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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.
Castle Siege
Asag
Member
I was wondering after reading topic on Big guild vs Small guild how will " Ashes of Creation" deal with world events that include higher number of people in same zone.
As a proud player of LINEAGE 2 witch is 17 years old game! I always enjoyed large scale battles witch worked perfectly fine without single SERVER LAG even on private servers.
Let me show you few exaples.... starting with Castle Siege in 17 years old MMORPG
https://youtu.be/eJVYxXrPEOQ
Next I would like to show you, how looks MASS PVP on daily basis in 17 years old MMORPG
https://youtu.be/xhGWqzzdfdQ
And last one .... Simple WAR between two Guilds .... Yes these conflicts happens in this game daily
https://youtu.be/3gGi9xFppcg
I hope I can see similiar action in Ashes of Creation, in same scale or even bigger. Becouse if this was possible to create this in Unreal Engine 2,5 I think you guys with today technologies can achieve this.
As a proud player of LINEAGE 2 witch is 17 years old game! I always enjoyed large scale battles witch worked perfectly fine without single SERVER LAG even on private servers.
Let me show you few exaples.... starting with Castle Siege in 17 years old MMORPG
https://youtu.be/eJVYxXrPEOQNext I would like to show you, how looks MASS PVP on daily basis in 17 years old MMORPG
https://youtu.be/xhGWqzzdfdQAnd last one .... Simple WAR between two Guilds .... Yes these conflicts happens in this game daily
https://youtu.be/3gGi9xFppcgI hope I can see similiar action in Ashes of Creation, in same scale or even bigger. Becouse if this was possible to create this in Unreal Engine 2,5 I think you guys with today technologies can achieve this.
2
Comments
Without it they'd die with 3 hits in siege/war.
And yet, here we have people worrying about the "depth of fishing mechanics in AoC" saying that open world PvP means that people will grief randoms and that Corruption (losing gear upon death while corrupted) is not enough to deter griefers.
And today because we are spoiled each individual demands developers to create a system personally for them:
I like to make gold but I dont like to gather. I want to make gold from my household.
I like to make gold but I dont like farms. I want my household to create unique outfits.
I like to make gold but I like furniture. I want my household to make furniture.
I like to make gold but I but I like food. I want the game to have 20 cooking skills to make cooking feel engaging.
I dont care for cooking. I like fishing.
Fvck finish. I like gems. I want the game to have jewelry crafting.
I dont like non of that. I like hunting. But I want hunting to have a different skill line and gear than PvE and mob killing.
I like crafting. I want to make gold from crafting.
I like crafting too but I want to feel unique. I dont want to be a blacksmith loser. I want to be an arrow maker.
I want to make weapons.
I just want to make gold selling Axes.
I want to be a leatherworker.
I want to make formal dresses, but not in my household.
I want to craft ship cannons, but I dont want to make ship sails.
IF THIS GAME DOESNT HAVE SAIL MAKING I WONT PLAY
I want to make gold from potions.
I want to make gold from runes. And runecrafting better be as engaging as cooking
Guess what? All these products will be cheap, and profit will be based on quantity and lowest price. Guess what? The first people to make large amounts of gold will just start buying out all the potions or all the arrows or all the runes, flip the price and just profit without leveling up those skill lines.
And then there is the other divisions:
I like when theres a good story. I dont care about challenge I just want A LOT OF STORY AND VOICE ACTING and ez content.
I hate PvE, I want to lv up just by playing battlegrounds
I hate PvP. Delete it.
I get annoyed super easily so I hate open world. I want AoC to copy every mmo out there and:
have ez pve themepark story
instanced Dungeons for WHEN I CHOSE TO DO THEM
instanced Battlegrounds for WHEN I CHOSE TO DO THEM
fishing with engaging mechanics for WHEN I CHOSE TO RELAX
I like mega guilds. I want to control as much of the map as possible, even though I only know 10 people out of the 1000 that are under my guild name/icon.
You AoC better make it ez for me to do that.
I am a streamer and I like assassins. Why arent they more OP to make my video production easier?
I am a streamer and I like mages. Buff mage.
I like nature mages.
I like telekinisis mages
I like ice mages
I like shadow mages
Night mages
Ghost mages
Thunder mages
Storm mages
Water mages
Ice mages
Summoner
Beast master
Tank with pet
Tank with staff
Tank with wand
Tank with no weapon
No weapon dps
No weapon kicks only
No weapon punches only
No weapon ufc
No weapon muai thai
People have lost sight of why the vast majority like:
Video games
Medieval era video games
Medieval era mmorpg video games
When people watch a show/film like vikings or got or lotr or the three musketeers or many other GREAT stories they dont want to see a whole episode of rune making or ship crafting.
