Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Also, if just a few aoes can kill a character from full hp, who's also supported by healers and is probably highly defended against magic attacks - Intrepid will have completely failed their balancing design.
Also also, if Intrepid succeed at their design goal for party compositions, 20 people would mean 2 (maybe 3) mages. And even if a double mage setup is viable, that'd still be 5 at most (cause the remaining 4 chars would need to have supports to not die immediately). And here we go back to my second point - if a few aoes can remove a character then Intrepid failed at balancing.
Please note that my experiences are 'old MMOs', 'BDO', and MOBAs/Team Shooters.
In all the games I experienced, the only Rogues that end up being 'useless' are the ones who only build to actually always successfully fully assassinate targets.
Much like a Sniper, the power of a Rogue in the games I have played is the threat of them, the 'lines they cut off', the 'strategies they nullify without actually even trying to kill anyone or being there'. The 'point' of Rogue in my experience playing it is to make the opponent worry that you can kill them, and disrupt them, not actually always manage to kill them because other people usually finish them off anyway.
In this approach, the Rogue/Flanker is very often an integral part of the teamfight. Even if they are 'squishy' once their defenses do drop, they're a hard-to-kill distraction that opens up options for CC and 'makes the enemy turn around'.
This is even true in BDO with its abysmal TTK (not so much so in Node Wars, but generally).
The more people involved, the more effective this type of Rogue tends to be.
But this isn't a counter to anyone's point. This is just 'I don't know what happens to them in modern MMOs apparently so I need to be filled in'. I could see a game with a lot of AoE being a problem for them, but only if the AoE is cheap, which doesn't seem like it would be the case in Ashes.
We were talking about mass activities and the relevance of the rogue in them. Now we have shifted to PvP.
It sounds strange to talk about mass PvP and waiting for enemies around the corner. It sounds more like occasional situational maneuvers rather than regular mass PvP.
I actually support having balanced groups for mass PvP and a want rogue to be useful enough to be included in a group.
The point is for this class to be in demand. And the point of this topic is not about the class strength in PvP.
The point is about the demand for the class in mass activities - raid bosses, sieges, mass PvP, future sea content, and so on.
If a standard group consists of 5 people, it would be a tank, healer, bard, and 2 DPS.
What would be the motivation to take a rogue as one of these two DPS?
Will rogue be useful enough to take a rogue to this party?
I really hope that Rogue/Ranger class will work that way and can be used with ranged weapons/skills.
At least it will give a chance for this class to survive, even if it's not in the original Rogue/Rogue form.
At the beginning of this thread, I wrote that one of the possible solutions to this situation is changing to a ranged combat with a suitable second archetype. This would be a solution. One of the possible solutions.
A standard group in Ashes is 8.
If you are talking about 'subgroups within a mass PvP situation even if you made the groups smaller, you'd put the Rogues in the groups with the tactical intent of using them.
I don't assume you are talking about tactic-less mass activities.
Your options for heavy/primary DPS in Ashes are Mage, Rogue, Fighter, Ranger, Summoner spec'd to that.
Rangers will get countered by mechanics that block frontal damage with a tradeoff of them being in less danger.
Mages will get countered by magic resistances, evasions, and speed, or just killed by... the enemy Rogue probably.
Fighters are great but usually you'd see them coming, I can see Fighters being chosen over Rogues somewhat consistently for mass fighting, true.
Summoners, who knows. In the games I play normally my Summoner's job is to hit things AFTER I distract them, which means technically they need the Rogue with them more.
Rogues would still do the same thing, so if that's what you needed you'd bring one. Rogue + Ranger in particular is very effective in my experience, so I don't know what would make it undesirable relative to the options.
Could you go into more detail, perhaps? I'm serious when I say that I haven't played a single game where the problem you describe comes up, and that's not hyperbole, and I do play a lot of bad game to study this sort of thing. Of all the balance issues I have seen and been frustrated by, I just haven't personally ever seen this specific one, so I need more explanation...
