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Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
[Feedback Request] Cleric & Weapon Updates Shown in November Livestream
Hello glorious community,
We’d like your feedback on the Alpha Two Cleric & Weapon Updates shown during the November 2022 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters:
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, December 16 2022, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
We’d like your feedback on the Alpha Two Cleric & Weapon Updates shown during the November 2022 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters:
- How do you feel about the synergy between archetypes and status conditions?
- Do you think party composition should amplify the meta?
- What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
- Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
- Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cleric update and weapons demo?
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, December 16 2022, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share!
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Comments
I think it´s hard to judge their actual gameplay implications when the players were able to just slog through the enemies without any need to use those synergies.
I worry that too many status effect synergies make group combat convoluted. I want to know what happens when i get hit by an ability. Keeping the overview over various status effects and incoming abilities seems frustrating.
What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
I couldnt notice much of a difference, much less any gameplay implications. It even looked counter productive for the cleric as you are locked out of casting abilities and was slowed as well.
...This is what i thought after focusing one the visusals soley... after rewatching i noticed the damage mitigation was huge though!
I think the dissonance between high damage mitigation and low visibility of the mechanic doesnt strike a good balance. Tbh i would probably not notice if people are blocking my attacks when they are in a bigger group, which makes it frustrating and not interactive.
Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
Simplistic, information dense, neatly integrated into the vision field, well done.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cleric update and weapons demo?
Mob/AI
Great progress to the previous iterations. Every mob had unique properties and abilities.
The mobs seem to have jittered consistently. Sometimes they seemed to be low fps in contrast to the player characters.
Lack of hit feedback when hammer bashing mobs feels off.
Cleric/ generall combat
The vfx and animations looked satysfying.
The sound effects, though very loud, were good as well.
The cleric does what he i supposed to do.
The selection of abilities was probably done very purposefull, as intrepid showcased 1 of each ability type. Buff, heal, aoe thingy and mobility. The issue with that though was other than collecting conviction , we could not observe deep mechanics and ability interaction within the kit.
Things like the ability 4 (group buff/heal) healing every player that is in the circle of ability 3 (chain aoe), instead of buffing allies. In the current iteration ability 4 both heals and buffs, without any interaction.
I have a weird feeling about the fundamentals of the combat system. (I know its early iteration)
It looked chaotic, mechanics and group interactions hardly had any relevance. It seemed to be about always keeping some ability buffering, rather than approaching an encounter with roles and mechanics in mind.
Also i had a bad suspicion about Steven missing every hammer bash in the melee update showcase. Today the other dev that played the figher had similar issues hitting this ability. My point is when casting an abiliy it seemes to be hard to connect them, the casting/aiming process itself seems floaty, maybe it lacks indicators and a crisp communications when it hits and when not?
I feel like the combat system lacks many fundamentals the players needs in order to precisely use the abilities , like hitfeedback, clear hit areas/telegraphs, crosshairs etc. This also became evident with the chain aoe ability Steven used.
The chaotic nature is even more worrying if you consider the game is supposed to have the largest scale of combat encounter yet to be seen in mmos.
I´ll leave this topic with a quote from a throne and liberty dev on the topic of combat.
It´s badly translated since the original article is korean. Also im not saying this is intrepids way to go, but it´s probably the most contemporary perspective on someone working on a large scale combat product.
"Control is a little more important in 1v1 combat. For example, you have to think about whether or not to take an action with a high impact, such as transforming into an animal during battle. If you transform, you will have vulnerabilities. Also, the opponent must decide whether or not to exploit this vulnerability. From this point of view, the action of 1v1 combat is much higher than that of Lineage.
However, if this combat system is deepened too much, it is difficult to achieve group combat. In a situation where all participating characters act like heroes, group battles cannot proceed well. Therefore, in group battles, emphasis was placed on camp formation and maintenance, and the timely use of core skills.
That's why some people say that they feel a bit static during group battles. However, in one-on-one battles or small-scale battles, as I said earlier, you have to fight dynamically by hitting, counterattacking, and running away."
It highlights that small scale and large scale combat have opposing objectives and goals. My worry is that the current inherently chaotic combat may even exacerbate that.
Synergies are a great idea, it just needs to be balanced for class identity vs party composition flexibility. I don't think all classes should have the ability to produce all conditions. I think having class specific ones could work if for example all classes with cleric as primary or secondary can do a particular effect in some way or another.
Blocking
The blocking was VERY impactful, there needs to be some cost to doing it as the damage mitigation looked huge. The mobs were nicely threatening otherwise.
Combat Pacing
Given the re-spawn rates and aggro radius, it felt a bit chaotic and lacked strategic pulling. Sometimes players need to step away from the computer, there should be some spaces that are safe to stay put for a few minutes at least.
Monster AI
The monster AI was nice, the zombies had clear and threatening behaviors. There was the bile cloud they spewed that had to be stepped out of and the linear line rush that could be side-stepped.
UI
The UI seemed good. There was a notable absence of information about what is appropriate for the area you were in. Clearly it was well suited for a party of 3, at your lvl. It's fine to not have this information available and you just test it out and figure out how hard it is what you may need, I guess that's just a stylistic decision.
Weapon Feedback
With melee weapons there is always a danger of a floaty feel when the weapons are small and don't look like they are reasonably making contact with smaller monsters like zombies. The greatsword looked great in part due to the effects of the swing that extended beyond the sword and hitting the ground with the decal. The daggers too looked good because of the effects that extended beyond the weapons and the lunging animations. The weapons showcased today just had some blur without feeling like they should have reasonably been 'landing' if that makes sense, I think just adding effects that extend beyond the actual physical space that the weapon takes will help the feel. A higher velocity 'swing' also helps sell the effects usually.
