concerns about party composition and progression

Hello all (: i have some concerns about party composition and progression, that hopefully, will be adressed by the devs.

Seeing how this game is pretty much Lineage 2 in its majority, i have a big concern regarding making parties.

in l2, being buffed was basically mandatory. even going out town to kill a weak monster was a painful experience if you didnt have buffs. in fact, a support character with buffs > a dps with no buffs.

seeing as the bard is the buffer of AOC, i am concerned that it will be absolutely mandatory to have a bard in every party to do any kind of activity. im ok with needing 1 for raids or group activities, but if a solo player wants to go out and farm some mobs, it will be too painful to do so without buffs. or if he wants to do some open world pvp, he will lose to a buffed player, even if the other player has lesser gear or skills. also, people who can dual box or own multiple computers, can simply have extra accounts with buffers and just go out fully doped and basically be a 1 man party. in l2 people had to go out in a full party, with extra boxed buffers and rechargers (and a scavenger to gather mats, which probs wont be an issue here), just to do simple things and farm some mobs, otherwise, you would be wasting your time and money.

another concern is party composition. for instance, in l2 you had a physical attack buff, a magic attack buff, physical crit chance buff, physical crit damage buff, magic crit chance buff, defense, health, etc. so you couldnt really do a lot of mix and matching in parties (a mage wants magic damage buffs and casting speed, while a warrior or a dagger wants attack speed and physical crit), there were some exceptions of course, regarding some strategies, but it wasnt the norm. im concerned that 1 single bard cant provide all the buffs necessary for the party and he will have to change his 2nd class or we will need multiple bards per party. for example, a bard with an archer sub will provide a crit chance buff, a bard with a rogue sub will provide a crit damage buff, a bard with a mage sub will provide magic damage buffs, a bard with a tank sub will provide a defense buff, etc etc. so bards will have to be constantly going to town and change their 2nd class every time they are doing a dungeon with pubs. also, this may require a party to have multiple bards just to have basic buffs. this is a concern since most people play dps classes, so now u not only have to find the least played class in the game, but u have to find 2 or 3. if you play in a CP, this might not be a big issue, but most mmorpg players outside l2 dont organize themselves in CP's. this issue got mitigated eventually in the GOD patch where classes were merged into archetypes (basically the same archetypes we have in AOC) so now 1 bard could provide all the buffs a party needed, for the most part, excluding racial unique skills.

AOC party size is 8 and to make an effective party in this system you need support, tank and dps. so we have 1 slot for the healer, 1 slot for the tank and that leaves us with 6 slots. 1 will be occupied by the bard. also, apparently, the summoner can act as either support, tank or dps depending on the summon they have up, so we might even need a summoner per party too, depending on what buffs they have to contribute and i believe they are listed as supports in the wiki. theres also the possibility of having to add an extra bard, maybe with a different 2nd class, to have access to all the buffs you need, and on top of that, depending on the content you are doing, you might even need an extra healer. you will quite possible want 2 healers per party in a pvp party (which will probably be the norm since you will be doing a lot of open world farming and that means pvping other players for a farming spot). so now we are looking at 4-5 non DPS classes with 3-4 DPS classes per party, which makes it way more difficult to create an effective party, since most people play dps and not tanks/support. on top of that, i read somewhere on the wiki i think, that during a siege, you could summon golems or somethign to help u out and they would be more powerful depending on how many of the same classes you had so this makes it so that people need different classes in a party depending on the activity they are doing and cant really play in a cp very well or mix dps classes, unless there is an universal party composition that works for everything.

i guess we wont know for sure until alpha2, but id appreciate if a dev could answer these concerns regarding buffs, the bard class and party composition.

to summarize:

1- will AOC be as buff dependant as L2?

2- can 1 bard provide the party with all the needed buffs without having to switch their 2nd class depending on the party's dps? will we be able to mix different dps classes without having to worry about buffs?

3- how many non dps classes will we need per party? can one buffer and 1 healer take care of 6 people?

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Comments

AidanKD

I actually remember commenting recently on a post about party composition maybe you were reading that! And I guess I wouldn't want the bard to feel as "necessary" as a tank or cleric primary may feel.

I guess the last mandatories are required the better for group setup.

mcstackerson

The goal is to have 1 of each class in a party.

We haven't even seen bard skills so we can't really answer your questions.

oggie88

you mean there's actually going to be content requiring parties?

