Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Plus the boss diffculty will be dumbed down just because of this.
I would suggest finding a game that isn't going to be open world. The people defending it are those players from PvP guilds and individuals who like open world games, the only ones crying are people who don't want to be killed.
Hahahahaha I knew I was going to get the usual AoC fanboy response: "Well you should find a game that fits your demands
You guys instead of trying to make people like the game just kick them out xDD. Im gonna play the game, and I like it, but the community everyday becomes more dislikeable.
Hold up, you come in here saying a major aspect of the game will be "horrible" and those defending it will "cry" about it later... get an actual polite reply that open world dungeons are a huge part of the game and you probably won't like it... then you get all defensive and insult the entire community as "dislikeable"... come on man. We aren't going to cater to people who want to fundamentally change portions of the game we actually like. Sorry, not sorry.
My point is - if Intrepid were going to use revenue as a metric to decide what to do, the game they would be making would not be Ashes.
It would be a WoW clone.
That point stands.
I'm not sure these are the only two groups.
I personally dislike PvP, but am happy to fight back.
I really enjoy open world content, but dislike the fact that open world content + PvP means the content is dumbed down to nothingness (it is essentially a PvP McGuffin).
I also enjoy instanced content as it is the only time the developers can implement PvE content at it's fullest.
I'm very glad you enjoy instanced content, quite happy for you. Sadly, it goes directly against the design philosophy of this particular game ( And any other open world risk versus reward game). Luckily there are plenty of options available for instanced content on the MMO market that don't require completely changing the game around and dumbing it down. Why are you planning on playing a PvP centric game that requires you to constantly face the possibility of PvP in order to get anything accomplished if you don't want to PvP? The writing for this game is very obviously on the wall, it's a PvP centric game. Why not play games that offer all the instanced PvE content you can dream of? You don't want to PvP and flag back, but I don't want to have people hiding in instances all the time and getting gear by killing scripted events with no chance of player intervention.
That personally doesn't bother me if I have easier PvE so it takes me less time to get back to doing things I want to do, killing people and guild wars. I know you are gonna be in for a shock when the dungeon you want to do is locked down for an entire week and anybody coming close to it is getting PKed. That's truly why you want instances, and we all know it.
Nah, they should be very, very hard. You should need a team of dedicated and good PvErs to kill them.
If nobody manages to kill them for weeks upon reaching Max Level, then that would be a perfectly fine outcome as well. If people need help from an Alliance for the first kills (not battling the boss, but protecting their attempt from unwanted pvpers), then that's perfectly fine as well. Work together, Split the loot or try to kill it alone for the entire loot. That's in the guild's agency to decide.
You seem like a sad nerd by the way you talk, trust me I am an avid PvPer in any game and I'll be fine. If you get emotional cause people give their opinion on the game just shut your trap and don't try to tell others how they are or what they want.
Im gonna be the dude that PKs your ass in every dungeon, nerdy.
You seem like a teenager and the only emo one here. I wish you luck!
Not every player have fun by killing others who doesnt want to fight. Thats a personal characteristic of a human beeing.
Some kids like to destroy things, just because others got fun with it... I think thats the way it is.
The corruption system discourages people from this quite harshly already, so this isn't going to happen as much as PvP over scarce resources. People aren't usually going to bother killing a random player 20 levels below them for no reward, because they will incur like 7 penalties for it, gimping their own character. However, if a low level character or PvE player wants to contest a scarce resource, then he better be ready to be killed because now players have an incentive to kill him.
In fact, my only concern is that the corruption penalties are too harsh. If players are fighting over a scarce resource (e.g. rare mining location), people will try to exploit the corruption system by trying to mine the resource as a non-combatant, then the people already there will attack and kill the non-combatant, but now this gives an advantage to any other group that rolls up to contest to the resource because the group that is already there now is gimped by corruption. So it favors fresh groups that show up over the groups that were already there trying to contest the resource.
Really? You're posting on a web forum about a video game, and you're calling someone a nerd because they disagree with you? He brought up valid points. How can you even know if he is being "emotional" over a forum post. If anyone is being emotional, it's you with the ad hominem attacks lmao.
They just need to make it so you cant logout in the dungeon.
Or if you do logout for more then 5 min , you get auto teleported to the dungeon entrance.
It would be terrible game design if you could logout anywhere near the boss room.
As you stated that would open too many possibilitys for abuse or boss camping.
Don't bother engaging with the peanut brained types. Dude acts like he's about it but cries and detests open world dungeons and only posts about raiding and PvE. He's a WoW raider.
@bigepeen that's why you don't kill the lowies trying to get the resource.
You just keep throwing interrupts and stuns their way so they can't harvest it until you are there yourself to get the resources.
Incorrect. The people vouching for instanced PvE content are the ones that want challenging PvE content. I don't think that the majority of them would be complaining if they didn't feel like PvE content wasn't going to be challenging. PvE content being Open World or Instanced is not the problem, it being challenging or not is the problem.