Thank you for the amazing stream!
How do you feel about the synergy between archetypes and status conditions?
Personally I love this, since it puts a focus on teamplay and I think that's what an MMO should be about in the first place.
Balancing will be hard but fingers crossed that you'll get this to work well ingame!
Do you think party composition should amplify the meta?
Imo party composition is and was always something that is part of the meta. But I think that you got a great chance here of making party composition incombination with mechanics like the synergies something to balance the meta, make every class viable and useful throughout the whole game and preventing stuff like having a stupid meta composition with something like 1 tank 1 dps and 6 supports.
What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
Personally I think active blocking can be something that is super fun and challenging to do well. During the stream Steven mentioned that you want Ashes to be on the more difficult side of games and I loved hearing this.
Now active block is something that imo can add to the difficulty level of classes very well.
Honestly I couldn't exactly tell much by what was shown so I'm just going to share what I think can make active block fun and difficult to master.
Having to use the active block in a certain time frame before the damage impact can affect skills, the damage reduction and more. Having to learn to read the mobs and enemies attack patterns and animations to actively block the dmg or status effects at the perfect time adds so much depth to tank classes and to the gameplay overall. It turns the class from just standing there and taking in the dmg into something difficult to master with a high reward for being skilled at your job.
Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
I really liked what we've seen so far and I can't wait to see more progress on it!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cleric update and weapons demo?
This is something I personally am not as worried about but I read a lot of other support mains such as myself being worried that the cleric will only be useful when using melee weapons. I might be wrong, but from what I've seen and from what I believe we were told about classes and weapon choice so far I believe that people should be able to play cleric with a ranged weapon as well? Might be good to clarify that at some point in the future.
Something that I was hoping to see was the "action-combat" mode (forgot how you named it during the ranger showcase) but sadly we didn't get to see that. I think it'd be good to show the different possibilities on how to play when showing new classes/updates, since I know I'm probably with the minority in this case but it leaves me worried that it won't be available for every class. And just to quickly give some late feedback on that: I LOVED the showcase of that other combat mode so incredibly much during the ranger update stream, it literally left me speechless. It looks so amazing and fun to play, great job on that!
Thoughts on healing/supporting in general.
Now, I know cleric is a very specific class and I'm 200% sure this will turn out amazing, so the following is not necessarily about the cleric but healing in general.
I've been playing main support/healer in MMORPGs for 10 years by now and I'd just like to share my thoughts and experiences about healing/supporting.
Same like with my active block feedback above, I feel that making every class difficult but rewarding to master is adding a lot of depth and fun, so that goes for supporting as well. And imo that doesn't always have to be mainly through putting pressure on going oom super quickly. Throughout my years of healing, the most fun elements for me were things like:
- having to react very quickly
- not being able to mindlessly spamming and overhealing resulting in heal aggro
- having to switch between going back and forth because of different ranges for the skills causing you to for example risk getting hit for going close to cast a strong melee spell
- keeping up a complex rotation of buffs and debuffs with different cd etc
- heavy focus on teamplay through stuff like having mana replenishing skills for the group
- active movement, being required to be mobile and not feeling like a static healing tower
- limitations in targets compared to group size
- having to thingk and tactically react and reposition
- special monster attacks with secondary aggro triggered by certain skills like ressurection
...
well I guess I could keep going forever, and yes I know, not everyone likes the same things as I do. I know I personally prefer something being way too difficult but I still hope sharing my thoughts might show some different perspectives.
Addition/Edit
Dodge/Active Block/iFrame Dodging
Reading through the other comments I've seen a lot opinions on the active block and active dodge/iframes etc
And since this is probably one of the things that influences my personal gameplay experience and how much fun I have the most, I wanted to add something to that topic as well
So, first off, I know a lot of people have the complete oposite opinion of mine, and that's fine, I don't want this to be a subject to argue about, I just want to add another perspective to all this.
Now, I've written a bit about the active block above already, so I will talk about the blocking and dodging together for this, since I think it's similar reasons why people either like or hate it.
For me, having dodge and block defined by stats only is probably one of the most braindead systems ever, I'm a quick time reaction junkie. If I don't have to work for the dodge/block it just bores me personally
Now with that being said, yes I love iframe dodging, but iframe dodges as well as full dmg active block are hard to balance and to make it so that it's not kinda overpowered and is basically just annoying to people especially in PvP
If you implement iframe active dodging and active block, the balancing is super important and that doesn't just concern the skill itself
- The dodge/block itself should not be usable infinitely.
- It should be a limited resource or with a cooldown
- Also it has to be balanced between the different classes so that there isn't a class that is just too dodgy/tanky to ever get killed
- There should also be mechanics to break a block or attacks that can't be iframed.
- Especially for PvE having a mixture of attacks that can be iframed and such that can't be iframed and have to be avoided in a different way is super important, same goes for the active block.
And something else is that imo a dodge should never rely on a chance. That's basically RNG and frustrating as hell, just like any other RNG
Again here, having to know your enemy and their attacks and patterns becomes so much more important with this and for me just adds to the gameplay on a different level. Of course everything has to be well made, well balanced and diverse. Imo class identity doesn't have to suffer from this, the skills to iframe can be very class specific and different from each other.
As for the active block and the tanking or even full dmg block I think it's hard to just comment on that without offering a solution or at least an idea together with the opinion. My idea for that would be to scale the amount of dmg the active block can block from a combination of the class and the equipment (and the enemy) That way the block would be more or less effective on different classes. To maybe still make using a shield interesting to other classes there could be additional/different bonuses like an extra skill but in return no scaling with the active block, or it could be enhancing a different stat instead of the power of the active block.