Yes, it's nice to see how back then the economy was based of more simple products.
Ye, it's nice to see how kingdoms or empires relied on naval battles, politics/behind the scenes, economy, but the scenes people enjoy were the adventuring, which increases the charactets fighting or survival skills, people enjoy the combat scenes, the different weapons and their masters, the dragons and other monsters.
Yes, it's cool that sometimes the characters seek riches, fortune and influence, but nobody cares for a 20min scene on a guy fishing or making leather armor.
You can do ALL OF THAT SOLO.
Ye naval battle would be cool. And lootable caravans too.
Ye I like the node development and the different flavours to it
But if the devs spent their time trying to bring to life a million things for people to do, and a million different combat classes and weapons plus action and tab systems, the product will come out shallow.
People want fishing and jewerly crafting and cooking and 64 classes. They dont realize that the vast majority of the players will not touch any of that UNECESSARY content, and this was a waste of time and resources to satisfy your individualism.
Anyway back to the actual discussion being had, I’d love to see true optimizations that allow for smooth gameplay in 100+vs100+ battles. Coming from ESO where you step foot into PvP and are immediate subject to disconnects and slideshow performance (or the semi-recent slow-motion mode that so many endured), I’d be happy just having stability in such large fights.
Your "sense of uniqueness" is why Cyrodiil is a mess.
You seem to have it against both fishing and jewelrey crafting specifically. This makes no sense.
Fishing in MMO's is one of the more popular casual pastimes. All MMO's should include fishing to some degree. Adding on a high end fishing system over top of the casual aspects is a great way to easily add a high end system to the game in order to give players options - and since a good amount of the requirements to implement it are already in place due to the casual fishing aspect, it only makes sense to add it in.
On top of that, the addition of top end fishing also provides players with a reason to PvP. There absolutely will be people that attack fishing boats in order to steal their catch, and so the process of adding fishing to the game not only provides content for casual players and people wanting a more in depth syste, but is also provides content for players wanting to find some PvP - all up an incredibly worthwhile system to have in a game like Ashes.
Jewelery crafting is likewise an odd thing to have a grudge against. If crafting as a whole exists, it should include all equipable items. If players can craft a sword, and if jewelery exists in the game, the ability to craft jewelery should be in the game as well.
From an implementation perspective, it is no different to implementing any other crafting class. It requires the creation of raw materials, tje creation of nodes to acquire those raw materials, the creation of recipes to turn those raw materials in to processed materials, and the creation of recipes to turn those processed materials in to finished items.
As someone that seems keen on a game having a lot of guild play, it makes no sense for you to be against a deeper crafting system or fishing.
A deeper crafting system means more interconnected crafting. Since a lot of that interconnecting will happen on a guild level, that means good things for guilds.
With top end fishing, you will want to go out in force. Not only will you want multiple people together fishing, but you will probably also want people there to protect you from potential PvP attacks.
Again, this means good things for guilds.
I mean, you want good things for guilds, you want guilds to matter, but then you complain about things that help make guilds matter.
Perhaps it is just that you want guilds to matter in terms of PvP and nothing else?
Now, I want to juxtapose these two comments You spend one post ranting about how you don't like it when people say they don't want to participate in a given system, but then you go on to say you wish Intrepid wouldn't bother implementing the systems that you specifically don't want to participate in.
You realize that in this situation, you are literally doing exactly what it is you just complained about, right?
Sure, the game could exist without any one specific system - including fishing, or cooking, or farming, or making furnature, or PvP. You can't complain that people want one that suits them, and then go on to complain that you don't want some of them.
I'll be honest though, I'm assuming that you were a little drunk when you posted the above 6 posts.
I really doubt an MMO with no class uniqueness and no in-depth crafting can blame its terrible server performance on class uniqueness and in-depth crafting
ESO came a little close with some of the battles when large masses.
BDO just didn`t seem to have the same gravity nor feel.
Key to coordinating the mass people to one place at one time for these battles was the fast travel and the summoner class; so will see how players work around this with a lack of summing and fast travel in game.
Player designed castles
- Using custom sections to create their own castle layout
- For the purpose of designing a castle harder to impregnate
- For the purpose of desiging a castle to the clan/node strenghts or cover weaknesses
- ie if an overwhelming number of players were ranged, then more parapets and towers
- ie if close range, then tighter alleyways etc
- But to overall create variety and varying challenges for each and every seige
Leader Strategy BoardsOne of the points in APOC was to test there large scale battle tech. I can't find a citation for this, but I think in one of the interviews Steven said some of the DEVs he hired worked on another game with large scale PvP tech.
