@Dygz some of what you say I can tell it's coming from the heart and I respect that. But there is alot of elite old school mmo players in here that came from the more hardcore mmo's that Steven did. Let's use the Lineage 2 player example. L2 players have seen multiple similarities and these similarities have been confirmed by Steven himself. Because it is early and all we know is what has been said and shown, lean on the experts of the games that the development team has drawn comparisons to. Lineage 2 being a huge open world PvP game with a flagging and corruption system said to be like what Ashes will have. Eve with the stock market. Etc...
Yep. And quite a bit of the design is coming from EQNext. The Ashes pillars are basically the same pillars as EQNext. And most of the devs are Daybreak devs.
So, people should also be leaning on those of us who have extensive knowledge from Daybreak and EQNext. Especially those of us who have spoken directly with the Daybreak devs publicly and privately.
@Dygz agree, that would fall under the etc that I mentioned. EQ was one of the great ones, and will undoubtably draw accurate comparisons from that community. But this Steven's dream and as mentioned a few times in these forums Lineage 2 was his favorite mmo, so his ideas will subconsciously come from his best mmo memories.
And also from EQNext since the Ashes pillars and game design is basically taken from EQNext - with influences from other games, like Lineage 2. As opposed to being just like Lineage 2.
Yep. And quite a bit of the design is coming from EQNext. The Ashes pillars are basically the same pillars as EQNext. And most of the devs are Daybreak devs.
So, people should also be leaning on those of us who have extensive knowledge from Daybreak and EQNext. Especially those of us who have spoken directly with the Daybreak devs publicly and privately.
We know the war system isn't going to be based off daybreak that's for sure.. EQNext can't be used to determine what was a good guild size... they never really reached too large of a guild for anything to go off of
Meaningful Conflict = A Life of Consequence. Everything in Ashes, including the war system is fed by that.
I didn't say anything like EQnext can be used to determine what is a good guild size.
What I said is that we can't assume that Guild B will defeat Guild A just because of the size of each guild or the mix of hardcores and casuals. Because it's not just going to be about the egos of the members of those two guilds, it's also going to be about the impact and influences each of those guilds has on the region and the world and who on the server wishes to support or oppose Guild A and Guild B.
Also, the range of assumptions are rather absurd and just continue to grow. Sure, if we just assume that Guild A is weaker and inexperienced in every way except size for whatever arbitrary reasons, then we have to assume they will lose. But, the assumptions aren't particularly valid, they're just assumptions made to stack the deck.
Influence Across this game there are many, many concepts that show similarities to current, in development and/or past/defunct games. But what any good designer does, is seek inspiration, be it for design, technique, elements, whatever and then re-interpret.
This is what Intrepid are in the process of doing, and it is in progress. All these concepts, are just that, and until they are tried and tested in their testing stages, there is no guarantee any will stay or stay as planned for final release.
Community behavior/dynamic is the wild card and ultimate test.
Of their concepts not all are limited to MMORPG's. Take the following:
Caravan's I would interpret the caravans to be a mix of Silkroad and Albion online. Perhaps there are other influences. The guard NPC's a nice additional touch!
Castle Sieges The concepts show very strong influences from Lineage 2. The objective based take downs, the siege weapons, control & reward from parent and sibling castles, creating meaningful conflict. The only adaptation is player set re-siege times. Visually it showed similarities to Elder Scrolls Online. Hopefully a little Life is Feudal camp setups, Mount and Blade siege vehicles and Camelot Unchained influences too.
PvP System Lineage 2 all over. Lineage 2 flagging system, and burning off negative karma. No "sin eater" discussed yet but sounds like a similar system. Just a couple of tweaks to soften it the system and intend to bring reason and additional consideration into fighting.
Meaningful Conflict Lineage 2 all over! For an organised clan it was core to activities. Conflict was player led for minor skirmishes over PvE areas and control to various zones, utilities. ie access to the port in beta, access to certain high XP areas during later game. Meaningful on a larger scale, ie Clan or even server was castle control for income, taxes and certain boss access only permitable by castle ownership. Conflict over major bosses; massive multi guild vs multi guild fights for access to take down major bosses that has high end gear. Gear that were game changes either to wear for PvP/PvE or game changers financially if you were lucky enough to sell.