To finally come to an end, for me, reactive and tactical gameplay is at least half of the fun, so without having to move, without quick time reactions, with everything just depending on random chances coming from stats -> RNG, things are pretty boring for me and way less difficult. But again, this is just my personal opinion/view, I know a lot of people have a different opinion and I fully respect that
I feel like this is a good direction to take the game to keep things interesting and varied as well as encouraging group play.
Do you think party composition should amplify the meta?
I am happy with specific mobs having specific weaknesses. This should keep content varied and prevent 1 archetype from dominating all content.
What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
I would rather not have a generic active blocking mechanic. I would rather each archetype get their own skill to mitigate damage that they have to spec into and augment. A proper system would need support with items gear and stats and would somehow have to not feel mandatory. Does a game with a planned time to kill of 30-60 seconds really need a blocking system that is just tacked on messing with variables. It would need to be planned out and thought out with the system fully supporting it. Making it require proper investment to prevent it being something everyone has to spam in every situation where they are going to take damage. Making it a skill can still be an active block but it will be balanced individually with rock paper scissors balance in mind.
Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
Needs work obviously. The direction of UI is fine for now.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cleric update and weapons demo?
Spell effects could use some work. The AoE one was too bright and some of the minor heal effects were hard to notice.
The cleric should have the "Magic Hammer Crush" ability that SMITES the targets which the Fighter was casting. It suits it's archetype.
Fighter mains dont want conjured magic, they want physical prowess. Dont make the same mistake as AA.
I like that they have CC and it has synergy, some aoe and single target heals. But still a low level toon in a nutshell, missing a lot of its tool kit I imagine. Synergy combos allow for some awesome group gameplay, we want a lot more of that. I do like that there is DR so you can't completely shut things down forever.
Most of those mobs did feel like they were falling over pretty easily I will say. Not a lot of HP and pretty basic AI it seemed but early days. Would like to see synergy between mobs grouped together like the graveyard golem resurrecting zombies around it, buffing their charge ability maybe.
For active blocking, curious to learn the mechanics on this, especially if everyone gets one. Be great in aoe situations where people can mitigate some of the damage taken, but hoping bringing out a shield mitigates a lot more damage then say a staff which should parry an attack instead. Definitely shouldn't be a complete damage stop, and not something you can have up all the time so a stamina bar seems good for dodging/blocking. Dodging makes more sense for people without shields but when you can't avoid a big aoe, blocking mitigating a percentage of damage, shields with the most, smaller weapons with the least, but maybe mages/clerics could put up magical barriers instead?
Icons for spells were clear on the UI, I guessed the moves before they cast so that was nice. I really liked that someone brought up on stream mouse over healing and different options for throughput. Makes a huge difference when healing.
I didn't even notice the minimap haha, but it looks good, showing your party and active enemies, your direction, that its fixed and you're the point that moves.
Concerned about solo life as a healer, there was one moment where Steven was fighting just one mob and he took a good while to kill it and eventually got an assist from the Ranger. Then in another moment Steven went into brawl with the mace and shield it did look cool but not sure on how much damage he was doing, would like to see more combos but its still basic attacks at this stage. The wooden sounds on the staff sounded great, the spell effects from some of the NPCs were really cool.
We have to keep in mind we are effectively watching fresh lowbies do super low level content.
Keen to see more!
It's nice to have a reactive ability but there is absolutely nothing fun about holding down a key on a regular basis as a tank. I'd much rather hit a reactive 'shield block' ability to mitigate damage with a defensive buff and then move onto my next ability. Holding down 'shield block' and forcing my character to slow movement and do nothing else for the next few seconds while I hold my shield would be the worst outcome for tank gameplay.
I'd much rather activate my block as a tank and have other abilities I can use while blocking, with other abilities that are unavailable until the block ends. For example, I activate my block and I can 1) melee swing, 2) shout a buff or debuff, 3) activate other defensive abilities -- but while my block is active I cannot shield bash or chain pull a target.
* Synergies between weapon swings and active abilities look great
* Upgrading 1 satus effect (stagger) to another (stun) is something perfect for 1 class to do on its own.
My idea of a grp synergy would be a mage casting fire spells has a chance to proc a x sec fire dmg buff to
melee weapons (flaming sword)
or a mage casting wind type spells having a chance to proc increased movement speed for party members
etc etc
Stamina
* I think there should be a stamina component in the game, but not for active abilities, weapon swings and
blocking should cost stam.
You could put in a mechenic that restores stamina during combat when you succesfuly proc a synergy.
This would make it more essential to optimize your playstyle and to know your class.
Sprinting could also cost stamina, this would make stam relevant for casters aswel.
If you could sprint until your stam is depleted instead of x time
melee dps would have better mobility because they have more stam so can sprint longer.
The Hammer Ability
* This ability seems more relevant for the cleric then the fighter/tank especially if you take possitioning into
consideration.
A tank or melee range dps will mis his mark 4 out of 5 times using this ability making it very clumsy
Weapon Abilities
* The greatsword looks like it handles like a cadillac, very nice!!
The cleric
* The idea behind the conviction mechanic is very cool however as a healer it's not very efficient to
have a need to agro mobs to get conviction. Perhaps you should get conviction when you pull someone
back from the brink of death instead
The chains felt nice and the synergies I believe leave room for so much creativity that I believe it's the right direction.
My question for healing, I noticed you were healing by clicking the names in the party list. Will this be available as a raid feature when you have 20+ members in your party? Also during a world boss when we have 100+ fighting at once, is it possible to select a specific player to heal them? And if this is the case, what is to stop you from selecting an opposing player and healing them by accident (or on purpose)?
