Is 64 classes still a good idea?

I forget if I've asked this before but, @Azherae what's your group's stance on pvp info in the logs?

In other words, if a fire mob hits you with fire and a fire mage hits you with fire, should the log say "you received fire dmg" or should it say "you received dmg from this source", but it'd be on you to know what type of dmg that source puts out?

Cause I want full transparency on pve side (with types/passives/etc shown in the mob nameplate), while barely any transparency on the pvp side. So imo the log should say the latter sentence.

NiKr wrote: »

I forget if I've asked this before but, @Azherae what's your group's stance on pvp info in the logs?

In other words, if a fire mob hits you with fire and a fire mage hits you with fire, should the log say "you received fire dmg" or should it say "you received dmg from this source", but it'd be on you to know what type of dmg that source puts out?

Cause I want full transparency on pve side (with types/passives/etc shown in the mob nameplate), while barely any transparency on the pvp side. So imo the log should say the latter sentence.

Well, they're more attentive than usual now so they might just answer you themselves. It's game dependent anyway, and we each like certain games slightly better than others.

As the 'savant with photographic high grade memory', I don't care in either direction. Just changes the amount of time I spend reminding teammates of effects. In a competitive game, this hardly matters because other people will be doing the same.

I am advantaged when the game gives lesser PvE information because I can remember thousands of mobs and their effects whereas most cannot. I am advantaged when the game gives 'average' PvP information because it's enough for me to make inferences but not for people without my skill level to do so without guides.

I don't like having either of these advantages, as I think it's bad for the game long term.

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The riveting gameplay of old. Behold! Combat.

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I don't see how it matters whether people get information about a game's systems by manually punching numbers into a spreadsheet versus just looking at a log file. People are going to do it either way.

The only thing that making the process more tedious actually achieves is making it harder for people to theorycraft and compare their data, which doesn't exactly help encourage an active community.

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To me this is a battle of information. If I somehow know that xxxPWNERxxx has fire attribute on his arrows (in case it doesn't show it visually for whatever reason) and then I see "xxxPWNERxxx dealt 1k dmg to you" - I'll know that it was fire dmg and will protect myself accordingly in the future (or I would've been protected already, but you get my point). But if PWNER doesn't know my attribute of attack - he won't be able to protect himself as easily.

You said quite a lot in the past that "a good player is someone who plays the game well across all of its mediums". Having info on people is one of those mediums. Selling such info could be very very profitable and could also lead to internal drama and discord.

The log telling me "this source dealt this particular type of dmg" would completely remove that kind of interaction.

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This is where THE MIGHTY POWER OF ICONS comes into play

NiKr wrote: »

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To me this is a battle of information. If I somehow know that xxxPWNERxxx has fire attribute on his arrows (in case it doesn't show it visually for whatever reason) and then I see "xxxPWNERxxx dealt 1k dmg to you" - I'll know that it was fire dmg and will protect myself accordingly in the future (or I would've been protected already, but you get my point). But if PWNER doesn't know my attribute of attack - he won't be able to protect himself as easily.

You said quite a lot in the past that "a good player is someone who plays the game well across all of its mediums". Having info on people is one of those mediums. Selling such info could be very very profitable and could also lead to internal drama and discord.

The log telling me "this source dealt this particular type of dmg" would completely remove that kind of interaction.

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This is where THE MIGHTY POWER OF ICONS comes into play

Only if you play simplistic games and record all of your combat to review later.

Not slighting you, but you're still somewhat underestimating the PvE offerings out there. There would be too many icons to keep track of, which is exactly what happens in BDO.

If you have a debuff that reduces enemy damage, then that too, must show as an Icon on the mob so you would have information on 'why it is not hitting as hard'. See image below(? I hope) for 'average number of icons on a World Boss'

I'm not saying this is unreadable, though, but remember that BDO is a simple type game when it comes to this.

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To be honest I find the perspective you have on this confounding just because of how incoherent it is. You seem to believe that making the process of gathering data and discussing it more tedious and time-consuming will encourage people to do it? Is that right?

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Restricting people from using glasses does in fact tend to make them ask for help with math homework... Until people start calling them stupid or worse lording it over them because OTHER people can see just fine.

"Glasses make you less social and less likely to ask people for help with your math homework." That's what this sounds like.

Having logs doesn't make people "do less homework". There is still homework, it's just the 'bad eye sight' part we are getting rid of. People who are stuck on a problem will still talk with their peers.

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So to tie this back to the thread again.

There are build guides on omeda.city for Predecessor. They are the beginner ones. They are the basic thing you need so that you can get used to your character and not be actively making an error and misunderstanding your character's baseline before you even start.

