Where Ashes of Creation Is Falling Short

[@Virgiliusz]

I'm glad people are starting this kind of conversation, from the start of the project there were very good clear fun end goals and promises for endgame content but no info to back up the claims with systems and a way to keep everything balanced. Especially on node city stuff, It's an MMO it's a very competitive space especially when it's PVP and player interaction the game should be focused on making itself fun for everyone rather than the top 10% of the player base.

[@GrappLr]

That's the goal of the video, to start a conversation on the topics I myself find to be flawed in design. What do you think are the biggest flaws they have?

[@Virgiliusz]

@@GrappLr Established trading zone specific hours for PVP, dedicated starting areas, and generally splitting stuff apart would make a lot of these issues easier to manage. That also introduces a lot of segmentation in the community tho. Maybe looking into PVP and PVE gear would be a good way to deal with the griefing. A lot of ways the time investment and PVP griefing could get circumvented and keep the core idea, but everything has its ups and downs. The devs should focus the game on what exactly they want to do and stop catering to everything it's impossible to do. Core game experience of the average player should come first and foremost, after that any additions that don't hinder that experience should be added.

[@Phazzzon]

Strongly agree with you. I hope Intrepid takes a look at this video and responds to it. Keep up the good content!

[@GrappLr]

Thank you. I hope so too. I could do a video on the Family Teleport system on it's own, and make it 30 minutes easily LOL. And I also have good ways to fix the issues. Maybe I'll do that if they do end up implementing the system and it starts to show issues like I predict it will.

[@Kngly1]

​@@GrappLrYou can post these on their forum if You arent alredy, lets see how it goes.

[@Goji_Bear]

I agree with every single take. I hadn't heard about the family teleport system they are planning, that sounds sooo bad for the reasons you already pointed out. About pvp in safe zones, as I said I agree but I think a good alternative would be to add a dueling system that only work in safe zones (as to keep real pvp alive everywhere else of course) That way you have a safe place to duel someone without anyone losing stuff, and the cool part about doing it in cities is you gather a crowd cheering you on. This works very well in ESO. Anyways, dueling system or not, they should definitely remove pvp from safe zones. People need a place to rest and share their adventures without having to worry about getting jumped all the time lol

[@GrappLr]

They have said they'll have dueling probably, just not a priority. But yeah, allowing real PvP in cities sounds horrible.

[@JohnJosephLabrier]

Love the Ashes content! Your takes are always very reasonable. Looking forward to more Ashes content in the future!

[@GrappLr]

Glad you’re liking it!

[@sospokemika1197]

GW 2 solved that pretty nicely. 100% dodge, Its written in capital letters that you have done it and its limited to 2 dodges (50% of your stamina), so you cant really spam it. In fact, you get obliterated if you misuse it. As for a scripting part-That applies to any ability does it not?

[@MonsDerrMan]

Big agree on all of it. People should 100% be able to trade and craft inside a city with peace of mind, not get randomly one tapped, just feels very cheesy and it's not one of those things that feels like a fair or reasonable loss as opposed to dying and losing materials in the wilderness. The risk should be when they're in the middle of gathering, bringing it back to the node after gathering it or transporting it between nodes.

[@GrappLr]

Agreed

[@williambrossard5081]

Gear gap and family teleport have been two of my biggest concerns for the longest time.The range vs range and dodge rolls issues are good feedback. The safe zone issue, I kinda don't mind it as it can create emergent gameplay with raiding guilds and defenders when at war. Your main concerns about the 5 ranger is also not that simple because you will be flagged when looting. It could be solved also by turning you red if you loot someone that was killed while green. The risk will not outpace the rewards. Also knowing that, auction house will become more relevant for higher level material trading as they are the safe way to trade and economic power would make vassals use that auction house which incentivize growing those nodes. Above all, I would love for Mayor to be able to create safe zones by investing in it. Like by upgrading a central hub or something, making that one a safe zone. Or maybe having a maintenance cost. Then other cities could invest in better guards to save on cost but people wouldn't feel as safe to make that place their main hub. I think that is truly a design that fits the Ashes of Creation risk vs reward principle. Cheers mate, keep doing your great constructive videos, this is amazing to be able to have civil discussions about the game we love !

[@GrappLr]

Interesting ideas

[@Krieghandt]

Oooh Oooo, If a node has a wall, safe zone inside the walls, no walls, pvp zone. I think, though, all level 3+ nodes have walls already. But I like the idea.

[@elfarsmarirobertsson8255]

damn, that sounds fun, having some cities be lawless dangerous cities, cause of mismanegement or corruption sounds fun as hell. It would make some cities like bandit towns where criminals gather, and if you make the mistake of taking a big amount of recources to that town you get punished. It would make normal players avoid that city, but I think there will be a good amount of people that would gather in those sorts of places.

[@rumyelfrostfire9273]

I agree with most of the things you said. I am still curious to see the family teleport thing since I dont think that one can't be fixed ( you can make it that you need minimum 4 character in the same area from the same family to teleport to them and you already limit the limit for fast travel to 2 areas, or you make it other limitations on it). The last one I also really hope they change because it is far to easy to destroy someone's day to the point he will quit.

[@GrappLr]

I have ideas on how to fix the system, but as it is, it's going to fail.

[@ZapatosVibes]

I don't see any way it can be implemented to allow 2+ people to instantly join up where it cannot be exploited. If you want to play with friends/family, then be based in the same nodes/regions imo.

[@kennethferland5579]

Possibly allow it only at Nodes, and it binds the player telepoted. But really I'd rather see it just removed then trying to force it to behave.

[@khallixtus]

Some very good takes, I like it. Hopefully Intrepid hears this stuff too, especially the family teleport and in-node combat abusability. Those are just going to either ruin the systems they have in place or just ruin a good thing. Not sure about the 100% dodge roll being bad due to scripting possibilities, because there are plenty of MMOs out there with full 100% dodges that have good combat and I haven't seen them ruined by scripting (though I don't actually know any statistics on that occurring). I think the hard part for scripting it would be having the script recognise that certain abilities are about to hit you. Regardless, dodge rolls are a core mechanic of hybrid combat games, so removing dodge rolls to combat the inconsistency experienced would only force AoC to be, at its core, a basically full tab-target game.

