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Skilled Small Group Vs.. Mass Numbers +Balance/Tuning.
ArchivedUser
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Hello,
I am a veteran MMORPG player (closed beta WOW, SWG, Original EQ etc.), and have been playing MMORPG's for over 15 years now.
I'm tired of the typical "half-effort , rushed MMORPG" coming to market with the promise of a re-defining the genre only to being let down.
Upon spending considerable amount of time reading about this game, I am just looking to get some more information with regards to Skilled Play Vs. Mass Representation and how the game-play experience will be for a veteran smaller group of players Vs. a mass amount of casual players.
Everything in a MMORPG's survival comes down to population stability /growth from launch . More often then not, the hype causes a big population base start which causes server stability issues (even though stress testing is ALWAYS done...) which causes frustrations with servers.
Similarly I have seen population bases decline rapidly from lack of end-game content, heavy grinding builds, increase RMT/Botting activity.
Because population is key, and because population depends on enriched ever-evolving captivating content that holds the gamers attention through unique character-enhancing balanced gameplay experiences; I am a big fan of the node system being proposed.
I have two concerns with this system (and one concern with the cross-class system, and two further general questions) given my recent gameplay experiences and am hoping to receive some feedback from the community.
1. In many MMORPG's we constantly see the struggle for dev's to balance new content (patch by patch )against class capabilities in both a PVE and PVP setting. Does the massive cross-class chart not scream balance difficulties down the road to anyone else: Especially across the PVX landscape?
2. Node Question A: Skill Vs. Mass Numbers: How enriching of a game experience with the skilled veteran player operating in a tight group of say 10-20 individuals obtain? What is the guild system cap? Can an insanely big guild (100+) be formed that would diminish the efforts of any smaller guild? Is a siege for example capped in the number of defenders/attackers? Will a small guild of skilled players simply be squashed in their attempts to modify the gaming/node landscape by casual guilds with mass amounts of players?
I know casual/mass pays the company bills in a subscription-model, but I also like a hardcore challenge in my gaming experience; one of the best things about investing time/energy into a MMORPG is being able to accomplish things not done by the masses. Without the hardcore gamers I find the social media/general game hype dies and eventually the casual base goes away anyways.
3. Node Question B: I see and am quite excited by the notion of a developer group building a warden /detection system into their game proactively instead of the oh-so-usual retroactive approach; but with advancing tech in botting including nav-mesh overlays, scheduling, and complex scripting/anti-detection initiatives; how confident do you feel this warden program will be in detecting true positives?
General Question 1: Character Progression- Is this going to be the type of system where CharacterX works hard to obtain custom 'elite' gear and progress their character only to have a patch hit in a month and bring everyone up to that point and wiping out their efforts. Note: I am fine with this if for example a title or a mount is given to display their prominence in the world (assuming then the mount is not readily/easily farmable by everyone else next patch...frustrating)....
General Question 2: Node Griefing: Is it possible that if one person gets a node higher right off the bat with a coordinated beta/alpha testing group that they could in turn continually lay siege to other nodes to prevent the ability of a node to ever reach a continual state with their own? Basically, I'm asking, with the node system, is there a way it can ultimately be "broken" by a coordinated group of players in such a way that would diminish the game-play experience for others to such a point that population may suffer?
Interested in hearing everyone's opinions- I apologize as some of this I may have missed (may have been addressed already) when browsing through the forums.
- Lastly, I just want to say, I am excited to see this developer team unite- many of my favorite MMO memories were made in prior games you created: from working with our unit to slicing/destroying one of the first imperial bases built in SWG and taking advantage of that sweet sweet harvesting/crafting experience and social community, to kiting Gorenaire with my singing short sword across the zone in Everquest (after waiting 5min for Allakhazam to load my browser to check loot/quest info). Wish this game all the best, and truly hope it "breaks the genre".
Cheers,
Baliso.
Comments
1. There will always be balance issues but because the secondary class only augments the first one's abilities, they should be able to get a good balance by focusing on the 8 base classes.
2. First, here is a good resource on node info: http://www.aocwiki.net/Nodes
Guild cap is looking to be ~300. I don't think it's 100% set yet. Guilds with more players will always have that advantage but you should have options as a smaller guild. There has been talk of a guild progression system where guilds will have to spend "points" to get extra slots but i don't think we have heard the details on this.
If you are talking about a situation where you want to control a node and a bunch of players move in then it mostly depends on the node type. Military nodes are controlled by the strongest pvper. Science node uses a election system. You buy into power in a economy node. Divine nodes are controlled by those who are most devoted to the god(do the most quests i imagine). A small group should only really have troubles controlling a Science node as the others can be controlled by playing well.
I don't think we have heard much about node upkeep costs. We know that nodes will have taxes and will be able to atrophy if not maintained but i don't think we have heard much more about this system. I'm not sure how plausible it will be for a smaller group to maintain a high level node alone.
