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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.
Comments
While I can't say that it's a fair or 'concrete' way of looking at it, for some people, myself included, there's a specific order that you need to do certain design aspects in, to see success and not just muddy chaos.
Certain changes we've seen from one state to another, in the past, implies to people like me that these designs are not being done in any of the 'correct' sequence/orders that would lead to a good combat experience.
Not gonna claim that 'thinking it can only be done well X way' is right, but will definitely claim that 'seeing certain changes implies that they're not doing it in Y way'. If you're a person who believes in certain 'best practices' for design of certain things, signs that those aren't being followed could lead to OP's conclusion.
Hell, even the 'we're just gonna do a bit of something for now and balance it later when we have time' is a red flag for some.
"Oh we finally had to turn on the CC Diminishing Returns lol" gets an 'excuse me what?' from me. That said, it's probably better not to get caught up in our armchair dev opinions, just assume it's people blowing off steam.
The real point of this thread comes down to this:
"Why should I feel attached to, or boost, any specific weapon or even weapon type?" with the implication that one of two things is likely to be true in the end:
Either Legendary gear will be very similar with lots of stat blocks and lots to pay attention to in tiny ways, meaning the differences between using them (other than skilltree) will be small (and this has some serious issues depending on how the Physical Power calculation for skills is done, in ways that are likely to be extremely dissatisfying for certain Fighters like George and the ones I know)...
Or despite saying we can use every weapon, there will be much less flexibility than the game claims and certain choices will be noob traps.
The concerns were raised after more mana regeneration skills were added. If these Regens stack then you would never touch a basic attack unless all c/d are active. If strength gives attack power then I do not see the need to boost the weapon at all. Primary stat is fine, secondary stat is fine and tertiary stat is fine. Yes, it might be nice to bolster white damage but if you resort to white damage in a duel you have already lost.
I actually don't particularly care either way in truth. Yet, I state the combat team lack cohesion due to pax 2017 quick time combat changed to action combat in apoc then to hybrid in MMO. A1 was a clear demarcation from trinity due to two classes being underpowered and 1 class being able to solo 10 or more people.
I never used basic attacks in a1 either. If your sole retort is basic attacks I feel we will never agree. The reason is simple. To resort to basic attacks after blowing all mana means synergies will not work. Lost synergies means the team no longer unites the effort to defeat the encounter. Lack of control, lack of dps and lack of resources.
I have never built groups and teams in such a way. Good luck blowing all mana and relying on white damage in a contested scenario. Those who know how to manage mana and weave will annihilate the white damage dealers.
Hey, I agree on this part I'm not sure if this is the "best" way to develop it either. But that is not the thing I disagreed on with Songcaller, its the "these guys have no clue" part where I get sceptical.
I'm a doing a bit of game design in the form of TTRPGs myself with its own set of rules, but what I can say for sure is that balancing would have been easier if I set up the underlying number system before starting to outline all the systems that would need this system to be in place.
Yeah, I think it's indeed just blowing off steam, but it makes me wonder whether "blowing off steam" has to be insulting an entire development team. This is the good old intolerance for trial-and-error despite this being EXACTLY the time where they can still effort it and despite the fact that trial-and-error is the single best learning strategy we have. Since we are at strong statements: I think the toxic attitude and outright hostily towards trial-and-error is what ruined so of gaming in the first place because people instantly started to panic and screech as soon as anything wasn't perfect even in as early stages as the Alpha Stage. If you punish those who make efforts in trying something new (new concepts or just new employees) you will end up with the non-offensive, mindless BS like current World Of Boredcraft.
Which is exactly why I very much dislike this "these people have no clue" panic making. You can raise red flags without poking the pole in the eyes of those who are making the effort to at least try.
That in my opinion is something we will find out during the Alpha.
My HOPE would be that the base damage stats of weapons will be significant enough that by effectively using your basic weapon attacks between skills you can do a significant amount of damage (I'm just going to ballpark this and say ~25-35% of all combat damage) or enable significantly higher damage (e.g. a mage who uses weapon attacks effectively would end up dealing up to 10-20% more damage with their skills - Again just ballparking).