[@GrappLr]

The dodge rolling part is the part that I least care about honestly, followed by the Range vs Range one. I think Family Teleport is #1 worst, I think the 2nd worst is in node pvp, and third obviously rarity scaling.

[@mallusdarkblade]

I agree on weapon scaling; a 5-10% increase for each tier is fair, with the lower tiers having a higher bonus and the higher tiers having a lower bonus. I think teleports should be accessible to everyone and spread evenly across the biomes. On the range vs. range combat, more abilities and secondary archetypes might help solve some of the problems. I think being critical of the game; is important for it's overall development.

[@fyrestorme]

12:40 totally agree with this one. But I think they already had things planned to make cities more "safe" (although maybe not 100% because there are node wars coming too).

[@Chief_Amiesh]

Good point on power spike being too high, I totally agree. I think the best way to come to a compromise for those players who want fast travel (which goes against the world's construction and game's purpose) is to have a portal, perhaps one portal in one city and another in a city far away, where people will be able to crunch down on time traveled while still being required to traverse the open world after taking said portal. It's the only thing that in my mind makes sense, and I wouldn't mind a very sparse means of fast travel that didn't totally defeat the purpose of exploration and "enjoying the journey" so-to-speak.

[@Krieghandt]

Science (crafting) nodes already get this as metropolises (level 6)

[@TheeTiten]

I could see the appeal for making cities have a potential for danger as its similar to real life, if they rly want to go through with that then they could make safe zones within cities like official trade buildings or other non sketchy places within the city, or there could be an object cities can build that prevents pvp within a certain radius, making the safety of a city dependent on the city itself, having guards could also be fun

[@MattVid16]

Great feedback here, and agree on everything, at least in theory (since we don't know what the teleportation will look like). I hope the devs are listening.

[@GrappLr]

Thanks. It seems most people so far are in agreement.

[@RyveGenesis]

Agreed on all points

[@GrappLr]

Cheers

[@PhurPher]

I think Family Teleport could work if it requires the person being teleported to have no gear or mats on or in their bags on teleport. If they're family then you're trustworthy enough to be lent some gear. Also there has to be some extremely long lock timer for switching families. A few weeks minimum. And if you've been teleported you can't be again for 24 hours. This way it is ONLY used by people planning ahead of time to grab their family/friends who can't log on until after the person or group has started farming/questing/PvP'ing, whatever.

[@TheSpinalator]

Content is the number 1 thing this game needs., a person can play Albion if all they want to do is pvp, gather, and craft. There has to be something other than that. The best part about WOW was the little house or town in the middle of nowhere, where you could get quests or lore. I hope they will add more villages and NPC's with quests.

[@iano1638]

I appreciate you bringing up the conversations about how people are going to be min maxing and exploiting any mechanic they can think of. Anytime I tell people stuff like this they think I'm crazy. If people can find a way to abuse it they absolutely will.

[@ferocious_pooh]

Love that you're starting these convos, great content. The family teleport question is an interesting one. There are ways to combat the abuses I think. For instance, you could make it so characters can only be in one family and no two characters from a single account can be in the same family. In other words, the family is a distinct abstraction (like a guild) and characters/accounts can only join one. I'm sure there are still ways it can be abused, but it would mitigate some of what you discussed. Personally, I'd be fine if it didn't exist at all, but there are definitely ways to make it less exploitable.

[@GrappLr]

I have some ideas oh how the teleport could work. But as is, it’s very abusable and even pay to win.

[@melidar1366]

Your comments are really good. I agree with all of them. It shows how commited you are to the game.

[@mothercukerjones]

First point is reasonable however keep in mind that no one will have full legandary and upkeeping full legandary will not be possible due to only specific master artisans with specific access to stations will be able to even upkeep it. Last point is something i've been saying for a while. Big agree.

[@charleskrishnamoorthy6109]

Just want to say I found you recently and appreciate your very astute takes. I'm in my 40's now and a casual player and I agree with both of these. While I understand I will never get the best gear in an mmo again, I still want to feel like I can compete someone who has in PVP, even though I understand I'm at a disadvantage. Gear power creep is a thing and gear should realistically only account for a max of 30% of total character power instead of 300% which it seems like it most MMO's. Also agree with the family teleport even as a casual. The romance of Ashes is experiencing the world, not figuring out the best way to circumvent it.

[@GrappLr]

36 here… those 40s are scary! It’s interesting how many people on my streams/yt comments are older than me! I’m not used to it.

[@wishka4663]

I agree with almost everything. Your flagged rangers get attacked in town so how fast the guards were on them and if they could shoot ppl in the heart of the town w/o dying before the kill. Maybe unable to stealth in town would prevent that along with stronger guards that 1 shot hostiles. You as someone looting the guys body for logs would also still die yourself to guards from looting his body it would flag you...but still you got 1/4th of the logs with him dropping half and you dropping half of what you looted. Like when we were killing Nova's dupers in town we weren't looting them to take guard aggro we were just looking for fights. Like stirring a hornets nest we were out numbered 2 to 1 or more at times...but for sure towns should be safe zones and trade routes/outside town be dangerous....but also you need a cooldown on the town becoming safe I think so it isn't gameable so you can't just "in and out" for immunity. Like a countdown coming into town or leaving and a cooldown for that safety so you couldn't just dance in and out. Obviously this does not apply for Node Wars and depending how hard it is to declare guild wars (after this latest patch) to kill other guilds in town.

[@Mees2]

Every point is spot on. I even changed my mind on some of the points because of the well put together explanation. Hopefully Intrepid listens..

[@GrappLr]

Glad I was able to explain the points in an understandable way.

[@cara-que-joga]

Hey bro, I've been watching all your videos recently, I agree with almost everything you said. My guild leader crafted me two legendaries (a wand and a focus) and I can say it indeed makes a HUGE difference. And I mean, that's only two weapons, imagine the gap with all armors and accessories legendary!? Plus the skill gap in combat is almost none and it's super slow paced right now, actually the gameplay in general feels very slow (combat, running, mount, etc). I personally wish they would speed everything up, so it would already add some gap in the combat, it would require faster actions... more reaction time. The dodge thing I think it wouldn't solve the issue, because people can use defensive skills for the same purpose, for example if you take a mage for instance, they could setup to use blink or bubble on the mage everytime a ranger uses sniper. But yeah, let's hope they put a lot more focus on that in the coming months. Thanks for the great content!

