Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Forming a group can be a pain. Its time consuming. Usually it consists of hitting up friends and guilds for members, begging those who join to invite their friends, then usually (unfortunately) going to zone chat to find randoms for enough players. Especially when core roles are needed but no one known/proven is around to fill. Sometimes finding a healer or tank, let alone a good one, is like looking for bigfoot.
After the group is formed, then comes the headaches of running the content. People will lie about their skill/gear and if they have completed content so they can get in hoping they will be carried. The group lead will ask if anyone doesn't know what to do, no one will say anything, the group will wipe multiple times, then we have to spend half an hour going over mechanics and teaching everyone how to do the encounter just because 1 person won't speak up so we can spend 5 minutes teaching them their job. Toxic players will cause drama that delays progress and causes people to drop group. Players will rage quit after one failed attempt, or drop because of irl reasons. Something that a good group can speed run in half an hour ends up taking hours depending on the players.
When it comes to joining long term groups that are already established, one concern that makes me hesitant to apply is that they can become cliquish. A lot of guilds develop an inner circle of friends that they favor over others that join. In such a case it can be difficult to find opportunities to run certain content when the groups that already run the content are not allowing others to join the group, even when they have proven they are capable of running the content. Its human nature and there isn't much a developer could do about it. Still it does sometimes make difficult to apply for a recurring group position.
Then there is when players are prevented from running content because they are late comers. Players get blocked from even entering certain content because they weren't ready for it or didn't have a group for it when the content released. Many groups will move on from content after they have completed/farmed everything they want from it. Some will simply not take anyone who hasn't completed it before, even when its one qualified individual at at time. This can lead to an infinite loop of a player wanting to raid, a raid lead demanding experience in the content to join the group, and the player stating they need to enter the content to gain experience.
Lastly, the content itself and its rewards can be deterrents from group content. Some content just isn't what certain players want to do. Some players just want to do pvp, some just want to do large group content, some just want to do the hardest content, some just want to do the newest content. I like Ashes goal of breaking down boundaries between types of content by making instanced content rare, but it won't prevent players from seeking out what they prefer, which can make some content harder to find groups for if the majority of the player base is focused on other content. Perhaps most importantly, many players won't want to even attempt certain content or repeat same/similar content when it does not give sufficient rewards for the time/difficulty/number of players involved.
Work is stressful enough; I play MMOs to relax. That's why I prefer the more organic open-world style grouping (ala GW2) as opposed to instanced grouping or raiding. I don't mind it occasionally, but I don't want my primary content locked behind it so that I am forced into a party in order to progress.
But lets take look at raids. There is a problem with the loot master system. Seen legendary gear drop and raid leader keeps it even though it is not for his class. Same thing with mounts dropping in raids or just raid gear. So that negative expereince could detter someone from raiding.
Not lets take a look at dungeouns if the dungeound drops 800 gold divided by number of people normally 8 then each would get 100g. Well if they could seven man then why not? More gold for seven people. Same thing with Open wourld loot if you are in a party of two then you only get half the loot or who ever loots it first.
Personally I was farming mounts and gear in old raids. No reason to invite any one cause well do not want to roll for a mount against them. Could call dibbs or assign myself loot master but just not my style. If it dropped I would feel compelled to to give every one in the group chance to roll for it. So I just solo content.
Also made a post about giving incentives to be in a group like little extra looot or experience but someone noted that that would make people feel like have to to be in group. But people do not group themselves there has to be a reason. So game has to be designed that way if you wnat that.
Your making a server were every one is flagged for pvp. So every time someone else meets some one. One of the things that will be at the forefront of their mind is he going to attack me especially if he is a stranger. In faction based PvP serveres People feel good about meeting other people in their faction so more likely to group. Basically Sense of Danger all the time but more like sense of distrust all the time in the case of Ashes of Creation.
Another thing to consider is fighting for resources. Now there is fighting for resources purple vs purple which is a theme from faction based Open world pvp servers, but that is in PvP zones as in Purple vs Purple but in the open world Green vs Green sounds like we will be also be competing for resources. Not sure. But lets say
you are about to mine a node and you see some one else you might be concerned if they also have mining ability and have to compete for resources. Made post about having nodes that you do not have to compete for but looks like Ashes of Creation decided otherswise.
