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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.
Comments
Else any MMORPG is PvPvE (or PvX) and even LoL/Dota are (jungle)
If the raids are all quite easy because the PvP before it is challenging... It is not a challengin PvE at all. and it would be PvP game. (not PvPvE or PvX)
nothing against pvP game i also like them, just his is differnt kind of game.
I only have played Archage at launch for a few months and havent touch unchained, so the eco was Land and plantation, and the trade route for gold and token for vehicule. I dont know how far the eco has progress after that point.
But AoC will also have the whole matérial trade so the crafting wont be as smooth as L3 in that regard. (basically presure on the crafter side and the usual presure on the buyer side, i wont talk about the lvl 9 gear system for the crafter side )
So the dynamic will be more complicated, on top of that add the material market for repair.
I totally agree with this point, but at the same we have to check the reality of PvE game.
The starting point for a PvE game:
The PvE need to be engaging (PvE challenge) , but to keep the PvE player active you to need to add new content on a regular basis, and the new contend need to have higher reward than the old content ( the Tier upgrade system)
That's a heavy financial burden. So, can they handle it ?
with cosmetic cash shop and the subscrition it should be doable if the game is a succes at launch and the population stable. But if the game crash at lauch like new world, that may be a big problem and may probably kill the pve part.
PvE games : are not PvPvE / PvX games.
Maybe because i don't want play at "hardcore" level anymore, but i don't have the feeling a "PvX" game needs to have regular new PvE content.
Top End guilds won't be able to focus in PvE content, and more than that, they will have to defend themselves.
For me, the game have to get both side living together in synergy. PvE being a way to get stuff (THE way to get the biggest stuff) stuff usefull to... win castle siege or your node siege... or destroy rivals nodes.
PvE in highend is not only well trained players, with the stuff they loot doing hard strategies, it will also be crafting (at least for food/pots buffs to help on boss) and money (for many usefull reason)
And all those will be better to be farmed with their character being not only boss killers but also artisan... So need catle/nodes controll, but also the Freeholds. All those are deep in PvP part.
I consider that to really include "PvE" as definition you need challenging fight by themselves. But the PvP part will still be a thing for those big guilds.
On WoW/FFXIV i took as example for endgame content, people in top end are focusing their gametime mostly around raids (and get consumable for raids) until they does the kill, then come back to arena, M+, or simply play less. But on Ashes where PvP will be everywhere, they won't be able to do this whole focus at release, and after, they have more than spamming arenas.
Just a thing : you are one of the two top guild of the server, far over all others. A new boss is released... instead on going on the boss you will need 100 wipe to figure out strategy (on wow/FFXIV it is the least to expect for last boss... ) you could instead take benefit of all effort spent by your rival to focus on this new PvE content to try to strike down its node and so strike hard its whole economy. (They still can change their schedule to defend, but doesnt change they are less ready to defend due to energy/farm time spent to prepare PvE race)
The PvP is not a side content to fill the empty months, it will be a mandatory part of the game. and it changes a lot about time people CAN allow to high end bosses.
Ya i totally understand your point, and i mostly agree, but not on the challenging part ( I tend to link challenging and hardcore in difficulty like a mythic raid in WoW. I may be wrong in assuming that though but will answer following that logic )
After a while, when the raid become somehow too easy and become a farm with the natural gear increase, those PvE player arent they just part of an other group : the crafter/gatherer group and the raids beeing just an other way to farm material ?
How many players will remain farming thoses from all the mass that came for the pve challenge content ?
Overcoming a challenge is a joyful thing, but after doing x Time, is that still a challenge ?
So I dont think challenge is an answer for a PvX game, unless you go the PvE route i explained before,
(with the challenge and novelty loop beeing changed with additionnal content )
So what about a fun boss mechanic with multi phase and a good story to create a fun loop that will keep you engage in that content with of course a never ending farming of material. A not too hard nor too easy boss that can allow whatever build to be good enough to clear with a casual player base with decent gear making tracker and dps meter irrevelant. ( ya return to the topic ).