The DEVs stating 250x250 as a minimum goal, with hopes to get to 500x500 overtime is a positive sign. When Lineage 2 was developed, these numbers were a pipe dream.
EVE online has been constant in their efforts to increase the number of players that can be in a single battle. They recently did a stress test with 6557 players battling in a single system. This is coming out of a nearly 30 year game. I bring this up to say that if it is a priority for the DEVs, improvements should always be possible.
Another thing to think when it comes to daily guild vs guild activities. A guild that builds for player cap would have 300 members. I think the hope here is that players wont build their guilds to player cap to keep the numbers of people in a single guild around 200. Incentivizing guilds to progress to other guild perks would have a positive effect on server load when it comes to guild verses guild combat.
"As you're leveling up the guild and you're getting these points to either allocate towards expanding the guilds member count or allocate towards adding certain passive abilities that your guild members can gain by being guild members. You're also going to see as you're leveling up the guild through different type of quest-based, participation-based, node-based, organization-based systems and ways that those quests hook into the world. You're also going to see perhaps some augment abilities at the upper tiers of the guild levels become unlocked for certain members that have a classification of officer or knight, will have access to those different types of augment abilities that might get unlocked should you go down the non expansive member lane; and the idea there is to offer these benefits to smaller groups.[2] – Steven Sharif"
Not saying that will solve the issue 100%, but it will help for sure.
Lastly, the limitations of lineage 2s map made it so that there were fewer areas in the world that end game guilds would fight over. This made areas of the map in the day to day more likely to be lag fests. The Node based system, adaptive hunting grounds, caravan system, and ships. Should have the combined effect of incentivizing players to spread out and not zerg as much day to day.
I don't think there will be zero lag, but I am hoping with the hybrid combat system. AoC will have more engaging combat than any other game with large scale PvP. Maybe not as engaging as Darkfall1, but no one is perfect.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
That is the one. I just could not find a citation.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Well, I'd like to interject here and say that actually? Professions, as designed in AoC, seem extremely challenging, considering as others have pointed out, the danger of being attacked, the necessity of a high level to get the best gatherables/processed goods, the difficulty involved with having an artisan mastery, etc.
However, what I'm getting out of your rant here is you:
a) dislike players who go solo.
b) dislike people who spend time on non-combat content.
Consider, if you will, this additional quote from yourself.
The very fact that you just went on a needlessly long (why six posts?) rant about all those people who want "individualism" and are bugging the devs to put it in or whatever inherently contradicts the point you attempt to make here.
Because of the general vagueness and self-contradictions in your posts, it's hard to tell what points you're actually trying to make here. Thus far, what I can find is that you:
(as stated above)
a) dislike players who go solo.
b) dislike people who spend time on non-combat content.
c) believe that more time spent on non-combat content by the devs will make everything else worse.
d) dislike the AoC class system because it's "unnecessary content".
e) believe that no one will use the non-combat content.
To address those points in order:
Solo:
Alright, despite your rant, you've failed to back this up with any reasons why people going solo is bad. Without any reasoning for that, there's no available point for me to address here. Alternatively, though, I'll provide you a short list of good reasons why someone might choose to go solo.
Maybe I don't want to have guild obligations. Maybe I'm a casual player and I don't invest the time that most guilds want to see. Maybe I'm interested in seeing what I can do specifically on my own without friends. Maybe I play with a group for dungeons and stuff but they tend to be busy, so most of the time I'm solo. Etc. because there are so many reasons for going solo.
Non-Combat Content
Alright, I'm going to break this down into three sections of: time (b), devs (c), and usage (e) because three of your main points revolve around non-combat content.
Time:
Preface this with a note: I'm going to address this one as if in a non-AoC game because of how intertwined the artisans in AoC are with combat, legendary loot, and other endgame content.
Okay, again, why should I dislike players who spend time on non-combat content? If I am a non-combat player, I obviously like myself. If, however, I am a combat player, I should, in fact, enjoy all of the non-combat players who are willing to offer me specialized goods that I would otherwise have to farm monsters for.
I, personally, would much rather take my gold from selling thirty wolf pelts to a PC crafter and buy a nice sword off them than invest two hours farming goblins in a dungeon before an equivalent sword finally dropped.
Either way, both sides benefit.
Devs:
Alright, this one is the only actual piece of content in your entire post. So you're worried that the devs will spend too much time on the artisan system and not enough on the combat system, which is at least a decent reason.
However, the artisan system seems easy enough* to implement in many places. For processors and crafters, it's as simple as taking materials out of the inventory, checking for the right recipe and/or level, returning a finished item. I will easily admit that gatherers are probably a bit more complicated due to the random resource spawns needed, but their basic implementation doesn't seem more complex than what a lot of MMOs already have, and I don't exactly think it's detrimental to their combat systems.
