lets talk about the state of the game and combat

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Our minds are warped, yet you seem to be the only one here who constantly thinks that everyone else here is out to get you or to fuck you over or to trick you or whatever else. Riiiight

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Why would I do that? No one here is against me or is out to get me. I've been "spamming" these forums for almost 3 years now. In that all time, even with several arguments, there's been no one who seemed like they unreasonably hated me or kept arguing against me (and I'm present in almost every damn thread).

And even in case with you, I'm almost sure that the only reason why you're responding to people the way you do is cause you read our messages with your own negative coloring, so instead of normal attempts at discussion you see our comments as some personal attack or an attempt at one. And obviously, when you think that everyone around you is trying to bring you into submission, you'd start being defensive and disregard any of their comments.

I know you won't believe this, but I can assure you, no one here is trying to trip you up. We're just trying to discuss each other's suggestions in the context of the currently presented design. Sooner or later everyone will propose an idea that either doesn't jell well with the design or just goes against the majority of the forum's audience. I've had several threads where majority of people disagreed with my suggestions. After doing my best to explain my reasoning, if they still disagreed with me, we'd just go our different ways, with both of our opinions remaining present as a piece of feedback for Intrepid.

Multiple people in the 2 threads have tried asking you to properly explain your feedback, because saying "the genre has been shit, this game will follow that same trend and I'm sure of it" does not help Intrepid in any way. If you have some idea how to help Intrepid make a more "progressive" game - do share.

But, just as with any of our ideas, do remember that your suggestions will be discussed and criticized by others, because that is just how open discussions go. It not only helps flesh out the idea, but also gives Intrepid multiple perspectives on a design direction.

You've proposed the cleric respawn point idea. Do you have any others, or would that single mechanic be enough for you to consider Ashes a progressive game?

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Your own thread starts with your dissatisfaction with the classic healer archetype.

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You later describe that reactive healing boils down to just heals, which you find boring (as the statement above indicates). You then explain a somewhat proactive way of using heals in the form of proc/combo mechanics, but you dismiss them as a bad design.

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That last sentence goes directly against the second quote in this post, because that is exactly what Intrepid showed in the showcase. That is, the "Conviction" mechanic.

And the cleric stream itself mentions proactivity of this mechanic.
Conviction is a class resource we came up with for the Cleric specifically. Certain abilities will generate it based on certain criteria; and as Steven was saying there, you can either use it to heal an ally or you can use it to do damage to an enemy and generate conviction, which will then help you in the future heal for more. So, kind of what Keenan was saying about predictive play being an element, not just reactive: that would be the one of the predictive aspects of the cleric just setting yourself up so that when things start looking a little rough, you've prepared that in advance by not healing as much early on, and paying off later.[1] – Tradd Thompson
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Conviction

But that proactive gameplay doesn't really matter, because if it's tied to healing spells - you consider that OP, while also thinking that "use a spell in advance" is too simplistic.

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And if the proactive part is linked to damaging abilities, you say that it'll be bad gameplay, because it conflicts with the way you're supposed to play the healer

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But, just as a reminder, you've already stated that you find normal healer gameplay (that is, just healing) boring, so at this point you find proactive healer gameplay bad and prone to being OP, while classic healer gameplay is boring. Ashes will have both.

But ultimately you're not sure about the whole topic, so, whatever.

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So, with all of that in mind, I dunno how others read those quotes, but to me they read as words of someone who finds the core premise of cleric gameplay bad. Or, as I put it in harsher words, shit. And as for the "I'm sure Ashes will be the same", here's that

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If you want to clarify any of those points or point out my wrong assumptions/interpretations of them - be my guest.

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Ok. Then do you consider Ashes a game that has progressive mechanics or is this still not enough? If not enough, would your suggestion take it over the edge or would it still be not enough?

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We don't know how hard the pve will be, but we know that the current plan is to make it difficult, which, I'd assume, means that you'll need a cleric to clear it.

If the pve is in fact easy enough to clear w/o a cleric, what mechanic would you want in the game to make the archetype valuable and fun to play? And I'm talking about purely the pve part of the game. Your respawn suggestion would only be applicable in pvx/p situations, because pve would never kill you with a cleric. And if pvx is always dangerous, then you always need a cleric (as was the case in L2).

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Yes, you've given the explanation of the bad gameplay before. Do you have an example or an idea for the good gameplay? Mainly the "interesting and non-dysfunctional". What, in your opinion, is the "interesting and non-dysfunctional" gameplay? Do you have any concrete examples or at least general directions? Not the "don't do this" stuff, but instead "do this" examples.

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Also, as a clarification for myself because we obviously have different experiences in pve. Why don't you want to use STH in pve? I feel like I'm missing some context here.

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Niem, could you remind me or point out why you believe that AoE heal is connected to Conviction at all?

I didn't perceive it that way, and perhaps that's my problem. I share your feedback I think?

I'm not sure why it's designed that way (I'm not saying it's not true), but if it is, then I agree with you. It's just that I don't know the basis for the thing. I'll go rewatch some of the Cleric showcase (I think I know the section, but if it isn't where they are showing off the Zombie clouds on the ground for the first time, please lmk).

