Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
How to fix node wars
Issue
the fix for out-of-war healing was a bad one. It's very unintuitive, a break in the flow of gameplay and allows for unintended consequences and sometimes accidental corruption
Reasoning
Players in the event need to flag for pvp to deal with these third parties that decide to intervene in the war. They need to become purple themselves and invite more players to attack them, they need to risk targeting the wrong person and becoming corrupt. They will be attacked by guards if these events are happening near towns. Healers and bards won't be able to heal you unless they flag themselves.
This all creates a bad game experience for players dealing with an already unfair situation. This feels more like a bandaid solution than an actual way to integrate these situations into the gameplay.
This already happened multiple times since the fix was implemented. Players going corrupt by accident just by trying to deal with out-of-war purple players (we had multiple of those today in a war, on both sides). Players not being able to heal other players because they went purple. Out-of-war players taking advantage of the fact that we go purple to fight third parties and sneaking on us.
The way the flagging system is implemented doesn't help either. You have menu settings to tailor the flag to your necessity, but that necessity changes all the time and when it does change you don't have time to go to the menu to change the settings before you start pvping. We need a better way to access these settings (HUD flagging buttons, keybinds)
Suggestion
If a player harms/helps a player involved in a war, he becomes orange or blue only for the players involved in the war (whatever colors you want, just an example) depending on which side he helped/attacked. Blue would be basically to signal to one side of the war that this guy is friendly and helping you. Orange is to signal the other side that this player is interfering against you.
Example: If a player attacks you during a node war, he becomes orange for you and your fellow citizens. This orange status allows your node citizens to kill that player without having to flag, just like he would be if he were a participant in the war. You won't become purple if you attack/kill this player and guards won't attack you. This guy won't participate in any objectives and won't count for points for the war, and he will receive regular purple death penalties, but he will be killable just like a war player. This allows for seamless integration for these third parties and removes all the trouble and risk of dealing with the flagging system during this war.
Issue
Node war was supposed to be a gameplay for citizens, but the way it currently works it is a system for guilds and random citizens only hinder instead of aiding
Reasoning
Currently, the node system is taken by guilds. Guilds decide when they are going to war, against who, and for what reasons. Mostly, it's guilds declaring war on nodes owned by their enemy guilds. Random citizens are only present to give kills and consequently points to the enemy. There are no incentives to try and incorporate these random citizens into the war.
On top of that, the war system doesn't incentivize these random citizens to participate, as there is currently no outcome or reward to a node war, and there is no straight path for these random citizens to group up with each other and form a raid of their own. Adding to that, the random citizen who is not in the guild that "owns" the node has no attachment to the node and has no reason to care about the node itself. Whichever node you're a citizen of, it currently does not matter and I'm afraid that will remain the case regardless of stuff like relics. To top all of that, usually, the random citizen is not near as close as a hardcore player in the dominating guilds and he gets instantly deleted by the current power creep and low TTK design.
Suggestions
1. Kills should not reward points as it incentivizes a bunch of undesired behaviors like bullying low levels, creating alts for free points, and weaker players and random citizens being a hindrance to the war.
2. Give citizens better tools for grouping up and organizing PUG groups for war. Maybe a town board to form warbands, some better ways to communicate with mayor.
3. Overall citizens should have more of a voice on whether they agree to start the war or not, including them in the decision could help make them more personally invested.
4. War rewards, of course, appropriate ones (not created out of thin air materials and gold and resources).
5. I strongly suggest considering ways to increase citizen attachment to its node. Stuff like allowing the use of benches only on your vassal network, giving the option for mayors to block non-citizens from using their benches and shops, or a better control for mayors for taxing non-citizens
6. Increase the TTK design for god's sake, 10~15 seconds in a balanced 1v1 scenario means insta kill when power disparities are taken into consideration. No one enjoys dying without pressing buttons. Give even the weaker players the opportunity to press some buttons and contribute before dying.
Issue
Players who are not interested in participating in the war, for whatever reason, just log out and wait for the war to end.
