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.
"End Game PVE Content" why its needed for a consistent player base
What I consider "End Game":
*Raiding, Dungeons that scale, other gameplay similar to it.
*Content options that have a lockout: daily, weekly, etc.
*Timed events: beserks, wipe mechanics.
Caveat:
I do not have 100% game knowledge I have watched most the videos posted on youtube and twitch, but I don't know everything about the game or claim too.
My MMO experience:
*GW2 raids and dungeons all cleared.
*WoW raids completed for Ahead of the Curve and Cutting Edge Achievements
*Final Fantasy raids started (didn't enjoy personally so never completed)
* BDO completed the grind to "max" level, geared my character to the teeth, killed world bosses, killed most the guild summoned bosses
*Warframe cleared the maps, farmed all frames, and prime frames collected most rare mods (Not a true MMO in my opinion)
*Tera only dabbled
*ArcheAge maxed level, dungeons, world bosses, etc.
*Others (Runescape, Destiny 2, etc)
Why I believe "End Game" is needed:
As you can see above my MMO experience is quite vast I have been playing them for around 13 years across all the games. What I have learned is that without some form of end game content, games tend to die or lose a large majority of there player base. Black Desert Online, or BDO, is a prime example, the gameplay was fun, loved much about the game but you can only grind so much before you just get bored, PVE was very lacking and PVP wasn't enough to keep me in the game. Guild Wars 2 might be the closest game to an exception being that it didn't have raids, until the expansion, and the dungeons it did have, were not all that challenging it did keep a fairly large player base with story, but much of that player base seemed to be more PvP involved or a player who only logs in to do the storyline or achievement hunting. This ultimately pushed me away from the game except to PvP. Finally, World of Warcraft, the game that keeps drawing me back because in my opinion has the only raiding that is worth doing at the top level. It is the largest MMO in existence, its raiding is clean, engaging, challenging and keeps me coming back week after week. In addition Mythic + dungeons have been added, which scale in difficulty the higher they go, giving even more gameplay to smaller groups. This ultimately is the only reason I play World of Warcraft, the rest of the game being lackluster.
What worries me about Ashes:
They are trying hard to get away from the "End Game" mentality. Which is something I'm just not sure if I am completely honest? They are quoted from PAX West to have 40 man raid groups, which is a big NO in today's society, Wild Star being the prime example, getting 40 people together in today's world is just impossible on a weekly raid schedule, for difficult content. Balance for 40 people is near impossible. These raids will more than likely become like GW2 or BDO's world bosses where it is just a zerg fest and you can take 40 random people and kill it, no voice, no coordination, as long as maybe half the group is competent the boss will die. Loot pinatas not challenging bosses that you see in FFXIV and WoW.
Summary:
Due to Ashes of Creations mentality towards the endgame, I believe they will lose much of there player base due to a lack of thing to do after hitting max level that push players to challenge themselves. Crafting, PVP, and casual level PVE will only get you so far. They will need to find a way to make a balanced raid or dungeon type content if they want to keep players for a long period of time,
*Please comment your thoughts on the topic, if there is something I have not heard of, the more knowledge the better, if you think this is false, please tell me why.
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Comments
The game, at its core, is about settling a world. Therefore, your goals in it are your own. You could make it your goal to get a lot of gold, own a simple home, become the leader of a country, or just adventure and explore. The 8-player dungeons will open up and change with time and the development of nodes, and dynamic world events will pop up and need to be responded to or else there will be in-game consequences. Additionally, nodes need constant activity to be maintained; going out and adventuring to earn exp will help keep that metropolis in top form.
The reason end-game raiding becomes the standard solution in so many other games is because the only thing you're trying to advance is your own character's power, and the raids offer a place to use that power and items to improve it. In Ashes there's an actual society and community to interact with, and history to take part in, as long as you keep your skills sharp and eyes peeled for places to make a difference.
I think Ashes will survive with minimal (or metropolis-development restricted) raid content purely because the act of creating and changing a world, and building a life for yourself, becomes its own agenda. You could go out and try to get the best, most expensive armor; but wouldn't you be happier with a well-decorated house in the countryside? You could organize 40 people one night a week, or you could organize an entire country every day. Your guild wants to expand its smithy, so you need to get the resources to do so.
The amount of non-raid boss content and possibility for playstyle in this game is immense, and when huge groups ARE needed to contest massive monsters, it won't be a weekly farm-fest; it'll be a world-shaking event of "kill or be killed." The clock on it will make it a race to get in and defeat the creature before it finishes its rampage and disappears forever, or someone else kills it and it disappears forever. That's meaningful, and I think the experience of taking part in it (or hearing about it later) will resonate for a much longer time than the first-tier raid bosses that get forgotten when new content drops.
