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PvP Battlegrounds in Ashes
I know this has been covered countless times before, but I simply can't help myself. I have to trumpet my support for "mini-game" battlegrounds similar to Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, etc in WoW. I'm overjoyed that Intrepid decided to include an arena mode (HOORAY!!!) and I certainly don't want Ashes to be some PoS wow clone. However, instanced BGs elevated WoW to stratospheric levels of fun and I think they can do the same for Ashes. Honestly, I'd probably still be playing WoW if Blizzard hadn't dumb-down, gutted or otherwise destroyed pretty much everything that made BGs competitive, personal, challenging, rewarding and fun. Needless to say, my last hope for great PvP in an MMO lies with Ashes of Creation.
I think people went crazy for the Ashes project because it embodied the passionate, frustrated, quality-starved voice of the MMO community. Consequently, I wanted to add my voice and humbly urge you to include instanced BGs (or some incarnation of them). Please bring back the joy of complex and rewarding PvP to a criminally under-served player base that hasn't enjoyed quality PvP in a fantasy-based MMO since WotLK. Studios have been shatting out ham-fisted crap for over 10 years and it's time for someone to stand up and release a quality MMO with comprehensive PvP. I pray to the almighty Bacon you see what an incredibly rare opportunity this is...
Anyway, sincere thanks to everyone at Intrepid for making Ashes. It might awful, it might be epic, but regardless of the outcome I truly thank you for having the stones to try.
I think people went crazy for the Ashes project because it embodied the passionate, frustrated, quality-starved voice of the MMO community. Consequently, I wanted to add my voice and humbly urge you to include instanced BGs (or some incarnation of them). Please bring back the joy of complex and rewarding PvP to a criminally under-served player base that hasn't enjoyed quality PvP in a fantasy-based MMO since WotLK. Studios have been shatting out ham-fisted crap for over 10 years and it's time for someone to stand up and release a quality MMO with comprehensive PvP. I pray to the almighty Bacon you see what an incredibly rare opportunity this is...
Anyway, sincere thanks to everyone at Intrepid for making Ashes. It might awful, it might be epic, but regardless of the outcome I truly thank you for having the stones to try.
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Arena's will be instanced and allow for battles of multiple sizes. Hopefully these function close to what you are looking for.
Either way, I hope you do get the level of fun and challenge out of the arenas and battlegrounds to make your stay in Verra worth it!
Special locations in the open world that incentivize PvP. Caravans and sieges are considered battlegrounds but there will be others as well
http://www.aocwiki.net/PvP#Battlegrounds
We will have arenas-
which may have objectives (we've seen this from PAX West).
WoW's BattleGrounds = Ashes of Creation's Arena-PvP
Ashes of Creation's BattleGround ... well ... its part of the Open-World
Some of WoW's Terminology would hurt this MMO - especially since there seems to be a Strong-sense of SandBox Elements. But there's also some ThemePark Elements too
@Nefelia
I think you are 100% spot on. BGs/Warfronts are an enormous value add in game play and I think a lot of people vastly underestimate what they can do for an MMO (especially for replay value). BGs certainly aren't for everyone, but neither is PvE. Adding carefully implemented cross PvE/PvP dependencies gives players the option to play the game they want and ignore most of what they don't. Varity and choice are the hidden magic of a great MMO as it makes the game more personal while simultaneously appealing to a wide audience. Precious few MMOs have actually gotten this right...
As others have stated, it seems like the battle is already lost and AoC won't have instanced BGs other than Arena. Maybe OWPvP, + PvE + Arena will strike the right balance in game play, maybe it won't. I certainly hope so, but I guess we'll see. Regardless, I don't blame people for hating the idea of instanced BGs. I suspect most in the older-school MMO community are still scarred from when Blizzard first rolled out BGs in TBC and effectively killed open world PvP in Vanilla. I really think the optimum balance is somewhere in between.
As I mentioned in my OP, the problem is quality PvP, not quantity. If AoC doesn't implement PvP as a core gameplay mechanic ( which it seems they will), PvP will suck and nobody will play it. We'll see how things shake out in beta. Otherwise Camelot Unchained will probably be the only hope for legit PvP.
Either way, theres' no point in mentioning it imo. But
Node Sieges as Instances ?! That would go against alot of other systems they've talked about . So no, Sieges should not be instanced
I know sieges won't be instanced. Thats kind of the point. It seemingly won't scratch that insta-PvP itch. It would be nice to have some group-oriented and/or objective-based PvP that is repeatable on very short timelines and isnt necessarily triggered by or tied to world events. All I'm saying is it would be nice to have the option. It will be interesting to see how the devs implement the open world PvP.
Also, nobody wants AoC to be a WoW clone. Adding instanced BGs wouldn't make AoC any more of a WoW clone than using the "Holy Trinity" class system does. It's ideological semantics. If that's the case, then technically "EverQuest clone" would be more appropriate (and probably countless games before that).
I'm pretty sure WOW created the instance. Yes. Also, WOW never had real OWPvP, or meaningful PvP at any point.
As someone else stated, castle sieges is where the main pvp players wanna be. If you think it's not enough I encourage you to go read more about that process and what it takes. Plus caravans, clan wars, node sieges, contested areas and more. Just remove the instance part and the nanny settings.
I'm content with the direction they seem to be going with it where it's focused on competition and doesn't seem to be something you will be grind for monetary rewards.
Walking alongside a caravan seems rather boring, no? I do not expect many players to sign up for this chore more than once. Or is there some compelling incentive or mitigating mechanic of which I am not aware? This may very well lead to most caravan raids being a PvE event rather than PvP.
