I implore the devs to work on archetypes and classes before it's too late.

Jhoren wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

It can confuse people if they choose not to read, sure.

Which a majority likely won't. It's definitely on Intrepid to hammer this distinction and usage of the word 'class' home to as many people as they can, because no amount of people saying "you should have read up better on the game" will improve the backlash from people not having their expectations met. In fact, it might make it worse.

My suggestion for Intrepid would be to release a stand-alone video explaining the archetype/class system fundamentals close to release, and ask all the content creators to spread the word, in order to best manage expectations.

And this is why it is in every developers best interest (no matter the product) to stick as close to convention as is possible.

If you say your game has 64 classes, but then have to tell players that you define classes differently to what they may expect, you shouldn't have made that first claim.

Dygz

Jhoren wrote: »

Which a majority likely won't. It's definitely on Intrepid to hammer this distinction and usage of the word 'class' home to as many people as they can, because no amount of people saying "you should have read up better on the game" will improve the backlash from people not having their expectations met. In fact, it might make it worse.

My suggestion for Intrepid would be to release a stand-alone video explaining the archetype/class system fundamentals close to release, and ask all the content creators to spread the word, in order to best manage expectations.

Um. There are plenty of video clips which discuss Primary Archetypes, Secondary Archetypes and classes.
And Content Creators already spread the word.
Pretty much everyone in the Forums spread the word - including the people who hate that the definition of class in Ashes is "non-standard".

And, we can expect more of that, with greater frequency, once Alpha 2 opens.

Dygz wrote: »

Jhoren wrote: »

Which a majority likely won't. It's definitely on Intrepid to hammer this distinction and usage of the word 'class' home to as many people as they can, because no amount of people saying "you should have read up better on the game" will improve the backlash from people not having their expectations met. In fact, it might make it worse.

My suggestion for Intrepid would be to release a stand-alone video explaining the archetype/class system fundamentals close to release, and ask all the content creators to spread the word, in order to best manage expectations.

Um. There are plenty of video clips which discuss Primary Archetypes, Secondary Archetypes and classes.
And Content Creators already spread the word.
Pretty much everyone in the Forums spread the word - including the people who hate that the definition of class in Ashes is "non-standard".

And, we can expect more of that, with greater frequency, once Alpha 2 opens.

And all of this will reach about 5% of the launch day player base.

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Hailee wrote: »

And all of this will reach about 5% of the launch day player base.

That's fine, people will quickly learn in game.

Some may, others will look at the promise of 64 classes, see 8, and leave.

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Hailee wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Some may, others will look at the promise of 64 classes, see 8, and leave.

Rip @ them for not paying attention then?

Most people don't study a game before picking it up.

Nor should they have to.

The notion that they should have to is just odd - and borderline acceptance of false advertising. I mean, by your logic I should be able to advertise that the car I sell has a specific level of fuel efficiency, but then in some video that I made years before the car was released, state that I have my own definition of what efficiency means.

Or state that my product is gluten free, but that I have my own definition of what gluten is.

Great position to be arguing from you've got there.

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SirChancelot

I do enjoy how this "range of variance from augments" discussion comes up every 2-3 months.
I thought we beat it to death the last time I brought it up...

Hailee wrote: »

Most people don't study a game before picking it up.

Nor should they have to.

The notion that they should have to is just odd - and borderline acceptance of false advertising. I mean, by your logic I should be able to advertise that the car I sell has a specific level of fuel efficiency, but then in some video that I made years before the car was released, state that I have my own definition of what efficiency means.

Or state that my product is gluten free, but that I have my own definition of what gluten is.

Great position to be arguing from you've got there.

Car manufacturers actually do this all the time offering things like a twin turbo v8 diesel model or a v6 petrol model.

The customer still has to read the fine print about what model they're buying and understand what each does.

Actually, in this case, the information needs to be made readily available. Also, each term used here (efficiency, turbo, v6, diesel) is not up for debate. Yet you are arguing that the term class is up for debate.