For small groups/encounters it is a nice feature to have. However, in mass pvp and sieges I fear it will lead to massive cc chains and one shot deaths
What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
Each type of armor should only have 1 "damage avoidance" skill. For example, heavy armors should only have block, medium armors should only have a roll/dodge and light armors only some kind of blink or similar instead of everyone having everything.
Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
Map should have detailed layout of the land (with npcs maybe) but no live indicators for mobs/players in order to boost exploration (like trying to find the quest mob that you need) and leave intact the element of surprise in clan wars/pvp or even hard pve areas instead of trying to spot players/mobs at the minimap all the time.
UI in general needs to have a unique style so that when people see it, they will instantly recognize the game. Think of L2 and WoW UIs.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cleric update and weapons demo?
Overall, the cleric is in the right direction. Please consider boosting the visual effects of normal/group heals on players so its clearer to figure out who is getting healed and from whom (also for pvp reasons).
PS. Please consider mini reworking that fixed hammer aoe of the warrior class. Make it a normal aoe where you can select where to cast it.
1. Steven is a great narrator and entertainer, but I don't feel he does the gameplay justice. When I watch him play, I actually feel like I am watching a player who doesn't know how to play the game, or any MMO in general for that matter. It is very lackluster, he aggros mobs as healer, runs around in the middle of a fight taking damage, like if it didnt matter. Surely its not a huge deal, but I dont see why you would showcase a class but not actually play it like it should be played. I would love to see someone more versed in MMOs for the actual gameplay. With a proper rotation and challenge.
2. They said these streams dont mean to be balanced and neither will the A2 be balanced in terms of challenge and damage from mobs. I definitely want to see harder encounters in the future, where its actually important to have a tank, and for DPS to avoid dmg, and the healer to actually stand there and heal non-stop during parts of the fight to keep his mates alive.
3. More organized fighting in general would portray a much better representation of the classes imho. RN looks just like people running around doing whatever. Not very indicative!
4. Would love to have a readout of skill descriptions being used. Like we see and hear things but not really sure what they do.
5. HEALING NUMBERS, like damage numbers. As a healer, I want to see how I am contributing to the team.
6. Why did the warrior have a Hammer smash ability when he is weilding a greatsword? The "Big Smash" ability could instead adapt itself to the weapon.
That's it for combat
1) The synergies seem good, following up a fighter CC with a cleric CC for a hard stun. Different archetypes offer different synergies seems good and deep potentially.
2) I don't see why the Cleric would use the mace attack, I don't see it having a good use case atm, except for some slow solo levelling. At the moment I'd like to see the use case for weapon attacks with the Cleric and weapon synergies I have heard about, I don't see them yet.
3) I think the combat could do with speeding up a little bit, seems a little slow at the moment. Maybe Speed it up 20%, make it a bit more zippy like Archeage.
4) When the big bear looking thing got pulled, the aggro range seemed too large
5) The ability to just run through mobs seems a bit lame, it was also an issue in alpha 1. It should be made more difficult than simple running through pulling a train of 50 mobs behind you
6) The sound effects of the weapons are really good, nice basey sounds
7) Some party UI is really important. For example I'm playing New World and in wars I have no idea where party members are. Please allow to tag party members so as a cleric I know where party members are amongst the noise so I can position correctly when things get hectic. Markers over their heads.
8) Liking the talk of all these buffs, debuffs, status effects etc
9) Active block seems fine, just have a stamina bar for it I think don't need to re-invent the wheel here. Obviously tanks should get loads of stamina buffs/skills etc.
10) In general just from watching it was hard to tell what was happening from Cleric POV, so I think targetting clarity could be better. Add some 3Dness to the targetting I think.
P.S. sitting to rest I agree with other is a relic, being out of combat should regen so you can move onto the next thing at the same time, the game should be zippy, moment to moment fun, not sitting around doing nothing at times.
Love the audio work, the visuals were beautiful and the casting animations were also impressive.
Weapons:
Like someone mentioned in the Twitch chat - take a second look at the weapon audio. Primarily the sword made sounds like it was hitting solid armor even though it was fighting zombies... It felt a bit off. On another note - DEFINITELY keep an eye on the blocking mechanic. Do NOT make people able to tap the key to avoid losing mana quickly.
UI:
Looks clean, even if it is a bit... Old school. The more you can customize the better, DEFINITELY make sure the players can move the bars and grids around as they please.
Night and Day:
Looks lovely! The night sky was breath-taking. I would NOT vote for making it super dark overall in the open world (as that is not even realistic in a world with clear star view and multiple light reflective moons) - instead put your focus on making (non-lit) interiors and certain areas darker. The ambience was pitch perfect!
Syngergies:
I like the idea of synergies, and feel like that makes group play even more fun!
I have some more feedback on the combat.
General combat/encounter feedback
Enemies feel very sluggish and slow. A big problem in many MMOs I've played is that the enemies are slower than the player, they react slowly and don't properly aggro when another mob near them gets pulled. This makes the game feel static, and a bit impactless and you can just run through everything.
I think WoW handles this very well:
1. Enemies of same faction are linked, so if you pull one you pull all the ones near
2. You cannot outrun through enemies unless you slow the enemies or have some speed boost. This forces the player to think pathing much more. Running through pack of enemies will kill you.
3. Enemies react very fast to changes. If you pull, the enemies run to you immediately. They don't stand still for long, they feel very reactive.
