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Laetitian wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

I think thats a pretty harsh judgement, when the game is in alpha 2. I dont think combat trackers alone will keep people from a good raiding game.

Top end raiders are both the most loyal MMORPG players that exist (they are why EQ, EQ2 and WoW still exist),

And yet you're here, to discuss this game, with no profound raiding mechanics in sight, out of all the games you could choose. How come? (I'm sure this isn't the first time you've answered this question, sorry if I don't remember your answer accurately enough to give it myself.)

I am here (now) because I have friends that are making this game. People that I have travelled internationally to be present for major life events and such.

I was originally here because at one point it looked as it Ashes could have some form of raiding game. They used to talk about raiding on stream almost as much as they talked about PvP.

I was also initially quite interested in the games economic gameplay. This seemed to be inspired from Archeage, the game with what I consider the second best MMORPG economy behind only EVE.

Neither of these are accurate now. There is basically no talk about raiding, and what they do say only highlights how over his head Steven is (it used to be mostly Jeff talking about it). In terms of the economy, they have already stripped out of the game the very essence of what made Archeages economy function, so I have no hope at all that Ashes economy will be worth playing at all, let alone good enough to be a primary reason to play the game.

In the mean time, I'm back playing EQ2 on a server with an older ruleset, because no modern MMORPG developer has made a better game.

If I understood Noaani correctly, he assumes that players will leave the game as soon as they no longer have a vertical progression option. I think there are more than enough players who get a satisfying progression feeling from horizontal progression. Games like GW2 and OSRS (both one of the top 5 most long term played MMORPG's) prove that. And even retail WoW players have grown increasingly tired of the seasonal concept.

Iccer is absolutely right. Archeage was a perfect example of how you can design horizonal progression and still feel like you're getting better and more useful. OSRS works very similarly.

Also, forms of vertical progression that you can lose, that you have to fight for, is a game design for PvP players that can generate an infinite amount of content.

Vertical progression that cannot be lost should not mean more than ~100% additional direct strength from early game to end game in an MMORPG like Ashes. Anything else would either lead to the slow death of Ashes or as a solution to catch up mechanics, seasonal servers, faster leveling and whatever else there is that we probably all hate.

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

What I really don't get is how anyone could look at the leveling speed Intrepid have intended for this game, and can come to any conclusion other than a dull grind.

The way Intrepid can make it not a dull grind and keep the leveling speed is by reducing the importance of leveling, and increasing the importance of node development for example.
So for example all citizens of a node get large exp boost depending on the level of the node. This will force guild wars, commissions, crafting, caravans and ect. The leveling speed will be faster as a whole with the exp boost, but the time it takes to level as a whole wont be different, since you will spend a lot of time developing your node.

Most new players aren’t logging in with the dream of being a background NPC helping some mega-guild build a metropolis. They’re here to grow their own character, forge their own path, and feel the impact of their personal decisions. Making node development the primary driver of progression risks turning the early game into a passive, community-serving grind that only benefits the few sitting at the top.

Tying XP gain to node level sounds great in theory, but in practice it creates a system where new or solo players are either locked out of meaningful progress or forced to follow the agenda of larger zerg guilds. That’s not fun, and it doesn’t foster true player agency. Don’t force players to care about the political drama of node wars before they even understand their class.

Noaani wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

I think thats a pretty harsh judgement, when the game is in alpha 2. I dont think combat trackers alone will keep people from a good raiding game.

Top end raiders are both the most loyal MMORPG players that exist (they are why EQ, EQ2 and WoW still exist),

And yet you're here, to discuss this game, out of all the games you could choose. How come? (I'm sure this isn't the first time you've answered this question, sorry if I don't remember your answer accurately enough to give it myself.)

Do you only theoretically think raid games are the only ones that can be successful in the market, but are not personally primarily attracted by raids?
Could this perhaps be an indication that many of your peers might equally be pursuing raids because it's the only thing the genre has offered them, not because it's the only ideal solution/activity for them? That it's more a matter of player-driven gameplay not having been designed and marketed well enough, than an intrinsic superiority of the content-machine raid system?
(I'm not tied to these explanations, btw, there are several possible answers that make sense to me.)

