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MargaretKrohn wrote: »

So let’s keep this conversation going:
What’s one feature or system you think could help bridge the gap between hardcore and casual players without compromising the game’s vision?

They say that pvpers are a niche in the mmorpg genre. I'd say that's true, but not nearly as niche as the average carebear makes it out to be. But you know what's REALLY niche amongst the likely pool of some amount of millions of pvp players open to a new mmo that caters to them? Being in a mega guild. The vast majority of players who want to pvp in an mmo do not want to be in a mega guild. We are talking a tiny, tiny percentage of that pool of millions that actually wants to be in a mega guild. In fact, the average pvper looks at mega guilds as a net negative for pvp mmos, and the entire mmo genre in general. Certainly in the case of more pvp focused mmos, mega guilds are viewed as one of the major contributing factors of why some games fail or are not as fun as they could be.

I believe the same goes for pvers. The vast majority of them probably don't want to be just a number in a mega guild either. Why? Well I'll be prickly and straight up about it. Because mega guilds are fkn lame. There are many multiple and varied reasons why people don't want to be in mega guilds. Most of the reasons are common sense.

But almost everything in your game is catered to mega guilds. Caravans, crafting, general pvp, node sieges and node politics, leveling itself. Speaking of the leveling, ya know...the whole "we want leveling to mean something" line. Yeah that's great. I think most would agree with that. We're certainly over the 1-60 levels in a day mmos. But that doesn't mean we want a system where mega guilders breeze through leveling, in what, I dunno, I haven't played Ashes in months, but what, like 2-3 days? Is that the time the average mega guilder breezes to max level? Whereas everyone else that doesn't have access to dozens of potential group mates is faced with a long, trudging unbelievably slow grind.

Or take gathering, and I believe this has recently been changed. But just the thought process behind it...is out there. When the gathering nodes were static, as in you could predict that a single tree was going to produce legendary logs before it was harvested...the reasoning behind that, which I believe was stated by Steven or a dev, was essentially that they wanted full set piece mega guild battles over....a single tree. Throw away all the good and normal things about a gathering system (organic luck, searching, exploration, just keeping at it), let's pigeon hole it into timed, scheduled zerg battles over singular trees.

Now "open world battlegrounds." A new idea, just popped out of nowhere. Maybe it'll be good, maybe not. But I'd bet a lot of money it's going to be a timed, scheduled type thing, that yep, you guessed it, benefits mega guilds.

The corruption system being so ridiculously harsh, while it might seem counterintuitive, absolutely benefits mega guilders. Caravans being nothing but a zerg activity - mega guilds. Anything and everything really to do with nodes - mega guilds. Crafting - mega guilds. "We want getting to a high level of crafting to mean something!" Translation - the high level crafters will be players who had mats funneled to them by a mega guild. There's nothing special about that. There's nothing cool about that. No one's going to look up to them for that, or even give a flying fk.

So what does this all mean? Sounds like you need to completely change your game from the ground up eh. Well no not really. Just take your boots off the necks of the average players. There's no reason why my little group of 5 dudes should be making moves that determine whether a node is sieged or not. That's mega guild/mega alliance territory. No reason my group of 5 should feel as safe running a caravan as a mega guild does. Everyone fully expects that mega guilds will be able to do things and accomplish things that typical players cant. And I think many players are open to working with larger groups of players to accomplish certain things.

But this is the part you guys gotta figure out. Somehow you have to figure out how to make the game fun for the 95%+ of people who absolutely will refuse to be in a mega guild.

Edit a day later: How could I forget? Freeholds - mega guilds. Ya know I remember a couple years ago, the open ocean showcase, Steven revealed that the ocean would be lawless. RAWRRR. YES. Of course, it always had to be. Common sense design principles, beautiful. Precedent was set in Archeage, it worked beautifully there. And of course it has to be lawless, we're talking big ship battles, people are going to die in mass, shits gonna be wild. Like duh, has to be lawless.

Then like the next month Stevens like yeah gear drop chance starts with the first noncombatant kill. What. Ok you just killed organic open world pvp. You just killed the bounty hunting system. You just killed risk/reward in the open world. Ok.