Couple other things I noticed that I feel felt off:
- Enemies hitting players had no taking damage animation to it. It makes it feel like they aren't doing anything that hurts you. It would be good to play an animation when player takes damage. Also stronger abilities such as the zombie charging through could maybe knock the player down? Now he kind of just slipped through the player
- The damage numbers are not noticeable in the UI, they blend too much to the environment. I guess this is a design choice.
- Mob health is not very noticeable. I personally prefer seeing enemy health bars on top of them. I think this is also what most people are used to so I hope that will be an option.
Blocking
In my opinion active blocking for all classes is not good because:
1. It diminishes the value of tanking oriented/more defensive classes
2. It is a boring mechanic if it simply makes you take less damage.
3. If it's limited to only certain classes/subclasses, it could be made more special and impactful. Maybe timing it even to some strong abilities done by the enemies to give much bigger damage reduction. Point being that, if it's use is more limited, it can be made stronger, which makes it more interesting mechanic.
An example of a more interesting blocking mechanic would be following:
1. Block only lasts for a short amount of time and it has a cooldown / alternatively it could be tied to some stamina.
2. Since the block is more restricted it should be stronger. Significant damage reduction if not full immunity for even shorter duration for some interesting timing mechanic?
3. Since it's stronger it can have a stronger feel sound/VFX wise. Something that makes the player feel like "Come at me bro".
But overall it's hard to judge some of these things based on just video, so take these with a grain of salt.
How do you feel about the synergy between archetypes and status conditions?
Would have to see more. Seems easier than I like but there's clearly no point to it being very hard in a showcase. That said, I mention it because the showcase was long ENOUGH that I figured we'd see some difficulty in coordination come up more than ... once I think it was.
That said, I understand that 'easy' is important for getting people into things and it was just Zombies. Core principle I'm good with, looking forward to more.
Do you think party composition should amplify the meta?
Yes but I agree with keeping it moreso in the realm of what was shown. The Base abilities synergize so that everyone can expect to be able to do it, but then hopefully we get cool/wacky stuff to go with it. As much as I'd like to say a lot positive here, I know things aren't quite far enough along to be showing a LOT of party composition stuff yet. That said, I definitely didn't see anything I disliked. Obviously I still care about that Weapon Focus Gauge but that's its own thread.
What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
Looks good, particularly with the shield. I believe that for balance and challenge it MUST be tied to Stamina, and I believe that 'Stamina' is the correct resource to use for this. It is one of the few things that helps with both class identity and itemization, in my opinion. It also makes balance slightly harder, but I consider it intuitive enough, particularly with the crop of Adventure/Action games that are popular lately, that I don't think you'd have a problem adding it.
Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
Minimap was good for me. I was surprised at how 'nice' it felt, but on the other hand it could be different against a lighter background and less immersive in certain ways. If the UI team can manage it, anything that would set the base hue and saturation of the 'background' sections of the map to be similar to something about the area, would be ideal.
UI feels very nice to me. It just 'becomes correct', to the point where I don't think about it, and that's without being the one playing so I consider that very good. Party targeting also seems really nice. Particularly given the precise movement speeds and other requirements along with the 'Soft Target', I don't think I'd have any trouble healing people even in complex situations, yet mobs have just enough movement that you might miss them during their attacks if you were otherwise occupied or threatened which is the perfect sweet spot for me. Unlikely to miss when you're in no danger even if your ally is moving, more likely to whiff if you let yourself get into a dangerous situation.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cleric update and weapons demo?
Not much excitement, as I know it's still in development and the main skills are still somewhat simplistic and without augments, but I'm definitely the type to enjoy things like building up Convictions, and it feels quite lore-appropriate. Obviously at higher levels there would be more to see, but that's an Alpha-2 point. As it is now, speculative progression ideas in my mind imply "this is gonna be great!"
I don't feel like we really got to see a LOT of what the weapons were like due to Steven's zoom preferences, but the moments I did see looked quite good. I don't mind the twirly and 'flashy' staff animations at all, and the Mace seemed to have some good weight, though it made me consider once again if all Swings in the Weapon Combo for all weapons are still going to be based on just the Power stat. Freedom to use anything you like is great, though, so that's not a complaint even if it is. Just thinking that the second or third hit of a combo is a perfect place to put SOME differentiation if you wanted it since they're somewhat optional for different builds. It's a balance difficulty either way, so I'd say 'might as well consider it'.
Speculative Stuff!
Mob Density/Aggro
I prefer having to take on 2-3 mobs at a time if you're 'going past just singles', even in a game with a large party size, because otherwise the mobs themselves need to be less complex or dangerous. However, this was almost definitively not the mob type where I care about that. Swarms of zombies are great. I just hope that we won't be seeing this as a baseline concept. I don't like the 'fodder mobs' idea to begin with, but one of the main reasons I dislike this is that the 'multipliers' tend to lock groups out of being able to try their hand at 'razor-edge' content. The placement of mobs makes it possible to only find one or two groups of that in a whole area. This 'feedback' can be summed up as 'Preferred Alpha-1 mob density and aggro, particularly near Moonhollow forests'.
Healing and Health Values
My opinion on this is that I still don't know how you plan to do this with minimal scaling and I don't much like the way I imagine the numbers would end up if you didn't, assuming 'level 15 has 700 health'. But none of this stuff really MATTERS to me, in the long run, since the numbers are just representations. Given that though, I would like them to stay within the 'easy to quickly understand' realm. People can do certain types of math in their heads better than others. 100->120 is a little easier to feel out while playing than 354->424 for some people, in my experience. It won't affect me, I don't think, though, so if there's even a tiny good reason for this in design space, carry on.
Gear Design Visuals
Perfect. No notes.