Steven is saying that he thinks that if players have proper information on their characters, they will have fewer build options than if they didn't actually know what they were doing.

This isn't a fault of combat trackers, this is the fault of a game designer not being good enough at their job to create real and valid options for their players.

Games that need combat trackers need them because their content balancing is so tight that you need to figure out a viable build in order to make it through at all. If the balancing is not that tight, you don't need the tracker; you can figure out a system that makes sense, compare it to real-world experience from other players and trying out alternatives, and use that information to choose if that is good enough for you.

I won't go into that discussion further here, it's been discussed to exhaustion, including between the two of us, but I think it makes some sense to dispel this framing a bit in the context of this discussion, because the way you're presenting thinks makes it look like there's no other possible explanation for Steven's choices than misinformation or stubbornness. I think that's stubbornness on your own part. Which is not to say that combat trackers and the dungeons they entail would necessarily be the wrong thing for Ashes. Just saying that the decision has more game direction aspects to balance than you're willing to admit (key word being my usual: authentic player interaction), and I think Steven's vision for a certain audience could work out in everyone's favour. That might turn out wrong, but I'd rather someone try it properly than constantly succumb to mainstream pressure; we've had enough of that in the last 2 decades.
Which is not to say he shouldn't listen to feedback; that's the whole point of all of this. But too much of the feedback is concerned with reliability and creature comforts over creating an internally cohesive experience/game loop.

Noaani wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

And yes - i dont mean these systems to be as a way to progress. This is supposed to be end game vertical progression that you engage with after you get the progression from other content.

But the point you originally argued against was my statement that those other forms of progression NEED to be in the game, even if at the same time they ruin the game.

Character progression needs to exist, but in the act of characters progressing, you get the situation where the gap between different characters becomes so great that there is no competition between them.

In other words, my point was that a game like Ashes both NEEDS character progression, but also can't have character progression.

If you now agree that the game does in fact need character progression as seems to be the case here, then we are aligned in this notion. If you are also in agreement that character progression in a game like Ashes increases the gap between players and thus makes PvP trivial, then we are also in agreement with that notion.

Yes it needs character progression, No progression scaling to infinity is not a good way to do this.

The thing is, it doen't need to be infinate, it only needs to exist.

a gear upgrade in itself is usually not really noticable, but a few gear upgrades do need to be. Players need to feel that the efforts they are putting in to getting better gear are not just wasted - there needs to be at least a small increase in how strong you percieve your character to be.

Additionally, these upgrades need to basically always exist. The moment a player no longer has a progression path in front of them, they leave the game.

The most blatant and obvious example of this is in WoW. Every major content drop the game fills up with players, who all run as much of the content as they feel they are able to run (ie, gaining as much progression as they can), and then they log out until there is more progression for them to gain.

Now we have the last factor to take in to consideration here - not everyone progresses at the same rate. If I am in a guild that is super organized and you are in a less organized guild, I may be getting these upgrades at 10 times the pace you are getting them. This means it is inevitable that before long, the gap between you and I will be so great that there is no longer any competition.

It's that same situation from the developers perspective, if this isn't in the game, people will leave due to not having any progression in front of them. If it is in the game, people will leave due to PvP being shit.

As to getting progression that you can lose - again unless people have full control over that (ie, by never gaining corruption), this is something that will just see people leave the game even faster than any of the above two. Ashes is already going to see that with people looking at freeholds as progression in terms of crafting/economic play - people absolutely will be leaving the game when they lose a freehold.

Adding that same notion to adventuring is a great way to make sure the game only lasts 3 months.

Imagine the game is released 3 years ago, you are a new player, or you just want to create new character with different class. Those that have been playing for 3 years have constant progression with gear, even if its small its stacked already too much. The new player will think for himself that he need to play at least 2 years to get near the state where the rest of the players are, and during this time the other players would have already played for 5 years. So you will never get a new player in the game.

As to players leaving the game due to losing progression - already explained this above that those that would leave for such reasons wont play AOC at all, since the game is already full with such stuff. So no reason not to add even more of it.

