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
Looks like the zerg group was playing cautionly tbh not often a small group will fight back they usualy just leg it when there outnumbered unless they have a play in mind, So i think the larger group was watching there back for a pincer move rather than commiting fully on a push. Im not familiar with Linage but darkfall is similiar quite often uwould move in smaller groups like triggering player city alert and make it look like ur loosing before retreating to lure the large amount of defenders out and you would have a group behind a rock or something waiting to ambush them the moment they run past.
Like if i was on the larger group side i would be wary of a group pushing from the rear since it look like small group is luring them in because they had ample opportunity to just leg it there it seems since a few occasional they pulled pretty far from the zerg and then came back to poke them again.
also synchronised ball of lighting from multiple mages would be huge in that fight in the ravine/tunnels :P couldnt realy push through it and it slow moving too so it also buys time for the guys backing up to either leave or set up further, and the zerg couldnt make use of ball of lightning either since it a slow moving spell and the smaller side is backing up so it be rather ineffective.
But your also gotta add that there will also be guild factions at play here aswell to take into account.
Its not about the leader, Its about the players. With bigger numbers the players will follow commands until they
ball of lighting is really slow moving. if you use like 40 at once (to have effect, else they will just tank it). they can just dodge, or use tank WALL to stop the ball and ect.
Magma Field has slow cast time + small area of effect. Easy to be interupted + even if you manage to cast 20 at 1 place, you may kill 7-8 players, not more.
Blizzard is cast around you. you cant get in position to hit many players.
Have we seen foortge of "Meteor" and "EarthQuake"? In the last preview for the night sky, i dont think he had those spells.
I wouldnt worry to much about aoe size atm, its quite possible they they can add increase size with reduced dmg in talent tree for said class or archtype (Have a feeling archtype will just be a 3rd talent tree, but thats my guess) if devs need more or larger aoe options after testing.
Do you know what blink even is. And no, 2.4 sec during an engagement is not slow, it is fast. You cast it after a CC trap (hopefully what bards do) and thrn cast magma field while blinkong in like middle of them.
My preferred method, Blink blizzard and it's GG. The idea is shock and awe. Once the raid wide damage kicks in zerglings panic. I never seen a zerg react in any other way than "survival mode" when they see their raid UI ticking red.
You blink in, assuming you GOT a tanky build, and wait till zerglings pile up, then you start the AOE. You may not kill the archers, but if the target call is correct and you jump on a healer, what do you think all the melee will do? They will try to save the healers. And remember, you are still a mage in heavy armor, just cast a fireball at will and watch them bowboys melt.
My suggestion is get your group and run exercises for teamwork. The rest is gear logistics. Once you start operating like that you see zerglings as prey.
The pattern I notice is the good old "soft cap" method, say an aoe does full damage up to 10 targets but after that it is half that across all targets. Which is a fine method.
"blink in middle of a zerg" .... ahahahaha.
You will be dead mid air during blinking
Thats funny. You talking all this time how 40 man with small aoe dmg can kill players for 2 seconds. But in the same time you think you can tank the zerg while they go near you, and have time to use mass spell after
And just heads up - you have stuns - the zerg have 10 times more stun spells than you
When in reality there will be many zergs that are better organized than your small group
Just hope that A2 shows how big problem zergs are, and Intrepid solve the issure before releaze
Man, if Con/Mnt builds means you die "mid air" it means the Alpha 2 went terribly bad. If the tanky builds are not tanky, the game is DOA. Especially for a mage with a shield barrier spell.
Then you do not know what a zerg is and just hate big guilds with organised PVP.
But Pipebombings work well on big guilds. Nothing can compete with an ambush like that. It's just organised guilds do not chase. You got to use other methods on those armies that may or may not violate the ToS. Depending on "emergent player behavior" and how much Steven detests spies 👀
This was my thought. Nodes are factions.
What tankiness you talking about man. The zerg is 400 players. If each deal you 10 dmg, you lost 4k hp (which you probably dont even have). and 10 dmg is 1 AA from the weapon. Stop talking non sense.
If you can tank 400 players then the game obviously have problems, But different from waht you describe
The average TTK is said to be 15 sec in 1v1 scenario. now divide 15 by 400 and you get that you gonna die for 0.03 seconds. And guess what this means? for 1 second will be enough time for the 400 man zerg to kill 30 players.
And not only this but you talking about mage. No matter what tanky build you make you wont get the Tank tankiness. you are still dps.
