Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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.
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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.
Comments
Yes because the only explanation is a person must be lying. No one can ever forget things or be mistaken.
The reason I put Arena and instanced PvP separate is because they are separate. By instanced PvP I mean WoW battlegrounds and I keep forgetting that this game has Arenas since it's so insanely dumb due to how the balancing works. Which will make the Arenas pointless.
And they would be right because gear enhancement is not gear progression. Gear progression is getting new pieces of gear not enhancing gear. You could have either gear progression or character progression through PvP.
Character progression would be something like a talent tree, which allowed you to customize your character in a way which you like. I would say in a PvP focused game a talent tree that augments your character the way you want would be the better way to go because it divorces any PvP stats from gear and would allow you to gear the way you want.
Class vs Sub-class is pretty strait forward, think of the difference between a Rogue and a Fighter, they are similar but go about things very differently. In theory you could do 25 separate distinct and unique classes which had very little overlap and a unique playstyle. Past that your going to be in dire straits of trying to make things feel unique. That is assuming you have a full plate of abilities, not being limited to 20 abilities.
EverQuest is a good example of this. The Wizard, Enchanter, Necromancer, and Magician are all cloth wearing intelligence based caster classes. But they all play very differently. Even though the description sounds like they are all basically the same on paper.
Except its your gap closer which means your going to use it when you need to close a gap, unless you think adding half a second wait time so you can dodge an ability, which you will almost never do because being on top of the target will be more important then trying to dodge one ability.
What do you mean by Targeting changes and combo changes. As for DoTs if your character is capable of kiting then there will be no change since you will probably already be kiting, and if your character cant kite then you will stand there and fight ultimately not changing the way you fight.
Changing a damage to a Heal will have the same affect as above, your overarching playstyle will not change, if the Mage suddenly got a heal would people stand there and face tank things or would they kite things like they do now and use the heal if they need it? If the Warrior got a dedicated heal would they suddenly start kiting things or would they stick with their rotation they have and use the heal if needed?
Adding a resource would probably be the best way to create an actual unique class type experience.
No it isn't, you just want it to be "waaaaay higher" so your saying anything you can to maintain the view that you hold of this game.
As for the classes discussion I'm not a dev and probably underestimate the process to impliment and balance things. I think it is underestimating game designer's that 64 distinct classes can't be made. I do hope Intrepid does right by it but we are at a wait and see for a lot of things right now.
As far as I know XP debt is turned off during PvP events.
It's a conceptual limit not a programming limit. I have no doubt that with sufficient time the team could make 64 distinct classes. The problem occurs when you have things like every class can wear all armor, every class can use every weapon, every class can...When you allow every class to do things it removes uniqueness from the class. If they implemented restrictions on classes like armor weapons and things of that sort you could have 64 classes maybe. Again a conceptual limit.
Could not agree more. I personally think Ashes could be very casually friendly even with the pillars this game wants to have, as long as Steven is willing to compromise on a few key design decisions.
I mean, there are a lot of different things they could add that are based only on the L1-25 skills we've seen so far. Tank Secondaries could have increased Threat, Damage mitigation, Trips/Knockbacks, Health Regen, etc. Bard Secondaries could have Melodies, Mana sustain, Healing, CC, etc. Ranger Secondaries could add additional ranged attacks, Roots/Snares, Armaments, Movement benefits, Camoflage, etc.
There's a lot that can be done here.
I'm not exactly wanting to defend Ashes, Intrepid or Steven right now, but I will step in when factually incorrect comments are made.
The above is factually incorrect.
In terms of "think about ways they can change an ability" in relation to augments, Stevens own comment on this is thus; Augments can affect a multitude of things and can (in some cases) create entirely new skills.
Now, if you want to make the argument that they aren't going to follow through with this, then have at it. Just be sure and make it clear that your argument is that they will not do what they have said they have done, not that they can't do what another poster has correctly said Intrepid have stated the plan to be.
However, the real issue with augments as they stand right now is that Intrepid have given us a while load of conflicting information. They have said that all skills will have augments, they have said that all active skills will have augments, and they have said that a select subset of active skills will have augments. They have said skills can only have one augment, but they have also talked about an entire catagory of augments that are designed to be used as secondary augments to skills. They have said they are designing augments to be able to be used on many skills, expect they are also designing them for specific skills.
Essentially, none of us have any idea at all what will happen with augments. Anyone that says they know is a liar.
What we do know though, is what is possible, and @lamina5432 was correct in their post in that regard - we have indeed been told augments will be highly varied.
We are also able to talk about what we think will happen with augments, in an opinion based discussion. With that in mind, Ludullu is correct when he says that the game has been becoming more and more simplified lately, so it is reasonable to assume the same will happen with augments, even if we have been told differently.
How would any of those things change the core gameplay of how another class plays the game?
Also, increased threat would be a waste of time since Tanks are the only class that have the mitigation tools to be a tank.
I think I'm seeing the problem.
@Ludullu @daveywavey and @Noaani You guys are assuming that they are going to code whole new abilities into the game. Where as I think they are going to simply reskin abilities to give them a different "feel".
Now I will assume that you guys are correct. In which case the game would have close to 8960 unique abilities, with completely separate code. In which case they could have 64 classes at launch each with 140 abilities that are unique. which is fucking more then enough, on top of that I get to pick the class I want at the start of the game rather then leveling for 3 weeks in a class I may not be all that interested in Just so I can play the class I actually want to play.
https:/ashesofcreation.wiki/Augments:/
Take me for example a Shaman and a Cleric are two very different classes. But for me to play a Shaman I need to Level a Cleric 25 levels, and then I can START to change my abilities so that I actually play the class I want to play.
As a point of reference WoW had about 400 abilities on launch.
Sorry if i think that makes zero sense on an eyewatering amount of levels.
What's wrong with having over 9000 different abilities in an MMORPG? Not really sure how it's strange?
Also they can (and probably should) use Augments to create tradeoffs between two forms of a skill that should both be part of the same class fantasy but shouldn't be allowed on the same character at the same time.
There is nothing wrong with having that many abilities.
There is something wrong with having those abilities so spread out that rather then having unique classes you have sub classes that kind of feel like shit.