Best Of

Ludullu wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Caravan system. The sieges. Nodes. Player run citys with political systems. World that changes by what citys are big. There is actually a ton of new stuff. Not all of it is brand spanking, but it has not put together like this. AoC is very creative with the lego.

As Azherae implied, pretty much all of that stuff has already been done in other games (mostly space ones), but even outside of the space stuff:

• Caravans were in AA and in Silk Road (afaik)
• Sieges were in L2
• Nodes, as I said, we got no damn clue how exactly they'll end up being design by release
• I guess player-led cities might be somewhat unique in fantasy, but I coulda sworn I've heard about something very similar before.
• Node-lvl-related changes remain to be seen too. I hope it's as deep and intricate as was promised before

A somewhat rudimentary combo of those 2 last points was in L2 with the Manor system. Castle owners could add different items to mob loot tables in their region, which was both a political tool that attracted players (somewhat akin to node buildings in Ashes) and was related to the state of the region, cause if the castle was unowned - that loot would not be present and gameplay related to it would not exist in that region.

L2 also had a religious system that opened up dungeons based on player activity, so, in a way, that is another similar system.

And that's just examples from almost a single 20y.o. game. I'm sure I'm missing several fantasy mmos that had either very similar systems or literally the same ones. And, as was said above, space games literally have the exact same systems.

You are thinking of Albion online player cities I think. The mayorship system itself is unique as far as I know, but player built cities are still a thing even in other fantasy mmo's. I think this gets to the heart of Ashes current predicament. You can go on and on about how the game isn't for everyone, but Ashes has kind of always talked about itself as a 'special' and 'unique' thing that made that 'not for everyone' really mean something. Being an exclusive niche focused thing has no value unless that niche is offering something actually unique that you cannot find elsewhere.

In reality to me this game is just a spiritual successor to Dark Ages of Camelot, maybe L2 if they manage to shape things up further. That's not a bad thing, but this game is so people centric that it needs people. It is a social game with systems that only make sense at a certain player count. It needs to recapture that feeling of 'specialness' going forward and play to its strengths. All I see right now is a game that has under invested in everything that would make it great and over invested in all of the things that would make it 'not for everyone'. It is a real shame too because I keep seeing mmo's that are starting to deliver on the promises AoC made 6-8 years ago. Clearly the market wanted some of the stuff AoC was preaching and I definitely credit them at least in small part for the mmo renaissance of the past few years.

Yes AoC is not for everyone. But if it doesn't do something better or distinct from the games from which the audience comes from that AoC is meant to cater to, it isn't going to have an audience. They are going to keep playing on private servers or some of these new high quality mmos.

Hello! Ashes of Creation is taking a very different path. Intrepid is doing something rare: full transparency, real community engagement, and building systems that are meant to last, not just impress at launch. The development is slow, yes, but it’s deliberate and deep.

This isn’t a copy-paste MMO. It’s a project that’s actually listening and iterating during testing. That alone already puts it ahead of where Crowfall was.

We're still in Alpha, but every test brings visible progress. I’d rather wait longer for something truly groundbreaking than rush into another shallow experience.

We’re in good hands. Let’s keep the faith.

As noted, it's not the same type of statistics and therefore not the same type of comparison.

Intrepid has managed to do a thing (at least from that chart) that I personally find really... 'scummy'?

Proving statistical issues to new players takes so long that just 'coming up with a new system' even if a statistician could eyeball it and go 'yeah that's definitely worse' from experience, is a House Bet.

"Prove that this new distribution of probabilities is also rigged/bad and not secretly just the perfect one that will solve all the issues that other games have with this system." is a real tactic that modern games can use.

I'm not even going to bother specifically claiming anything, I'm not interested in even doing the math for this particular probability obfuscation, especially since everything is subject to change. it's barely even worth having the conversation but I can at least let Intrepid know that I bet the consensus response from my group members will be [insert string of banworthy vitriol] when they see that chart.

I'll just remind them that such things have no meaning at this stage.

Ludullu wrote: »

Sophisticus wrote: »

Heavy power scaling, one shots, long and boring grind, open world PvP and the fact that a few RNG-happy enhancers set the market price will lead to the same problems.

Those 2 points in bold seem like the real problem here. Rng enchantment is not really a problem when it doesn't lead to one-shots.

even if it doesnt give you that tremendous power, it will still make difference. And being RNG means some people will get lucky and other unlucky with it. So it creates differences for players based on luck.
These differences lead to bigger differences along the way, when those with the successful enchants get the advantage when fighting bosses and ect. So they only increase their lead that all began from RNG.

Its very similar to Pay to Progress. Just you dont pay with money, but with your luck. The result is the same.
You get Starter boost that only gets bigger

ryujinjakka74 wrote: »

Simple and short...Is this game PvP enabled all the time as in you can get ganked out in the world just minding your own business or inside of a dungeon? We would like to know before we plop down $100 each to join the alpha.

yeah... "This game isn't for everyone...and that's OK"

perpetual development would be a costly error especially if AoC doesn't really offer anything unique within the MMO genre

ryujinjakka74 wrote: »

Simple and short...Is this game PvP enabled all the time as in you can get ganked out in the world just minding your own business or inside of a dungeon? We would like to know before we plop down $100 each to join the alpha.

The way it is set up right now, this rarely happens. If you choose not to fight back, they cant kill you without going red. If they go red, a mark appears on the map and everyone can see that someone is red. If they die red, they drop 3 items. Dropping 3 items can be losing dozens of hours of work and is almost never worth whatever you might be killing people for.

So technically you can be killed in the open world randomly, but practically it never happens outside designated open PVP regions.