Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Funny enough, WoW has gone the other way. You used to have a lot of freedom in how you built your character, having 3 or 4 talent trees per class that you could pick from to put together a unique build.
Now you pick a specialization, and then you have to pick 1 of 3 talent options per tier as you level in that specialization. They absolutely have a rigid class system with very little freedom.
I think Blizzard figured that out and said, screw it, just pick a specialization and forget the cookie-cutter, we'll just hand you a cookie.
(Of course not everyone agreed with that and many bemoan the changes, hence WoW Classic.)
So if a hybrid (starts off with basic tanking, dps and healing abilities) specializes into dps, most of his performance should come from dps, while a minor part of his performance should come from his undeveloped (still basic) healing/tanking/buffing abilities.
If hybrids are made to be jacks of all trades, 5/10 in all, they will fail the same way they failed in wow classic until wow TBC did what I just said.
Then the dev has failed to crate multiple viable paths or reasons to take those paths.
I wouldn't be that harsh on the devs. Some paths become more trodden because they, for no particular reason, were popular early on and the player base found workarounds that would not have been necessary if the other paths had also flourished. Not saying the reasons were completely random, but it could simply be due to a class being picked for its aesthetic, common when there are race/class restrictions, or how loaded with pop culture it's name is. You say "paladin" and many people turn their head and put a hand up. Get many people picking a certain class and it can influence how the game is played. At some point, it can become the default way to approach encounters and, through laziness for adaptability or shortage of available alternatives (from player choices), only a few paths are left.
Does anyone remember the vanilla warrior which everyone believed to be underpowered and everyone was asking for buffs, until some guy made a video proving the warriors are in fact overpowered and soon after nerfs were thrown?
Yeah, the dev community interraction is a big part of the equation.
No doubts about it.
Sometimes it will be the community's fault, despite good design, indeed.
However, such cases will be less common.
Well yeah its the devs job to stimulate, to give the players good challenges and the tools to solve, to overcome those challenges.
And sometimes, there just isn't any reason to have a meta.
PvP is an example.
Give a dps class, for example, a build that gives it bursty damage but trash sustained damage, one which gives it great sustain but trash burst, one where he does decent burst decent sustain but now supresses healing taken or silences with auto-attacks.
Theres a lot of potential with talent trees always and if you put enough thinking into them they can become pretty fun.
I'm 100% one of those guys.
Saw ''templar'' and was sold the next moment.
Fact is tho, when they put such big names (templar, paladin, necromancer, warlock, shaman, beastmaster, etc) on the table, they better walk the walk in terms of development and deliver something actually fitting of the name.
The real problem will be, in my opinion, picking their class based on name and finding out it doesn't fit the gameplay role they would like.
Thats why I believe character customization (talents, gear, node and organization/religion affiliation, tattoes, etc) should count for more than base class choice.
Does anyone remember the vanilla warrior which everyone believed to be underpowered and everyone was asking for buffs, until some guy made a video proving the warriors are in fact overpowered and soon after nerfs were thrown?
Yeah, the dev community interraction is a big part of the equation.
No doubts about it.
Sometimes it will be the community's fault, despite good design, indeed.
However, such cases will be less common.
Well yeah its the devs job to stimulate, to give the players good challenges and the tools to solve, to overcome those challenges.
And sometimes, there just isn't any reason to have a meta.
PvP is an example.
Give a dps class, for example, a build that gives it bursty damage but trash sustained damage, one which gives it great sustain but trash burst, one where he does decent burst decent sustain but now supresses healing taken or silences with auto-attacks.
Theres a lot of potential with talent trees always and if you put enough thinking into them they can become pretty fun.
I'm 100% one of those guys.
Saw ''templar'' and was sold the next moment.
Fact is tho, when they put such big names (templar, paladin, necromancer, warlock, shaman, beastmaster, etc) on the table, they better walk the walk in terms of development and deliver something actually fitting of the name.
The real problem will be, in my opinion, picking their class based on name and finding out it doesn't fit the gameplay role/theme role they would expect.
The templars for example were dps priests in real life. They didn't try to save your soul, they lead an epic charge to crush your sould in battle.
Things don't look very rosey for the AoC templar meanwhile. I really hope it won't be a classic retribution paladin v2.0.
Thats why I believe character customization (talents, gear, node and organization/religion affiliation, tattoes, etc) should count for more than base class choice.
