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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Best Of
Re: Fix pve content.
Andretious wrote: »I'm level 21 right now. I've grinded in ROS. Looking to move onto carph, but no one seems to want to do carph. I'm told the reason is, is because you can just enchant level 10 gear to plus 8 and it's better than the carph drops and enchanting carph gear takes too many resources?. My suggestion would be to not allow enchantment of items that are level 10. Only 25. If the level cap is raised, then also raise the cap for enchanting items. To a new player (me) it seems the game is just a crafting sim passed level 21. Imo pve content needs to be strong with lots of dungeons ,raids. My feedback , for what it's worth...
Lots of dungeons and raids are fine. FFXI and TL show that good dungeons and raids can help carry a lot of water, but they also show that this alone doesn't fix PvE. In a game where the openworld matters at all, then you gotta make the open world be pleasurable content! TL overworld is bland and mindless before Talandre. After Talandre it is fine but it encounters the 'outleveling' and 'out enchanting the complexity' that you mention in your op very quickly. I get we need casuals to enjoy the game and the open world can't be too difficult but danger and difficulty are NOT ACTUALLY THE SAME. Difficulty is a matter of execution, time, and effort. Danger is a matter of strategy, knowledge, and 'fighting the "right" thing in the '"right" place'.
As an example, let's take FFXI which does in fact have a lot of good dungeons/raids and challenging open world stuff. When I'm going through the standard journey to 75 (let's not touch on the modern level cap or we'll lose all details) I have a ton of zones where I'm forced to pick my specialty. Every zone has an ecology and that ecology of enemy type was intended to correlate to what each class was intended to specialize in For example, as a Red Mage I mostly focused on things like plantoids and arcana. This was because I could burst through most of their healing/big dps, but I could also really feel the meaning of my buffs and debuffs. I could fight a morbol, to be more specific, but there was also bigger more complex morbols in the zone (usually an elite mob) that would fucking own me even though I was at level for the content. But fighting the lower morbols DID help me learn how to beat the nm's. And eventually I got 'mastery' to handle any situation like a random social aggro or bad pull where I had multiple morbols. As a puppetmaster, on the other hand these enemies fucking destroyed me and I was 'forced' as a puppet master to learn how to fight birds and beetles. Less complex, but the evasion and defense respectively required a different set of skills that would cause my poor Red Mage to tear her hair out.
That's a lot of words to say that PvE in a good game requires scaling complexity IN ZONE. Not 'by level'. Otherwise everyone, and I mean this with all the respect I can muster, will ignore the mobs you spend a lot of time on to make interesting and cool looking and flavorful for the setting (side eyes are happening here Throne and Liberty, great job with the Black Anvil zone though that was a great example of positive improvement.)
So now that I've established that PvE requires good mob design and different levels of complexity in a zone to truly fix PvE let me now explain why it must be this instead of dungeons and raids (as the sole issue). Tl;dr modern players whine about hard content being too strong and requiring a party. In FFXI this happened too, but for open world areas! So it's not a new problem. But you know what happened once they started designing even more complex zones? The players moved on to new things to whine about! It's a solved problem! Because you know why? And this is entirely speculation on my part. They probably stopped sucking at fighting morbols and got to be in a party to fight the cool morbol bosses in a party because they stopped dragging down the party's they joined you know? In TL they tried to fix this by having a weaker version of their morbol equivalent to 'practice on' but while that works for already established groups it makes for TERRIBLE PUGing. And in fact this was possibly the number one complaint for TL before Talandre. There were too many people struggling with dungeons and getting kicked out of groups and that killing a lot of ability for players to progress. In an open world design the stakes are lower than a dungeon. You just have more freedom to fail and learn. And the developers due to both budget and sensible design, tend to give you a progression of things to fight if the game is good.
JustVine
1
Re: Flavor: More Econ Ranting
I actually wanted to add this kind of design to the supposed "siege" food for AshesTL actually does have food that explicitly raises your stats against Bosses, but they have a roundabout, social way of handling that (one version is good for Tanks, another good for Scorpions and other Crossbow users, etc, but these are also foods that are placed down on the ground and anyone can eat, so someone will place a food and all the Crusaders and Templars will eat at that table, all the Scorpions at another table, etc).A feast before the battle that would be accessible by the entire side of the encounter.
This is compounded in TL by the fact that the main 'food slot' can hold either Attack or Defense, but there are 3 others. The Feasts are all currently Attack or Defense.
But you can still get a bit out of it because even if the Tanks all eat at the Defense Food 'table', they might still each eat different 'side dishes'. Those don't often have big effects on large battles (they're often moreso used for super-optimizing harder, single ones), but I guess if they started adding either 'Feasts that don't take up that slot' or 'Resistance Foods that don't', you'd have a similar experience to that?