I have been in MMO's since their early inception, I first cut my teeth as a Bard in EQ back in 99'.
Through the years i've played and Alpha/Beta'd many games including all the most notable including WoW, SWTOR, SWG etc etc...
I'm still a gamer at heart but at the "ripe" old age of 43 I don't have NEARLY the time available for things like 4 day a week raiding. Life tends to take precedence. So for me (and i'm sure many like me) the idea of traditional end game grind to content, while appealing, isn't a do-or-die necessity.
Since you (OP) have a very extensive amount of MMO experience, I think you can agree that in most games it became simply a chore to grind to max level and ONLY THEN could you really begin to enjoy yourself. A prime example would be WoW, later on you could care less about lore or your surroundings, it was just a push to get to end game.
So I guess what i'm saying is that I hope that AoC will redefine what a lot of MMO's have become. Give us an extensive crafting system, Give us rich quests and scenery and allow us PvP and community and downplay the division between leveling and end game. Every day of the game should be endgame without the need to be online 24/7 or risk missing out on something.
I look at AoC as the "adult" MMO that many of us have dreamed of.
my .02
I think that nodes will be a major part of end-game. It will essentially resemble RvR battles similar to those in Guild Wars 2, except that here the outcome of the battle will have a major impact on the game world. So if players in Zone A lose, they might actually lose quite a bit of what they have invested in that zone (freeholds, benefits they received from node bonuses, etc.). Most of this will be PvP focused. PvE will center on new content that opens up as nodes level up. So I imagine that at the highest level of development (metropolis), we will most likely see raids similar to those in WoW.
Here is some more detailed info on nodes: https://www.ashesofcreation.com/node-series-part-2-metropolis/
One thing they mentioned is that dungeons won't be instanced, which kind of bothers me. I wouldn't like clearing a dungeon with my group just to find another one already camped at the final boss.
Player A : Reaches level cap, citizen of a thriving node, this node has a good available raid which was unlocked at its current stage. Player A really wants an item from the raid so player A does raid over and over again. Players A's guild also wants nice raid items so Player A helps guild and others through the raids over and over again...
End-game? Not quite?
Step 1. Player B (also reaches level cap) doesn't like raids but likes gathering! Player B is a citizen of another node and wants their node to level up to get gathering bonuses etc. Players B node can't level up because Players A node prevents it. Player B rally's up the nodes fellow gatherers who also want node progress to declare a siege on Players A node!
Step 2. Players A node is under siege! Oh no! Player A still likes raid and many citizens still don't have all the loot! Player A needs to stop raiding to defend node! If Player A doesn't defend Player A might have their node delevel! Delevel means no current raid *gasp*
Step 3. Battle commence! Passionate citizens of each node are trying their best at everything to defend/delevel this node! Who wins!
Step 4. Because I'm player B ~ yeaaaaay Player Bs succeed! Players B node can level up and juicy gathering bonuses are achievable! Player As raid is lost! ;(
Step 5. Player A really likes raiding but local raid is gone. Player A can travel to other raids but takes a lot of time. Maybe Player A goes and claims citizenship at another node with a local raid OR revenge! It may take some time for the Siege CDs but Player As node unties and prepares to take revenge on Player Bs node!
This is how I imagine it to be and that's why there is no "end game". The world won't be static whether you want it to be or not. The influence from other players will be great. To me this is more exciting than a static end game.
To your second point, I had heard that the dungeons are still not decided but they were leaning towards open. This would require me going into a whole other list of problems but for now, I'll just say I agree this is a bad decision if they go through with it.
and I have read the node system post and watched videos, I'm familiar with how they work, but thanks for the information anyways
The first example is the typical end game of most games. Which yes is boring without new raids coming out or expansions. Which doesn't seem to be the model the Ashes.
Example two I'm actually fine with node development changing which raids would be available would create nomad guild of raiders that move node to node trying to clear each raid. As long as these raids are challenging enough to keep people progressing in them for a few months, at the hardest difficulty, assuming you can change it.
The issue with requiring PvE focused gamers like me, is we don't always want to PvP. Requiring me to PvP rather than progress on a new boss or risk not being able to ever see the last boss due to PvP may cause issues. The same issues requiring all PvP people to complete the raid would have. So maybe instead of the raid disappearing it goes on a timer, around a month long.
