Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Monster Tokens
ArchivedUser
Guest
First im just gona lay out this from the FAQ of the kickstarter opage.
"In Ashes' we are excited to unveil what we call our "Monster Token" system. Monster tokens are an item that enables players to play as monsters within our "Event" system. These range from playing with your friends as a horde of zombies all the way to a massive dragon yourself!
Legion, Elite, and Epic denote the caliber of "Event" in which you will be entitled to participate with an applicable token. Legion being the more common type of event, and Epic being things of truly fitting proportions"
If i understand this correctly, it sounds really cool. Finaly you can be the bad guys in an event! In many games i have played i have found that events are usualy just kill stupid npcs running but since players can be part of the NPC team it adds a sort of unexpectedness to it. players will hide, gang up on 1 player and not just go after the player with the highest agro. I think this system can be really cool for bored players who just want to do something different with friends.
"In Ashes' we are excited to unveil what we call our "Monster Token" system. Monster tokens are an item that enables players to play as monsters within our "Event" system. These range from playing with your friends as a horde of zombies all the way to a massive dragon yourself!
Legion, Elite, and Epic denote the caliber of "Event" in which you will be entitled to participate with an applicable token. Legion being the more common type of event, and Epic being things of truly fitting proportions"
If i understand this correctly, it sounds really cool. Finaly you can be the bad guys in an event! In many games i have played i have found that events are usualy just kill stupid npcs running but since players can be part of the NPC team it adds a sort of unexpectedness to it. players will hide, gang up on 1 player and not just go after the player with the highest agro. I think this system can be really cool for bored players who just want to do something different with friends.
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Comments
L4D's multiplayer once being described as "a hilarious griefing engine" ...
What will be the incentive for players to use them? will the monster have more destructive potential than a player's character?
can a monster token be used to significantly damage the City/Metropolis of a competing Node?
It the PvE part that can level civilisations and a counterpart to the PvP siege aspect.
If the players could be monsters whenever they liked....it would be a problem
BUt monster access is targetted with a specific purpose to destroy something.
So allowing the players to take control of that event and do what an enemy naturally would, seems obvious.
It allows predictable, scripted AI to be replaced by unpredictable, dynamic thought.
Griefing would be persistant monster access and never ending attacks with an OP build.
Once this monster is dead....its dead.
At least until the next world ending PvE event.
Ensuring the player can only destroy what you want them to, is where the challenge is placed.
That's gonna be fun!
[/quote]
LiveQ&A 05/03/2017 found on their official utube.
Drop tables will be removed from the monster (and possible the players). Players and monster can earn certain cosmetics based on the monster. Players that are citizens of the nodes cannot use a monster coin.
So the incentive for the citizens are clear, defend the city.
The monster incentive isn't as clear. Downgrading a competitor's city has it's perks, as only 5 metropolis can exist at any one time.
They mention off the cuff that they do recognize there is potential player abuse of the monster coin system, so I'm sure it is something they will address as some point during the alpha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFmWN2LJJsc
this can make for some rly funny moments! cant wait to see more of this..
i dont want to play as a monster meself but Hell yeah i want to kill one!!
scenario: a horde of zombies spawns the first grp of people near the zombies all use there monster token, now the zombies are controlled by players(maybe a guild) .. this is gonna be frikken awesome... i can see the clips going on you-tube alrdy!!
[/quote]
i think they will be a rare drop from dungeon and raid bosses, and you can sell the dropped tokens on the market-place.
you cant sell the monster tokens from the kick-starter... so no p2w.
this seems the most likely option to me.
[/quote]
I thought of the same thing. Fun is really a good incentive for people to use a monster coin. But I figure there has to be a stronger incentive.
Example: two competing cities made an alliance to use their guild members to act as monsters. They call it a truce. Player controlled monsters would just stand still and not attack the city, making it profitable for both cities not having to defend themselves against hordes of monsters.
What are the cons? Players like you who want to fight the hordes will be left out of the action. Players that aren't really invested into the city but would like to defend it from time to time have nothing to defend against. Sure, you can still kill a standing mob, but there's no thrill in that. You lose the immersion of the game because the risk are taken out by a handful of players that have monster coins.
That's why I think they has to be incentive for the monster to attack a city. I don't know what the incentives will be, but if it's intuitive enough without breaking the game's balance, it would be a fantastic system.
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/monster-tokens/#post-15574" rel="nofollow">Meagashira wrote:</a></div>
how about the reason to be the monster is just to have FUN … just fun and having a laugh is alrdy good enough for me!