Azherae
1
Re: Flavor: More Econ Ranting
If they're the best thing to use in that situation, whether or not they're niche is determined by a different aspect of gameplay and not themselves.
If TL had food that was 'great at Archbosses but average or below average otherwise', it would get made on a 'timer' because Archbosses are 'on a timer'.
So from the econ design perspective, that is what I'd call 'Coupled'. Demand is directly dependent on some other event and therefore what type of food it counts as, is determined by the requirements and timing of that event.
The most equivalent thing in FF11 was dealt with beforehand (food that gives percentage benefits without caps, which could then apply in the lategame zone where your stats got big boosts). Those were not considered Niche because everyone basically 'spent some time in that zone'. It was just 'less time', so demand was lower, but still in 'Staple' territory, not Niche or even Opportunistic.
The issue there is that if the food is too obvious or simple, especially if everyone eats it (or if there's really obviously only one option per role) then the 'flavor' is lost, but 'making a whole new set of foods just so there is variety in the foods that have these buffs... has its own problems. If it were me deciding or advising, I'd try to discourage that.
TL actually does have food that explicitly raises your stats against Bosses, but they have a roundabout, social way of handling that (one version is good for Tanks, another good for Scorpions and other Crossbow users, etc, but these are also foods that are placed down on the ground and anyone can eat, so someone will place a food and all the Crusaders and Templars will eat at that table, all the Scorpions at another table, etc).
But those foods are not 'better across the board' and therefore avoid the issues.
If TL had food that was 'great at Archbosses but average or below average otherwise', it would get made on a 'timer' because Archbosses are 'on a timer'.
So from the econ design perspective, that is what I'd call 'Coupled'. Demand is directly dependent on some other event and therefore what type of food it counts as, is determined by the requirements and timing of that event.
The most equivalent thing in FF11 was dealt with beforehand (food that gives percentage benefits without caps, which could then apply in the lategame zone where your stats got big boosts). Those were not considered Niche because everyone basically 'spent some time in that zone'. It was just 'less time', so demand was lower, but still in 'Staple' territory, not Niche or even Opportunistic.
The issue there is that if the food is too obvious or simple, especially if everyone eats it (or if there's really obviously only one option per role) then the 'flavor' is lost, but 'making a whole new set of foods just so there is variety in the foods that have these buffs... has its own problems. If it were me deciding or advising, I'd try to discourage that.
TL actually does have food that explicitly raises your stats against Bosses, but they have a roundabout, social way of handling that (one version is good for Tanks, another good for Scorpions and other Crossbow users, etc, but these are also foods that are placed down on the ground and anyone can eat, so someone will place a food and all the Crusaders and Templars will eat at that table, all the Scorpions at another table, etc).
But those foods are not 'better across the board' and therefore avoid the issues.
Azherae
1
Flavor: More Econ Ranting
In a previous post I poked at categories of Artisanship results and how they impact design. This is just another rant on the matter.
Food systems in games require lots of different foods to feel engaging. This is 'how to use the categories to pad out the food options'. The previous mention was about 'having food that reduces some stats too, as a tradeoff'. To help avoid the BDO outcome. References will be mostly to FF11 (actual ingame foods), and a little bit to Throne and Liberty (moreso how foods affect gameplay). To avoid any future confusion ifwhen the Ashes foods are updated, I won't reference them and will just talk 'around them'.
Example 1: Staple Foods
Economic Niche: Standard player, open world mob 'farmer'.
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4517/yellow-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4381/meat-mithkabob - mid level
Ignoring the differences in 'cap' for now, these foods are close to the same. The higher level one has some resistances to CC on it, at the 'cost' of requiring a rarer ingredient that players can neither craft nor farm, but still generally available to them. Lower level cooks do not need to produce Yellow Curry to be successful, and not everyone needs it, but it is still not quite 'Niche'. A high level cook would produce it basically whenever they could. There are few downsides to this food, even classes that use INT and Attack would still probably not suffer for eating these.
The 'flavor' that they add to the game is not a lot, but it is still 'enough' because in FF11, most people know where the meats involved here come from, or are aware of where to buy the Curry if they know anything about it. One could imagine 'regular people' eating Mithkabobs, and richer ones eating curry.
Example 2: Opportunistic Foods
Economic Niche: Skilled raider or lucky Dungeoneer
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4298/red-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/5196/buffalo-jerky - mid level
Buffalo meat is not, strictly speaking, 'Dungeoneer' type, but if we treat 'dungeoneering' as 'anything that can't be quickly reached and probably should not be soloed by most people, it fits, in the past. In TL this is more explicit, there is a set of foods like this which can only be made from materials from actual DCNM boss drops. You don't make these because everyone needs them, the game isn't designed around people needing these, they're also not necessarily more expensive by very much. They're an opportunistic, interesting thing to eat.
