Best Of
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
Given that an MMO is based on interaction with other players, it's not surprising to leave it because you're a solo player. It's like buying a car and riding on two wheels. At some point you'll decide to buy a motorcycle.
I interact with other players all the time. You don't need to be in a group or guild to interact with players. I buy from people selling stuff. I chat in general chat. I help people if and when I can.
Re: Boneworking
yes, I want to role play a necromancer. I am not in favor of a necro/summoner though. I would rather play a necro/mage or a necro warrior. But they have necro pigeon holed in an augment...... I do not like to complain but I would have loved to see necro as an Archetype instead of an augment.
it might be possible to if you chose cleric as your secondary archetype and going down the death cleric route.
might give you exactly what you are looking for.
Kyskei
2
Re: Boneworking
some People analysed that Sir Steven might hinted at Brothels and so on, when mentioning this Game may have Places for some "more grotesque" or "nasty" Places, Contents, etc.
Which sounds weird when he means Places who display/mimic Places in Reallife where erotic Business is taking Place.
But anyway,
when Ashes of Creation will be mature enough for so called +18 Content - > then it is also mature enough for simply "Mature" Content which can include Armor-Sets of ghastly Origins.
well if my family ever get a freehold then it will certainly be describable as "Ghastly"
Kyskei
2
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
Yes, all of those pieces of content are meant for groups, so if you're a solo player - you need to find a group to clear it. Just as is the case for any dungeon/boss content in other mmos.They're missing out on caravans, housing/freeholds, sieges, ow dungeons, world bosses, sea content probably. If all they can do in game is just hang around, kills some mobs, etc. without doing anything even remotely challenging or meaningful, then I'd just say what's the point of playing (sure there absolutely are some players that will play like this, but I'd say most of the solo/casual crowd is looking for something more).
Steven doesn't want to make a soloable mmo, but he IS making an mmo where you can be solo. You simply need to know what you're doing, as this comment pointed out
As a mostly solo player and an Old school gamer(I have been in guilds and ran them too) I'd like to point out a few things after reading all this.
People saying that this game is guild only is ridiculous and the argument that they are giving a bonus xp to grouping is the reason why is laughable because welcome to just about every MMO! Now is there content you will need a group for of course again welcome to every MMO but I highly doubt that everyone in ashes is going to wait in a safe area until they can put together an eight man to go adventure. Especially us old guys who only have a couple hours to play after work and don't want to spend 30 mins waiting to get one going.
I have mainly soloed every game I played that's not to say that i didn't find pick up grps or other soloers when needed. Ultima Online ,DAoC (the original 8man and zerg game) ,SWG ,WoW and New World. I had fun never had a problem.
Now I figure this game is actually more solo friendly than a lot of other games i have played for one reason, top gear made by players and world events are made so anyone can join! So all I have to do to be competitive is make gold. Remember this about end game and it doesn't matter solo or grp, casual or hard core everyone will have pretty much access to similiar gear potential. So it will just come down to who's killin who and who's taking who's stuff!
Ludullu
1
Re: Consternation surrounding the 8x8 Class system and how to move forward.
ThevoicestHeVoIcEs wrote: »For any constructive feedback we simply need more data. I won't be surprised if Intrepid pushes for more active changes to class abilities through the secondary archetypes. I just don't see how else (watch out an opinion incoming) they are going to create 64 distinct classes.
I think they can make 64 distinct classes if we understand class to be more like tabletop RPG classes then videogame classes.
Videogame classes are often totaly from scratch sets of skills/abilites/graphics, like playing Diablo for example. But in tableto RPG's like as Pathfinder an Oracle in pathfinder is a modified Cleric with a narrower spell list, dosn't prepare specific spells, no channel energy and with some additional mechanics on the side. A Skald is a hybrid Barbarian/Bard that is 90% recombined elements from them. But in both cases they still manage to play quite a bit differently from other classes, just not totally different like in Diablo.
Lodrig
1
Re: So....bagpipes for the Bard class?
Scottish Games are held all over the U.S.ThevoicestHeVoIcEs wrote: »
Those guys know how to throw a party.
Just do not ask how the food you cannot identify is made.
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »I'm simply asking for something else to be there for solo or more casual players. Whether that's horizontal progression content, whether it's battlegrounds, aka instanced PVP, or instanced PvE, housing system that's accessible to most who put in a bit of effort, where you can actually farm/produce stuff, whether it's just something in the open-world (like caravans or even events in general).
And think of it this way. A hardcore party on release would have to pioneer a shitton of content and gearing progress. They'll have to gather their own resources, process it with their own hands and craft it themselves as well, because they'd be on the forefront of overall server progress. They'll spend a tooooon of 8-person time investment on this. Literal hundreds of hours.
