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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
Because...?
eh, for starters, ttk isn't supposed to be that short. I don't think the scenario you describe is supposed to be a common one. Most of the time, if someone wants to fight back, they will probably have a chance too. On top of that, does this not give an advantage to range classes that can flag themselves easier with their long range skills? Is this an intended advantage?
I could be wrong but from what i know, the reduced death penalty is there to encourage players to fight back, not encourage players to burst others down before they can fight back so they can get more resources. Not saying that can't happen or you can't try to do that, but i don't think that is what it's there for.
I definitely disagree with your last statement. Going purple basically turns on everyones red = dead response. If someone keeps their flag on all the time, they are saying they are can be freely killed without penalty to the attacker which means you can kill them, take their resources, and then stick around like nothing happened. If a solo player does this, they are basically giving their resources out for free to any group.
Wtf are you smoking? How exactly would anyone flag up without a toggle BEFORE PvP started?
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
How exactly do you think PvP starts? You hit another player or another player hits you. You don’t have to be flagged to do that, in fact you become flagged because you do that.
Errr, I think that's his point.
His point that you have to actively engage in combat to... become a combatant? Yeah that’s by design and fully intended.
5 rogues attack your dumb ass pickin up rocks and you die before you get out of whatever cc or burst damage they can pull off. Go ahead. Flag bro.
I would appreciate if you let @Noaani answer for himself. I think it's conveniently presumptuous to expect every class/build to be in a position to flag via combat at will without putting themselves in a situation to get themselves killed before or while they can do it.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
That is also by design and intended. A team that can successfully chain cc you and burst you down before you can flag deserves to get the full reward off of you. Their cost for doing so is corruption that can snowball if they are reckless.
Alright, so where was your choice as a rock gatherer to consent to that pvp?
No it really isn’t presumptuous to assume that every class will have some method of becoming a combatant when engaged in active combat. It would be a rather large failure on Intrepid’s part if their final state of balance left it possible for one class to completely evade another for the entire duration of a mostly even fight. If such a situation begins occurring in alpha, I have full faith they will address it, and not with a toggle that would warp the PvP landscape for the worse.
Simply flagging combatant upon hostile casts on another player instead of requiring a damaging hit solves most of that issue.
And why do you present, presumably, a no win situation, and just again confirm that this is going to be used as a “protect half my stuff” button rather than some symbol that you want PvP. Surely if you wanted PvP you would still be attempting to win, which would require hitting the enemy player and flagging anyway, but you frame it as just wanting to flag to cut your losses. You can’t have it both ways. Either you want the toggle because you want a fight, or you want a toggle because you want to cut your losses when you know you’ll lose. In neither case is a toggle a needed or positive addition.
To be fair, both sides have a fair amount of assumptions going on.
The situation where a toggle has been deemed usefuk by some is as follows:
Off peak time,
A player specifically wanting PvP,
A player not wanting arena or caravan PvP,
A player that is by themselves,
A player surprised by at least 3 other player,
A player that would have still flagged up against such uneven odds,
AND
The players that surprise attacked our player being able to CC lock said player long enough to kill him.
If anyone of the above are not true, the toggle was not needed.
Even if all of the above are true, the desire for a toggle is assuming the following;
Players are able to be CC'd for long enough to be killed,
Players are not able to flag as a combatant while CC'd
AND
It is not the intention by Intrepid that if a group of players are able to kill a player before they are able to react, that group of players should get the rewards from that player being killed while a non combatant.
Again, if any one of those assumptions turn out to not be true, a toggle is pointless.
Hopefully, after all of that, you can see why I don't personally consider a toggle to be worth the disruption it will cause to other players.
---
I should say, it is my personal opinion that if my guild and I kill an instanced raid boss and then need to run back home with the rewards of that on hand, if a player like you comes along and manages to kill me before I can react and flag up, you have every right to a higher drop rate from me - which means a higher chance to drop the material from the raid.
I should not have the automatic ability to toggle a switch and halve your chances at getting that drop.
If you know PvP is about to start, you enable force attacking on a player.
If you are someone wanting PvP and you don't have an ability that you can get off early, or indeed a range of CC breaks, you are playing a fairly poor build for what you are doing.
I mean, if you can see PvP is coming, and are still killed before you can flag, you have no one to blame but yourself - whether your skill or your build.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
What is this "enable" force attack?
I'm going to ignore the rest of your response that stipulates "you must suck at pvp if you can't do x before y" I don't understand how that argument is relevant in a group pvp scenario where you may have a specific role that doesn't involve you going out of your way to flag up.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
I disagree with your list of uses for this.
If someone wants to pvp, there is no reason for them to toggle on pvp as they will become a combatant the moment they attack someone. Only reason someone who wants to pvp might toggle on first is if they are shy or something and want to run around flagged until someone attacks them.
If a player is caught off gaurd by a group of players, if they don't have the opportunity to attack then in most cases, they probably won't have the opportunity to flag.
Really, the only scenario I can see this being useful is the mass large scale pvp example that is mentioned in the original post. With the amount of damage that can be thrown around when two large groups clash, there would be a small period during the initial engagement that people would want to be careful not to kill someone before they have a chance to become a combatant. This seems awkward and un-intended to me.