Reasoning
Sometimes players feel like fighting the war is pointless. They are heavily outnumbered, or they don't have a group to fight with, or they are just way weaker than the war power average. When these players are caught in a war, and don't have the opportunity to run to a safe territory, they just log out and wait for the war to end. This is bad as it's literally keeping the players off the game. If a node engages in multiple wars and consecutive wars, players could be forced to stay logged out for days.
Suggestions
1. Heads-up timer of 5~10 minutes so players can scatter and reach a safe territory before the war starts.
2. Put a notification on your character selection screen if that character is at war and if he's logged off on a war zone.
3. Give every player the possibility to respawn in a safe emberspring (outside of the warring territories) to avoid players being eternally ganked into a node war. This way they can avoid the war without having to log off.
4. Diplomatic options for the node to call for allies (other nodes), surrender, and negotiate peace. This way, they can muster more numbers if they are outnumbered, or just surrender if they feel like they have no chance, saving everyone's time.
5. Possibility of dropping citizenship from different nodes. If a player really wants to be in his territory for some reason, like accessing his storage, and he's in a war, the only solution is to drop citizenship. But it's hard getting to the town hall in the middle of a war. If you could drop your citizenship from another node, that could be facilitated.
6. Refugee policy available for nodes: It would require the node to fund the stay of these refugees, with extra available housing and increased node maintenance. If the node decides to activate this policy, it would allow players to request refugee status, temporarily becoming citizens of that node, with limited availability per node.
Issue
Node wars are being constantly used and being spammed, for frugal reasons and troll mayors, to bully weaker nodes and to alleviate their boredom.
Reasoning
Warmongering mayors can cause real havoc without any intention of fighting all those wars. Warmongering mayors can also use constant wars to bully smaller and weaker nodes. This warmongering behavior has no real consequences as currently, it is almost impossible to oust a mayor who has a big guild and alliance behind him. Even with other ways of election, this won't probably change as big guilds/alliances will dominate economic and military nodes as well. This creates a situation of war exhaustion for their citizens.
Suggestions
A war exhaustion mechanic:
Every time a node goes into war, a war exhaustion bar starts to increase. It increases based on how long you are at war and how many wars you are in. The bar slowly decreases while you're at peace. The higher your war exhaustion, the more expensive it is to declare a war. Over 90% war exhaustion and you can't declare war on another node. War exhaustion only increases if you're the attacker, not the defender, or maybe have war exhaustion for defenders increase way slower than for attackers.
You could also add to the war exhaustion mechanic debuffs to players and hindrances. If war exhaustion becomes high while a war is active, players become weaker, they have increased respawn cooldowns, and other debuffs to accelerate the end of the war and incentivize peace negotiations.
the fix for out-of-war healing was a bad one. It's very unintuitive, a break in the flow of gameplay and allows for unintended consequences and sometimes accidental corruption
Reasoning
Players in the event need to flag for pvp to deal with these third parties that decide to intervene in the war. They need to become purple themselves and invite more players to attack them, they need to risk targeting the wrong person and becoming corrupt. They will be attacked by guards if these events are happening near towns. Healers and bards won't be able to heal you unless they flag themselves.
This all creates a bad game experience for players dealing with an already unfair situation. This feels more like a bandaid solution than an actual way to integrate these situations into the gameplay.
This already happened multiple times since the fix was implemented. Players going corrupt by accident just by trying to deal with out-of-war purple players (we had multiple of those today in a war, on both sides). Players not being able to heal other players because they went purple. Out-of-war players taking advantage of the fact that we go purple to fight third parties and sneaking on us.
The way the flagging system is implemented doesn't help either. You have menu settings to tailor the flag to your necessity, but that necessity changes all the time and when it does change you don't have time to go to the menu to change the settings before you start pvping. We need a better way to access these settings (HUD flagging buttons, keybinds)
Suggestion
If a player harms/helps a player involved in a war, he becomes orange or blue only for the players involved in the war (whatever colors you want, just an example) depending on which side he helped/attacked. Blue would be basically to signal to one side of the war that this guy is friendly and helping you. Orange is to signal the other side that this player is interfering against you.
Example: If a player attacks you during a node war, he becomes orange for you and your fellow citizens. This orange status allows your node citizens to kill that player without having to flag, just like he would be if he were a participant in the war. You won't become purple if you attack/kill this player and guards won't attack you. This guy won't participate in any objectives and won't count for points for the war, and he will receive regular purple death penalties, but he will be killable just like a war player. This allows for seamless integration for these third parties and removes all the trouble and risk of dealing with the flagging system during this war.
