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
That said, it's worth pointing out that this game is fully funded, and is being headed by someone that is making the game he wants it to be, without any stakeholders he needs to answer to.
The notion of "I'll bring people with me if I like the game" doesn't hold weight here. We will get the game Steven wants Ashes to be.
However, I will instead go with my initial reaction to ask Lateana if any members of this contingent may be interested in earning extra coin for guarding a caravan once I can get one up and running? I may even be persuaded to throw in a healing potion to each and every willing guard to possibly insure survivability? *clears throat* of the guards, heh, not just my goods.
^__^
We have to talk in terms of presence, churn, and content consumption. How many players are online, how often we expect new players to arrive and old ones to return and how fast the locusts are going to devour the material. Most studies show the most important thing you can do companies should focus on anticipating, preventing, and analyzing the first time a player churns, rather than the second or third.
So what stops players from leaving; I argue this hinges on content consumption. Nothing drives players away faster than frustration and boredom which are the enemies of flow; that feeling of energized focus and a complete absorption in a given activity. That is a state of deep enjoyment, if not passion.
I think we have to accept the fact we cannot please everyone perfectly. PvErs you are not going to have a wholly uninterupted experience and PVPrs you are not getting a sandbox Battlefield 2 with swords and sorcery. However, that doesn't mean we cannot find a happy median.
While we recognized constructs such as your "Bartle gaming profile," today players in a multifaceted game world will grow and change. I have seen players with no desire to pvp become the most feral competitor and hard core veteran bloodletters love the the team dynamics of raiding. They want to pursue that rush, that feeling of passion in a game that may be growing boring. So I say don't try to strip PvP out of the game; turn it into the PvP you want to eventually play or could play under.
We have to admit achievement-related traits, are no longer as important for players who reach the max level. Social features become the most predictive of success and longevity beyond this point. What keeps you logging on? Friendships and dynamic or changing gameplay.
PvErs are often the first I see leave games; now they will "churn" and return to see new content or play through other characters. Studies show,
http://www.adcolony.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WoW_retention_04_24_11.pdf that casual players tend to not stay engage as long and leave more often.
However, players who engage in all elements of the world which you are more likely to retain from losing.
So we have to support the non, periodic and aperiodic pvper.
While event based pvp seems like it gives pvp enthusiasts a play ground; I challenge you do not understand what the pvp community desires from pvp in the sandbox of the average roleplaying world.
1. Continuous challenge
2. The ability to impact the world
3. The ability to gain reputation
4. Risk vs Reward
I have seen it fail more often than succeed. Take a look at LOTRO and their FREEP vs CREEP concept. Fun, but lacking because there was no real world impact. Your reputation as a CREEP while may instill fear or awe on the battlefield vanished when you returned to your main. Your accomplishments were negated; and nothing you did in the round robin tower trading game play enhanced or detracted from the game world.
I go back to my history when I look at pvp systems. In Ultima Online, on the Atlantic Server, we had ORCS. Players who literally dressed in leather armor or looted weapons, yelled in area chat in orcish, and were basically the bane of any passerby's. They would kill the real NPC orcs and take over their structures. They would occasionally go on massive mongol style raids across Britannia, pillaging any player built settlements, mincing camps and being a thorn in the side of anyone caught in the open. None of their players could go to any city. We loved them. They brought to the game what the engine could not.
Eve, lets players sit at the level of "security" they desire. In high sec, pvp is almost immediately crushed while in null sec; only politics makes the rules. Take risks; you get bigger rewards.The game allows you to pursue the level of risk you desire.
Everyone has been ganked; I have nerd raged at the "unfair" kill or camping of a lowbie alt. However, I have also played "Sherriff" defending lowbies from the predators camping the top of the inn in Redshire or Duskwood. These moments provided far greater engagement, memories and laughs than any mindless quest grinding or the hours spend on the side of a beach farming the Sister Hut in the Ocean of Tears in EQ.