But this is half of the Opportunistic Food type, the type that is opportunistic because of the source being an opportunistic activity, not the product being an opportunistic result/target. In terms of the 'flavor' they add to the game, these ones just help pad out the food offerings.
Example 3: Opportunistic Foods II
Economic Niche: Could be anyone but often Fishers for a specific reason explained later
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4297/black-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/5721/crab-sushi - mid level
In FF11, the food design was not perfectly realized until later, so the original method of padding them was bad for the overall economy. Bonuses did not have caps so the highest level food was almost always the best, followed by 'whatever was good but cheap to make'. This left no room for this food type.
The examples above are things that fit this model even within that. Foods that don't offer as much, but are easy to make, or in a hypothetical better system, foods that reduce stats that are unnecessary for the current activity in exchange for slightly more (about 25% more, so let's say moving from +60 to +75). Enough to make players go 'eh I might as well min-max it' but not 'I definitely have to min-max it'.
Whether these are high or low level foods would mostly be determined in that case by 'if a low level character even could reasonably eat it'. Let's take an example of a food that gave -30 HP in FF11 or --300 in TL, in exchange for that 25% extra of whatever that type of food gives. Sometimes this is good/safe, sometimes it isn't. That is a 'high level food' and probably should be high level to make (some special less easily obtained but still open world meat or egg is the usual way). Whereas a potential low level option could be 'Reduces resistance to Fear or Sleep' in exchange for that 25%. Because low level characters won't often be faced with those CC options, but high level players in a PvX game 'sometimes would have a good reason not to eat it'. Even for more common CC effects, some might have so much on their gear that they can afford to give up some of it in certain situations, and the food is a quick way to do that without having to re-gear.
These foods, despite their drawbacks, would not be 'Niche', and would probably be quite popular, but the ones that would be less popular among low levels or specific classes would still have less reason for production (see the comments sections of the examples for this if deep-diving). The flavor/feeling they add to the game is of distinction. They exist to be created occasionally or for specific people. It doesn't always matter if they are 'min-max' for a specific class or situation.
Fish dishes work better here, particularly in games like Ashes where one is restricted (even FF11 has no limitation on Fishing skill relative to other Artisanship, but fishing is a commitment in itself and not every cook also wants to fish. In Ashes that should be fine, in TL for example it doesn't work, but is also sorta-fine due to another system they have). Rarely getting a Fish that can be cooked into something that is not always used, is fine, without frustrating either side of this equation too much.
Example 4: Niche Foods II
Economic Niche: Usually Farmers/Gardeners for yet another specific econ reason
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4277/tonosama-rball - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4557/steamed-catfish - different high level
Food that is vital for no one, not even specific classes or builds. There for the moment when you want to really do something silly/crazy, or flex on a boss, a specific battle situation, etc. The Rice Ball isn't actually a good example of this, but FF11 and Ashes both have the 'failure' in how they handle both 'number of food buffs' and 'number/concept of viable builds for flex situations'. The result is the potential to make foods so niche that they're almost for fun, or always discouraged.
I expect that if Ashes improves in its combat build options to the Throne and Liberty level, more options would open up here (with some overlap to the previous concept). I would be fine a food offers me 'decreased mana regen in exchange for more skill damage' in TL (it must be this type of obvious 'these two stats affect two sides of the same coin', it can't be 'decrease mana regen for more base damage', that's just a noob trap either because it should generally be used, or won't look like it should be used to a large number of players).
Yes, it is true that some players will just never understand, see a negative number or reduction, and shy away, but it's fine, because they aren't harmed by this, and the food can remain in its niche space.
FF11 has elemental defenses which matter in multiple ways, but probably aren't as easy to grasp even if they are equate-able to certain things in more modern games that avoid the direct concepts of Elemental Damage or Elemental Damage Reduction. So whereas TL has "Stun Resistance" as the obvious example, FF11 might choose to put this not under 'Resist Stun' but under 'Lightning Element Resist' because most effects that Stun would also be Lightning type. Similarly Water>Collision, Bind->Ice, Silence->Wind, Weaken->Light, Burn->Fire, Earth->Petrification, Dark->Sleep. This probably works better for food, since, despite there being 'lore' ways to explain 'you ate this pepper and now your Fire resistance is higher', resisting Fear is just as 'sensible'.
This ties well into why Farmers are the 'better' option for this in the game type that Ashes/FF11 are. Farming is supposed to be somewhat dynamic, and often lower time investment/effort. If you give Farmers too many Staple or Opportunistic options for produce, you end up with bots, alts, and general BDO gameplay. Whereas if most of the foods that Farmers contribute to are somewhat Niche or, at worst, better but the additions are also only Niche and could be ignored (such as a food that is exactly the same statwise as another but with +100 Fear Resist due to being spicy), then the economic incentive to constantly grow the 'Lionfang Pepper' or whatever, is lessened and farming skill is more adaptive.