Casual players beeing the bigger part of the player base, you then integrate them in the system:
they return from work, want to play without drama and have fun do a few dungeon, a few pvp trip and go to bed. That way they can still feel they contribute to the node when they sell those mats, and still feel they belong to that social construct of the Node.
Your logic is "the raiders" in the sense we know it the most : group of people (mostly a guild so) that focus on those challenge, and after this, when the farm become a common thing they are mostly waiting next content (with a cycle of 6-8 month as wow/FFXIV most of time)
First thing : on wow, while a raid is 10-15 bosses most of them are for top end not a thing, and even for some casual guilds, some mythic bosses are easier to do than heroic last boss. Those lot of bosses are work that are part of the lore, story, but in pure gameplay they are just pinatas. this is already far less work to do.
The first 2 savage boss on FFXIV are also just pinatas on most tier. Difficulty on FFXIV being mostly 4th boss (and ultimate). we don't need to have as much "raid bosses" as wow or even FFXIV.
=> instead of 12 or 40 bosses along 2 years we could have 4-5 ? (i speak about high end, those games also add many more bosses in different spot)
also, again, it seems you consider than after those raiders did their PvE kill, they will fast be bored, ignoring that they will have to do lot of things related to differnet kind of wars.
Due to all this PvP that impact the game world, they won't even be able to farm PvE endgame bosses as they could on other games.
You've said before that this would be bad because all bosses would be same, but I don't quite get your reasoning for saying that. You could have whatever you wanted in the "cage", so the boss variety could potentially be limitless. And you could even have different kinds of pvp outside of the "cage" too. Maybe there's some puzzle/mechanism that the whole raid has to do, and you gotta do it first so you kill the other side in the process. Maybe there's a "spill enough blood for the blood god" mechanic, where it just has to be a massacre, but you obviously want to come out on top because the room will open at a particular lvl of blood (unknown to players and randomly generated each time) and you want to be the first to go through the door because it'll close behind you.
To me that sounds like a true pvx experience. Ideally I'd love for both actions to be done by the same people on both sides, but I'm sure that there'll be enough anti-pvp/pve people that it'll just be two groups of 2 raids instead of just 1 raid each.
Well i consider that most of those raiders may not necessarily join any intensive pvp related activity ( exemple PvE guild: they join a node controled by a heavy pvp zerg, gain citizenship, et do the minimum in war : just joining the war itself to defend their citizenship, and do some caravan escort for their crafter )
And on the contrary you think that most of those raiders wil involve themselves with intensive pvp related activity.
( and i totally understand that point as i am part of that player base : lvl up rush, lvl crafting and switch with more balanced PvE/craft/PvP ratio )
Basically you consider the player repartition on a PvE PvP spectrum some thing like that:
PvE and i think it's more like that : PvE
( ) _______________________________ )(
PvP _____________________________ PvP
That's the starting hypothesis on both reflection right ?
So the 4 5 high end raid may totally work on your player base view point, but on mine i think it wont be enough,
For a PvX your point of view sounds more plausible, but is that really the case ?
Either way it's pure conjecture. Sadly we may only know the answer with a survey on that specific topic. So let's just agree to disagree for now.
(and excuse my poor grammar, and offending your eyes )
It is mainly different predict about what will happens for top end guild
For me, even if they could favor PvE or pvP, the global design of the game won't let them a real choice : both.
the higher you go, the more focus on both you have to go.
So i think the debate about it is not an interesting thing until we have a better view of how the game will work (how much work it will ask to defend yourself from rivals, how much work to push PvE, etc etc. by work i speak about gametime outside of doing the activity itself)
But at global, with nearly no instance, the raids will be a smaller part than WoW/FFXIV (because ... the geographic world will have limit, and because wow/ffxiv are big team, with team with many people focused on those fights... so more time to work on them )
More of it, over casual tier of players (would say "gold/plat" rank to compare to some game) you will have to spend energy on both PvE AND PvP, depending a lot about current situation of the server. So i think that people coming mainly for competitiv PvE and just accepting the PvP part and assuming their PvP role won't really find in Ashes of Creation a game for them.
