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d889jcl wrote: »

I miss the old days where devs used to pay people to play test games, 100 dollars to essentially work for the company and test somthing thats going to make them massive profits seems wierd to me. Ill play it when its like 50 dollars like a normal game

As I said, it will never be $50.

There is no box price, you can never buy this game. All you can do is pay a subscription when the game is out for access to the game for that month.

People paying for access tp alpha and beta have not bought the game.

Ludullu wrote: »

Nope, I want it to go slower, but directed at the proper parts of the game. Instead they're working on shit like FTUI and gear balancing.

Dygz wrote: »

Ashes still hasn't implemented most of the features players were initially hyped about: Node Stages, Node Sieges and Castle Sieges and 64 Classes. Freeholds are barely working.
What Ashes has implemented isn't really much better than any generic UE5 MMORPG - and it's all mired down with some pretty major bugs.
Many long-time fans are just fatigued - and there are now other MMOs that have been released and/or have also reached Alpha and Beta - and are just more fun and eaiser to play/test than Ashes.

This is the biggest thing for me.

We are missing a lot of big "features", "systems" or whatever you want to call it. The game is not going to work the same with, and without those systems being present... Why on earth are they focusing on balancing stuff that doesn't even matter now?
Why do something, that you will have to do again once you implement all the features? Why do something, before having actually functioning systems, and a functioning fun game. Balance, and all that other stuff usually comes last, after you implement all the core systems?

I only see it being done, in order to keep the playerbase playing testing, as otherwise they would get bored/frustrated, and would ultimately end up quitting.

But why do you need an active playerbase testing the game constantly, every day? This all just feels like a convenient excuse, where you "soft-release" a very incomplete project, call it an Alpha to avoid major criticism, and trickle down updates over the years, where the product might or might not become decent after 3-4 years.
But at that point, this is exactly like an early access title going into "full release". It just doesn't make any difference, you are playing the exact same thing you've been playing for years.
It also makes no sense, because they're probably losing money doing this. Unless they find a way to monetize it, beyond selling $100+ access, before release. Btw if they do this, they're done, at least for me. I can see why people like to compare this game to SC so much, and that will be even more true if they decide to further monetize the game before release.

The way things seem to progress, it seems that the actual release won't be a big deal for this game, because all the features they want to implement, will slowly be implemented and tested during alphas/betas.
Alphas and betas do make sense, if you can expect the project to release within let's say 18 months - and if you only test some of the core systems, within a limited part of the world, while most of the game is unavailable. But at that point, what's the point of having a persistent Alpha for months, and months? You could test the core systems in a month or two, and provide feedback on it.

If you do just trickle down updates up to the release, there will be no hype, no sense of discovery, nothing when the game actually goes live. Players are already going to be familiar with the game, and even those who haven't played it during Alphas, were able to watch videos online.

The way Alpha 2 was split into "phases" tells me that this will exactly be how it goes. What's next, phase 4, 5, 6? Even more features introduced, once the devs feel those are in a somewhat playable state? When will be the actual cutoff? Are they going to set up closed test environments, specifically made to actually TEST a certain system, rather than having an unfinished game and saying to players "go test it", where it just looks like they're playing the game, and maybe reporting some bugs that they find on the way?



There probably won't be a game like Ashes on the market, even though I absolutely wish for a 2020s version of Archeage. Most releases won't scratch that same itch Ashes is trying to. But like you mentioned, there are going to be games that will have features similar to what Ashes is planning to do. Even today you have such games.


We have yet to see many of the features being implemented, some of which were (still are) the main reasons why a lot of people even began following the project.

As Dygz said, a lot of us are just fatigued at this point, after following the project for years. Myself, I have been aware of it since early 2017, without following it too closely. In the past 5 years, I've kept up with most news, discussions, etc. and right now, I just don't see a point anymore.
Steven has his own vision, and 4-5 years ago, I might've said it's exactly what I wanted from an MMORPG. Nowadays, things seem to have changed, or rather my excitement has gone down after seeing how that vision is getting implemented.

