Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
On the PvP side of things, remember that there's it a traveling time. The map is huge and you can't just walk and teleport.
So keep that in mind about this pvp
He only thinks that because he plans to have 5x300 guilds guaranteeing him a flying political mount
This is what Ashes will enable. Alliances are important. Trade is important. PvE is important. Crafting is important. PvP will take care of itself.
Mega Guilds always do underestimate the opponents. 1,500 Players verse 8,500 players (really 48,500 registered accounts per server). So long as the Mega Guild doesn't grow even bigger then it will be contained and put in its place.
however, ashes is directly promoting PvP.
murder or people that do NOT want to PvP is where restrction is made.
hardcore PvP players truly have NO reason to go red given that you'll find SO many players that are purple (willing to PvP)
Is that not just stratergy? is that not just war?
take a second and think:
if someone blocks your path. why would you allow him to live any longer?
kill those that try to restrict you.
blocking has been mentioned that collision is momentum based also. i don' t recall where i heard this, i believe it was one of the monthly livestreams.
so if you want to push through the enemy frontline, you need the momentum to displace them. also i hard CCs could probably work like knockdowns etc!
I'm not sure how it will play out, but you either chose bonuses for your guild or more members, because Guilds level up, so it's always a choice.
Mayeb it's like 300 hundreds, and each of your own is worth 10 of them
if they're not contained people will just roll server and leave them to run a dead server with 0 competitive content ^^
also imagine thinking streamer communities won't take positions away from the streamer for content kekw
Anyway legendary mounts could be rare or legendary, fine, but flying mounts should most have access to which was my point earlier, because like base jumps in Trollveggen here in Norway, many enjoy that feeling of flying especially in a rpg. mmo.
i mean you don't need a flying mount to base-jump. just climb a mountain and jump off
It's basic economics. Scarcity increases value, even if it cannot be bought.
If everyone has a flying mount, then mounts aren't special.
If 10 players have it, when you see a player flying with that mount, you're struck. You look up and say "there's my mayor!" or "there's my guild leader".
Also, AoC it's open world pvp. 3 dimensions make it a lot harder to gank and create conflict.
Also traveling. Just hit autorun, fly, avoid any issues and get to the other side of the map.
1) the ones that love arenas and castle sieges and are ok with a fair fight
2) the ones that only want an unfair fight to annoy someone they never should have been fighting in the 1st place.
Tons of open world pvpers but not all fall into group 2. If given the chance most of them would much rather camp a nonpvper than fight someone who has a chance to win
My point is I don`t see an issue that most have access to an uncommon or common flying mount. I know that Dragon are legendary or rare, but we won`t see a dragon army by air anytime soon since legendary mounts were unique and very difficult to acquire.
the further you travel to sell them the more money you make.
teleport and fast travel reduce the value of many of the games' systems. nope this is justification as to why flying mounts are not required to exist on a mass scale.
there are other forms of travel that are designed to work hand in hand with other core systems.
The Guild Leader replied: 'You will never be the Best Raider or get the Best Stuff by wanting it, you must become it.'
Thus, throughout all my MMOs since, I knuckle down and do the best I can. Whatever comes, comes.
NO. Misinformation.
If you have the most quests done in a religion node, you get higher chances of being elected mayor.
If you have tons of gold, you can bid to become mayor. > economic node
Military node is an Last Man Standing fight, you win, you get to be mayor.
So, the only node that it's about politics/fame/reputation is Scientific, which is democratic.
The other ones you can buy your way in, fight your way in or grind your way in.
Also, 1 month cycle for mayors.
You definitely fight for Military Mayor. Most of my knowledge is around Bounty Hunter and Military Nodes.
I was joshin' with the whole plan above but it could be possible. I do not know the prerequisites for the other nodes. I've only considered Military Node since I learnt Bounty Hunter requires Military Node, but I've branched out a little since Steven said they may allow Bounty Hunters from emissaries sent from a Military Metropolis. Yet I feel every man willing to help level a Military Node would be inside the Metropolis anyway.