I pretty much avoid all raids and dungeons because I find them repetitive and unenjoyable. I usually do it once for the quest requirement and never look back on them.
I do hope to discover a love for them in Ashes but it's likely I'll spend my happy days gathering and progressing as far as I can in that field. I look forward to a social environment in which I can help crafter's create items that support a wide range of players.
Explorer's, farmers, traders, crafter's, gatherers, pvpers, raiders....whatever you enjoy - you'll have a different vision of "end game".
Lets elimate the activity for sieging since it's not a playstyle you enjoy. That's alright because players like different things and Ashes is aiming to create a world that allows opportunity for all player types to flourish.
Your raids will still be there as your "end game" but it might not remain static (different raids will be available in different places). You don't have to PvP but you need to accept that others might want to and their choices (and yours) in the world may influence what raids are and are not available. New ones will appear and disappear just as much as old ones will return. Perhaps some raids may cause changes to the surrounding world/economy. Perhaps unlocking your raid will stop one of my most profitable raw materials to grow. Perhaps it will spawn a new raw material altogether.
You can either do something about it or explore new zones.
If your raid blocks one of raw materials it's not doom and gloom but opportunities for new activities.
I do share confusion over open world raids/dungeons/world bosses etc and I'm interested to see how they will work in practice.
Ashes of Creation is going to be a game that is ever changing in response to the activity in the community.
It doesn't mean there is no "end game" but "end game" means something different.
I too love doing dungeons and raids and I am hoping that they are difficult and require strategy and good teamwork to complete. I do not want there to be multiple difficulties like there are in WOW though. To me that detracts from the experience and is a lazy way to increase the amount of content. I say there should be one version and it should be decided upon its creation/conception whether or not it will be a more difficult piece of content or not. I would hope that there are plenty of very difficult dungeons and raids as I love working as a team to beat bosses and whatnot. I think the best experience I ever had with a dungeon was during Wildstar's beta the first time I ran Stormtalon's Lair. Every mob in that dungeon took knowledge, strategy, and the players being on their toes to defeat. I am hoping I get that feeling in Ashes.
I agree with you in people want different things from an MMO, I too do enjoy gathering, and I do enjoy PvP. But endless grinding is not my forte, and as you find PvE repetitive, I usually find the same with PvP, due to most games having the Rock, Paper, Scissors style of meta. I hope ashes does find a nice balance, it would be interesting to see raids pop up and go away which would give people a time frame to try to complete them.
@Zastro
I thought I had heard that but couldn't find the reference, so I assumed I just made it up in my mind which happens since there is so much theory rolling around. Thanks for clearing that up. As for the difficulty of the raids he has stated he wants them to start at a 40-man size, which is where Wild Star failed, and what WoW moved away from because as stated above 40 mans aren't reasonable for any level of high difficulty. Which goes to my next point, multiple difficulties either two, three, etc are almost needed if you want to create a game for casuals and hardcore players. Something for people who just want to see the content and others who want to feel the content, per say. I want to wipe to a boss 50-100+ times because its challenging, but someone who only plays 1-2 hours a day or even a week should still be able to sample the content so an LFR or Normal style raid, easier raid would be there for the 'casuals' and a Mythic style for the 'hardcore' players who have the time to put forth the 50+ wipes figuring out a boss.
For those who aren't familiar World of Warcraft raids have 4 difficulties Looking for raid(LFR), Normal, Heroic, and Mythic which is the hardest difficulty which takes guilds 100s or 1000s of attempts on a single boss to complete, while LFR can be completed by almost any group with little to no knowledge of how the boss works.
But it's of course your choice what you want to do mostly
At least thats how I think about that.
Well and if you enjoy PVP too, you could help defend or delevel a node from time to time. People would be very thankful to have someone there who just has the most epic boss loot xD
To your second point, I had heard that the dungeons are still not decided but they were leaning towards open. This would require me going into a whole other list of problems but for now, I'll just say I agree this is a bad decision if they go through with it.
and I have read the node system post and watched videos, I'm familiar with how they work, but thanks for the information anyways
Well this game won't focus just on PvP, it's PvX (PvE and PvP played simultaneously, so both will affect the world). Think of a game server as something that will constantly change and evolve based on player interactions within the game. Players will be able to decide what to build in the city, who to attack, what bonuses the nodes will provide (as an example, economy-centered nodes will allow players to buy and sell within a large marketplace, whereas other nodes will have more limited trading options), so on and so forth. As the nodes advance, the zones they control will clash with other nodes, similar to Realm v Realm in other games. But this is not limited to PvP. As nodes advance, new PvE content will also "unlock" so new dungeons, etc. I am pretty sure that you won't have to play both PvE and PvP (there will be separation between the two to a point), I am sure you will be able to simply focus on PvE content as it unlocks. So in a way there is "end" game in that at the ultimate point of progression, the nodes that have advanced the most will face increased competition and possible destruction from other nodes. Think of Game of Thrones if you like, they are trying to incorporate politics into the game. Players will also compete for control of their nodes as elected representatives or maybe something based more on brute strength or cleverness. I am still not sure exactly how this will play out, but it seems like a great concept.