There are Deities. Different Ones. Why shouldn't there already being Factions as in Religions ?
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
Yeah, you keep ignoring the crucial part about CC, so, you are captain strawman, you keep ignoring key parts of a pipebombing tactic is, change what the definition of a zerg is, change what people say to fit your arguement... this is why you are a zergling, you belong to a brute force hivemind.
Also, TTK is woeful statistic average. It's an estimate, not a fact. If you build your character like a brick shithouse that TTK could be much higher versus physical. HP5 (property of constitution) also increases TTK as it acts as DPS counter stat, if you got 200HPS and 50% mitigation to physical, that 200 hps becomes a virtual 400 dps check against physical. And we don't even count in active blocking or dodge rolling towards a target. Oh you thought it's for defense only? Think again.
And then you got healers, more HoTs and self defenses like Mage Shell. 15 sec is a pipe dream. If you play dressboy mage, yes, 15 sec is a miracle TTK, but THANK THE SHARIF we get to play mages with heavy armor and shields.
And we don't even know if Alchemists will make explosive consumables. But we do know they can make potions 🥳
You cant cc the whole zerg, and those of the zerg that are not cc-ed will cc you. So you are at the disatvantage. If i start including the cc you will lose even harder. Like without counting the cc you may do 200 dmg to 40 players of the zerg. So these players will have like 1800 more hp left. If we count the cc you wont deal even this dmg.
As i said. Mage is not tank. No matter what build you make you wont survive for more than 0.04 seconds against the zerg. And you talking about physical dmg reduce, but half of the zerg will be with magic dmg.
I feel like you live in some kind of dream. Where you are the OP Main character that oneshot everyone, but non does dmg to you. You contradict yourself so hard. First you talk how 40 players will melt the zerg, then you talk how 400 players cant kill you for 15 seconds. I am done replaying to you until you write something that makes sesnse and you stop contradicting yourself
I'm sorry but in every single post, you just prove to me that you have never played anything remotely similar to this, when it comes to mass pvp.
Do you really expect all "400" people to attack you at the same time if you go in?
Do you really expect the whole zerg to be coordinated?
Do you really expect just 1 person engaging vs a 400 man zerg?
Do you really expect that there will be 0 element of surprise in terms of engagement?
Do you really expect that the frontline won't be able to actually cc and disable their frontline, or whatever they're engaging?
Do you really expect that initiators won't have tools to make them survive for long enough to get in there and cc/disable the enemy?
Do you really expect that there won't be a follow up coming after initiators go in and disrupt the enemy?
Do you really expect that all 400 people will be in combat at the same time against the enemy, especially considering there's body-blocking?
Do you really expect the 400-man zerg will be concentrated at one tiny spot, moving seamlessly, and totally not being a disorganized mess that will leave a tail behind, with many stragglers being caught out and the zerg slowly being chipped away at?
Do you really expect that this theoretical fight would be totally static, happening on a flat field, rather than it being dynamic, with people moving around, small group baiting the zerg into attacking when they're in unfavorable positions/terrain, forcing them into chokepoints, etc.?
I could go on and on.
Not all. But some will be organized for sure. And they will be even better organized than your small group.
Ofc you cant survive long enough vs a zerg. What you think that you can survive 4 seconds vs 50 man attacking you with all their cds used? This sounds like a 2 min TTK , And AOC will be 15 sec TTK
ofc not. But when you engage with for example 30 man, Most of the zerg will be included when attacking them at the same time.
Well i am not talking for a Zerg vs Zerg scenario. Obviously you are, But guess you didnt follow the conversation.
You as a small group dont choose the terain at all. The zerg chooses the location. you just choose which part of the location the zerg choose to fight on. For example the zerg goes to fight world boss. So you have the area around the world boss to choose from.
TBH i doubt you will be able to surprise a zerg group at all. You see there will be enough rogue scouts that will warn the zerg of anything nearby.
The rest of the questions are either repeat of these questions, or are not connected.
You've just proven my point, so let me answer some of these for you.
1. No, it's difficult to control a group of 50 people and their behavior, let alone 400 people.
People are not able to follow orders, especially not instantly as you call shots, it happens in groups of 30-50 people, and it's only going to be worse the larger the group gets.
So no, they will not be more organized.
2. If we have 10 initiators going in, and 50 people try attacking them, then yeah, I do expect most of them to survive for 4 seconds. They will have healers on their back, they will have defensive tools, they will have cc, probably some sort of invulnerability, etc.
