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
This is going off topic but let's think of all the forms of character progression you can have in an mmorpg.
1. Levelling up
2. stat-based gear
3. effect-based gear
4. additional abilities
Out of those 4, additional abilities is by far the most interesting because they typically alter the playstyle of your character in some way, plus it's fun using a new move for the first few times. The downside is that adding new abilities takes the most amount of physical effort for the developer to make, plus they need to be balanced with the rest of the game.
Effect-based gear is similar although not quite as taxing for the developer to make, and they are slightly easier to balance as they are more temporary changes compared to new class abilities.
Levelling up and stat-based gear are the easiest to implement but are by far the most boring, especially if you make the mistake of having your world scale with your character's level. The other problem with these progression systems is power creep, but this only occurs over the long period of time.
The sad fact of it is that it's unfeasible to have a lot of effect-based gear and additional ability progression in multiplayer games. WoW has encountered this problem, as the lead designer has openly said that it got to the point where they were adding in new class abilities not because the classes needed them, but because the players demanded more progression. The same goes with effect-based gear, which is why they are now working on a "rental gear" system where you have a bunch of special gear for a single expansion, and then in the next expansion you lose that gear in place of something else. Of course, the great unwashed masses have absolutely no clue about game design and just complain that their fancy toys are being taken away......
So yes you are right that gear progression is the most boring, but it's also the easiest to implement and maintain.
Yes, time is something everyone has. Skill is it's own reward.
It is, but I believe when you say "spend time to get better gear" you mean crafting or grinding money for purchases.
Crafted gear has a cap in games as well. When you craft the absolute highest tier items you can, you peak out and can no longer advance in crafting or advance by acquiring better gear that way. Likewise with purchases, unless you purchase dungeon drops rather than crafted gear, there's a limit to what you can purchase.
For the unskilled time based character, there are very hard caps to their progression. Skill based characters don't rely on acquiring gear to clear their obstacles, and progression for them is how well they physically play the game.
Either way you slice it, skill based characters are always going to have advantages over time based ones. And we can't forget that players who spend more time in the game will likely understand and play the game better anyway, so really this argument just looks at the casuals and shrugs.
I disagree.
For one, PvP is not required for a good MMO to be good. In most cases, it actually ruins the game by including massive complications in class balance. It's also not particularly challenging, particularly when compared to a well designed AI. Frankly, the AI never reacts with shock or hesitates to perform an action. It always functions at it's peak performance, which makes PvP a highly variable contest by comparison. Difficult AI can be far more challenging than random players encountered in the wild. And I've seen games fail just because of intelligent AI beating the crap out of players who never learned to adapt to it. AI that doesn't just wander around in predictable patterns while you stand there in full view but just outside it's aggro zone. Instead they wander in random directions, and if you see them they can see you and will attack you. It made for an exciting and challenging open world experience, but people never stopped whining about it.
For two, non combat related activities are arguably a requirement. You have crafts which are directly related to the game, but crafts that do fairly little are creeping into the genre in the form of fishing and cooking. There is also an argument to be made for activities that are COMPLETELY unrelated to playing the game, like minigames. This applies to map size and plethora of landscapes, both incredibly important for MMOs. Map size helps regulate player population density, but also gives players more to explore and do. Landscape helps immerse players into the worlds they are running around in. Well designed and detailed landscapes have a huge impact on how players feel in certain regions.
City of Heroes had a seasonal Christmas event where you could go to a mountain and skii or ice skate or do other winter activities which had nothing to do with combat, crafting, leveling, or anything. You skied to compete in how fast you could run the course. It was fun af.
And for three, engaging combat is more a matter of opinion from what I've seen. City of Heroes didn't have what I'd call "engaging combat", but it was the most fun MMO I've ever played.
You would think that the players who spend the most time in the game would be the most skilled, but this often isn't the case, especially in an mmorpg. You only really improve when you spend time doing content that you personally find challenging. If you never push yourself by doing harder content, you can't expect to improve as much as someone who does.
This is what I find so bewildering about players who believe rewards should be time-based. Some people believe that if they only do stuff that is very easy for them for long enough, they should be able to beat the much harder content. Hell, some people will even believe that just because they spend 10 hours a day playing a game that automatically means they can beat the hardest content.
The sad part is that some games actually allow this to happen, which I personally think is wrong.
In an RPG, there should be a variety of ways to improve the character - that won't always be a factor of time.
Learning RPG and MMOPRG combat strategies aren't always related to how much time a player spends in the current MMORPG being played. Some players never learn not to stand in the telegraphed aoe zone or to keep their backs to a wall to avoid being jumped by adds. Some players never learn to aid a Rogue's backstab by positioning for a flank. Some players might always focus on highest dps even when they're playing a healer or cc or buff class.
Some players might know from prior RPG experience how best to complement the stats and traits they want to utilize with gear and race bonuses. And some players might not care much at all about maxing their character's power or being the most efficient in combat because they are focused on other facets of the game, like socializing or exploring.
I have absolutely no problem with someone who is not interested in min-maxing their character or being the best in combat. I DO however have a problem with people who expect to beat the harder content just because they put a lot of time into the game without actually putting in any effort.