I am also worried about repetitiveness and grind. I am not sure what kind of AI/NPC system the devs have in mind right now, but hopefully they will release more info on that soon. The changing nodes will eliminate some of that but I am still not sure what we will experience as we play (quests, NPC mobs, etc).
The problem with the 'get gud' mentality is that casuals pay for what the hardcore want. For every 1 hardcore player, there are 100+ casual members, which is why most games have multiple difficulties if you want a solution to the repetitiveness of not having to do every difficulty such as in WoW, they could make it so that you must choose one difficulty per week. This makes it so if you want to do the hard mode you are stuck with your choice for a week minimum, and you can't just clear the easy mode, then go into hard. On top of that as long as developers aren't using different difficulties to fill time and then there really isn't a problem with letting people see watered down content.
@Memmi
I understand that the game is PvX but so was ArcheAge and BDO. The similarity of those two games and Ashes in open world PvP, as long as a game lets you flag PvP at any time you will always have the issue of a more PvP influenced game.
Most area's of bosses have the same attacks and are mainly tank and spank but I do also understand that some people arn't good at timings and stuff but there are enough visual ques in MMO's that you just need to pay attention.
I am a Casual player these days yet i still manage to do raid bosses and dungeons in at least a few times, I may need to log off after but at least i can come back and complete it again know what to do.
I liked the old dungeons where you had to actually learn to be a good player and not just face bash the keyboard to win.
I do accept that multiple levels of raids can introduce more people into raiding but the easier content will become repetitive and gives raiding a bad rep.If ashes could introduce a way for all players to need each other for end game, that would be ideal however it is very hard to be implemented.
I was thinking like crafters help raiders improve on gear and raids drop materials for crafters to further improve gear, if a siege warning goes out, these materials can be diverged and given to city defence/pvpers. which holds progression further into the raid but also keeps the node in place to continue progression in the future. Another incentive to give materials to pvpers is that maybe winning battlegrounds or controlling areas around the node give area wide buffs or raid buffs which also help further progression and buffs to gathering. (just an example entwining all aspects off the game together)
From a hardcore raider, I just hope there are very difficult end game opportunities for players that put many hours into the PVE side of the game and to come back constantly every week as I also end up going back to WoW because of the difficulty of raiding.
In this game, there will be penalties applied when someone decides to attack a non-combatant. In addition, the zones for PvP make a lot more sense, so if a node is under siege that siege is a PvP zone, which makes sense seeing as there is a siege (it won't be a random spot on the map). PvP zones will be tied to significant events and objectives that depend on confrontation between players.
I copied and pasted some detailed info from that PvP thread:
There are three levels of flagging for world PvP.
Player corruption
A player’s corruption score increases with each non-combatant player killed.
The wider the level disparity between the players the more corruption will be gained.
The higher the corruption score, the higher drop percentage when the corrupted player is killed (see Player death below).
The higher the corruption score, the more skill and stat dampening applies, until the corrupt player ultimately becomes ineffective at combat.
Corruption is removed through death. Multiple deaths may be necessary to remove all corruption. There may be other mechanics to reduce corruption.
Corruption has a visible effect on a player’s appearance.
A corrupt player’s location is revealed to bounty hunters.
Corruption duration is reduced in military nodes.
Also to clarify, as someone brought this up to me in the Ashes discord, what I mean by lower difficulty is no just scaling boss health and damage. That is rehashing content and is obviously the developers being lazy. What I mean is that a harder difficulty in which boss fight drastically change. Gul'Dan had an entirely new fight on Mythic Difficulty, in addition to a new phase. Kil' Jaeden had similar, the current boss Seat of the Pantheon is drastically different. So it's more you are getting two similar raids, rather than 2 of the same.
And from a developers standpoint, it is much easier to scale a boss down than up. Taking away certain mechanics, lowering DPS checks on an add, taking away an add in a boss fight all make the fight different but still enjoyable.
