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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
New Military Node Building: Theatre of Carnage
Sathrago
Member, Alpha Two
This post has been revised many times so I will try to consolidate and pair off the different types of ideas to make it easier for new people to get in on the conversation.
General Idea:
I would like for there to be an optional building that can be placed within military nodes, possibly economic nodes too, where players can sign up to fight in a blood sport against other players. These fights will either be solo vs solo or group vs group. This battle will be to the death and all gear will drop for the winning team to loot as a reward. Other players will have the ability to bet on who will win the fight while watching from the stands. The winning team will gain a percentage of all bets cast while also increasing their ranking within the Theatre of Carnage.
Just to be clear, this will not be an instanced arena, people will be able to freely walk into the stands and watch each fight though they will not be able to enter the pit itself.
Alternative to Full Loot: Instead of players dropping the gear they are wearing, the gear would instead drop to 0% durability and grant the winners the "repair cost" in materials for the gear broken in this manner. The amount can be changed as necessary.
Cosmetic Pieces:As another alternative loot system, players could drop special "blood-soaked" material tokens for one random piece of gear they were wearing. This token in addition to the ordinary materials required could be taken to a crafter to make a Theatre of Carnage variant of that equipment piece that is essentially a color or design variant of the original equipment. This alternative would mean each player only drops a single token rather than materials or their full loot.
Alternative Building Names:
Murder Pits
Colosseum
Matchmaking Mechanics:
These matches will have set times that can be signed up for spread throughout a day. A team will sign up for a time slot and a moderate amount of time before then the system will alert the players of each team to show up. If they do not accept the invite a new team is chosen. This repeats until a match is found or the time limit is reached. If a match is not made in time there will be no fight. Players that sign up for a timeslot should be heavily punished in rankings (or some other form) for skipping out on a fight they have signed up for.
Battle Mechanics:
The team sizes currently suggested are, 1v1, 2v2, 4v4, 8v8. Using 8 as the standard adventuring party I split down from there. I have no other real reason for the team sizes than that.
When a Team is defeated their gear will drop for the enemy players to loot but in a damaged state that will require repairing before it can be used.
There are no plans for any traps, mechanisms or terrain within the murder pits. a bowl of sand, broken teeth, and blood is my current suggestion.
Gambling Mechanics:
When a fight is announced other players can come to watch the fun and choose to bet on which team will win. (possibly a minor fee to enter)
My current suggestion is to have the amount you can bet be determined strictly by the system after calculating difference in ranking and item level of the two teams.
Taxes should be applied appropriately to generate funds for the Node itself.
Suggestion to circumvent being against gambling law: Any gold earned via this gambling system becomes an account bound currency that is used to pay taxes and various other system-based costs. Basically removing the ability to trade with players but still letting it be a useful resource.
Other Suggestions:
Instead of it always being a random enemy team we could also mix in elite monsters/npcs as part of the queue. These would have different rules than your standard pvp fights. Firstly, players would not drop their gear should they fail to beat the monster. If the npc wins the percentage that would normally go to a winning player will instead go to the Node.
Expanding on the previous idea, instead of an AI as an opponent we could instead use monster tokens or even animal husbandry to create monsters to fight with. This would work similar to the champion idea that was mentioned for the Battle Royale mayor choosing competition. You would have an npc or monster that can be geared out or augmented the higher your rankings.
When defeating either an npc monster or a player controlled monster they could drop a Race Token. A Race Token would be a consumable item that, for a period of time, grants the player a bonus to certificate drops or experience when hunting creatures of that specific monster's race. Additionally this token could possibly be used as part of a crafting recipe to create Trophy Stands. A Trophy Stand would be a taxidermized version of the monster slain that when placed in a house or other building, players would be able to gaze upon it and gain a small boon. This boon would give them a minor bonus to experience, certificates, or damage/defense against that monster's race for a decent amount of time. These trophies would work similarly to food buffs that have been talked about previously.
(If you have any suggestions post them below and ill add it to the list here)
General Idea:
I would like for there to be an optional building that can be placed within military nodes, possibly economic nodes too, where players can sign up to fight in a blood sport against other players. These fights will either be solo vs solo or group vs group. This battle will be to the death and all gear will drop for the winning team to loot as a reward. Other players will have the ability to bet on who will win the fight while watching from the stands. The winning team will gain a percentage of all bets cast while also increasing their ranking within the Theatre of Carnage.
