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.
Comments
I'm not sure how true this often used statement is. I play Pathfinder 2e, and you'd be surprised at how many character options and complexity you can have, and still be balanced, so long as you put in the effort into the system in the beginning and get your damn math right.
It's absolutely doable, it's just not easy.
But honestly, I don't balance is really that important. I think it's more important for the secondary archetype options to be distinct and interesting, otherwise what is the point?
Why have a system like this if your not going to do anything with it. But it seems like they very may be doing something interesting, so I'm willing to wait and see.
The point is for Primary Archetypes to have opportunities to move the dial closer to one of the other Archetypes (or double down on their own) - without creating a balancing nightmare for the devs.
Also helps make 8-person Groups fairly consistent - since Ashes encounters are balanced for an 8-person Group with one of each Primary Archetype.
I actually disagree with this and there has been proof to why you are wrong in games like Ragnarok Online pre-transcendent classes.
Did certain classes have skills that gave them bonuses to use some weapons over others? Yes. But it did not mean you could not put together a viable build taking another route. There were plenty of successful thief class players, who wanted a mix of magic or to use a bow that chose the Rogue class over Assaasian. As a result you had a class which did something very good skill wise (providing debuffs), that mixed in with the theme of the original class (hiding, sneaking, stalking, backstab damage) as well as opened up a number of opportunities to explore other play styles. Stalkers could be magic users who were int based, yet still be viable with core mechanics of the class. They could go bow based and be formidable at medium range. They could play traditionally with a dagger and shield and it never overpowered the other play styles. With just one class, you had 3-4 play styles to choose from. If you account for the overall tree, we're talking about nearly 10 just from 1 starting class. I don't see it being impossible in the modern day for Ashes to be able to achieve that with sub classes. If a game like Ragnaork Online could do it back then with matching animations per skill, it's really not impossible.
It will definitely affect if I continue to play when the game launches. Decisions as dumb as having them just be flavoring of the main class, when promoting it as 64 classes, would be an indicator of a whole lot of really dumb decisions everywhere else.
To me,
it looks like the ONLY META that exists in Ashes of Creation will be - > that there will hardly be any META at all. Alone from the fact that Eight whole Classes can choose various, different Secondary Archetypes.
What for a wonderful, beautiful System. Very flexible and fresh every single time.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
I wouldn't even mind them getting decent heals or tank skills. As long as they loose most of what made them powerful originally. Otherwise, there will be 1 secondary that everyone uses. X / Cleric.
Buffing the amount of heals or tanks on the market is cool in my opinion. Then, maybe the dps should just get some extra stuff from the secondary, rather than a significant rework.
This is sort of like WoW classic Season of Discovery is doing. I've tried mage healer and rogue tank. The mage healer does not keep up with the other mages in damage, at all. The rogue tank is pretty powerful and could potentially lose a bit of dps. However, in PvP neither are the "Meta" spec. The mage carries 1 heal (this makes them pretty tough) but the rogue removes everything tank. Warlock tanks on the otherhand are insane in PvP. You may as well just banish and walk away. Their damage is pretty good, but their tankyness and self heals make them very tough. There's a fine line to making a class way more powerful than the rest when you involve healing and tanking secondaries. This is a game breaker in my opinion.
To be fair you can swap your secondary class with a lengthy class quest which will help with that situation.
See I think people will shift the focus of the META from the individual and instead have whole group comps, complete with builds for each of the 4/8 slots. Assigning a role and build for each slot making the META even more restrictive.
Intrepid has defined what their jargon for Class means and have always acknowlged that their terms for Class and Archetype are unique to Ashes.
Sorry 100% dyslexic here and words are not my friends. lol. Something else. Is from what I got from Steven's words. Bard skill that trades your health with a player, could be Augmented to instead trade your mana pool. This could lead to some options being more impactful then just changing damage types.
Sorry 100% dyslexic here and words are not my friends. lol. Something else. Is from what I got from Steven, maybe I misunderstood him.. Bard skill that trades your health with a player, could be Augmented to instead trade your mana pool. This could lead to some options being more impactful then just changing damage types.
I think it's more likely that a Bard Augment for Mana Restoration placed on a Healing Active Skill would Restore Mana in addition to Healing, rather than removing Healing.
Because the 8-person Group is relying on the Active Skills of the Primary Archetype to do what they do.
