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
Endgame is not simply the hardest content in the game. Endgame is the end of new content. When all that is left to do is repeatable dailies, repeatable dungeons and repeatable raids. What you do while waiting for the devs to add new content with an expansion.
Ashes will have high level content. And will have max level content.
But, Ashes won't have an endgame... because Ashes is not a static world.
Endgame does not just mean things to do after you hit max level.
Things you do after you hit max level is "max level content".
In WoW and EQ, you can get away with using endgame content and max level content interchangeably. Sure.
I like how you inserted "wow killer" into your post. I never ever thought about that, but yes, what if this game was the one that finally succeeded? At the very least, I hope it will beat WoW on content.
1) The Game needs to be difficult
Agree, some areas need to be easy, some moderate, some hard and some insane
2) Make the Main Cities Where the Player-base Wants to Be
Agree, I think the nodal system in principal will achieve a reason for their existence and a direction for their development. The idea of having a connection to a city provides reason to feel ownership and responsibility, good start.
Nothing more saddening to enter a large, empty city that all the players moved on from, and/or zones of a city that have no purpose but to provide magnitude to a city.
The cities need to have logical planning to create this dynamic. This might be by pre-set design layouts or by player trial and error.
3) Combat
There is something quite relaxing to do mindless easy pve for certain periods of time just as it is exciting and rewarding to have engaging combat that challenges your and/or groups abilities.
Also agree it need not be static formula ai but dynamic so that it provides experience.
Now by default no change and consistent change become the same, so variance between both is probably the medium
4) Puzzles
Nothing more disappointing that finding a nook or waterfall or feature that might have hidden something and it has nothing.
A great reward to find things in unexpected / unpredictable places, perhaps even only discoverable by RNG of player bases as well to mix it up!
5) Scale
Agree about scale, it needs to be large. There needs to be scaled activities possible within certain range of a node, but there also need to be that something somewhere that only a few will ever find or few will ever stay to enjoy far far away.
Provide distance to areas with those areas with their own reward.
Provide choke points between areas that cannot be accessed without help
Provide areas that are temporary and/or change over time
6) Gear
Agree, there needs to be some gear that is just 1 off or only a few can be available on a server at a given time. Create that special, the unique, the value.
7) Events
Scheduled and random. I always looked forward to the events that were seasonal but also the random event that required many players to put away their differences and work together.
But, they aren't simply polishing those old turds - rather they are implementing new features.
End game means a very narrow funnel, where players are guided to one place to one end.
That's bad, and I think we're all pretty sick of it.
It's an interesting discussion though, whether we call it end game, or elder game... does it inherently have to be influenced by reaching an arbitrary level cap.
I look down the road, one year after Ashes launches, and new players will be coming in on day 1 with potentially multiple active metropolises, maybe some sieges underway, a world dragon, etc. Should those players expect to participate in any part of the world, or will they need to "graduate" to that tier of content currently available, but locked behind their level? I think with the dynamic nature of the world that's already been presented, it almost can't exclude players because of level.
I know Ashes will have levels and a level cap, but I'd really prefer that number not figure into the player power as heavily as most other games... let it just be a true mark of an experience.
I want to see a player run by and say "holy cow, that's a level 102 mage, that's insane!" because it means he's been there and done that. Black Desert currently gives a bit of this... It has no level cap, just a soft one. So If you see a level 63 character for example it's pretty amazing. Level 64? unheard of... but definitely possible. And so on. But that's a grind to reach, so not as interesting as the potential here.
Anyway, I think the best thing they could do is to find a way to avoid a "meta" that says players need to be at the level cap for anything. But this might be chasing a unicorn.
I never said it had to be "theme park-esque", just that there would be things to do for people who are max level, if that's building a civilization and fighting other factions then awesome.
At any level, players will:
advance their nodes while trying to destroy other nodes that threaten them, react to world events/bosses, fight other guilds, guard caravans, and so forth.
This is where the game has the potential to offer endless possibilities - allowing you to continue to build upon the world regardless of level. And, it's definitely the business aspect of the game that offers "stickiness" to get players coming back and playing for a long time.
At high level:
Some things will be level locked. Steven mentioned high level dungeons, raid bosses, and areas of the world map designed for higher level players that are less reactionary than node areas. Players that pursue this path can attempt to find the BiS gear this way, but I assume the devs will also allow other ways to acquire BiS gear at any level (including lvl 50) through world rewards (siege contributions) etc.
'Endgame' conditioning has been detrimental to the MMO space.
