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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
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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
Could you imagine what would happen if you only ever had one life? Now I'm not saying one and done BUT what about if there was simply no respawn timer? You would have to find someone to come rez your body. Now THAT would be hardcore. So people complaining about a minor penalty for a few mins BECAUSE THEY DIED.....
That reminds me of EQ, where you could get a necromancer to cast a spell to help you find your corpse. There was no automatic waypoint and sometimes you couldn’t remember where it was, or you go where it was but can’t find it because you were behind a bush or something.
I like the idea of making death actually sting but there is a dividing line between impactful failure and a game just having mechanics that are a pain in the ass. I’m sure where that line falls will vary from player to player.
I think there should be LITTLE TO NO death penalty from the beginner levels to the mid levels, while later levels is when the penalty from dying starts to grow.
Personally I think it's a great system.
I never played EQ but I heard stories about corpse runs.
Obviously we would prefer things to be a bit more on the difficult side, old school style
I bet we are in the minority though.....sadly.
Can't beat an EQ corpse run.
- 24 people running back in to Unrest to get their corpse after another train.
- Running halfway across Kunark to get your corpse because, as a ranger, you could only bind in a couple of places.
- Wiped in a dungeon and the whole group runs back as fast as is humanly possible to get that great camp sport before anyone else. Fighting off the hoards naked was a real social builder.
- Or as I did. Binding your druid in Nagy's lair so you can be a star and port people home. Then die the next day and wake up surrounded by fire giants. I think I lost half a level before I force quit the game and called a GM.
Oh EQ, my old friend. Those were some memories. Dying makes you stronger.
The reason you’d have to do stuff like that is that if you died, your corpse was left with everything you carried. You had absolutely nothing. You had to go back and loot it one thing at a time. If you died in a dangerous place (which is the case 90% of the time, you don’t often die where things are safe) you had to be wary that whatever killed you didn’t try it again, and this time you have no weapons or armor to defend yourself. It wasn’t at all unusual to die multiple times trying to get your stuff back.
I don’t expect AoC to be that rough with death penalties. I don’t want them to be either. But I do want something harsher than you normally see. It sure was an adrenaline rush at times trying to get your stuff back, I’ll admit that.
How many corpses would you see strewn around LFay because of that damn horse? Or what was the name of the giant in Oasis? Castron?
Dying should be bad. It should be detrimental. You don’t want players continuously throwing themselves at content they’re not ready for, and in a game where you respawn on death and don’t have to do any corpse run, of course dying has to come with meaningful penalties. Fast-Travel-Via-Death is standard in ESO’s PvP zone, and the gear degradation, while present, isn’t remotely a deterrent.
Exp debt is pretty standard, material loss is also not uncommon. Lower gear proficiency and lowered drop rates likely don’t kick in until you’ve died multiple times.
Of course I say all this knowing we're pre-alpha. All of this is subject to change, which is why I'm offering my opinion on the subject. I don't begrudge anyone else's theirs. But ultimately it's up to Steven and the designers.
Now, I understand if it’s not to your personal tastes but your worries about players as a whole not being able to handle the penalty is ridiculous. This is not ground breaking or extreme.
I don't understand the obsession with everything being "oldschool" or hardcore gameplay to excess.
Well I do to be honest, since it's not the first time I've seen something like this pop up in multiple games, but on this one issue about death, I'm strongly against such penalties.
I don't think people realise how big such a thing is. This is not an aspect that the vast majority of players will actually welcome with open arms. It's one of those things that, at least back in the old days, had always been seen as a problem, and when one MMO in particular came on the scene with no such high penalties, it was praised and gained a big following as a result. I guess we all know what that game is, it's WoW.
However, this is one mechanic that is likely not going to be liked by the rest of the players. And these forums as well as the reddit, 4chan or whatever other place there might be, is not really representative of the entire market.
Nevertheless, I would suggest to do away with the debt and debuffs, you can keep the loss of xp until you get max level, but once you reach it you won't delevel or suffer further, applying such debuffs is honestly more disruptive than what it seems. Especially the way it's apparently going to be introduced, since it's going to affect everyone, no matter whether you're corrupted or not, for any sort of activity.
There is a reason MMOs have removed this mechanic, and most of the people have not complained about it lacking, because it is something that people will agree is more damaging than it is engaging. Often these choices cater more to the hardcore section or the survival crowd, and they're not the majority, and never will be.
While I don't want to appeal to "authority", when even a streamer like Asmongold despises such punishments, is a sign that the playerbase at large does not want them, mainly due to the kind of person he is.
This is a MMO at the end, and will require a lot of people playing it, it's not your personal playground, just as it isn't mine, compromises will have to be made if they want the big numbers, and having such punishments for death, is a mistake.
There are other ways they can approach this matter without going with this route. I would personally urge Stephen and the devs to reconsider their stance on this one aspect.
Sorry to be blunt, but Asmongold didn't put down well over £100 on this game, like many of us did. Many of us put our money in to this project on a promise of features that made us feel challenged. How many feature losses does it take before we become disgruntled and the new masses become happy?