On WoW we see that top end PvP are also quite high end in PvE... and top end PvE always were quite high end PvP, when doing one content was not requested to do the other (so mainly, begining at BC/WOTLK) This is why i think those "hardcore" will do both as the game will push them
I mean, this is kind of my point.
PvP games have long since run out of new ways to add PvP to games (players go up against other players, all of whom have access to the same class kits).
As such, developers of PvP games have had to find other ways of adding actual gameplay to their game. EVE kicked this off in 2003 by adding in a massive economic element.
Ashes is just furthering the Lineage line of games along a little by basically adding nothing new in terms of PvP, but maybe making the economic game a little more deep.
What Intrepid seem to want to do though, is also make the PvE game a bit deeper than it is in L2/L3. This is why the game has always been billed as a PvX game, not a PvP game.
In order to do this, Intrepid need to understand that it means some of their PvE content needs to be aimed at PvE players. Now, PvP players do not have it in them to take on top end PvE content (if you disagree, start up a guild in WoW and start getting some world firsts - until you do that, I am correct, regardless of the excuses given). As such, in order to be a PvX game, there needs to be top end PvE that is not designed for the PvP crowd from L2 and L3. Their participation in that content is in trying to take the drops from it via PvP.
And essentially, this is the only real way Ashes has of not just being L4. Make PvE content good enough to entice PvE players away from other games, and have PvP players fight them afterwards for the drops.
Add that to a game with a deeper economy than L3, and with more meaningful sieges than L3 (Archeages sieges were pointless, basically), and you have a game that breaks out of the mold, and deserves to be called a PvX game and not just the fourth iteration of the Lineage family of PvP games (actually, Ashes would be about the 8th, but details...).
PvX does not mean there needs to be PvE and PvP together, at the same time.
If it did, the arena couldn't exist in Ashes.
This notion that PvP by itself is fine, but PvE needs to also go hand in hand with PvP in order for the game to be PvX is just wrong, and needs to stop.
There is absolutely nothing at all wrong with having either PvP or PvE by itself, with no possible impact from the other in Ashes, as long as there is roughly an equal amount of both.
Once again, nothing at all wrong with the cage idea - as one of 20 - 30 encounters added to the game each year.
Or how do you envision addition of content that is considered pvx while also being great pvx and not just a completely unbalanced mess leaning to the either side of the spectrum?
PvP needs 2 camp to be at the same point at the same moment (for any reason, even a simple "randomly walking")
A PvPvE content, in my mind, the way to not fail it is mainly doing a middtier PvE but outside of any cave.
A boss midtier difficulty, in strategy, with huge hitpoint (to have the fight last even with 100 people smashing it) With more decent loot that what its difficulty would normally give, and a rare spawn (compared to many other PvE content)
So various guild could come to take it... and fight each other to get right to loot it...
But in the end, there's many many reasons why it all boils down to 'The Boss itself is a hazard zone, the PvP occurs within that hazard zone'. For me, this is enough, I am okay with variance in only the Hazard zones. I look forward to seeing what they do beyond this, and will just enjoy the game if this is 'all that can be done'.
Using hyper specific mechanics like that makes any content built around it all feel the same. If they added even one encounter in a cage like this a year, regardless of the actual mehcanics of the encounter, it would be referred to by players as "the cage fight" or some similar. The concept of the cage would dominate anything and everything else.
As such, it needs to be used sparingly. Same goes for any other encounter defining mechanic.
Another thing to keep in mind about the cage idea (at least as presented), the PvE isn't going to be all that top end. It can't be. If it is top end PvP in a game designed for raids of 40 players, then it will require a specific raid build of 40 classes (give or take perhaps 2 or 3 that can be substituted - but no more than that). If the requirements are not that tight, then it isn't an overly hard fight. Since the cage idea (as presented) doesn't really allow you to take in the raid build of your choosing, the encounter inside the cage will need to take this in to consideration.
