Thank you so much Steven & Margaret for doing this and inviting us content creators on and get some amazing information out to the community! It was a dream come true for a lot of us!
25:59 "You build the world through PvE, you change it through PvP." I must admit, I'm impressed with how well Steven presents an overarching philosophy and the interaction of so many systems. Given, he's been at this for many years, and the questions may have been pre-screened, but as a person who wears the software developer hat and is also invested in grand engineering problems, he displays a remarkable intellect and vision.
"The zerg problem is solved through skill". As someone who enjoyed and led small pvp groups focusing on better tactics, communication, coordination and so on, this is music to my ears. Thank you!
Breath of fresh air. Stephen actually gives honest in depth responses to questions. Rare to see that in a dev. When AGS does AMA it typically turns into the opposite of an AMA(almost)A, which is antithetical to what an AMA is supposed to be.
Thanks for hosting the AMA and the creators. Everyone is great but I love me some Loreforged! Edit: Finished watching and I really enjoyed this event. Please do it again.
Balancing Tanks and Healing by limiting the archetype choices is actually not a terrible idea. Let the diversity come from DPS. One of the worst things in MMOs is having diverse tank and healers and watching some of the more fun and thematic options just get absolutely sent to the dumpster in terms of power to `meta` comps. If the talent selections are good enough to add diversity, that is such a solid design choice imo.
I am an alt maniac and a healer main, and I know there’s many of us out there. We like to play every healing class and learn the ins and outs of them to be able to play them at a mid-high level. Saying “let the diversity come from dps” just shits on all tank/healer mains. We get to play 2 class while dps mains get to have magnitudes more replayability from just making different dps classes. I quit ESO because while it has other healing “specializations” it all comes down to the 1 healing weapon in the game, restoration staff. Not thematic if I want to play a Druid healer because of all the holy VFX, or any other healer besides a Templar. And it ruins the mojo.
@@mlg_maxxi3502 you’re not incorrect but a huge reason for tank and healer scarcity is the improper balance of “fun/theme vs good and practical”. Modern MMOs door a poor job with FOTM. If you’re making a game with the trinity in mind the two most important parts of the triangle are the two points adjacent to the ground, the roots of a group: tank and healer. The slew of DPS players will always outweigh the other two roles so in my design opinion, define a balanced specialist role that is both fun and practical that brings the core class fantasy to life. That’s what tanks and healers gravitate towards. It’s a far more responsible class role than DPS. We already dictate the groups pace and success most often. DPS variety ensures you can fill all kinds of players. TLDR: Intrepid going the right direction. You can also balance tank damage and healer throughput way easier without so much class diversity in these two roles.
@@thegamemattster I agree and disagree lol respectfully. Without enough knowledge to form a full opinion on there only being 1-2 healing classes in AoC, I will just say I hope there is 'enough' variables in the augments and dual-spec systems. Enough that it won't be super easy to counter healers in pvp because they all use the same stuff AND enough that there are a sufficient amount of choices to prolong the fun of the class before boredom sets in. By that time maybe we will get new classes :D :D
Spoken like a DPS player. Yeah who cares about the Tank and Healer players? They're just NPCs the DPS players need to play. Game is ruined if augments do not provide meaningful differences for Healers and Tanks. Who wants to play if all Tanks and Healers are the exact same?
Lots of nice information in this AMA. While I am disappointed I won't see summoner right away, I am more surprised by staves not being initially fleshed out. Great AMA though! My hype levels are back up.
Totally agree, hopefully there is at least a battlegrounds or something. Or maybe it’ll just be castle sieges and caravan trips being the main source of “allowed” PvP but idk
Great Job content creators. Best AMA ever. Really thoughtful questions, which got at many previously unknown things. Your passion for the game is very evident.
I love that you can respec but only with significant effort. Makes decisions meaningful, gives unique feeling to your character. Each person can't be everything is fantastic!
This AMA was such a treat! I’m eagerly looking forward to the eventual release date and grateful to have a leadership as dedicated and inspired as the AOC community itself ✊🏽
What Steven said about visually being able to see the tank and that he uses best gear is what made vanilla WoW epic for me. With transmorg and cosmetics that killed MMO:s for me. I hope Ashes somehow manages this and keeps that old school feeling of walking into the capital and recognizing skilled players based only on looks.