Githal wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Githal wrote: »

And yes - i dont mean these systems to be as a way to progress. This is supposed to be end game vertical progression that you engage with after you get the progression from other content.

But the point you originally argued against was my statement that those other forms of progression NEED to be in the game, even if at the same time they ruin the game.

Character progression needs to exist, but in the act of characters progressing, you get the situation where the gap between different characters becomes so great that there is no competition between them.

In other words, my point was that a game like Ashes both NEEDS character progression, but also can't have character progression.

If you now agree that the game does in fact need character progression as seems to be the case here, then we are aligned in this notion. If you are also in agreement that character progression in a game like Ashes increases the gap between players and thus makes PvP trivial, then we are also in agreement with that notion.

Yes it needs character progression, No progression scaling to infinity is not a good way to do this.

The thing is, it doen't need to be infinate, it only needs to exist.

a gear upgrade in itself is usually not really noticable, but a few gear upgrades do need to be. Players need to feel that the efforts they are putting in to getting better gear are not just wasted - there needs to be at least a small increase in how strong you percieve your character to be.

Additionally, these upgrades need to basically always exist. The moment a player no longer has a progression path in front of them, they leave the game.

The most blatant and obvious example of this is in WoW. Every major content drop the game fills up with players, who all run as much of the content as they feel they are able to run (ie, gaining as much progression as they can), and then they log out until there is more progression for them to gain.

Now we have the last factor to take in to consideration here - not everyone progresses at the same rate. If I am in a guild that is super organized and you are in a less organized guild, I may be getting these upgrades at 10 times the pace you are getting them. This means it is inevitable that before long, the gap between you and I will be so great that there is no longer any competition.

It's that same situation from the developers perspective, if this isn't in the game, people will leave due to not having any progression in front of them. If it is in the game, people will leave due to PvP being shit.

As to getting progression that you can lose - again unless people have full control over that (ie, by never gaining corruption), this is something that will just see people leave the game even faster than any of the above two. Ashes is already going to see that with people looking at freeholds as progression in terms of crafting/economic play - people absolutely will be leaving the game when they lose a freehold.

Adding that same notion to adventuring is a great way to make sure the game only lasts 3 months.

What I really don't get is how anyone could look at the leveling speed Intrepid have intended for this game, and can come to any conclusion other than a dull grind.

Azherae wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Ludullu wrote: »

Saabynator wrote: »

Caravan system. The sieges. Nodes. Player run citys with political systems. World that changes by what citys are big. There is actually a ton of new stuff. Not all of it is brand spanking, but it has not put together like this. AoC is very creative with the lego.

As Azherae implied, pretty much all of that stuff has already been done in other games (mostly space ones), but even outside of the space stuff:

• Caravans were in AA and in Silk Road (afaik)
• Sieges were in L2
• Nodes, as I said, we got no damn clue how exactly they'll end up being design by release
• I guess player-led cities might be somewhat unique in fantasy, but I coulda sworn I've heard about something very similar before.
• Node-lvl-related changes remain to be seen too. I hope it's as deep and intricate as was promised before

A somewhat rudimentary combo of those 2 last points was in L2 with the Manor system. Castle owners could add different items to mob loot tables in their region, which was both a political tool that attracted players (somewhat akin to node buildings in Ashes) and was related to the state of the region, cause if the castle was unowned - that loot would not be present and gameplay related to it would not exist in that region.

L2 also had a religious system that opened up dungeons based on player activity, so, in a way, that is another similar system.

And that's just examples from almost a single 20y.o. game. I'm sure I'm missing several fantasy mmos that had either very similar systems or literally the same ones. And, as was said above, space games literally have the exact same systems.

Thats what I meant, not all of it is new. Much of it is good features taken from other games, put a Intrepid twist on it, and putting it together. Its like making a good dish, you take a bunch of good food and put it together. Games does not have to have a new feature to make it good. You can make any game good, with already developed features. Its sa matter of how you implement them, how the game feels etc.