Guild Size Working back from server size, and potential peak activity at any time, the larger the guild size, the greater potential for monopoly and hence no conflict.
Server Capacity 10,000 players max
Activity 2,000-3,000 player active in peak time
Guild max Size 500 - 20 clans but more likely 4-5 large the rest insignificant
Guild activity 400 pax / 75% then the split is not very appealing
Have a couple of guilds do the same and join an alliance then you have a PvE server as it will be rough for any other guilds to complete with exception of perhaps the hardcore pvp guilds.
Past experience people who do not like conflict, want easy win, do not like to lose, want immediate easy wealth; they migrate to these larger dominant guilds and the dominance remains.
I am certain there are many solutions for this but I see a series of solutions for this:
low number caps on guild numbers ie 100-200 and
caps on alliances. 2-4 perhaps
inability to leave and re-join guilds in quick succession (cool offs)
alliances to have some kind of cost ie tax / financial or other to keep the alliances with purpose and considered so that there is not the trend of the server owning guild.
That might be meaningful conflict, but it's not Meaningful Conflict. Meaningful Conflict is intrinsically tied into how player actions affect node development and how node devlopment generates mobs, tasks, events and narratives which negatively affect other regions and nodes. Lineage 2 did not have that. Lineage 2 had epic guild wars and PvP combat.
The answer to some of the more hypothetical questions likely won't even be clear to Intrepid until they have enough of the game system designed; and even then, many questions will probably remain unanswered until handson playtesting begins.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to derail the conversion. I enjoy theorycrafting, even with limited info.
Obviously this is a rather specific scenario but people were complaining about "meaningful combat".
Uh. No. The pillar is Meaningful Conflict; not meaningful combat. Meaningful combat isn't really a thing.
Meaningful Conflict refers to the motivations that drive players to engage in PvP combat beyond simply a love for PvP combat - beyond fighting simply due to egos and whether a guild is hardcore or casual or whether it's fun to gank and loot lowbies.
But, this is a significant derail in any case. We should probably get back to discussing guild caps.
I love you bro but you basically neglected the entirety of my post due to one word...
@Bannith haha! You're right. That probably means I pretty much agree with everything else!
EDIT: Spoke to soon. I mean I could deconstruct your post line by line... The scenario was pretty flawed, but I think that that's because you were focused on giving a scenario about meaningful combat.
I mostly agree with @AkaBear's post except for some quibbles about Meaningful Conflict. Rather, I agree with everything in AkaBear's post except labeling the Meaningful Conflict section Meaningful Conflict.
@akabear someone has played some Lineage 2 LOL. I agree we will need a cool down of at least 24 hours for someone to leave and join a guild and a guild to leave and join an alliance.
@Dygz I think the argument you were trying to make is inherently inhibited by the use of a single phrase with quite different meanings. Both are correct but I believe the point you were trying to drive home was B. And I think shame the phrase has not be coined with a unique name to avoid meaningless forum conflict!
Meaningful Conflict A Reason to engage in PvP;
clan supremacy,
griefing,
fighting over mob bosses,
fighting over dungeon access
fighting over pve locations
fighting over castle ownership and its associated perks; taxes, exclusive bosses, political status
fighting over control of elite power up weapon *name forgotten
These just a few reasons that were highly meaningful and what drove players and clans to pvp at all levels in Lineage 2.
Meaningful Conflict B AoC concept. Conflict that is part of a wider system that is inherently influenced by player actions across all activities, driving pve and pvp focussed responses and conflict with consequences.
Taking it one step further!
A totally want to see, B can't wait for the step up!
@AkaBear Meaningful Conflict in Ashes is the Life of Consequences that results from player interactions with the world and the nodes. Meaningful Conflict doesn't really exist without a system like Nodes or Storybricks. But I get what you mean about meaningful conflict in Lineage 2 and how those same motivations will be in Ashes.