So the point is because of the design choices that the Devs made they basically make every one you meet in the world a possible competator or possible pvp. People are going to be aprehensive about meeting new people on their server not exactly group friendly.
Steven said that he had to find reasons to make people fight each other cause there are no factions. Truth is People do not nead reasons to fight each other they are ready and waiting to do that already, all they need is good PvP Maps. Plus people either like PvP or they do not. Do not need incentives per say.
So right from the get go game is set up for the lonewolf experience. Not sure what the benifit is in making a competative environment in the Open World. In faction based open world pvp games people group together for safety reasons. But with the corruption system in place well it is going to counter act (bounty hunters do all of that) depending on how effective it is. All the corruption system is a flagging that intentionally allows certain amount of ganks for sense of danger (distrust in in this case) and for bounty system to work. Not enough ganks no bounty hunter system no sense of danger. Too many ganks and well it is a murder box. So technically Corruption system has to be some what ineffective in order for bounty hunter system to workd and sense of danger. At the cost of pvers that is. PvPers do not care to much about getting ganked just part of life. But keep getting told it is going to work. Keep telling them does not work for PvEers.
Even though it is already set up for lonewolf experience The devs could put incentives in the game that out weight every thing I just posted. But to sum it all up if there is no reason to group then people will probably will not group.
Poor rewards don't stop me from raiding and grouping for bosses, but they sure are disheartening and make the experience less enjoyable than it could be. Players should be rewarded on the basis of a single kill, not the expectation that they will farm content over time.
2)
I don't like questing in groups because it's a hassle communicating when everyone's got 10 kill quests to track. If questing moved more toward epic quest chains, then I'd be more inclined to go on an actual adventure with others.
The things that irk me about group content Intrepid have mostly addressed. The toxic behavior that comes from Inspect Character mechanics, the randomness of server wide, no accountability LFG/LFR, rigid builds being the FOTM meta, the use of third party dps tracker addons or gearscore as a ranking factor to allow leetist, chestthumper group kicking, and others. As long as they keep to what has been stated before and don't capitulate to a niche minority screaming for changes to the master plan that will benefit one playstyle being able to cheese group dynamics everything should be fine.
Only in a RP scenario. :d
But basically, the way I see things is that (group) activities got values, and it takes times (obviously). There are always alternatives and I always weigh the pros and cons of what could bring me the more value out of it. It sounds very selfish, but it would **** not acknowledging it, and so if something could make me lose time I will not do it. My time is limited and I want to make the best use of it.
So if there's newbies that requires "care", I tend to flee such situations whatever the group goal is originally. Sometimes you'll stumble upon a willful player that wants to progress and is honest about his condition, so it can be legit to invest time in him since he's ready to git gud. But I am not playing the game for others that wait for things to happen.
In the same ways as pointed above, if I suck, i'll simply dodge group activities until I get confident enough to succeed by training hard or researches and have something valuable to bring to the group. No one's here to carry me, and I hate making people lose time.
This is EVERYWHERE in ESO.
Before they revamped Craglorn into a half solo, when it was all designed for groups of 4, I soloed everything that did not mechanically require more than 1 person (like the damn last door that needs 4 people to open). I even beat the Gray Passage, which requires you to clear every single delve in Craglorn within 2 hours. By myself.
I also hate grouping with low skill and low intelligence players. Low skill cannot complete content, forcing a carry, while low intelligence lacks 1) problem solving skills 2) consideration of others and 3) ability to self improve. A smart but low skill player can be a joy to group with as you actively see their improvement and you get to challenge yourself by semi-carrying. A high skill but stupid player at least follows the meta and won't drag you down, but they're prone to rushing. A low skill and stupid player will drag you down, refuse to improve, and maybe even blame others for their ineptitude. Meanwhile a high skill and smart player carries you.
That's what stops me from grouping on the people side of things.
