Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
There are people like me who like the corruption system but are concerned for the state of open world pvp over resources or hunting grounds. We don't go hunting people 15 levels below us, of kill someone wandering down the road, we have found an area rich in resources and want to defend it for ourselves or our guild.
Ashes is stated to have a player driven economy and from dev interviews/streams we know resources are limited... We need the corruption system and death penalties to be balanced so the majority of conflict in these areas result in both parties being combatants.
If we have the majority of people staying green and looting without worrying about being killed the death penalty isn't steep enough (resources lost, exp loss, nearby spawn location) as the punishment for going corrupt because some stubborn person wont take a hint, or warning that you've wandered to far into an area I'm interested in (I'll bring you to half health and stop) is more severe. (random spawn, potential gear loss, exponential exp loss, lengthy process to remove corruption).
I'm not calling for anything to be changed or removed at this point because no one knows how well it's going to work. I just hope people can see and understand both sides to the argument.
Edit: One major concern I have and forgive me if this has been addressed recently. I remember seeing posts saying that if you are corrupt and a green player attacks you they remain green which leaves the corrupted player with no way to defend themselves while they try to remove what corruption they have.
Nobody intentionally designs short or long term failure mechanics into their games. That leads me to believe that IS will watch things pretty closely to achieve the balance of PVP shenanigans that they think is right to sustain income and growth.
If not they will simply fail, swiftly or slowly. They aren't idiots. We have to give them the chance to prove it.
Besides, what else with so many other cool features are you going to play while another game company learns the lesson or proves the exception?
To be frank we do not have sufficient data or proof to say "Ashes needs to be this way"
or "This is to much, I quit already"
We've discussed pretty much everyrhing we can. Chill.
Wait for A2 so we can actually see whats what. PvE players concerns are valued and we aren't ignoring it
Of course, those of us who determine that Corruption is an insufficient deterrent won't play this game.
And then we will see if the remaining population still hits the devs' minimal numbers. If so, I guess it's all good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLyWjbOrIfA
Depends on the types of games you are talking about. I've seen zergs of gankers in WoW because it was allowed on some servers. I've seen MANY zergs in the old UO and later in DF:UW, so yes.
Incidentally, games allowing that, except maybe WoW aren't as popular (wide appeal) and IMO that is why newer versions of OWPVP without limits now manifest in small server sizes. There is a market for limitless OWPVP. It is just pretty small, relatively.
As soon as Mordred opened in DAoC, there were guilds formed specifically to roam around a kill levelers. That server basically died within 3 months...
Every time a game allows players to be cowards, a crap ton of them do just that. And then when the game stops it, they leave...but sadly, not before they have already driven off normal players from the game.
Forum newbies necro. As do OGs checking to see if anything has changed.
I think even PvE servers would have sieges and caravans - those activities could be PvE, rather than players killing each others' characters.
I don't play RPGs to PvP.
I play RPGs to recreate the experiences we had playing table-top RPGs before online RPGs were a thing. That was co-op vs NPCs. Players didn't compete with each other.
Players rarely if ever fought each other. I don't think I've ever played a table-top D&D game where players killed each other or even beat each other unconscious.
So, that's what I also prefer when I play MMORPGs.
PvP was added for MMORPGs to cater to competitve "gamers", but there are tons of people who prefer just to focus on cooperative PvE or RP or trade/economy or crafting or building.
I like PVP myself. Especially PVP that is for "reasons". Wars, feuds, protecting trade and stuff like that.
@olwhys You come across as angry at people that don't like PVP so much. Would you tell why, if that is true? I really am curious why some PVP fans seem angry at PVP haters.
...I also don't want Ashes to cater only to PvP, I want a true PvX imo.
So I say, bring up the PvX and let's see how it goes. If I get killed all the time, I know I am a shitty player and I have to improve my gaming.
I would hire guards to protect against PvE hazards, like enemy NPCs and weather/nature catastrophes.
Ashes is not D&D. I don't know yet whether I will like Ashes. If Corruption is not a sufficient deterrent against ganking, I will stop playing the game.
And then we will have to see how many other people stop playing and how the devs respond to that.
I'm not aware of an MMORPG that lacked the resources to implement PvP combat.
PvP combat is typically an after-thought in MMORPGs because RPGs traditionally are mostly PvE. Which is why the servers with the lowest populations in games with MMORPGs with separate servers for PvP combat and PvE-only are the PvP servers.
Ashes is a 2020 MMORPG with both action combat and tab-target combat, in addition to a Node system which should provide more meaningful motivations for direct PvP combat than we've seen before.
So, we have to see how all of the new mechanics and systems work together to create a more entertaining and engaging atmosphere for PvP combat than previous MMORPGs - from the PvEer perspective.
The gaming industry has learned some hard lessons regarding nonconsensual combat. Most of them have incorporated an opt in and opt out function or server or location. There is a reason for that. In the end, Ashes is a business. It needs to keep the lights on and the dev team paid. Otherwise this is all for nothing.
Player retention defines success in this industry. There are ways to achieve that so everyone is happy. This genre is primed for a new "King" right now. The stars are aligned for Ashes to be successful. But they will not achieve that success if there's noone here to play the game. Three things could kill this game.
1. No reward versus effort.
2. Not enough PVE content.
3. PvP ruleset that negatively effects community cohesion.
It's a balancing act that requires constant attention. More importantly, social media can save Intrepid millions in advertisement dollars. How the game looks, its features and how it launches will organically advertise the game for them. With that said, by not appealing to PVE players they are only shooting themselves in the foot. We've been down this road before. Other games have promised and failed to deliver. So in a way, Ashes is already a victim of circumstance. If they don't promote a more PVE friendly atmosphere I suspect they will do a lot more harm than good to the future of this genre.