Then like the next month, oh btw freeholds are pretty much just going to be for mega guilds now. Ok you just killed the interest of potentially hundreds of thousands of players that would have played for that unique feature alone. Not many mmos have an Archeage style housing/farming system. And many people will play just for that. But nah, lets give it to mega guilds. Ok.

And it's just like wtf man. The freehold change isolated to itself, I was kinda neutral on. I understood the reasoning of not wanting urban sprawl. Though I think there are other ways to mitigate that potentially. But while being neutral on it, at the same time I was just like...fuck, well there goes a lot of potential players. But I'm sure the mega guilders love it.

And it's just like god damn what is happening. I watched a Zybak video a month or two ago and apparently ESO style animation cancelling might have somehow slipped its way into the game. I think that's what he indicated, not 100% on it. And then I watched a couple of his pvp videos and he's bunny hopping and launching himself around during pvp. Yeah all that shit has to go. Casuals and average players will quit your game en masse with that stuff left in.

And for the love of god, ya gotta stop listening solely to people like DA of Enveus. I believe that problem, in the case of DA, has solved itself now. But others like him, yeah take their feedback. But my god, when so much of the game's design seems to benefit people like him, it begs the question are you even listening to the feedback of anyone else?

You've gone super hardcore into just straight pve/crafting grind. And super softcore on pvp other than the pvp that benefits mega guilds. Like the opposite of the direction you should be going in my opinion. Where's the fun and excitement in that? Here come stand in one spot and grind these mobs for hundreds of hours so one day you can maybe be strong enough to get absolutely slam dunked by a zerg mega guild in our sanctioned pvp. You're fuckin up imo. I could be wrong, we'll see.

I'm not trying to be too harsh, just spouting. I realize there are so many unfinished and unimplemented mechanics and systems in the game that it's really hard to fully judge anything.

Laetitian wrote: »

No, I don't, I don't play the alpha, and I don't follow videos and streams closely enough to have in-depth insight into what feels rewarding in the alpha yet. I am responding to community input on social media.

I wouldn't be surprised if the answer to your request is: nothing. But that's been my point - Even that would not mean that anything should change about the underlying system. You shouldn't expect to feel fulfilled by sytems of an alpha that are meant to be fun in the context of a greater experience where they serve a purpose to help you fulfil long-term goals.

I'm surprised to see someone who hasn't even played the game feel entitled to nullify my experience as a new player. You can agree with the idea of how a system should work, or specifically how it challenges the community. When I listen to Steve and hear his ideologies about the difficulty and how important crafting should be to the game, I agree. Playing and experiencing it is different. There are very few people in this world wealthy enough to ignore the monetary value of 40-hours. If I can make a paycheck in those 40 hours but I can't craft a single item, no matter how small it may be, there is a problem.

Ludullu wrote: »

I'd be all for adding arenas, but here's Steven's response to me literally asking for them

Oh wow, thanks, that is literally as clear as it gets.

So yeah, Steven just shifted to 'standard' Korean PvP MMO style.

(Note, I am not complaining about this from the 'is this.... gameplay?' standpoint or whether or not it can be good, I'm not complaining at all, I just already have a game for this stuff so it's surprising to me).

I guess Nebula Island respawns are probably easier than Turquoise Sea respawns, but it will depend on implementation.

MargaretKrohn wrote: »

The phrase “not for everyone” has definitely sparked a range of perspectives, and that’s a good thing.

What’s one feature or system you think could help bridge the gap between hardcore and casual players without compromising the game’s vision?

Thanks again for being here and sharing your thoughts—we’ll be watching this thread and others like it with interest (and possibly snacks). 😄

.

Hey Margret!

Thank you for taking the time to participate in these discussion, the extra effort doesn’t go unnoticed.

Ash’s has a lot stacked against it. Extra long leveling grinds, outdated death mechanics the industry moved on from years ago, not having a solo friendly gathering system, and the ability to have everything you own taken from you with a siege, and almost always on PVP.

Personally I think Ash’s can bring the gap in a few ways that don’t disrupt the pillars. Number 1, making solo play more rewarding and viable. Having a good questing system (RuneScape is a great example), making crafting feel achievable as a solo player and not a whole guild activity, and easing some of the early game hardships to encourage players to take that journey so they’re already invested once they get to max level and they have to deal with the games less avoidable PVP.