There is also no reason to engage with your points either since you just reiterate the same thing over and over again.
You are mostly dismissive of the problems being brought up so what exactly are you adding apart from your one dimensional PvP focused view on the game?
Also can you watch your tone a little bit?
"peanut brained types"???????
If you don't want a game with PvE that raises the question why you want to play a game that will include it.
In the same way there are PvE centric games out there, there are also more PvP centric games out there.
You are neglecting his point based on his assumed personality / playstyle.
He is not the only one being a bit annoying, your unfounded assumptions are just the same.
He mostly just claims that this game doesn't need any solid PvE which is not what the game is supposed to be:
There is going to be a lot of PvE content for all portions of the playerbase
[...] – Steven Sharif
Also instances are also intended to be in the game, claiming they are simply impossible without destroying the whole game concept is just extremely hyperbolic, but untrue:
Open world dungeons will be populated to facilitate multiple groups within the dungeon.[7]
80% of dungeons will be open world.[8][9]
Instanced dungeons will also be present and will cater for solo and group questlines.[7]
20% of dungeons will be instanced.[8][9]
source: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Dungeons
The rest is just a dismissive rambling over how he is a PvP guy who doesn't need PvE.
So can you show me where he is exactly "valid"?
I think his last posts are mostly toxic and dismissive of the problem simply because he doesn't care.
And I will sit here and repeat the same thing 100 more times if it's necessary whenever somebody suggests completely changing the design of the game. You saw what happened to New World right?
Could you explain to me what my forum tone sounded like to you?
I do want to PvE, I'm quite happy with the PvE content that looks to be in the game already, but I will never know until I play it. You on the otherhand? Demand for instances, demand things be changed to suit your playstyle and way of getting gear so you can safely gear up in an instance every tuesday and thursday night with zero threat. PvErs haven't even played the game yet they conclusively know the PvE is junk? Have a little faith in the dev team. I'm trying my best to play a PvP centric game without seeing it get New Worlded or turn into another WoW clone by catering to WoW raiders for yet another flop.
Come on man, you and I both know that isn't true. I have sat in this thread and other threads and said "Make all the PvE content you can, and make it challenging, but don't put it in an instance" over and over again. You should be aware of that if you are getting sick of me reiterating my points.
20% instancing seems extremely fair to me for an open world game. But it's not good enough for you is it? You want 40% instancing with plenty of raid content. And once you beat all that raid content you will want NEW raids and more instances, and on and on, and then all of a sudden we are playing world of warcraft. I'm beginning to think that you are just here to argue, you completely ignore everything people have to say about the Open world, about the nature of these types of games, and you just talk about how you need instances or else the game sucks.
The only reasonable conclusion for people who NEED instances is that they are scared to PvP, what other reasonable explanation is there if they are that adamant about it without even seeing how the games PvE content plays.
What exactly happened to New World? For me the Devs saw what they did (Alpha state), and it wasnt fun for a big part of the crowd. And all you got was a open pvp game without any additional interesting content. I personally cant understand how is it fun to outnumber someone or fight with someone who is clearly undergeared or just not in a mood to compete against someone. If there is no regulation in pvp it will lead to frustation. Is it to regulated its no open pvp anymore. So whats the point to have not instanced raids where you cant enter if you not member of the party? What are your intensions to get in there?
I fully understand what you are looking for. Back in 2008 i played Age of Conan (AoC), on a PVP server mostly and a lot of my free time. I cant count how many times ppl are trying to prevent other ppl from progression especially when they know they are better geared. Same here for Black Desert Online, ArcheAge.
Dont know if the game will be that hardcore for a casual, or someone with realife besides but if thats the case the population wont be that high you maybe expecting. But thats just my opinion. I would see less open pvp but instead organized pvp that leads to pve. If you want that specific region to grind, harvest, raid or whatever you should have fight for it with your fraction/guild/allies like in GuildWars where guilds win the pvp arena Heroes' Ascent to open the gates for the pve crowd to enter the "raids" where you can acces it for amount of time for example.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_Wars That was back in 2005 so it could be tweaked but instead of rumbling a horde in chaotic open pvp its much better and seperates the goups let them compete and work in the end together.
There is no way a game can implement content that fits this description while still having open PvP around that content piece. This is simply not possible, as at that point the difficulty of the content is in the PvP, not the PvE, and so the description of that content would no longer apply if the difficulty of that content was in the PvP around it.
As such, the expectation of content to fit this description is that of either PvP being disabled in the area, or the area being instanced.
Now keep in mind, this game is having about 20% of it's content instanced, which is actually a fairly large amount in comparison to many other games - and so the idea that this game will have an amount of instanced raid content when these two statements are taken together is not at all that unreasonable.
While it may well be said that the instances the game will have will all be story related, it would be hard to argue that raid bosses don't have a story behind them. I mean, almost all stories in MMO's eventually end up with a raid boss - pick an expansion in WoW, follow the main story (not just a specific quest chain, but a narrative), and you will end up at a raid boss if you go far enough.