As I said, I don't think anyone is saying a toggle is needed. It's more of a potential QoL improvement that would help in this scenario mentioned as well as a few others. On the other side, it's hard to tell if there are consequences of this change that go against the system's original design goals.
What disruption do you think it will cause other players? This is no benefit to someone who is attacking. Is someone being able to preemptively flag before they get burst down cause a disruption to the attacker because they didn't get corruption? Sorry but that sounds ridiculous.
I don't think it really matters if you don't care if someone can burst you down before you can fight back. It's a matter of does the ability for you to flag before you attack someone go against the system's design. I don't think it does. Correct me if I'm wrong but from what I remember, the combatant benefits has always been framed as an incentive to fight back, not an incentive to kill someone before they can fight back.
Another thing we have been told is that you can manually select players and enable attacks to land on them via a key combo (ctrl+f, for example).
This doesn't flag you as a combatant, it simply means your attacks are now able to land on the player in question.
While we don't know if either of these or both of them will make it in to the final game, the current plan (last I heard) is that players need to specifically designate any and every aplayer they wish to attack in open PvP (which is why this PvP is not suited to large scale fights).
As this isn't well documented on the wiki, nor on Ashes 101, I can understand you not being familiar with it since you probably haven't seen the three or four times Steven has talked about it, but as this is the third time that I know of that this mechanic has been mentioned in this thread, I am curious as to why you are only questioning it now.
You're being intentionally dense again. Removing the requirement for the ability you cast to do damage before flagging you is exactly that, moving the flag condition from ability hit to ability cast. Please explain where from that you think all range requirements and cast conditions are suddenly null and void. I could not possibly make this any simpler.
This kind of feels like the pot calling the kettle black.
You call him dense yet we have this ridiculously long thread about a small QoL change that allows players to flag without attacking. It allows players to press a button and signal to anyone around them that they can be killed without the attacker suffering a penalty. it gives no advantage to a pvper who is out to attack someone and is only a (debatably)minor benefit to someone who is on the receiving end of an attack.
Sorry if i'm miss understanding you but why does a person need to be able to cast a spell that is in range to be declared a combatant? Can melee classes have a leer/"look really mean at them" skill that has a long range and allows them to flag themselves as combatants?
Ok, lets take this from another angle. We have open world battlegrounds. You say players have to attack someone, do something active to become a combatant but open world battlegrounds are described as flagging someone as a combatant for just walking in the zone. In caravans, you flag yourself by signing up to attack or defend the caravan. Is that not a similar level of activity to pressing a button to flag yourself?
This thread would likely be 6 or 7 pages if people actually listened.
As to it being a QoL feature, as stated earlier in this thread so was LFG when Blizzard added it. They had no reason to think it would be the singular worst addition to the MMO genre ever, but that is what that small QoL addition became.
With any alteration to a system like this, you need to look at the effect it will have on all players, not just those using it.
If there is a combatant toggle, there will be more combatants. If there are more combatants, those few that are not become the target for people wanting to PvP for profit or griefing. This is one societal change that a toggle absolutely will have, and there will be others - not to mention mechanics and systems changes that this may bring along.
That one societal change above more than outweighs any and all suggested uses for a toggle like this - and even if you and I disagree on exactly when it would be used, we both agree that its use would be rare (keeping in mind that the idea for large scale PvP is that it is more caravans, wars and sieges where this is encouraged to happen, not open world PvP).
Again, on balance, it is not a good suggestion.
A “small QoL change” that doesn’t actually improve quality of life for the general population is not a QoL change. Instant fast travel is a QoL change but I think you can see how that affects every player of the game even, and especially, if they choose to play the game as intended and not use fast travel.
Same for this. The benefits of literally halving any attackers potential gains off you have a big detrimental impact on how open world PvP is supposed to function. You claim it’s good that you can protect yourself with no further input than going into your UI. It isn’t. It goes directly against the design of the game where you have to actually fight back in some way in order to get that buffer. It is by design that someone who doesn’t (or cannot) fight back, loses more than someone who can and does fight back. There is nothing wrong a successful ganker eating some corruption to get the full death penalty drops off you. This is not a problem that needs solving.
This change pressures all players to go purple from the start, because there is always more to lose as a green, and you wouldn’t even have to do any PvP at all and still get to protect half your stuff at all times. Can you really, truly not understand why it would be primarily non-PvPers using this toggle? You gave them a free out they’ll never have to lift a finger for.
Melee classes should have to get into range to use their actual abilities in order to flag. Debuffs count as abilities. If someone has that much more skill, that much better pacing, and can kite that well, then it sucks, but they earned their full payout. I highly doubt a class would lack any ranged damage ability, any gap closer, and any mobility tool. The close range rogue will have soft invis and mobility tools. Fighters have gap closers. Clerics have ranged abilities. Tanks have damage soak tools and debuff skills. What class in particular do you think will be completely unable to flag up when faced with a ranged class in a mostly even fight?