Then, a solo player, who's been just leveling up big by bit at their own pace, comes to the same lvl of progress months later (weeks if they're hardcore). By that point all the hardcore party/guild players have scaled up their productions, set up player shops and stalls that not only provide services related to gear progress, but also come at a way cheaper price than what they were at release. All resource are also way cheaper because thousands of players (of ranging casuality) have been playing the game, farming stuff and selling it on the market.
And that same party will get rewarded for it immensely. Whether it's in terms of power, or in terms of gold if they decide to sell what they craft.
By the time solo player catches up, that group will have already moved on from that level, and will be way ahead in terms of power, gold, etc.
It's always better to play from day 1 to capitalize on the early market situation, rather than come in weeks or months later, when the same stuff is not profitable, and when to make the same amount of gold, the difficulty and effort required goes up drastically.
As a gatherer you'd make way more money in the first few weeks, rather than 2 months later - for example.
So yeah, it's easier to get into months later, but also harder at the same time.
Anyways, I do agree with your post, didn't feel like I had to reply to anything else really.
iccer
1
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
And my main argument has been that such content is already planned.I'm simply asking for something else to be there for solo or more casual players. Whether that's horizontal progression content, whether it's battlegrounds, aka instanced PVP, or instanced PvE, housing system that's accessible to most who put in a bit of effort, where you can actually farm/produce stuff, whether it's just something in the open-world (like caravans or even events in general).
Apartments will have rudimentary farming. Mules will be solo caravans, while the highwaymen system that you mentioned will provide some game-based rewards to those who're willing to join full caravans. There'll definitely be soloable pve. Maaaaybe hardcore soloable pve, but that is definitely an arguable statement at this point. We will have arenas, which will have 1v1s. And majority of events that's been shown so far have obviously been designed with solo players in mind (quick pugs during the event showcase, Steven soloing mobs into a quest-based event during that commission showcase, soloable mobs outside of the farm during the bard showcase, etc).
All of that stuff is something that solo players can do to a varrying extent of success. And I wasn't necessarily responding just to your comment when talking about people wanting equal rewards for solo performance and stuff, cause just yesterday I've discussed this in a different thread where those rewards were talked about, so I simply generalized my address here as well, while using your comment as some base context.
As for the speed of solo progress - yes, it's gonna take longer, because we're comparing collective human-hours of a party doing an activity vs the hours of a singular human doing the same activity. 1h of gameplay by a full party represents 8h of invested time, while a solo player only invests 1. So of course it'll take longer for the solo player to achieve something, but it's still achievable.
And think of it this way. A hardcore party on release would have to pioneer a shitton of content and gearing progress. They'll have to gather their own resources, process it with their own hands and craft it themselves as well, because they'd be on the forefront of overall server progress. They'll spend a tooooon of 8-person time investment on this. Literal hundreds of hours.
Then, a solo player, who's been just leveling up big by bit at their own pace, comes to the same lvl of progress months later (weeks if they're hardcore). By that point all the hardcore party/guild players have scaled up their productions, set up player shops and stalls that not only provide services related to gear progress, but also come at a way cheaper price than what they were at release. All resource are also way cheaper because thousands of players (of ranging casuality) have been playing the game, farming stuff and selling it on the market.
So now, this solo player has come into a saturated market with set up infrastructure and services. It'll take this player quite a bit less time to get the same gear that the release party spent on gearing their members with the same stuff.
I've seen this exact situation take place on numerous L2 servers with any person who'd start playing on the server several weeks after release (let alone several months or years on official servers or long-running private ones).
And at that point the difference between hardcore players and casual/solos will come down to the power scaling of gear in the game. If Intrepid somehow manage to balance player power in the way they promised, that would mean that by the time a solo player gets to lvl50 - they're only a few dozen % weaker than top progress hardcore dudes (if even that). And while, yes, a few dozen % is still a pretty big gap - all those hardcore players would be constantly fighting each other for better cutting edge loot and their gear decay would also keep them from flying into the power stratosphere. This means that solos would be coming up on the hardcores' diminishing returns bit by bit, which would then roughly equalize them, or at least make it easier to bridge the gap through skill (if the solo player has enough of it to make that bridge).
We could discuss if that kind of gear progress pace is good or not (Noaani believes it's utter shite, for example ), but that's a discussion for a whole different day somewhere deep in A2 when we get full crafting gameplay cycles and get proper loot tables into mobs and bosses.
But my main point here is simple. Solo and casual players can 100% enjoy the game if they do not expect to magically be at the same power lvl and pace of progress as hardcore/party people are at all times. I know this because I saw solo players enjoy L2, even with that game's much poorer content variety and much more hardcore design of "you either party up or you don't do shit".
