class kits pointless/nullified when initializing engagements, that is a bad gameplay design that should be considered. And no, its not only a rogue problem, its just what I initially thought of. Any classes without mobility or that depend on CC heavily will be affected negatively by this system when initiating combat. And like I said in my last comment, its not about griefing, its about viable gameplay. The corruption is less of a concern as far as accumulation goes, because you shouldnt be repeatedly doing it anyway, I will edit it and put Flagging instead because that is the real issue.
This is not an issue with the system, it's a feature. The green victims will know that they can't be simply killed out of nowhere. That's the point of the corruption threat. And the attacker will have to decide whether going all the way is a worthwhile decision.
It all comes down to risk/reward and people's relation to any given situation. If the fight is about the territory or pve (gathering included), I'd imagine the attacker would be more interested in simply removing their opponent from that location, because the kill if not the goal.
And then the whole situation comes down to the corruption balancing and whether greens are afraid enough to leave the location, cause the corruption balancing allows the attacker to get a kill or two.
best example I can think of is Ragnarok online, assassins had stealth and certain mobs did too, there was a few ways of detecting stealth like the rangers aoe skill detect or the acolytes ruwatch. As well as AoE damage which works for most game's like this.
I think it brings more flavor to the game if some classes can detect hidden players better then others, like as a melee vs melee a rouge with stealth will have the advantage over a fighter but head to head the stats would maybe favor the fighter.
even if you make the fighter archetype stronger by default to balance it's stealth attacks it can make up for this in PvE by being able to stack back attacks because you have someone tanking
Basically what I'm saying is, as a non stealth player I'm fine with people stealthing and re-stealthing regardless of white/yellow/red flag status, people should be able to counter this though with anti-stealth skills.
As I said, its not about griefing. This entirely revolves around engaging at a disadvantage. The other player could entirely intend to fight back every time, this gives advantage to whoever has been engaged which is a terrible design. The person who strikes first should always get the upper hand. If a feature of a system handicaps several classes from using their abilities, thats a bad feature objectively.
Risk/reward is managed by corruption itself, you risk corruption or death when engaging, no need to further handicap a player by removing skill viability just because they attack first.
If the main concern is allowing non-combatants who dont wish to engage to have the ability to flee, then provide a sort of non-combatant only feature that, when activated as a non-combatant, then does the CC immunity thing, while simultaneously locking in being a non-combatant for 5 minutes or something, preventing them from turning around and engaging after utilizing the advantage.
Straight up walk to a strategic target or simply someone that they wanted dead for petty reasons and PK him.
Is it an issue for Rogues? Only for those that dont embrace the identity of the class.
For true rogues it comes with the job description.
The system is built around protecting the greens from repeated forced deaths. The rogue is still at an advantage, if they want to kill their target quickly. They simply have higher stakes than in other games.
And as I keep saying, in Ashes rogue seems to be more of a group class. Groups will have pvps that don't involve PKing. And in that pvp the rogue can do their thing. It's the same as tanks not being able to do shit, because they're meant to protect things and not destroy them (at least I fucking hope that's the case).
There's gonna be a ton of ways for a rogue to make use of their specific abilities w/o suffering corruption.
Also, if the ttk is high enough, the victim can still turn around, CC the rogue and engage pvp. I doubt people will do this, but the possibility will probably be there.
The whole advantage of rogues is frontload dmg leaving 0 chance for fightback. Fightback means turning purple from green.
Killing a green means PK.
Rogues are not build for combat survivability.
I do not know how you cant connect certain simple dots in so many topics.
I could have sworn you had me muted.
PKing isnt a bad thing as long as griefing isnt happening. The entire system is not to protect greens, it is to deter griefing.
In any MMO every class is a group class, this is irrelevant in this topic. You shouldnt have a system that hinders any class from utilizing their abilities, just for engaging another player. I even have ran this by several people as a scenario where they are being attacked, and almost every one of them said theyd likely disengage remaining a non-combatant, heal, and re-engage before the player lost their combat status and open up on them with full CCs.
This is also not about suffering corruption, rather it is more about a sort of terms of engagement issue being exploitable.
My suggestion above for players committing to non-combatant to acquire CC immunity addresses your concerns of protecting greens.
I don't understand how someone could want this to be a thing in a game like Ashes.
Unless they plan on playing rogues.
They should have a front heavy attack, for sure - but absolutely not to the point where there is 0 chance for fighting back.
I think they should definitely do high damage coming out of stealth, but I feel armor should play a significant role in whether or not a rogue can do substantial damage or not. That being said, I dont think one shot mechanics are good for any class to have.
For sure, rogues should be a high burst damage class - just not that much of a burst.
If a rogue is even able to take an equally geared character down to 50% fight out of stealth, no one is going to fight back - even taking in to consideration the fact that rogue DPS after that initial burst should be only slightly above that of a tank.
Thanks for going into detail. The quoted assertion is the part I don't see any real motivations for. What does "not causing such an extreme set of assumptions" do for the sustained-DPS ranger? The enemy is still only going to fight back because they were either (1) going to become a combattant regardless of expected outcome in order to preserve loot; or (2) because they expect to kill the hunter (e.g. an armoured barbarian with high mobility, or something), which means the hunter made a mistake in attacking that player in the first place. And the third option still being that the person remains non-combattant and the hunter has to decide if the corruption is worth it and they want to pursue and/or execute the target.
Against which of the enemies in these scenarios is there an advantage for the sustained-DPS ranger versus the burst stealth ranger, and what is that advantage?
So? Why can't the stealth-ranger just kill their target? Or, if disengages trump engages in the game, why can't the stealth-ranger do the same thing in return, until one of the two either gets an execution or stops trying? How is what you're saying any more profound than "When I come out of stealth, I want to win."?
What is "nullified" about the ranger's class kit when he opens an attack, and how is it related to the flagging system (which is the topic of your thread, if you want to now make this not about Corruption, then you have to state what the problem mechanic *is* that you want changed. Is it other classes' access to mobility? Is it the damage potential of the stealth class? What's wrong with what it looks like so far?)
I really feel like this topic is suffering because you're not willing to say openly that this really has nothing to do with stealth at all, you just don't like not being able to pick PvP and win fights without an uncomfortable consequence attached to it, whenever you personally deem it to be a justified fight.
And like, you're talking to mostly enthusiastic PvPers in this thread so far, so if that's what you want to talk about, why not talk about that...
All this does is change it so that a Rogue needs to work with another person. The Rogue is hidden, allowing their visible partner to engage (or be engaged, even better) at any time. As soon as the enemy flags up expecting a 'fair fight', the Rogue then moves in and acts.
In my own (probably not 'traditional') experience this is what you want a Rogue for in a group game/MMO. That allows them to be 'flanker' even without true stealth, assuming enough mobility. A source of sudden burst damage that you cannot ignore and tactically shouldn't necessarily try to kill.
Does this work in Ashes? Who knows, I wouldn't bet on it personally right now, but it is an MMO, and 'killing people in specifically unfair fights' is probably not one of the things that should be 'soloable'.