Issue
Node war was supposed to be a gameplay for citizens, but the way it currently works it is a system for guilds and random citizens only hinder instead of aiding
Reasoning
Currently, the node system is taken by guilds. Guilds decide when they are going to war, against who, and for what reasons. Mostly, it's guilds declaring war on nodes owned by their enemy guilds. Random citizens are only present to give kills and consequently points to the enemy. There are no incentives to try and incorporate these random citizens into the war.
On top of that, the war system doesn't incentivize these random citizens to participate, as there is currently no outcome or reward to a node war, and there is no straight path for these random citizens to group up with each other and form a raid of their own. Adding to that, the random citizen who is not in the guild that "owns" the node has no attachment to the node and has no reason to care about the node itself. Whichever node you're a citizen of, it currently does not matter and I'm afraid that will remain the case regardless of stuff like relics. To top all of that, usually, the random citizen is not near as close as a hardcore player in the dominating guilds and he gets instantly deleted by the current power creep and low TTK design.
Suggestions
1. Kills should not reward points as it incentivizes a bunch of undesired behaviors like bullying low levels, creating alts for free points, and weaker players and random citizens being a hindrance to the war.
2. Give citizens better tools for grouping up and organizing PUG groups for war. Maybe a town board to form warbands, some better ways to communicate with mayor.
3. Overall citizens should have more of a voice on whether they agree to start the war or not, including them in the decision could help make them more personally invested.
4. War rewards, of course, appropriate ones (not created out of thin air materials and gold and resources).
5. I strongly suggest considering ways to increase citizen attachment to its node. Stuff like allowing the use of benches only on your vassal network, giving the option for mayors to block non-citizens from using their benches and shops, or a better control for mayors for taxing non-citizens
6. Increase the TTK design for god's sake, 10~15 seconds in a balanced 1v1 scenario means insta kill when power disparities are taken into consideration. No one enjoys dying without pressing buttons. Give even the weaker players the opportunity to press some buttons and contribute before dying.
Issue
Players who are not interested in participating in the war, for whatever reason, just log out and wait for the war to end.
Reasoning
Sometimes players feel like fighting the war is pointless. They are heavily outnumbered, or they don't have a group to fight with, or they are just way weaker than the war power average. When these players are caught in a war, and don't have the opportunity to run to a safe territory, they just log out and wait for the war to end. This is bad as it's literally keeping the players off the game. If a node engages in multiple wars and consecutive wars, players could be forced to stay logged out for days.
Suggestions
1. Heads-up timer of 5~10 minutes so players can scatter and reach a safe territory before the war starts.
2. Put a notification on your character selection screen if that character is at war and if he's logged off on a war zone.
3. Give every player the possibility to respawn in a safe emberspring (outside of the warring territories) to avoid players being eternally ganked into a node war. This way they can avoid the war without having to log off.
4. Diplomatic options for the node to call for allies (other nodes), surrender, and negotiate peace. This way, they can muster more numbers if they are outnumbered, or just surrender if they feel like they have no chance, saving everyone's time.
5. Possibility of dropping citizenship from different nodes. If a player really wants to be in his territory for some reason, like accessing his storage, and he's in a war, the only solution is to drop citizenship. But it's hard getting to the town hall in the middle of a war. If you could drop your citizenship from another node, that could be facilitated.
6. Refugee policy available for nodes: It would require the node to fund the stay of these refugees, with extra available housing and increased node maintenance. If the node decides to activate this policy, it would allow players to request refugee status, temporarily becoming citizens of that node, with limited availability per node.
Issue
Node wars are being constantly used and being spammed, for frugal reasons and troll mayors, to bully weaker nodes and to alleviate their boredom.
Reasoning
Warmongering mayors can cause real havoc without any intention of fighting all those wars. Warmongering mayors can also use constant wars to bully smaller and weaker nodes. This warmongering behavior has no real consequences as currently, it is almost impossible to oust a mayor who has a big guild and alliance behind him. Even with other ways of election, this won't probably change as big guilds/alliances will dominate economic and military nodes as well. This creates a situation of war exhaustion for their citizens.