[@GrappLr]

Eu acho que estou na sua guilda xD

[@cara-que-joga]

@@GrappLr sim está 😂

[@perilousintent2936]

I believe that the family teleport will also influence the use of alts. Since the only way to fast travel is to be part of a family. People will be buying alts. Is intrepid secretly wanting more cash

[@GrappLr]

Still pay to win, which they promised not to do

[@user-oi2zi6ev8h]

I really agree with most of the issues. However, I think it is very important that we as tester ask for gameplay mecanics that would fix those issues and not some godlike system enforce law . Exemple for the no-pvp zone: 1-npc city should be a no-pvp zone because players need a home base, and those cities have no ingame mecanics players to enforce/influence laws or wtv. 2- Node City should not have no-pvp zone enforce because it completely ruin the players' driven things that they want. Possible fix : 1-Law structures that can be inforce like safe bank with guard. 2-building that provides a general city quest for let say enforce(be a city guard) law for gold and exp reward. 3-possible way to merchant to pay ingame for a safe escort inside the city. 4-ways for the citizen to file complain and way for mayors to punish. Need to be balanced but quite possible. Node should be players driven, and things like robbery and crime are part of the life inside a mmo. Like night time should be more dangerous and rogue players should be able to try they luck. Also, a lv1 node should be less secure than a lv5 node. Nodes need to be a community things and players need to have the tools to organize themselves.

[@andreroberts4209]

Definitely agree with every point you made here. Although I like the roll for mobility, I think removing the dodge aspect is best for balanced pvp. Keep up the good work!

[@elwow4351]

some streamers and tryhard players can easily have 8 accounts placed in the most important spots (like level 20 noob chars parked) and easily navigate through the map with their mains. It can't be like that in terms of family teleports. This needs tons of limitations (like range/cooldown/level difference/limited to the same biom only etc.)

[@joe13squirrel]

The gear quality scaling is a great system, it lets crafters be relevant. It makes the progression less focused on just grinding combat levels when you can gain great power from sitting at a level and making gold/items. But I agree on the teleport being bad for the game. But look at gear quality like this. I can level to 10 then grind lots of caravans and artisan skills to acquire heroic or legendary gear putting my character power many times higher than any other. I can then go solo grind or grind with similarily geared guildies with far greater speed than someone in whites. Then I hit 20 and go crafting again! It helps naturally break up the gameplay.

[@dnothing23]

Honestly, I cannot argue with a single one of these points. I'd agree that if the games scaling is going to be slower and longer that the gear scaling should also reflect that and be a slower and more gradual climb up. There shouldn't be that big of a weapon or gear upgrade to make a huge jump in power. The family teleport system... Wow, I never thought of these loop holes... I would very much like to hear you ideas for fixing this GrappLr. My first thought was limit its use to only once a day, but not sure that would entirely fix these issues you are referring too. the only other option i can think of is instead of it teleporting you to someone make it to where it teleports you to a specific family location. Sounds like they need it to be more descriptive on the dodging so we can better know what is going on with the dodges. City should definitely be safe zones, or at bare minimum the central manufacturing area of the city. maybe the outskirts can be a bit more "lawless", but yeah safe zones within a city somewhere. unless they can make the guards be scary enough for people to avoid those areas for greifing. but i don't see that working. good short video, i dig it! would like to see more of these. even a short 3 to 5 minute video on each issue and go into a bit more depth and ideas for fixing.

[@GrappLr]

Thanks, glad you liked it. And yeah, once these systems are online and giving issues, I’ll make content on them most likely without ideas of how I’d go about it myself. I think it’s important to get conversations started early though, and bring attention to anything we think might be prone to abuse.

[@kennethferland5579]

Very solid points. Lets hope Steven dose not ruin his own vision by blindly sticking to certain flawed aspects of it.

[@saint1xd913]

To add to your first statement: if they do decrease the scaling between rarity we could have a higher change of dropping rare+ items because for now its really hard to see items rare+ items

[@Azazel226]

These are great points. I hope the devs will engage you on them.

[@venheartzeil3070]

I agree with everything *except* the gear scaling. I think we absolutely should have people who are in full legendary gear be raid bosses in the open world. At least for damage. I don't think survivability should be as crazy as the damage output so that a coordinated group of 2 or 3 lesser geared people can take down someone in legendary gear. But I grew up playing WoW, RS, Ragnarok and BDO. I have great memories in all those games of seeing that one super geared guy come through and decimate everyone and either trying to escape or just barely managing to beat him. I saw New World try to cater to people who can't play as often and it didn't make them play more, it just made the people who put in 18 hours quit and then everyone else followed.

[@SimsSmith]

Excellent points. One area I don't see a lot of conversation is about camera angle of AoC. I believe the camera is too zoomed out sometimes. It takes away from the importance of having landscape, elevation, surprise ambush, suspense and overall immersion factor. I am fine with 3rd party camera PoV but it needs to be much more zoomed in. Would love to see a whole video on this topic.

[@perilousintent2936]

I think a better way to solve the weapon scaling is to tone down the dps but legendaries offer debuffs that can combo off of your class

[@GrappLr]

Sounds fun!