I'm not necessarily arguing. I'm adding on top of what else is being said - or really saying that Meaningful Conflict will be a fundamental underpinning of the vast majority of wars.
Fighting over castles will also be in order to destroy or defend the influence that Castles hold over caravan routes. So, Guild A fighting Guild B won't just be about the ego rivalry between those two guilds or mere territory domination, it will also be about who else wants to aid or support whichever guild holds the Castle and how the people in that region, or on the entire server, feel the current owners of the Castle positively or negatively affect caravan runs there.
We can't just assume Guild A or Guild B will win. That won't merely be decided by the size of each guild nor by the mix of hardcore v casuals. It's going to be considerably more complex than that.
But that's also likely why the devs want to keep the guild caps comparatively low. Because that allows for more dynamic ebb and flow of guild alliances. Rather than a handful of leaders holding a tyrannical monopoly over thousands of players such that 5 people could choose to kick 250 casual members from a mega-guild and force theose members to try to find a new guild. If a mega-guild simply breaks an alliance with that sub-guild, the members of the sub-guild still keep their guild ranks and guild perks.
probably similar things such as clan points. which we exchanged for guild specific skills and items. Imagine members in the guild have slightly faster run speeds because they are in the guild. Definitely worth the war.
Your acting like nothing comes from the wars. They will add something
probably similar things such as clan points. which we exchanged for guild specific skills and items. Imagine members in the guild have slightly faster run speeds because they are in the guild. Definitely worth the war.
Your acting like nothing comes from the wars. They will add something
*attempts to steer the discussion back to the OP. haha.
Yeah, so a giant guild will all benefit from the given bonus of the wars and sieges, while an alliance might have to decide which guild gets the bonus and take turns. Imagine a giant guild in control of multiple castles and gaining bonuses from all those castles vs an alliance of guilds in control and each guild only gaining bonuses of 1 castle each. It would lead to a more balanced form of play vs. the giant guild example.
If it's a Metropolis though, then all participants will still gain to benefit from the city siege. Perhaps the conquering alliance will have to agree on the terms of "who gets what" and "Who gets to lead" etc.
probably similar things such as clan points. which we exchanged for guild specific skills and items. Imagine members in the guild have slightly faster run speeds because they are in the guild. Definitely worth the war.
Your acting like nothing comes from the wars. They will add something
*attempts to steer the discussion back to the OP. haha.
Yeah, so a giant guild will all benefit from the given bonus of the wars and sieges, while an alliance might have to decide which guild gets the bonus and take turns. Imagine a giant guild in control of multiple castles and gaining bonuses from all those castles vs an alliance of guilds in control and each guild only gaining bonuses of 1 castle each. It would lead to a more balanced form of play vs. the giant guild example.
If it's a Metropolis though, then all participants will still gain to benefit from the city siege. Perhaps the conquering alliance will have to agree on the terms of "who gets what" and "Who gets to lead" etc.
@WinterAssassin 1: You're making a whole lot of unsubstantiated assumptions. I don't think farming lowbies will be increasing guild ranks and accruing points that lead to guild perks. That would be gankbox/murderbox.
2: Casual time players won't be lowbies for long and lots of players will be hardcore challenge / casual time players.
3: I'm not acting like nothing will come from the war. Something will come from the war because everything feeds into Meaningful Conflict. I'm saying the what motivates wars will be more than "We're going to pick off some lowbies from a rival guild so we can gain some guild points." Rather the wars are going to be motivated by stuff like how the owners of a Castle affect the success or failure of nearby caravan runs - caravan runs for the region as well as caravan runs that affect global trade.
@AutumnWillow 1: Guilds will all benefit from bonuses associated with wars and sieges.
2: I don't think that guild bonuses will be decided by alliances - maybe, but I don't think so. It's a great observation - we should try to get confirmation.
3: A giant guild in control of several castles is probably why the skill caps are relatively low. So, that the potential for alliances to collapse is higher and new alliances to form - even for what existed as a mega-guild outside of the game. In the given example where the mega-guild purges 200 casual-time members, that's not an issue where it's an alliance breaking off a sub-guild of 200. In-game that casual-time guild still retains its ranks and perks. And they might choose to ally with other guilds. They might choose to attack their former allies. They might choose to do both. As opposed to a handful of mega-guild leaders controlling the loyalty of thousands of players due to the threat of losing guild perks if their kicked from the guild.