Suggestions
A war exhaustion mechanic:
Every time a node goes into war, a war exhaustion bar starts to increase. It increases based on how long you are at war and how many wars you are in. The bar slowly decreases while you're at peace. The higher your war exhaustion, the more expensive it is to declare a war. Over 90% war exhaustion and you can't declare war on another node. War exhaustion only increases if you're the attacker, not the defender, or maybe have war exhaustion for defenders increase way slower than for attackers.
You could also add to the war exhaustion mechanic debuffs to players and hindrances. If war exhaustion becomes high while a war is active, players become weaker, they have increased respawn cooldowns, and other debuffs to accelerate the end of the war and incentivize peace negotiations.
Imnotkio
11
Re: Why make everything so punishing??
People don't like disrespect to their time.
This is basically what it boils down to.
Different people have different ideas of what disrespecting ones time looks like, but no one likes it when they feel their time isn't respected.
Noaani
1
Re: Fix this crap before more people leave!
Everythings okay guys, it's alpha. This is placeholder. The fix is in development.
I want a New Realm that wipes every month with accelerated drop rates, exp, and materials.
Yeah the whole idea of the "node destruction" was suppposed to replace the realm wipe mechanic as the form of death and rebirth in the realm.
Unfortunately for Ashes, the reason people like game wipes is because EVERYONE starts off at the same spot again. People like it when they are playing a fair game against others, that's fun.
But if the only "wipe" is a node, then the winners are just that much stronger and the losers are that much weaker... It's not a fresh start at all!
No incentive to keep playing when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. More and more losers drop out of the game as this cycle continues until all you are left with is guild die-hards and people without jobs, which will not give the numbers Ashes needs to sustain even 1 realm with 10,000 players.
They need to seriously start thinking about how to cater to the crowd who only has a couple hours a day to play with some friends after work and help them still be competitive (character power-wise) with people in elite guilds and no lifers. I guess if they want to pvp they will just have to look for a diff game. This is why Guild Wars 1 started in the first place.
Xeeg
3
Re: [NA] Overlord | Hardcore | Organized PvX | Server First | Alpha/Beta Required - 350+ in A2
How can you expect people over 18 (normally people with jobs for the most part) to put in 40 hours a week? I don't understand how that's even possible unless you literally don't sleep, in which case you might be able to live for maybe a week or two before actually dying irl.
tl;dr your requirements are confusing.
tl;dr your requirements are confusing.
Pham
1
Killing a player in town vs paying for materials......
That is it for me. I have put up with soo many bugs. This is it thou. No player should be able to come into a town looking to buy materials and be able to war deck you, kill you, and take your mats.
Re: I dont see myself subscribing, if the current trend of grind and character power continues
I've been hammering this point in almost all my feedback.
The current TTK with meta gear is around like 5 seconds. Their intended design is:
"If I were to say average TTK between same level characters and average gear score, I would say that we're probably talking anywhere from 10 to 15 seconds upwards of 30 seconds, depending on the archetype." – Steven Sharif
So while they are iterating on TTK, I still think they are sticking with their design of trying to balance it around a 10~15 seconds for a same level same gear DPS duel, as I pushed Steven on this in the discord:
So while It's going to get better, your issue with it will not be solved. A TTK of 10~15 seconds for the same level and the same gear 1v1 means an instant kill TTK for an unbalanced encounter. A guy that has reached max level and has started working on BiS gear will instantly kill a level 40. And healers and defensive won't do anything here, a guy that can be killed by a couple of abilities from a single person will be totally destroyed in large-scale pvp regardless of healers and support from other archetypes.
How long will a new player take to reach level 40? A couple of weeks if he rushes like crazy? More likely the general audience will take a couple to a few months. So the question would be, how long before a new player can participate in PVP content with the older player base? How long til he can engage with the other pvp systems and content?