I think that's something we all need to remember. As we talk about classes and roles and builds and question the utility of them, it seems like the discussions always revolve around how useful they would be in a group doing PvE. For example, it's asked why someone would ever roll a Tank who isn't a Tank/Tank if that is objectively the best kind of tank in the game. But we seem to skip over the PvP side of the game which is important. Maybe a Bard/Tank is going to have trouble fitting into a group, but that might be an unstoppable combo in PvP. (Just a random example based on nothing.)
Maybe hybrids will struggle to succeed in a PvE raid but are kings of PvP. We really can't know at this point.
My core issue with this, as a player, is that you will invest thousands of hours into a single character and will be more-or-less at the whim of the current meta and balance patch. If the game is properly balanced to some sort of completely unobtainable ideal (NOTE, I'M NOT ASKING FOR THIS.), then you could form a group of just players playing together. You don't need 2 tank 2 healer 4 dps, just 8 players.
In the trinity system, we know we need tanks, healers, and dps, so we know that there's going to be a meta requirement built on top of that. Is the ratio of tanks, healers, and dps going to be the same for all forms of content? As in, say that the standard 8-man is 2 tank 2 healer, 2 melee 2 ranged. Is the standard 16 man 4 tank 4 healer 4 melee 4 ranged? Or do you drop a tank for a ranged? Is the standard 40 man 10 tank 10 healer 10 melee 10 ranged, or is it closer to 5 tank 8 healer 12 melee 15 ranged?
In this situation, we need 1/4 of the players to be tanks for small group content, and 1/8 of the players to be tanks for raids. This leads to situations where half of the small group tanks don't have raid slots when they want to start raiding (if they want to start raiding). This, likely, means they won't get leveled in the first place, leading to a huge shortage of tanks for small group content.
In the context of PvP, if you've geared, leveled, and practiced a class that used to be in-meta (like your bard/tank example), but then a balance patch hits and it becomes off-meta, what happens? You potentially get benched from your roster because your effectiveness is directly tied to your character power, not your player skill.
I don't think it makes much sense to be okay with designs that relegate subclasses to "this is the PVP focused spec" or "this is the pve spec" unless it's trivial to switch between them.
Currently in WoW I can swap specializations by opening a menu and clicking a button. Boom, I'm a new spec. It won't be that easy for certain.
In Lord of the Rings Online, if I wanted to swap to a different specialization I would go talk to a particular NPC and pay a sum of money. I remember it being a large enough sum of money that it was always a bit painful, but generally I did this to get into a raid or some other activity which had a lot of rewards involved so it was worth it. I mostly played a Guardian which was a tank class, and most of the time I ran around in a DPS spec so that questing wasn't a chore, but I would swap to my tank spec when doing activities with my guild because that's what they needed. The fact that I needed to talk to an NPC meant I couldn't do it anytime, anywhere; I had to at least travel to a particular place to do it and abandon whatever I was doing at the time. And the money cost meant I didn't do it casually; I had to have a good reason to swap or it was a huge waste.
If they do it like LotRO did, it would be okay if one particular build worked better for some activities, and another worked better for others. I didn't feel left out in that game, or pigeonholed into a particular role all the time. Ashes might be the same. We'll have to see. They haven't even hinted at how swapping your secondary class will be accomplished, just that you'll be able to do it but it won't be able to be done "on the fly". That leaves a lot of possibilities open.
Plenty of time to make sure we like the primary role of our archetype. Since it will be possible to change the second archetype, even if not easily, it means some classes may be considered mostly leveling classes, but once we've reach max level another may be more interesting depending on what you want to spend the rest of the time. Lots of PvP? PvE? Small groups content? Raid content? And even in the leveling part, I'm sure some people will write guides on how to level x archetype the fastest/easiest, at what level to do what type of content, what's the best secondary to begin with, when you should consider to switch to another, ...
I can't wait to have a better idea of what my Bladedancer will look like
You don't have to use the Most Efficient Tactics Available, you just need to have a viable build and, by design, any Primary Archetype is viable for its primary role.
Augments give many different ways to succeed.
And one objective META isn't really even a thing in Ashes because it all depends on how the individuals in any group synergize their builds and tactics.
This is the principle under which I think you are misguided.
https://youtu.be/fbyIYXEu-nQ (long but is the sort of thing I think you'd enjoy watching if you have the time.)
When there starts to be optimal answers (ie staying in your role) peer pressure snowballs really quickly. The way game design can avoid this is by carefully measuring the tradeoff for choices they want to 'be valid' and backing that with statistical fact. They need to be sure it is clear that it is both intentional by the dev and intend to be playable that way.