Depraved

AidanKD wrote: »

I actually remember commenting recently on a post about party composition maybe you were reading that! And I guess I wouldn't want the bard to feel as "necessary" as a tank or cleric primary may feel.

I guess the last mandatories are required the better for group setup.

oh sorry, havent really read it, i just been thinking about this for a while and hoping it isnt like L2, even tho i really enjoyed playing l2 back in the day.

oggie88 wrote: »

you mean there's actually going to be content requiring parties?

imagine not reading the post and commenting

- master oogway -

Azraya

I prefer being able to pick a class and build it my own way and still be useful in a party.
I want variation in peoples builds. I dont want to see the same party comp and same builds over and over.

Depraved

Azraya wrote: »

I prefer being able to pick a class and build it my own way and still be useful in a party.
I want variation in peoples builds. I dont want to see the same party comp and same builds over and over.

you will see the same builds over and over though, because there is a limited number of builds you can play, and some will be better than others. you are also missing the point of my post >: i wasnt talking about build variety. my post is probably impossible to understand for people who havent played L2, now that i think about it, since other mmorpg arent like that, where you NEED buffs to do anything, even fighting the weakest enemy. you cant solo farm (unless ur a buffer, in which case u level faster than a dps with no buffs). and a party needs more supports than a dps to be ffective, which is weird since most people play dps over supports.

tautau

Don't forget that many players will have support class alts which may stand aside from the main party and buff as needed.
For solo play, if you have a 2nd account you can use come characters from that to buff the soloing main.

Depraved

tautau wrote: »

Don't forget that many players will have support class alts which may stand aside from the main party and buff as needed.
For solo play, if you have a 2nd account you can use come characters from that to buff the soloing main.

yeah but thats exactly my concern. i mean, im most likely going to play a support. only dps classes i like playing are melee assassins and depending on the game, either tanks mages or warriors. i find archers quite boring lol.

but not being able to progress without having to pay an extra 15 bucks a month is kind of a bummer, i mean we arent in 2004 anymore. and i was one of those people who had multiple accounts in L2 and i hated having to open more than one client T_T

so u cant really truly solo. im okay with hard content being for parties, but at least i wanna be able to get there either in a party or soloing.

Azraya

Depraved wrote: »

tautau wrote: »

Don't forget that many players will have support class alts which may stand aside from the main party and buff as needed.
For solo play, if you have a 2nd account you can use come characters from that to buff the soloing main.

yeah but thats exactly my concern. i mean, im most likely going to play a support. only dps classes i like playing are melee assassins and depending on the game, either tanks mages or warriors. i find archers quite boring lol.

but not being able to progress without having to pay an extra 15 bucks a month is kind of a bummer, i mean we arent in 2004 anymore. and i was one of those people who had multiple accounts in L2 and i hated having to open more than one client T_T

so u cant really truly solo. im okay with hard content being for parties, but at least i wanna be able to get there either in a party or soloing.

Question for you. The game will be too hard to progress the story solo? I'm fine with needing a party for bosses and expect that, tbh.

Ludullu

Yeah, I hope it doesn't devolve into "multiple windows: the game". I love L2 with all my heart, but running multiple instances of the game just so I can play it solo while I wait for my CP members to get online was a damn pain.

Now, there's the argument of "you'll only need to farm in a party and you'll have all the other non-combat shit to do solo" which is fairly viable here, because in L2 you could only really farm mobs, while in Ashes you'll have a very wide variety of things to do. But for all the people who like grinding mobs, farming some stuff solo would definitely be some good content.

But as Stacker said, we won't know this until Alpha2 (and most likely its later stages) and I doubt the devs would answer this kind of question at this point in time.

Depraved

Azraya wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

tautau wrote: »

Don't forget that many players will have support class alts which may stand aside from the main party and buff as needed.
For solo play, if you have a 2nd account you can use come characters from that to buff the soloing main.

yeah but thats exactly my concern. i mean, im most likely going to play a support. only dps classes i like playing are melee assassins and depending on the game, either tanks mages or warriors. i find archers quite boring lol.

but not being able to progress without having to pay an extra 15 bucks a month is kind of a bummer, i mean we arent in 2004 anymore. and i was one of those people who had multiple accounts in L2 and i hated having to open more than one client T_T

so u cant really truly solo. im okay with hard content being for parties, but at least i wanna be able to get there either in a party or soloing.