Will the player base grow if no new player can participate in PVP content with the established players before putting in 200~300 hours just rushing leveling? I seriously doubt it. And this is not a game with instanced content. Node wars happen whether you like it or not and you're fighting against higher level more geared players. Guild wars are also a player-driven event and you don't choose where and who to fight. Most important of all, open-world PVP is supposed to be an important feature of the game. There is no matchmaking, there is no auto-balanced ranking system to put you in the same category as your enemies. You'll spend 90% of your time fighting ppl either stronger or weaker than you. If that power difference means you kill or die in a split second, without a chance of playing the game, no one will participate.
I'm not talking here about completely destroying the feeling of progression or even giving a level 40 a chance to win in a 1v1 duel against a level 50 player. I want players to be able to play, press their buttons, and feel like they have a chance to escape or contribute to the fight before dying. You can still have fun participating in large battles and group pvp if you have a chance to use your abilities and contribute to the fight, even if you are contributing way less than the other more progressed players. This can't happen if the TTK is 10 seconds for a balanced 1v1.
If you increase TTK back to the original design of 30~60 seconds, when you introduce gear and level unbalances an under-geared and under-leveled player can still survive long enough to play, have fun in the fight, press their buttons, and feel like they're a part of the conflict.
I beg you intrepid, do not design the power curve and TTK in the game like you would for a game with matchmaking ranked battles.
The current TTK with meta gear is around like 5 seconds. Their intended design is:
"If I were to say average TTK between same level characters and average gear score, I would say that we're probably talking anywhere from 10 to 15 seconds upwards of 30 seconds, depending on the archetype." – Steven Sharif
So while they are iterating on TTK, I still think they are sticking with their design of trying to balance it around a 10~15 seconds for a same level same gear DPS duel, as I pushed Steven on this in the discord:
So while It's going to get better, your issue with it will not be solved. A TTK of 10~15 seconds for the same level and the same gear 1v1 means an instant kill TTK for an unbalanced encounter. A guy that has reached max level and has started working on BiS gear will instantly kill a level 40. And healers and defensive won't do anything here, a guy that can be killed by a couple of abilities from a single person will be totally destroyed in large-scale pvp regardless of healers and support from other archetypes.
How long will a new player take to reach level 40? A couple of weeks if he rushes like crazy? More likely the general audience will take a couple to a few months. So the question would be, how long before a new player can participate in PVP content with the older player base? How long til he can engage with the other pvp systems and content?
Will the player base grow if no new player can participate in PVP content with the established players before putting in 200~300 hours just rushing leveling? I seriously doubt it. And this is not a game with instanced content. Node wars happen whether you like it or not and you're fighting against higher level more geared players. Guild wars are also a player-driven event and you don't choose where and who to fight. Most important of all, open-world PVP is supposed to be an important feature of the game. There is no matchmaking, there is no auto-balanced ranking system to put you in the same category as your enemies. You'll spend 90% of your time fighting ppl either stronger or weaker than you. If that power difference means you kill or die in a split second, without a chance of playing the game, no one will participate.
I'm not talking here about completely destroying the feeling of progression or even giving a level 40 a chance to win in a 1v1 duel against a level 50 player. I want players to be able to play, press their buttons, and feel like they have a chance to escape or contribute to the fight before dying. You can still have fun participating in large battles and group pvp if you have a chance to use your abilities and contribute to the fight, even if you are contributing way less than the other more progressed players. This can't happen if the TTK is 10 seconds for a balanced 1v1.
If you increase TTK back to the original design of 30~60 seconds, when you introduce gear and level unbalances an under-geared and under-leveled player can still survive long enough to play, have fun in the fight, press their buttons, and feel like they're a part of the conflict.
I beg you intrepid, do not design the power curve and TTK in the game like you would for a game with matchmaking ranked battles.
Imnotkio
2
Re: Tab Targeting Feature Request
I think it was Neverwinter Online that had similar tab targeting, it's been so long that I can't remember correctly, but it also had the "action" mode by default and I loved it. Love it in Ashes, would love to be able to tab target better while tanking. Having it tab at whatever the center of my screen is pointed at, not relative to my character's LoS would be a godsend for tight pulls.
Re: Tab Targeting Feature Request
Again though, what is stopping you from using your lmk to pick the target? That's what L2 did and that seems to be what Steven wants you to do, considering that in tab mode Q is your basic attack button, instead of lmk.I am not talking about action combat.