Do you understand me better as to why I would worry about people perceiving the intention by Intrepid to not be:
The augment is to kind of offer a balance between that where you still maintain the semblance of that trinity system while offering the opportunity to customize your play experience towards one of the other angles in the triangle.[21] – Steven Sharif
And instead be 'your role is never meant to be anything other than the role you chose'?
I already said that.
What if you have Social Anxiety Disorder?
Every action that you take is one of the following:
Option 1 is awesome, and option 4 isn't. It's only really option 2 vs option 3 that's interesting. A group full of players that are all choosing option 3 are going to perform better than a group of players choosing option 2 (but they may be less happy while doing it).
Here's a stark, extreme example that I hope that we all agree with, as a way to hopefully find some common ground. Say that there's a player who chooses to RP as someone who hurt their leg in the war and makes their character slow-walk at all times. Further, they've decided that character is chi-blocked by this injury and isn't allowed to spend mana, and so they only use their basic melee attack during combat. This is how they have fun, personally, but their groups (who don't know about this beforehand) tend to get really frustrated.
In this extreme, contrived example, I hope we agree that the slow-walking role-player is an option-2 player that should probably be seeking like-minded players to play with rather than frustrating pick-up-group option-3 players. Hopefully, we agree that there is some sort of line where you've agreed to some sort of implicit social contract where you actually have to try to play your class and perform your role and that this slow-walker has crossed that line. Where we all draw the line is different.
There's nothing wrong with RP! Rather, what makes sense is that you try to find players to play with whose goals align with yours. Option-3 type players will tend to segregate themselves away from option-2 type players.
This option-2/option-3 distinction exists on a gradient rather than binary. The best option for the group might be terrible for the individual, and the other option might be 99% efficient for the group but awesome for the individual so all of the option-3 players totally understand.
Also, this applies to everything. There are option-2/3 character builds. There are option-2/3 playstyles, etc. In my experience, the communities for these sorts of games tend to gravitate toward either option-2 or option-3, but there's not usually just a big happy mesh. FFXIV, for example, tends to gravitate towards option-2 (except in savage content) whereas the WoW community tends to gravitate towards option-3.
If you're an option-2 player playing in a group of option-3 players, you'll appear to be relatively underperforming and selfish (unwilling to do what's good for the group because you want to be a "snowflake"). Why do you get to be the one who gets to leech off of others, when everyone has mutually agreed to be team players? So you end up playing what's best for the group, even if it wasn't exactly what you wanted (just like what they concluded).
If you're an option-3 player playing in a group of option-2 players, you'll be viewed as a no-fun sweaty tryhard. Why keep choosing options that help them at your expense if they won't do the same for you? So instead you just have fun the way you want (just like what they concluded).
These repeated interactions keep happening until the groups self-segregate (which is fine, generally).
Granted, you can completely ignore all of this. You can be a player who leeches off of a group when the rest of the players are all pulling their weight (and yours) and are annoyed about it and you don't have to care. Maybe you just won't get invited next time, and you don't have to care about that either. You can be a player who wants to sweat it out when everyone else justs wants to mess around. They'll be annoyed that you won't relax, or that you keep trying to tell them how to play better. You don't have to care about that or have any empathy. Maybe you just won't get invited next time, and you don't have to care about that either.
But! A lot of people do care about this kind of stuff
related: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/M3TJ2fTCzoQq66NBJ/p/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p
Same as people who obsess over the economy or who obsess over RP or obsess over being completionist.
You don't have to have the Most Efficient Tactics Available in order to defeat encounters.
Especially if the devs are not designing encounters to be only successful if you find the one META.
In Ashes, you don't need to try to define "the one META" in order to pay attention to how the rest of your group plays and synergize with them well enough to consistently beat encounters.
You don't have to be the best to win consistently. You just have to be good enough.
It's like a card game. It's not about always having the best hand - it's about understanding how to make the most of the hand your dealt and, if it's Bridge or Spades, paying attention to how your partner(s) play their hands and adjusting your strategies and tactics accordingly.
Because homogenization is very bad.
What if what you think a templar should be doesn't match up with what Intrepid thinks a Templar is?
Does that mean they failed as a company?
Or is this just you projecting what you think it should be?
What people think a class has to be and what it will be might very different. Bet if we asked a hundred people to define what a Templar should be in AOC you would get almost as many different answers.
I see your point and completely disagree.
But to each their own. Roles should be important need people on offense and defense both to make the team work and perform properly.
"What we want the Fighter warrior to do is to be able to cut through enemy lines, get to the support area of a raid perhaps and take out healers with some quick DPS burst damage. We want them to be masters of different weapons. We want them to be able to be versatile in whether or not they want to be a ranged fighter or melee one. It's going to be up to the player."