On the design side:
X amount of people required to progress stuff, like that door in Craglorn requiring 4 people -- or the teleport pads in Aetherian Archive requiring 12. If you're capable of clearing the content solo, but suddenly stopped dead in your tracks because the mechanic requires so many people... I'll just say I hate it.
Instead of 4 people being needed to open a door, each lever resets after a short time so it's preferable to have 4 to pull them simultaneously -- but 1 very fast person can pull the 4th before the 1st resets. Instead of a mechanic that kills you if someone else doesn't free you, it deals massive damage that would normally kill you. Then, someone can bulk up enough to survive the mechanic and not require the additional person. Or it can be evaded/blocked/parried entirely, strict timing or no.
Basically minimum player count requirements grind my gears to a halt. Use optimal player count instead, so fewer can complete but require that much more power or skill.
What sorts of things stop you from joining a group or participating in group-oriented activities?
People want CHARACTER ATTACHMENT. They want their leveling experience, achievements, gear, social standing and player vs. player time investment to MEAN SOMETHING. They do not want some tiresome rehashed version of the content that is repeatable over and over again with little-to-no motivational reason do so.
What I believe is there should be a finite amount of content that will progress your character as a solo-oriented player. Once this point has been achieved then group-oriented play should be the real progression. This includes dungeons, world content, and raids. Regions of the world need to be more difficult than others to play in as a solo player, not everything should SCALE to you and create this same-samey feeling of the whole game feeling like a joke once you are geared.
to sum up- create character attachment, create difficult content, do not create scaling that trivializes the world
I like automatic group search because you can go to the dungeon anytime, even at night.
An armor design/set should give a general idea of whether you are 10lv or 40lv
That would f-up any raid leader.... At least inspect should be a thing... Do you know how many assh*les roll on items that are worse for them just to destroy them and sell the mats? Raid leaders need inspect, make it optional for all i care.
1. Not having a group of people I want to do the content with (I really hate PUGs)
2. Content that I don't think is worth doing or enjoyable to me.
I have more things to say about stuff that encourages me to do group content. Maybe you can reverse engineer.
I like group content most of the time. I enjoy playing with my friends and guild mates. Even more if there is reward for a certain common goal. Say Guild Fortresses or Cities currendy. Something i can work towards with my friends and see our progression. (Age of Conan, building just one piece of the guild fortresses outer wall and everyone was there and celebrating)
Imagine you do the task solo. You get a reward of 50 guild sandals. But if you do it with another guild mate (this is important, guild mate, city neighbor or what you want to call it. NOT a random person) you BOTH get 100 guild sandals. In a group of five you get 500 sandals each. A system close to this could push and encourage group play with palyers that you know. But it is only (bonus group) content if you are in a guild. You can run around solo, but it should exclude you from some activities.
Of course there need to be mechanics to stop mammoth guilds with loads and loads of players. Maybe a cap, for the week.
Random group finder of other games destroy guilds imo. They are helpful yes, because some people do not have the time when other guild members have the time. But a group finder hurts a guild so much, so far that most people are in a guild but run with randoms most of the time (better geared and skilled randoms, faster grouping). Here a task only for guilds would counter guilds becoming useless. The rewarding is a problem, since some people dont want to be pushed into a guild. Maybe there are some levels of guild size. 2-5 players form a small guild with just a small tower or bunker they have as guild place. whereas 20-50 players form a big guild with a garrison. 50-100 or more have the cities. But there should be a activity only for guilds and their members
These are just some off the top of my head.
1. solo play (exploration, achievement hunting, gathering, crafting etc.)
2. duo and/or small group (3-4 ppl) options (story mode dungeons for lore addicts etc.)
3. "normal" group options (5-8 ppl) for challenges, farming etc.
4. raids, world bosses etc. for large group content (12-24 ppl or even more, but here it might be not so easy to get enough players together sometimes)
I love to play in groups, I prefer friends, but I have nothing against pugs (maybe I was lucky till now...
But even when I play solo, I love that other players are around me, doing their stuff, makes the game world a living place. Soloing doesn't mean you are ignoring the others.