3. For anti-botting, I don't think they have said much beyond them taking it seriously.
4. They haven't talked about this but i suspect not. This will hopefully be avoid by not making players scale too much off gear so there is never much of need to give weaker players a boost. They have talked about trying to balance gear so that you are rewarded for your progression but don't go around one shotting people. They want skill to be able to play a role in fights.
5.Not really. I'd recommend reading more on nodes. When a node levels up, it's ZOI(zone of influence) expands and disables the nodes around it. The players in those nodes can still live there and i believe that node will still be able to develop, it just wont be able to go past the stage of it's parent node. Players also have the option to move away. You can't siege a node until they get to higher stages. Sieging a node also requires a lot of resources.
1. They are aware of the constant push me-pull you of swinging the nerf bat constantly. Their will be no difference in PVE and PVP gear when it comes to stat allocation. With so many combinations they are aware that there will always be a class that outperforms another class in a 1v1 situation and that true balance across all is impossible to achieve without either making all classes the same (and boring) or just letting them run rampant. The stated intention is to balance abilities for group play and encounters and to only swing the nerf bat when certain abilities or combination of abilities are found to be "game-breaking". The combat style will NOT be stealth/backstab/root/backstab and dead in 10 seconds. Encounters are meant to be drawn out affairs and will change considerably over testing in the next year and half or so.
2. There are plans to address zergs and small guilds performance vs larger. What those measures are remain to be seen. They have mentioned that smaller, tighter guilds will have more access to beneficial passives than larger guilds. Part of the guild skill tree will be population caps for guild. Spend too many points in that tree to make a massive guild (cap is 250-300 stated atm) then you are giving up too many other benefits that provide power to your guild to compete.
There are higher level raids/dungeons/world bosses/GvG pvp castles all planned for high end content to keep the hardcores happy. There is no "endgame" planned, and gear will be of sufficient variety that not everyone will be looking at "I got BiS and now have nothing to do for 6 months."
3. There are several threads on this. I have been in discussions with mods and others about their plans, and all I can say is if the multi-tiered approach that they have planned works you should see a real reduction in that activity. Will they eliminate it entirely? Probably not, but they are sure going to give it one hell of a try.
General Question 1. Please see the links down at the bottom. Many Discord quotes that address leveling and progression are in there.
General Question 2. All progress during testing will be wiped at the end. (and during testing a few times). All servers at live launch will start fresh. There are limited headstart servers planned for 48 and 24 hour windows, however node development is turned off during that time till the actual live launch. Nodes are not something that will be at max level in a few days. The progression stated has the first capped nodes appearing a year or longer down the line. That is if they had dedicated ever-increasing groups of people to feed a constant stream of exp and resources. Anything that can be built up can be torn down if enough people want to.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/10158/quotebin-quotes-of-intrepid-team-from-discord/p1
Other sources like aocwiki.net will give you links to relevant livestreams and video interviews, and there is a ton of transcripts and regular interviews to go through too. Good luck and Happy Hunting!
Thank you both for taking the time to respond to my post. After reading both responses , (UnknownSystemError)- I think (partly my fault) you misunderstood my statement regarding beta groups. I know there is a headstart server/ progress will be wiped. But in most launches a group that knows the ins and outs of a game on launch from beta knows exactly how to tackle live and has a inherent advantage (which is why I posed the question re-low level node siege to hinder /break development of other nodes).
Back to guild cap - All I'm going to say is , I really hope things don't turn into a one or two big guilds always control everything on a server and fight against each other and everyone else is kind of just "there" and not experiencing the game to its fullest unless in those guilds- this is kind of what happened in a game like Albion , and things got boring, at least there was the ability to use small teams to cap nodes there.
I would hope to be able to take a team of 30 skilled players for instance, and lay some damage down on a node or capture/destroy or accomplish a defendable build etc (basically influence in a meaningful way the server- as a smaller group vs a large guild of mediocre skill/ more casual players).
Cheers.
Your group of 40, skilled or not, will likely not be able to take a node. Nodes fall under a siege mechanic that requires an amount of resources equal to the amount the node needed to reach what ever level it is. This is to prevent guilds and solo's from disrupting node life and designed to encourage node verse node meaningful conflict.
I am not a hardcore gamer, but I like to spend countless hours on games that let me explore new things, and that is why I am here. The promise of an ever changing landscape is my "holy grail of RPG's."
Welcome and enjoy the wait and hype!
Depends what the guild perks are for small numbered guilds. In which case a small group of 10-30 man thats coordinated and has experience with each other, example world of warcraft rated battlegrounds or whatever.
Those will probably be the strongest.