Enemy Effect/Combat Design Visuals
I am a huge fan of the 'ground telegraphs that are actual effects rather than just red/purple circles or cones'. The whole run gave a really good strong feeling of 'adventuring into an area', but if I had to critique something it would be the fact that the WAY enemies spawn and respawn would result in the player not having time to 'immerse in the area' if they didn't NEED to rest. I don't mind which philosophy one uses relative to resting, though. I would just ask that if one is staying 'low' on 'needing to rest' that the enemies moreso 'tend not to respawn on the main path' but rather ambush and aggro from just off the path as we saw in many places. This therefore is moreso praise than complaint. Keep doing the 'ambush and aggro from off-path' thing. It's great, I put this under 'Combat Design Visuals' because it adds to my immersion.
Mana Costs
Seemed low? Not sure if 'Sandal Lord Mode' was active, though. I don't really think that the speed of progression through the area was bad (as mentioned above) in fact it was nearly perfect, but it just feels odd for the Ranger to run out of mana before the Cleric does, and Steven wasn't 'not doing much', so it was a little surprising to me.
That said, the battle flow didn't show as much 'difficulty' and this is easily tuned so my feedback is 'if you were thinking that this is the sweet spot for Cleric mana consumption I would like it to be greater'. Not so much as to stress new healers getting into it, but as it is now, I don't think it would even 'prepare them for stronger content' in terms of understanding the flow. That's a difficult balancing act too though, so, good luck!
That's all from me, it was a great stream, and even though it didn't really 'show off a ton of new abilities' or anything like that, as a Cleric it gave me a good 'feel' for what fighting would be like and made me look forward to a more challenging version of the same for the future.
I prefer cooldowns over a mana bar personally.
One thing I'd like to see over time is combat animations, reactions by mobs, etc. all be connected. Your character to the ground, your character's abilities to those they're being cast on etc. Everything atm appears very disjointed, and disconnected.
One of my favorite abilities to cast in a game is Berserk in New World w/Hatchet. It isn't the ability itself or what it does that I enjoy so much, its the feral roar your character does and the animation. It feels great to cast it. Abilities in AoC should be going for that type of feeling. Animation to character to audio that feels in sync and powerful. The audio aspect is actually my favorite part.
Some of the Cleric abilities seem to have extended animations that don't seem to jive for pvp with delayed animations. I might be used to more fast-paced games like Lost Ark and New World lately where standing in one place for so long gets you killed both in PVE and PVP. Every ability doesn't have to be instant of course but the 3-4 second cast times to effect of the ability I hope won't be standard at least in the amount of time your character is rooted into an ability animation that you can't move out of. Unsure if we can animation cancel the abilities if danger presents itself.
A: Very good. The more sharply defined archetypes are in terms of what kinds of damage and status conditions they can deal, the more powerful they can be allowed to be in their areas of expertise and the more rewarding for parties that come up with new ability rotations taking advantage of the different archetypes they have access to. I would argue that less effective status conditions should have a larger window for other archetypes to take advantage of than more effective status conditions, but practice should definitely be required for you to reliably land status combos with fellow party members.
Q: Do you think party composition should amplify the meta?
A: I'm honestly not sure what's being asked here. I think individual players should be able to come up with a unique build for their archetype and practice executing that build in a way that allows them to shine as individual minds bringing out strengths in their archetype that others might not have expected, and having fun playing their character in the way that they like to play while still being effective. Likewise, then, I think parties should be able to come up with unique party compositions and build synergies and practice executing those synergies to the point where they are unexpectedly effective and opponents need to come up with creative solutions to be able to answer them.
You know you will have gone wrong here if any of the following are true:
Q: What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
A: The blocking animation didn't look impactful (Steven's main heal spell was SO WEIGHTY AND COOL and then holding up a shield against a zombie trying to maul him didn't give any significant feedback) and it wasn't clear whether the shield was oriented properly or not to actually reduce damage. The sight and sound of blocking in combat needs to clearly indicate successful and unsuccessful blocking attempts.
Blocking in general also needs to have satisfying and notable benefits because most players (usually) prefer to be making auto attacks or using abilities rather than holding still blocking. Standing still holding up a shield is not nearly as fun as bringing down a justice hammer from the skies or dodging around making perfectly timed swipes with your favourite weapon as you watch the enemies' health decrease. Therefore, if you're going to have blocking at all as a mechanic in the game, the process of blocking needs to be fun (skillful timing required where you need to precisely weave blocking in with your other abilities, enemies staggering back after the solid thud of them rebounding after striking your firmly held shield) and beneficial (big defensive boost or staggering of the opponents). It has to be both worth it and nearly as enjoyable as the other aspects of combat.
Q: Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
A: The hotbar was nice and small, but the icons didn't look as graphically impressive as the world. The minimap didn't look as helpful as some other minimaps in other games can be, but I'm not certain whether I actually want it to be super helpful or not, for the sake of immersion. I also can't speak to how the targeting UI felt because it wasn't always clear which inputs Steven was using to target allies/enemies. I will say that him losing track of where his party members were in a very close engagement (not when he was running away from them) is not something that I think should be allowed to happen often. In other words, the minimap and party/targeting UI should help you know where your party members are as long as they are close enough for it to be reasonable.
Thanks everyone for your hard work!
I like the direction you are going with the synergies of abilities, like the stagger -> stun mechanic. More of that please.
I am not a fan of having to sit to rest. I think just staying out of combat for a bit should be enough to get increased mana regen. It's oldschool to sit, yeah, but not in the good way I think.