For Ashes this easily ties into weather, area, etc, and then this in turn loops back to the 'flavor' effect. The Desert Node might have a food similar to another but with a resistance that fits the area, produced from an ingredient that fits the area, but is sometimes useful or good to have or grow in another area for specific content (e.g. Firebrand).
I should finish this properly but I've realized I'm distracted now so I'll just leave it there and maybe do the colors when one of my group scolds me for 'em.
Food systems in games require lots of different foods to feel engaging. This is 'how to use the categories to pad out the food options'. The previous mention was about 'having food that reduces some stats too, as a tradeoff'. To help avoid the BDO outcome. References will be mostly to FF11 (actual ingame foods), and a little bit to Throne and Liberty (moreso how foods affect gameplay). To avoid any future confusion ifwhen the Ashes foods are updated, I won't reference them and will just talk 'around them'.
Example 1: Staple Foods
Economic Niche: Standard player, open world mob 'farmer'.
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4517/yellow-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4381/meat-mithkabob - mid level
Ignoring the differences in 'cap' for now, these foods are close to the same. The higher level one has some resistances to CC on it, at the 'cost' of requiring a rarer ingredient that players can neither craft nor farm, but still generally available to them. Lower level cooks do not need to produce Yellow Curry to be successful, and not everyone needs it, but it is still not quite 'Niche'. A high level cook would produce it basically whenever they could. There are few downsides to this food, even classes that use INT and Attack would still probably not suffer for eating these.
The 'flavor' that they add to the game is not a lot, but it is still 'enough' because in FF11, most people know where the meats involved here come from, or are aware of where to buy the Curry if they know anything about it. One could imagine 'regular people' eating Mithkabobs, and richer ones eating curry.
Example 2: Opportunistic Foods
Economic Niche: Skilled raider or lucky Dungeoneer
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4298/red-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/5196/buffalo-jerky - mid level
Buffalo meat is not, strictly speaking, 'Dungeoneer' type, but if we treat 'dungeoneering' as 'anything that can't be quickly reached and probably should not be soloed by most people, it fits, in the past. In TL this is more explicit, there is a set of foods like this which can only be made from materials from actual DCNM boss drops. You don't make these because everyone needs them, the game isn't designed around people needing these, they're also not necessarily more expensive by very much. They're an opportunistic, interesting thing to eat.
But this is half of the Opportunistic Food type, the type that is opportunistic because of the source being an opportunistic activity, not the product being an opportunistic result/target. In terms of the 'flavor' they add to the game, these ones just help pad out the food offerings.
Example 3: Opportunistic Foods II
Economic Niche: Could be anyone but often Fishers for a specific reason explained later
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4297/black-curry - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/5721/crab-sushi - mid level
In FF11, the food design was not perfectly realized until later, so the original method of padding them was bad for the overall economy. Bonuses did not have caps so the highest level food was almost always the best, followed by 'whatever was good but cheap to make'. This left no room for this food type.
The examples above are things that fit this model even within that. Foods that don't offer as much, but are easy to make, or in a hypothetical better system, foods that reduce stats that are unnecessary for the current activity in exchange for slightly more (about 25% more, so let's say moving from +60 to +75). Enough to make players go 'eh I might as well min-max it' but not 'I definitely have to min-max it'.
Whether these are high or low level foods would mostly be determined in that case by 'if a low level character even could reasonably eat it'. Let's take an example of a food that gave -30 HP in FF11 or --300 in TL, in exchange for that 25% extra of whatever that type of food gives. Sometimes this is good/safe, sometimes it isn't. That is a 'high level food' and probably should be high level to make (some special less easily obtained but still open world meat or egg is the usual way). Whereas a potential low level option could be 'Reduces resistance to Fear or Sleep' in exchange for that 25%. Because low level characters won't often be faced with those CC options, but high level players in a PvX game 'sometimes would have a good reason not to eat it'. Even for more common CC effects, some might have so much on their gear that they can afford to give up some of it in certain situations, and the food is a quick way to do that without having to re-gear.
These foods, despite their drawbacks, would not be 'Niche', and would probably be quite popular, but the ones that would be less popular among low levels or specific classes would still have less reason for production (see the comments sections of the examples for this if deep-diving). The flavor/feeling they add to the game is of distinction. They exist to be created occasionally or for specific people. It doesn't always matter if they are 'min-max' for a specific class or situation.
Fish dishes work better here, particularly in games like Ashes where one is restricted (even FF11 has no limitation on Fishing skill relative to other Artisanship, but fishing is a commitment in itself and not every cook also wants to fish. In Ashes that should be fine, in TL for example it doesn't work, but is also sorta-fine due to another system they have). Rarely getting a Fish that can be cooked into something that is not always used, is fine, without frustrating either side of this equation too much.