Maybe I'm biased, I came from eve and there's a tonne of items and content and lore in that game and if you weren't researching what ship modules could do or what they were for or at least speak to people in the community about it then you'd likely be going out in a hunk of junk ship that didn't do anything you were hoping it would.

This is a totally different thing though. It's fine having depth to a game, requiring people that are in said game to learn about it.

That isn't what we are talking about.

No one is researching the in depth mechanics of modules in EVE if they are not playing EVE. If they are not playing it but are considering it, they are looking at very basic information about the game.

If a player is looking at playing Ashes, they are looking at very basic information about the game, and simply should not be expected to look up livestreams from many years earlier in order to understand that the developers have taken a 40 year old concept (at least) and decided to just redefine it to suit.

If a player sees a game advertising 64 classes, they should expect a game with 64 classes. If the developer is unable to meet this expectation, that is false advertising.

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Hailee wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

That isn't what we are talking about.

If a player is looking at playing Ashes, they are looking at very basic information about the game.

Can I direct you to the very first line of this wiki page?

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Classes

People go to a wiki to get information on a game they are playing, not to decide if they should pick a given game up or not.

You seem to be getting confused between these two concepts.

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Ludullu

This discussion is cool and all, but you know what Intrepid really have to do? Make their classes distinct enough to be considered classes in the current definition of what a "class" is.

Btw is there even a concrete definition of what a class is supposed to be in an mmorpg? There's the general definition from the wikipedia, but I'm not sure if everyone would even agree that it totally fits the mmorpg genre.

If Intrepid design their classes in such a way that a mage/tank can do some things that a mage/rogue can't - would you consider them as separate classes? They do different things and you need one to do one specific thing and you need the other to do something else. That sounds like enough of a differentiation for me. And I feel like people might be happy when they hear that they can even change their class specification if they want to. Obviously not all people, but still.

In other words, let Intrepid prove that they do in fact have 64 classes first. And if they fail at that - make them change their definitions so that people on release don't get jebaited.

Dygz

No. They don't have to do that.
There is no such thing as a concrete definition of anything. That is not how language works.

Talents wrote: »

They're working on combat. They can't work on classes before the combat is done.

That's not necessarily true. They can and should outline concepts. Nail down class basics so they know what parameters they need to hit. The specific class basics would outline what categories of augments each class will provide. If they finish combat but realize that some secondaries are too similar or are garbage, they will either push the game for a long while or say "fuck it" and give us some weak sauce.

I'm not entitled. I'm just worried. Especially when this industry tends to throw up duds when the development cycle is overly long.

Noaani wrote: »

I'm not overly sure people are being realistic with their expectations here.

I don't expect to see any solid information on classes in their finished form until the game is heading in to beta - potentially even in to public beta.

Releasing class information is a solid hype move. You want to build hype leading up to the release of the game - meaning you want to release class information leading up to the release of the game.

It's more about curiosity, honestly. I dont want solid info, but more examples to see what type of direction they are headed in.

NiKr wrote: »

Atama wrote: »

But they aren't classes. They've been very clear to temper expectations; augments can change the way you do things, but not what you can do.

But that's my point though. I can't give an example from other games, and maybe even other games have better "classes", but in L2 there were 5 mage classes.

It's been awhile, but EQ2 had a similar archetype -> class system. For example, you would start off as a Fighter, then refine that to Crusader, Bruiser, or Warrior. Then those would break down into 2 more subclasses each like the Crusader could go Paladin or Death Knight. They actually changed functionality while using similar attacks by focusing on different aspects of their core Fighter archetype. It was pretty dope.

bloodprophet

Curious,. What makes you think they aren't working on the other archetypes?
We have only seen a small portion of anything so far. The world for example. We have seen a tiny portion and I am assuming they are working on the rest. Different teams doing different things.
They will show us when they are ready to show us. They have already made this mistake once or twice. Showed something prefaced it with this is a work in progress and will get better and people failed to listen and misunderstood and responded with bad "feedback". Then when pointed out by the community here we get called white knights and other nonsense.