Question for you. The game will be too hard to progress the story solo? I'm fine with needing a party for bosses and expect that, tbh.

you are still not getting it. in most games, buffs are an extra. in L2, buffs are basically your gear. imagine killing mobs naked in another game, thats basically l2 with no buffs. you un-progress, and this game is a copy of l2 as its core.

also, think about this. in other games u have a party of 5. 1 healer, 1 tank 3 dps, thats ok, most people play dps over tanks or supports so a 1: 3 is fine. in l2, per party of 9, you need 5 supports, and some parties would even add a 6th (some mage parties) that means only 3-4 dps per party. most people play dps, not support, so u need more of the classes that are in low supply, and on top of that, u might need extra buffers outside the party.

also, theres no solo content and party content in L2, there is only party content. period. soloing a mob in l2, and i mean really soloing as a dps, not dual boxing a buffer means u need 10 hits to kill a monster ur level? and thats a 1x hp mob, not even 2x hp, 3x hp etc...with buffs u need 1-3 hits? no buffs = u struggle with a monster ur level, with buffs u obliterate mobs 8 levels ahead of u. see the difference. also u take more damage, cant heal (potions arent the same as other games) attack slower, ur shit gets interrupted, u die and dont get ressed by a high lvl cleric, u just lost a week of solo farming.

im not complaining abut the difficulty of the game, all i wanna know is, and this possibly can only be answered by a dev, will AOC be as buff dependant as L2? and will we need multiple of the same buffer class or can one bard buff the entire party with everything they need without the need of having 2-3 bards in one party or maybe 2 bards and a summoner, like you need a bladedancer and a swordsinger in L2, which are basically the same class (bard) but the buffs are split between the 2. one mostly gives u offensive buffs and the other one mostly gives u defensive buffs.

edit: even bots cant solo in L2, hows that?

Azraya

Depraved wrote: »

Azraya wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

tautau wrote: »

Don't forget that many players will have support class alts which may stand aside from the main party and buff as needed.
For solo play, if you have a 2nd account you can use come characters from that to buff the soloing main.

yeah but thats exactly my concern. i mean, im most likely going to play a support. only dps classes i like playing are melee assassins and depending on the game, either tanks mages or warriors. i find archers quite boring lol.

but not being able to progress without having to pay an extra 15 bucks a month is kind of a bummer, i mean we arent in 2004 anymore. and i was one of those people who had multiple accounts in L2 and i hated having to open more than one client T_T

so u cant really truly solo. im okay with hard content being for parties, but at least i wanna be able to get there either in a party or soloing.

Question for you. The game will be too hard to progress the story solo? I'm fine with needing a party for bosses and expect that, tbh.

you are still not getting it. in most games, buffs are an extra. in L2, buffs are basically your gear. imagine killing mobs naked in another game, thats basically l2 with no buffs. you un-progress, and this game is a copy of l2 as its core.

also, think about this. in other games u have a party of 5. 1 healer, 1 tank 3 dps, thats ok, most people play dps over tanks or supports so a 1: 3 is fine. in l2, per party of 9, you need 5 supports, and some parties would even add a 6th (some mage parties) that means only 3-4 dps per party. most people play dps, not support, so u need more of the classes that are in low supply, and on top of that, u might need extra buffers outside the party.

also, theres no solo content and party content in L2, there is only party content. period. soloing a mob in l2, and i mean really soloing as a dps, not dual boxing a buffer means u need 10 hits to kill a monster ur level? and thats a 1x hp mob, not even 2x hp, 3x hp etc...with buffs u need 1-3 hits? no buffs = u struggle with a monster ur level, with buffs u obliterate mobs 8 levels ahead of u. see the difference. also u take more damage, cant heal (potions arent the same as other games) attack slower, ur shit gets interrupted, u die and dont get ressed by a high lvl cleric, u just lost a week of solo farming.

im not complaining abut the difficulty of the game, all i wanna know is, and this possibly can only be answered by a dev, will AOC be as buff dependant as L2? and will we need multiple of the same buffer class or can one bard buff the entire party with everything they need without the need of having 2-3 bards in one party or maybe 2 bards and a summoner, like you need a bladedancer and a swordsinger in L2, which are basically the same class (bard) but the buffs are split between the 2. one mostly gives u offensive buffs and the other one mostly gives u defensive buffs.

edit: even bots cant solo in L2, hows that?

I get what you mean now. I never played L2 so thanks for explaining it to me. I certainly hope im not forced to have all kinds of buffs just to be viable.