Example 4: Niche Foods II
Economic Niche: Usually Farmers/Gardeners for yet another specific econ reason
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4277/tonosama-rball - high level
https://www.ffxiah.com/item/4557/steamed-catfish - different high level
Food that is vital for no one, not even specific classes or builds. There for the moment when you want to really do something silly/crazy, or flex on a boss, a specific battle situation, etc. The Rice Ball isn't actually a good example of this, but FF11 and Ashes both have the 'failure' in how they handle both 'number of food buffs' and 'number/concept of viable builds for flex situations'. The result is the potential to make foods so niche that they're almost for fun, or always discouraged.
I expect that if Ashes improves in its combat build options to the Throne and Liberty level, more options would open up here (with some overlap to the previous concept). I would be fine a food offers me 'decreased mana regen in exchange for more skill damage' in TL (it must be this type of obvious 'these two stats affect two sides of the same coin', it can't be 'decrease mana regen for more base damage', that's just a noob trap either because it should generally be used, or won't look like it should be used to a large number of players).
Yes, it is true that some players will just never understand, see a negative number or reduction, and shy away, but it's fine, because they aren't harmed by this, and the food can remain in its niche space.
FF11 has elemental defenses which matter in multiple ways, but probably aren't as easy to grasp even if they are equate-able to certain things in more modern games that avoid the direct concepts of Elemental Damage or Elemental Damage Reduction. So whereas TL has "Stun Resistance" as the obvious example, FF11 might choose to put this not under 'Resist Stun' but under 'Lightning Element Resist' because most effects that Stun would also be Lightning type. Similarly Water>Collision, Bind->Ice, Silence->Wind, Weaken->Light, Burn->Fire, Earth->Petrification, Dark->Sleep. This probably works better for food, since, despite there being 'lore' ways to explain 'you ate this pepper and now your Fire resistance is higher', resisting Fear is just as 'sensible'.
This ties well into why Farmers are the 'better' option for this in the game type that Ashes/FF11 are. Farming is supposed to be somewhat dynamic, and often lower time investment/effort. If you give Farmers too many Staple or Opportunistic options for produce, you end up with bots, alts, and general BDO gameplay. Whereas if most of the foods that Farmers contribute to are somewhat Niche or, at worst, better but the additions are also only Niche and could be ignored (such as a food that is exactly the same statwise as another but with +100 Fear Resist due to being spicy), then the economic incentive to constantly grow the 'Lionfang Pepper' or whatever, is lessened and farming skill is more adaptive.
For Ashes this easily ties into weather, area, etc, and then this in turn loops back to the 'flavor' effect. The Desert Node might have a food similar to another but with a resistance that fits the area, produced from an ingredient that fits the area, but is sometimes useful or good to have or grow in another area for specific content (e.g. Firebrand).
I should finish this properly but I've realized I'm distracted now so I'll just leave it there and maybe do the colors when one of my group scolds me for 'em.
Azherae
1
Re: Crafting Professions
Please consider unlocking all crafting professions and no more gatekeeping behind 5 mastercrafting. Since I do not have a crystal ball and do not know what this finish product will be like. At the very least try it during this Alpha phase. Over the weekend, I went to all three desert nodes and checked their store fronts. There was only 2 to 3 pages of items for sale, per node. If a node is to specialize in a certain craft. That doesn't seem like a promising feature when content dries up. I understand what the devs are trying to achieve, and, also understand that this is a Alpha. It is not working as intended. It may never work as intended.
This topic isn't about trying to control the market. Crafting is typically a gathering/money sink that some do not enjoy. It's about being able to play the game in other ways than farming mobs for xp. Once again, no idea what finished product will be like. But, if it stays on this track, as solo, non guild person. It would be more enjoyable to be able to craft gear, food, mounts and so on without the aid of others.
Thanks for reading
Side Note: Started testing/playing Jan 5th as ranger. That char is lvl 9 and felt it was too squishy. Rerolled a cleric, lvl 20 currently. Tried group content once, but found standing in one spot and farming adds a bit boring.
I just have to assume you paid in to this alpha not really knowing what Ashes was trying to be. A lot of people did. It's not met to be soloed. You will rely on others to craft, if that's from friends, guild, or the market place. You'll rely on others to party up to kill mobs to get drops, or clear out areas to harvest materials. The part of crafting that's intended to be solo is clicking through the god awful menu.
It's an MMORPG not Skyrim. Sure other MMOs allow you to tank, dps, heal, support all as one class and craft everything under the sun. But Ashe's isn't trying to be that. It's not a WoW clone, it's not EQ revived, it's not FFXIV reincarnated. It's more trying to be a mix of L2, DaoC, and Ark. How it will actually turn out is still a mystery. But if they recant on certain things like this they'll lose the core of the people still testing and piss a lot of people off.