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@damo101
I hope that is the case also I want there to be a correlation between PvP, PvE and crafting to make a giant community.
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@Memmi
I know about the corruption system, but I'm also not nieve in thinking that Ashes has come up with a perfect system, do I believe their system is well thought out, yes, but generally speaking there is a loophole. An example being once my corruption hits a certain level, I trade everything to a friend have him kill me over and over until my corruption fade, then he trades back my gear. I go back to murdering everyone. I have played many MMOs that have drawbacks too open flagging, but there are indeed people who will only play the game to kill other people.
And you don't think this has already been addressed? The whole "My friend will just kill me over and over!" was fixed in theory ages ago. What?!? A mechanic where you are not able to trade while corrupted? You don't say. A flagging system where anyone on your friends list, guild, party, or alliance(meaning guild alliance or node citizenship) kills you and it doesn't reduce your corruption? You realize that the stat penalties for corruption and stat penalties due to exp debt are separate? So you just won't be going right back to killing people. You won't delevel due to death exp debt, but having increasing hours of grind to get back to 100% is going to be a bummer. That anyone that you have managed to kill has let everyone in the area know that you are being a pk'ing asswipe and have called all their friends to help hunt you down. That each time you die, you respawn in a different location, not the closest spawn point, so making the run back to your "friend" if you have managed to find a loophole that works, odds are someone else will come across you first and kill you. And finally, people who live for breaking these systems looking at every loophole during testing to make sure by the time test servers are wiped and we all go live, that the corruption system is all tight and puckered up. (And yes, we have thought about the whole "I will just jump off a cliff repeatedly!!" option.)
We have to remember that most guilds in WOW are pretty much dead. They are guilds only in name. Their members are either few or don't get on anymore. Then there are also guilds who's primary goal does not include raiding. If we take a look at only the guilds who do actually raid we would probably find a bit more than 1% of the population has downed mythic Kiljaden and Guldan. Anyway, comparing WOW's player population mindset to how players will be in Ashes is a false equivalency. The goals of the two games are vastly different and therefore will attract different kinds of players. The focus of Ashes is on community which is something Wow has put on the side burner for some time now. This focus on community will, hopefully, get the players working together a lot more than they would in a game like Wow.
I too am worried that 40 man raids might be difficult to set up because of time constraints and differing schedules, but guilds whose purpose it is to raid will figure it out, they always do. A solution for the rest of the guilds who aren't as focused on raiding would be for Intrepid to make raids of differing sizes, so like a 24 man raid consisting of 3 groups of 8 instead of 5. I don't think any one raid should have both 24 and 40 man versions, but that there should be a raid that is designed for 24 man and a raid that is designed for 40 man.
As for the similarity vs. same argument: I get it. I still don't like it though. It becomes more of a immersion vs gamey argument. If I fight a mob or boss it should always have access to all of its abilities unless something has happened in game or lore that is preventing them from accessing their abilities or the boss/mob has gone and trained since our last encounter (but that can't happen if it has already been killed), so artificially giving a boss new abilities just to have a higher difficulty raid doesn't feel immersive to me.
I believe we just have slightly different viewpoints towards raiding since it usually is my main focus in a game. That is why I'm so passionate about it though I want to see Ashes create content that rivals WoW. To be honest I'm tired of WoW but no game offers the same difficulty/thrill from PvE, so I'm stuck playing a game that I only enjoy a singular aspect of.
And stats wise you are correct I actually went and did the research of Mythic Kil'Jaeden ~9% of guilds that killed a Mythic boss killed KJ, while ~4% of guilds that killed Heroic KJ (16,800 guilds), also killed Mythic (777 guilds). As you stated you understand my point, and I understand it does lower game immersion because you are killing something you already killed. I just more feel it's worth giving the casuals a bit of the experience is all
To your point on 40 and 24 man raids, I hope they do have smaller group raids, really with the 8 man party system, 8, 16, 24, 32, and 40+ man dungeons or raids could be possible. 16 and 24-man raid groups would probably be the easiest to balance. Only having 1 size per raid seems to be the best option for the competitive level of raiding, due to the issues of how to balance a raid for both sizes sometimes it easier to have fewer people due to a small platform/encounter area, while sometimes for things such as soak mechanics it easier to have a greater amount of people.
I love dungeons even more though and am passionate about those and am hoping that Ashes gives me an experience as good if not better than what I had in Wildstar's beta/release.
Glad we could some consensus! And Hope to see you in-game! Maybe we will end up raiding together xD
I look forward to it my friend