Best Of

lamina5432 wrote: »

So on PvP I agree with the points is the game needs a more fluid way to trigger it. The goal should be a more flexible oh there's this thing I want and this player is going to take it if I don't fight them for it. The current look I see especially with the addition of the lawless zone is we are herding our PvPers here so they don't bother the rest of the game. Which is the opposite approach it should take, good PvP should lead a normal player to want to engage in it. Honestly I think a majority of the people that "dislike" the idea of PvP is not because they wouldn't enjoy it but because of the stigma and perceived bar of entry it has. Some of the biggest games being literal PvP games I.E. League of legends, Fortnite, CSgo. It's the notion that PvP in an MMO is bad or griefing for those participating because it's not shown as a regular players fun game loop.

The other reason more casual players don't want to PvP especially in a game like ashes is the losses associated with it. This is a matter of how the game provides a way to recoup their losses. This is rough since Ashes wants consequences to matter and I personally have no idea on mitigating this. The best would be how bad the corruption system starts out and how to work it off. Losing a piece of equipment on level one corruption is not going to help.

I do agree, and I think we have discussed this previously somewhere (maybe in this thread even). The game needs to create that "feeling" of PvP being a regular gameplay loop, of it being meaningful. The whole setting, world, environment, story, etc. should make you feel that there's always danger, that PvP is a viable option and an expectation in certain moments, etc. Otherwise, it mostly will feel like griefing.

(Griefing refers to deliberately disruptive or malicious actions in online games, meant to annoy or frustrate other players and negatively impact their enjoyment of the game. It can involve various actions like attacking other players, destroying structures, stealing items)

In a lot of games that I've played in the past, it just felt like griefing.


The thing is, the PvP games you listed are lobby based, match based, PvP games. PvP in MMOs is completely different, and I'm just not sure if it can create that same feeling of PvP being "normal".
In MMOs there are a few "issues":

1) Gear difference > skill difference. There's no matchmaking based on skill or gear, you will dunk on low geared players, and high geared players will dunk on you.

That's just how open-world works, unless certain zones and content is just made for high geared players, so that low geared players don't even venture into those zones.
But again, due to the current design, those high geared players can go and PvP anywhere, against anyone, as there's nothing really stopping them. Corruption works equally for everyone, and it mainly works to "especially discourage" killing low level players - but it doesn't take gear level into account (and if the progression system makes it so that the difference in gear has a really high impact on your power, then you have the same frustration as if it was a fight between a low lvl and a high lvl player).

2) MMOs are not lobby/match based, instead it's a persistent world. You will see the same players often, where in lobby based games, you just won't (unless you are very high rank in those games, where the pool of similar players is just lower, and you do meet the same players often).

3) You usually do other stuff, like traveling, exploring, gathering, crafting, or PvE content in general, and PvP can often feel like a disruption or griefing.

Players often do not want to be interrupted and griefed when out there in the open world, leveling, exploring, etc. But, when you create content like world bosses, open-world dungeons, etc. you come in with an expectation that there will be some PvP involved. You often prepare for it. There's competition for the farming spot, for a boss, etc. - there's friction created, and not everyone can expect a reward being given out for them. I'm absolutely fine with this sort of content, and PvP in this setting being not only a viable, but a preferred option.
The issue is, that same PvP can and will happen elsewhere too, where there is no real competition for anything. It will happen because some people just want to grief others.


Now @Azherae might say that Throne & Liberty is a perfect game for a player like myself, but I did play it, and I don't think it is.
What I disliked there is that world bosses had a pre-selected spot where they spawn at pre-determined times, with a small PvP area around it.
What I want is something more dynamic, with a much larger PvP area. I want an entire zone to go into a "conflict" mode, where PvP is enabled, where there is risk being there, but maybe also reward. Similar to how Archeage worked.
Also, while night-time dungeons enabled PvP, there really was no point to them (unless they involved a world boss), as the top guild(s) will almost always monopolize it. Also, PvPing for a spot there just wasn't worth it back when I played. Maybe you get a few more tags, and overall farm a bit faster, but even when there's no PvP enabled, you can just make a group and just farm stuff easily anyways.

Ideally, the world should have PvP enabled almost everywhere, rather than just a tiny PvP circle on the map at certain times of the day.


Here's an idea:

With the lawless zones being introduced, I think they can create a much more interesting system in Ashes, where zones have a varying conflict level, let's say from Conflict (being the lowest) to Lawless (being the highest level).
Each level should decrease corruption gain and maybe even the overall effect of corruption - and in lawless zones you don't generate corruption at all for killing people, or if you are already corrupted - it has no effect on you in that zone.
This way, a Conflict zone might as well be "Safe", as the corruption is really punishing, it's really easy to become corrupted, and really nobody in their right mind will look to turn corrupted there anyways.
Then a few levels above that, you get regular corruption gains, where sometimes it might be worth PKing, if there's a reward, corruption is moderately punishing, and moderately easy/hard to gain.
Lawless, FFA PvP basically, avoid those zones if you don't want to PvP basically.

Now what should influence these levels of conflict? Dynamic events, the amount of activity going on in the zone itself, in open-world dungeons, etc. - or even certain world events, world bosses, etc. that would turn the zone into higher conflict level zone. Story arcs???
All of this is planned to exist in the game, they should just use it to actually impact the world and make it dynamic, like they planned to. This is one way to do it - by introducing PvP/Conflict aspect into it.