[@Xhotic]

Idk i think weapon rarities are a good chase things for people who even might suck at the game, but also if someone sucks at the game maybe its up to THE PLAYER to look up info, like how to get good at the game, they can look up how to make a build, how to craft a legendary item for instance, or like how to interact with X system to get upgrades, idk i think they of course need to keep the Weapon/Gear Rarity, but the scaling could be a bit different, but bigger jumps are a good feeling, small jumps of progression that never end up showing because how small they are is BAD. So idk i understand and feel what your saying they need balance and the power spike is too high, i feel that and i think they could balance those items/systems a bit better, but they forsure need to keep these systems as the systems like weapon rarity/crafting/itemization etc is the whole reason most of the people are even hyped for AoC. The systems is what makes AoC the hype that it is! But they could use fixing and balance but hey the games still like 2 years off sadly so i guess we will see :) EDIT: Fully agree with everything you said about the Family Tele system, that needs to change ASAP. EDITx2: Legit agree with every point you made about the Safezone/Node Cities Combat needing to be off.... hope AoC understands sure it can be different, but if people are used to QoL like Safezones etc in MMOs i dont see why they should try to reinvent the wheel and be "unique" by making everything PvP, im okay with the Lawless zones as that reminds me and a lot of people of the "Wilderness" in RS. But i wish they turned PvP off in most zones and only kept it in PvP world events or Lawless zones. (I think Lawless Zones (aka OSRS Wilderness) and Instanced PvP like BGs, Arenas, GvGs etc is a much better PvP system in a game and not just PvP on all the time, everywhere, non stop... especially a MMO) Like i get they want to make the fear of PVP be a thing and as a PvPer myself i respect that but at some points you just want to chill and do some like PvE content for instanced for maybe do some chill Instanced PvP WITHOUT the fear of loading back into the server just to get jumped/ganked for half of your hard earned gear inside a SHOULD BE "SAFE ZONE" MAIN HUB/CITY....lmao so yea hopefully they listen to you and other players on that cause yea i agree REMOVE PVP IN CITYS/like half the open world imo... they can just make it a little more like Throne and Liberty's Open World PvP dude, people actually liked the Open World PvP IDEA (keyword is IDEA) in that game , to where when it gets "Nighttime" its PvP in the open world dungeons! and in some Areas! And also they could make Nighttime/Daytime have different PvE encounters sometimes! (Not all the time) and also different PvP encounters throughout the world!

[@jawamaster]

Too long, didn’t read. No one has time for that mang.

[@nevaehann232]

The family teleport makes sense if there’s a 1day CD

[@Falcrow1]

1. 100% agree on gear scaling, its even worse on higher level items - also this does even worse with the scaling of the stats - especially if it has a main stat like int on spell bows / books. 2. I did not know Family teleport was a thing. I thought it was only through Lvl 5 (or 6) Science nodes. But yes, agree that it should not be a thing especially for a game with PVP. 3. I don't agree with this point. Classes are not fully fleshed out yet, so not sure if it is the right time. But I think as a Mage I can outplay rangers with blocks and perfect timed dodges (like right at the start - but yes its a bit buggy I guess). 4. I think need more testing based on evasion stat. 5. Depends on where they go - I think right now only GvG is allowed in cities? Good video, agree with most, another great vid.

[@GrappLr]

Thanks for the feedback. 3-4, those are both points I think we can agree on, and things will change I'm sure. Point 5, right now, everyone can PvP in cities. Guards will attack you if you flag up, but you can still kill people, which is the issue, since they drop stuff on death.

[@PhurPher]

Family teleport hardly ever gets talked about for some strange reason. I think it's like the red-headed step child, everyone figures they can just not think about and it'll go away.

[@someInternetPerson1]

I agree with you on almost all things, especially the teleport. If there is a teleport, it should be used only for a limited time after a character is created in purpose to join the friends who maybe started on the other side of the map, but it should not be used to transfer items or high lv players for combat. The one thing that I maybe don't agree is the first point, but I am looking at it from a different perspective. I play an artisan and I heavily lag behind in terms of levels, which also means gold, glint and other drops. The only place where I do have an advantage is my crafting, and making legendary should help me catch up. So when I finally craft my legendary for lv 10 or 20, people will be lv 30-40. But getting a legendary should be a huge effort and people should rarely even have it. I think that currently the drops for mobs and rarity of stuff is increased, but having a party full of legendaries should not be a thing

[@GrappLr]

People in no life guilds will have full legendary faster than most people have full heroic. If the discrepancy is that large, those guilds will never lose a single PvP fight anywhere.

[@someInternetPerson1]

@@GrappLr legendary should not drop from mobs at all, even epic and heroic should be ultra rare. I think that people in no life guilds will have so many advantages on many front's that this is just a piece of the problem

[@G.Giorgio]

Totally agree skill progression is big part why I like pvp. If it's all about gear that falls totally flat

[@greensock4089]

Surprisingly good takes from you considering your views on non-consensual pvp

[@GrappLr]

I try to think of things objectively. I can accept that something can be both good, and in the same time not to my liking. This video I tried to only talk about topics that are objectively an issue as I see them, not to myself, but to everyone.

[@andorandor5462]

100% In regards to dodge, I was shocked to see this in an MMO and it doesn t even work properly.

[@mindricofox]

I agree with all these! Question is, how do we get this on intrepid's scope?

[@GrappLr]

If it gets people talking, good chance Intrepid hears of it.2

[@cameronjohnson7130]

Teleports you make a good point about personal teleport spots. That I'm not sure of a fix. As for the group teleport a simple 15 to 30 minute cd foe both players who were involved In teleport would stop mass surprise summoning to a certain area. Unless they have 8 different families and all of them in same node summoning only 1 other person to summon every 15 to 30 minutes. But as for personal teleport options with disposable income I am no sure how to combat that.

[@CasabianN-xr5sc]

If they remove dodge mechanics, I am pretty much done with the game. Its just another tab target MMO for me then. Same goes for active block...

[@PhurPher]

They can make it work, just needs some polish. It's no different than kicking a cast in WoW, yea latency matters, but it does for most PvP in any game. And no changes should be made under the considerations of someone scripting an event. What they need is some kernel level anti-cheat, not a gutted game cause of scripters.

[@joshuajohnson714]

I don’t think the rest of us agree

[@martialis2974]

totally agree. imo dodge should just be a 100% dodge as it says, since you can only dodge 2 times within a short time anyways and still have the block option e.g. if you dont want to entirely dodge this one dmg but rather decrease dmg from multiple spells within a combo. i also only enjoy playing this game since the fighter class has a lot of non tabtarget aoe spells and the hybrid system which im using the action target from, makes combat fun for me even tho im not a fan of tabtarget games. so these 2 mechanics would be a game changer for me as well and i think many other younger players.