I would expect the same things in Ashes. A 'basic build for a person wanting to try out Acolyte or Duelist'. I would expect the 'basic build for Acolyte' and the 'basic build for Spellstone' to be meaningfully different, just as the 'basic build for Midlane Countess' and the 'basic build for midlane Gadget' are fairly meaningfully different.

And if you just use this basic build, you will be okay in 60-70% of situations, enough to probably know if you enjoy it. And then, you will face 'midlane Greystone' which will seem odd because he's an offlane/tank character. And somehow you will lose to him. And have to go ask someone why.

Or your social, sensible teammates, even people you have NEVER met before, might ask 'hey do you know how to build for midlane Greystone?' if they notice you might not. And they might help you out based on what they know. And maybe there's even a little time for them to come to some sort of middle ground of expectations of 'what you enjoy and know how to do', and 'what you would need to actually win your lane'.

People who don't desire to rely on their group are basic. But even the social anxiety people I know aren't thinking to themselves 'I just want to pick the easiest way'. Because it's not the easiest way for them. Because they don't build against Midlane Greystone, and then they utterly suck in the matchup, bring the whole team down, and feel so bad they end up quitting the match/game despite never being toxic and no one being toxic to them.

"I'm sorry"
"My bad"
"Oh dam I messed up..."
Disconnects at minute 14.

Let's all help our 'basic build Spellstones' learn the game without requiring them to send us recorded footage of their fight. I want Ashes to last longer than 'minute 14'.

Azherae wrote: »

If you have a debuff that reduces enemy damage, then that too, must show as an Icon on the mob so you would have information on 'why it is not hitting as hard'. See image below(? I hope) for 'average number of icons on a World Boss'

I meant it in a more "passive learning" way. Mob's nameplate would include icons for all his passives/actives, with base number values for them. And during the fight actives would be called out in the log by name, whose dmg to you could be then compared against their base values.

So you'd only need to take screenshots of it (at worst, record a short video of you hovering over them all). Ideally I'd prefer if those icons were visible after you'd done quests or read lore or spoke to npcs about that mob, but I know that this info would spread through guides/YT almost immediately so that would probably be an exercise in pointlessness.

In other words, you'd have all the info even before the fight (at least on open world stuff), but you'd know its full practical application only after the fight, so the combos and usage of the abilities would still require players to learn them.

And I don't want this kind of knowledge in pvp, cause to me acquiring this knowledge is its own gameplay (kinda like the thing I mentioned for the pve part, except more difficult to acquire).

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

If you have a debuff that reduces enemy damage, then that too, must show as an Icon on the mob so you would have information on 'why it is not hitting as hard'. See image below(? I hope) for 'average number of icons on a World Boss'

I meant it in a more "passive learning" way. Mob's nameplate would include icons for all his passives/actives, with base number values for them. And during the fight actives would be called out in the log by name, whose dmg to you could be then compared against their base values.

So you'd only need to take screenshots of it (at worst, record a short video of you hovering over them all). Ideally I'd prefer if those icons were visible after you'd done quests or read lore or spoke to npcs about that mob, but I know that this info would spread through guides/YT almost immediately so that would probably be an exercise in pointlessness.

In other words, you'd have all the info even before the fight (at least on open world stuff), but you'd know its full practical application only after the fight, so the combos and usage of the abilities would still require players to learn them.

And I don't want this kind of knowledge in pvp, cause to me acquiring this knowledge is its own gameplay (kinda like the thing I mentioned for the pve part, except more difficult to acquire).

Oh, I see. FFXI solves this in a much simpler way.

Mobs are exactly the same as players in 90% of situations.

So, I know that a Warrior mob has Double Attack at level 25, Defense Bonus, etc. I just 'need to know that it's a Warrior'. Sometimes the nameplate offers this information directly, sometimes you just need to remember it. I don't really care if it has an Icon to tell you 'this is a Warrior/Monk'.

If you know the passives of a Warrior/Monk player, then you know most of the passives for the mob. A boss might add some special stuff and you need to remember the special stuff, and then think about how that special stuff combines (usually 'unfairly' with the stuff you should know already).

So I didn't think of this, I just 'remember what a Yagudo Herald is' and then 'Remember what Vee Seju the Consumed has that goes beyond a Yagudo Herald'. But sure, icons of that type are fine. I don't know about 'base number values', but whatever works for people, 50% of the game population will pay absolutely zero attention to any of it anyway even if they are trying to play fairly seriously.