The idea is there is no seperate button to pick your target, you just use tab as normal. The only difference is your mouse pointer dictates what tab target it selected purely by where it is sitting on your screen.
Making it more predictable and accurate on what tab target is selected.
Doing that is waaaaay faster and easier than making a move with your hand but then picking the target with your other hand, while also taking your finger off of movement keys.
Muscle memory difference.
Azherae
1
Denial of gameplay as a "strategy?"
Currently, large guilds are incentivized to spawn camp during node wars/guild wars, with the express intent of forcing players to either drop citizenship (if they can make it to the NPC before getting ganked again), or drop guild in order to continue playing unmolested.
I feel this creates a pretty major quit point that needs to be addressed; if I'm excited to log in and do some grinding with the boys, and suddenly we're literally unable to do anything except die repeatedly, (theoretically) lose access to the benefits of Citizenry, or access to our guild (What's a guild leader supposed to do when they're getting spawn camped?), then we're just going to play another game where we feel there's a better balance of power and that we have a chance to get some W's in.
I get that this is a niche game, that caters to a niche audience, but it seems counterproductive to champion a game design that creates a pretty obvious quit point.
It also seems like it would be useful for players to have either a warning *before* logging in, and prominently displayed somewhere on the UI that they are entering/are in a zone currently engaged in a node war, even if they aren't part of the node war (I was killed at storage because they were rolling anyone that might be helping, had no idea the zone was at war).
While we're at it, it doesn't seem right to me that *a single person* has the ability to upend hundreds of peoples' plans, without warning, for hours at time. Currently, most of the New Aela wars on Vyra are long and drawn out, meaning that if those players that went to do something else because they were getting spawncamped decided to log back in four, five, eight hours later, they might find themselves *still* being spawn camped, and with little, if any ability to progress their character, this creates a separate quit moment, where the player's perception is that of "I like the game, but every time I try to play it, I get spawn camped."
If you expand the area that players can't be camped, then the spawn campers will just spread out further; functionally all that creating a "safe zone" does is corral the weaker players so they can be picked off by groups, while giving stronger players a focal point for their griefing/denial strategy.
I'm just wondering if denial of gameplay like this is part of Intrepid's intention with their design - Since it's a monthly sub, I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that they want/need people to continue playing the game. Maybe they just want that first month payment, I don't know. It would be nice to get some clarification on the team's intent, versus what's reasonably implementable.
In a similar vein, is it intended that nodes be able to build a crafting station and then intentionally demolish it after "their" people have gotten whatever benefit it is? Being unable to advance core character aspects doesn't feel good, especially with gathering professions - This seems to incentivize devolution of a server, where the goal is to obfuscate and frustrate individual growth, rather than giving the players the illusion of a semi-even playing field. It doesn't have to *actually* be an even playing field, players just need to *think* that it is, and that they have the ability to at least stay competitive with the server's average gear score/power level.
We had a great, evenly matched fight up in the tropics with a group that was kitted out about equal to my group, and made some friends as a result; this was over a caravan (that had long been destroyed, and that we had no actual investment in), not interpersonal drama, and we've also had our caravans hit by groups that we made friends with because of how much fun both sides had. I have a guildie that's going in hard on learning medieval tactics, and another guildie that's new to the game and is just cutting their teeth on PvP and has become bloodthirsty for more.
I would rather lose every single PvP fight and feel like I have a chance, than to steamroll my opponent; I don't learn anything, I don't get to refine a rotation, I don't get challenged in new, unpredictable, or unique ways, I don't have to think about strategy, and I don't get an adrenaline rush. The same goes for me if I'm losing, but the end result is the same, nothing is gained from these interactions and all I have in return is a repair bill (and potential xp debt). It's clear that some of the testers in the alpha would rather force other testers out of the testing environment. I have heard one griefer laugh about "ruining peoples' Christmas" by camping them at the storage, which is the sort of toxic and counterproductive behavior that I would expect from a live environment, not a test.
Just wondering if this is intended gameplay or not, so I can adjust my expectations accordingly.