[@aresameliajenalpha9019]

To me I don't think dodge, block sprint, stamina and even F for interaction are needed. Tab target is fine, just need good pvp with loot.

[@zacdudzik]

Dodge is moderately fun. Active block is lame AF if not tank.

[@johnwensdofer]

This needs to be talked about. I agree with a lot. I will be one of the last to quit a game but the griefing in towns at crafting stations.... there goes a few 1000 players. Family travel.... Nope. that the super team vs their super team.. And NO

[@GermrotPlays]

eloquently spoken and absolutely valid points all around, we all benefit as a whole from your alpha participation G

[@GrappLr]

Thanks dude. I'm trying to make fun content to watch while also maybe doing a small part in helping the game grow/improve.

[@artimus124]

I agree with you although did not know about family teleport which honestly should be scrapped as it's against their no fast travel rule they are trying. Most of the rest I think and hope they will fix

[@askatrof9622]

Hey totally agree with you about everything. Teleporte should only be in scientific nodes fully lvl'd up as they said a some point or maybe you have some portals hide on the underrealm. Tp in game make the game less immersive and remove the wonder of riding around on your mount. And yep make citys safe and put an arena or something for duels but i don't see the point of having open world pvp inside the citys if they fix the corruption system the game will have enough thrilling pvp !

[@RoyDurett]

As long as we can have multiple characters/accounts you can be anywhere in the world just run a character there beforehand and log off. Guild needs help on the other node just log into the other character/account.

[@GrappLr]

Leveling 8 alts and also gearing them is a MASSIVE amount of work. Teleporting is just credit card swipe

[@Zoltr44k]

The Weapon Rarity Scaling, I don't think is too bad for now. But I saw a lot player with Legendary equipment, making way more harder to craft could be better or allowing only some equipment to become Legendary.

[@IbanryuGG]

while i agree that the gear scaling is a little wide right now, i don't think it's necessary to change the numbers, simply start crafting, so you don't have to farm out a boss or mobs for higher rarities, just go craft a lower level than you can equip normally, and have a massively more powerful weapon... i think that's a way in itself to combat a lot of gear bloat and needless gear treadmill. While i Agree also that someone decked out in full rare gear should feel confident they can fight someone in full legendary if they are a better player, the fact is that they've either spent more time crafting, or gotten luckier farming than you did. It becomes a decision to not fight them, and lose materials or fight them and potentially lose more. I think it's healthy for the game in the long run to make these different rarity weapons and armor MATTER SO MUCH. Family teleporting may have already been dropped, he hasn't talked about it in so long, and the family system hasn't been put on the "roadmap" as far as i can see. SO it's possible they've scrapped the idea all-together, but several years ago the top dog himself said something a long the lines that it would be a very long cooldown (24 hours or longer), and you'd need multiple family members in one place to call the rest. So I think that's a limiting factor especially on those trying to use it for ganking. I'd argue that the point you make for it being too convenient is pay for convenience not pay to win. I agree with pretty much everything else you touched on, but yeah gear scaling is not a bad thing imo.

[@SaintOfFire]

I think some of the problems are from "copying" some systems from Archeage, but also adding their own changes that don't exactly mesh with the original design. Pvp was available within cities with only guard protection, but players didn't drop their inventories so there was no gain and you would still get punished, other than trade packs which are more or less caravans. There was also a huge gear gap in Archeage, but it was something that would take players years to reach the top end of (ignoring RWT), not just kill a world boss and get a lucky legendary roll. Though in their defense, we have very little knowledge in how much enchanting affects different grades of gear. If only the base stats are vastly different but enchanting adds roughly the same amount per level, then the difference in +20 rare weapon and a +20 legendary weapon might not be so monumental. I know someone in my party made a white lvl 0 necklace have +18 power rating by taking it to +12 enchantment, so its definitely a sizable boost. But its just speculation because they might make higher grade gear scale even faster.

[@GrappLr]

Good points

[@zidaryn]

Node city combat is reminding me of High Sec combat in EVE. Even with overpowered guards with fast response times, people will still ambush people who are carrying valuable stuff.

[@sg4tw509]

its really about guilds farming materials and gearing their players together. Stevens plan is not to give solo players the ability to loot legendary gear solo or in very small groups. (boss gear).

[@xenith_terrek]

- In agree with you gear rarity scaling. - For family teleporting, unless they make some change to it that I can't currently think of, I agree as well. I do like the family teleport idea, but maybe put a 4 person limit on it? - Trading in cities being safe. Agreed

[@xenith_terrek]

To add, Given the current time sink it takes to get said resources for the next tier, I think the difference in stats is justifying with the current state of the system design.

[@LucyPLM]

Its not family teleport. It is family summoning with a high cooldown and long cast time. And you cant teleport to the summoner if you have materials in your inventory. This is only usable to teleport from one node to another. Yes it can still be abused. But get your details right. You can have only 8 members in your family. You can't be part of multiple families. There are cooldowns in switching families. There is a cost associated with the families, meaning its not Click to join Family, then summon. There is a cost sink in this.

[@TyboGames]

All very good points, especially the ranged dps vs ranged dps skill problem. I've always felt like in mmos 2 ranged dps fighting is just a dps check or whoever attacked the other first which is boring.

[@sherpagoolsbee8390]

4:00 - It didn't much care for it when I first played Albion Online, but their system I now consider to be brilliant. About 70% of pvp is skill based. Player progression (gear + character level) doesn't provide the player more power, but rather it alters the risk/reward ratio. Two players can have significant difference in player progression, but the player progression is a function of the cost of the gear they are using. As such, the player with low progression takes on a higher risk and the outcome of the fight will be determined by the skill of the player(s) and not the gear or character level.

[@GrappLr]

True. Although there is a certain level of mastery that does help

[@RandomGaming-Lemo]

you are right with the family thing bro, and i think with the weapon too

[@fefner1642]

Thr teleport idea will be very limited , its because if u play as a dwarf and your friend an elf, youll start at diferrent locations. I think it will be a one time only teleport so you can meet up in the same area, I think your looking into it too much, steven has already said that there will be NO fast travel at all.