I would expect better rewards from larger group content, but it wouldn't really stop me if it's not that better. What I really hate is when I want to check the story in a dungeon, but there is no option for that on a smaller scale and normal sized groups are usually just running through it very fast, so it's totally boring and giving only a fracture of lore and story...
I read a comment somewhere and I agree: please don't waste your time to develop an ingame voice chat option, there are perfect ways to do it with Discord, TS, whatever, and it would just give trolls a great tool.
1. Mainly when content is too easy. Normally having to deal with grouping is a hassle, you have to spend time finding the people, then you have to get them all in the same place, you got to get them all buffed up and make sure everyone knows their jobs. So if there is no need for me to go through these I’d rather not do it. SO make content where I actually NEED people.
2. The last point brings to light another issue, the rewards need to be worth it if I have to go through all this hassle to kill this group of elementals the reward needs to be worth it or I will just skip the hard unrewarding content. (Make it worth my time)
3. Time. Group content takes considerably more time than solo content, as I mentioned on the first point just forming a group takes a lot of time and then you can just get started with the harder content, So as I more often than not only have a few minutes to play I will choose solo content. (solution make group content more time efficient than solo content and not the other way around)
4. Seeing my exp gain reduced just because i’m in a group. The thing is you SEE the xp gain after each kill, but you don’t see the xp gain per minute, so yeah, while in a group you are killing faster so overall you might be gaining more xp overtime even if you get less xp per kill but that’s not what you get to see so show it to me. Also there is a limited amount of available kills in a zone so if you are killing them faster than they can respawn you feel as if getting less xp per each mob is actually worse than if you got full xp per kill.
5. When we kill a dungeon or quest boss in a group and I get no loot because there was just not enough for everybody. So, we spent time which is limited for everyone in a quest or dungeon to kill this boss in order to get these items for a quest, crafting recipe or for a gear upgrade but we end up having to stop to wait for a respawn timer or a dungeon reset timer so we all get the reward from the same mob or boss we just killed because not everyone got a piece. (Solution, if someone took the time to form a group and do the harder group content make sure there is a reward at the end for everyone not just some of us.)
Most of the impediments to group content for me occur in the second type. A lot of those have already been discussed in this thread, so I won't repeat them. One item I didn't see mentioned though is the challenge of forming an ad hoc group when you are already grouped.
My wife and I play these games together, and we are rarely ever out in the world without being in a group of two. If we stumble across a quest or other objective that someone else is obviously working on, we'll talk to them and try to get them to group. If they're solo (and friendly) that's usually no problem - we invite them to our group, we all do our thing, then he or she leaves our group at the end.
But, if we encounter another group, it suddenly becomes a stickier problem. Who drops group to get invited? How do we quickly make sure everyone who dropped got added to the other group? Is it worth the hassle when we're each already grouped?
Frequently in that situation neither group wants to "drop group" and we end up with less cooperation than we could have. What I would LOVE to see is the ability to "nest groups". Group 1 and Group 2 meet, agree to work together, Group 1 invites Group 2, which creates super Group 3. Group 3 works together until done, and then Group 2 drops out of Group 3, becoming Group 2 again. Hopefully this gets the point across - my goal in this suggestion is to make it as easy for two groups to join forces as it is for two individuals.
I realize there's some things to work out - you probably require the leader of each group do that joining, and you probably need code to ensure the combined group doesn't violate any constraints (such as group size).
But I think this would go a long way to increasing cooperative play "out in the wild".
What kind of group activities do you have for me??
I would say 'grouping' is largely influenced by my mood, content, and the activities of my guild for the day.
My mood is probably the biggest governing factor when deciding to group or solo. Sometimes I don't want to interact with humanoids. Sometimes it is better to stay in one place and click on ore deposits for an hour while contemplating the meaning of life... or thinking about cheese.
I think the 2nd & 3rd biggest factors for me are content related.
2 - Min/Maxing time: Is there content too difficult to solo / Is content just as lucrative in a group as it is to solo?
3 - Guild content: PvP, raids, dungeons, or even stupid activities that mean nothing in game but damn it we need to find out who can climb the mountain the fastest.