As an MMO veteran to some extent myself there was a time when the community and the environment promoted 'Play time' which was indefinite.
the systematic creep of ever shifting goal posts in MMOs has been detrimental to the genre, with it's treadmills persistently making previous content irrelevant, and play time falling victim to a periodic spurt of funneled activity followed buy a prolonged content drought and waning population.
As long as Ashes provides a dynamic, engaging world without hand holding. As well as a solid player combat system and interactive experience mechanics then the community will do the rest.
End Game for Theme Park MMORPGs is the max level and no new content and lack of things to do within game until new content comes out.
End Game for a Sandbox MMORPG is much harder to define. Yes, max level can be obtained, but the dynamics should mean that you define yourself with a world around you that changes with or without you.
This game is leading more towards Sandbox, with the very community molding the outcome and direction and re-direction of the game.
For Ashes, it would most likely playout like Eve Online near at Max Character level is not end game but just a solid base from which you play in a forever changing environment for:
The list of dynamic activities and the wealth of change the game can take will all depend on how non-theme park the game goes and the strength of the mechanics of the different chapters the game can play out and perhaps how much more then can inject over time to only complement and building the original intent.
The core they are already developing should provide a very good start!
"Endgame" can be defined many ways.
Ashes has both endgame content and no true static endgame point. A bit oxymoronic, yes...but also true, if the world works how it's been described thus far.
Gear...Limiting the ability of your characters to transmog into the appearance of a super awesome item doesn't change how impressive it is to see said item on the street, nor (to a lesser degree) how often you will see it. Only reducing the true rarity of the gear item itself will do that.
NOW....on to the wall of text:
Seems to be a lot of different views on the definition of "endgame" content. A few folks in this thread hit it close to my view on the matter. Personally, I define endgame content as that which you experience after both: 1) hitting max level and 2) completing the story-based questing up to the last quest available (so...not including the side-quests from farmer Billy, who wants you to go collect all of his escaped goats).
You've completed the "core game" up to the end. Now you have stuff to do after you've reached the "end" of the game's story.
Now...what makes Ashes of Creation's design SO interesting is that it can be considered to have end-game content while simultaneously NOT ever having a truly static endgame point. What I mean is this:
To the rest of the points made by OP, I pretty much agree on all of them. The one caveat I would add to the "gear" point is that a transmog system should allow me to alter my character's appearance to any item that I've unlocked in my travels. If I've found that single available +99 flaming halberd that you speak of, I would want to display that on every toon using that type of weapon. How did a low level get ahold of such a weapon, you ask? His uber-awesome friend/sibling/lover/other family member saw that he/she was adventuring out into the big bad world and said "Yo...dude...what are you doing? It's dangerous to go alone, take this!"
The awe of seeing someone decked out in the appearance of a mystical magical great weapon of legend would still exist...IF those items were truly limited in the number of them available in the world. This person on the street has it, and it doesn't matter which character they found it with. He/she found it, and it's a bad ass accomplishment. Let them revel in it when playing an alt.
If the super awesome nifty cool weapon was available to anyone that runs a certain raid at max level, but just couldn't transmog it on their low level toon....then it's useless for the "bad ass" factor anyway. Everyone at max level could get it, so all you need to do is be max level and run that raid enough times to get it. Transmog won't change that, only limiting the true rarity of the item itself. THAT is the key to gear-based bad assery. Limit how many there are in existence, not how many of your toons can equip the appearance.
Man....I type too much sometimes...
You can call a Pepsi a coke, but it's not really Coke.
We won't reach the end of storybased content because it takes several months just to level a node to max. Each node generates a different set of tasks and events and narratives and mobs.
So, even if we got all 5 metropolises built and ran through all the content they can generate. All it takes is a siege to destroy one of them and start building at another node to start new narratives globally.
Actually, new narratives being just by certain buildings in a city being built. All that takes is destroying a building and building a different one in a city.
We won't be reaching the end of storybased content.
Rebuilding new metropolises is multiple phases of max level content.
I'm generally of a belief in an RPG that accomplishments should be tied to the character that achieved them.. so, in this case, those items shouldn't be "usable" by your other characters.
I put "usable" in quotes because I realize you're only talking about transmog-type of use here. But even with that, if they were "account-wide" they should still bring similar restrictions... such as the character that wants to display it must have also completed the same content it originates from (but maybe just wasn't lucky enough to receive the item at that time.)
To me, that keeps they not just actually rare, but visible rare - which means they're RARER! Lol @ that word.
I understand the desire to look however you want has many, many upsides and it's hard to argue against. But there is something to be said for games like WoW in a pre-transmog world: What you saw is what you get, and if you didn't have what you saw but wanted it, you better go get it!