I feel this creates a pretty major quit point that needs to be addressed; if I'm excited to log in and do some grinding with the boys, and suddenly we're literally unable to do anything except die repeatedly, (theoretically) lose access to the benefits of Citizenry, or access to our guild (What's a guild leader supposed to do when they're getting spawn camped?), then we're just going to play another game where we feel there's a better balance of power and that we have a chance to get some W's in.
I get that this is a niche game, that caters to a niche audience, but it seems counterproductive to champion a game design that creates a pretty obvious quit point.
It also seems like it would be useful for players to have either a warning *before* logging in, and prominently displayed somewhere on the UI that they are entering/are in a zone currently engaged in a node war, even if they aren't part of the node war (I was killed at storage because they were rolling anyone that might be helping, had no idea the zone was at war).
While we're at it, it doesn't seem right to me that *a single person* has the ability to upend hundreds of peoples' plans, without warning, for hours at time. Currently, most of the New Aela wars on Vyra are long and drawn out, meaning that if those players that went to do something else because they were getting spawncamped decided to log back in four, five, eight hours later, they might find themselves *still* being spawn camped, and with little, if any ability to progress their character, this creates a separate quit moment, where the player's perception is that of "I like the game, but every time I try to play it, I get spawn camped."
If you expand the area that players can't be camped, then the spawn campers will just spread out further; functionally all that creating a "safe zone" does is corral the weaker players so they can be picked off by groups, while giving stronger players a focal point for their griefing/denial strategy.
I'm just wondering if denial of gameplay like this is part of Intrepid's intention with their design - Since it's a monthly sub, I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that they want/need people to continue playing the game. Maybe they just want that first month payment, I don't know. It would be nice to get some clarification on the team's intent, versus what's reasonably implementable.
In a similar vein, is it intended that nodes be able to build a crafting station and then intentionally demolish it after "their" people have gotten whatever benefit it is? Being unable to advance core character aspects doesn't feel good, especially with gathering professions - This seems to incentivize devolution of a server, where the goal is to obfuscate and frustrate individual growth, rather than giving the players the illusion of a semi-even playing field. It doesn't have to *actually* be an even playing field, players just need to *think* that it is, and that they have the ability to at least stay competitive with the server's average gear score/power level.
We had a great, evenly matched fight up in the tropics with a group that was kitted out about equal to my group, and made some friends as a result; this was over a caravan (that had long been destroyed, and that we had no actual investment in), not interpersonal drama, and we've also had our caravans hit by groups that we made friends with because of how much fun both sides had. I have a guildie that's going in hard on learning medieval tactics, and another guildie that's new to the game and is just cutting their teeth on PvP and has become bloodthirsty for more.
I would rather lose every single PvP fight and feel like I have a chance, than to steamroll my opponent; I don't learn anything, I don't get to refine a rotation, I don't get challenged in new, unpredictable, or unique ways, I don't have to think about strategy, and I don't get an adrenaline rush. The same goes for me if I'm losing, but the end result is the same, nothing is gained from these interactions and all I have in return is a repair bill (and potential xp debt). It's clear that some of the testers in the alpha would rather force other testers out of the testing environment. I have heard one griefer laugh about "ruining peoples' Christmas" by camping them at the storage, which is the sort of toxic and counterproductive behavior that I would expect from a live environment, not a test.
Just wondering if this is intended gameplay or not, so I can adjust my expectations accordingly.
Fix this crap before more people leave!
Something has definitely changed in the game in the last week or so. Prices everywhere are skyrocketing, at first i attributed it to new lvl 20 gear opening up due to advanced Nodes. This is not the case, i don't normally dab in rumors but its coming from multiple sources now, of a program that is allowing certain farmers to locate near their location, the rarities of gatherable nodes before engaging that gatherable. Every successful Gatherer i know has been stating the same thing as of this week, " Its becoming impossible to locate the static spawns of Legendary BLANK that are in high demand". I am talking about 20-30 people that i know across multiple guilds who farm hours upon hours in each day. What ever it is Fix this, prices are not rising due to just demand, they are SKYROCKETING from 10G 2 weeks ago to 15G then 20G to 25G and then last night 30G for 1 gathered item! This shit will kill the game even faster than Static spawn gatherable. I will not play a game that requires me to purchase hundreds of dollars of in game material every month just to stay relevant
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