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
I think part of the confusion here may be how you've worded this, as if one inevitably leads to the other.
Just cos people aren't running caravans doesn't mean they're going to leave the game.
Caravans are the primary method of transporting goods, which are needed to upgrade nodes, support sieges, create node services, craft ships, craft gear, repair gear, and create potions. They’re also the primary open world PvP events.
If running caravans is net-neutral at best and high-risk (a lot to lose), and attacking then is net-neutral at worst and no-risk (nothing to lose), then all those other systems suffer because caravans have been disincentivized. The risk-reward ratios becomes inherently skewed in favor of the attackers when they risk nothing at all.
Literally nobody but you has brought up the need for a full death penalty in this thread. Stop stirring up BS just to cause trouble.
Personally I would assume that if there’s a death penalty it would be at half the normal penalty, since that’s normally what happens with consensual PvP. Who would even suggest it should be worse than that? Use your head.
If people here think that death penalties will stop people from participating in pvp, then they are likely in the mindset that the death penalties would be full or close to full. But hey, I know it takes a lot of critical thinking to realize that, so not surprised you didn't get that.
I didn't stir anything, Noanni was the one who was apparently super offended by my comment and decided to stir up the BS. The funny thing is we agree on this topic, so not sure why his panties are in a twist here.
BTW, 1/2 death penalty is the same as a combatant... so FULL combatant death penalty in pvp events is way too high. If death penalties are the same as a combatant, then those other people are right and it will stop people from participating.
However, people will leave the game if they are not enjoying playing the game - I assume you agree with this.
Additionally, if caravans are not being run in general, the game wont be functioning as designed - something else I am sure you agree with.
If the game is not functioning as designed, it is probable that people will not be enjoying the game.
Now, instead of a siege being a group of people determined to keep their home vs a group of people wanting to expand their home, it is literally just a free for all where people come and join a side at random, just for the lolz. It suddenly removes all meaning from the siege if individuals have nothing to lose.
With caravans, since attackers have nothing to lose now, there is no incentive at all to not attack.
What this means is that getting a caravan through successfully just became a mammoth task - and most players simply wont want to assume that level of personal risk.
Castle sieges should only happen once every three months, when the serious people have made all their preparations, songs have been composed and the elk antlers market is stable. They should be held in secret between the interested parties because if the words were to spread all the server would show up to participate in this rare event.
Forgive the sarcasm, but if death penalties are too harsh only the ultra prepared elitist will attempt them. The big fishes will eat the smaller ones and then everyone will wonder why there is no sieges at all.
Do we know enough about caravans to even comment how hard or easy it will be to stop one? My only speculation is that whether or not there is a death penalty won't change much: they will be hard to defend against well prepared attackers and hard to stop against well prepared defenders. Meaning that random people will have a hard time defending or attacking against dedicated opponents. They will prey on the easy targets.
And now you have zergs running rampant due to no death penalty.
You think zergs will finance the initiation of a siege??
If you want more people to participate in sieges, cool. What you do is you give them a reason to want to participate and win, rather than remove the penalty from dying.
Ashes was presented to us as a game where things like sieges actually mattered to the people involved, now it seems to be a game where the people involved are only involved because they have no reason to not be involved.
As to the death penalty and its severity, a siege lasts 2 hours. If you are dying 20 times in 2 hours (once every 6 minutes), you are doing something wrong. If the rewards from winning a siege (being able to expand your node, content alterations, etc) are not worth more than 20 deaths, the game is doing something wrong.
Keeping a death penalty in place encourages players to play the game well, removing it encourages players to just throw more and more players at the problem, as there is no fear of anything.
You think primarily on the mindless aspect. Sending people over and over without strategy.
I think mostly of large numbers of people. Different people.
From your point of view the death penalties would accumulate and promote better gameplay because people would want to avoid them or risk becoming unable to function.
From my point of view the penalties would be diluted among many people and the attack could still have sound strategies in addition of the large numbers. All combined it makes the penalties, unless really harsh, not really relevant.
What a Christmas night hehe.
I am not focusing on the zerg at all, I am focusing on the fact that no death penalty means people have nothing to lose, and if they have nothing to lose, the activity they are participating in has no meaning to them as there is no meaning in an MMO without risk of loss.