---
To the rest of your post - some absolutely should be all about great PvP with a shit PvE encounter at the end. Likewise, some should be all about great PvE with essentially no PvP at all - if this is purely instanced (as in, many guilds can run it in the same week), then it gives PvP players more to fight for. Fighting over raid level loot (from encounters you know you can't defeat in your current guild) is far more interesting than fighting over literal dirt that was dug out of the ground.
If you had an equal number of each of these two types of encounters, how could anyone say the game is anything other than PvX? Sure, some encounters may be PvP, and some may be PvE, but that makes the game as a whole PvX.
However, there are also other mechanics that can be employed. Farming materials to force a boss spawn (with materials that are subject to being dropped on death) is one that I have seen a number of times. The farming and transporting of the materials is fully subject to PvP as per everything else in the game, but once they are acquired, the raid can summon the boss at will. If they pick a poor time, then that boss fight could also be subject to PvP.
Having an encounter that shuts off PvP 5 minutes before a known spawn time, forcing raids present to use the looting rights mechanic to win could be a fun encounter. Not direct PvP, but it would be direct competition, and probably a whole lot of fun (essentially a DPS check against other players). There are a few other mechanics I would throw in to this mix, but it has the potential to be interesting.
Having an encounter similar to the above, but where rather than preventing PvP, the encounter is just moving so fast that if you want to have a shot at it, you don't really have the time to PvP. This is something that would work best for a naval encounter, and designed so that the mob never resets, nor regenerates HP. There would still be a LOT of PvP around this, but it would play out very differently from a normal encounter.
The thing is, literally none of the above ideas works as the only boss mechanic in a game like Ashes. However, every single one of them would work well as *A* boss mechanic in a game. Put all 6 of the above (cage, open world, instanced, farmed materials, non PvP, roaming) in to a game during the same content cycle, and you have a massive variation of content in your boss encounters.
Make it so you have a maybe 8 open world, 6 instanced, 2 roaming, 2 farmed materials, a single cage and a single non-PvP and you have a good balance of encounter types for a content cycle (and that is without actually coming up with anything overly new or different).
I started a new thread on this topic, to not only stop the off-topic discussion here, but to also get more opinions
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/53288/world-instances
We won't participate for the fun of the encounter, because the encounter won't be fun. It may be to you, and that's great! That is why we would leave it to you.
We won't participate to experience something new, because the encounter won't have anything new to us. It may be new to you, and that's great! That is why we would leave it to you.
We won't participate for the rewards, because the rewards will be of no use to us. They may be of use to you though, and that's great! That is why we would leave it to you.
Or, would you rather people that take on this kind of content in their sleep (almost literally) coming along, trivializing it for everyone, removing any sense of discovery or wonder with something new, and then running off with what ever drops there are so we can just put them up for sale?
To me, that would be the saddest thing ever - but as I said, depends on your perspective. To us, it is better for everyone if we leave event content like this to others. People like you will get more out of it than people like me ever would, and that's great (we should all have content that we get a lot out of, don't you agree?).
Oh, and you missed a [ in your quote chain, I fixed it above for you.
I'm quite up for a combat tracker build by IS rather than third party combat trackers. I don't see how applicable a combat tracker would be due to the lack of information on the dungeons right now. You don't just add a combat tracker, you must build encounters where a combat tracker enhances the experience. Thus, the combat tracker needs to be added before the top end encounters - if top end encounters are created first then combat trackers will cause a snooze fest.
I been worried. Nice to see you're back.
If you make boss or any mechanic that needs damage check or healing check you’re providing toxic tool so please don’t do it.
So simple task don’t show any kind of numbers even graph about anything that help toxic player do any kind of calculation, and don’t make any kind of mechanic will check any kind of output from players that make time length matters.
I feel that dps meters take away the immersiveness of the actual fights.