People have different interpretations of what they saw in that showcase than you do, sometimes this happens because of assumptions from the games people come from. It could be us, it could be you, but please at least bear with us and try to get everyone to the same basis.

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Ok. Do you want other mechanics separate from conviction? We have a very basic understanding and knowledge of conviction and whatever abilities will be linked to it, so I feel like that lack of knowledge limits the extent to which you can go with your ideas.

So if you were to come up with a completely different mechanic, what would it be. In other words, what have you always wanted to have as a healer.

Azherae wrote: »

People have different interpretations of what they saw in that showcase than you do, sometimes this happens because of assumptions from the games people come from. It could be us, it could be you, but please at least bear with us and try to get everyone to the same basis.

Yeah, I think our assumptions have just come from almost diametrically opposed ends, which is why our understanding of where the cleric archetype is being taken was so different.

I feel like we're really close to an understanding, which would be very productive to this discussion.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

People have different interpretations of what they saw in that showcase than you do, sometimes this happens because of assumptions from the games people come from. It could be us, it could be you, but please at least bear with us and try to get everyone to the same basis.

Yeah, I think our assumptions have just come from almost diametrically opposed ends, which is why our understanding of where the cleric archetype is being taken was so different.

I feel like we're really close to an understanding, which would be very productive to this discussion.

Well, let's 'party up' and 'switch roles' for now then? idk, I feel like I got dismissed at a specific point in the other thread that we're going to end up back at, but I don't have seem to have the 'verbal adaptation' skill that you do, so I leave 'continuing discussion of things I start' to you.

I'll focus on 'figuring out where the misaligned perspectives are'.

EDIT: I am in fact currently rewatching the Showcase so I'll have the timestamps I think.

Azherae wrote: »

I don't have seem to have the 'verbal adaptation' skill that you do

It's that good ol' "hitting your head against the wall until you succeed" passive And I have Sylar as my avatar for a reason. As edgy and chuuni as it is, I've always related to his ability to understand things. And so far in life I've been able to stay on track with that relation.

You're a longtime healer, so I definitely hope we can get to the bottom of this, cause if the cleric archetype isn't fun for the majority of healers I won't have anyone to save my ass when I throw myself onto other people and mobs

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Ok, this is gonna get long but let's focus on one thing for now as a correction.

If you watch the showcase, not all stacks of Conviction are consumed by Cleansing Wave if the wave doesn't have enough people to jump to.

Also, the Communal Restoration... was your point that someone would want to use this just because they have Conviction stacks?

I suggest watching the old Cleric Showcase for Alpha-1 to see how many of your thoughts are already implemented. The issue we're having in discussion is that you're taking the little bit of Cleric showcase and extrapolating a lot in a negative way with multiple negative responses so you get a lot of unnecessary pushback.

As for your suggestions, all that seems very easy and likely. Is the 'problem' here that you haven't seen Intrepid showcase similar things?

I'm not sure why you don't expect to see those things, is my point.

Azherae wrote: »

I'm not sure why you don't expect to see those things, is my point.

Yeah, this has been my main "question" behind this whooole discussion. I'm going to sleep, so I'll leave the convo for now. Also, it's not as if I can add anything valuable at this point, because the topic has reached at least some semi-common ground, which was my goal.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I'm not sure why you don't expect to see those things, is my point.

Yeah, this has been my main "question" behind this whooole discussion. I'm going to sleep, so I'll leave the convo for now. Also, it's not as if I can add anything valuable at this point, because the topic has reached at least some semi-common ground, which was my goal.

I'll try to keep the rambling flows to a minimum, but you might wake up to 3 Splinter Topics, I don't feel like 'holding back' today.

It is Wednesday, my dudes.

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Ok, bear with me, I'm making sure I'm following.

You would use Communal Restoration to heal single Target damage to avoid wasting your own damage, because your Single Target heal 'should' be used to generate Conviction (for more damage or something later), therefore incentivizing the use of AoE heal in this situation?

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I have to make a bunch of assumptions to follow it. And those assumptions will absolutely seem like attacks on you, so I'm trying to avoid that.

They showcased four, maybe five abilities. One of which is a single target heal that can be used as an attack.

Do you believe that this is the only single target heal a Cleric will have? I can accept this assumption based on certain games being like this. Should we ask Intrepid to verify that there is more than one heal?

There were 3 different single target heals in Alpha-1.

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I think my problem is that I come from games where this situation doesn't come up.

My tank receives damage. Is it critical? Probably not. Do I need to heal it right now? I'll look at the situation and decide.

Usually it's more of a question that someone other than the tank took damage and I need to decide if to heal them. So to me you're just describing the sort of simplistic game that I don't actually play.

Most of the time in games I play the Tank gets less than half of my heals. If you're referring to the few situations where the Tank is finally damaged enough that the choice is 'use the AoE heal or die' sure. I just don't play games where this is a big enough component of gameplay for it to concern me.

I wouldn't expect to have to heal my Paladin's HP very often in Ashes, but that expectation doesn't have any more specific basis than yours (relative to Ashes) so that's why it seems like we can't understand each other.