Ranger and weapon feedback for Ashes of Creation Alpha 2

Thrakedons

The following are some points of feedback I wanted to give after playing ranger with a longbow and trying out shortbow as well in pvp and pve. I am not a game dev and may be missing things but these are just some thoughts after playing ranger in many mmos.
Summary:
1. longer ranger for longbow
2. Make weapon trees more impactful
3. Make buff abilities more active use
4. Increase buff abilities effect
5. Reduce snipes cast time
6. Give classes more customization than currently available
7. Improve longbiw projectile vfx
8. Add a skill that pieces targets in a straight line.


1. Longbow range is longer than shortbow range by only 5 meters. The most important aspect of creating classes in an mmo is nailing the class fantasy, one of those is long range for ranger players even if sometimes at the cost of damage and mobility. In the pre alpha 2 tests the range was longer giving the longbow that very satisfying feeling of being a sniper or a skirmisher trying to utilize its long range to keep distance while skirmishing with enemies. While I’m unsure whether 90 is a good number or whether it should be more or less than that, even having the range say 50% to 100% longer than its shortbow cousin would increase the feel of the longbows superior range and power with slower shots in exchange for the shortbows slower range but much faster rate of fire. (Obviously the exact range increase settled on would be subject to change by the developers.)

2. Make the weapon trees vary far more than they currently do. When I first saw the stream with the mages beam finisher, it gave me ideas for my favorite class (the ranger). Finishers that proc glancing to the nearest enemy target, small aoe explosions, and a finisher auto attack that could pierce through multiple targets would add another layer of customization over simply status effects.

3. Rangers number of active abilities vs rangers number of buff abilities seems weird. I’m unsure how the other classes feel in this regard but I as a ranger had a dozen abilities and half of them were basically one time hit abilities that you only had to hit again if they were canceled, or you died. Too much of this feels like you have too few abilities to be viable while these buffs don’t have a window in which you need to time them and reactivate them when they come back around. Having them be shorter duration with higher advantages (whether overhauling the abilities or making it so you can spec into this option) would allow for a higher skill ceiling allowing good players to be more rewarded rather than making it a simpler gameplay.

4. On this same note, the ranger buff abilities feel way too weak in their current iteration. As I suggested above, making them shorter duration but higher reward might fix this.

5. I would love it if classes could have the option to extend the range of auto attacks or skills. While this might cause balancing to be challenging, having customization of range, bleeds, poisons, ccs, apes, and much more will make the game more and more fun to play with many builds that are viable.

6. Charge up time of snipe is too long vs how much you get out of it. This might be wrong but currently it feels bad to be winding up for that long. I’m not advocating for no cast time but a shorter one but about a second would be easier to use and less punishing.

7. Obviously the vfx is not complete but the arrow flight animations on the imbued arrows leaves a straight trail behind it rather than changing the color of the arrow itself which I believe would look better.

8. A piercing shot ability would be amazing and I believe lining up multiple enemies would be fantastic. There is currently a node for turning scatter shot into a piercing projectile, but a dedicated piercing shot like the one that was in the wiki would be very nice. Something akin to mistpiercer bow in Albion or the dragon hunters snipe in GW2.

All in all, I loved my ranger experience and really want to thank the Intrepid team for what they've created and what I'm sure will continue to be an amazing project. Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments so we can help them find the perfect vision for each class and system. Cheers!

akabear

Simply, I felt the range was too short and there was limited ability to kite.
Allow greater range and faster movement and that would fix a lot!