I, for one, don't want the things that made me put my money in to this game scrapped.
There needs to be a coist to dieing. There was a huge cost in EQ and still people risked themselves. Even WoW had a cost to death. If you died deep in a dangerous quest area quite often it was easier to go to the angel than it was to try and get back to your corpse that was now surrounded by aggressive mobs. That is even if it meant accepting the penalty debuff. Still people risked themselves. In new MMOs there is relatively no cost to dieing. MMOs have become stale and lacking in passion and social mechanisms.
Challenge is needed to bring people together in an effort to challenge themselves. Let's have a game where one does not run solo in to mini dungeons because one can. Let's go back to requiring others to tackle content. I'm fed up of running about on my own solo path to max level in MMOs.
I'd rather an MMO with less players than one where the punishments are lacking and the challenge reduced. It's great to have a lot of new people interested in this game. They will become used to the punishment like we all did in games like EQ. They will work together to overcome that challenge and they will feel proud of themselves for it.
couldn't have said it better.
Also, within most mmorpgs, nobody would even have to bat an eye at a change like this during low-upper mid levels. I can count the amount of time I died leveling in MMORPGs like recent WoW, GW2, FFXIV, ESO, Wildstar, Bless Online, Rev Online, Blade and Soul... on a single hand. Dying isn't this rampant thing like in the Dark Souls series. If you die continuously, then you might just have to figure out what you are doing wrong, since you seem to be doing something severely wrong. Nobody will help you, if you decide to go full-r* and attack a monster 10 levels higher than you with your wand wielding Fighter/Fighter
As long as they don't make us test perma player death, let's give it a go
Hate de-leveling and hate losing all or some of my gear...
so long as that don't happen....I am use to this from prior MMO's
The game is not yours, or mine, it's in the hands of the company behind it. Even then, that wasn't the point I was making, it's the fact that it's a sign that there are way more people who would be upset at that cost.
And I didn't mean to say that in WoW there is "absolutely" no punishment, but that loss of xp isn't part of the game, if you die, you need to repair, and if you die in PvP you don't get that penalty.
And no matter what people may believe, it's one of the aspects that helped greatly expand WoW's playerbase, because xp loss was an actual barrier for the casual player.
And people may talk about Runescape, EQ or FFXI, but they still fell before WoW's more casual approach.
That's because any MMO will require to cater to them (not solely though) because that's the nature of MMOs.
Just because you don't die much, that doesn't mean that other players won't, or that other players won't be worse than you. Not everyone is a competent hardcore player, and let me repeat, that the hardcore segment of the population IS NOT THE MAJORITY AND NEVER WILL BE.
Especially in a game where PvP is a big part of the gameplay, and you would still get punished for dying in PvP, those who are not as good as you or cannot dedicate the same amount of time, will get shafted.
Stop thinking like you're the only type of player running around, you're not.
I realise you have different taste and want different things, but a MMO will have to cater to everyone because that's how a healthy population is achieved.
And it's a good thing WIldstar was named, because that's precisely a game that tried hard to cater to an audience of nostalgia ridden hardcore gamers that promptly failed and died. And that was without the toxicity of PvP being thrown in, mind you.
"Challenge" and "meaningful" have become buzzwords.
You'd rather have a game with less players, despite being in a genre and a system where MANY players are needed to keep the game going?
Ludicrous. That's not MMORPGs are for in general, unless you want the whales to pay you for the rest of the players. But supposedly this game isn't meant to be p2w, and got a p2p model.
Unless you want the 10k to 50k population like Eve Online, in a game where ONE SERVER is capped at 10k, then I'm sorry but that is just stupid and ridiculous.
At the very least debt loss needs to go, and that's the bare minimum.
As a previous poster said: what kills you, only makes you stronger.
People have been pushing " risk vs reward". With some death penalty/debt, at least there is some risk, otherwise there is no risk and just zerg.
I think the successive death penalty AoC proposed is not only accessible, but actually encourages a player to become more dedicated to the game. As long as the player is well aware of their initial and subsequent debuffs I believe they may proceed more thoughtfully about their task. Perhaps becoming critically aware of systems and mechanics that may benefit them.
I think something may be needed baseline, like AoC's death penalties, to easily facilitate the transformation of a more 'casual' player into a more 'hardcore' player. These penalties may also act as a filter (of sorts) to people unwilling to dedicate themselves to the game in certain ways. I realize cultivating a dedicated playerbase may not work for all games, but I feel it's important for MMORPGs. I think the systems AoC is projected to have are of enough interest that the playerbase can overcome, and be moulded by, its 'hardships'.
I have another comment on this thread where I discussed WoW, but I'd like to expand on it. WoW has a variable difficulty for its instances to appeal to it's playerbase, however, I personally prefer having a concrete PvE difficulty. I think the variable difficulty is supplemental to a flaw in their core design; namely, there's no inherent risk to regular gameplay. AoC will mostly have open instances so variation in gameplay will come from player interaction (so excited for this).