So, to take what Intrepid have said so far and assume there won't be an amount of instanced raid bosses seems premature at best.
Even with that, Intrepid have outright said that they will implement more instanced content if it is needed. I don't have the quote on hand, and can't be bothered looking for it - you could probably find it if you look for it though.
However, it is worth pointing out that adding instances are in no way "dumbing down" the game. If anything, leaving content open world is dumbing it down, as the content itself (aka, the game) is left in a much easier state. Adding instances allows the developers to make the content (aka, the game) much more detailed, complex and challenging. Yes, it takes out the PvP element of the specific encounters that are in that instance, but if this is only one encounter per instance, then it is hard to argue that it is meaningfully lowering the amount of PvP available.
What it is doing though, is increasing the ceiling of PvE content - for the sake of having occasional single encounter instances that arn't able to be interrupted due to PvP.
That PvP can move to other areas - even as simply as moving to the instance entrance. That PvE though, that can only exist at that level in a manner where PvP isn't possible.
This is the best argument that can be made in relation to instanced content "dumbing down" a game - you are replacing a small amount of potential PvP challenge, and replacing it with a much greater amount of PvE challenge, but all of this is only in one specific location.
Edit to add; if Intrepid came out right now and said that they have no plans at all for an amount of instanced raid content, and offered up refunds for people that put money in to the game based on statements from Intrepid suggesting that there would be, I would gladly take that refund and not look back - as would many others.
Keep in mind, in order for a raid to get to that location, they are clearing the way for others to also get there.
The problem is that some quotes from Steven are vague, and they can be interpreted in many ways. There will for sure be PvE content, but I don't know think they can realistically copy paste WoW style raids, FF14 style raids, ESO PvE encounters, etc.. to satisfy every type of PvE that people prefer. The 80/20 quote indicates that dungeons and raids will mostly be open world, and not instanced, apart from maybe the tutorial and story-related content. Bricktop is basically saying this, and I don't think it's inaccurate at all. My best guess is that any material or gear worth grinding are not in these instanced dungeons, but I guess I could be wrong.
Stop assuming that anything not exactly like WoW raiding is unfun, and try it out instead of just being so close-minded that you won't try out a game simply because it doesn't have instanced PvE. If you were in charge of developing MMORPGs, there would be zero innovation. No new ideas would be tried, because apparently beating WoW-style linear, static, co-op PvE raids is the holy grail of all the possibilities provided by the huge, dynamic open world of MMORPGs.
However, without a doubt, the epitome of PvE content is instances.
One thing that is absolutely true - presumably isn't even up for debate - is that the content that is to be considered the best PvE content possible must derive 100% of it's challenge from PvE.
If a portion of the challenge is supposed to come from PvP, that means the content itself is easy should there be no PvP happening for what ever reason (and there are a number of reasons this could be the case). Any content that is designed to have a portion of it's challenge derrived from PvP is by definition not the epitome of PvE content.
Now, it is easy to say that Ashes is PvX, not PvE, and this is true. However, the fact that it is PvX does not mean that there can't be some PvE aspects and some PvP aspects - it means that there are both present.
What not having instanced content means then, is that Ashes - as a PvX game that is supposed to include both PvE and PvP content - will not contain anything analogous to the epitome of PvE content.
But the game is planning on having instanced content already. 20% of it. Which as I personally have said sounds extremely fair to me. So what are you suggesting? More than 20%? I'm suggesting that would take away from the open world aspect of the game and we are right back to square one.
Yeah, 20% is fair - if it is used well.
If instanced content is used as leveling content as some suggest it may be, then that content will not be the epitome of PvE content - I would hope this is self evident.
If that 20% of instanced content is used well, then the game will have every opportunity to be one of the best MMO's ever made for a very wide section of the player base.
I'm actually not at all interested in asking for more than 20% of all content in Ashes to be instanced, I think that number is high enough. If it were any higher, then aspects of the game other than PvE content will start to suffer.
I am just suggesting/hoping that 20% is put to good use.
I completely agree with you here, I hope the PvE content is challenging and unique to PvE centered players. I understand your points about complex instanced PvE mechanics, and I think they will nail that in that 20%. People are completely speculating about "Lore driven story instances" or whatever the term they have been throwing around is. All the big WoW raids were tied into the lore and story, it could mean anything.
I also completely have faith that this dev team can cook up some new and unique open world PvE and not the normal tank and spank stuff we have seen in previous games. I truly believe Ashes is gonna redefine the MMO genre like WoW did all those years ago.
I think they will have all kinds of PvE like they claim they will, 20% of the PvE will be instances, 80% open world I personally have always enjoyed having a nice spot to grind something out for a few hours (Recipe, mats, gold) and defend the spot from people who try to gank me, but I can understand not everyone feels this way.