Rogues could stand near the walls to avoid the majority of the first aoes, pick their targets correctly and then use their gap closers to attack those exact targets to try and kill them asap. This would be my approach to this kind of fight. The video shows a different approach due to a particular alliance-wide protective ability.
I expect to see a fairly similar environment design in AoC's dungeons, with maybe even more places to hide yourself.
And here's a direct perspective of 2 top daggers on a server (archer and fighter parties respectively from what I can see). Fighting in daily party vs party, gvg and mass pvp. High mobility, gap closing and stealth.
I read your post, that's why I said what I said.
its easier to sneak up on one guy, than to sneak up on 20 guys. it would make sense if it was easier to detect you the more enemies were around you...but video games don't make sense anyways.
20 vs 20 isn't that many ppl. its not like you have 20 players hitting one person. that's 2 parties in l2 and each party has 3-4 dps depending on comp. and you are also talking about as if there wasn't any mirage, shadowstep, hide, celestial shield, party ud, etc etc etc. sure maybe 6 mages hitting one rogue, he is dead, if he decides to go in first...bout what about all the other players? they gonna reach the mages in a small corridor. and aoes typically do less damage than single target skills. also, don't go in first lol
Blandishments!
Lies!
You of all people know that no fight can be predicted when the classes and archtypes aren't even in alpha stage.
So, we don't know the cast times, the cooldown, the damage mitigation, etc.
I won't comment on sea content since I was never into AA or older titles
but PvE, single target numbers are generally pumped if there is any sense to balance
for example in GW2 community benchmarking, on the patch as of posting, puts their 'Deadeye' as the highest theoretical and has a skill requirement to match, other single target specs like 'Weaver' are also right up there rewarding single-target for theoretical - big numbers will have a place somewhere
On-boss performance is obviously a whole different discussion and given the dynamic scaling of dungeons can go from being dungeon-specific variation to party performance-specific variation.
I find further discussion on that line completely pointless until we have solid info on an example dungeon, the boss' different AI trees, the thresholds for those trees, info on the rogue class kit and also gearing etc.
- its mid alpha, let's not start that hard meta nonsense yet.
As for PvP, Stealth is strong. It's pressure.
Perma-stealth on the other hand is entirely unfun for anyone else, so I'd love to VETO that.
Stealth also has great value in information gathering, and information like 'where the enemy are going', 'how many are in blob X' and 'where are the enemy coming from' give you huge advantages.
Being a stealth abuser lets you get key info that let's the big boys rock up and slap each other.
Now for an actual blob fight rogue styles have a great job.
Picking off the stragglers, preventing trickling reinforcements and isolating/blocking enemy retreat options are all great options of viability and I've both been on the acting and receiving end of some excellent versions of those examples across MMOs and other games like Chivalry and Mordehau as well.
- recommend checking out how dolphins herd sardines, using air bubbles from their blowholes, into tighter and tighter balls so that the hunt is more effective - though I don't mean that rogues should be able to stop the charge of a blob by any means.
One extra note before I conclude. I've seen a fair bit of discussion about adjusting your secondary archetype of change your melee/range status and wanted to clarify that it's not really relevant, if I'm not mistaken?
A Rouge/Rogue can just equip a bow or wand if they want.
Effectiveness is a different conversation that I'd say requires class kit knowledge to be accurate.
--
I'll conclude with my personal feeling, a dagger/dagger wielding rogue has no place standing next to a full plate tower shielding front liner, if you want to do that, put on full plate and equip a tower shield. We can do that in this game
But at the same time, a heavy, towershielder shouldn't be okay to dive onto a priority target or to chop away at stragglers and expect to be able to run away/kite/stealth out just because they picked rogue and 'thats what a rogue is'
There were videos of L2, but it should be noted that the rogue featured in those videos was a hero (top rogue on the server) running around and killing players in 52 lvl armor (in l2 cap lvl = 85), which cannot be considered adequate information.
Yes, in L2 rogues have mirages, shadow step, and other abilities, but are they really useful for raid bosses or farming? If we're not just talking about PvP.