The issue with literally all MMOs is that large guilds/tribes will always rule, and they will always be present. The "next big game" will be the one that solves the riddle of allowing casual and hardcore players/guilds to coexist. The amount of work they are describing to build a node up to metropolis, to sustain a metropolis, and then to siege a metropolis, is so monumentally huge it is unrealistic to expect it to be accomplished by anyone other than a huge and well run guild. In fact, it sounds like it will take the combined efforts of 1000+ citizens to level a node to metropolis, and to keep it there (remember, there can only be 5 in the world at a time).
My hope is that the game will be balanced such that if the leadership of a metropolis is abandoned by its citizens (they switch allegiance to another node), the metropolis will de-level, and another node can level to take its place. Such a mechanic, if correctly balanced, should FORCE these larger guilds to play nice...or lose power. If past MMO history is any indication, those guys value perceived in-game power above all else (they typically have nothing going on in real life).
Additionally, I expect the node mechanic to be a major portion of the game, but there should be plenty of other goals to accomplish outside of these 5 major cities. Sure, you probably won't be running a metropolis as part of a 20 man guild, but you could run a node that gets to the village or town stage. You will probably be able to complete all PvE content with a 20 man guild. You could probably bounty hunt corrupted PvPers solo. Or you could ally with a large guild and have your 20 man guild be a tactical unit of that metropolis.
These kinds of possibilities are why this mechanic is potentially genre-changing, and maybe even genre-defining. Obviously it's all just hopes and dreams now, but at least they are trying to make it happen.
One of their goals, based on many of their conversations, is to have a node (A) that wants to reach that next tier but is blocked because of another node (B) is already that tier (4 or higher or metropolis level, I forget). So then node A has to continue gathering resources to be able to siege node B. Thus potentially removing one higher tier node and replacing it with their own.
As for nodes falling to pieces if abandoned. That's confirmed, it will take as you said many citizens to keep enough resources flowing into the node to keep it leveled. So if a guild takes over and starts to be all dicky about things and citizens flee, the node will likely de-level to a manageable state (probably sooner than later).
When 1000+ players make a node level into a metropolis, which awakens a dragon that will take a large powerful force to defeat...what do you call that?
But if players choose to call that an end at stop playing that's cool. If players decide to bail on their home and not help rebuild it, that's cool too. If, however, players continue on, imo, that was not an endgame event.
There will be no level requirement to participate. It's not something that you can only participate in at a certain level, or with guilds, or even being a citizen (to my knowledge). It's not something that occurs because of a players level.
It's not a type of an event that will only happen once (if that node hit's level 6 again something, likely not a dragon, will most likely occur). What about other nodes that hit level 6 and don't require guild/level/citizenship?
I don't know how, in any way, that would be considered "endgame."
Not sure how this became a discussion on 'end-game' . But the real focus of this thread is the role small groups can have on impacting the gameplay environment (small being 20-30) vs. 200.
I also just want to say, I get people hating the word "end-game" but over the 18 Years I've played MMORPGS- endgame has ALWAYS referred to the "highest level difficulty content" it has never truly indicated the "end of a game" as mmorgps's in all cases (unless finally shutting down) have continued to roll out additional content/patches. Such a hate on for the word lol...
Node A) For sieges there is a very strong chance that small guilds can actually be more effective then large guilds. One reason for hope is that they do have unit collision with maybe character models (correct me if I am wrong), but definitely with abilities. I will leave this video as an example which I feel could be a possibility depending on the route Intrepid takes with combat balanced at a group level.
From my recollection (correct me if I am wrong) the success was based off poor command & control + a hodge podge of random ships. If I had to make an analogy, similar to Revolutionary War of the militia coming toe to toe with British Regulars. Hence why before I joined in 08 it is standard people are told what to bring for fleets op's. Hopefully you see where I am seeing at the guild level on coordination in this game.
As for sieges it is really up in the air to be honest as right now sounds like they are kind of making it artificial. Won't go into details as there are other threads out there on the topic, but it is a bit concerning for me.
Node B* ) To be honest it will be dependent on the studios ability to detect scripts as it is going to have to be quite extensive. Open world pvp is kind of a pain to bot especially when you lose a portion of your resources because you were not fighting back. This also doesn't prevent guilds from roaming the area killing botters or suspected rmters to police up their own territory.
Node griefing) Well the griefing part is only going to play a part when it comes to how metropolis governments work out in my view. I am critical to the only blog they have of the ruminations from the creator that is skimpy on details and very half baked. My only concern and criticism is that the meta gaming aspects can be used to make you homeless easy (which I find cheap) allowing the coalition to by pass a difficult siege.
I have seen the meta gaming Goons and other entities use to avoid direct pvp to achieve their goals, the most notorius being the collapse of Band of Brothers. I am more concerned of this and @McStackerson post on another thread of stagnation. No one is going to be able to quickly make a metropolis in my view so think that is the least of anyone's worries.
*edit=freakin emoticons