That may be undesirable from the perspective of the megaguild leaders, but desirable from the perspective of the devs, who want dynamic change among guild alliances as well as dynamic change for the world.
I doubt that an alliance ever really gets to decide who gets what. It's more likely to be at the guild level. But, I think who gets what is really going to be based on overall contribution - even of the individual. As tracked and determined by the nodes. Especially for a metropolis siege... You don't have to be part of any alliance to contribute to attacking a node siege. Anyone on the server can join in on attacking the node during a siege. So, who gets what can't be only determined by alliances. Or by guilds. Against a metropolis it's likely that many of the attackers won't be affiliated with any guild.
2: I don't think that guild bonuses will be decided by alliances - maybe, but I don't think so. It's a great observation - we should try to get confirmation.
Just wanted to clarify that by "guild bonuses decided by alliance" I meant that if an alliance conquers a Castle, will that castle be held by the alliance and hence the benefits and bonuses enjoyed by entire alliance members?
Or will it be held by a single guild in the alliance, requiring alliances to determine who in the alliance controls that castle.
If it's the latter, they'll have to decide on either taking turns to take control of the castle, or help other guilds in their alliance conquer castles of their own.
Right but, I still think it has to be all on the guild level rather than the alliance level. Such that all of the guilds who participated in the successful castle siege get whatever perks are rewarded. (That should be able to be tracked by the nodes.) Otherwise, all the benefits would be lost by any guilds kicked from the alliance afterwards.
It should be decided ahead of time within the alliance who is going to take the castle. The castle shouldn't be owned by the alliance. The alliance helps one of the guilds take the castle. I can't imagine the alliance as a whole owning it.
Maybe because i view a guild as an unbreakable bond, whereas I view an alliance as a business partner
It should be decided ahead of time within the alliance who is going to take the castle. The castle shouldn't be owned by the alliance. The alliance helps one of the guilds take the castle. I can't imagine the alliance as a whole owning it.
Maybe because i view a guild as an unbreakable bond, whereas I view an alliance as a business partner
Yeah, that's how I personally imagine it to be as well.
Some alliances will be stronger than others, but in general, guild bonds should be the strongest.
Comments
Active listening doesn't make what people say true.
The Ashes pillars are basically the same pillars as EQNext.
And most of the devs are Daybreak devs.
So, people should also be leaning on those of us who have extensive knowledge from Daybreak and EQNext. Especially those of us who have spoken directly with the Daybreak devs publicly and privately.
As opposed to being just like Lineage 2.
Everything in Ashes, including the war system is fed by that.
I didn't say anything like EQnext can be used to determine what is a good guild size.
What I said is that we can't assume that Guild B will defeat Guild A just because of the size of each guild or the mix of hardcores and casuals.
Because it's not just going to be about the egos of the members of those two guilds, it's also going to be about the impact and influences each of those guilds has on the region and the world and who on the server wishes to support or oppose Guild A and Guild B.
Also, the range of assumptions are rather absurd and just continue to grow.
Sure, if we just assume that Guild A is weaker and inexperienced in every way except size for whatever arbitrary reasons, then we have to assume they will lose.
But, the assumptions aren't particularly valid, they're just assumptions made to stack the deck.
Across this game there are many, many concepts that show similarities to current, in development and/or past/defunct games. But what any good designer does, is seek inspiration, be it for design, technique, elements, whatever and then re-interpret.
This is what Intrepid are in the process of doing, and it is in progress. All these concepts, are just that, and until they are tried and tested in their testing stages, there is no guarantee any will stay or stay as planned for final release.
Community behavior/dynamic is the wild card and ultimate test.
Of their concepts not all are limited to MMORPG's. Take the following:
Caravan's
I would interpret the caravans to be a mix of Silkroad and Albion online. Perhaps there are other influences. The guard NPC's a nice additional touch!