If testing isn't fun, don't test, I don't because it's not fun to me. Vote with your feet.
Volgaris
1
Re: Disgusted by the team already and I haven´t played the game yet.
At this point i can no longer tell if the Forum is alive or dead.
Check the date on the last Memes Thread post. If it's still recent, then we're ok!
losing 25% of loot when half my deaths are due to bugs is getting annoying
a VERY high percentage of my abilities get canceled/cast but do no damage and gets me killed if i don't farm slow as a snail then if 2 abilities don't cast I'm basically guaranteed to die. i do not understand why we have a system to punish players for bugs. love the system in general for the full release but when I'm constantly dying to bugs and other bs it really takes from the enjoyment
Why Exclusive Flying Mounts Will Destroy a PvP-Driven Game Long Term
I know this a long post, but I had made it much shorter then I had originally written, I wanted to make sure to get all my points across to reduce the back and forth needed.
In any PvP-focused game, balance is everything. It’s what makes competition fair, engaging, and worth investing time into. The moment one group of players is given a permanent advantage over others—like exclusive access to flying mounts—the game stops being about skill and strategy and starts being about who got lucky enough to be on the winning side first.
If history has taught us anything about PvP-driven games, it’s that when balance is ignored, players quit, economies crash, and the game dies.
1. PvP Balance is Like Chess—Everyone Needs a Fair Board
PvP games thrive when the playing field is level. Every battle, every war, every raid should be determined by skill, tactics, and teamwork. The moment you introduce an exclusive advantage—like flying mounts—you’ve essentially rigged the game before the fight even starts.
Imagine playing chess, but your opponent is allowed to use their queen and rooks while you can’t. Would you still want to play? Probably not. Because at that point, it’s not a game—it’s a guaranteed loss.
This is exactly what happens when only a few players or guilds gain access to flying mounts. The advantage isn’t minor—it completely rewrites how the game is played:
Faster travel – They can move across the map in a fraction of the time.
Resource control – They can farm materials without competition.
Unavoidable ambushes – They can drop from the sky at will, attacking players with no warning.
Exclusive access to key locations – They can bypass terrain barriers, forts, or dangerous zones.
Economic dominance – They can transport resources safely while ground players risk getting ganked.
In a PvP-driven game, where territory and power matter, mobility is king. Giving some players the ability to bypass everything that makes PvP challenging doesn’t just create an imbalance—it removes the entire point of fighting in the first place.
2. The Long-Term Impact: Guild Dictatorships & Player Exodus
When a select few can farm, fight, and control resources better than everyone else, you don’t get a competitive game—you get an unstoppable ruling class. Over time, this creates a dictatorship-like system where:
Smaller guilds can never catch up.
The “flying elite” monopolize major resources.
Warfare becomes pointless because the dominant guild can always outmaneuver everyone.
Eventually, regular players realize they have only two choices:
Submit and serve under the dominant guild (which is NOT fun in a game about competition).
Quit the game entirely.
And when players start quitting, the entire PvP ecosystem collapses. Wars become meaningless, the economy stagnates, and the only people left playing are the handful who were given unfair advantages in the first place.
This isn’t theoretical—it’s happened in countless MMOs and PvP games before. Imbalance always leads to server death.
3. The Power Creep of Flying Mounts
The issue with flying mounts isn’t just that they exist—it’s how they fundamentally change the game. These aren’t just “cool rewards for grinding.” They reshape every aspect of PvP:
Gathering & Farming Advantage – Flyers can freely collect resources while ground players fight for scraps.
Ganking & Unfair Engagements – Ground players are forced into fights they can’t avoid, while flyers pick and choose when to engage.
Unrestricted Mobility – They dictate when and where fights happen, while everyone else plays catch-up.
Trade & Market Control – They move materials safely while ground players risk ambushes, leading to economic monopolies.
What starts as a “cool reward” for a few turns into an unbeatable advantage that snowballs over time. No PvP game can survive when one group is always ahead.
4. The Alpha Test Paradox – The Azure Mines Comparison
Think back to New World’s closed alpha test, where guilds had to physically build walls around valuable resource nodes like the Azure Mines. They had to actively defend these locations and even pay a protection fee every 16 hours to keep control.
Now imagine trying to do that while another guild has flying mounts.
While your guild builds defenses, sets up patrols, and organizes 24/7 protection, the flying guild doesn’t have to do any of that. They can simply fly over, grab the resources, and leave without consequence. If there’s a server-wide limit on how many players can have flying mounts, and your guild isn’t one of them, you’re playing a completely different game—one you can never win.
That’s not strategy. That’s forced submission through game mechanics.
Balance or Bust
A PvP-driven game only survives when fights are fair and winnable by anyone with the right skill, strategy, and effort. The moment you give one group of players a permanent, exclusive advantage, you’ve broken that balance.