Someone may have brought this up, but the point of zerging a boss is to guarantee your group gets the reward even if the reward is finite, your chances of that reward grows exponentially with numbers. The amount of people you have to slice off the pie for may grow, but the reward is still there. The zerg is not against other players but against the system.
i also really enjoy the resource scarcity and restrictions steven put on crafting and on resources in general. it gives the whole world and players a better identity. for example with the crafting at one node question. it gives the node and the actual player crafter identity like "oh that node produces a lot of steel weapons" and the crafter saying " oh i make all my money off of steel greatswords" because the node is surrounded by ore/iron nodes so the node is famous for steel products and then the specific crafter is known for making weapons with that metal so it makes every node feel like its own real entity.
One of the most attractive things about this game to me is that steven DOES NOT forget about us PVP players. so many games focus only on the PVE player like new world and then the game dies hard. It gives be great hope for the game and i can't wait to fight in Ashes!
Based on my experience in every mmo that have a blend of PvP in PvE areas, the PvP will likely be completely phased out because 99% of MMO players are pve players that do not want their pve interrupted by PvP. This just happens in every single MMO that try’s to blend the two experiences. Honestly, as I’m getting older, I find myself to fall into the straight PvE category more.
I genuinely hope that Intrepid chooses quality over quantity of button bloat so the port to controller will be easier, I also hope controller support will be given from day 1 and they don't make the same mistakes as New World. There is an incredibly large audience they miss out on by not releasing on multiplatform/controller support.
Would love to hear more about the vision for Naval combat at some point. If it will be casting spells, swimming over to other ships to do melee combat and board them, or if naval combat is intended to only be ship abilities without our roles being able to interact with other ships hit points or occupants. I haven't played the older mmo's like Lineage used for inspiration. So it would be nice to hear more about what pvp zone combat will look like on the waterways.
Because the summoner and Rogue won't be there for the start up of alpha 2 . Can the other classes acquire a few skills of the rogue and summoner skills like stealth, lockpick, treasure finding, and summon some creatures to fight alongside them in battle. Skills that may not be as powerful as their counterparts skill and once you do release those two classes then you can give them a few more skills. The Rouge can have a grabbing hook skill, a rope skill or a climbing skill that allows them to climb any walls, a passive skill that allows them to enter magic shield or barriers, and a skill that allows the rogue to steal anything that is in their line of sight that is laying out. The Summoner could have summoning contracts that allows the summoner to summon anyone who has a contact with them wither it be players, npc, or tame beast. The summoner could also summon a master key to unlock things, summon a portal for your allies and guilds mate to come, summon a workshop, summon a cabin, summon a chest to store stuff, and summon copys of anything you want to copy.
40:50 Just want to point out that the TTK question Steven replied with "skill over number with lower TTK" it's not exactly what the reality tell us. Because he didn't consider multiple targets attacking you at once so your TTK in a 1 vs 3 doesn't work in your favor if the fights don't last as long or CC spam. Throne & Liberty has this issue and don't think Ashes will be any different. Long was the time that zergs were that desorganized. The way TL is currently trying to handle this is by having a faction based anonymous combat in some pvp events.
Will there be unique free holds or magical ones that could be a portable magic bag that players can take with them or a floating island and will there be different rankings of freehold?
Really hope the tank gets renamed to something like guardian or something else in the future. The name isn't what you'd expect such a class to be called in the actual world.
Honestly I agree. I'm worried about the prospect of becoming a celebrity or being generally prolific and getting targeted in cities or in the wild. I already deal with enough of this in ESO as is. Getting bagged by zergs, hate mail after every battleground by the same pool of players. Imagine being a streamer and having no fast travel. You'd need an enterage everywhere you went to prevent PKers from griefing you night and day.
As a kickstarter from 2017, happy that the world and interactions are the focus not the latest “hero class”. Very happy that only limited immersion of the world for 2024 alpha . Having entire gameplay prior to launch has ruined another mmo. Very good update guys.
As someone who loves to off-tank support I really hope we can get the ability to hybrid properly when running something like Siren or even Sentinel, I would love to see some real variety in this game. The universal skill tree gives me hope for hybrid class options. Can't wait to see what we can cook up.
