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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.
Rare loot, grind hard, win easy.
Hello guys. As a backer who started playing MMOs 13 years ago and played them non stop every day I can say that I've had some experience with this genre. And in all those years what I started to hate about mmos was the loot/gear system that modern mmos brought us. Take Tera for example. You start playing, and every time you level up to a certain level for example 10-18-24-28-36 etc, you simply enter dungeon and get yourself a new weapon. And then you enchant it to your heart content because its super easy. I grew fond of games like the good old Lineage 2 where you could buy low-medium quality armor/weapons to a certain level (and damn they were not cheap even for shitty items) in a city but then you had to grind your way to a better, high level equipment. Dropping full item from mobs or even parts for the item (for crafting) was hard AF. Sometimes you even had to have special class character with you in party who specialised in looting items from mobs. And if you finally managed to get your hands on the high quality item you wanted you got a great deal of advantage over others. You could see the result of your effort. What Im trying to say that in this game I would love to see some of those "good ol times" things that seperated passionate people from the plebs who simply play 1 hour every 2 days and the devs give them a handicap by ****, simplified dungeons, pathetic crafting and incredibly simple grind. I would love to see the grind to win mechanics. And remember when certain items were so rare only 5 people had them on the whole server? Damn those were the times.... What do you guys think?
PS.: I was out of the loop for a long while so Im not sure if the devs mentioned something like that or not.
PS.: I was out of the loop for a long while so Im not sure if the devs mentioned something like that or not.
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Comments
Just my notes of what I know.
Sgtfire
So you can keep your beloved weapon. Assuming she has 12 sockets, then you're just looking for new runes and stones. And if, for example, you have a certain combination of these sockets (example: 12 white star diamonds), you have an additional effect on your weapon, "white star fire" (also visible effect) plus increased values of XYZ and effect`s XYZ.
I should become a game developer. Haha.
Different combinations of stones and runes give = infinite possibilities of effects and improvements. I am a genius. I get money for this idea? 😘
I know your life is probably super amazing, but most people have to work.
I don't think the game should be simplified or made easy for those who only play so many hours a week. That's on them, and they should expect to have to put in the same number of hours as everyone else. Nobody should be expected to have to play Ashes as a full time job to get benefits either. There are likely many compromises between the two extremes.
I liked grinding for gear when I could stay home all summer and just game. Not anymore. I look for more meaningful game play. Not immediate pay off game play, just more meaningful.
IS has mentioned they would like to avoid anything that feels like a grind/requirement. I like their thoughts on legendary items, there should only be a few at most.
...
Plebs? Really?
...
No. I find this attitude...unfortunate...and absolutely do not want the game designed around it. If you are looking for a grind-to-win game you know where BDO is. I've heard that BDO has a serious retention problem due to the insurmountable advantage veteran players have over newer players, so I don't understand why you would want AoC to suffer from the same flaw.
I do support the idea of a player's effort resulting in significant financial reward within the game. But I absolutely do not want to see super rare RNG-based super-weapons dropped. That type of drop is a MMO relic that needs to go.
Imagine, you work 8 or more hours a day, you come home and you get PK-ed by a NEET who dos not work and has all the time in the wolrd, is a worse player than you are, but has better gear because has more time in the game...
Personally I would be frustrated, and would stop playing, and with that I would stop paying the sub as well.
So you can choice, will I have the loot way or you lvl your crafter.
I like a game more where I can get much cool items, amor and weapons.
And not such a boring always the same thing.
I mean I am an RPG player and and I would rather say:
- Oh yea, we killed the legendary chaos Demon who wanted to destroy the continent! And we took his sword, it is the most awesome sword that I have ever seen!
than:
- Oh, I killed 3000 rabbits, and one of them had the sword of a legendary Demon... How did it get there? How did it even fit?
Which one is cooler?
But I like the version, if the good player is able to get the bossmob down and
then grab the loot. 🙂
And I like too, if a game is equal for all.
But I don`t like, boring dungeons or less or no loot..😱😱😱
And btw, if the GOOD player always will win, you will have so or so, many others, who will cry also.., because they can`t play so good.
Ok but they can craft, maybe that is really a good alternative option.
So what.
It is always a balance act.^^
Not that I want an “easy mode”, where you just look up the gear you want so you know which dungeon to walk into and casually grab it. That’s pretty lame (and I play TERA so I know what you mean). There should be rewards that require effort to get.
But there’s a reason people don’t make games like the original Everquest anymore. Game design has improved and evolved since then, and MMOs aren’t the sole purview of shut-ins living in their parents’ basements anymore. People with lives also enjoy them. That’s going to be the largest potential market for AoC. Cutting out normal people to appeal to hardcore 1337 d00dz would be suicide.
I digress.
Anyways to answer your statement/questionable "grind". Absolutely no. There should be a max level gear that takes a certain attainable level of materials to craft. Improving the gear to a "stronger color" should take materials that do require some grinding. But hell no not weeks worths of time.
You want a game to succeed? Appeal to a working class audience who actually supports the game. Or all you get are kids and man-children with little to no societal contribution.
Now Steven HAS stated there will be legendary items/weapons in the game
that will be server specific and limited. Those apparently require lots of resources and GROUP support.
That is totally fine as it requires other people who support you, and lots of resources.
Which is GREAT. Because that means people with snarky uppity supiriority complexes wont get it like this post. "Plebs" indeed.
For me personally, a game is good, if it is not so easy. Very good indeed.
But we have to think about the others.
So how do you create a balance?
In a way, for the people who can not play so many lessons every day?
Let her succeed while she's making things. That may need a group,
to get resources, but not permanently dependent on rushing non-stop through one dungeon after the next.
Because if this does not happen, nothing will change.
There have to be several ways to succeed in a game.
Otherwise certain groups of players will be quickly disappointed and that will unfortunately be the biggest part. In addition, a variety of games enriches everyone.
In a loot-drop game, you can't really give crafted items the upper hand, or no one will run the content.
If it's a crafted loot game, its really not fun running the content for "components" to use in crafting or upgrading later, in the same way as getting "items" to use now.
The best experiences have been on either extreme of that.
One interesting thing Albion online has done is that even drops from PvE NPCs are player made. The mechanic is that there's a black market these can be sold into when you make them, and then that's where the "NPCs get them from"
https://albiononline.com/en/news/video-black-market-feature
The other thing Ashes has going for it is that things will break. And if they break permanently, people will think twice about just always using their "legendary" item for day to day purposes... maybe save it for more important fights or content. I'm not sure that's "fun" either but would need some testing.
Yes that's true, SWG felt good in that regard! And as if on cue, Jeffrey just invoked SWG as an inspiration to the crafting system on the live Twitch stream in Germany just now!
I'm really excited to see whatever shape it takes