Laetitian wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

I think thats a pretty harsh judgement, when the game is in alpha 2. I dont think combat trackers alone will keep people from a good raiding game.

Top end raiders are both the most loyal MMORPG players that exist (they are why EQ, EQ2 and WoW still exist),

And yet you're here, to discuss this game, with no profound raiding mechanics in sight, out of all the games you could choose. How come? (I'm sure this isn't the first time you've answered this question, sorry if I don't remember your answer accurately enough to give it myself.)

I am here (now) because I have friends that are making this game. People that I have travelled internationally to be present for major life events and such.

I was originally here because at one point it looked as it Ashes could have some form of raiding game. They used to talk about raiding on stream almost as much as they talked about PvP.

I was also initially quite interested in the games economic gameplay. This seemed to be inspired from Archeage, the game with what I consider the second best MMORPG economy behind only EVE.

Neither of these are accurate now. There is basically no talk about raiding, and what they do say only highlights how over his head Steven is (it used to be mostly Jeff talking about it). In terms of the economy, they have already stripped out of the game the very essence of what made Archeages economy function, so I have no hope at all that Ashes economy will be worth playing at all, let alone good enough to be a primary reason to play the game.

In the mean time, I'm back playing EQ2 on a server with an older ruleset, because no modern MMORPG developer has made a better game.

If I understood Noaani correctly, he assumes that players will leave the game as soon as they no longer have a vertical progression option. I think there are more than enough players who get a satisfying progression feeling from horizontal progression. Games like GW2 and OSRS (both one of the top 5 most long term played MMORPG's) prove that. And even retail WoW players have grown increasingly tired of the seasonal concept.

Iccer is absolutely right. Archeage was a perfect example of how you can design horizonal progression and still feel like you're getting better and more useful. OSRS works very similarly.

Also, forms of vertical progression that you can lose, that you have to fight for, is a game design for PvP players that can generate an infinite amount of content.

Vertical progression that cannot be lost should not mean more than ~100% additional direct strength from early game to end game in an MMORPG like Ashes. Anything else would either lead to the slow death of Ashes or as a solution to catch up mechanics, seasonal servers, faster leveling and whatever else there is that we probably all hate.

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

What I really don't get is how anyone could look at the leveling speed Intrepid have intended for this game, and can come to any conclusion other than a dull grind.

The way Intrepid can make it not a dull grind and keep the leveling speed is by reducing the importance of leveling, and increasing the importance of node development for example.
So for example all citizens of a node get large exp boost depending on the level of the node. This will force guild wars, commissions, crafting, caravans and ect. The leveling speed will be faster as a whole with the exp boost, but the time it takes to level as a whole wont be different, since you will spend a lot of time developing your node.

Most new players aren’t logging in with the dream of being a background NPC helping some mega-guild build a metropolis. They’re here to grow their own character, forge their own path, and feel the impact of their personal decisions. Making node development the primary driver of progression risks turning the early game into a passive, community-serving grind that only benefits the few sitting at the top.

Tying XP gain to node level sounds great in theory, but in practice it creates a system where new or solo players are either locked out of meaningful progress or forced to follow the agenda of larger zerg guilds. That’s not fun, and it doesn’t foster true player agency. Don’t force players to care about the political drama of node wars before they even understand their class.

Noaani wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

I think thats a pretty harsh judgement, when the game is in alpha 2. I dont think combat trackers alone will keep people from a good raiding game.

Top end raiders are both the most loyal MMORPG players that exist (they are why EQ, EQ2 and WoW still exist),

And yet you're here, to discuss this game, out of all the games you could choose. How come? (I'm sure this isn't the first time you've answered this question, sorry if I don't remember your answer accurately enough to give it myself.)

Do you only theoretically think raid games are the only ones that can be successful in the market, but are not personally primarily attracted by raids?
Could this perhaps be an indication that many of your peers might equally be pursuing raids because it's the only thing the genre has offered them, not because it's the only ideal solution/activity for them? That it's more a matter of player-driven gameplay not having been designed and marketed well enough, than an intrinsic superiority of the content-machine raid system?
(I'm not tied to these explanations, btw, there are several possible answers that make sense to me.)