Castle Sieges
The concepts show very strong influences from Lineage 2. The objective based take downs, the siege weapons, control & reward from parent and sibling castles, creating meaningful conflict. The only adaptation is player set re-siege times.
Visually it showed similarities to Elder Scrolls Online.
Hopefully a little Life is Feudal camp setups, Mount and Blade siege vehicles and Camelot Unchained influences too.
PvP System
Lineage 2 all over. Lineage 2 flagging system, and burning off negative karma. No "sin eater" discussed yet but sounds like a similar system. Just a couple of tweaks to soften it the system and intend to bring reason and additional consideration into fighting.
Meaningful Conflict
Lineage 2 all over! For an organised clan it was core to activities. Conflict was player led for minor skirmishes over PvE areas and control to various zones, utilities. ie access to the port in beta, access to certain high XP areas during later game. Meaningful on a larger scale, ie Clan or even server was castle control for income, taxes and certain boss access only permitable by castle ownership. Conflict over major bosses; massive multi guild vs multi guild fights for access to take down major bosses that has high end gear. Gear that were game changes either to wear for PvP/PvE or game changers financially if you were lucky enough to sell.
Guild Size
Working back from server size, and potential peak activity at any time, the larger the guild size, the greater potential for monopoly and hence no conflict.
- Server Capacity 10,000 players max
- Activity 2,000-3,000 player active in peak time
- Guild max Size 500 - 20 clans but more likely 4-5 large the rest insignificant
- Guild activity 400 pax / 75% then the split is not very appealing
- Have a couple of guilds do the same and join an alliance then you have a PvE server as it will be rough for any other guilds to complete with exception of perhaps the hardcore pvp guilds.
Past experience people who do not like conflict, want easy win, do not like to lose, want immediate easy wealth; they migrate to these larger dominant guilds and the dominance remains.I am certain there are many solutions for this but I see a series of solutions for this:
Just some ramblings!
Meaningful Conflict is intrinsically tied into how player actions affect node development and how node devlopment generates mobs, tasks, events and narratives which negatively affect other regions and nodes.
Lineage 2 did not have that. Lineage 2 had epic guild wars and PvP combat.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to derail the conversion. I enjoy theorycrafting, even with limited info.
haha! You're right. That probably means I pretty much agree with everything else!
EDIT: Spoke to soon.
I mean I could deconstruct your post line by line...
The scenario was pretty flawed, but I think that that's because you were focused on giving a scenario about meaningful combat.
I mostly agree with @AkaBear's post except for some quibbles about Meaningful Conflict.
Rather, I agree with everything in AkaBear's post except labeling the Meaningful Conflict section Meaningful Conflict.
Meaningful Conflict A
Reason to engage in PvP;
Meaningful Conflict B
AoC concept. Conflict that is part of a wider system that is inherently influenced by player actions across all activities, driving pve and pvp focussed responses and conflict with consequences.
Taking it one step further!
A totally want to see, B can't wait for the step up!
Meaningful Conflict in Ashes is the Life of Consequences that results from player interactions with the world and the nodes.
Meaningful Conflict doesn't really exist without a system like Nodes or Storybricks.
But I get what you mean about meaningful conflict in Lineage 2 and how those same motivations will be in Ashes.
I'm not necessarily arguing.
I'm adding on top of what else is being said - or really saying that Meaningful Conflict will be a fundamental underpinning of the vast majority of wars.
Fighting over castles will also be in order to destroy or defend the influence that Castles hold over caravan routes.
So, Guild A fighting Guild B won't just be about the ego rivalry between those two guilds or mere territory domination, it will also be about who else wants to aid or support whichever guild holds the Castle and how the people in that region, or on the entire server, feel the current owners of the Castle positively or negatively affect caravan runs there.
We can't just assume Guild A or Guild B will win.
That won't merely be decided by the size of each guild nor by the mix of hardcore v casuals. It's going to be considerably more complex than that.
But that's also likely why the devs want to keep the guild caps comparatively low.