Depraved

yeah. it was fun back then, but not anymore

JamesSunderland

Q: Will AOC be as buff dependant as L2?
As a fellow Lineage 2 player i can sympatize with your feeling of buff dependency from Lineage 2, as buffs in L2 were insanely strong % stacking multipliers to the point a way less geared character could trample a quite geared character without buffs or being able to fight monster quite above your level.

Even tho Lineage 2 is one of the main inspirations to Steven for Ashes, Archeage is also of the main inspirations and its buff dependency was FAR LESS important/impactful than Lineage 2 and you could do a lot by yourself as you could basically go to max level without ever needing to party, i don't think Ashes will have the level of dependency on buffs that Lineage 2 had to the point of "even going out town to kill a weak monster was a painful experience if you didnt have buffs".

Short answer, most likely not.

On top of all this buff dependency, optimal party compositions required 3 support buffers, 2 being mandadory(Sword Singer and Bladedancer) and the 3° being up for choise depending on the composition type[mage setup(Overlord or WarCryer) or archer/warrior setup(Warcryer or Prophet)]

As for your alt buffer concern,
It is important to take this Steven Statement in consideration:
Very similar in a way to buffing up a party, but you are not going to see him as a "buff bot" that you might have experienced in previous games, where they are only good for their buffs and then you kick them out of party and they sit in a corner and come back in 30 minutes. Those buffs are going to be related to how they perform.[4] – Steven Sharif
and
Let's say the Bard is using a weapon, has a sword out and... does some gladiatorial looking performance attack and it looks so great. It inspires his friends around him to increase their multiplier on critical damage, and now they deal additional damage against targets for the next 10 seconds or 8 seconds. So, you're going to need to be active. You're going to worry about your position, the relation of the position of your party members to you in order to accentuate really what you offer the party.[4] – Steven Sharif
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Bard

Clearly aimed at Lineage 2 long duration + macros buffs style which made buffing alts very viable and kinda encouraged, in Archeage had only a single buffer(Songcraft skill tree) the buffs duration was only 15 Seconds! but here is the catch you could put your alt on the back of your Main's mount and play the songs automatically, making buffing alts also possible in Archeage.

In the second quote Steven puts emphasis on the necessity of the Bard to be active going for short durations like Archeage but i will expect it to be without the automatic setting Archeage has.

As for your second and third question those are definitely up for speculation,
for the second i expect all bards regardless of secundary archtype to have an universal buffs toolkit necessary for any setup and the secundary archtypes only pushing certain types of buffs a bit further to match its party aspect/style, like a Bard/Mage, pushing an only mages dps setup to its maximum potential.

As for your third , Ashes ideal as trinity system is Tank/Healer/Dps, but considering how meaningful bard will be i expect most setups to be Tank/Healer/Bard + 5 Dps and therefore expect 1 tank 1 healer and 1 bard to be enough to take care of 5 dps players.

Waryasei

Honestly I actually hope that the buffers are almost like in L2, i never found a game where having a buffer would be benefiting so much as to befriend someone and stay with him, which is sad, I know the multi box problems exists unfortunately but I hope ashes can fix this by detecting the booted clients on the pc(wont fix with multiple PC's though

) or maybe even getting to banning people for this. I want to see long duration buffs, I want to see a trade around this, selling buffs or being hired as a buffer for content. I also hope that the augments for bard will actually specialize the the bard for different roles, like in L2 1 has better mage buffs while the other has better physical buffs (dark elf had empower for mages for example if you remember in l2 while human prophet had was the ultimate buffer for fighters).
I want to play bard but I want to feel like I am doing something significant with this class that it matters as much as the others, not a class that you might take cuz meh you want to feel stronger today, but because you need it often.
Like I said I want it ALMOST like in L2, I want to see the buffs toned down just a little, and give them some dps, balance this so that you don't just follow others, you do something beside buffing.
Also I am not a big fan of 5 second buffs I hope we have actual buffs like in L2 and do some small dps on the side instead of recasting the same buffs on the party non stop. Hope people come with different ideas that the devs can look and take inspiration to create/update the current design if they feel it is worth it.

PenguinPaladin

Well..... buffs in general, instead of focusing on the bard class..... you got food buffs. Tavern buffs. I imagine some potions will cause buffs. Guild skills may give buffs. Furniture/trophy buffs.... im going to say buffs are going to be a big part of ashes.... so maybe going out alone, you stop by the inn and have a meal. And polish the trophy in your apartment. And maybe then the bard buffs are just another drop in the bucket

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