Just to be clear, this will not be an instanced arena, people will be able to freely walk into the stands and watch each fight though they will not be able to enter the pit itself.
Alternative to Full Loot: Instead of players dropping the gear they are wearing, the gear would instead drop to 0% durability and grant the winners the "repair cost" in materials for the gear broken in this manner. The amount can be changed as necessary.
Cosmetic Pieces:As another alternative loot system, players could drop special "blood-soaked" material tokens for one random piece of gear they were wearing. This token in addition to the ordinary materials required could be taken to a crafter to make a Theatre of Carnage variant of that equipment piece that is essentially a color or design variant of the original equipment. This alternative would mean each player only drops a single token rather than materials or their full loot.
Alternative Building Names:
Murder Pits
Colosseum
Matchmaking Mechanics:
These matches will have set times that can be signed up for spread throughout a day. A team will sign up for a time slot and a moderate amount of time before then the system will alert the players of each team to show up. If they do not accept the invite a new team is chosen. This repeats until a match is found or the time limit is reached. If a match is not made in time there will be no fight. Players that sign up for a timeslot should be heavily punished in rankings (or some other form) for skipping out on a fight they have signed up for.
Battle Mechanics:
The team sizes currently suggested are, 1v1, 2v2, 4v4, 8v8. Using 8 as the standard adventuring party I split down from there. I have no other real reason for the team sizes than that.
When a Team is defeated their gear will drop for the enemy players to loot but in a damaged state that will require repairing before it can be used.
There are no plans for any traps, mechanisms or terrain within the murder pits. a bowl of sand, broken teeth, and blood is my current suggestion.
Gambling Mechanics:
When a fight is announced other players can come to watch the fun and choose to bet on which team will win. (possibly a minor fee to enter)
My current suggestion is to have the amount you can bet be determined strictly by the system after calculating difference in ranking and item level of the two teams.
Taxes should be applied appropriately to generate funds for the Node itself.
Suggestion to circumvent being against gambling law: Any gold earned via this gambling system becomes an account bound currency that is used to pay taxes and various other system-based costs. Basically removing the ability to trade with players but still letting it be a useful resource.
Other Suggestions:
Instead of it always being a random enemy team we could also mix in elite monsters/npcs as part of the queue. These would have different rules than your standard pvp fights. Firstly, players would not drop their gear should they fail to beat the monster. If the npc wins the percentage that would normally go to a winning player will instead go to the Node.
Expanding on the previous idea, instead of an AI as an opponent we could instead use monster tokens or even animal husbandry to create monsters to fight with. This would work similar to the champion idea that was mentioned for the Battle Royale mayor choosing competition. You would have an npc or monster that can be geared out or augmented the higher your rankings.
When defeating either an npc monster or a player controlled monster they could drop a Race Token. A Race Token would be a consumable item that, for a period of time, grants the player a bonus to certificate drops or experience when hunting creatures of that specific monster's race. Additionally this token could possibly be used as part of a crafting recipe to create Trophy Stands. A Trophy Stand would be a taxidermized version of the monster slain that when placed in a house or other building, players would be able to gaze upon it and gain a small boon. This boon would give them a minor bonus to experience, certificates, or damage/defense against that monster's race for a decent amount of time. These trophies would work similarly to food buffs that have been talked about previously.
(If you have any suggestions post them below and ill add it to the list here)
Don't forget to like the post and share with your friends if you like these ideas!
6
Comments
― Plato
maybe not? Ill take it if its not.
There's almost a 0% chance that good gear will come from Arenas. The wiki entry states "Gear enhancement rewards.[18]" as the only thing even similar at the end of sixth month seasons and that will be runes/gems/enchants or something of the sort. It would completely go against the vision of the game if you could safely grind out gear in arenas and BGs.
I really have the feeling all of the gear will come from crafters and mob drops in the open world. As it should be.
If there was a ranking system it would be purely for matchmaking and bragging rights, nothing more. This is an outlet for those players that want to challenge someone else or to plain old go on a killing spree but this is in a consensual arena where everyone knows exactly whats going to happen once they sign up for it.
Maybe it could be a special building in a specific type of node: Militaristic (fighting) or Economic (betting), maybe.
