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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
Attackers that are killing players that have a chance (within 10-15 levels of the attacker) are unlikely to gain corruption very often; and, even if corruption is gained the corruption can be burnt off relatively quickly. Therefore, serious corruption issues should primarily only come up when killing many very low level players.
Killing lowbies is being deliberately discouraged in Ashes. If all the other penalties don't stop a PKer from ganking loads of lowbies, then stat reduction will if the stats are reduced enough. Stat reduction appears to be intended to force the PKer to quit or die even to lowbies.
Fond memories of being saved? What dream state do you live in? More often than not you will be ganked and then you have to go find someone to get revenge. SO nice try, 4/10 for effort but no.
And addressing your "it creates community".....that's a load of BS as well. I don't consider the Pilgrams huddled in their forts wondering if the Indians are going to attack the best method to build community or even going out and proactively hunting them. Fear and revenge are ******** motivations. There are PLENTY of ways to create community without having to resort to ganking others.
If you don't like the consequences then don't PK. Period.
I mean not to be rude but its right on the corruption page.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Corruption
Corrupted players may kill bounty hunters without acquiring additional corruption score.[15][16]
Corrupted player's combat penalties do not apply when battling bounty hunters.[15]
Why bother to read or research before posting a six paragraph argument against a core game system?!
I attack you, you stay there or try to run, don't fight back at all, and I just kill you.
Is THAT your idea of a huge scary bandit? I'm sorry, but that's just being a dick.
Its a weekly event at this point
I feel sorry for you. It doesn't sound like you've ever played on Emerald Dream. When you're playing a game with a strong community, and people run into each other more then twice in the years that they play, they start remembering their interactions and building connections, good or bad.
That analogy is nonsense. And please, call them Native Americans.
Nothing rude here, I just did a bad job looking. I probably should have searched a little harder than just CTRL-F "stat dampening".
Precisely!
I'm sure you've made a mistake before! No need to jeer. :c
Which is why your proposal is bad. Ashes wants to avoid dicks, that's why we have stat dampening. And it's great.
That's a noble goal, and it's a shame it's impossible. You can deter assholes, but there'll always be some present.
One of the biggest reasons for why Guild vs Guild wars happen is because of PK'ing. You put a guild in your foe-list and kill them on sight for many reasons, and for a lot of them, RP reasons - especially if a member got PK'ed and camped over and over again. PK'ing builds communities and memories, and some guilds are based off of this. They wants to be remembered as being asswholes, and they often link it to their "lore". Kill every player on sight, or "we hate Dwarfs so kill them all!", where thats a rule for some guides to even be a part of it. They will try to strive being flagged RED all the time, as they feel the game becomes more exciting with higher risks all over the place.
The beauty of sandbox MMO's.
Typical reaction from someone with a severely limited scope/vision of past MMOs and their communities. Just because I haven't played the one game you have played means I can't have possibly experienced anything similar in the many MMOs i've played over the years.
Makes more sense than trying to get us to believe PKing ganking creates a sense of community. /rolls eyes. But not liking my analogy doesn't diminish the point that fear and revenge are poor motivations for "building community". Sure they can but in a negative way. I want to meet people because I WANT to meet them, not out of some necessity and fear over being ganked so we must group together, hire body guards or look for a bounty hunter to hunt down the PKer.
Deter is the whole point of the corruption and stat dampening idea. It works. You can grief all you want, but you will do it at a great cost. Even if you grief with crap items, you still take the XP penalty.
It's great.
Now I won't have to deal with griefers.
If you really like PvP you won't enjoy killing someone who's given up and just stands there waiting to be killed.
In every MMO we play, where we see the same guild, we greet each other and remember some epic battles that came throughout the years because of the situation that arose in the first MMO. And yes, we still fight! Its in our blood now, and we choose a server because of each other. Mortal enemies! Having someone that you always compare yourself against, and fight against is fun, and it all started with some random PK'ing 15 years ago.
Ah, my fault for over generalizing. Ganking is a type of PKing but not all PKing is ganking. The OP was specifically talking about how being a ganker, not just a PKer forms community.
I fixed that post to more accurately reflect that.
There is a distinction because, in games where the focus is primarily on PKing, it does form community but not in the way the OP is describing it. I played DAoC, ESO and WAR where all do build a sense of realm pride and bonding with each other over the 'common enemy'.
AoC will be different for the most part in that, outside of organized PvP events, things will be more individual/personal/ small group related.
Tacic: You are the first guild to reach a level 6 Metropolis, how do you ensure that most people would want to farm in your area to give yourself the most income through taxes?
One way:
Travel to other Level 5 zones and be a dick. Try and make those zones as hospitable as possible by killing everyone at sight, and sell in the fact that your zone is way better as the only Level 6 Metropolis in the server.
More access to end game events, better bosses, better dungeons etc.
If you want to limit PK'ing, then you should focus on how to limit zerging. Guilds above X members. Right now this cap is 300. Imaging having 300 people stumping on normal guilds around 30-60 players. It will be easy for them, and thus easy to wreck havok in the server by trying to limit the possibility of available endgame outside of your own zone.
Actually, this brings up a good point. Gonna make a new thread to discuss this effect.
If you want more PvP, go to the battlegrounds, where Corruption is not a factor.
Ashes is attempting to have every server be a mix of people who typically play on PvP servers, PvP-Optional servers and PvE-Only servers. So...it would alienate a significant portion of the intended playerbase.
I agree.
I want to meet people because I WANT to meet them.
I think working together to build up and defend towns/cities/metros (along with Crafting and Freeholds) will provide ample reasons for players to build community via cooperation.
Castles, Nodes, Guilds, Organizations and Religions will provide ample reasons for players to build community via conflict.
None of this is prevented by having corruption or stat dampening.
On the grand scale this sounds awesome, but when you look closer, the witch king of Angmar slaughtered thousands of people just for giggles.
Those are players that can potentially quit, complain on the forums, etc.
All the corruption does is deter non consensual PvP and killing lowbies.
If a player attacks me, it's in my best interest to fight back because I lose less XP and items, but some people just don't like that or know for a fact that they will lose.
You also forget that ashes has a paper rock scissors system, because they're not balancing on 1 v 1 but rather as a group, so if you fight against X class you're already at a disadvantage.
But then we get to the question, how defines what is meaningful pvp?
I personally like the direction ashes is taking pvp, but I also know a lot of people that find joy in walking the lands and fight anyone they meet.