Also just because i did a lot in WoW does not mean i have never played other games and to the BDO stuff its safe to say bc of a lack of good PvE progression system the game has been dying out in the west for years, bc pvp players tend to change games very fast and for a lot of PvE focused players there is nothing to do besides grind mobs that are a joke to kill. Sadly with a lot of great MMOs over the years the end game PvE has been lacking and the PvE player base just goes back to WoW and to say WoW does not have good game design is naive at best, and its also safe to say that Final Fantasy is doing great with a huge focus on good raid encounters and boss design.
If all MMO players wanted was PVP, we would all be playing BDO or Blade and Soul or any other pvp focused MMO the thing is a fully PVP focused MMO has died time and time again or lost most of its players in a month after release. Dont get me wrong though i do think a MMO dies when its only PvE focused like wildstar did but its really important when labeling a game with PvX aka saying its both you need to make sure its challenging on both ends or else its just another PVP focused MMO and i personally have seen like 10 of those fail, and in the case of BDO its almost all PVP at end game, and because of that i know a lot of ppl that get BIS gear in all slots and just quit the game because what is the point of playing it after you finish progression of your character when you dont care about PVP, and BDO is a great game but its completely lacking what a lot of players enjoy doing in MMOs.
Its important to consider why WoW has been big for so long and not just focus on its short comings in the recent years and also pay attention to games like final fantasy that is the most successful MMO in recent years, and at the end of the day they are the complete package. why cant ashes be a complete package too, is it that we dont trust the Devs to be able to do it?
I find it odd that with all of this experience, the only game you are able to go in to in any depth is WoW.
To your three points from the OP.
Point 1, the way WoW handled things does not make it the only way to handle things.
Yeah, WoW 40 player raids were kind of shit, but that is because WoW content was kind of shit. You say you played both Rift and Age of Conan - each of these games had more in depth raid content than WoW. While they didn't have 40 player raid content, the raid content they did have should be able to tell you that the way WoW did things was almost never the best way to do things.
I could understand your issue if you phrased it "I fear that Intrepid would make the same mistakes with 40 player raid content that Blizzard made", but you didn't. If you did phrase it like that though, I would then point out to you that the core team of senior game designers at Intrepid consist of developers from EQ, EQ2, Planetside, Planetside 2, Vanguard and Star Wars Galaxies - among others. It wasn't until recently that they even hired a developer that had worked at Blizzard. Suffice to say, the way Blizzard do things is not the way Intrepid will do things.
Ashes will also have 20 player raid content.
Point 2, this will be hard to do.
The way content in Ashes will be set up, there will be the potential for essentially 5 clusters of end game content per server - based around each of the 5 metropolis nodes.
This means that in order for a guild to block out gear from other players on the server, they would need to block it out in 5 different corners of teh game world. In some games, even this is still possible - however, one needs to remember that Ashes doesn't have fast travel like other games do.
This means that if a spotter sees an encounter has spawned, and then alerts the guild, the guild will still be potentially several hours away from actually getting to the location. That is several hours that competing guilds - or even entire competing nodes - can attack and slow down that guild, giving others time to take on the encounter.
Essentially, the only real way a guild would be able to completely block top end content from the rest of the server is if the rest of that server suffers from a severe case of apathy - in which case I don't think that many people will care if that guild does maintain it's monopoly.
point 3, this is a point I agree with you on, but not necessarily for the same reasons. I have been suggesting to Intrepid for a long while now that they implement a combat tracker in to the game themselves, rather than opening it up to third parties to develop one (which will happen whether Intrepid allow it or not).
The suggestion I have made is for them to implement it as a guild reward, but one that is only able to be selected at one point in guild progression - and that is as a choice along side tools that would be useful in other parts of the game (and as it is a part of guild progression, it is also limiting guild size if you take it).
I have also suggested that this combat tracker only track combat of members of the guild that have selected it.
What this suggestion does is eliminate most of the percieved negative aspects of combat trackers by keeping them out of the hands of people that don't understand their value. It means people running pick up groups do not need to worry that others may be tracking and assessing their performance. However, it does both of those things while still allowing players and guilds that understand their value to still use them to their fullest potential, which benefits the guild, the community and the developers.