When you give players alternative styles of play that helps with longevity. Dynamic play; play where the characters make the story helps even more. The problem with quests they are static and after repetition lose engagement. Even if you change location; the FEDEX, ESCORT, etc style of quests begin to take on a similar feel (see GW2 on this)
I understand people saying, "I just want to quest." You want low risk uninterrupted play. ("I" don't see controllable predictable NPC reactions to player action as higher risk)
PVPrs want complete open and dynamic interaction. I say give both their zones and make them engageable or avoidable as desired by the participant. Provide fringe areas for those to explore.
Punishment for who starts the fight; is the wrong answer it simply targets one side of the community over the other and whether you believe it or not it will carry a negative side effect. Have people who engage in criminal behavior; be treated like criminals push them to the boundaries of society until they make amends.
I would rather see nodes function like Eve's high sec; as you pushed further into the wild and grow further away from from a capital you get into medium security and eventually an area where people make their own rules (wow much like the American Frontier used to be.)
And return when new content is introduced.
In Ashes, we have to see if the devs design goal of node progression and regression actually succeeds in constantly churning out new content. If it works correctly, the narratives, quests, tasks and mobs should be constantly changing based on which races are dominant in a node and which buildings and services are implemented by players in the nodes on the server.
The reason that Steven is striving for meaningful PvP, like caravans and sieges alongside monster coin events and NPC/mob raids attacking nodes is to help players focus more on building and defending their home nodes rather than focusing on whether the attackers are player characters or non-player characters.
Again, the EQNext game design provides the great example of the Dark Elves killing dryads in Kithicor Forest in order to siphon their Nature magic so they can use the Shadow converters to convert the Nature magic into Shadow magic. Shadow magic enhances Stealth.
If my Rogue has to kill dryads in order to maximize Stealth, I'm going to kill a bunch of dryads and not care much about the consequences. If I have to kill some player Druids who protecting the dryads in order to maximize my Stealth, well, some player Druids might have to die - even though that is not my primary goal.
If my Druid has to kill some player Rogues because they don't know that removing Nature magic from the dryads will eventually weaken the bonds holding back the Shadow Demons who would run rampage across Kithicor, destroying all Life (including Dark Elves), those player Rogues will just have to die for the greater good of the region - even though I would prefer that the player Rogues just listen to reason and stop siphoning Nature magic from Kithicor Forest.
I am pretty sure that that is the kind of PvP conflict that Steven is striving for - especially since he has so many devs from Daybreak working on Ashes.
The goal is to have PvP combat focused on meaningful objectives - more meaningful than just, "Everyone from that rival node is KOS to me!! RAWR" or "We are bandits who love to ambush rich loners! RAWR".
Ashes is not a sandbox, your sandbox example is not relevant.
Steven isn't trying to remake UO.
Steven is not trying to make a murderbox. UO and Eve are prime examples of murderbox MMORPGs.
A group like ORCS who simply march across the land killing any non-ORCS they encounter would be high in Corruption.
Pillaging a city is possible, but they would have to then defend the city once they take it over - and that could be a major challenge if the majority of players in the region choose to band together to remove them in the next siege.
They effort to maintain control of the city would inherently reduce the time available to simply march across the land killing non-combatants.
So, the ORCS scenario is unlikely to be much like UO at all.
Ashes gives players a wide variety of ways to play.
Including several paths for meaningful PvP combat.
Most player will be engaging in PvP combat sometimes.
So, it's not really a matter of totally avoiding PvP combat, rather it's about having agency to choose when you participate in PvP combat and when you don't.
Being forced to participate in PvP combat is likely to cause the attackers to be penalized with Corruption. Steven intends for Corruption to minimize the killing of non-combatants and have Battlegrounds be the focus of PvP combat.
Whether PvP combat provides "far greater engagement" is going to depend on individual playstyle.
PvP combat provides "far greater engagement" for competitive players who are primarily seeking hardcore challenges.
PvP combat does not provide "far greater engagement" for non-competitive players who are primarily seeking casual challenges.