– Steven Sharif
Seems very likely that Templars can be Clerics with DPS burst damage augments.
Nobody is arguing against roles being important.
So let me ask you a different question. How likely do you think it is to need every single class in order to do difficult pve. And how likely do you think it is for friend groups to actually play one of each?
Second question is also unknown. But why would they have to?
Early day's for me I rolled mage(still my preferred class) couldn't find a healer so I switched and found I have a lot of fun their as well. I usually end up with one of each. I think the hard roles is a forcing mechanism to group play. Allowing people to be just what ever when ever leads more to solo play. Looking at all the big "MMO's" are not even MMO's anymore. They have fallen to the design some of you are advocating for and are now solo player games with other people running around or in the way. I am hoping they stay true to the original intent and make an MMO. I can go play Cyberpunk or Fallout 4 for a solo player game.
If every role is strictly neccessary because roles are inflexible, you need one of each. Team synergy only works a few preset ways.
If you don't but you still need at least one of each, the need to team up is not lessened just because the fighter can help support by giving regen on hit and maybe some soft cc resist buff to allys and the cleric built cc and/or burst damage as a result of the fighter taking that regen and cc resist.
Team still required, but more likely to have a flexible and unique group rather than 'not getting to play with all your friends because two of them want to play cleric or tank ir fighter or rogue or bard. 'If Ashes can't deliver on that I am not gong to a solo game. I'm going to FFXI.
Inntrepid chose the name Templar.
The Templars were clerics who abandoned their healing vocation to instead do killing.
The Templars are in the collective imagination for their killing and wealth, not for their healing.
When you say Templar, you say (wealthy) dps cleric.
So if its anyone's fault for any disappointment, it's Intrepid's fault for choosing a name badly.
If they want a support fighter, they should re-name the subclass Hospitaller (They're the Crusader Order famous for healing).
It would mean they, as a company, failed me (a big Templar fan) by choosing a name that just doesn't fit what they put in game.
My projection of what a Templar should be is the projection of anyone who knows who the Templar Knights were. I'm not imagining stuff on my own, I simply happen to know history.
As I said, if they go on tomorrow and re-name the subclass Hospitaller because they in fact intend to have a melee support (I have no idea why anyone would ever choose that since as a support you want to be in the back, as safe as possible), then this particular topic is over and I will be disappointed by default for not being able to play a Templar, but at least I won't be disappointed by Intrepid misrepresenting stuff to me.
Yeah I agree but the fact is, heavy names like Warlock, Shaman, Beastmaster, Templar, Necromancer, etc have a pretty solid, clear image in the collective imagination.
What do I want? What do I think Intrepid should do?
What Blizzard did with their hybrids in TBC.
It allowed a hybrid (a class that starts off with basic healing and/or tanking and/or dps) to specialize into one direction and be good in that direction, while the rest of his performance would come from the underdeveloped healing and/or tanking abilities he started with.
I would expect the Templar to the WoW TBC's Retribution Paladin.
If Intrepid thinks people will want to play jacks of all trades they're just going to do the same mistake Blizzard did and end up with tens of ''forsaken'' classes that are at best memes.
Yeah, and my point is that that focus towards damage should be major, obviously at the cost of healing.
Otherwise we're going to be looking at a jack of all trades people aren't going to play, just like the retribution paladin is World of Warcraft, which only stopped being an abandoned sub-class when they gave it proper damage (while, obviously, his healing and dmg mitigation remained underdeveloped, as the hybrid in question chose a damage path).
And I don't mind taking a big hit in healing as a Templar if it means I can actually do what a Templar is supposed to, and that is to kill.
I hope we will both get what we want as opposed to a rigid system where ''you picked support, you're support forever. Gear? Talents? Tattoos? Node and organization/religion affiliation? Races? Ohh, we put them in just for lolz, they don't matter that much''.
So, that all depends on how well they can fulfill their design goals.
The primary roles remain the primary roles.
Team synergy changes fairly drastically depending on the variety of augments from Secondary Archetypes - along with Racial, Social, Religious and Node augments.
But, primary is primary and secondary is secondary.
Fighters can HELP support.
You aren't limited to an 8-person group. You could have a 10-person group/raid.
If you have a favorite 8-person group where two people play a Cleric/x and no one plays a Bard/x, you could have several people play an x/Bard and see if that makes up the difference for the missing Primary Archetype Bard. But, just having one x/Bard in the group would probably not cover the missing Bard/x.
By design, the META is for an 8-person group to have one of each Primary Archetype.
You could try to break that META and see how well you succeed, sure.