If we take L2 as a basis, then you probably haven't played as a rogue, because you would know how uncomfortable it is to level up, and how they're not wanted for raid bosses or leveling.
Everything discussed here is also occasional tactical uses of the rogue as a hidden scout or a single interception group with rogues. Yes, such occasional uses may find a place, but such a tactic is unlikely to be often, but rather the exception.
Unfortunately, I haven't played GW2. Maybe in some other situations, things are different. But I wrote this post based on my experience, and this experience is comparable to the games Steven played.
Based on my experience in L2 (interlude, gracia, h5) and AA version up to 3.5:
Rogues were not needed by anyone in PvE parties.
Rogues were not needed by anyone in raid bosses.
Rogues were not needed by anyone in mass PvP (except for small PvP groups).
Rogues were not needed by anyone in AA's naval content.
This trend was more or less pronounced in both L2 and AA.
In all these situations, in an average party, party leaders preferred archers or mages as DPS, and warriors at worst, but never a rogue.
Yes, if you are a fully charged overgeared rogue, then that is a different situation. But that is an exception to the statistics.
Yes, there are occasional/tactical situations where a rogue was used, or you can find many frag-videos with rogues. And without playing as a rogue, it might seem like everything is fantastic for them. But in reality, everything is absolutely different.
I agree that discussing the nuances of a class makes absolutely no sense until there is complete information about it.
But the reason why I created this topic is simply to draw attention to a possible problem now, before the release of the class, so that such a situation does not arise in AoC.
There is a small hope that the developers will pay attention to this topic and not forget about this class.
I can't speak to AA's gameplay or party setup, but if L2 experiences can differ, I'd assume that AA's can too.
max level wasn't 85 in all versions of l2. it was 80 in interlude, and that video is showing l2 classic. max level in classic 1.5 was 70 and b grade armor was the best possible armor available iirc. I'm not sure which version of classic is shown in the video tho. but seeing how the auto farm options in the UI arent there, I'm certain its. one of the older versions of classic.
so you played interlude, gracia and hi5..one of the best parties in gracia for PVP and pvewas 2 daggers, 1 db 1 slh T_T
also u seem to have played in private servers. most prvt servers die in a month or 2. being strong with a dagger takes some time. also, in some versions of the game doing pve with a dagger was a must cuz of half kills on some mobs.
yeah sure in really really big pvp, 100 vs 100 or more mages and archers rule and daggers not so much...but guess what, its the same for every melee class lol. they rule in smaller corridors. every class has their advantages and disadvantages
In that case, could you please tell me where you were (which locations for exp) invited to party for leveling at levels 60-75? And at higher levels?
Excluding Kamaloka (dungeons that can be run once a day, roughly speaking).
Maybe you played on a PvP server with x1000+ leveling? After all, I was talking about low-rate servers and the official Gracia server.
But in reality, considering the situation when you don't have a constant party (with which you constantly play), it was always difficult to find a party for a dagger during leveling. And on the same raid bosses, not considering PvP in some cases, what good was it? If it's not a PvP server with MP banks, there was enough mana to use skills for a maximum of 30 seconds, and EE/SE simply couldn't replenish mana for constant DPS.
I, as well as some of my friends who played rogue in L2, created mage alts for farming, and sometimes they leveled up a rogue with these mages, since it was more expedient. This trend was on both Interlude and Gracia.
I'm not arguing about different experiences, it can vary and depend on many factors. Depending on whether you're with a constant party or solo, on which server, on which version.
And again, is it bad that I want to draw attention to this class?
I don't have experience playing on Classic unfortunately.
Level 85 was during Gracia (Kamael) and higher. Interlude was level 80.
I generalized to 85 because most people play on these versions with top lvl 85 .
If we take Interlude, the point of a dagger was even less than in subsequent chronicles. They could simply not reach the target because there was no hide, no shadow step, no evasion from magical skills, nothing.
I played on both private servers (long-playing) and official servers.
The problem is that in all activities, the dagger was in demand in parties by an order of magnitude less than other DD (mages, archers). That's what this topic is about. Not just about PvP.