3. If you engage with 30 people, out of 400 people, guess how many will be able to react in time, let alone be able to fight back? 100 at most
But again, it all depends on how and where you engage, whether there's an element of surprise or not, as well as what the zerg is doing.
4. You absolutely can choose the terrain. If we are talking about a world boss for example, a zerg has 2 options:
1. Ignore the small raid which is trying to harass them, which will allow the other raid to slowly take down stragglers, and slowly but surely chip away at the zerg making them weaker and weaker. Poking the bear essentially.
2. Forget about the boss for a second, and engage the smaller raid. If they do that, the other group can run away, lead them into more/less favorable position to fight in, bait them. If the zerg has to move, they will become less organized, and the smaller raid controls where the fight will happen.
I'm not saying it's easy, but it is possible to do damage and even win against large zergs, if you have a really good and organized raid who knows what they're doing, and who can listen to commands and execute them.
And usually there's no super precise targeting across different parties, so even if several parties attempt to attack the incoming enemy - there's a fairly high chance they'll all be hitting the closest character all at once, rather than every single enemy 1-to-1 with perfect precision.
So if mage aoes have a good range, those mages can blink into range > use aoes on the big part of the zerg > maybe even use another one if this was a surprise attack > and if this was done by several mages all at once, they do a ton of dmg to that part of the zerg - all while their first initiators could be tanks who can take the brunt of the first defensive attack.
Add a few fighters flying into the zerg with their high-range initiation and their own aoes, and you have yourself a very nice attack on the zerg that would be quite difficult to immediately stop. And that's if the zerg is on constant alert, rather than the usual "a part of the zerg is afk while waiting for full gathering, a part is alt+tabbed, a part is just messing around doing random shit".
And as I keep saying, if your zerg is NOT like that description - you deserve to get what you can, because you're coordinated enough to overcome the usual zerg issues.
Guess it's not easy to have vision of how things will work... After a2 lunches and you see what I am talking about on practice,we Will talk again
So no, I don't need to have vision of things, because I have direct experiences of a game that is literally AoC's inspiration.
Problem with alot of these people complaining about PvP/zergs and all that are mostly coming from people who have never played a single game that is similiar to AoC or has large scale open world pvp at all.
my option for everyone is to wait until A2 comes out before you start complaining about PvP related stuff especialy for those players who havant realy played Open world PvP games with guild diplomacy/territory control.
YOU can't cc a whole raid. You are just bad. You keep having 2004 WoW player hot takes. Rogue player hot takes. You can't even comprehend the concept of coordination. Uou are jist gonna get farmed, zergs or not. You are the kund of person calling Line of Sight baits in arena "gey tactics". I farmed thousands like you 🤣
You are an uncoordinated zergling, whining like a baby arguing like one, asking for grief mechsnics like friendly fire ,which would just mean with your personality that ppl on your side would just grief you and then say "oops" during a big fight. But with how bad of a player you are and a zergling, I am sure you would be the one doing that.
You are just a really bad player, without any practical experience other than being another zergling on the meatgrinder.
You are arguing with the kind of person who would have wanted Abyss Walkers to deal 30% damage in PVP.
Alot of it comes from people inexperience that havant experienced games that have more large scale pvp in mind so you cant blame them to much there, they come with the mind set of there typical modern MMO such as WoW, Ff14 and so on.
you cant CC a whole raid?
Assuming AoE have no # cap they already shown a spell that can CC a whole raid btw. Cleric chain of restraint which stagger everyone inside it or stun them if already staggered.
we also havant seen all spell/skill of classes we been shown aswell pretty sure they said each class will have access to 35-40 skills or something and we havant even seen half that in most cases, since they probaly only be showing the earlier on spells and typically aoe spells come later on in the levels aswell
The skill number prolly involves permutations of skills. Like changing damage types.
Also, most CCs show an uncapped target patttern like Tank's Bola. It is just hsrd to land. If you bait people into a barrage of Cone of Colds then it's not the spell that is broken, it'd the clowns who got baited there who are just bad. And that is the staggering msjority who are THAT bad.
I don't doubt that there will be more metas for raid composition. I just state the obvious. Baiting clowns snd AOEing them down is why orgsnised guilds play MMOs. You guys can play the pew pew snd 1v1 builds you enjoy, I will be a group player with a build and gear centered around group play .