And all of that is even before any potential changes in AoC's design that might stem from all the inevitable whining and complaining that casuals and single mmo players will do throughout A2.
p.s. I guess Steven disliked AA's housing design, which is why he went for a way more exclusive and luxurious overworld housing. It's definitely a choice
Ludullu
1
Re: Is there a problem for solo players
Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »Don't have the time in what way? Where are you running that you're out of time?And you cannot afford to work 5x as hard if you are a casual player, remember, you don't have the time.
I think this is the issue with casual players. They think that they should still be competitive even though they do not invest competitive time into the activity.
Should a random dude who knows how to swim be able to compete in the olympics, just cause he KNOWS how to swim?
I know this sounds elitist as fuck and all that, but I do not understand this entitlement of "well, I can only spend 1h a day on the game but I shold be able to do all the things as well as someone who can spend 10h on the game daily". No. No you should not, because that would be an absolutely unreasonable thing to ask for irl either.
Casual players that will just be minding their own business will rarely get attacked, because their small guilds (if they even have one) won't be wardecced (as long as wardec balancing is good, and I'm 100% giving feedback towards that goal), and corruption will dissuade any dudes from just PKing people left and right.
If all they're going to do is grind gold, then they won't have time for anything else. Besides, my point was that such a player would need to put in way more time and effort to get the same results, than someone who's more hardcore, in a groups that clear content, groups that do caravans, etc.
But that's not my argument. I agree with you on this totally. You shouldn't expect to be at the same level if you don't put in the effort.
I'm just arguing the quote you posted, because it didn't make sense to me. It makes the game out to be solo friendly, and how everyone is at the same playing field, how everyone will be able to get gold to buy top gear, etc. when that's just not the case at all.
Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »And you cannot afford to work 5x as hard if you are a casual player, remember, you don't have the time.
Casual players that will just be minding their own business will rarely get attacked, because their small guilds (if they even have one) won't be wardecced (as long as wardec balancing is good, and I'm 100% giving feedback towards that goal), and corruption will dissuade any dudes from just PKing people left and right.
Intrepid simply need to distribute their mobs in a well-thoughtout way, and I believe that they're already on the right track with the star system. Even that farm we saw in the bard showcase would work well for this. Casuals and solos would be the people on the outskirts of the farm, killing 0* mobs at their own pace, while partied or hardcore solos will be closer to the center farming 2-3* mobs and fighting over them.
There's no benefit for a group to go and mow down 0* mobs, because they have an entire group to feed and 0* will never be enough. Then you add any potential wars and stuff and those parties will be so preoccupied with other enemies that they HAVE to kill, that random casual/solo in the vicinty will not matter, and instead would be a waste of time and resources to even attempt to kill.
Sure, I agree with this.
Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »And you cannot afford to work 5x as hard if you are a casual player, remember, you don't have the time.
As for caravans and housing - you can do both as a solo player. You can join any caravan on any side and see how it goes. You may definitely fail, but that's no different from a group of players failing cause there was another group of players on the other side. We will also supposedly have solo caravans, but I dunno about that entire part of the system and whether it'll even remain in the game, so it's hard to discuss it either way.
And freeholds are meant to be the peak form of housing, just as instanced pve is considered peak pve. And neither are meant to be done alone. Build social connections, find friends that have FHs and they'll give you family access to them. I'm 100% sure there'll even be sellable FH access, so if you're super determined to level up your processing and do big boi stuff - you can work towards that, but obviously at a slower pace.
In other words, casuals should not have the same progress pace as hardcore players. And solos cannot have the same pace as partied up people. And unguilded parties cannot have the same pace as guilded ones. There's gotta be a hierarchy to these things because Steven wants to push people to socialize in a more meaningful way than just "I'm a solo, but I find a completely random pug every day to do content", because that is not socializing - that's single playing with other single players, and that kind of design has already led some games to the point of completely replacing other players in the party with bots.
If casuals and solos could easily keep up the pace with partied people (let alone gain same kinds of rewards) - why in the everflyingfuck would anyone party up? Why be social when you can clear the game w/o being social? Sure some default social butterflies will always find others to hang out with, but it won't be because the game told them to do it.
I personally want a social mmo where people are made to group up, because I know from my own experience (and that of my friends and guildmates throughout the years) that this kind of design leads to a much better social structure in the game. Steven seems to think along those lines as well.
- What do you get from caravans, other than potential PvP, as a solo player who just happens to join it? Rewards have to be there, if they manage to defend it, and it shouldn't be up to players to give out the rewards to those who came to help. I think we will have something like that in Highwayman system - that we haven't seen yet.
But I'm just not sure about the whole caravan system in this game.
