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Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Maybe my final answer about what content is can be summed up like this: content is the unscripted experience we get from the systems

This is still not a correct definition of what content is.

Content is an objective thing, not something you can have your own opinion on.

You can have your own opinion on what content you like, just as you can have your own opinion on what car you like, or your favorate Care Bear. However, you do not get to have an opinion on what counts as content, just as you do not get to have an opinion on what counts as a car, or what counts as a Care Bear.

Maybe I misunderstood something?
But the new Crate system - that is mainly a way to earn gold right?
And the task is - make crate - transport it slowly in danger, and deliver and get reward - right?
Well that sounds boring and a time consuming chore to make gold.
Some will say, its fun because of risk of PVP? Like boring caravans..

Then why not just give more rewards for the fun parts? of the game.
PVP, PVE, Combat, Exploring.

Reward PVP - forget hauling crates - expand the PVP zones, and reward people for the "heads they take".
Of course varied reward depending on level difference and if the kill is new or the 10'th time you kill the same.

Why not STEAL something that is very popular in other games. - Extraction PVP game - in MMO form.
Announce an Extraxtion PVP event in a zone. All who sign up get to an instancea arena dungeon/area.
The arena has "crates" they can loot. Die in the arena, and you drop the loot from the arena and you are out.
Make different versions. Solo only 5-10 and 20 man all vs all. Groups only 3 man, 5 man, 8 man - and 3-5-7 groups vs each other. - Forget boring crate transports - this is fun pvp!

Reward the things that are fun, instead of having us doing boring time consuming chores and jumping through hoops.

For Fun PVE - make something to earn gold, for those who dont like PVP.

A - Large scale of the already good local events. - But instead of just a small area of Grems going amok, have event in larger scale.
Like 100 1* grems attack a node village. - Make guards vulnerable, so players have to help. If not enough players help, the grems kill all the npc's and then leave. All NPC and guards that die, will respawn in 1-2 hours. So players must defend the town. Maybe stations go out of order for a period if Grems win.
- Now replace Grems with other monster variants and highwaymen.
FUN! And reward all who help with glint or gold. - So earning rewards come through FUN gameplay, and not fkin running with crates.

B - Have random of the outdoor "dungeons" like HH or Oak announce an event 10 min before it happens.
Boost the spawn amount by 3-4 times the normal. Groups in the areas have to work as raids to survive.
It will naturally boost the earnings there, if you can make it. After 20 minutes, all spwn go back to normal.
- FUN!

Sure some will like the crate system.. But I think it sounds boring. And if the goal is to make risks, to earn rewards?
Well its not hard to imagine something more fun than building a crate and transporting it from A to B.
And also better ways to encourage to PVP or PVE events.

Your entire argument rests on the answer to the second question being no. It's just flatly incorrect. The reasons are economic in nature and have nothing to do with a hard cap. More resources scaling up per person requires greater time and access to resources. Resources in AoC are limited in any given area and respawn timers on said resources cost both time and risk getting murked. Lower time commitments to become a citizen (which has HUGE benefits to your economic efficiency in this game) will, in a very real 'invisible hand fashion' incentivize players to move to different nodes. It's just basic economics and it is in line with AoC's stated design goals and philosophies.

Githal wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

Soft caps are always superior for a game like Ashes because it is consistent with the feeling of player agency the game is built around as a foundational game design concept. Just like there is a 'soft cap' on player behavior via the corruption system rather than flagging for pvp.

"Soft caps are always superior for a game like Ashes" is a bold statement.
It all depends on what the soft/hard cap tries to achieve. By the always pvp enabled with soft cap of corruption - the goal is to make the world more alive. Focus on the Risk vs Reward in the game where you can always be killed. Increase the player vs player interactions in the world. Spread out the population, so if 1 group is in some farming spot, they always have the option to kill another group there so they dont steal their farm if they accept the risk of corruption.

In the other hand, for Citizenship count - soft cap does the opposite of all the above.
* It incentivize players grouping in 1 node instead of spreading to different nodes
* Lowers the Risk Vs Reward, because when most players are grouped in 1 node, there is no risk that other node will vassal your node. No risk of siege wars to demolish your node, no risks of node wars to steal your resources
* It reduce player vs player interactions in node level, since you dont need allies in neighboring nodes.
* The population is in focused in 1 place instead of spreading. I would much rather prefer all nodes to have citizens, instead of having more than half of all nodes in the world being empty.

And all of this is achieved by putting hard cap.

You can achieve all of that with soft caps. It isn't a vacuum. Resources require significant time, risk and travel. Scaling up resource requirements increases player agency while also presenting a 'problem' to solve that involves game play and decision making. Higher resource requirements require more committed activity that have diminishing returns of utility. Just have good econ design and this 'problem' you predict is solved. No hard cap need apply.

This fantasy of the 'most extreme' you are coming up with of 'everyone is going to pile into one node if it is soft instead of hard cap' is a strawman and irrelevant to my claim about how soft caps fit Ashes design principles better.

Chicago wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

woooot wrote: »

Why not STEAL something that is very popular in other games.

The system you are talking about is literally stolen from Archeage. It was very popular there, it was considered one of that games top three features by basically everyone that played the game.

The things you are talking about all suffer from the issue of being limited time. The vast majority of activities in an MMORPG need to be things players can do on their time, not when they are told they can do them.

Bro do you just spend every day hating on any feedback ever posted on the forums

Nope.

Only the stuff I happen to come across that has obvious faults.

I'm not saying the OP's idea doesn't have some merit, I am just pointing out the pitfalls with it. If they want to rework it to remove those pitfalls, great. If they don't want to do that, this is also fine.

It really isn't my fault if the bulk of community ideas are unworkable as initially presented.

Noaani wrote: »

woooot wrote: »

Why not STEAL something that is very popular in other games.

The system you are talking about is literally stolen from Archeage. It was very popular there, it was considered one of that games top three features by basically everyone that played the game.

The things you are talking about all suffer from the issue of being limited time. The vast majority of activities in an MMORPG need to be things players can do on their time, not when they are told they can do them.

Bro do you just spend every day hating on any feedback ever posted on the forums

woooot wrote: »

Why not STEAL something that is very popular in other games.

The system you are talking about is literally stolen from Archeage. It was very popular there, it was considered one of that games top three features by basically everyone that played the game.

The things you are talking about all suffer from the issue of being limited time. The vast majority of activities in an MMORPG need to be things players can do on their time, not when they are told they can do them.

WoW is perfect as is: 3 different server types. Which is why it's lasted so long on the top.
But, yeah... I consider the Ashes servers to basically be like playing one a WoW PvP server.
Which is also why I consider Ashes to be a PvP-centric game, despite Steven labeling that as PvX.

"Not for everyone" really means Ashes is not for people who enjoy WoW/EQ/EQ2 but refuse to play on the PvP servers.

let the soft cap flow

Soft caps are always superior for a game like Ashes because it is consistent with the feeling of player agency the game is built around as a foundational game design concept. Just like there is a 'soft cap' on player behavior via the corruption system rather than flagging for pvp.