Concerns from a casual player

I found AoC a couple days ago and been watching a ton of content about the plans for the game. I am not able to play games too much and I think it's possible this game could be tons of fun if you're willing/able to play it full time but for people like me who aren't able to play much, it may be unplayable.

One of the main concerns is that it seems lots of features will only be usable by the most hardcore players.
Obviously, flying mounts is the shining example, but since they can be used as gliding mounts and only a very very small subset will have access, I think this is okay.

Another feature I can see problems with is the freeholds and housing. These will have to be limited in quantity as I do not think there will be room for millions of players to all have housing, which sucks.. It seems these will be almost required as they provide extra storage and are just really neat things to have. Another problem I see with them is how materials will be locked at the announcement of a siege. This means that using these places for long term storage is not feasible and that I would need to store all of them on my character which seems ridiculous. I think there needs to be somewhere to store at least a good chunk of your mats outside of your inventory but still safe from theft/losing it to other players.

Finally, the mayor system seems very prone to griefing. From my understanding, a mayor is granted the ability for the next month or until the node is taken over to set the tax rate. If the mayor comes in and sets a 100% tax rate they can effectively make a node destroyed as players will obviously leave that node and have to risk losing there stuff while leaving. It would really suck to have a players invest time in a node and then have a group of griefers vote themselves as mayor only to be able to steal from everyone through taxation and force all of their hard work to be taken by the griefers. I understand the voting is supposed to prevent this but this could easily by sybil attacked.

Curious on people's thoughts on these and hopefully I got some stuff wrong and there are systems to prevent this.

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Comments

Alizee

1. only like 0.01% of the population will have flying mounts

2.The server can only hold 8-10 thousand players, and as far as I know freehold hosing is limited to one per account, yeah there will probably be people who train on two accounts but I'm pretty sure the game world is big enough to make sure everyone has the ability to build a house, also all of your housing can be destroyed if your node is destroyed.

3. I'm sure nodes with mayors that aren't hardcore or griefiers will be targets for nodes who have active mayors to expand and take over adjacent nodes, you can also just go to another node.

benthecarman

> The server can only hold 8-10 thousand players

Is this true? That is incredibly small, there will need to be hundreds of different servers. That is going to section off so many players from each other.

> you can also just go to another node

The problem is that it isn't free to move to another node. You could be killed and lose your stuff

nidriks

There are three types of housing. Freeholds, those actually part of the settlement and instanced housing. Everyone can have access to instanced housing and it will be similar to games like EQ2.

As far as I am aware, your housing setup and your resources will be saved as a template should your node be destroyed or delevelled. That way you can easily setup how you'd like somewhere else.

As for griefing mayors, well they need to be voted in in the first place. Whether it will even be possible for a mayor to set a rate of 100% is doubtful in my mind. Players could all just gang up on that mayor.

There is much for Intrepid to iron out yet. How will they combat possible griefing with mayors is probably not cemented yet. I personally believe mayors should be attackable and that killing a mayor should end their term. I also believe mayors should have to be logged in each day so they are targetable.

Of course, there are feasibility issues with all that that stop casual players from ever becoming mayor.

This is where we all come in. Through testing and posting our thoughts we can make the game better. Everyone's opinion is valid and helpful.

benthecarman

> I personally believe mayors should be attackable and that killing a mayor should end their term. I also believe mayors should have to be logged in each day so they are targetable.

I don't think this is the correct approach but I agree there should be someway to unseat a mayor

nidriks

benthecarman wrote: »

> The server can only hold 8-10 thousand players

Is this true? That is incredibly small, there will need to be hundreds of different servers. That is going to section off so many players from each other.

> you can also just go to another node

The problem is that it isn't free to move to another node. You could be killed and lose your stuff

I don't believe you can lose your stuff by being killed. Unless you are under the corruption system. I'm not even sure how resource storage works yet, and whether resources can be stolen. The game is far from something like Rust.

A lot will be worked out in alpha and beta. Even the most hardcore of players don't want all their storage to be able to be stolen. Not in an MMO.

8k to 10k players per server is a lot for an MMO. It is also normal for the player base to be split up like that. Games like Wow and EQ had many, many servers.

There is no way currently to have everyone who wants to play on the same server sadly. Not in this type of MMO anyway.

Alizee

benthecarman wrote: »

> The server can only hold 8-10 thousand players

Is this true? That is incredibly small, there will need to be hundreds of different servers. That is going to section off so many players from each other.

> you can also just go to another node

The problem is that it isn't free to move to another node. You could be killed and lose your stuff

Yes it is true and confirmed, you won't lose anything on death unless you're a bounty hunter that got killed by a corrupted, or a corrupted that got killed by anyone (and it's % based if you are either of those)

Talents

benthecarman wrote: »

> The server can only hold 8-10 thousand players

Is this true? That is incredibly small, there will need to be hundreds of different servers. That is going to section off so many players from each other.

Is this your first MMORPG? 8-10k is a pretty high amount for a server in an MMORPG.