In short, I think Ash’s should care less about the risk versus reward starting at the beginning of the game, and more about the real meat towards mid and end game. That’s where the risk reward actually becomes fun and compelling.

Ash’s is a game that needs to have a thriving player base make it to the end game for it to really shine. Massive earth altering battles, constantly evolving alliances & politics are amazing ideas but if the average player ops out before they get their, that’s huge opportunity lost. The game revolves around risk VS reward and I think that’s awesome, but the current penalties are simply unfun.

When you die in ashes you have to deal with stat dampening, at least 25% permanent item loss, above average travel times, and XP debt.

I encourage you to rethink these compounding affects. They don’t offer fun challenge, which is challenge that’s feels good to overcome, they offer frustering obstacles that decrease the risk and fun players will attempt.

At the end of the day, all video game punishments serve as a time waster for the player experiencing it. You have 4 different time wasters stacked on top of one another. A casual player will look at that and go wow, this game doesn’t respect my time and that’s the problem. Games can be non casual and still value your time. I think any souls game is a wonderful example.

I’m also not saying don’t get rid of punishments on death, just rethink how how many you have and their intensity.

You will also get the a few hardcore dad gamers left from the old days who think this is still good game design and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

Think to yourselves, will the game be more fun for your extra hardcore players if they have a healthier ecosystem of casual players to make it to the end game to flush out those extra battles, or will your hardcore player base have more fun with a needlessly smaller player count and extra time wasted every time they die.

I can't be sure if the issue you have with understanding the reaction is because you don't enjoy/understand crafting yourself...

'Long term purpose' isn't the point. Serving a long term goal isn't the point. Artisanship is supposed to be fun in and of itself and it can be judged on it that way. If you view it as a primarily competitive activity, it's impossible to get a result that is appealing to anyone except those who 'just drudge through it so that their group can be competitive', which is certainly a design option, but not the one that has been pitched so far afaik.

But more importantly, the part that matters to the concept of changing it, is related to 'why is it so unpleasant in the first place?'

Some amount of effort, however tiny, had to be put into coming up with the recipes we have in game now, for testing, and for setting temporary incentives for players. The issue is that what we have is so unappealing that it comes off as purposeful.

It looks and feels like someone did work to try to make it good without understanding it. (or did work to explicitly try to make it bad).

But, again, if you view Artisanship as 'a thing that someone is assigned to do for the sake of competing' and therefore they shouldn't seek for it to be an innately rewarding experience, especially if you think this design type is normal or good for the game, that's why you don't understand the requests for changes. At that point it would make sense for you to say 'the game would be hurt by changes' because you'd essentially want the Artisanship to be less fun on purpose to keep people out of it.

Note though, that this isn't necessary. The game forces specialization, and more importantly, the only thing these games need is a structure where available time/resources is the limit. Granted, Steven has already said 'I hate and don't want the system that's normally used for this', but even then, that system was only vital because of the economy type of the games he's familiar with.

Laetitian wrote: »

ShaggyRyn wrote: »

I’m all for making the game tough but it can’t have friction in everything you do or it just isn’t fun anymore it’s work.

If you don't enjoy this voluntary work in your pastime, have you considered...just not doing the work? And focusing on the parts of the game that you care about instead?

I really enjoy crafting systems, and I think once I truly understand this one, I’ll probably love it. I’m not asking for things to be easy—make it hard, make it meaningful. But after 40 hours of grinding, even if the reward isn’t amazing, let me walk away with something. Give me a little money, some grey gear, a health potion—heck, a slab of Grem Butt BBQ. Anything that shows my time wasn’t wasted. That kind of small win gets me invested. It encourages me to keep learning the system instead of avoiding a core part of the game that I’d normally dive headfirst into.

Are there any recommendations on what I should harvest, process, and create that you think displays the crafting system well? I'd love to try again this week.

So, if I log back into a zone I camped out of a few days earlier, that has since turned Lawless, does this mean I have to fight my out to leave? Should there be a "Get out of Dodge fast" option?

Edit: Not to derail from the original topic but just following the stream of consciousness of this thread....