Augments allow the Active Skill to also do something else.
I dunno why you say "more impactful than just changing Damage Types".
Changing Damage Types allows my Oracle to stack Elemental Damage with the Spell Hunter in my Group.
I think I understood Steven saying that some changes you could select with the augment skill is that skill could change the damage type, add to the skill, or change the skill entirely. These type of changes could be more impactful if say a skill that gives a HoT was changed to a DoT that added a debuff, that when attacked returned X% amount of healing when you damage that target.
You apply the Augment to an Active Skill. The same Augment could do different stuff depending on which Active Skill it's on.
But, players are not selecting what the Augments do. We are just choosing which Active Skills we want to apply the Augment onto.
"A HoT changed to a DoT that added a debuff, that when attacked returned X% amount of healing when you damage that target..." is basically a HoT that also deals damage and maybe adds a debuff.
That seems possible since the Healing Active Skill is still providing Heals.
I think the quote does not say an Active Skill can be changed entirely. I think the exact words used were "radically" and "fundamentally". And that doesn't mean that the changed Active Skill is not going to fullfill the original impact of the Active Skill. Rather, same original result overall - might have some extra stuff added to it.
Ya his wording could be taken many different ways. Cant wait for the Augment update. My guess it will be some time after May 1st when we get the last Base Archetype. This is one of the areas has me most intrigued. Between how questing/Events/Story Arcs works in this game and the skills. Its much of what EQ Next wanted to make. I cant wait to see IS pull this off.
This is why, I would not mind if some active skills from the secondary archetype were made available as you progress your character. Not just passive augments, or primary archetype skill modifiers based on the augments. This would definitely provide more flexibility in how you could build your character and more gameplay variety. Obviously at the cost of larger balancing headaches for Intrepid
Blown past falling sands…
A Healing Active Skill might change from Single Target to AoE (or vice versa) and also include a DoT.
"Radically" and "fundamentally" are used to counter the claims of "just flavor" and "just cosmetic".
We'll have to see how radical the changes actually are, but an Augmented Active Skill still fulfills its original purpose.
"The intent behind the Augment system is not to provide new Active Abilities. They're intended to augment existing Active Abilities that are provided through your Primary Archetype; and so your Secondary Archetype selection completes your Class selection, of which there's 64 types and you get Augment skills that can apply certain attributes and mechanics to your existing Active Skills.
So, if you have certain abilities, like a Backstab as a Rogue Primary Archetype, and you take that Healer Secondary Archetype selection, now the properties of your Backstab will still remain the same as an Active Ability, however it might include things like Life Steal, or it might include things like susceptible weakness to the target, and reduces their healing because the definition of what those Augments are intended to provide based on the Archetype selected for the Augments is within the Schools of magic that live for that Archetype: so a Cleric is about balancing Life and Death and the control of those types of Hit Points."
---- Steven
Both thouse examples would only be Radical changes at best, not Fundamental ones. You seem to have a habit of interpreting Steven's statements in ways which are biased towards continuity with prior statements even when that breaks the normal definition of words. The statement your quoting from Steven is indeed not a Fundamental change, but he did not claim it was. So their is no basis to think Steven has a broken understanding of the word Fundamental.
Steven used that term "very fundamental changes" for the first time recently in response to the continued questioing of how much change augments can/would do. It was clearly couched in the implication that this would not be the norm, that only a few skills would get that level of change and most would be lesser. You could even interpret it as speculation or ambition rather then a promise, but saying that it's not a material change the game design he is communicating to us and that it is identical to past statements is not tennable.
I'm not aware of Steven providing examples of the traits he attributes to the radical category as something separate from the traits he attributes to the fundamental category. For all we know, he uses those terms interchangeably.
What he has tried to be consistent about is that the Active Skills have the greatest impact.
That is how the devs will balance so that typical encounters are designed for an 8-person Group with one of each Primary Archetype.
It's all speculation and ambition until the design is implemented.
You can interpret anyway you want to.
We will test Augments in A2 and learn what radical and fundamental truly mean.
We have seen this with the Ranger, as well.
This type of talent tree style will likely carry over to the class talent trees in more noticeable ways than the Archetype trees.
With that being a reality, they should give us as much class diversity as they possibly can through the augments. The variations should feel like completely different experiences. That makes for a far better video game than boring, perfect and impossible to achieve balance.