[@victim130]

Rather than family teleport, I'd like to see a long CD, long cast time node/freehold recall, that can't be used with materials in your inventory. I'm all for no fast travel, but with how large the world will be and how little of it will matter to every single player, having a faster home button would make sense. Especially thinking about players being stranded on the opposite continent after a long voyage. On the topic of node city pvp, having played AA for the better part of my MMO life, guards are fine. If they make them like AA, they will grab you, CC lock you, and kill you. Mixed with corruption and political backlash, players would be have to be stupid to try. And the few who will mess with guard aggro will be known, it'll drive nodes to crack down on it or their citizens will go elsewhere. Also, your example wouldn't work (Presumably anyways) with it now flagging you as a combatant if you loot dead players and to nitpick, you'd get maybe 5 logs (Since only 25% drops) and the trader would have learned a lesson. This also ignores the fact auction/trade houses will exist and could be the safer alternative for the added tax cost.

[@Bundif]

I agree with every take except these two points that might contrast or require some clarification: Firstly, to get it out of the way, I'm pretty sure that looting turns you purple and that in turn will have the guards on you so even your lvl 1 alt wouldn't be able to get out of the situation scott free right? Wouldn't that be enough of a deterrent? Secondly, I don't entirely agree with the weapon scaling issue you brought up. To an extent, yes it could be scaled a tad bit down but I honestly don't mind it, even thematically, for some elements in an army to be exponentially stronger. I like the idea of someone putting in the extra work and being rewarded for it to a fair degree. It's a delicate balance because if you devalue the reward, why bother grinding for the legendary gear anyway? Maybe it's too easy to get legendary gear and that's what scares us. Simple fix would be to make it harder to obtain. I agree that a green bow should still be able to take out a blue/Heroic bow but put some respect on the legendary bow user if you're rocking greens and whites or even blues. I don't think that's an unreasonable opinion right?

[@GrappLr]

Let's say you kill dude with 20 legendary wood, and he dies. You then pick up with the alt. You'll get 10 legendary wood from that (50%). You then turn purple, die to guards. You lose 2-3 legendary wood (25%). You profit 7-8 legendary wood on average. Massive win. And if nobody loots your corpse, you could even get 2-3 of that back. Secondly, the issue comes down to massive guilds or very very no life hardcore guilds. They have the time/resources/manpower to give their entire raid teams all legendary gear before most guilds could get all heroic/epic. If they are literally unbeatable in PvP, that turns many people off to the game. The idea that I can win in full blue vs someone with purple'/legendary if I'm a lot better, appeals to most players with less time to play. I'm not saying Legendary gear shouldn't be great. In my example, a piece of legendary gear would be 45% stronger than blue. That's a MASSIVE advantage... But you know what's silly? A 150% increase in strength. That's far overtuned.

[@PhurPher]

@@GrappLr Then make a more realistic change and have a player lose all items looted from another player when they're flagged for looting the body and killed(either by guard or player, cause the guards will be aggro'd instantly and be aware of the event taking place). And have the materials sent back in the mail to the person who lost them. No point in axing a wide swath of a system for 1 major issue. On the scaling issue though I agree 100%. Someone in the best gear and in the bottom 25% of skill should never win against someone with even all greens, but in the top 90% of skill. IIRC the wiki says it makes up 40% of player power. That means skill should mean more than gear and how it's at right now, gear means far more.

[@martialis2974]

you literally just stated that youre one of the no life hardgrinders hoping to get advantages just because you have no life and unlimited free time. but normal casual people do not and still want to enjoy the game and clap others if better in skill. i hate you guys always arguing about time effort, but on the other hand people that literally CANT spend the time, will just be fcked and have to accept it? also legendary gear could have a higher scaling for pve but be downscaled for pvp. thus it still would be hella rewarding and if you dont think so, youd just expose yourself as a person that values no-life hardgrinding more than actual skill and prob. abuses its free time to gain undeserved power.

[@Nervots]

So then if I loot some dude in the wilds that was killed and get rekt by someone else after. He should auto get all the stuff back? What.

[@Bundif]

@@GrappLr Oh wait, so if you die when you "steal" from a corpse, the second time you die, that loot is technically not stolen anymore? I would've imagined that the items themselves would have a "stolen" tag and would constantly flag you each time you picked it up. If that's not the case I totally get where you're coming from When it comes to the legendary argument, I'm with you 100%. I can definitely see, and I am totally myself, one of those people that love the underdog matchup that is determined by skill. I just think legendaries should be legendary so yeah I get you 150% might be a tad too much. As a counterpoint however, if you have the massive donkey balls to go into pvp with your legendary knowing you have a chance of losing it, maybe the risk should be tantamount to the reward...maybe 150% (negotiable) isn't so bad when you put into perspective the risk associated with using it to fight much weaker opponents?? But again, your nolife guild argument would kinda throw that point into the dirt...unfortunately it's a delicate balance because you're right, people would 100% quit if they got giga murdered by a full legoboy. If they already officially stated that gear should make up for about 40% of player power, then yeah shit is MASSIVELY overtuned.

[@ThePsychodelice]

First time I see one of your videos. Very good feedbacks ere, I hope this gets attention from Intrepid. The family teleport is HORRIBLE. One of the main things that I like of AoC is the absence of teleports. I hate the idea of TP so much I am also not sure this would be a good idea for the Stage 6 Scientific nodes, but I guess this is much more difficult to achieve. The dodge roll could be easily fixed by taking example from GW2, which I think has an excellent implementation. All the other points are fair and true.

[@Wedcakskacdew]

Once kingdoms exist, you probably wont have citizens trading outside their node network, caravans inside kingdom territory will be relatively safe, the enemy has to "invade" your kingdom to do so, which puts more risk on them. Cross continent caravans will be very risky as you cross multiple kingdoms to do so

[@GrappLr]

Time will tell

[@martialis2974]

i totally agree on every single point. its just unfun to play pvp when your free time is limited and thus youll always fall behind those hardgrinders. also the casuals often dont lack of skill but feel powerless when facing those no life 24/7 grinders with better gear and stats. and i hate stat based games where your actual skill is almost not important to your success. obvsl. those hardgrinders would be upset, bc. lvling and grinding gear wouldnt guarantee their superiority anymore, but thats literally just the fairer way of balancing combat. and as you stated, they need to balance the classes also regarding mirror matches, that skill gets more value instead of just ping, burst, gear etc.