But the point is moreso that Intrepid is in a bad spot when it comes to that aspect. Small, 'less experienced' studio without the ability to pull on the resources of a big MMORPG producer. Most MMOs have a similar enough basis that if you wanted to add all this stuff Ashes talks about, it would be easy.

New games don't 'not add' things Ashes is offering 'because they can't'. They don't add them because they don't think people are going to want them/they think it isn't worth it.

If Amazon Games thought those things would work in , they'd have added them to New World instead of 'taking them away'. Which also means that if Intrepid 'proves' that people want to play a game with variable Nodes, we'll see more modern MMOs adding them.

This is why people end up focused on all the things that 'make Ashes unpleasant', because they 'know' they only have to wait a bit longer (possibly less long than even for AoC) for a game that does the same things but less unpleasant.

I think you are wrong. I think most game companies are controlled from a shareholders perspective, not from a perspective of a selv owned CEO, that wants to make a game he wants to play himself. Thats one of AOCs aces in the sleeve. They can make a game they want, with the quality they want. They arent forced the same way shareholder companies are.

There is a lot more to development than "what they think" especially for a company like Amazon.

I think you misunderstood my point here, almost entirely.

My point was that if that self-owned CEO makes a game he wants to play, and all of us also want to play it, and the 'suits' realize 'wait these people really wanted weather and dynamic NPCs and build variety and all that?'

Those suits will show up to tell the Devs 'hey! add those things to our game!'

And in many cases the Devs will go 'won't work, we didn't build the base to be able to support those things'.

But what if they did?

Other companies also hold Aces.

I did miss your point then. But I am confused now. You seem to contradict yourself here?

Most of what makes Ashes unique is just 'stuff other companies chose not to do' and it's usually easy to add.

There is almost no 'Intrepid twist on it'.

Ohh, but I think there is. Some of the features they are promising in the game is quite unique. We have seen day/night, but seasons like this? City management like this? Thats quite of a twist from other games. Quite easy to add, I think is wrong. Intrepid is taking their time to make a game with a ton of features. Their timspan of making the game is quite long. When shareholders have a say, its usually short. They want money in the bank, and if the game dies after a few years, it does not matter too much, they are on to the next thing. Intrepid is not developing with that goal in mind. Steven would not hurl his own money at this game like this, if he wanted a quick payday. He build something from the ground up, that to me, is respectable. I can only imagine the sleepless nights and worrying that comes with making a company that big. It takes a toll.

I think they are doing so much different, than other companies, that dispite you not liking it, you should acknowledge it. I mean, open development/no NDA... How many does that? The amount of features in this game, thats alot man. You might say, that they are easy to implement in other games, but they havent does it though. Its a huge undertaking for a dude, to make a game for you, from the ground up, starting with a handful of people. Appreciate the effort

Azherae wrote: »

I can absolutely assure you that FF14, BDO, Throne and Liberty and probably Eternal Tombs can implement seasons faster than Ashes can.

Technically Throne and Liberty already has seasons mostly-implemented and they're just taking the path of implementation that Intrepid is now learning. But what is a season in an MMORPG really?

"Trees lose their leaves, ground is snowy, spawns and economy change."

Have you ever looked into BDO's Farming system? BDO simulates the movement of rainclouds over the landscape and the topography of the runoff.

Should we assume Ashes will also implement water tables when Freeholds are released? Because BDO does.

Are there new mobs in the seasons? Is there new harvestables? I dont remember seeing seasons in a game, that actually mattered. Its just graphics. Here though, they play with the weather and seasons and the like. It affects spells, harvestables and the like. Thats is new.

You can mention features other games have. Intrepid took a ton of features that are fun from other games, and made their own twist on it. MMOs have been around for a time you know, I played the first of them. They have to take features already used. What they can do, is make them their own.

You seem to have this idea, that Intrepid is really out of touch. A real dislike. If they are so horrible, why stay in here? Benefits noone, least of all you You can have doubts or critique without all this bitternes.

I'm Brazilian, and the price of the game for us is half the minimum wage here, it is very expensive in our currency. I'm not asking for a price reduction, just to make this option possible.

Thank you very much!