In Archeage it had a good balance of risk/reward, where you can choose to do safe zone trade runs, more risky runs within conflict zones, and also risky runs across the sea, the riskiest of them all to Freedich island which is in the middle of the sea, and is regularly camped by PvP players looking to gank and steal those trade packs. You could do them both in groups or solo.
In Ashes, it just seems like the baseline risk level is always high, because it creates a PvP zone around a carvan, it requires you to build it up, it takes time for it to come to your location, etc. etc.
Maybe a solo caravan could simply be limited in amount of goods even further, but it also doesn't spawn a PvP zone around it. So if you want to gank it, you risk corruption - just an idea.
But again, it needs to be tested first, we need to see it in action.
- I'm comparing Freeholds to Archeage's housing system, in terms of what you can do on it.
I could easily manage to get a plot (not being handed out, not free), then grind some gold and buy out the neighbors next to me, so I have a bigger plot. Being in a family just meant you were more efficient, you pooled resources together, and overall you made way more profit off your land, than if you were solo. Besides, I could just join a family with several plots of land, and that same family could also have more plots around the map.
In Ashes however they will be very limited, and only the most powerful people will be able to get one (or rather families/guilds). Only 1 person will actually own just 1 piece of land. You cannot get to do whatever you want on it, if you have other family members who are also wanting to use it.
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I don't even know what we are even arguing about here at this point lol
I feel like I'm just providing counterarguments to your counterarguments, but we are getting further away from my actual point by doing so, because I have to provide counterarguments against things I don't believe in necessarily.
Obviously you shouldn't expect hardcore players and casuals to be on the same level, just how solo players will not match up to groups. I never argued otherwise.
That is just a natural state of things, except in Ashes it seems heavily forced to favor certain group of players.
Every system, or rather every piece of content in the game favors hardcore players or groups to some extent or is specifically designed for only those kinds of players in mind. - In general I do not have a problem with group content, and it's only natural to expect someone who puts in more time and effort to be ahead.
I don't even disagree with most of the stuff you said about the game, how it should push players to group up, etc.
I'm not asking for same kind of rewards, I'm just asking for some content that you can do as a solo player, it doesn't have to have the same level of rewards as group content, it just needs to exist and give you something.
Having that will in no way impact the key principles or pillars of this game, because you will still have so much group content that matters, that gives out gear, that rewards you, that is basically the key part of the game. It's something that you will do in this game on a regular basis, just like how you do dungeons/raids in WoW, or how you do farming/gathering, trade runs, and PvP in Archage.
I'm simply asking for something else to be there for solo or more casual players. Whether that's horizontal progression content, whether it's battlegrounds, aka instanced PVP, or instanced PvE, housing system that's accessible to most who put in a bit of effort, where you can actually farm/produce stuff, whether it's just something in the open-world (like caravans or even events in general).
We just haven't seen enough of that, they keep repeating solo players will have a place, the will have stuff to do, but we only hear about group content/systems, hardcore content/systems, or content/systems that are going to be limited to select few people (Node mayors).
Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »I know this sounds elitist as fuck
What's "elitist" about having a coherent line of thinking? If people want bigger rewards and challenges, then handing out equal rewards to those who do less is not the way to go.
But who argued for this? I certainly haven't, so all I'm seeing is people wrongly assuming what my position on this is. Nobody argued for EQUAL rewards.
iccer
1
Re: World boss and greater loot drop idea/discussion
I like the idea of having occasional special events where the loot from a particular boss becomes exceptionally valuable. During these events, not only is the loot abundant and distributed across all participants, but the twist is that whoever picks up the loot becomes flagged for PvP (Player versus Player). This flagging lasts until they successfully return to town.
The challenge would be that anyone carrying this loot becomes a target for other players, creating tension and excitement. If another player defeats the loot carrier, they can pick up the loot, but in doing so, they too become flagged and must carry it back to town.
This dynamic would encourage risk-taking, strategy, and teamwork as players would have to defend their valuable cargo from others while trying to safely deliver it to town.
It adds an extra layer of thrill, making these events both high-stakes and rewarding.
And you would have to trust who you fight with!
PS: maybe even pickup up multiple others look increases the value of the one you have! Then last man standing back to town!
The challenge would be that anyone carrying this loot becomes a target for other players, creating tension and excitement. If another player defeats the loot carrier, they can pick up the loot, but in doing so, they too become flagged and must carry it back to town.
This dynamic would encourage risk-taking, strategy, and teamwork as players would have to defend their valuable cargo from others while trying to safely deliver it to town.
It adds an extra layer of thrill, making these events both high-stakes and rewarding.
And you would have to trust who you fight with!
PS: maybe even pickup up multiple others look increases the value of the one you have! Then last man standing back to town!
akabear
1