[@lip_736]

great video was wondering how prositive everyone got after the nda was lifted . the ashes team seems to look into the community i hope they see this .

[@sarmaua1]

I've seen a blue bow with 400+ m power lv 10 dropped in highwaymen hill, the colour was light blue so i think there are other kind of items in the game. I think blue ranges lets say from 5 to 10, yellow ranges from 8 to 13, orange from 11 to 16 and so on, so a high blue can be better than a low yellow also i think this is the case because we only have 2 levels of items, 10 and 20, for now. Instead of making lvl 12, 14, 16, 18 items, they make them all lvl 10 but differ on their rank, a rank 1 blue is better than rank/tier 5 yellow and tbf it makes sense. What I am saying is from what i experienced and what i think.

[@GrappLr]

You can look at bow stats on the ashes codex website. Every tier is waaaaay stronger than the previous. But base type counts as well. Some bases are better than others.

[@Shoibyrd]

They addressed the inventory stuff. You have bags that'll take time to open, and you get flagged on opening that bag as well. It's a feature that's not in yet.

[@GrappLr]

Could help. I’d still scrap the idea. People will find ways to abuse it

[@Shoibyrd]

@GrappLr there is also reputation! If your name gets around with merchants and crafters they'll start shunning you and the guild associated. There are lots of games with this feature. Salem the game, Wild Terra, Ultima Online, some Wurm Online. They may not be the most popular games, but they're still alive. Also being flagged in cities will draw guards to even the person escaping so unless they have an army to help them escape, they put a lot of effort in just for those logs. Why not see if it works or not. Also makes merchants do business differently. This exploit and killing and trading will always be exploited and people will get bamboozled and lured out of town. It's just prisoner vs guards.

[@Finnleybang]

Legendary gear really seems to be *BA DUM TSSS* Legendary

[@Krieghandt]

rarity should have more horizontal progression,, and a smaller damage spike. Or no damage spike. I agree, nix the family travel. I think dueling should be allowed in cities, but cities should be no drop, no exp loss zones.

[@Martumal]

First time I'm hearing about family teleport. Horrible idea, just asking for air dropping kill squads anywhere on the map lol

[@vexillian]

I'll go against the tide just to spur conversation, but I think Node City Combat should be allowed to a certain extent, but only if they get guards working properly. They could even make punishments for getting caught in town a ton harsher than outside of it. You flag up now when you take from ash piles. You wouldn't get far if guards took you down within city limits. If there's a way to pull of shady interactions and able to get away with it should be a part of the risk vs reward system. As someone who plans to never PvP unless forced to, I still think a programmatically structured system could allow for unique interactions to occur. If people are going to fall for some kind of scam where their stuff gets taken, I'd rather they learn in a video game and become aware that way than become a victim of a scam IRL.

[@Kngly1]

I feel they can improve on dodge roll put a 50% chance or only works on certain abilities that people have to memorize.

[@uznugaris]

Family teleports and node combat sounds like main issues othere stuff more of balancing stuff problems

[@nanfoodles]

I agree with gear scaling. I dont with Family telaport. Easy to gate it with things like how much exp they have gained together over the course of a year. Level gap, chars must be within 8 levels of each other. Will still be used outside of intended use but not on a large scale. Dont agree with range vs range as well. CC, traps, stuns, pets, all can be used in ways at critical moments in a fight. Dodge does need work. I agree with no PvP in cities but for events.

[@ZapatosVibes]

1) Definitely could be a little lower, or perhaps simply have much less of an impact in PVP. That being said, the entire game revolves around crafting high gear, as almost every system is about gaining/losing ressources, moving them around the world, developping Freeholds and cities so you're able to process/craft high gear. Epic/Legendary mats are exponentially harder to get than heroic or lower. If they're not significantly stronger, than it's simply not worth the effort, and then you're invalidating the entire node/stations/movement/caravans systems. How to balance it in PVP is another question though, as gear in PVP could have dampened scaling. Another note, drops need to be massively reworked, as they currently invalidate all tiers of crafting (that require TREMENDOUS effort) except epic/legendary, on top of bypassing so many systems in the game (node stations, material movement, social elements of many artisan skills, risk/reward, etc). Already made a post on the forums about this (Complete item drops availability VS Crafting time/effort/cost), hopefully they fix drops already in P2, ideal time to test it out with the wipe. 2) True and real. Just check the amount of people that bought several accounts just to have a network of warlocks to summon around the world in vanilla WoW, either for convenience, to protect world buffs from PVP or to summon an entire raid to world bosses as soon as they're scouted. In a game like AoC where travel matters 100x more, it's going to be a clownfiesta. I don't see any way it can be implemented where it cannot be abused to gain an advantage by someone with multiple accounts (something that will already be an advantage to have). 3) I wonder if the intention for dodge roll was to be like New World, to be able to abilities completely? I liked it there, it was a nice application of skill. No clue if it would work with long cast times anymations of a tab-target combat like AOC though. Atm I figured the lag/animation was so broken I didn't bother testing it, so I don't know the intent. As for Range vs Range, I would be interested in seeing the damage once people get more quality armor. Although that comes again to gear scaling. 4) 100% this. Combat in nodes is completely stupid. Anyone that played any PVP MMORPG ever knows this. The amount of obscure exploits you could do in town in Ultima Online to grief/scam in town was ridiculous. Absolute cancer if this stays in, for many, many griefing reasons. Already in guild wars, clueless lowbies in a guild get ganked by high levels in town, without even knowing what happened. I would also make nodes just complete immunity as people are dragging 3-star elites right now in towns, and AOE is killing lowbies (guards just arent fast enough).

[@Drazard]

not gonna lie. the idea of setting up a trade ambush sounds fucking fantastic.