This also helps those "PvE" players, to simply avoid high risk areas, if they don't want to PvP. Though this might be a bit tough, considering the travel times, and a lack of fast travel in general. It's still a much better solution I think for everyone, even the PvP players.
If PvP players want to PvP, they will look to go to those higher conflict areas, where they most probably will find it.
Rewards should probably scale accordingly, but not to the point lawless or high risk areas are just way better than anything else. The reward should be the experience itself.

Endowed wrote: »

Yet even the new videos about older popular mmo pvp that are popular are those with the lore n dungeons and dynamic worlds. Without them nobody cares. It could be in any game - even fps or rpg.

And crafting? 💀 nobody cares very much at all. Even the crafters.

As I said, people that like stories will watch those videos. People that like pvp will just go and pvp. It's a "passive vs active" preference.

Crafting is even harder to present well because it's rarely designed in a presentable way, because crafters seem to be an even bigger niche than pvpers.

Enigmatic Sage wrote: »

@ordotemplarii it doesn't matter what intrepid does as large scale combat scenario's always results in chaotic combat and battlefields. Zerging is a strategy, it's literally how medieval wars were fought (especially ambush zergs such cavalry men or archers flanking)

To the say the game is anti-zerg while devoutly supporting massive player count combat is absurd to me.
You're just going to have a bunch of raid groups zerging around regardless of within or outside of scenario's. The flagging system only deter's massive zerging outside the scenario's otherwise players defending a castle siege war or node siege would be team killing with corruption.

Dont get me wrong though, large scale combat in video games is still a lot of run regardless of chaos

Zergs are always the easy way to win. Smart games like DAoC and ESO (before they broke it) gave players tools to deal with Zerg and Ball groups. As long as Ashes dev team give us the tools to deal with zeros, we will be ok. In DAoC my realm was the underdogs with numbers. We had the tools to take out armies twice our size with the tools given and tactics.

Endowed wrote: »

Just an observation.

I think this is more of an observation about the player type rather than the content one. Obviously, players who are more interested in stories and lore would be able (and interested in) telling their own stories about experiences related to the games they've played.

PvPers just fight. You can always make stories of revenge, fighting against bigger odds, backstabbings, betrayals, heel-turns, etc etc etc - but none of that is really interesting to majority of pvpers. They just want to kill some dudes and the videos represent that, only having those kills shown off. And, of course, while the first few kill videos might be interesting as a way to see the pvp in a game - everything after that is just repetitive.

Also, when it comes to having those videos on YT, there's the music copyright factor as well. Back in the day, when pvp videos had a shitton of views, people would just use hype music to keep people more engaged and to keep video more interesting. Nowadays you gotta either find some random basic royalty free tune or have your video completely killed in the algorithm, if you use some nice trendy track. I'd imagine this is also why the short form is more visible here, because you either don't need to use music, cause it's a short clip, or you're on tiktok that doesn't give a fuck about rights (at least didn't in the past, dunno about now cause I don't use it).

And on the viewer side of things, I'd imagine that the ones interested in pvp would be more interested in just participating in it themselves, rather than watching a video about it. While people interested in stories are more than willing to watch a video about said stories, or even just about someone else's outlook on the story they've already experienced.

Like, just an hour ago I watched a video of a dude playing Warcraft 3 for the first time and loving it. I played the game myself back when it came out and I've watched videos about it before, but this was a new pov on the theme, so the video was interesting. I could watch countless pvp videos from L2, but over the years I've pretty much seen any potential matchup, tactic and approach to the game, so there's not as much interest for me there (even though I'm endlessly more interested in L2 than WC3).

Ludullu wrote: »

Endowed wrote: »

Yet even the new videos about older popular mmo pvp that are popular are those with the lore n dungeons and dynamic worlds. Without them nobody cares. It could be in any game - even fps or rpg.

And crafting? 💀 nobody cares very much at all. Even the crafters.

As I said, people that like stories will watch those videos. People that like pvp will just go and pvp. It's a "passive vs active" preference.

Crafting is even harder to present well because it's rarely designed in a presentable way, because crafters seem to be an even bigger niche than pvpers.

This doesn't work for me, as if it were true, PvP videos of current games wouldn't be at all popular.

To me, what I think it comes down to is a reflection of the fact that PvP in every game is basically the same - or at least the intention behind PvP is the same.

In PvP, you are fighting the player. That doesn't really change all that much from game to game. The combat/PvP system is in there, but it is really the other player you are fighting. PvP players are always fighting with the developers to make the combat system matter less and the player matter more (via saying they want skill to matter more). This is literally asking for developers to make games where you are playing against the same players as in every other PvP MMO.

The only PvP guild I've been in played across three different games in the few years I was associated with them. There were two guilds that we fought against in all three of those games - obviously among other guilds we fought against - and the outcome was the same every time. Any notion that the players change based on the game is absolute rubbish.

The thing is, this is what PvP players want. They want player skill to matter more, meaning the games combat system matters less, meaning you are primarily playing against the rival player - making PvP across all games essentially the same.

As such, there is literally no point in watching a PvP video from a game that you are not playing. No point at all. There is, to some, however, a point in watching a PvP video in regards to a game you are currently playing - which is why we see some PvP videos on current games doing ok.

WIth PvE though, because you are not fighting other players, because developers of different games produce different enemies for players to fight, it is often quite interesting watching PvE videos for games other than ones you play. Same with lore and world design, it is different across different games.

Narc, is that you?