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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Inspection of other players
Holytank
Member, Alpha Two
I am not sure if being able to inspect other players has been considered. i would like to bring other player inspection as a topic for consideration if it has not been. i have always liked to be able to show off my equipment to other players it adds another level of personal pride in effort that has been put in on development. allowing other friends and guildmembers to see how my gear has developed.
another reason being able to inspect other players to see what gear they have equipped is exploration on equipment goals seeing what other players are using for future improvements one can make on their champion. possible discovery of unique equipment drops off Named Mobs maybe overlooked that could be hunted for.
it could also be interesting comparing equipment of other players to see how you stack up against each other in PVP. It may offer you insight as to how your champion may not be set to be as effective as you believe, rather than just going up against someone and losing without being able to see where your deficiencies might be.
Another thing that would be cool to add in along these lines of inspecting others is creating Bazaars or a personal market for sales. i could see that this could put a target on ones back where carried inventory could be put up for sale. seeing what they are carrying would allow thieves to target peoples carried resources. with this in mind i think setting up another area of storage where things put in there must be put up for sale and taxes are charged to do so when put in there they are protected from being looted and can't be lost when death penalty is calculated because the tax was paid to protect it. tax could be and inflated rate and could be a way to remove currency from the game to help balance a growing economy where currency in the market may be inflated. bazaars could offer players an area to sell things for cheaper than the market without crashing the sales in the market from undercutting.
another reason being able to inspect other players to see what gear they have equipped is exploration on equipment goals seeing what other players are using for future improvements one can make on their champion. possible discovery of unique equipment drops off Named Mobs maybe overlooked that could be hunted for.
it could also be interesting comparing equipment of other players to see how you stack up against each other in PVP. It may offer you insight as to how your champion may not be set to be as effective as you believe, rather than just going up against someone and losing without being able to see where your deficiencies might be.
Another thing that would be cool to add in along these lines of inspecting others is creating Bazaars or a personal market for sales. i could see that this could put a target on ones back where carried inventory could be put up for sale. seeing what they are carrying would allow thieves to target peoples carried resources. with this in mind i think setting up another area of storage where things put in there must be put up for sale and taxes are charged to do so when put in there they are protected from being looted and can't be lost when death penalty is calculated because the tax was paid to protect it. tax could be and inflated rate and could be a way to remove currency from the game to help balance a growing economy where currency in the market may be inflated. bazaars could offer players an area to sell things for cheaper than the market without crashing the sales in the market from undercutting.
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Comments
If you want to know about someone's gear - ask them. If they don't tell you - then you shouldn't know that info. And if you say "then just have different viewing rights for different groups of people", the answer is simple - why overcomplicate the game with random additional features when people should simply be able to link items in chat. That feature would accomplish the same goal, on top of a multitude of other goals (which include trading and selling, that you talked about in the 2nd paragraph).
No reason for people to be able to inspect what I'm wearing.
Steven agreed with me and said "No. You will not be able to inspect others gear."
Interesting topic, Holytank. I personally don’t think allowing full player inspection would be a good idea, especially in a PvP-focused MMO like Ashes of Creation.
One of the core pillars of this game is risk vs. reward and player agency. Letting someone freely inspect your gear at any time could remove a layer of mystery and strategy that’s crucial in open-world PvP. Not knowing exactly what your opponent is running adds tension, uncertainty, and encourages player interaction.
If someone really wants to know what gear you have, they should talk to you, ask, or observe you in action. That’s part of what makes Ashes feel like a living world: social dynamics, not just UI features.
As for comparing builds and showing off progression, I agree that it's important, but maybe that can happen in controlled environments like inside guild halls or social hubs, where it’s a choice, not a public feature.
Ashes isn’t meant to hand out all information instantly, it’s about exploration, player politics, and meaningful interactions. Transparency is great in some areas, but in PvP, a little secrecy is part of the fun and the strategy.
Like many other things here it has been discussed and Intrepid has given their thinking on it. When in doubt as to whether a particular issue has already been addressed by them, consult the wiki. Then come here and tell them how they are wrong.
https://www.ashesofcreation.wiki/Template:Gear_inspection
The developers believe that inspecting gear to obtain an exact equipment list or gear score may lead to "unwelcome behavior (I hadn’t had the chance to read it, I really appreciate it.)
OVER NINETHOUSAND NERD-POINTS ?!?!? NOW WAY THAT CAN BE RIGHT !!!
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
We've had this discussion before, but I disagree.
There is no reason NOT to be able to see what you are wearing.
Gear inspection has led me in the past to finding and reporting a number of bugs thst developers wouldn't have known about otherwise (a person wearing 2 items from the same quest that are not able to be traded, for example).
In terms of the main reason it should be a thing in every MMORPG, it's really simple - full inspect keeps players wanting to play the game.
One of the main things that keeps people in an MMORPG are self-set goals. One of the bigger ones of these is gear. In a game like Ashes, gear based goals will be "I want to get my gear to 'x' level", where as in other games where full inspect is available, people will see others with items they didn't know existed, or combinations of items they didn't think of, or higher enchants than they thought wise, and people will make that their new goal.
The PvP aspect is not a very good argument.
If players being able to see your gear puts you at a disadvantage in PvP, then you are shit at PvP and always had that disadvantage (lets not forget that even if there was an advantage to be had, this is cancelled out by you being able to see their gear). If someone can look at your gear and know what your opening sequence will be, then you were only ever going to get that opener in one time against that player. If you have multiple opening sequences, then the player being able to see your gear really shouldn't matter to you - they aren't getting anything from it that would change what they do.