Battleground discussions have no place in this topic because all of you are insisting this is necessary for random group encounters where flagging exists. But I’ll humor you.
No, picking sides in a caravan fight is not equivalent of opening your UI to “enter combat” with nobody. It’s the equivalent of walking into an active shootout and loudly announcing you’re joining a side.
Erm, ehhhhh, yeah. So, BEFORE PvP has started, i.e. BEFORE anyone has used any attacks and no-one is yet flagged and no-one is a combatant..... you think that someone's flagging purple without attacking anybody? Are you smoking the same thing that Noaani is smoking?
@Caeryl - and you still haven't answered this one.....
People wouldn't go around attacking other players just to flag purple because there is no real point to it as the flag only lasts a few minutes, and reputation in Ashes will actually mean something.
If you become known as the guy that just goes around randomly attacking players and then running off, you'll have a real hard time.
And, if loads of people are doing it, that "reputation" won't mean a thing. Once it starts to wear off, just do it again.
Just as you can say "No-one will do that", I can do the exact same thing and say "People will do that".
I'm not just saying "no one will do it" without qualification.
No one will do it because the duration is insignificant.
No one will do it because you will always be able to see PvP coming.
No one will do it because it will piss off those around them that players rely on for many things.
No one will do it because most people will fight back, so the notion of hitting someone and running just doesn't work.
No one will do it because people you are grouped with will tell you to stop.
No one will do it because it doesn't make sense to do it.
What are your reasons for thinking it will be common again?
What is the duration, and what has been officially designated as "insignificant"?
You won't always be able to see PvP coming. If you're focused on attacking a dungeon boss, and get hit from behind, you're not going to see it.
Chances are, you'll have your own network of players where you can get the majority of your things. Pissing off random players around you isn't going to matter much in the long-term.
Players who want to flag cos they like PvP aren't going to be sad if someone fights back. They'll stay for their fun.
If the group you're with also wants to be purple, then they'll be doing it, too. It could even be a requirement for some particular groups.
As we've discussed in the last 17 pages, it makes more sense than not doing it.
So, you've no real points.
The duration has said to be a few minutes at most.
You will always be able to see PvP coming - if wee are talking about times when you could be killed before you are able to react - which is what we are talking about.
You may have a network of players where you get things from, but if you piss off their friends, you will need to find a new network. This is how reputation works.
Yes they will stay for the fight, but that isn't the point. The point is that you won't be attacking players and running off, you will just be attacking players - meaning the idea of attacking players and runnign off wont be happening much at all based on just this one point.
Groups doing this as a collective are unlikely to be a thing, for the reasons above.
The above points are real, you have not provided one reason that makes any sense to do this.
I mean, I am more than happy to wait a few years when we are playing a game without a combatant toggle, where players are not doing this on any sort of scale to point it out to you - which since you refuse to accept logic, is about all that can be said.
It's a date!
As I have said, i don't think having toggle goes against the design goals of the system. I think we are at an agree to disagree point in the argument.
I don't think it pressures everyone to go purple. As i said, going purple means people can be freely killed with no penalty. If you are purple, people are going to attack you and you will be dying. You will be dying more often to pvp than if you were not purple. You only get benefits to being purple when you die, possibly only when you die to another player, so there is no reason to stay purple all the time.
Why is this toggle change things up so much for someone who doesn't want to pvp? So in the current system, they are not going to fight back but if we add a pvp toggle, suddenly they are going to want to use it for it's benefits. If they wanted to combatant benefits, why wouldn't they just use a skill on their attacker in the first place?
In addition, if someone doesn't want to pvp, i'd imagine it would be more advantageous for them to stay green to give their attacker corruption. If they go purple, yes they suffer less of a death penalty but their attack suffered nothing and will still be around. If they gave their attacker corruption, their attacker will most likely want leave before someone gets them.
In your caravan argument, why is that any different then walking into an area and declaring you want to participate in pvp with a toggle? You made a big deal about how action is important to becoming a combatant but in a caravan scenario, it isn't. You just declare you want to fight. What's wrong with people being able to declare they want to fight in the open world with a toggle similarly to how they do it in a caravan?
Yea, we had this argument about QoL changes and i think we agreed that comparing a toggle to LFR is an apples and oranges comparison.
I wouldn't say people aren't listening, it's that we disagree and are going in circles with our disagreements.
I don't think a pvp toggle is suddenly going to change things so pvpers runs around toggled for pvp all the time. My reasoning for thinking this is, anyone who does that is opening themselves up to be killed without any risk to their attacker. The amount of times you die to others will out-way any benefits you get for doing this.
I completely disagree with your assumptions that so many people will flag for combatant that the players who don't, will become targets of pvpers. That sounds silly to me. As i said, i think there will be more disadvantages to keeping yourself flagged than advantages. To your second point, if there are all these people flagged as combatant and can be killed with no penalty to yourself, why are going to attack the person who you do suffer a high penalty for killing? That doesn't seem worth it to me. Like in the current system, there might be cases where there is a benefit but i don't think attacking every person who is a non-combatant would become a thing, even if what you said before this became true.
But yea, i'm listening, I disagree with your assumptions of how this will change player behavior.