No matter what people may believe, emulating the genre-defining WoW has not been met with critical success. Some play it not because it is good but because it is WoW (woe unto the unfortunate soul that meets WoW's undedicated playerbase). Its successful 'clones' not only have powerful IPs but innovate in different ways like ESO & FFIV. Star Wars, with the budget of a quarter billion dollars, was unable to capture
as much interest for its WoW-like MMORPG.
I put hardcore and casual in quotations because player motivation is a gradient.
I think a playerbase can be both large and care about meaningfulness/challenge.
Obviously right now this is all theorizing, but that's all we have to go on at this point. I just look for the benefits in a system that discourages taking risks, exploring, adventuring, testing yourself. In a system that makes each successive failure even more punishing. That creates an arbitrary 'grind for x amount of time every time you die to rid yourself of death penalties'. Even something as simple as jumping puzzles (which apparently Ashes will have some?), just falling to your death will yield these penalties.
I will say I have less of an issue with this system during the leveling process. In that sense it does kind of make sense not to venture into areas beyond your ability. But the fact that these effects continue even at max level is...weird. I just don't think it creates a healthy, fun game environment. But I'm also playing with a half deck based on reasoning from a few wiki articles that may or may not be accurate.
It's why hardcore players and those with skills aren't that many, it's because it simply doesn't happen to such a scale.
Some players will get more invested and would be willing to spend more time to play, but that's not what's going to happen to everyone. Be it out of necessity because of work or study, or because they are not the kind of gamers that would dedicate as much time because gaming for them is not their only thing, but they still play a considerable amount during the week.
Putting this word "risk" on a pedestal, while I understand what people mean, it is not the Holy Grail. That's something that CERTAIN PEOPLE enjoy, people who in this thread have said they do like it, but not everyone shares this mentality or taste.
This value to risk is usually one that is pursued by those who play survival games or the oldschool "hardcore" gamers. It's a generalisation, but the current biggest titles don't have such a mechanic, nor is it a big deal that xp loss no longer exists. And I'm by no means a casual, I've played many MMOs, I played FFXI, and I remember even back then how people were bothered by the xp loss, and actual de-levelling and having to farm more xp in case you lost it just so you don't lose your max level.
And the point isn't to emulate what WoW did, but to take lessons from it. I wouldn't be here if I were still playing it, but the truth about WoW isn't about the mechanics being wrong, that's not the main issue with it, the problem with WoW is that it's an OLD GAME. It's been a stagnant game for a very long time, stuck to being a theme park on a treadmill, not because of what the treadmill's new gadget has to offer, but because it's the same treadmill that's been used for the past decade and a half.
That's what happens to old games, they naturally lose relevance as new stuff takes its place, WoW was lucky to do a few things right at the right time, where others failed to do so.
Now onto IPs, yes. Actually that's why it's so important to be more open. Games like Runescape/Everquest/FFXI/etc. were introduced when the market was new, there weren't many competitors and we still needed to get answers on what could have worked. Which is why the older franchises had the opportunity to grow a fanbase from nothing, because there was nothing.
Ashes of Creation is a game that will have to rely on being welcoming to all, or it will fail. Why?
Because it's a game that's joining an already SATURATED MARKET when a behemoth like WoW still exists, as well as other games like GW2, FFXIV, ESO and now even more games like New World, Blue Protocol, and perhaps in the future Lost Ark Online.
Ashes of Creation is not an established IP, and does not possess the same luxury that the MMOs of old had, where it was a completely new world to explore, or games like Final Fantasy where they already had a massive following because of the name.
Which is why it's crucial for companies to really understand what they're doing, and how to open up to more players. PvP only MMOs today aren't big, because the crowd just isn't there. You could take a game like Planetside 2, the only MMO of its kind, and yet its population is abysmal, it's not a success story.
PvP is a big thing in Ashes of Creation, albeit not the only thing to do, but they will have to relax on the aspects that players today will see as a real barrier, and xp loss/debt upon death is not a small one, you are underestimating the issue if you believe it's inconsequential.
It’s only encouraging cautious play as much as it is discouraging reckless play. It’s a risk to be weighed, considered, and accounted for before you go out to reap the rewards of exploring and starting fights.
Games are fun. League of Legends is still one of if not the most popular MOBA on the market, and most of us who play definitely hear “LoL sucks” and think “Yeah, you right”. Yet people still enjoy it, it’s still fun and gets you invested in the outcome.
There are options for you if you just want chill and have a low-to-no risk experience, but Ashes will not become one just because it doesn’t fit what you want. As Steven has said, this isn’t a game for everyone. Hell, Minecraft has more severe penalties than Ashes has planned, and I’m not sure anyone here would claim they’re a deterrent to exploring.
You know, that Risk is part of the central design philosophy around the game, right?
If you don't like the aspect, the game might just not be for you, the same why WoW isn't for a lot of players here.