Steven is saying that he thinks that if players have proper information on their characters, they will have fewer build options than if they didn't actually know what they were doing.

This isn't a fault of combat trackers, this is the fault of a game designer not being good enough at their job to create real and valid options for their players.

Games that need combat trackers need them because their content balancing is so tight that you need to figure out a viable build in order to make it through at all. If the balancing is not that tight, you don't need the tracker; you can figure out a system that makes sense, compare it to real-world experience from other players and trying out alternatives, and use that information to choose if that is good enough for you.

I won't go into that discussion further here, it's been discussed to exhaustion, including between the two of us, but I think it makes some sense to dispel this framing a bit in the context of this discussion, because the way you're presenting thinks makes it look like there's no other possible explanation for Steven's choices than misinformation or stubbornness. I think that's stubbornness on your own part. Which is not to say that combat trackers and the dungeons they entail would necessarily be the wrong thing for Ashes. Just saying that the decision has more game direction aspects to balance than you're willing to admit (key word being my usual: authentic player interaction), and I think Steven's vision for a certain audience could work out in everyone's favour. That might turn out wrong, but I'd rather someone try it properly than constantly succumb to mainstream pressure; we've had enough of that in the last 2 decades.
Which is not to say he shouldn't listen to feedback; that's the whole point of all of this. But too much of the feedback is concerned with reliability and creature comforts over creating an internally cohesive experience/game loop.

Noaani wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

And yes - i dont mean these systems to be as a way to progress. This is supposed to be end game vertical progression that you engage with after you get the progression from other content.

But the point you originally argued against was my statement that those other forms of progression NEED to be in the game, even if at the same time they ruin the game.

Character progression needs to exist, but in the act of characters progressing, you get the situation where the gap between different characters becomes so great that there is no competition between them.

In other words, my point was that a game like Ashes both NEEDS character progression, but also can't have character progression.

If you now agree that the game does in fact need character progression as seems to be the case here, then we are aligned in this notion. If you are also in agreement that character progression in a game like Ashes increases the gap between players and thus makes PvP trivial, then we are also in agreement with that notion.

Yes it needs character progression, No progression scaling to infinity is not a good way to do this.

The thing is, it doen't need to be infinate, it only needs to exist.

a gear upgrade in itself is usually not really noticable, but a few gear upgrades do need to be. Players need to feel that the efforts they are putting in to getting better gear are not just wasted - there needs to be at least a small increase in how strong you percieve your character to be.

Additionally, these upgrades need to basically always exist. The moment a player no longer has a progression path in front of them, they leave the game.

The most blatant and obvious example of this is in WoW. Every major content drop the game fills up with players, who all run as much of the content as they feel they are able to run (ie, gaining as much progression as they can), and then they log out until there is more progression for them to gain.

Now we have the last factor to take in to consideration here - not everyone progresses at the same rate. If I am in a guild that is super organized and you are in a less organized guild, I may be getting these upgrades at 10 times the pace you are getting them. This means it is inevitable that before long, the gap between you and I will be so great that there is no longer any competition.

It's that same situation from the developers perspective, if this isn't in the game, people will leave due to not having any progression in front of them. If it is in the game, people will leave due to PvP being shit.

As to getting progression that you can lose - again unless people have full control over that (ie, by never gaining corruption), this is something that will just see people leave the game even faster than any of the above two. Ashes is already going to see that with people looking at freeholds as progression in terms of crafting/economic play - people absolutely will be leaving the game when they lose a freehold.

Adding that same notion to adventuring is a great way to make sure the game only lasts 3 months.

Imagine the game is released 3 years ago, you are a new player, or you just want to create new character with different class. Those that have been playing for 3 years have constant progression with gear, even if its small its stacked already too much. The new player will think for himself that he need to play at least 2 years to get near the state where the rest of the players are, and during this time the other players would have already played for 5 years. So you will never get a new player in the game.

As to players leaving the game due to losing progression - already explained this above that those that would leave for such reasons wont play AOC at all, since the game is already full with such stuff. So no reason not to add even more of it.