Sieges: (Quotes are from the wiki)
“The amount of effort and resources required to declare a siege is substantial.”
“When a siege has been declared, there is a declaration period.”
Siege declaration time: “Stage 3: Village - 2 days “
Siege declaration time: “Stage 6: Metropolis - 5 days “
Siege cool down time: “Stage 3: Village - ~ 20 days “
Siege cool down time: “Stage 6: Metropolis - ~ 50 days”
So sieges cost a great deal of resources, have 2-5 days of set up, and 20 - 50 days cool downs. They will be epic and momentous events, but they will not be frequent.
The end result is bored PvP players with little to do other than PvE under-defended caravans and gank PvE players for fun.
Castles: (Quotes are from the wiki)
Very limited numbers: “There are five castles in the game”
“An opposing guild will need to complete quests to obtain an item that will allow them to intiate a siege. “ —> Yay, PvE!
Again, some pretty epic content… which occurs infrequently, initiated by PvE. Not that I mind PvE, but being forced to PvE in order to PvP is one of the design flaws that destroyed the Rift PvP base when Rift 3.0 (Nightmare Tide) released. The PvP base never recovered from the exodus, despite efforts to bring them back with Rift 4.0 (Starfall Prophecy).
“Arenas will have 1 man, 3 man, 5 man and possibly 20 man Free-For-All (Deathmatch) group sizes.”
* There won't specifically be guild vs guild arenas but team-based matchmaking allows teams to face other teams.”
You completely omitted clan wars and contested area PvP scenarios. These being the type that can happen within minutes of logging on and are always availible to a PvP oriented player. I can assume they dont fit your narrative of needing instance pvp to be always readily available and sieges are not available 24/7.
As far as caravans go, I question why you would write off the possibly most engaging PvP yet. No, there aren't nanny settings "now your on offense", its organic. You are offense or defense based on if your attacking or guarding a caravan. Not to even mention the hunting that will be involved and different ambush strategies. Is this not far more entertaining than going into the same arena to have the same fight with the same duration and same win and loss conditions everytime? How is that not going to get stale by the 10th time? Can you only practice PvP in an unrealistic situation? Can you not test new builds in the open world?
I can assume you have never experienced a true seige in an mmo. This is where the HC PvP community will be. Hunting for war tags and fighting for castles and doing the prepwork required for it.
Create content for arena's? I dont know what this would possibly be. A second arena? How much time should IS spend making these over the actual world? Do we even need content for meaningless pvp?
I'd just prefer, at the very least untill the game is finished, that they not spend time and resource making a while different instanced game side with objectives like take a fort (seige?), or kill the most players in a set amount of time (clan war?), or capture the flag (caravans?).
I actually think everything you want is already in the game, it's just not hidden in a pocket dimension completely removed from the actual game. Your actual desire is to not have to spend any effort to do something. I'm sure you will get catered too, I just disagree with the make it easy for the American way. All of the Wow's did this and it's just lame. I spent $500 so that I could enjoy a better game, not to replay my favorite parts of an old $50 or less game.
There are other kinds of caravans connected to nodes and quests which give you economic incentives to gaurd and attack. I'm not sure how much details we have on these or there frequency.
I also want to mention for base open world pvp, they recently mentioned that the resources someone drops on death is supposed to be a economic incentive to pvp.
One thing i do want to point out is yes, you will most likely need to do pve or work with players who do pve to get gear and consumables. This will hopefully be a symbiotic relationship as they will also want pvp support do defend caravans and other open world pve objectives. You will most likely also have to do pve to advance different progression paths that will help you in pvp combat.
Sure, there seems to be more PvE than PvP, but that is what keeps players engaged for hours and has for years. I am not saying "more" than PvP, just that is does.
There will be PvP opportunities, will there always be super engaging over the top fun PvP? Probably not, but the same will eventually be said for PvE.
PvX.
If you want to PvP all day every day, you might want to play Ashes and another more PvP oriented game to get your fix.
If you want to PvE all day every day, you might want to play Ashes and another more PvE oriented game to get your fix.
I am not sure why people seem to want one game to do everything for them, or only accommodate what they want. Seems anti-intuitive to a game that is online and designed to be inviting to a massive amount of players playing together.
As for some points made.
Yes, traveling with a caravan every time you play and only doing that will get boring. Hell, doing that monthly for 5 +years it will for sure be boring. Not all games can be fresh, new, and exciting their entire career.
Sieges are designed so when not in a siege you have something to work for. Or something to appreciate the PvE's in your node for working towards.
Castles are the ultimate guild get-off. You own a castle, you have to defend it, you have to build up the surrounding areas, you have to destroy fortifications. This seems like nearly constant PvP.
I hope everyone enjoys this game and can adjust their typical routine to fit a unique play style to help make Ashes the unique game it should be.
AoC isnt being designed to cater to the masses, its not a cash grab, it comes from a mind thats tired of what WoW did to the market and trying to revive a dying genre.
I stuck with what was on the wiki.
Thanks for sharing your opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it, but that doesn't give you license to act like a jerk and belittle people for sharing their opinion. There is absolutely no reason for it.
Please constructively contribute to the discussion or kindly STFU.
with all due respect ... there's enough WoW Clones in the Market ...
lll ... if " this " is what Warfronts are ... then Intrepid already has something similar to it - they are called BattleGrounds. Even Arena-PvP might have different Win conditions & RuleSets. Even GvG declaration might have different types