To compromise, maybe add an option training dojo's to be built in towns where players can test their various builds against training dummies and/or certain npc's (various selectable behavior trees) that induce parry's, counters, blocking, and combos. These training dojo's would provide various stats like number of critical hits, low/avg/median/high non-crit single hit, etc. for timed and untimed runs. Also, allow for single player or party runs of all sizes where members can teach other by example.
I would rather people play the game and experience the fun.
You make it sound like this 1% thing isn't fun at all. You have no need for 99% of the game, because the rewards aren't good enough, it's not 'fun' for you.
It's this ONE aspect of the game, and that's it for you. It's Raids, or it's nothing.
And how would you be taking away any sense of discovery or wonder with something new? It'd be new to you, because it's content you never do. We'd all be discovering this wonder together.
That's the sad thing. That you see this as 'us' and 'them' for some reason. There's an ENTIRE game to play here. A whole map to explore, all kind of content to experience. But somehow you think joining in on a World Boss is something you shouldn't do, because you aren't 'us'.
Like, just play the game, have fun, be part of the community. That's the idea.
We're going to have Node Invasions, huge PvP Fights for territory, that have PvE things happening inside of them.. Where do you fall on that? Are you going to design some idea to where this helps your Raid, or design some idea as to how this doesn't help your Raid, and thus either participate or not due to that?
I mean, to me, that's greater than the Raids. Being able to take or defends these Nodes IS the End Game Content, the 'Greatest Challenge'. There's just so much more to the Game, and it's sad to see that you'd just discard parts of the game because of this mentality you have.
But I've noticed something that never changes with you. You're always the altruistic good guy in your mind. Even the World Boss, it's not that it's boring to you, or beneath you... no, you spare US by not joining. There's a term for this, where no matter the situation you always see yourself in the best light.
Anyways, I stand by my point. There is a lot of different content out there. And you've put yourself in this position that most of it, is meaningless and beneath you... it just doesn't help you reach the goal of Improved Raiding. Which is like, the vast majority of the game really. That's pretty sad to me.
Hello Dizz,
I'm not sure if you were around for the dev discussions on these topics you mention. We as a community vetoed the stats and icons for mobs - we chose old school or ancient school, surprises if you will. We also decided to keep icons and stats for players, which, is anti-propositional to the pve position. Thus, its not clear what the final product will look like. It appears at face value that PvE will have limited to no icons/stats etc. Health will be shielded/percentage based rather than factual or digitised and players will have icons and stats associated with each player toon.
Combat Trackers are a fascinating topic because a combat tracker is anti-old school or anti-ancient school and would actually bypass the community desire for no icons/stats for PvE. Also, Combat Trackers will be useless in PvP situations where Icons/Stats are currently chosen to be. Therefore, I think we should lose the 1% tag when discussing these issues, because, the true 1% have tried to limit the amount of information and the alleged 1% are still trying to increase the information available. The same 1% are adamant that cosmetics shouldn't hide gear for example.
I've softened on the side of combat trackers because I designed raids/encounters which would decimate a lot of the 1%ers. One can't offer the carrot and the stick when the carrot is hidden and the stick is a branch.
Well, I'm sorry, I not so frequently come here and follow what's going on, and topics I have interest are too long to read, and thank you to give me a update, thank you.
If community voted to go with old school/ancient school like Lineage 1(won't show mob HP and stats and don't know how much damage dealt to mob) I will say don't do any tools that modern mmorpg have even combat tracker, and please don't show how much mob deal to player too means player won't even know how much HP character have, yes please DO NOT show any number or % to player only the player character HP can be graphical without any number or %.
I don't know the most reason to go with old school/ancient school like is it because the point of view at the beginning at this dps meter topic that "dps meter is a tool for toxic behavior so important", but if as a community choose to go old school/ancient school please don't make anything will make go with old school/ancient school decision become meaningless, if choose don't show mobs hp and stats etc in any way please don't do anything have any chance to break it, make no player can figure any information about any thing and don't release any information about mobs boss world boss mechanic etc out of Intrepid.