We simply don't know enough yet to comment on this, but my overall gut feeling is to be wary of making certain combinations feel gimmicky. Synergies should feel natural, not forced. All or almost all classes/archetypes should bring something to the table in terms of synergy as well - there is room for creativity here in terms of implementation, especially when it comes to elemental damage. For example, a lightning spell might stagger a target which is already under the effect of a water-based DoT, but a fire spell might have reduced damage in the same circumstance.
Status Condition Synergy
I like the idea of status condition synergy a lot, but the implementation of requiring class A to use ability X then class B to use ability Y is one I am not a fan of. Instead, I think all status effects should be progressive when used with one another. In the example seen today, instead I would love to see both the cleric and fighter abilities apply a stagger, but any time a stagger would be applied to a target (from either source), the stagger would be upgraded to a stun and the duration would be refreshed to whatever that ability's duration is. This would allow the fighter to also combo off of the cleric's cast, which I think would improve interplay between a wide variety of classes and archetypes. This would also feel more natural in terms of gameplay, especially when dealing with latency. Tons of status effects could have both T1 and T2 effects: stagger -> stun, slow -> immobilize, slowcast -> silence, bleed -> flinch (no physical attacks), and so on.
Party Composition and the Meta
Again I would urge caution here. While players will always work toward optimized builds, nobody wants to be a meta slave. If party members are being selected based on meta builds rather than individual player skill, that is a huge problem. To be abundantly clear: this problem ruins games and drives players away. Balance is going to be very important and while such things must be observed and iterated on with time, it will be essential to monitor the meta to avoid and address unhealthy outcomes such as archetype X not being viable in dungeons, class Y being absolutely necessary in every group, etc.
Active Blocking
Stamina should absolutely be introduced as a mechanic, and it should be consumed when blocking, dodging, and sprinting. Holding a block stance should slow movement somewhat and passively drain stamina, and actually blocking/parrying an attack should drain a chunk of it. Different weapons should have different levels of efficacy when it comes to blocking, with something like a dagger barely having any effect while a shield blocks the vast majority (or all). Let the defensive capabilities of different weapon types be a balancing factor, just like their offensive capabilities - an axe may hit harder than a sword, but it will also be a worse choice for blocking or parrying.
UI
Obviously it is a work in progress and nobody is judging it in the current state, but there are a lot of possible improvements to be made here. As a general note, enemy names seem to have too much "shadow" around the text and damage numbers don't seem to have enough. When it comes to healing specific mechanics, it would be awesome to see a "soft snap" for targeting while holding down a heal key. As in, if you press and hold a key mapped to a single target healing spell, if you hover your targeting reticle near a valid target, it would gravitate toward that target to positively ID it. The same could be done for enemies and offensive spells, come to think of it. In any case, there just needs to be a clear indicator of who/what will be affected by the spell being cast. Such a mechanism should not be a hard lock - moving the mouse away should "break away" from that target. Obviously this would require some tweaking. Today's demo lacked target ID as far as I could tell, and it made healing look very chaotic.
Sense of Danger (PvP) - dont be sitting in an open field. Be Smart.
Sense of Danger - Respawn - you gotta be on the move - becareful where you move and sit, dont want to sit and get respawn, but dont want to aggro another pack.
Sit/Rest imho is about mana management. health management. You gotta be mindful of where you are, your surrounded cause a NPC or a Player can attack you and having a sense of vulnerability creates that sense of danger, tension, suspense.
A: Very Good
Q: Do you think party composition should amplify the meta?
A: Kind of Worried and I mean Pantheon Vs Ashes of Creation worried.
I get pick Tank, Healer or Dps that I get but as pick your Second this part I'm worried about and so far all I can say is this suppost to be We welcome Alts or We would like you to just play 1 Character because the way I am getting it is Well you want us to be Making 64 Alts or you just pick the main and all the Second choice is open to you. Sorry I really miss the Final Fantasy 14. I get 64 Class is a lot and I know people will pick the Classes they want to play as but this you pick lets say Necro you can't go Conjuror or any thing else on the list even if it's under your main Class just because your lock to 1 Main & 1 Second. Sorry I'm more on the lines of You can be anything up to 64 Classes but no one will go that far even 21 Classes is to much. This is the only downside to the whole Game that sadly I'm going Nope the player knows what they can handle and what they like don't need to lock down.
What is shown is awesome, I would like to have 'some hand holding' with an explanation of this in game at some point to share the diverseness of what can be done. Outside of that, love it, keep it going, it adds flavor to all sorts of party groups, and I can see my friend group being excited for what they could bring to the party just by being their class.
Do you think party composition should amplify the meta?
meta as in the trinity, yes
meta as in min max/ fotm, no - it will be sad to see people pushed into certain playstyles cause its 'more viable' - however with what was stated above, it will be a hard balance.
I guess it comes down to what we are looking to amplify and what we are focused on with meta.
I personally love the idea of unique interactions between 2 classes and it being restricted to those classes.
What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
I love active block, and think it would be great for all, just to help mitigate, especially glass cannon classes. I like what was said about 'different effectiveness of black/parry based on equipment used' eg - shield can block way more than a staff.
This feels like a great spot for stamina, I love the idea of stamina for blocking, HOWEVER unless a block is happening real time, stamina should not degrade, and maybe even have a ultra reduced regen rate, but still regen vs degrade. this might need to be taken into further context for pvp aspects of it, and would favor the pvp defense of use over PVE for that would make balancing easier, though im not a game designer.
Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
UI was great, nothing bad to say about it, I would like to see a colored mini map and possibly class colors for players outside of just the health bar as red.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cleric update and weapons demo?
for me, steady as she goes, I will be more concerned/intrigued as the archtype blending becomes more of a reality and how the secondary ones impact primary
Really good! this was the best part of the livestream for me! really enjoy complex and deep combat systems, hopefully we get that with all sorts of status conditions and damage types so we can build our team/raid compositions both for PvE and PvP with multiple viable options
Do you think party composition should amplify the meta?