All of your points are how the game is. Intrepid want a minuscule amount of people to have flying mounts. They want the mayoral system to be prone to that sort of behaviour as they believe it makes it more exciting and entices drama which they want in Ashes.

Amist

benthecarman wrote: »

> The server can only hold 8-10 thousand players

Is this true? That is incredibly small, there will need to be hundreds of different servers. That is going to section off so many players from each other.

> you can also just go to another node

The problem is that it isn't free to move to another node. You could be killed and lose your stuff

The servers can hold up to 50k people. The 10k people that Ali is referring to is the concurrent player number - meaning the amount of players that can be online at the same time

benthecarman

Talents wrote: »

Is this your first MMORPG? 8-10k is a pretty high amount for a server in an MMORPG.

I come from GW2 which only divides players by region. TBF they use clever instancing so places aren't overcrowded but if I want to play with a friend, we don't need to coordinate anything we just show up in the same area.

Roko

that 8 - 10k number is concurrent players. It means no more than 10k accounts online at the same time per server.

At 10.001 that one person enters a queue and has to wait for someone to go offline to make room for them.

Zhab

benthecarman wrote: »

I come from GW2 which only divides players by region. TBF they use clever instancing so places aren't overcrowded but if I want to play with a friend, we don't need to coordinate anything we just show up in the same area.

That is a newer infrastructure system where instead of having multiple servers with a separate mmo world each you have a single game world managed by multiple servers at once in a dynamic load distributing way. This new way is rather very high tech and very complex on the data center side of things.

But I think Steven would rather have separate different worlds where each server is actually different from one an other due to the evolution of the node system. Among other things.

winner909098

benthecarman wrote: »

> The server can only hold 8-10 thousand players

Is this true? That is incredibly small, there will need to be hundreds of different servers. That is going to section off so many players from each other.

> you can also just go to another node

The problem is that it isn't free to move to another node. You could be killed and lose your stuff

The server will have 50 to 70 thousand players (I dont know the actual number)

There will most likely be a system to sell your house or move your freehold

BobzUrUncle

As a pretty casual player myself, I don't see any problems with this game. If you think it is not the game for you, move on.
I do not ever expect to have a flying mount as I don't really want to run a guild. This is a game, not a job.
I do expect to have a Freehold, as there will be changes in the world over time. If you time it right, you can put one up just after a Metro has been destroyed.
It might take me a year instead of 45 days, but in the end, I will have fun.

Servers are said to be able to have 50000 accounts, and up to 10000 players concurrently logged in.

Tyrantor

benthecarman wrote: »

> I personally believe mayors should be attackable and that killing a mayor should end their term. I also believe mayors should have to be logged in each day so they are targetable.

I don't think this is the correct approach but I agree there should be someway to unseat a mayor

It's called a siege. If the mayor pisses off the entire city they can band together with resources and effort and destroy the node. While this is an extreme example it's possible.

Furthermore the city features will likely having a sliding scale and I doubt the developers are going to allow a mayor to push tax rates anywhere near 100% - it's not realistic in any society.

Lastly I believe the tax system will work more like real estate taxes where you pay X % based on property value (as a reference it may range from 3-15%). The apartments will pay a monthly rent which is likely the full tax amount. It's possible the mayor can adjust the amount due each month for these but it's most likely based on another sliding scale per each apartment type and node level.

Bot

benthecarman wrote: »

> The server can only hold 8-10 thousand players

Is this true? That is incredibly small, there will need to be hundreds of different servers. That is going to section off so many players from each other.

> you can also just go to another node

The problem is that it isn't free to move to another node. You could be killed and lose your stuff

It's not small, it's 8-10k concurrent players at once. Plenty of MMOs cap out at around 4-8k users total.

Jagaro

The way I see it AoC is aiming to be a game that you focus most of your time with. I think there will be plenty of things that will be achievable as a casual, which I am as well.

A game that is meant to be worth your time instead of just killing it.

Dreoh

Well we've seen in the current alpha footage that Tax rate can be set to 100%, whether that's going to change is unknown but it's definitely there as of now.

Flying mounts are extremely rare, only 10-20 per server at a time, as it should be. Flying mounts can destroy the immersion and flow of a game, as the majority of WoW players that played both pre and post flying mounts can tell you.

Gliding mounts are one of the types of mounts the regular playerbase is said to be able to acquire. Gliding mounts are much more acceptable since they still anchor you to the world albeit in a lesser way. If you want to get somewhere via gliding you still need to abide by the rules of the world, whereas a true flying mount just bypasses literally everything.

Beekeeper

I'll do my best to address some of your points as clearly as I can.

benthecarman wrote: »

I found AoC a couple days ago and been watching a ton of content about the plans for the game. I am not able to play games too much and I think it's possible this game could be tons of fun if you're willing/able to play it full time but for people like me who aren't able to play much, it may be unplayable.