So really, not having full inspect is little more than a preference due to playing games that didn't have it, and not understanding that it isn't actually a benefit in PvP. This is as opposed to having full inspect that will literally keep players happily playing the game longer than they would have otherwise due to being able to set goals for things they see in game.
To me, this is a no-brainer. It doesn't even warrant discussion in my mind. The fact that Intrepid have made the objectively wrong choice here is just kind of par for the course at this point.
that makes sense. i'm nether for or against this. I am against Power Level in general though. Its too simple, makes all the builds boring, they'll all be the same basically. With the current direction of this I doubt I'll play seriously, and if you don't play seriously there's no point in playing. It's not a causal friendly game.
I saw OEd weapons and cool gear in L2 and that was my motivation. I saw it there because there was no transmog. And I wish there'd be hard info on how frequently random people use inspection on random other players, especially considering that there's a cosmetic in the way of seeing that the person is wearing something unique. I'm sure that dev studios probably have that kind of info, but I'm not sure if it has ever been released or talked about outside of said studios.
And if you didn't mean "random players checking randos", then I just come back to my initial response of "we should be able to link items in chat and that'll be more than enough to achieve this goal".
I agree, but with Intrepid selling cosmetic items, that is a non-starter.
I have a question for you about L2 - if you were standing next to a player character, assuming you knew the game well, could you tell what items they were wearing just by looking at their character model?
If you could tell what items they had, then an inspect function is literally just that same thing when compensating for Intrepid selling cosmetics.
You yourself said that was somewhat aspirational for you in L2, that should be a thing in Ashes.
Linking items in chat helps, but isn't a full substitute.
To me, the ability to inspect the gear of a player character that is inactive (no movement or actions for 5 seconds or more) shouldn't even be a question.
And like I said in a previous comment, we'll have the general info in our nameplate, which is why I'm kinda ok with that info being there. It'll be an approximation of power, rather than direct knowledge.
If we assume that the info on our nameplate will be similar to Archeages nameplate info (we should assume that), we will already have an idea of the total enchantment level of any given player.
If L2 allowed you to see what basic gear people were wearing and we want an analogy for that in Ashes taking cosmetics and such in to account, then literally the only thing full inspect does is give you a break down of where that enchantment is happening.
This is why I *really* don't understand why anyone could be against it. I get the whole "this is how L2 did it so is how I want it to be" thing, but that is not an argument that should be held on to through scrutiny - it is simply an explanation of why someone would have a pre-diacussion position.
There is no reason to be against full inspect that isn't akin to an old man yelling "get off my lawn". There are no valid arguments that I have ever seen, from players or from Intrepid.
As I've been saying for years, information is power. If you don't have full information about something - those who do are more powerful than you. You can have estimates and assumptions, but not the exact number. Our difference in views stem from that premise. You want pure precision and full knowledge, because you consider that good design. I want obscurity and lack of info, because I consider that good design.
So far, my opinions have been closer to Stevens than yours. And I know you believe that Steven will either have to change his opinions or end up with a shitty game (in your opinion), but I'd imagine that majority of people will already consider Ashes a shitty game, so I'd prefer if that shittiness was at least shitty in the way that I like
Add it to the game in a way like I suggested above, and you now have an in game "get off my lawn" mechanic, as opposed to arguing on the forums for people to get off your lawn here.
Information is indeed power. However, I don't believe this specific information is going to give anyone all that much power on top of what they already are able to find out. You obviousy disagree with this point, but what you can not really disagree with is that if informatin is power, so is misinformation.
The more avenues players have of gaining information about you, the more avenues you have to feed them misinformation.
Because I disagree with the first point, cause how would I know when and by whom I'm getting inspected, so it'd be impossible to control that info. And the second point, to me, sounds like literally the thing I want. If I'm wearing a +10 pair of boots and someone asks me to link them - I can link a +5 pair. Which would be the entire point of why I'm saying that info is power. I want people to not have the full/true info about others, unless they know them personally.
If you assume; to be how it is implemented, you do indeed know when (generally speaking) you will be inspected.
And this would still ultimately just add minutiae of reequipping items just to fool others, all just to satisfy a few people who want to inspect an item, all while they could just ask in PM.
The current planned design is as far as I'm willing to go with the compromise on this, cause to me inspection is just unreasonable.
Is this a question that really matters?
The point is, it doesn't need to be the same as it is done in other games in order to satisfy the concept of providing motivation for players.
You also have your issue backwards. You say it is unequipping and re-equipping items to satisfy a few people that want to see what you are wearing - in reality, it is unequipping and re-equipping items to provide rivals with false information.
The vast majority of players won't be doing this, because most of us understand that in a game built primarily on larger scale PvP, there is no advantage to be gained for knowing exactly what items an individual player has equipped when you already know the basic quality of their gear as a whole.
Feeding false information as I said above is just for those that want to be extra - they are the ones that are the exception, not the people wanting to look at other players gear.
Also, keep in mind, most people that are in a position to gain asperation or motivation from seeing top end gear are likely not the kinds of people that would send someone a message asking to look at their gear. Many MMO players wouldn't even consider asking as a possibility, let alone it being something they would be willing to do. However, inspecting a character in a way that is completely unobtrusive to thwt player is something players would do without hesitation, just to have a look.
Again, there really is no argument for not having full inspect. None at all.