Providing more objectives than just killing other players can help to encourage PvErers and casual PvPers to participate in both PvP conflict and indirect PvP combat. Which is why the focus of PvP combat in Ashes is objective-based. And why objective-based PvP combat is free of the Corruption mechanic.
I'm pretty sure that Steven does not want Ashes to be like Eve when it comes to PvP combat.
But, seems like it's a good idea to ask Steven directly if he wants the PvP combat to be like UO and Eve. If Steven intends for the PvP combat to be similar in scope to UO and Eve, I immediately know that I won't be playing Ashes.
Which would be fine.
Racist. Orcs are more than just barbarians pillaging as they please
Lok'tar Ogar!
Sorry I could not resist ^^
Could be predominantly Humans for all I know. Assuming ORCS is predominantly made up of Orcs would be prejudiced, sure.
If nodes were just about building up and defending cities until we reach an endgame with static, repeatable dungeons and raids while we wait years for new content to be implemented, I would still leave the game at endgame.
Because the draw for me with MMORPGs is the RPG aspects.
If what I wanted to do is focus on PvP combat, I would play a MOBA or an MMOFPS.
Ashes game design includes nodes that will continue to introduce dynamic content via the progression and regression of nodes, so building and destroying nodes isn't merely about the hard work of building and defending a city.
Spending years with very little to do besides repeatedly defending the Metropolis I built from sieges by ORCS would not keep me playing Ashes.
That's like reading the final chapter of a novel over and over and over and over again while I wait for the sequel to drop. I would instead go play some other game, just as I would go read some other novel while waiting for a sequel to be written.
Of course, PvP lover are going to be content to focus on PvP at endgame.
Ashes isn't supposed to have an endgame, but we will have to see if the devs can actually live up to that hype.
So ashes will aim to be a ~20k player game like eve online?
Well they atleast didn't need more than servers... worldwide...
You are delusional if you think that eve's system is great in any way. It's unfun and not player friendly at all.
But that's pretty much a fact, just look at it's palyerbase... it's minimal.
But you are true, node system will be like that. There will be a few big alliances which will controll everything, where you either join as a 224234234th brainless zombie, or you can be a slave for minimal profit... er.. I mean crafter, or a solo palyer shoting at defenseless miners.
What a great future...
From what I could tell people were not calling for the corruption system to disappear, simply to refine some key points of it so it's not so obviously biased.
I'm not a fan of the current system but it's not a make or break for me since the lack of a good PVX MMO has caused me to play an MMO with no open world pvp.
That thread is beyond dumb...and has had the same effect but even worse then what you mentioned of this thread.... In that thread there has been no worthy discussion because its factually in correct about this game not favoring PvE players or that PvE players are somehow in a big disadvantage, if we gona troll then might as well troll in here too.
I hope they hear you out. I have a great idea and I hope they hear us PvP players out. I love PVE and I think the Dynamic of PVP and PVE camps are bad. What he saying is relevant, I don't believe the current model will digest well for either player. I hope after all these viewers and replies the developers reach out and talk to someone who may have a contradictory point of view.. there is a better way
I really do.
- Less tab-target, more Freeform-less abilities.
- Abilities that can triggered without the use of a " target ".
- (some) abilities that does not have a range-limit.
- (some) abilities that does not have a parameter-limit
- (?) HitBoxes in the air; airborne activated abilities (?)
- realistic sword-combat animation ( "swtor" is best looking one to date )
- (maybe) environmental destruction ?
- Climbing Mechanics
- Elevated Planes to Travel upon
The above one i mentioned is basically having the potential of Players-ambushing from above ( let's say TreeTops ). Think of an extremely/ extraordinarily thick forest.See images below. To have idea of what i mean
( look at the Background )
EDIT: This image below will be a Bird's Eye View from Tall Grassy Areas
They may be other stuff i forgot to mentioned. But i think that'll make Combat fundamentally (and overall) better
despite your " LoL " ... i'm really hoping Intrepid goes all-out with this