A legendary weapon could be something that could then offer either increases of skill abilities or extra abilties to weapon attacks (e.g. add a promotable debuff or so) increasing not only ones own combat strength but of the group.
You honestly don't have any basis for the concept of how to even raise Strength 'instead of' boosting the weapon.
Ashes can simply 'not give you any real ways to do that' if they choose.
I understand the concern based on the combination of this, and their approach to stat/combat design 'flexibility', but it's not 'evidence', so bringing it up to other people with predictions is still just speculation to them.
And if you are concerned that the issue is that your predictions are right, I'm sure you know that if they are, it's already almost too late.
I do not bash the foundations or the synergies my old messages were used though I do admit the calculations accessible on paper do not make sense. Though I realise the devs will not answer the questions. The first port of call in a2 will be to work out what 'k' is and then create spreadsheets to work out how the calculation only reached 40 odd.
I'd like to do that with dual wielded cushions.
made from stone
The same was true in the bard showcase.
61int, but the rating is at 234.
And considering that in both cases the characters were wearing the same type of jewels from this set
There's 2 possibilities:
To me this implies that difference between weapons is big enough to not make them redundant. And this would also imply that vertical increase of the weapon's main attacking stat would also mean only a 1/10 (even slightly less) of that increase in pure dmg output, cause the "raiting" part of the attack power equation is always 1/10ed to make the numbers smaller.
Right. Yes to everything. That works.
It seems to be 8ths rather than 10ths. Though it is not explicit. That is before k is applied. If k = 2 then it would be 16ths but 16ths can be refactored to 8ths once again...
Edit: Eureka moment. It appears the rating is divided by the base then the base is added on top. Hence why you say 10th and I say 8th. 😆
It's getting confusing. The power calculation that is not 0.1 for k is in the message I just quoted. The power calc for fighter is 0.1 and the bard is also 0.1 in the calculations which is why I stated wiki needs updating - or, we can just keep the calculations between those who read/respond on the thread for top secret use. 😉
And in that screenshot K is 0.1. Bard's version is simply a later iteration with the equation embedded into the numbers already (i.e. they auto-equal the 234 rating into a 23.4 one).
Literally nothing changed in how the calculation works. Only the visual presentation to the player changed.
(I don't see any screenshot above
K is 10% in these screenshots.
I would say it is a balancing constant.
But wiki also tells us that
"Stats can be improved based on gear, tattoos, and other enhancements, such as socketed items.[13]"
if each comes with 10% of something, having them can add 30% more which is not far from the 40%
"Gear has approximately a 40-50% influence on a players overall power in the game.[19]"
It's literally 10 (base) + 334 (rating) * 0.1 (K) which equals to 43.4.
If you're on mobile - it's literally just the "physical power" window from my bigger screen shot. It's from the fighter showcase.
It is a coincidence that base is 10.
Dividing by 10 is like multiplying with 0.1 (10%)
I noticed that I can do that use the link if I try to quote. That is how I was thinking on it for a while while you and Songcaller posted 6 times. I was looking for the magical power, I gave up and noticed you found it
I see it works on mobile but on PC with 2 different browsers doesn't.
Considering K was removed in the Bard showcase (which is the newer iteration), I'd imagine Intrepid are not interested in us caring about K at all, while the calculation didn't change at all.
Steven said in a stream or interview that these numbers are the easiest thing to change while balancing the game and that is why Alpha 2 is needed.
I hope many players will do such spreadsheets because I don't
Kinda makes me think that what we see in the showcase is completely made up rather than properly calculating. But I'm sure that this would be super easily tested by simply being in A2 tests right now, but all those 1.5k fuckers are NDAed, so, alas.
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Honestly the more I look into the skills they have shown off, the less I want for every weapon to be used by every class. Some of these just wouldnt make sense. Like a fighter with a book would need extensive animation/effect creation just to make it work. and ranger as you can see above is mostly bow focused. I expect that there will be many restrictions on what weapons can be used across the archetypes due to skills not being able to use them. It kind of defeats the stated goal of "everyone can use any weapon" but this does make it more important what weapon you bring.
Base stats are defined by a character's primary archetype.[13]
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Stats
The rating probably comes from
These can be improved based on gear, tattoos, and other enhancements, such as socketed items.[13]