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.
Console Support / Series X + PS5
Theist
Member, Alpha Two
Intrepid please consider bringing Ashes of Creation to all major platforms when your team decides that the game is in a good enough spot for launch.
Console MMOs are practically non-existent; more-so with New World’s inevitable closure. This is the perfect market to release your game into, as players are desperate for something new, and people like me would be okay with buying Ashes of Creation three separate times just to play their account across every system they own.
Console MMOs are practically non-existent; more-so with New World’s inevitable closure. This is the perfect market to release your game into, as players are desperate for something new, and people like me would be okay with buying Ashes of Creation three separate times just to play their account across every system they own.
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Comments
Sometimes plans change, and if more people get their hands on the game, that is a net win.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Games usually have to make compromises for console. Not always, but usually.
What I’ve found, is that when you have a surplus of abilities with cooldowns, you end up spending more time watching cooldowns than actually looking up at your screen and engaging with combat actively.
I haven't found that at all.
What I find is that when you have many abilities with cooldowns, you end up gaining a second sense of sorts for timing.
I know several people, myself included, who refuse to play World of Warcraft because of this specific reason.
There’s a reason why modern MMOs have moved away from 30 abilities, and even WoW has learned this lesson by beginning to simplify its combat with Midnight. It’s only a matter of time until the last MMO with this archaic style of combat abandons it.
While there are some people that prefer a more simple form of combat, there are also many people that prefer a more complex form of combat.
The reason developers have opted for more simple combat in recent years has nothing to do with what players do or do not want, it has to do with economics - and more complex combat system costs many times more to develop, but exponentially may ore to maintain in the long term.
Shareholders want a return on investment in a few years, not over 10 years. Making a simple game that keeps people interested for a few months, but that is sold over multiple platforms is indeed the best path to sort term investment - but is not how you create a lasting MMORPG.
If you look at the games that have survived from 20 years ago, it is the ones with the more complex combat systems (and Runescape, which has its own form of complexity). All of the more simple games have long since closed down - and MMO's of recent years have zero chance of lasting the 20+ years due to their inherent simple design.
Also want to double down on the fact that simple does not equate to worse, having less abilities, but more meaningful ones, puts your attention to the screen. People have remedied this with Add-Ons over the years… now Midnight is removing gameplay reading Add-Ons and people are losing it. This shows a direct need for raid mechanic notifications and cooldown timers because of how difficult the majority of players find balancing 40 different timers.
While everyone wants to believe they are a part of the 1%, a game made for the actual 1% will only be played by the 1%, and I guarantee neither you nor I, or anyone viewing this are a part of that percentage.
More simple, impactful combat is much more approachable, and can still have the same skill curves… the less time you spend juggling useless buffs and debuffs, the more time you have to attack, to dodge, to block, and to vary up your attacks.
Now I don’t think you’re wrong in your take, I just believe we are looking at this problem from two different lenses. I hope you understand my perspective, as someone who wants Ashes of Creation to succeed equally if not more than it will if it heads to Steam in December like this.
People don't play Runescape for the combat.
People do play WoW for the combat.
This is the difference.
And I want to point out how out of place this comment is.
A well made simple combat system would be better than a poorly made complex one. This should go without saying.
However, Intrepid have a team of professional MMORPG developers on staff, most of whom are used to developing a combat system with 25+ abilities (the very combat system I talked about above). The assumption should be that if they implement either simple or complex, it will be a good example of that type.
So, we should be looking at an equal quality simple or complex combat system, and in that situation, complex will literally always be better.
Imagin a mage build with 5 abilities. You have a spam ability (because you need one), you have an AoE, you have a CC, this leaves you with 2 other abilities. You're in combat against a solo mob you don't need to CC, you use one of those abilities and it goes on cooldown. Your only other option now it to use the other ability.
That is not compelling gameplay.
Or you could look at a game with 20+ abilities. The first difference is there is no spam ability, because you don't need one. You have 4 AoE's, you have 2 abilities that add proc damage to your spells, you have an AoE slow, you have 2 roots, you have a mezz that also mezzes you, you have a short duration pet, you have a debuff for your damage type, you have 3 DoT's, you have 5 single target abilities and a massive spell that does damage in a cone shaped area in front of you.
Now you have options, my friend. You can kill 4 mobs in a row without using the same spell twice.
This kind of combat just *IS* better. It's ok if you can't keep up with it all, but that is a you issue, not an issue with the combat.
Pretty sure this is just preference, I really doubt we're going to see any large scale abandonment of MMORPGs with high-ish ability number counts.
Those who refuse to play them obviously just won't play them. Same as all those people who refuse to play MMOs with only 5-7 abilities.
Maybe there will someday be a 'gold standard' for games where the range of 'how many abilities a character has' is on a huge 'sliding scale' from 8 to 24 based on the player preference, and that game will make 'everyone' happy, but that doesn't have anything to do with consoles anyway.
lol, "people with the timers in their heads are mages and people without them are usually fighters" is the joke, I believe.
No I absolutely agree, I was just being respectful to @Noaani’s argument.
I believe the original stance was, if Ashes came to console, there would likely need to be sacrifices, and the most likely, would be ability options.
Idk about 5 or 6 abilities, but I’ve found several MMOs that have 12 buttons, and work great. Even 24 is manageable on controller with the right layout.
With the new Steam Machine, and Ashes now coming to Steam, I plan on buying that console and Ashes for it. Now the problem is finding a way to make the game function on controller. I’ll make a new thread about that shortly.
I'm all for addingg controller support for PC.
To me, the difference is in it being an option. If Intrepid sell you Ashes on PC and you opt to use a controller, even with them supporting it, any issues you have with it are on you as you have other options.
If they sell it to you on a console, any issues you have with the game functioning with a controller are on Intrepid, as they sold it to you in a state where you don't have decent options.
I can actually not imagining ANY Situation in which a "Console" could ever hope to sufficiently render THAT VideoGame World, Graphics, Lighting - Effects and all.
It would be even more ridiculous as when i saw the sad, saaad Skyrim-Footages of the Console long back at the end of 2011.
That was not even a Comparison. That was just bad Footage of Eye-hurting Degrees against a beautiful, almost miraculously wonderful looking Experience on Computer.
But this ?
This is like trying to let Minecraft look as good as Enshrouded. It's just impossible.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
I am in the guildless Guild so to say, lol. But i won't give up. I will find my fitting Guild "one Day".
Everything is impossible, until it becomes so.
From what I’ve experienced on my high end rig is that the game struggles even against that at times.
Perhaps after performance problems are smoothed out, the game could be playable on a modern console, I know it will function on the Steam Machine if it’s coming to Steam.
Should be an interesting experience. 😅