So basically the rogue resource/abilities you had were absorbed into the Universal Skills? Good. I hate it when games make everyone but rogues have arthritis. Like, why can't my mage run? Did they not cover P.T. in Hogwarts ?
Not going to lie, I'm not a huge MMO player (maybe 160hrs in total playtime), but the ideas you guys have and the things you are implementing into this game are so interesting to me. It's truly a unique experience following the development, imagining what the gameplay will be like and all its possibilities, imagining how I'm going to immerse myself into it, and being able to give my opinions during the development process to help make it the best it can be. It's something I don't think I'll ever experience with a game again (AND THE THING AIN'T EVEN OUT YET). Thanks for all that you're doing!
The telling tale i got from this was after the risk/reward raidboss zerg question. You can clearly see NONE of these streamers are familiar with this risk/reward game mechanic that is going to run through the whole game in lots of the functionality, equalising a lot of these game mechanics so m any are worried about. Steven, you have a lot of work convincing these people of your vision, but you are doing a great job. It's shame so many of streamers only have WOW raid simulator experience rather than REAL openworld socially dynamic pvp games.
I am so relieved that Rogue is getting true stealth, my main pick between rogue and summoner is decided now. That was a huge worry for me. Because that active camo spell is nice but insufficient for a true rogue playstyle. I'm equally happy that the other classes get a camo option too but rogue needs that identity to line up damage and set up combos. My Shadowmage/Corvo Attano dream is nearly a reality!
what stops some one from opening a stall for trading outside a dungeon and the first group of people coming by to do said dungeon doesn't just gank the trader and take all their wares?
37:20 - Are we talking about combat only passives? Or can guild expand and invest resources to get some passives related to crafters for example for specific group within the guild?
PvE v PvP raids can already be seen in Wow Classic and such. Most (ofc not all) people will in the beginning of the game be gungho and go all out and try to frack eachother over, BUT what you see in Wow is that guilds takes turns on taking on the bosses. Because people CBA to take the path with most resistance. People will allways default to the path of less resistance. Its just a matter of time.
problem is i dont want the paste eater to be in control of my loot. i just simply wont ever do any content that has a feature like that, if i que or join a group my loot should be mine not what someone decides for me.
I don’t really fully understand what he described about the raid bosses but them being dynamic based on what is in front of it?! Like if more players are pvping it takes different actions? Holy shit lol
1:02 Ok, I am typically [not] into quirky fashion or clothes that stand out too much, but I give it to Vlahdus, that is a simple, catchy, and cool cap with an important, noble message. 😂
almost all mmo's i know have certain weapons and armortypes asigned to their classes. Like Rogues wear leather and can use daggers and swords while a warrior wears plate and wields a twohander or a sword and a shield etc. from what ive heard aoc wont work like that while you can wear whatever you want. Armorwise ive seen that the armortypes do grant diffrent benefits like plate has deffence stats and phisical dmg reduction while cloth is more of a magic resistance thing. now my question, if we take a casterclass, lets take the summoner and take a closecombat class as the second...what are we aiming for gearwise, how are we going to increase the our dmg output? with strengt or with spellpower? and as an extra, how are summons going to scale? based on your mainstats? Lets say i pick a summoner and cleric could i go heavy armorbuilds while fighting in melecombat or are both classes more of a castertype so it wont be competitive dmg wise since my spells scale based on spellpower? I would love to see that classes can be played diffrent and still be competitive.
I'm still concerned about the caravan system and not enough risk for the attacking side. If a game's goods and materials can't reasonably flow then it will cause a lot of problems for the economy of the server and could eventually cause the server population to prematurely collapse.
Personally I'm very glad to hear that rogue won't be available at the start of alpha. Broken stealth mechanics can break a game, let it cook so they can make sure they get it right.
There is going to be a big problem with this "friction". The idea that low risk low reward being a mic drop fix doesn't make much sense to me. All that means is that low player groups and God forbid your a solo player isn't going to realistically be able to do anything effectively without being annihilated by groups of people going boss to boss, dungeon to dungeon getting gear across the whole zone for their entire group.