I could see it in both nodes tbh. The reason why i suggested full loot rather than a standard arena thing like any other game is to give players that just wanna kill and get loot by outplaying other players will have their niche sated. I heavily recommend the full loot pvp for this suggestion. But they need to make a show out of each fight rather than people queue up and phase into their own secret instance. Have the building sport 1 grand arena where each fight goes through announcing its starting, giving each side a chance to smack talk to the other side and place bets, then finally have the teams square off. You could also add in an option where the winning team can choose to spare the enemy players, causing them not to die but leave behind the gear.
You could have it cycle from 1v1 to 2v2 to 4v4 to 8v8 battles. This would make it a bit slower and less farmy form of pvp but would certainly be popular for the die-hard fans.
I agree 100%.
I really like the idea of military nodes being able to build an arena where it's citizens can fight (and even invite others to join in), it's just the details in regards to gear and wagers of this specific suggestion that I don't see happening.
Im sorry, whats the issue with the full loot and gambling system?
The loot aspect isn't what the game is about. That is basically it.
The gambling aspect would make it too easy for players to engage in RMT. It isn't suspicious at all if a player loses a fight in an arena like this - so one could simply pay someone to enter the arena with a large wager and lose.
Any gambling in a game like Ashes needs to be based on chance, so people can not collaborate on the outcome.
The rest of it, I'm completely on board with.
I already explained who this was for. It's not supposed to be for everyone and they have already showed that they want a PvX game, letting people play how they want. I feel like this fits well into the game as a more structured but bloody pvp system that players can engage in.
As for the gambling, You will have people showing up to watch these fights as just pure entertainment or to gamble, and if they see some people throwing a match (there is no real incentive for the people fighting to do this) they can easily report it. Now, if people in the audience try to use this for RMT, we can simply limit the amount used on betting and make a system where it takes into account the difference in ranking between the two teams. This as well as the overall ranking of each side could be used to limit any obscene amounts of money being bet.
Like any system it requires fine-tuning and more than me just throwing words down in the forums to get it to be the most balanced thing in existence. This stuff takes time and testing. All im saying is that this sort of building/system would be very cool to have as an addition to the game.
A full instanced raid progression path is for top end PvE raiders. As such, it should be in Ashes becuase I have said who it is for.
Clearly, that isn't how this works.
Arena PvP in general isn't what Ashes is really about - it's fine as a side attraction, but that is about it. More specifically though, gearing up through arena PvP is absolutely not what Ashes is about.
Neither of these things fit in this game, and so neither should exist - even if we can point to people that would use them.
The develoeprs don't want to block off fighting people in an arena, they want you out in the world, they want you participating in sieges, in caravans, in guild and node wars. Some arena PvP is ok, and some can even have meaning (military node leadership). However, the bulk of PvP - and the PvP that most players will benefit from - needs to be out in the open world.
That is what the entire game is dependant on. If there aren't people out in the world PvP'ing, as soon as 5 metropolis nodes were built on a server, that server would essentially function as per a themepark MMO (according to Steven). The thing that makes Ashes what it is - the thing that makes this game different to other games - is the way they are encouraging PvP to happen in the parts of the game where they have designed it to facilitate changes to the game world.
The sooner the newer people on these forums realize that is what Ashes is, the sooner they can decide if they like that or not. If these players don't realize that, they will get to beta and accuse Intrepid of being just like New World - not because the game changed, but because they had a complete lack of understanding as to what the game is.
You say the developers don't want to block people off in an arena while they promote players making an Inn to bring other players to in order to sit down and just plain old hang out. That's not even pve or pvp content its purely for rp and fleshing out the world, letting players play how they want.
I have already explained a few ways to make this work. If the arena is on a time set schedule and only 1 fight can happen at a time you will still have MANY people out in the open world. The effect this will have on open world pvp is null. Again, I have already explained this. You either ignored my posts completely or choose not to read them properly.
So what im gathering from this part is that you don't want any new suggestions and steven/intrepid are gods that should never be questioned or suggested to because that would soil the very game code itself causing the game to explode and never release.
Get off your high horse please, We have gone back and forth a few times on the forums and I honestly wish there was a way to mute you at this point. We obviously see things differently and its exhausting having to try and explain every little thing that you keep glossing over.
Suggestions are great, and arguing for them is also fantastic.
Thing is, if your suggestion in any way affects a core aspect of the game (in this case, PvP in the game being used as a means to facilitate change in the game world), then you need to have a damn good reason to want it, and need to be able to explain how that change to the core aspect of the game can be dealt with.
Right now, your suggestion does nothing other than take players that prefer PvP out of the open world - where they are a key agent of change in this game - and places them in an arena where there is no change for them to facilitate.