Since Steven wants to implement family summoning, a feature that is supposed to directly help casual players come together with friends while they have limited time, I don't think they want to neglect that group of players. What systems exactly are going to end up in the game to enable casual play is yet to be seen.

benthecarman wrote: »

One of the main concerns is that it seems lots of features will only be usable by the most hardcore players.
Obviously, flying mounts is the shining example, but since they can be used as gliding mounts and only a very very small subset will have access, I think this is okay.

Flying mounts will indeed be very limited. You need to be one of the 10 most influential players in a server or hunt down world bosses to have a chance at having one. They're supposed to be markers of massive prestige, and even those players will not have access to them indefinitely. They're less of a feature than a nice ingame recognition of your success. Think of them as really big medals of honor.

benthecarman wrote: »

Another feature I can see problems with is the freeholds and housing. These will have to be limited in quantity as I do not think there will be room for millions of players to all have housing, which sucks.. It seems these will be almost required as they provide extra storage and are just really neat things to have.

There are three kinds of housing: Apartments, city houses, and freeholds. Depending on the mayor, some cities may have more apartments than others, so it's a question of shopping around for a good place to live. More importantly, cities have a vested interest in keeping as big of a population as possible. More players in the region means more growth and more opportunities and more trade. Additionally, only citizens can defend a city under siege.

benthecarman wrote: »

Another problem I see with them is how materials will be locked at the announcement of a siege. This means that using these places for long term storage is not feasible and that I would need to store all of them on my character which seems ridiculous. I think there needs to be somewhere to store at least a good chunk of your mats outside of your inventory but still safe from theft/losing it to other players.

That is a misunderstanding on how materials work. You don't carry them around like in other games, you have your gathered or bought resources stored at the city. That is why you need a whole wagon to transport resources between nodes, and why resources are locked at the start of a siege. Caravans can't get in or out, and rare resources can't be snuck away before the siegers have a chance at taking down the defenders. This also means that raw materials will never clog up your inventory. How exactly killing people works for getting their resources I don't know. If you die to someone, you will lose some, and they will gain some, but you won't just empty your bag.

benthecarman wrote: »

Finally, the mayor system seems very prone to griefing. From my understanding, a mayor is granted the ability for the next month or until the node is taken over to set the tax rate. If the mayor comes in and sets a 100% tax rate they can effectively make a node destroyed as players will obviously leave that node and have to risk losing there stuff while leaving. It would really suck to have a players invest time in a node and then have a group of griefers vote themselves as mayor only to be able to steal from everyone through taxation and force all of their hard work to be taken by the griefers. I understand the voting is supposed to prevent this but this could easily by sybil attacked.

It would be possible for a mayor to set the tax at 100%, but that would both piss off the citizens, as well as put trading in that node to a grinding halt. However, only scientific nodes has democratic elections, religious nodes use questing and military nodes use a big one-for-all match. Economic nodes allow you to just buy the seat. And if your mayor sucks, you can just wait him out. Do other stuff and become more involved in the next election cycle to prevent the same griefers to wield the power again. It's not really designed to be an airtight system that doesn't allow abuse, but should foster competition, rivalry and a healthy dose of drama. If things are REALLY bad, and you think you don't have a chance to make things better, you can always go out into the world to find a better place to settle down in pursuit of a better life.

Beneverchio

To quote on the "A mayor that comes and set taxes to 100% to ruin or grief the experience of others" is a point that I don't see happening unless is a very troll popular streamer who is backed up by a similar troll audience. I think this because, the mayor system, as they are explaining it, is a very thoughtful and important role in the development of a node, and by this, I think that only the very dedicated players will aim to cover such a position, because it is in their best interest, as time and effort they (and maybe their entire guild) are putting into the advancement of their own characters which is deeply tied to the development of the node. So I think it will be a good game of very dedicated players who will try to show off one another to say "hey I can administrate this node way better than others". Because in the first place, it IS their interest for it to develop and advance. That is why I personally find it unrealistic for a griefer to become mayor.

Warth

Beneverchio wrote: »

To quote on the "A mayor that comes and set taxes to 100% to ruin or grief the experience of others" is a point that I don't see happening unless is a very troll popular streamer who is backed up by a similar troll audience. I think this because, the mayor system, as they are explaining it, is a very thoughtful and important role in the development of a node, and by this, I think that only the very dedicated players will aim to cover such a position, because it is in their best interest, as time and effort they (and maybe their entire guild) are putting into the advancement of their own characters which is deeply tied to the development of the node. So I think it will be a good game of very dedicated players who will try to show off one another to say "hey I can administrate this node way better than others". Because in the first place, it IS their interest for it to develop and advance. That is why I personally find it unrealistic for a griefer to become mayor.

@Beneverchio

Not unrealistic at all. A guild of a rivaling node could easily send a player to become a citizen of your Node with an Alt-Account.
Then all they'd have to do is supplying him with enough funds to buy the Mayorship from your Node. Set the taxes to 100% and sabotage the node in any way possible to set up the Siege that's planned in 2 Weeks.

I don't think this is a bad thing though. Spionage and Sabotage should be a thing. This just encourages the patron guilds of a Node to make sure that the mayor positions stays in the hands of people, that care about the node.

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