Because that allows for more dynamic ebb and flow of guild alliances. Rather than a handful of leaders holding a tyrannical monopoly over thousands of players such that 5 people could choose to kick 250 casual members from a mega-guild and force theose members to try to find a new guild.
If a mega-guild simply breaks an alliance with that sub-guild, the members of the sub-guild still keep their guild ranks and guild perks.
Same as ganking low levels.
What do you think you will be winning?
And why do you assume casuals will be low level?
How will that change the world?
Your acting like nothing comes from the wars. They will add something
*attempts to steer the discussion back to the OP. haha.
Yeah, so a giant guild will all benefit from the given bonus of the wars and sieges, while an alliance might have to decide which guild gets the bonus and take turns. Imagine a giant guild in control of multiple castles and gaining bonuses from all those castles vs an alliance of guilds in control and each guild only gaining bonuses of 1 castle each. It would lead to a more balanced form of play vs. the giant guild example.
If it's a Metropolis though, then all participants will still gain to benefit from the city siege. Perhaps the conquering alliance will have to agree on the terms of "who gets what" and "Who gets to lead" etc.
THE UPWARD ARROW OF JUSTICE!
You ain't the boss a me.
@WinterAssassin
1: You're making a whole lot of unsubstantiated assumptions. I don't think farming lowbies will be increasing guild ranks and accruing points that lead to guild perks.
That would be gankbox/murderbox.
2: Casual time players won't be lowbies for long and lots of players will be hardcore challenge / casual time players.
3: I'm not acting like nothing will come from the war.
Something will come from the war because everything feeds into Meaningful Conflict.
I'm saying the what motivates wars will be more than "We're going to pick off some lowbies from a rival guild so we can gain some guild points." Rather the wars are going to be motivated by stuff like how the owners of a Castle affect the success or failure of nearby caravan runs - caravan runs for the region as well as caravan runs that affect global trade.
@AutumnWillow
1: Guilds will all benefit from bonuses associated with wars and sieges.
2: I don't think that guild bonuses will be decided by alliances - maybe, but I don't think so. It's a great observation - we should try to get confirmation.
3: A giant guild in control of several castles is probably why the skill caps are relatively low. So, that the potential for alliances to collapse is higher and new alliances to form - even for what existed as a mega-guild outside of the game.
In the given example where the mega-guild purges 200 casual-time members, that's not an issue where it's an alliance breaking off a sub-guild of 200.
In-game that casual-time guild still retains its ranks and perks. And they might choose to ally with other guilds. They might choose to attack their former allies. They might choose to do both. As opposed to a handful of mega-guild leaders controlling the loyalty of thousands of players due to the threat of losing guild perks if their kicked from the guild.
That may be undesirable from the perspective of the megaguild leaders, but desirable from the perspective of the devs, who want dynamic change among guild alliances as well as dynamic change for the world.
I doubt that an alliance ever really gets to decide who gets what.
It's more likely to be at the guild level.
But, I think who gets what is really going to be based on overall contribution - even of the individual. As tracked and determined by the nodes. Especially for a metropolis siege...
You don't have to be part of any alliance to contribute to attacking a node siege.
Anyone on the server can join in on attacking the node during a siege.
So, who gets what can't be only determined by alliances. Or by guilds.
Against a metropolis it's likely that many of the attackers won't be affiliated with any guild.
Just wanted to clarify that by "guild bonuses decided by alliance" I meant that if an alliance conquers a Castle, will that castle be held by the alliance and hence the benefits and bonuses enjoyed by entire alliance members?
Or will it be held by a single guild in the alliance, requiring alliances to determine who in the alliance controls that castle.
If it's the latter, they'll have to decide on either taking turns to take control of the castle, or help other guilds in their alliance conquer castles of their own.
Such that all of the guilds who participated in the successful castle siege get whatever perks are rewarded. (That should be able to be tracked by the nodes.)
Otherwise, all the benefits would be lost by any guilds kicked from the alliance afterwards.
Maybe because i view a guild as an unbreakable bond, whereas I view an alliance as a business partner
Yeah, that's how I personally imagine it to be as well.
Some alliances will be stronger than others, but in general, guild bonds should be the strongest.