*I've only done some very basic coding, nothing anywhere near the level of a video game, so if anyone with more experience wants to correct me, feel free. I'm going off some basic logic here.
Usage:
In one breath you denounce all the people clamoring for a cool artisan system and spending their time on non-combat stuff, in the next breath you claim that no one will use the system...
Alright, ignoring that contradiction, let's just focus on the usage point.
While it's entirely possible for that to be true in other games, in AoC, it looks like top-tier items are going to be very difficult to obtain, but the artisan branch is one of the main ways of getting them. Sure, the boss might drop you a single piece of high-end gear, but with the materials it also drops, why not craft three more?
Furthermore, artisans are required in order to do certain things. For example, you need a master in Animal Husbandry to hatch the Royal Mount egg you just got, etc. which means that having high-level artisans is critical for doing certain things in the game.
Class:
Okay, for one, no clue why you're complaining about the class system. Off the top of my head, World of Warcraft has some ten to fifteen classes, each with three specializations.
...
Alright, a bit of Internet searching later, it's thirty-three specializations total from twelve base classes.
IMO that's about equally complicated as AoC's, considering that each of AoC's specialization comes from another base class, like with that handy little table, making it much easier to assess general class abilities versus the tree you'd have to create for a system like WoW's.
For another, why are you complaining about this? You say that:
Okay, first off, the only way that the majority of players could avoid "touching any of that unnecessary content" is if they avoided hitting level 25. So either you're advocating for everyone to stay below level 25 in order to justify your poorly-thought-out rant, or you didn't think this through logically.
Neither of those sound great to me.
Why is a more complex class system a bad thing? It offers more variety between players, making all kinds of PvX content more interesting because a group packing a Tank, Fighter, and Mage with vastly different Secondary Archetypes than another group with the exact same Primary Archetypes will deal with a dungeon in a different way.
There's more options for playstyle, more strategy involved, and even better PvP since you only seem to care about that.
We did have a couple of spot tests that tried to get 200+ toons in the same location.
I think they said similar things in other interviews too when they were clarifying what the purpose of APOC was. Large scale may be relative in this context.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Or why 20 professions of lame cheap produce, is also bad for an interesting economy.
Phase 1 - Battle Royale Mode
Phase 2 - Castle Siege Mode
Phase 3 - Horde Mode
Instead of being called Alpha One, APOC became a separate game.
Most of the fanbase was highly pissed off. They said they would have preferred an arena with actual classes and class abilities rather than a BR. They felt betrayed that studio resources were diverted to create a BR that no one asked for.
I think we did get a few weeks of BR testing in September 2018.
Then several other spot tests every few months. Lots of delays though.
I think around September 2019 the BR became live 24/7 until early 2020.
APOC was shut down before Phase 2 and Phase 3 were added.
I had always wished there was the possibility to have those in power of a node have some creative input into the castles, using pre-set pieces such that each castle was designed with some variation.
The reason for the variation is to hopefully divert from past experience of castle sieges whereby players must attack at the pre-set place(s) taking away a degree of challenge and/or uncertainty in the siege.
Hopefully, there are multiple destructible parts at a minimum.
But will always want that ability for the players to insert some creativity... design it well, cost more perhaps, and easier to defend.. design it poorly or not spend much on it and it is easily taken over.
@George Black if you could point to an exact point in my post at which I mentioned why one player mastering twenty [somethings, since you failed to specify, but presumably artisan professions] is a good thing, I'd love to see it! I even read over my whole comment, as a result of you oh so kindly refusing to, again, pick out an actual argument I made that you disliked. Still, though, I failed to notice any time at which I made an even similar comment about "one player mastering twenty" of anything.
For your second point, I'll directly argue against that. Operating under your "twenty professions is too much" mentality, let's break it down into the three branches. With about seven professions in each, then, off the top of my head, here are seven crafting professions that are each distinct and wouldn't reasonably have overlap.
Then, what would you propose? That all of the alchemists are also making jewelry as part of their profession? I wouldn't call a single one of these "lame cheap produce", but based on your posts, you'd probably argue that one of these is, so here are some important things made with each.
Furthermore, if you're about to make an argument about it making for a more uninteresting economy, something like this actually forces more player interaction to gain general materials and makes it more interesting by creating an economy much closer to that of real life.
But, then again, any response to this post will probably again make strawman arguments filled with logical fallacies, so feel free not to respond. And yes, I realize that this is a rather provocative ending line. But still, feel free.
I will not respond.
People see what they see and like what they like.
I can understand the idea, but the castles were in Verra before we came back. We've just liberated them from the monsters who controlled them. So, they're already constructed. Might be a cool way to introduce a new resource-sink, though.