For PvP: 3-Hit Minimum, Versus Insta-Death?

I'd prefer if stealth classes had a single ability that did 50% of max hp out of stealth. Everything else would just fit the "30s-1m ttk" design. And obviously some other classes could provide debuffs that would increase incoming damage to their victim, so that rogue attack would do more dmg, but it'd be happening in a party situation so your healer should be prepared to save you from that kind of attack.

I don't believe in anything as 'brute forced' as a '3-hit minimum' but if I assume that you mean it as a design goal and not a hard 'the game will literally not let someone die even if you hit them for full HP damage 2x in a row'.

In some other thread a while back I did a calculative breakdown of this for a different reason related to gear gaps.

The underlying principles of Ashes' scaling as we understand them now make it easy to balance to avoid this, in my opinion. The 'requirements' of their given goals are pretty restrictive in terms of design.

It's games that have looser requirements, that start from 'what cool things a class can do' and use relatively basic stat systems, that have a rampant problem with oneshots, because their balance framework tends toward spaces where those 'slip through'.

Similarly for stealth, I have opinions , depending on whether or not they actually go the 'no absolute invisibility' route. I feel like Steven (or at least Jeff) shared your concern, and the outlined concepts for their combat goals will automatically prevent them from building anything that can solo oneshot or even 'cause that type of fear' without a huge level disparity.

If they balance player HP a certain way too, it's almost guaranteed that, at worst, you'll die because someone's Synergy goes off perfectly, and probably at least one of the people involved will not be fully invisible.

The question would be if that's still not acceptable to you, since that would count as 'setup and tactics' but would ALSO not be avoidable sometimes and result in you not getting to respond.

We have not received permission from Dolyem to share the quoted post.

Balance =/= fun though.

There are certain mechanics/options that you can make sure are absolutely balanced, in fact, they can even be outright underpowered, and they'd still be unfun and counter to the engaging gameplay to go up against.

Similarly, you can make certain things quite strong and because the WAY in which they are strong isn't fun to actually do, no one wants to play them except the people who just 'have to be the most OP'.

Just saying that I prefer that we don't look to 'balance' as a meaningful part of this conversation at all.

We have not received permission from Dolyem to share the quoted post.

I mention it because balance is emergent and subjective.

It's possible for a thing to 'seem fun' when viewed in 'isolation' (which is basically what we're doing) or in primary expected situations, and then never result in that. But lemme be a bit more contrary then.

Oneshots are never fun.

Glass Cannon builds being in a game are seldom fun.

Those things don't depend on context because they are the things that tend to create the 'context'. Doesn't matter how you balance them. They're anti-fun.

We have not received permission from Dolyem to share the quoted post.

Yeah but by your own admission you don't always play MMOs to 'enjoy the fight', you sometimes play to 'enjoy outsmarting the other player'. Which is what that terrible holdover of a bad tradition of design leans into.

MMOs are like the only genre left other than shitty Fighting Games that haven't learned this lesson yet, presumably because of this terrible tradition.

So based on the scenario the OP presented, and what little I know about you from your previous data, you're not actually having fun because either the Oneshot Option or even the Glass Cannon exists. You're having fun because of another reason.

EDIT: Please therefore, educate me more. What is it about the existence of this build type that is FUN exactly?

We have not received permission from Dolyem to share the quoted post.

Just noting that I have read it all and noted the data.

I just have no productive responses.

Consider me educated.