And again, narrow corridor situations are occasional situations and not the average activity.
What I want to convey is that I would like the Rogues to be in demand in mass PvP and PvE activities in AoC, on same level with other classes. So that when playing as a dagger, you don't have to create an alt just to farm/pve or to be invited to these activities.
did you play before interlude where daggers were 1 killing tanks, lethal striking everybody left and right, ignoring pdef etc while being the fastest running class in the game. reaching your target wasn't an issue, and you would have healers in your party, plus you weren't always being focused.
not all classes can be useful for everything equally.
and daggers owned archers btw. and daggers with resist owned mages.
also, to answer your previous post, you forgot to mention catacomb parties, which was a big farm of the game. melees were in higher demand than mages or archers for such areas.
not saying daggers had it easy, but yet again, cant have every class be equally useful in every activity. there were chronicles were tanks were useless and no one would take them lol, tanks.
i expect something similar in AOC. there will be FOTM classes.
I guess this is the difference in our experience. I always had a constant party. I don't recall not playing with one in L2, no matter the server rates. And usually the lower the rate the higher the requirement for you to be in a const. Hell, even on some x1-5k servers I pretty much always played with at least a few people and we'd quite often go triple threat of 3 daggers.
The gameplay in mass pvp was always about your positioning and movement. The enemy can't hit everyone on your side, so your job is to not be the one hit for the longest time. Yes, earlies chronicles definitely made that job waaay harder than it should've been, but that's one of the things I expect Ashes to avoid.
Gap closers, movement abilities and good stealth will give rogues enough tools to be very useful in mass pvp. Outside of that, as I said before, I'm against any additional masspvp/pve tools on rogues, because that would dilute the archetype and blur the differences between all the archetypes too much.
Of course, if there is a constant party of 8 people playing, they will find a place for any class by negotiating. But I was talking about the overall usefulness and demand for the class.
And at the same time, of course, I don't want all classes to be similar. I just want there to be demand for the class. So that it's not useless, not needed in any party, and only useful in their own constant party (and even then, it would be more valuable for them to have a mage or an archer, for example).
Yes, I remember the situation with Lethal blows. But it's a random mechanic that works very well in not-very-popular chronicles (such as C4). Although Lethal blows remained a strong threat in Interlude. But I hope that there will be as few such random mechanics in AoC as possible, as the existence of a class in the game as a whole depends on them and their random. I think it's wrong
Regarding Catacombs - that's a good point, as resistances allowed most melee classes to farm there.
But again, for Catacombs farming in Interlude, people make alts Destroyers to farm it.
And in general, any melee DPS class in Interlude was more in demand in Catacombs than Rogue (Tyr, Destroyer, Gladiator, Warlord ... all of them were much more in demand in Catacombs).
For example, in L2 Interlude,
if you were looking for DPS for a party in Catacombs,
who would you choose among the melee DPS: Tyrr, Destroyer, Gladiator, Warlord, or Rogue?
Of course, any of the listed ones, except for Rogue. And what about recipe farming in Imperial Tomb? What about farming in Varka/Ketra? What about farming in FoG? What about Stakato?
Rogue would not be taken anywhere.
How is rogue supposed to get resources and recipes for himself if he is absolutely useless in these locations?
Of course, if you play all the time with a constant party, that party will gear him up. But what if there is no constant party? And again, is it right that he is totally useless in all farming locations?
Not all classes can play equally well. But here, it's about demand, usefulness and about making the class useful at the same grade as others classes.
Yes, I really hope for it and believe in Intrepid.
There are just some pressing issues (as I mentioned before regarding farming locations) and a bunch of other issues with mass PvP and raid bosses (yes, it's mostly related to L2 Interlude).
And I just wanted to draw attention to this before they showed the finished concept of the rogue.