Flying mounts aren’t just a fun cosmetic or small perk—they are a game-breaking tool that allows a select few to dominate every aspect of gameplay. Over time, this leads to player frustration, server stagnation, and ultimately, a dying game.
If you want a PvP game to thrive, everyone must play by the same rules. Because once you start giving some players their queens and rooks while others are left with pawns, the game isn’t fun anymore—it’s already lost.
Bonus: Imagine Being a Streamer Trying to Cope with This
Now, let’s add another layer of suffering. Imagine being a PvP-focused streamer trying to play this game. It’s literally your job to entertain viewers, win fights, and showcase skill-based gameplay.
But instead, you’re stuck on the ground, trying to make content while some skyborne sweatlord flies in, steals your kills, ganks you from above, and disappears before you can do anything. Meanwhile, your chat is spamming “LOL SKILL ISSUE” as you try to explain that no, actually, this game is just broken.
At that point, what are you even grinding for? The entertainment factor disappears because every fight is predetermined by mount access. The content dries up because viewers only want to watch people with mounts dominating everyone else. And before long, even the streamers are forced to quit or cope harder than a Dark Souls player trying to parry a nuke.
PvP games live and die by balance. You can’t have competition without a fair battleground. Otherwise, it’s not a game anymore—it’s just one side flexing while the rest of us play NPCs in their power fantasy.
In closing.....
At the end of the day, we love this game. That’s why we care. That’s why we’re having this discussion in the first place. A great PvP game isn’t just about combat—it’s about the stories, rivalries, and moments that come from fair, hard-fought battles.
But for any game to thrive and last, it needs balance. Every legendary PvP game—whether it’s an MMO, an FPS, or a strategy game—survives because every player has an equal shot at victory.
Without balance, even the best-designed games lose their magic. If only a handful of players or guilds can ever truly compete, then what’s left for everyone else? The game stops being about PvP and starts being about waiting to get farmed. That’s when people leave, and that’s when the game dies.
The Bottom Line
We want this game to succeed. But for it to have true longevity, the competitive integrity has to be protected at all costs. Every major PvP game that has survived the test of time has done so because no single group of players is given an advantage so strong that others can never compete.
If flying mounts are introduced without serious balance considerations, limitations, or counterplay, then we won’t be looking at a thriving game years from now—we’ll be looking at another cautionary tale of how imbalance kills great games.
Please, I would love to hear others thoughts on this matter. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
In any PvP-focused game, balance is everything. It’s what makes competition fair, engaging, and worth investing time into. The moment one group of players is given a permanent advantage over others—like exclusive access to flying mounts—the game stops being about skill and strategy and starts being about who got lucky enough to be on the winning side first.
If history has taught us anything about PvP-driven games, it’s that when balance is ignored, players quit, economies crash, and the game dies.
1. PvP Balance is Like Chess—Everyone Needs a Fair Board
PvP games thrive when the playing field is level. Every battle, every war, every raid should be determined by skill, tactics, and teamwork. The moment you introduce an exclusive advantage—like flying mounts—you’ve essentially rigged the game before the fight even starts.
Imagine playing chess, but your opponent is allowed to use their queen and rooks while you can’t. Would you still want to play? Probably not. Because at that point, it’s not a game—it’s a guaranteed loss.
This is exactly what happens when only a few players or guilds gain access to flying mounts. The advantage isn’t minor—it completely rewrites how the game is played:
Faster travel – They can move across the map in a fraction of the time.
Resource control – They can farm materials without competition.
Unavoidable ambushes – They can drop from the sky at will, attacking players with no warning.
Exclusive access to key locations – They can bypass terrain barriers, forts, or dangerous zones.
Economic dominance – They can transport resources safely while ground players risk getting ganked.
In a PvP-driven game, where territory and power matter, mobility is king. Giving some players the ability to bypass everything that makes PvP challenging doesn’t just create an imbalance—it removes the entire point of fighting in the first place.
2. The Long-Term Impact: Guild Dictatorships & Player Exodus
When a select few can farm, fight, and control resources better than everyone else, you don’t get a competitive game—you get an unstoppable ruling class. Over time, this creates a dictatorship-like system where:
Smaller guilds can never catch up.
The “flying elite” monopolize major resources.
Warfare becomes pointless because the dominant guild can always outmaneuver everyone.
Eventually, regular players realize they have only two choices:
Submit and serve under the dominant guild (which is NOT fun in a game about competition).
Quit the game entirely.
And when players start quitting, the entire PvP ecosystem collapses. Wars become meaningless, the economy stagnates, and the only people left playing are the handful who were given unfair advantages in the first place.
This isn’t theoretical—it’s happened in countless MMOs and PvP games before. Imbalance always leads to server death.