Because what I know is that if you give any clue to players some of them will find the way to know how and what devs set for the game, Lineage 1and 2 and RO that guide magazine ruined the game in my region, Monster Hunter just show the weapon attack power number and monster weak spot then player found out how Capcom design all the damage formula, so If community voted to go with old school/ancient school like Lineage 1 and Intrepid willing to do so I will say please DO NOT do anything above to make players life easier.
To me the only thing can do is like crit effect.
I hope Intrepid will design the number behind everything in a good way, because this is the hardest way to make a game good and only few did it okay, most games failed on design numbers like the in most game gear progression and builds etc are just an illusion make player think they have choices and they choose the best.
I thought the game won't be far, now I think it need more time to be good.
I mean, you've taken one comment t about one type of content, and expanded it ad lib to other types of content.
Top end raiders wont take part in event raids (in general) if they have anything else going on. That is my statement.
From that, you have somehow derived that top end raiders have no need for 99% of the content in the game.
You're literally making up what you think my point here is, disagreeing with it, and then standing by your disagreement with my point.
I'm not talking about anything other than world events, and the parts of it where you are talking about anything else (which is most of your above post, unless you believe world events will make up 99% of the content), you are simply arguing with yourself (and losing, if we are being honest).
Now, to address the one part of your post where you are talking about world events...
I never said I was leaving the boss mobs alone for your benefit.
This isnt some altruistic stance or anything like that, and I wouldn't want anything thinking it was. If I had reason to kill them, something for me or my guild to gain from killing them that we wouldn't gain from you killing them, then we would be all in.
That isn't going to happen though. The rewards for killing event bosses will be sub par compared to world bosses.
This is because events should designed so that the average player can take part. They wont be designed to be a challenge to organized, experienced raiders. If they were designed like that, those average players would have no hope of killing them, and the fate of the server would be in the hands of raiders.
That is straight up not how it should be. It should be designed so the average player, with average gear, average organization and average strategy is able to take on the event.
You say you stand by your position. I am unsure what your position even is here. You think that it is somehow a bad thing that people that raid top end content would have bo I treat in content designed for the masses. I'm just assuming you haven't thought this through.
Let's just assume that organized, skilled, coordinated and geared players have a desire to kill these events ourselves. One of two things happens.
The first is that the content is still designed for the average player, and we come along and trivialize it for everyone, and take what ever rewards are there. This ruins these events for the masses.
Or, the content is hard and so we are joining in for the challenge. If this were the case, these events wouldn't be able to be killed without us - meaning we could then take protection money from any mode that wants to not be destroyed by these events. Suddenly, you all are paying us protection money.
I want neither of those things. I want these events to be enjoyable, worthwhile content for the bulk of players. This means - by absolute necessity - that it isnt of value to top end raiders.
Which part of the above do you disagree with?
The problem is, we also know we will have a combat log.
If we have a combat log, all of that information is available to anyone that wants to look. At this point, literally all a combat tracker does is speed this process up some. It also makes it impossible for Intrepid Intrepid stop people using third party trackers.
On the other hand, if Intrepid implemented them in to the game client, they are the ones that decide what features players get. They could - for example - make it so you dont get any information until combat has finished.
Additionally, the reason players voted to not show too much information doesnt actually have anything to do with trackers, and likely wo t be affected by them at all either.
The reason was so that you cant easily bring a player to near death and leave then to be killed by a mob, preventing a corruption penalty. If you dont know how much HP a player has left, you cant easily do this.
Adding combat trackers isnt going to suddenly make this possible.
Best way to counter people that will refuse to listen to TOS and also attempt to spread trackers in hopes to get add on support in the future.
You mean 'worst way'.
The deeper you push, the deeper they dive.
BDO has parsers, and that game didn't even show MISSES in game until recently.
All you'd end up doing is making it 'the thing available to a few people with the skill to do it' instead (or slowing your server to a crawl in a specific way which seems like a bad plan).
Your spirit is admirable for your cause, your method would not achieve it.