[@GrappLr]

Sure; if you’re the ambusher. But it leads to very bad metas

[@Drazard]

@GrappLr that's true. And I do agree and understand I am an outlier that would enjoy being ambushed as well. But for the game it's not ideal. Still sounds fun to do outside of towns but for sure towns should be safe.

[@kizzuno]

I think you went a bit extreme on a few moments, but overall its important to remember that being an "oldschool" mmorpg doesnt necessary mean to be an obsolete game. You can totally make a hard mmorpg and still use everything we learned from older games

[@Heliox98YT]

I really dissagree with not having korean style female character customization. Lemme build an completely unrealistic supermodel for fuck sake STEVEN!!!!

[@GrappLr]

xD

[@Krieghandt]

You are barking up the wrong tree. Steven isn't interested in girls. Ask for unrealistic supermodel men, and hope they add in a female version 😎

[@Wedcakskacdew]

To the first point, i agree put is the current state intended or a by product of the limited content, ie gear thats in the game, i expect further along well see more gear and better scaling as a result, after all at the moment we have a handful of sets for each archetype only lvl 10 or 20, i expect well see gear for lvl 12 that sits between white lvl 10 and blue lvl10 etc etc

[@GrappLr]

The examples I showed were from the exact same piece of gear, Brass Longbow. Same level same everything, just different rarity.

[@justinwhite2725]

What if family summon summons the entire family, even if logged out? Then waypoints are impossible. Or if only the family head can summon.

[@GrappLr]

There are ways to fix it for sure. I have some elegant solutions. Maybe I'll make an exclusive video on that, once the family teleport system is implemented.

[@Zoltr44k]

The Dodge system appears broken. You almost always get hit and the spells curve in the air to hit you. Even if you dodge, making you more than 35 meters away, you will be hit.

[@mazmundie]

There is no I frames on dodge and idk why everyone keeps assuming this

[@luismauricio7766]

I'm playing ranger and that feels more like support than DPS

[@GrappLr]

Once you hit level 15+ that'll change. Also, getting better weapons matters a ton.

[@luismauricio7766]

@@GrappLr I'm at max lvl and have good weapons but the dmg is shit vs players

[@stickyrubb]

@@luismauricio7766 If you're a lv 25 ranger with good gear, you definitely should be hitting hard with abilities like Snipe.

[@luismauricio7766]

@@stickyrubb the ranger is not defined as just one skill... and when I talk and more in pvp 1v1

[@gavinfuchs]

Dodge should be on cooldown and a real dodge making you immune like in Lost Ark. A tool to either get out of combos or break CC. Well again... Microservices monitoring the application... Program s like that can be discovered as quick as it is deployed :D

[@xefiporhouseofzen8383]

1. Really depends on the rarity of Legendary Items. And, if we are worried about people who does have the time. Why don't we make leveling faster. 2. No fast travel of any kind. 3. Don't see an issue here. Game looking at more group balance. 4. Don't see an issue with dodge. 5. Nah.. leave combat in NODE cities. It is the job of the citizen of a node to protect their node. We had some people try to come and in gank citizens of the node. We all attacked them.

[@Sang-Je]

Totally agree with safe areas to trade.

[@uowebfoot]

Node combat simple fix. Allow players to be able to toggle PVP in nodes. If you walk into a node flagged it will alert you to it. That way they can still participate in PVP if they want.

[@GrappLr]

That would be a fine compromise.

[@justinwhite2725]

9:23 ranger issues. Bards have 2 kicks (the tomato - with an 8 second Cool down) and an instant interrupt and silence. (20 second cool down iirc)

[@tonyspark27]

I hope the legendary gear is super rare.It’s bad if everyone has many many different legendary items.Like New World… The legendary gear doesn’t feel legendary.So I hope in the beginning they only have legendary weapons and that’s it

[@wanderingwatcher3981]

I'm going to go further and say that the ability to steal AT ALL will doom the game to failure. Unfairness is one of the few thing that make people quit a game. We are literally hardwired to switch from "fun friendly competition" to "I'll kill him with my own hands" when exposed to something unjust. The fact is, that if you spend 2 hours grinding materials, and someone else steals it, no matter the circumstance, that will trigger deep anger because you put in the work but someone else profited. We've only recently evolved as a society to the point where we don't murder each other over theft. It's literally in the bible for god sake, yet somehow people think it's ok when it's in a game. The time and effort people put into a game is just as real as anything else.

[@Hat_Uncle]

If every tier was a 25% improvement I'd be happy. Maybe(?) +50% for Legendary/Unique? I kind of feel like right now the GEAR matters MORE than my CHARACTER. (or me as a player) That's BAD game design. Thankfully the duping issue REALLY pointed this out.

[@KenStarwind]

Dodge and the action combat mechanics are integral to my interest and enjoyment of ashes. i can't agree with removing dodge. It should be a 100% chance, as you mentioned, and balanced around that.

[@wertad208]

Maybe it would be better, if you could take cover behind objects. For example trees, walls or houses. It also would be more realistic imo.

[@GrappLr]

You can actually! Vs some spells not all

[@nacari0]

These are sound feedback mate, i hope Steven picks up on them!

[@squatchbigfoot8577]

i have always seen the exploit with the family TP thing, i also agree with the gear.

[@AlvaMeyerPak40]

Had no idea about family teleport. That would be seriously busted. Def goes against the games design.

[@fyrestorme]

If they decrease the amount of power gain in each tier of gear, then they would need an equal decrease in the effort needed to be put forth in order to craft said tier of gear because even with full large guilds right now it's insane. I don't know if this take of yours is fully informed as to what is required to actually craft this gear. I would say, maybe go harvest and gather until you are able to get all of the materials needed and then process it all yourself and then craft even ONE legendary item and then I think you can make a more informed/nuanced take on this. And yes, I do have the experience which I just mentioned. I am a crafter/gatherer for my guild and have been involved in making legendary items.

[@MrJacker1991]

Agreed with all your points. The family teleport is definitely a horrible idea, hoping that they scrap that. Also, I am the only one that does not like the fact that there is flying in the game? I feel like being able to fly in my experience has taken away from interacting with other people and allows you to avoid a lot of things and makes the game feel smaller.

[@GrappLr]

Flying is very meh, agreed