Things that bother me with the game design.

ArchivedUser

1, If you buy packages in the store you get gems in game to spend at the market, that sounds a bit like pay to win to me, so you get to buy all the best crafted gear?? Hmmm hope I'm wrong on that 1.

2, No armour drops from mobs, ok it sounds interesting but there won't be any good crafters at release for a few weeks, so we'd be running around with newbie gear at level 20 e.g.

3, I heard it's a theme park mmo, I heard sandbox a while back and am just hoping the theme park rumour is wrong.

4. Really not sure how I feel about a trinity crafting system, i'd prefer to be self reliant.

These things are all subjective apart from the 1st as nothing is for certain yet, share your concerns.

ArchivedUser

1. Every item in the store is a skin. They have no stats and you will NOT be able to "buy all the best crafted gear." from the store. The Embers that come in the packs will allow you to purchase cosmetics that become available after launch, that is it.

2. Where did you get that there are no armor drops from mobs? If you look at the A0 videos you can plainly see when he opens his inventory that he is looting weapons and armor pieces as he goes along.

3. It is being billed as a themebox. Sandbox with themepark style for content. Most sandboxes go the easy development route and provide no content beyond what the players create, this one will have both. What you won't see is a linear progression of zones that as people outlevel them they never visit the same areas again.

4. The crafting system is meant to go back to "making mmos great again." If no one can be everything, then that forces interaction with the community. If you want a self-reliant mmo for crafting  FFXIV or ESO may be more your style.

All of the information above is readily available in the wikis, through the now close to 40 hours of livestreams and interviews, and direct developer quotes from Discord. While it is a daunting amount of information to go through, if you want to form an informed opinion to base your assumptions on, then you need to do the research.

ArchivedUser

Aceball said:

1, If you buy packages in the store you get gems in game to spend at the market, that sounds a bit like pay to win to me, so you get to buy all the best crafted gear?? Hmmm hope I'm wrong on that 1.

2, No armour drops from mobs, ok it sounds interesting but there won't be any good crafters at release for a few weeks, so we'd be running around with newbie gear at level 20 e.g.

3, I heard it's a theme park mmo, I heard sandbox a while back and am just hoping the theme park rumour is wrong.

4. Really not sure how I feel about a trinity crafting system, i'd prefer to be self reliant.

These things are all subjective apart from the 1st as nothing is for certain yet, share your concerns.

1. You can only buy cosmetics in the store. There will never be any pay to win items in Ashes.
   
   
2. Armor does drop from mobs, it's just not going to be the high tier items associated with other games. Those items will need to be crafted. So everyone will be in the same position at the beginning of the game.
   
   
3. Ashes of Creation is a Themebox MMORPG. It is a collection of pre-curated content that unlocks dynamically as the result of player activity. The world is constantly changing. It is not a static backdrop like a themepark game and it is not barren of content like a sandbox game.
   
   
4. The current design is to encourage player inter-dependency to enhance the artisan experience. All things are subject to change and may do so based on feedback

ArchivedUser

Thankyou for clearing that up.

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

1. Every item in the store is a skin. They have no stats and you will NOT be able to "buy all the best crafted gear." from the store. The Embers that come in the packs will allow you to purchase cosmetics that become available after launch, that is it.

2. Where did you get that there are no armor drops from mobs? If you look at the A0 videos you can plainly see when he opens his inventory that he is looting weapons and armor pieces as he goes along.

3. It is being billed as a themebox. Sandbox with themepark style for content. Most sandboxes go the easy development route and provide no content beyond what the players create, this one will have both. What you won't see is a linear progression of zones that as people outlevel them they never visit the same areas again.

4. The crafting system is meant to go back to "making mmos great again." If no one can be everything, then that forces interaction with the community. If you want a self-reliant mmo for crafting  FFXIV or ESO may be more your style.

All of the information above is readily available in the wikis, through the now close to 40 hours of livestreams and interviews, and direct developer quotes from Discord. While it is a daunting amount of information to go through, if you want to form an informed opinion to base your assumptions on, then you need to do the research.

I'm watching the from the ashes podcasts to catch up, I'm definitely a person that wants to see something new in the mmo market, ff14 and eso are both good games but they are the same tried and tested design, what I mean about the crafting system is a crafter buying all their mats because they can't gather is going to be tedious and expensive, that is forcing you into a situation i.e. being in a guild, I for 1 will love the guild activity in game but anything that forces you to do something you wouldn't normally do isn't good, variety is the spice of life etc.

 Some people don't want to be in guilds, some people are independent and would rather rely on themselves.  I can understand a dedicated crafter only being able to craft the best things but someone out gathering materials they can't do anything with, hmmmm, will have to wait and see I guess.

I for 1 will be creating a lot of alts.

ArchivedUser

Aceball said:

I'm watching the from the ashes podcasts to catch up, I'm definitely a person that wants to see something new in the mmo market, ff14 and eso are both good games but they are the same tried and tested design, what I mean about the crafting system is a crafter buying all their mats because they can't gather is going to be tedious and expensive, that is forcing you into a situation i.e. being in a guild, I for 1 will love the guild activity in game but anything that forces you to do something you wouldn't normally do isn't good, variety is the spice of life etc.

 Some people don't want to be in guilds, some people are independent and would rather rely on themselves.  I can understand a dedicated crafter only being able to craft the best things but someone out gathering materials they can't do anything with, hmmmm, will have to wait and see I guess.

I for 1 will be creating a lot of alts.

Just like how there will be solo crafters, there will be solo gathers. There will be people selling their resources on the market so you don't need to rely on a guild to get them.

ArchivedUser

4. I am not a fan of trinity system either. I dont like how it tries restric my freedom to choose my approach to professions. This is also not needed, because totally freedom systems what sandbox games uses are working just fine from this pov. If people have freedom to choose it does not automatically mean that every player will do everything by themselfs. There are as many different playstyles as there are players. And this whole system can be easily work around with alts so it might be pointless anyway go with these restrictions.

ArchivedUser

Leveling alts to a tier of proficiency is going to require effort as well. The entire system is designed with a focus on community, hence the MMO genre prefix. Creating a single end all, be all toon breaks immersion, it breaks community and fractures a community. Plenty of games out there like that already. Ashes is redefining the genre and bringing community back into the forefront.

ArchivedUser

Regarding the embers in the package all they can used for is buying cosmetics, there is no way to use real money to purchase anything aside from that.

ArchivedUser

Belle-bot.exe ♡ said:

Leveling alts to a tier of proficiency is going to require effort as well. The entire system is designed with a focus on community, hence the MMO genre prefix. Creating a single end all, be all toon breaks immersion, it breaks community and fractures a community. Plenty of games out there like that already. Ashes is redefining the genre and bringing community back into the forefront.

Yeah alts will require effort for sure, but it is still doable especially to those who have lots of time to invest into the game. Usually in sandbox games people will still be reliable about community even the system would be non-restricted. There is just too much to do if people would try to do everything and that is why they automatically turn to community so they can focus on few things by themselfs. So the system will be automatically balanced by different kind of players and their playstyles.

However many themepark games falls to this total self sufficient thing and way that one player can be master with all professions. WoW is good example of that. I had all professions maxed and scattered between alts. That happened because it was relatively too easy and did not take that much time either. Some effort ofc, but not enough. That is of course something Ashes should avoid and i guess @Belle-bot.exe ♡ you especially referred to this kind of systems.

Just saying that its easy to prevent total self sufficient thing just making the artisan progression take more time. That will generally be enough to get players rely on community without forcing them with restrictions.