Another aspect that your suggestion doesn't really answer is the fact that the developers don't want players able to gear up via PvP. Even the games greatest agents of change (PvP players) will still need to run PvE content in order to get gear with which to facilitate the change that they are agents of. You can gain general wealth (in the form of raw materials) through PvP, and the occasional random piece of gear via killing corrupt players, but you can't actually gear up via PvP. This is something Intrepid have outright stated that they want, so is not conjecture or opinion on my part. Your suggestion would need to address why this should change - which it does not.
Your comments on player Inn's caught my eye. That absolutely is something Intrepid want players to be able to do. They also want PvP players to tear down those Inn's - in order to facilitate change.
You and I may see things differently, for sure. Thing is, that is because I have spent years getting to know this game, and you haven't. I am not arguing points on these forums for Ashes to be the game that I want it to be (I would love Ashes to have a fully instanced raid progression, but I won't ever argue that it should). Rather, I am arguing points based on what we know of what Intrepid want Ashes to be.
On the other hand, you are arguing to turn Ashes in to the game you want it to be, rather than attempting to understand what Intrepid want Ashes to be.
Maybe you could have have pre-set bet amounts? Eg. 5k, 10k, 20k etc. Take out the possibility of betting millions. Or only give a low percentage of the wagers to the winners, and the rest goes as a sort of additional "tax" income to the Economic Node?
It would indeed!
Of course, I'm down for setting up something like that. The way I was trying to suggest it with that last post was basically to promote climbing in the rankings and challenging someone higher up than you. The bigger the disparity the more you would potentially make if the underdog won while betting on the higher rank would be a safer and more moderate bet. Then the winning team would get a cut of the bet gold before the pool gets taxed and returned to those that won.
May the gods have mercy on your liver and bless your drink with great flavor.
You could just take a drink every time someone that doesn't understand what this game is about makes a suggestion that would drastically alter the game away from what the develoeprs want it to be, but bring it more in line with a game the poster in question previously played.
You'd double your intake if you did that.
For the love of god... ok im gonna do something real quick. ill use all the gloss i possibly can on my next sentence and maybe you will understand this time.
THIS SUGGESTION WOULD NOT IMPACT THE ENTIRE GAME LIKE YOU SAY IT WILL BECAUSE IT IS A NICHE BUILDING THAT CAN BE BUILT IN A MILITARY NODE AND ONLY ALLOWS FOR A SET AMOUNT OF MATCHES IN ANY GIVEN DAY.
While I am not against the idea of a localized arena like this, the rewrads suggested go directly against the design intention of this game. Drop that aspect of it, and come up with a way to ensure that the gambling aspect of this can't be abused by RMT organizations, and I'm still on board.
I'm counting that as a shot. Cheers!
If dropping equipped gear was against the philosophy of this game then what the hell do you call corruption? This is not an idea that goes against the idea of a game built almost ENTIRELY around varying degrees of consensual pvp. Mine is just another degree.
You can't gear up via corruption drops.
They are far too rare, and they are far too random.
Not to mention this arena can't just be walked into without gear, its a fight to the death were the winner takes all. You are incentivized to use the best gear possible to increase your chances of winning vs your opponents. Like any other activity in the game, especially when compared to corruption, there is a risk/reward structure that you are willingly participating in. I still can't believe you cannot understand this.
Let's just reiterate this point. Sathrago isn't saying that he's got all the answers or that it absolutely has to be this exact way. It's just the beginnings of an idea, which is how all creations start off.
Now, I don't presume to know what the game designers have in mind, but there's still plenty of time left before release, and there's still plenty of time for them to discuss and implement various new ideas - some of which we may like, and some of which we may not. Simply saying "that's not what this game is" doesn't and shouldn't affect a suggestion thread. And, unless you're on the Intrepid game design team (which you very well could be...), I don't think that any of us can put ourselves into the position where we're trying to be the Intrepid spokesperson, able to shut down ideas simply because they don't fit what we've read/watched so far, for a game that is still in development.
Not every corrupt player is going to drop an item, and most people that gain corruption regularly are likely going to hold on to random trash items in their inventory that have as much of a chance of dropping as any useful item they may be using.
Why wouldn't Bounty hunters be able to gear up from this? If thats your WHOLE issue with the idea just make the arena gear have the same percentage chance to trash as if the player was corrupted. There now you cant complain anymore.