You know, it's funny. I often saw people in LoL complaining about their ranking, saying stuff like "I've been playing for years and I'm still not in Diamond league" as if just playing the game is enough. It's not. Yes you are in the environment to improve but unless you actually make an effort to, you won't improve. These types of players want things given to them without putting any effort in first.
The problem with mmorpgs is that when it comes to PvE, if your character's stats are high enough you CAN just beat any content without putting in any effort, which to me feels completely wrong.
I am a casual player, I do not believe in short cuts being implemented just to help casuals. Nor do I believe that characters should receive artificial assistance because of time spent (or not spent) playing.
As stated elsewhere here, if you don't make effort to improve you shouldn't expect to be top-tier because you hit 100, 500, or 1000 hours. In all honesty you should be at that level because you should have pushed yourself to continue to be better.
We may well find that when we get to the level cap, rather than just blowing a whole lot of resources on having the best items crafted for every slot, it may be wiser to craft slightly lesser items, reserving some of the materials for repairs and replacements.
Or probably more likely what will happen is people will build a top end set for when they need it, but due to how expensive it is to maintain (and replace), people will also build a secondary set for every day/non-challenging use.
Basically, the mechanic of gear destruction (and potentially gear loss via corruption) means that there will likely never be a point where any player doesn't have one eye on their characters gear needs.
Basically, gear progression in Ashes will not have an end.
There'd be no point in seeking out gear of any kind if you don't get some kind of return from it.
Meaning any particular piece of armor or weapon you buy, that item should earn you at least as much as it costs before it degrades beyond repair ability (after factoring in repair costs). This is something the development team has to balance out, and the in game economy has to take into account as well.
Assuming Intrepid set gear to degrade on death, how much of a return you get on a piece of gear is largely up to you and how hard you try to push harder content.
That is pretty standard for most mmorpgs. The balancing comes in how much it will cost to repair gear. As this is one of the major gold sinks in an mmo, it's important to get this right to maintain a healthy economy.
We would also have to consider if repairing gear would only cost gold, or resources as well.
It is fairly standard for gear to be damaged on death, but it would make sense to consider alternate ways for gear to be damaged in a game where items can be destroyed outright rather than just damaged.
Since each time gear is damaged it is closer to being destroyed and in need of outright replacing, if death is the only time gear can be damaged, then players will be far more wary of getting in to situations where multiple deaths are possible - such as taking on truly challenging content, or grouping with people they are unsure about.
This is all obviously totally dependent on where the balance lies, but my on hope for Ashes is that it is a game that encourages people to get together, and it offers truly hard PvE content. While not impossible to pull off, these both seem to me to be harder to get in to the game if that game also has gear destroyed when players die.
I don't think the repair of items will be as big a cost as the replacement of items in Ashes. The function is still the same (gold/item sink), but from a player perspective it is much more interesting to have to replace items than simply repair what you already have - but only if it is balanced right.
Not a fan of harsh death penalties in any game, gear degradation being one of those harsh penalties that was never given enough thought. The big reason is that harsh death penalties makes PUGing too risky, and that somewhat defeats the purpose of playing MMOs IMO. It also makes exploration and experimentation too damaging to do often, and if we all stick to what we consider safe, the game just becomes boring.
Combine a harsh penalty with a challenging PvE environment where you can't really predict what will happen where (I believe there are no set level zones where you can be reasonably assured that you are capable of handling any given content in a region), and it's a recipe for players being far more cautious with their game time.
In my experience, players have more fun when they actively attempt things they might otherwise be wary of for fear of safety. You risk injury by jumping out of a plane, but are reasonably assured you'll survive the experience because of the parachute. Without said parachute, are you still willing to jump out of the plane? Probably not.
Back to item degradation, I feel it should happen with use, not on death. It makes more sense and means that whether or not you die, you'll still have to make sure your items are well maintained. The other problem with item degradation on death is it's usually a pretty severe degradation, and if you run into a situation where you die repeatedly (far more likely in AoC than most other MMOs due to the open world PvP element) you could get yourself screwed with broken items, no money to repair them, and having to resort to drawing money from an alt or asking others for help.
I think it's good to have content that has higher stakes. Yes, you are more hesitant to go with a random person which i think is a good thing. If you want to complete the content, you are encouraged to meet people and get a group you can trust. Keep in mind there is going to be plenty of solo content too so it's not like wow where you have to do group content to progress. There are other things you can do.
No I didn't. I stated that people have more fun attempting to do things they would OTHERWISE fear. Again, jumping out of a plane is all fun and games until you're offered the chance to jump without a parachute. That parachute gives you a reasonable amount of assurance that you won't die, or break a leg, or lose a leg. To the point where it's not the risk of life and limb that gets you motivated to jump, but rather the fun of falling.
Death penalties offer a very illusory sense of risk, one that players will calculate and work to min/max. You don't want that, you want players to try NEW things because THAT is how players actually have fun.
I guess the balance has to be found during testing to determine how much penalty is too much - especially with regard to how that impacts PUGs.
I expect a lot of PUGs in Ashes.
There will always be people complaining about not getting stuff they think they're entitled to.
Shouldn't be surprising that people who have worked their way to max level and tried many time to defeat content will complain if they aren't able to. Especially in these days when people get trophies just for showing up to the games.
In Ashes, we will have to get used to the fact that we won't be able to defeat everything - for a variety of reasons. Often because the content isn't static so we won't be around to participate in that content.