Which reminds me of another consideration, which is that at least for me (perhaps because I'm too much of a 'MOBA player' and not an 'MMORPG player' I guess), I don't want Ashes to prioritize competitive data gathering in combat over the adaptive fun of individual interactions.

This is why I think that Lightning Reload is one of the best abilities ever.

When the average Predecessor player queues up, they are doing so because they expect to get to play and do cool things with their character and have a fun match against people who have similar intentions. It's easily possible to break this both by 'opponents not knowing what they're doing' and 'teammates not knowing what they are doing', but there are other ways.

So if you tell me 'there are 64 variations', I'm not expecting that when I log in, I am getting the equivalent of a whole new character', but I am expecting that I'm not going to be 'able to switch super simply from playing full Tank Sevarog to playing Disruption Siege Sevarog' just by changing the way I use abilities.

In Ashes I'd somewhat assume this meant 'I will always be set within a range of things that Shadow Disciples do unless I go do a full respec of my Skill points/secondary'. I wouldn't like a design where I would need to review just to even figure out 'how' a certain thing happened every time. So if they want to hide PvP information, that's fine, but at that point I'm asking for it to be 'clamped'. Don't 'make multiple items that let a Guardian's special stuff available on a Spellshield'. Let that stuff be legendary, scary, confusing but notable.

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I'm just speaking to the level of behavior I see on forums like this. Whether or not you consider your behavior is elementary school level is an issue you can discuss with yourself later.

Let's put it a different way. You shouldn't use a computer to look up a book in the library. Because that makes you less social because you don't have to talk with the librarian as much. Oh and DEFINITELY don't use your phone to google stuff so you can refine your book search better. Do I have that right? Slowing down people checking out books so they can actually talk to the people that matter later seems like a poor decision and a poor facsimile of human interaction. I'm glad you don't run my local library.

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So basically, without statistics or evidence, you 'think a certain thing is true because you feel it is correct' and you have drawn some conclusions based on that.

This is obviously my fault for using the RL equivalent of a combat tracker, i.e. 'statistics' to draw my conclusions.

Big 'Old Man Yells At Cloud' energy.

You ever thought about 'why' MOBAs are more toxic than MMORPGs? You really can't figure it out beyond 'believing that going back to the old days' would somehow be better? I'll give you a hint, it's related to matchmaking and reputation.

Anyways, at least try to give me a prompt to tie it back to classes/class design next time. I couldn't manage from this one.

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Yeah, that's a good point. I'd personally prefer if this wasn't the case, but knowing Steven's love for d&d I'd imagine logs will show dmg type/element. Oh well.

He was right after all.

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For base stuff like atk/def/etc stats it can be a table in one icon. And any special passive/active stuff can have their own. We're yet to see proper mob complexity, so I dunno if we'll ever have mobs that have 20+ special passives and actives.

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You seem like the sort of person who doesn't have friends, or doesn't talk to them. Information isn't the end of a conversation, it's the start.

Strategy and tactics are how you apply what you learned, not 'managing to learn it' in the first place.

Information gives you something to talk to your friends about . "How do we approach this challenge?"

Guides can't answer that for you in any reasonably deep game. Everyone's party is different, everyone's styles and skillsets are different from their counterparts in the next group over.

Maybe you've never played a game that's complex enough that every group's solution is different. Maybe you only play games where every party's style & composition are the same. Guides give you the bare minimum.

But if you have friends, and you talk to them, you surpass that minimum by discussing the information, and using it to build a plan that suits you , and a good game rewards or generally even requires this.

Maybe your games don't require this. Maybe you've never had friends to do it with.

That's the bare minimum that the rest of us are used to. I hope Ashes is at least that deep.

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I took Noaani's comment as "if you were hit with an axe - your character would know that. if you were hit with an ice arrow - same. etc etc." We could get into pointless arguments of "but what if the character was hit in the back and didn't see shit", but I feel like that would be a petty argument even for these here parts.

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Option 3 exists. Turn the data base on, turn the pages to find the chapter and tell them to give you information on that chapter you have gone through with any detail you want. Work in your group of 3 on the assignment using the information you got from the library. Go through the chapters together and share information on the chapters you guys find.Get an A+ if you exhibit good teamwork.

You seem to think mmos are about 'fill in the answers'. Complex mmos that have strong teamwork and social elements don't have 'fill in the answer' style problems. Maybe that's what you are missing. A problem can be so complex/difficult that having all the information in front of you isn't enough to solve the problem. That is the sort of games I like to play and am used to. It's very possible you've just never played the kind of content we are even talking about here that Ashes has said they want to add.