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
You want the same system WoW had in 2004, supposedly also with better balancing, except I don't see how factions in any way influence guild overtaking content. You also didn't answer my question related to that. You simply gave an example from a faction-based game explaining that their design is shit and revolves around a single point on the map.
Ashes will have at the very least 5 such locations on a much much much bigger map - all w/o fast travel. So I don't really see how NW is in any way a good example for your case here.
Yes, wanting the same thing Steven does is very bad around these here parts
Which I totally agree is the dumbest thing ever. No good reason to have that and I will definitely tell Intrepid as much in my feedback, if for some reason their aoes are also limited.
And that's exactly how I expect them to work. Yet people are asking them to hit for way more, if you get more targets in the aoe. Which, imo, makes them too OP.
What context is missing from the video I posted? Goon controlled, at most, half of the map at any given time. How is that bad? Especially when they inevitably still fell.
Anything of this kind of aoe application would be much better than any scaling.
I can just as easily claim the same thing. Very weak and weird response.
Congratulations, you've arrived at our position. Maybe if you had spent a few more moments critically trying to understand what was being forwarded (and reading carefully) we'd have skipped the banter.
My man finally understood what we were forwarding. I love seeing good ideas grow on people
And when they are all in an (largely predetermined) brotherhood (not in-game mechanics) they are just one blob faction.
Steven comes from games which are exactly this. Haves and have-nots, where RMTs are incredibly effective.
:Elrond Voice: " I was there three thousand years ago in Lineage2"
Superior to static 2, or 3 faction systems. Where the server normally locks into just choosing flavor of the week. Or even worse, can't switch at all and the server sucks.
So no, nothing changed. I was always for no target caps on aoes, but that is not "scaling".
Except Albion was only one example of something like what was originally described which was literally what you were agreeing with the other poster with just now lmao. Damage goes up after hitting a certain # of people. Making the skill useful for punishing deathball zergs and not single target...as if that was a real concern anyway.
I have literally described the same thing and you poo-poo'd it. Apologize for being a contrarian and I will forgive you
85 factions should be enough to offer a foundation for people to counter fun-sucking mega guilds dominating their region.
At the same time it keeps opportunities for strong alliances to show off their power, if they own enough of the citizenships in their area, and operate benevolently enough not to drum up an overwhelming opposition against themselves.
Okay? At that point the players have made their decision, and you should probably want to go play on a different realm that's not infested with lame people anyway, no?
Sure, a game should have anti-zerg mechanics and/or systems. Not arguing that point.
However, systems where a small number of players can influence a large number of players in a significant way should take some skill. Making it so AoE damage scales up based on how many targets it will hit is something so low skill that people could make use of it by accident.
It is a low skill "solution" to the low skill "problem" of zeros.
At the very least, make it so that bards are able to mark players with an effect, and a different class has AoE abilities that multiply damage and increase the target cap by an amount based on how many marked targets they will hit.
Even that is fairly base level in terms of player skill. Simply adding damage to AoE's based on total targets is mind-numbingly unskilled and should be as discouraged as mind-numbingly unskilled zeros are.
I really don't get how people can complain about something like zerging, but then think such an unskilled solution is a good idea.
Or perhaps you meant something completely different?
Organizing by node, instead of guild, will allow anyone who's part of the node to jump in and help.
Level 5 and 6 nodes have the top level crafting benches. And provide the high level PvE content.
You can chose to live in lvl 3 or 4 nodes, have low rent, maybe own a freehold.
And be upset against the larger ones but what can you do against them?
Vassals are subject to the government, alliances, wars, taxes, and trade of their parent node, and are able to receive federal aid from them.[3]
Vassal nodes cannot declare war on their parent node or any of their vassals.[3]
Citizens of vassals are bound by the diplomatic states of the parent node.[3]
Better fight against other metropolises and when those fall, use the opportunity to move if that brings an advantage.
Why is this needed? AoE already increases in effective DPS the more targets you hit. a 500 damage spell hitting 2 targets is 1000 damage, 3 is 1500. Compounding on this sounds unnecessary as any no-cap AoE spells in the game will already incentivize people to spread out. The only reason this wouldn't be the case is if AoE buffs/healing is too strong relative to AoE damage, which can be easily balanced.
Having an ability like Earthshaker's Echoslam from DotA2 that does extra damage for each target hit could be cool, but it shouldn't be the norm for all AoE spells.
Do you seriously think that after years being in development, Intrepid will suddenly implement something they had no plans of implementing before? Like, seriously?
P.S. Prior to offering a solution, define a problem? Which issue exactly are you trying to solve? Zergs? Factions won't solve it. Total domination of a certain group of players? Factions won't solve it. Etc.
I hate the idea of factions simply because I am forced to consider someone an enemy just because they belong to another faction. Not because of their words or actions. It doesn't make sense. I want to choose my allies and enemies, I don't want developers to make that choice for me.
I get your point and we are nearly at agreement here but I still think having special skills or items that require good timing and were far and few between (so wasting them was a possibility) is no less "no skill" than a zerg shoveling it's way though a chokepoint with overwhelming numbers and no consequences to its movement/grouping.
I still think some kind of strong AoE has to be a tool against that behavior.
I am NOT saying numbers shouldn't be a valid strategic win condition, they just shouldn't be the only one and should also require skill in coordinating otherwise they can be punished with the aforementioned mechanics or skills.
You get this naturally through nodes in Ashes. And one could argue that guilds themselves are factions in a way.
Anyone arguing that a faction system is needed for a games success is resting it on other ingame systems laurels. Factions constantly become uneven, and mega guilds run multi faction guilds on servers as well.