We look forward to showing off the Rogue Archetype as soon as it's ready, as we know it's a very popular archetype in the MMORPG genre
well daggers are a high risk high reward class. usually rogues are like that.
to answer your question, it depends what buffers you have available. people don't always run fully buffed on retail, that's in private servers lol
arguing against destroyer is pointless, because they do the highest damage, but they also need lots of buffs, basically a full party, which you cant always get and they are balanced out by being one of the worst classes in PVP in older chronicles.
gladi sucked before interlude. it became a real dd in interlude, and still has one of the worst pve in the game lmao. gladi is a PVP char that needs to be carried in pve, similar to daggers but daggers are more useful in pve. gladi pve becomes better in later chronicles.
if you only have one buffer, or if you are going to kill one by one dagger or tyrant are really good. and dagger has lots of evasion which helps with healing less = sitting less. they can also lure mobs without pulling the whole room, and they can deagro mobs. other classes cant do that. so there's ur utility. aw has hex. and pw/th have fake death and are really good with aa because of high crit. also daggers have critical wound at 79(don't remember what chronicle they learn it. i think it was interlude). no other class can boost other people damage like that until later versions of the game.
obviously if you gonna aoe you pick warlord or titan. they make everything else irrelevant. in fact, any fighter class use poles in aoe parties lol...even archers =_=
also, in GoD and beyond there are op farming spots at 90+ or 100+ I forgot where you actually need a dagger or you cant level up, because the mobs are impossible to be killed, you can only kill them with half kills lol.
well daggers are a high risk high reward class. usually rogues are like that.
to answer your question, it depends what buffers you have available. people don't always run fully buffed on retail, that's in private servers lol
arguing against destroyer is pointless, because they do the highest damage, but they also need lots of buffs, basically a full party, which you cant always get and they are balanced out by being one of the worst classes in PVP in older chronicles.
gladi sucked before interlude. it became a real dd in interlude, and still has one of the worst pve in the game lmao. gladi is a PVP char that needs to be carried in pve, similar to daggers but daggers are more useful in pve. gladi pve becomes better in later chronicles.
if you only have one buffer, or if you are going to kill one by one dagger or tyrant are really good. and dagger has lots of evasion which helps with healing less = sitting less. they can also lure mobs without pulling the whole room, and they can deagro mobs. other classes cant do that. so there's ur utility. aw has hex. and pw/th have fake death and are really good with aa because of high crit. also daggers have critical wound at 79(don't remember what chronicle they learn it. i think it was interlude). no other class can boost other people damage like that until later versions of the game.
obviously if you gonna aoe you pick warlord or titan. they make everything else irrelevant. in fact, any fighter class use poles in aoe parties lol...even archers =_=
also, in GoD and beyond there are op farming spots at 90+ or 100+ I forgot where you actually need a dagger or you cant level up, because the mobs are impossible to be killed, you can only kill them with half kills lol.[/quote]
I don't think we should consider the chronicles before Interlude. They were not very playable and subsequently became unpopular. The most popular ones are Interlude, Gracia, and H5. My personal preferences are Interlude and Gracia.
The fact that gladiators were useless before Interlude is one thing. But in Interlude, they felt good. And, again, with good defense and passive skills for pole, they managed to hold a decent amount of mobs on themselves and farm.
It's strange to compare a rogue to a tyr. Even with only one buffer.
A tyr can only have one pp or a wark as baffer + a buff from a buffalo (vampiric).
That's enough to clear a whole catacomb room under limits (Zialot) in a minute. Then wait for the cooldown and repeat.
During the time that the tyrr clears two entire rooms, the rogue will only kill 4-5 mobs.
Regarding the GoD version, I also had experience there, and I can't say that the rogues were poorly made there. In this version, they were quite playable and in demand in both PvE and PvP.
But that's a completely different L2.
And if we actually look at the demand for a rogue in mass PvP and all PvE activities specifically in Interlude, then in reality, it was useless.
And all I want is for all classes to be equally necessary in a party in AoC.
Yes, the role of the class, gameplay style, and other aspects should be different.
But the game design should allow playing any class without fearing that you'll need to level up an alt mage/warrior/archer just to be able to farm and participate in all PvP, PvE, RB and other activities.