A side effect that this will have is that raid guilds wil have to understand that when recruiting a new player, there will be an amount of training that needs to go in to them. With the exception of raid guilds that only recruit from other raid guilds (which is common in WoW, but rare in other games, and likely won't exist in Ashes by the end of the games first year), there will have to be an understanding that a new recruit can't have their combat parsed until they are in the guild, but also that the recruit would never have had the opportunity to work on inproving themself until they are in the guild.
This means guilds will have to assume a level of training for each new recruit, and will have to recruit based on player personality more than player performance, as performance will be unknow upon recruiting.
While some players coming from other games may see this as a negative, I see it as nothing but a positive, as it should be up to raid guilds to provide some training to their recruits.
Nonetheless, I will still say, you’re skeptical of everyone no matter what they say
Virtue is the only good.
2. Yes it will force sacrifices. I love it and am looking forward to it. PvE only puts me to sleep, I like having to stay alert and ready for anything! Exciting!
3. I just don't see it at all. It's totally uninteresting and boring to me. I couldn't care less about someone doing more DPS than someone else on a PvE encounter. I'm actually drawn to this game because it seems to not be catering to that type of playstyle, and that's great news for me because I think that type of mentality is adds nothing to a game. Instead, I see it as a symptom of there being nothing to do in WoW that people resort to such brain-numbing and repetitive behaviors. I don't see it as content, I see it as denial, lol... That's just my opinion, but I share it to bring attention to how what one person thinks is 'bad' another person thinks is amazing.
2. This is why I backed the game. I want this with the caveat that others can still compete with the guild (which I think they will). This one of the things I like to see in MMOs. I don't like it when the game's progression is just a checklist. I prefer it when I have to work to overcome obstacles and pvp is my favorite way to be challenged. The best part is how these events can contribute to the feeling of a living world and create stories that make up the server's history.
3. There will still be tracking around dungeon runs that keep track of how well groups perform so I'm not sure if this is an issue. They plan on having leader boards around this and based of asmon's interview, sounds like groups will receive harder content as well as greater rewards for performing better.
The gate-keeping gameplay you talk about will no doubt be a factor in AOC as it is in many games, but groups of players can't prevent an entire area such as a boss zone from being absolutely inaccessible to the rest of the population because of the corruption system and the subsequent consequences that come from repeatedly killer other players, in my opinion the worst type of gatekeeping in an MMO is requiring players to have certain addons just to be able to participate in a high-level raiding guild and because of this I'm very supportive of there being no addons. Also, with the world being so dynamic and ever-changing, the points of interest where there may be valuable bosses and monsters to kill will change and there is potential for many nodes to provide these without scarcity across the entire world.
I think preventing parsing addons creates a lot more personal player agency, instead of worrying about how you parse and what gear you're wearing to maximise your DPS, players can actually focus on mechanics and other aspects in the world that they can enjoy. I am a WoW player and I do enjoy the game but raiding at Heroic and Mythic difficulty and requiring addons like Deadly Boss Mods, Details and Exorcus Raid tools to participate and not be at a disadvantage was a major turn off for me, aswell as the fact that it's impossible to entirely balance all classes made me feel like I was making a wrong choice for playing a class I actually enjoyed rather than one that parsed well consistently despite me doing mechanically well on a fight.
Realistically it sounds like the game you're looking for is the generic carrot on a stick MMO like World of Warcraft, it doesn't sound like you want to embrace the systems AOC is advertising. There is a lot more to a High-Fantasy MMORPG than just gear and parsing competition.
With no disrespect, you do sound like a parsing drone and your enjoyment seems to derive from competitiveness rather than from the game having engaging systems. If they made the game more in line with what you're asking then it wouldn't be the unique experience they've advertised and I would personally prefer that not to be the case
I agree with all of this. We need interaction, friction and risks. We need not being able to isolate ourselves from other players and their decisions.