Bad suggestion
Terrible design for mmos.
That's my hope, I'm just not fully convinced they'll be enough but I'm hoping.
*I am not for factions.
With or without caps, if AoC allows for AoE gameplay to overshadow single target dmg the massively larger numbers will always win and nobody will enjoy pvp.
Why would having a handful of AoE options to punish heavily grouped up zerg/deathballs mean that single target is overshadowed?
How does a smaller group fight a larger group without some kind of strong aoe to punish them zerging?
Having special skill is one thing, making all AoE's (that are unlikely to be rhat rare) scale damage up based on how many targets they hit is a completely different thing. If you are arguing for "something", that's great, and we agree. If you are arguing for the specific AoE effect, that is less than great.
First of all, it is not likely that AoE's will be rare enough as to make blowing a cooldown to be an issue - you will have another AoE on hand if you want it.
Second, with a support class in the game, you don't want to blanket discourage people from being reasonably close. Having AoEs just blanket do additional damage based on how many targets they hit will render support basically worthless in PvP.
Combined, this makes the notion of this blanket effect on AoE's come across as nothing more than a solution (or potential solution) for a different game that people are trying to suggest for Ashes without actually considering the effects in this game.
On the other hand, make it so a few specific AoE's scale up in damage, targets and even area based on how many people it hits with a specific condition that bards can place on rivals, and you have a situation where support are needed in PvP, where healers cleansing this condition becomes exceedingly important, and where timing bards using this condition with DPS using the AoE that is increased by it is a key to winning in PvP.
Just "AoE does more damage based on how many people it hits" is not suited to Ashes, and I really can't see how anyone would ever specifically want that here.
I Skill A, single target skill does 100dmg
Where skill B = aoe skill might do say 40dmg a hit
So you wouldnt want to use skill B in combat unless ur hitting 3 targets minimum since you will get more value using single target skill. This makes AoE not the go to in every situation but there useful in large scale where your hitting many targets at once when enemy dont spread out.
AoE need to do less dmg than single target but aoe need to have no target caps to stop zerg deathball clumping in pvp (with maybe some exception that require another class to pull off or enemy make a mistake for example aoe spell that puts a bomb on people it hit that only detonates after 3 seconds if another bombed target from same spell is next to them so this punishes bad players or rewards skilled players like a tank lasso a bombed target to another bomed target to detonate them)
TLDR = aoe need to be situational not the go to every combat
Edit: thought of an interesting aoe support debuff too for say bards or something, could be an aoe song debuff that increased in effectiveness for each person with debuff from the same source in the vacinity. (like 2% dmg reduction to dmg output per stack and stack determined by howmany people with the debuff withing 5m of you or something)
Because the zerg group has the option for the same abilities.
You have let's say 20 people with aoe abilities that deal 2k aoe dmg. No limit on targets.
And you have 30 people with the same shit.
The 30 will win.
AoE gameplay with or without limits is the same thing. Dont delude your selves that somehow your smaller group of 20 is more skilled and with the assistance of unrestricted aoe skills you will survive the aoe dmg coming from the 30 people.
To combat AoE zergfests you need to make guild leveling a tough, active gameplay in order to unlock more slots, more skills more perks (alliance invitations/formations, castle ownerships).
Restricted aoe or not if zergs arent addressed with actual solutions the few will lose to the many.
Player skill and organization will matter if the difference is 5-8 player difference, with the smaller group being very good at pvp and the larger very bad.
How is it not obvious that aoe restrictions do nothing at all if AoEs and zergs are not considered in the games/guilds/combat development?
Doesnt quiet work that way, player density of the larger group is higher so your aoe will hit more targets at once since a smaller group can spread out easier than a larger one.
Dont get me wrong the larger group has the advantage still but it not as much
10 players vs 30 players the cluster of 30 players ill be more dense so any aoe are more likely to hit more targets at once than the group of 30 aoeing the group of 10
Single target skills
10 players = 10 instances of dmg
30 players = 30 instances of dmg
AoE attacks for 10v30
10 players casting aoe can do 0-300 instances of dmg (However higher chance to hit closer to the 300 mark due to more players density)
where 30 players do 0 - 300 instances of dmg aswell (However lower chance to hit the 300 mark due to lower player density)
You have never faced a Zerg group have you? If your numbers are small they will just run over you. They have more heals in their group than the full number of members of your group. You can hardly kill a single player of the enemy even when your whole group focus him with single targets. AOE will do nothing since the healers will just use 1 mass heal each and its already GG. And dont forget that they have several times more CC than your group. They just spam all their biggest cds at start of the combat to cc and deal big dmg and till the spells end you already lost.
In sieges there will be a lot small groups that split to take objectives, But for the main group to survive there can be spells the leader use that make the group immune to AOE dmg for some time. This will allow the group to take some clutch positions where they need to get into high player density so the aoe dont wipe them.
Make guilds max 50 players (small guilds 30, with perks you can make it 50). Remove alliances as a whole. Put something like "Friendly fire".
So anyone that is not in your guild that is "combatant" is treated as enemy if you are combatant too.And there should be no way to prevent this. So if you want 500 players zerg at 1 place, then you will have 10 separate groups that can hit each other, and "Tabbing" will target the closest targets, meaning your supposed allies.
And in Siege or other large scale fights will be unique coz you are all threated as in 1 guild.
OR make it more of a Nodes war, instead Guilds war. So guild are there for people to chat, and to form groups of 8 from it, but In the open world citizens of 1 node are treated as allies, and citizens of other are enemies.