Best Of

It makes little sense to attempt to explain to someone how exploiting has a negative impact on testing parameters and data in an alpha when they volunteer the fact that exploiting makes no difference to them.The conversation does not appear genuine or productive.

I will simply attach the comment that the Developer of Ashes of Creation made regarding the exploitation that took place last November in test:

CROW3 wrote: »

There’s a forum ignore function btw. I highly recommend. 😉

Awesome dude, thanks.

Its_Me wrote: »

You state you are okay with harsh consequences and then proceed to suggest soft penalties such as only receiving 'some' penalties, not immediately dropping materials ect.

Steven has stated that he intends for death penalties to be punishing, even super punishing and that the death penalty is equitable for pvp and pve players which I agree, it is.

Steven has also repeatedly stated that one of his core philosophies in this game is to have death penalties where people really feel failure when they fail opposed to many games where players do not feel shit when they fail.

I personally do not have any issue with the death penalties as they are nor do I feel that the death penalty is extremely punishing with the exception of the intentionally overtuned corruptions penalties but this (corruption) will change.

Yeah, "harsh" is subjective, and there's a whole spectrum of possible negative effects going from nothing and permanent death or something. My personal opinion (obviously not necessarily correct or better) is that currently the punishment is too harsh and not well balanced, Steven and others might have their own opinions, and the current systems are not final and still being developed in any case, hence my ideas/suggestions. Then of course things can be discussed

So, there various consequences when you character dies, the main ones I wanted to talk about are:
- EXP debt
- Stats decrease
- Material loss
- Time loss (go back to place of death)
- Gear damage
- Gear loss (corrupted players)

First of all, having quite harsh consequences for dying is fine in my opinion (subject to some fine-tuning) and this game is meant to have these in place. However, I feel that currently the combination of these mechanics, together also with other unavoidable player griefing behaviour results in quite detrimental and frustrating situations that don't really add to the challenge and enjoyability of the game, and could be in my opinion improved via some simple additions/changes to make death still punishing in a fairer way.

My envisioned updated system would look as follows...
- When you die (actually on resurrect) you receive stacks of some "Death Consequences" debuff.
- You might receive more/less stacks depending on attacking mob level or attacking player level/corruption or your own corruption.
- These debuff stacks decrease extremely slowly over time (think hours/days), or can be removed much more quickly by gaining experience (or getting back to your "ashes", see later).
- The consequences of dying depend on your "Death Consequences" stack: at low stacks, you actually will receive less of an EXP debt, stats decrease and material loss than current numbers; at higher stacks, you might even receive more negative consequences.
- You don't immediately drop materials on death (unless you are corrupted), if you are resurrected by a cleric, you automatically keep everything, if you are not resurrected and respawn at an emberspring, your "ashes" stay at your place of death and cannot be looted by anyone except you for X minutes (decreasing depending on "Death consequences" stack).
- If you can get back to your "ashes" in time, or are resurrected by a cleric, your EXP debt, stats decrease and "Death Consequences" are reduced
- Looting other players' ashes becomes a long channeled ability (think 10s or so), the looting player immediately becomes a flagged combatant at the start of it in any case and could potentially get interrupted by other players
- Clerics might get natural slightly reduced death penalties for themselves
- Gear damage and gear loss mechanics would stay pretty much unchanged

Note: this also relates to player griefing via mob pulling behaviour, and fixes/changes to mob behaviour to address this should also be put in place, but are not the main topic here.

This game dosent care about solo players.

The devs don't care about solo players.

Steven doesn't care about solo players.

Solo players that have a problem have to deal with it, or not play the game.

This is coming from a solo player. I've withheld a lot of feedback about this game because, the systems and the wider community have made it clear that solo players are an after thought, and if they need something it will be done only if it benefits guilds as much or more, and if it has no effect on guilds it won't be done until after ever for Guilds has been done.

Pham wrote: »

Changed NPC aggro, to prevent enemies from aggroing characters within range when they lose a previous target. This is to address issues with NPC training

It's not working.

Was running parallel with a player who had two wolves chasing him. Every other second they would take a bite out of my ass and then chase him again, bite out of my ass, chase him again...

or maybe just allow corpse looting on PvP deaths and make PvE deaths your standard corpse run if you really wanted to recover the lost items (as best you can given you never know exactly whats gone permanently and whats still available)

Players have adapted to the change in aggro by simply dragging mobs into other player's AoEs.

Since this is just cowardly BS and IS has already signaled that it isn't intended I have a suggestion:

On PVE death, put a 5 minute timer on the ashes before they can be looted by another player.

I was in a group of 15-17s at Seph and a lvl 25 player, SlytlyTwystyd (might have the vowels messed up) of Neurotic Savages was dragging mobs on us after we engaged groups.

He would run in on his gator and park right on us, and of course we instantly got aggro because every other ability is an aoe.

He got us the first time because he brought a few mobs that cast the red death mist, and he was waiting in the wings to swoop in for the ashes.
We pulled through the second time when he brought a big boy.
I chased after him a little just to get his name but quickly went back to help my group. We were going to flag up the next time he came, even though it would have been futile.

I called him out on global and and a few minutes later saw some other lvl 25 players running around flagged up. I'm sure he ran away like the you know what he is.