3. The Power Creep of Flying Mounts
The issue with flying mounts isn’t just that they exist—it’s how they fundamentally change the game. These aren’t just “cool rewards for grinding.” They reshape every aspect of PvP:
Gathering & Farming Advantage – Flyers can freely collect resources while ground players fight for scraps.
Ganking & Unfair Engagements – Ground players are forced into fights they can’t avoid, while flyers pick and choose when to engage.
Unrestricted Mobility – They dictate when and where fights happen, while everyone else plays catch-up.
Trade & Market Control – They move materials safely while ground players risk ambushes, leading to economic monopolies.
What starts as a “cool reward” for a few turns into an unbeatable advantage that snowballs over time. No PvP game can survive when one group is always ahead.
4. The Alpha Test Paradox – The Azure Mines Comparison
Think back to New World’s closed alpha test, where guilds had to physically build walls around valuable resource nodes like the Azure Mines. They had to actively defend these locations and even pay a protection fee every 16 hours to keep control.
Now imagine trying to do that while another guild has flying mounts.
While your guild builds defenses, sets up patrols, and organizes 24/7 protection, the flying guild doesn’t have to do any of that. They can simply fly over, grab the resources, and leave without consequence. If there’s a server-wide limit on how many players can have flying mounts, and your guild isn’t one of them, you’re playing a completely different game—one you can never win.
That’s not strategy. That’s forced submission through game mechanics.
Balance or Bust
A PvP-driven game only survives when fights are fair and winnable by anyone with the right skill, strategy, and effort. The moment you give one group of players a permanent, exclusive advantage, you’ve broken that balance.
Flying mounts aren’t just a fun cosmetic or small perk—they are a game-breaking tool that allows a select few to dominate every aspect of gameplay. Over time, this leads to player frustration, server stagnation, and ultimately, a dying game.
If you want a PvP game to thrive, everyone must play by the same rules. Because once you start giving some players their queens and rooks while others are left with pawns, the game isn’t fun anymore—it’s already lost.
Bonus: Imagine Being a Streamer Trying to Cope with This
Now, let’s add another layer of suffering. Imagine being a PvP-focused streamer trying to play this game. It’s literally your job to entertain viewers, win fights, and showcase skill-based gameplay.
But instead, you’re stuck on the ground, trying to make content while some skyborne sweatlord flies in, steals your kills, ganks you from above, and disappears before you can do anything. Meanwhile, your chat is spamming “LOL SKILL ISSUE” as you try to explain that no, actually, this game is just broken.
At that point, what are you even grinding for? The entertainment factor disappears because every fight is predetermined by mount access. The content dries up because viewers only want to watch people with mounts dominating everyone else. And before long, even the streamers are forced to quit or cope harder than a Dark Souls player trying to parry a nuke.
PvP games live and die by balance. You can’t have competition without a fair battleground. Otherwise, it’s not a game anymore—it’s just one side flexing while the rest of us play NPCs in their power fantasy.
In closing.....
At the end of the day, we love this game. That’s why we care. That’s why we’re having this discussion in the first place. A great PvP game isn’t just about combat—it’s about the stories, rivalries, and moments that come from fair, hard-fought battles.
But for any game to thrive and last, it needs balance. Every legendary PvP game—whether it’s an MMO, an FPS, or a strategy game—survives because every player has an equal shot at victory.
Without balance, even the best-designed games lose their magic. If only a handful of players or guilds can ever truly compete, then what’s left for everyone else? The game stops being about PvP and starts being about waiting to get farmed. That’s when people leave, and that’s when the game dies.
The Bottom Line
We want this game to succeed. But for it to have true longevity, the competitive integrity has to be protected at all costs. Every major PvP game that has survived the test of time has done so because no single group of players is given an advantage so strong that others can never compete.
If flying mounts are introduced without serious balance considerations, limitations, or counterplay, then we won’t be looking at a thriving game years from now—we’ll be looking at another cautionary tale of how imbalance kills great games.
Please, I would love to hear others thoughts on this matter. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
zbitango
3
Re: Disgusted by the team already and I haven´t played the game yet.
It's the classic case of Schrodinger's ForumAt this point i can no longer tell if the Forum is alive or dead.
Ludullu
1
Fix pve content.
I'm level 21 right now. I've grinded in ROS. Looking to move onto carph, but no one seems to want to do carph. I'm told the reason is, is because you can just enchant level 10 gear to plus 8 and it's better than the carph drops and enchanting carph gear takes too many resources?. My suggestion would be to not allow enchantment of items that are level 10. Only 25. If the level cap is raised, then also raise the cap for enchanting items. To a new player (me) it seems the game is just a crafting sim passed level 21. Imo pve content needs to be strong with lots of dungeons ,raids. My feedback , for what it's worth...