Yes, The Meta should be as specific as possible, there shouldn't be a beta for PvE, nor there should be a meta for World Bosses, the meta should be for one specific type of mobs or bosses
same for PvP, there everything should have counters so that we don't have metas for "the best 1v1 class" but instead have the "best 1v1 class against Ice Mages wearing Cloth without hybrid damage and low mobility"
What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
Concerned that such a core part of the combat is still not decided, active blocking should exist for all weapons, it should have either an HP bar that goes on cooldown after drained or a stamina bar with a cooldown - active blocking with melee weapons should give a ~30% damage decrease, and other archetypes (NOT TANK) should only get up to 50% damage reduction when using a shield
but Please, as a Main Tank - the TANK archetype needs a passive or some unique perk that when Active blocking with a Shield he is the only one that should block 100% of incoming frontal damage! do not make reduction in damage when using a shield for the tank this sucks for the tank, it feels really Bad, we tanks, should block 100% like the lancer does in Tera,
with a unique audio feedback and number effect when we 100% block a hit with the shield, this is just Perfect, ofc this shouldn't last too long so we need to decide the good moments to use it!
and when the stamina is drained or the shield HP breaks and goes on cooldown then, we rely on our waterfall block chance stats!
Please... make tanks great again! otherwise we won't play a low damage class if everyone can use shield and theres nothing special about the tank... there are a bunch of DPS archetypes and only 1 tank, give us some love!
Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
Good, love the new class icons, love the XP bar and the new minimap is Amazing! it looks modern and clean, the only thing here is the nameplates and HP bars, I do think the blue and green used for HP and mana are too old-school... but I'm only talking colors this is an easy fix, maybe do a more neutral red and blue for those, and match all your UI in the same theme please, a modern default look should be nice.
hopefully, keybinds for healing are working in alpha 2 - also, the character names and nameplates need work, enemy nameplates by default should only pop out when you get really close or you look directly at them, and an HP bar should show below the name when you hit them (ofc keep the design with no HP bar or HP% or points shown for players Outside your party) but for NPCs it should show it, and it should be more of a modern style with matching font for all the UI, the default font doesn't look modern, and placement seems off, look at how New World does it!
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cleric update and weapons demo?
I absolutely LOVE the new VFX and camera effects/shake and all that! I want more
now, some feedback: the 1H mace feels slower than the 2H sword, but is is not due to the attack speed - it's due to the animation, make it a little snappy like the greatsword and it should fix it, staff is ok, but we can't really tell by watching steven playing it since often he was standing - I dont see a point in giving feedback from just watching a video we need to test it to give proper feedback, from a visual standpoint, everything is great! hopefully, we can get to testing soon
Finally - the next step I believe is working on enemy's reaction when they get hit, you can do an "easy" fix now for A2 and just make them glow white and freeze/shake for half a second like in BDO when they get hit to show feedback - but ideally I'd like to see them react like flinch or something, don't make them stagger but we just need some sort of feedback other than just VFX and audio - this would take it to the next level
having ragdolls or some fix that doesn't make the mobs float in uneven terrain would also be nice
PS: what happened to the hunchback pose for the Vek? I hope you didn't get rid of it... it was what made the Vek different!
I kinda like the idea that some major AoE stuns may require some actual coordination and verbal communication. Can only imagine what other combinations some could pull off, though my biggest concern at that point is just that, meta, with people finding out what the easiest farm compositions are or worse easiest PvP comps are, potentially ostracizing entire archtypes like bard or summoner if they don't fit in the mold.
Do you think party composition should amplify the meta?
Be very careful with that, because you may end up FORCING players to play roles and subclasses they do not wanna play just to not feel useless because the class they do like to play doesn't help the team/raid as much, and that's spirit-breaking to some who love finding that one niche that they are comfortable with.
What are your thoughts regarding the active blocking shown during the November Update?
Honestly I feel we didn't see much of it yet. You said yourselves that there's not even a stamina system built in yet, which will be critical information for anyone expecting to play tank and trying not to die in 2 seconds.
Share your thoughts about the hotbar, icons, minimap, party and targeting UI shown.
It's unobstrusive and relatively natural to the setting without feeling too contemporary like BDO, I like it so far.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Cleric update and weapons demo?
I personally like the idea that Clerics have to do DPS to get bigger heals, forcing them to not sit there and heal tank. But I'm also not a healer player, I just get annoyed fighting them in PvP when they are basically immortal in 1v1 matchups when even DPS can't keep up.
The AI mobs nameplates I think are distracting and take away from immersion. I would remove them from all mobs and just have a top bar icon once you click on the mob you see a nameplate in the top of your screen like in some other games that identifies them. The nameplate above the mob feels corny and dated. Mobs would feel more threatening without the cheesy nameplate tags above their heads.
The wind based foliage sway could use a slight tone down especially with trees. The bushes get a bit dizzying at times, and the tress don't bend as much as shown regardless of the time warping. It feels wrong.
The sky looks amazing in 4k. The constellations concept is neat. Keep running with that. I don't know if you need to outline it in the sky though.
I'm not an active streamer but I would look at other platforms to host your monthly dev broadcasts that limit the quality of the broadcast less. Watching the live stream compared to the 4k video on YT posted after is a night and day difference. I would try to show off the game in its best form rather than the low visual quality Twitch allows if there is a better option.
AI mob movement looks like it is missing frames. Work in progress I assume.