</blockquote>
I thought of the same thing. Fun is really a good incentive for people to use a monster coin. But I figure there has to be a stronger incentive.
Example: two competing cities made an alliance to use their guild members to act as monsters. They call it a truce. Player controlled monsters would just stand still and not attack the city, making it profitable for both cities not having to defend themselves against hordes of monsters.
What are the cons? Players like you who want to fight the hordes will be left out of the action. Players that aren’t really invested into the city but would like to defend it from time to time have nothing to defend against. Sure, you can still kill a standing mob, but there’s no thrill in that. You lose the immersion of the game because the risk are taken out by a handful of players that have monster coins.
That’s why I think they has to be incentive for the monster to attack a city. I don’t know what the incentives will be, but if it’s intuitive enough without breaking the game’s balance, it would be a fantastic system.
[/quote]
i agree with you! but i think it go's without saying that there will be some sort of rule-set so that these things cant be exploited. but any player can always just deside to stand still and do nothing and waste his coin, that just free-will for ya.. i will still kill it tho..
some incentive is ofc needed i agree.
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/monster-tokens/page/2/#post-15603" rel="nofollow">Shirikuryu wrote:</a></div>
<blockquote>
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/monster-tokens/#post-15574" rel="nofollow">Meagashira wrote:</a></div>
how about the reason to be the monster is just to have FUN … just fun and having a laugh is alrdy good enough for me!
</blockquote>
I thought of the same thing. Fun is really a good incentive for people to use a monster coin. But I figure there has to be a stronger incentive.
Example: two competing cities made an alliance to use their guild members to act as monsters. They call it a truce. Player controlled monsters would just stand still and not attack the city, making it profitable for both cities not having to defend themselves against hordes of monsters.
What are the cons? Players like you who want to fight the hordes will be left out of the action. Players that aren’t really invested into the city but would like to defend it from time to time have nothing to defend against. Sure, you can still kill a standing mob, but there’s no thrill in that. You lose the immersion of the game because the risk are taken out by a handful of players that have monster coins.
That’s why I think they has to be incentive for the monster to attack a city. I don’t know what the incentives will be, but if it’s intuitive enough without breaking the game’s balance, it would be a fantastic system.
</blockquote>
i agree with you! but i think it go’s without saying that there will be some sort of rule-set so that these things cant be exploited. but any player can always just deside to stand still and do nothing and waste his coin, that just free-will for ya.. i will still kill it tho..
some incentive is ofc needed i agree.
[/quote]
Gona throw my thoughts onto this topic because it's one that leaves a lot of questions at the moment.
I think that at least for the time being the main incentive to play as the monsters over the defenders is for the fun of it or to gain the cosmetics that are only given specifically for playing as the monster in this situation, the same as you can only receive other cosmetic rewards for playing specifically as the defenders. Or at least that's what I'm going by with the information we've been given so far.
I think that the system would be attempted to be abused by some pre made groups of people specifically for the purposes of farming cosmetics but I do not think that this will be a reliable way of doing things seeing as the monsters can attack anyone and in turn anyone can attack them. Given the amount of activity that there will be within various areas and provided that the coins are not region locked in any fashion then there should not really be any reliable way in which this can be abused at least for the purposes of "farming".
With regard to the situation of guild makes agreement with another guild to control the attackers of the other cities, again I don't think they would be able to this. Think about it; you have these events that will happen time and time again, some scripted some not. The idea that a guild would be able to effectively control all or if not most of a monster attack by taking them over would not make a lot of sense balance wise. If the monsters are incredibly powerful then the idea that a player can control them so often as to be able to do so every time there is an attack would be too much. Likewise if the monsters turn out to be weak and easily killed they it stands to reason that there would be no need to actually control these monsters in the first place since they can be dispatched so easily.
The thing that I wish to know is if the monster attacks are used as more of an "event" with no real repercussions and only serve to create a more fun immersive feeling or if these attack would genuinely be on the scale that they could effectively reduce the level or hault the progression of a node. Personally I hope it's the latter, would make more sense to me.
Enemy players aren't initiating the attacks.
Also, no citizen of the node to be threatened could play as the monster.
But wait...!
Crafters could also have an in-game financial incentive - Ex. Seeing that you have a rival crafter a couple of nodes away you, or someone you pay in one form or another, might find it advantageous to disrupt your rival's prime crafting time. If name tags are not shown then one could safely hide inside the anonymity of a monster's skin while inconveniencing your rival.
AKA Economic warfare via monster tokens.