Another big thing is the social aspect. It's not so much about wanting to be in a group, or wanting to play the game in a group. It's about wanting to spend time with certain people... Looking forward to spending time with some dumb motherfu
If I have to gather different materials to craft my stuff then other people it will be difficult to find people who support each other if the mobs are not hard to kill alone.
This reason is similar to the questing. If I have other quests to achieve then the other people, everyone will do their own ones.
An other reason can be the environment itself. If there is a group without an aim where they have to go, its always difficult to agree on the way.
Maybe you can create some areas which contain difficult monsters. For example a snowstorm appears and the area is limited because the snowstorm hits you hard if you leave the path and the monsters drop rare material for crafting.
In the desert appears a cave, in the forest an ancient ruine ect.
Then it could be nice if you make it necessary and possible to meet new people and communicate with them a bit. In GW2 you have a lot of events but after it is done, the people spread out without making groups. In WoW you have a lot of dungeons but after its done, everyone goes their own way again.
Maybe try to bind the people for a while together with some follow up quest. But now to long, maybe you dont like them ;D
Dont pug hard content.
When random people join an instance it's the most boring mmorpg activity.
Clear trash waves and stage after stage in silence except for mechanic communication.
In this an mmorpg or a PS2 coop stage game?
Gear score inspect hinders open world hunting zone grouping.
If a players is in that area, deep in the jungle away from the Node, wearing an armor that signifies that their lv is good enough for the area, they should be allowed in a random group.
Gear score shows that "oh their earring could be 2 points better. Fvck this noob. Kick"
This is unecessary elitism.
2)Raids or instances recquire not only high gear, but also ability, so play with the people you know that are able. Where do you find such people that you know well? In a real guild of 50-100 people.
The social interaction has to make a comeback on mmorpgs.
Too many tools have made the game genre a META to completion and not an everlasting adventure, whose story is shaped by the real interactions of players and guild rivalry.
I was a raid leader for my guild for 4 years, dont talk to me about how you can "only trust guild members or friends." Most midrange guilds dont get together consistent 40 man raids and rely on outside help. Taking away inspect is one of the worst ideas concerning "increasing the social aspect of games" in my opinion.
Did you forget that there will be cosmetic skins? The appearance of your gear does not have to match its quality.
Are there games without inspect gear options? Yes. Are they any of the big games with any major following? No, not really. Should Ashes imitate the big games? No, but it is always good to see what really works.
What works, is that people like to compare themselves with others. "What does he have that i lack?" "What is that breastplate called? Maybe I should ask him where he got it."
There is a good reason why meta works. Yes, skill is a big influence on your damage, i never said anything otherwise. But skill cant combat subpar gear, as long as you tell others that you need upgrades then there is no reason for you not to join a raid. And just for your information, i was in many a guild ranging from huge guild with 900 members to my own guild with only 30. Do you know how many people actually wanted to raid in the 900 member guild? 10. 10 people wanted to raid.
I didnt "Pug" hard content, i raided heroic and mythic raids for 4 years with a 16man core from my guild and around 4 randoms/fluid members. We had fun, bantered with one another and made memories that to this day warm my black shriveled heart.
I dont say that you have to force inspect on people. Make it so that people can decline inspections as an ingame option. Raid leaders can demand people to let them inspect them if they want to enter the raid, if they dont want to then they can stay away.
You are depicting me like an assh*le who demanded more then 100% of his raiders. As long as people told me that they didnt have good geaar, then i had no big problems. I could then see if we would have to switch them out later on and most understood that fact. We still had a good time with those people.
If i talk about gs difference, then i mean something like having a few people really needing that upgrade and one sob rolling on it even though he already has the best gear. It can happen sometimes, that they dont even realize it during the moment.
Agreed.
Not having inspect seems utterly pointless to me.
We know there will be options to alter our characters appearance, so the argument that we should be able to gleen any informarion at all from looking at another character holds zero weight.
Also, if crafted gear is able to have the name of the player that made the item somewhere, rhis is completely pointless unless inspect exists.
As to gear score - it's never worked well in any game. It give some players a reason to not bother thinking about what stats they want in item upgrades, as why put that effort in when you can just use what ever has the highest gear score?