If I am walking around in the game and I happen upon a siege of your node that is about to take place, if I want to assist in sieging that node - and thus have an impact on the outcome of whether or not you continue to have a home in the game - I should have to put something at risk for doing so.
Otherwise, the risk for you is losing your home, your stored resources, your citizenship, your standing in the node you are in - and I am risking nothing at all in order to remove that from you.
It is just straight up not good game design.
I think during caravans you should receive xp debt upon dying, full or less matters not.
For the other mentioned tactical PvP situations there should never be death penalties, nor stats dumpening, nor xp debt, nor material loss.
In those situations many deaths are a certainty. Same thing for all instanced PvE raids.
Death being certain doesn't mean there should be no penalty, it means the rewards for success should be worth that penalty.
Sieges have objectives within them. Succeeding at these objectives should reward players with experience. That experience should be enough to wipe out a good number of deaths worth of experience debt. If you go in to a siege and are unable to meet any of these objectives, you absolutely should walk out with a massive amount of experience debt.
I could see the stat loss associated with experience debt not applying on sieges - much as the stat loss associated with corruption doesn't apply when fighting bounty hunters. This stat reduction would still apply to any experience debt gained in a siege once said siege is over, assuming you leave the siege with debt.
Material loss isn't a big issue outside of people going around harvesting. Dropping off all materials you have on you any chance you get will be the established standard best practice within a few days of the game going live.
This leaves gear degradation as the only penalty of note left, and I would be happy with a situation on sieges that alleviate this to a degree when a side is successful, as should be the case with experience debt.
Not only the developes are sitting at a higher lv, they are also better organized so that in the event of heavy xp debt they are better possitioned to get it back.
The underdogs will be discouraged.
Mmos are not new player friendly. Adding death penalties will assist only those alrdy in power.
Remember, those initiating a siege are able to determine when it happens. If you make that call while you are the underdog, that is on you, and you should suffer the penalties if it goes badly.
One of those penalties absolutely should be that the people that fought with you won't do it again because of the experience debt they had to work off.
Experience debt is - if nothing else - a great way to weed out poor leadership.
You dont how easy it is to be set back by xp loss upon death (xp debt in AoC to avoid de-level).
I dont think you understand what progress means in mmos.
Adding such heavy penalties to the most fun activities that everybody is looking forward to every 1 month and every 2 weeks will be a huge turn off.
This isnt a game with optional activities, such as instanced, sterilized BG and sterilized raids.
People need to fight for interests domination and profits.
You cant keep punishing PvP all the time in a PvX game, where your xp debt from heavy PvP deaths impacts all the X activities. This will divide the community so much more.
Your "risk v reward/concequences" position in this topic isnt backed by real understanding of how this world will work, and proper pros and cons.
Well no crap why wouldn't they?
Problem is, you can participate in sieges much more often than that - and in fact if you have a castle, you will be defending a siege every weekend, without fail.
On top of that, you can participate in sieges of other nodes on either the attacking or defending side any time they are declared.
Most people defending their node will not be doing so because they enjoy it, they will be doing so because they need to do it. The people that enjoy sieges will be the ones that are attacking, and they will be able to do that several times a week.
This completely puts this aspect of your argument down.
Sieges are the cumulation of all other activities in Ashes.
If there is one aspect where penalties should apply, it is at that cumulation.
If you want to argue that the penalties are too tough, and that new players won't be able to catch up, and that it all just isn't fair, then the correct thing to do would be to make that catching up easier, to reduce the penalties associated with failing while catching up - not to reduce the penalties for what people would be expected to do once caught up, which is what sieging is.
This is, just so you are aware, exactly what my argument was and is for there being 20% of all PvE content instanced. It allows people to catch up. That is where mechanics that are intended to assist in allowing new players to catch up should be focused - on the actual catching up. Not on the activities they would do once caught up.
Your argument here makes no sense. You have it all backwards.
Caravan Death Penalties: Full repair, full xp debt and combatant level loot parameter - 2 minute stat/combat debuffs.
Guild Wars Penalties: 1/3 equipment repair, 1/3 xp debt and combatant level loot parameter - 3 minute stat/combat debuffs.
Siege Penalties: 1/4 equipment repair, 1/4 xp debt and no loot - 1 minute stat/combat debuffs.
I find it unreasonable to think people would not participate if there are death penalties (keep in mind until this months video I find it likely everyone here assumed there were death penalties), it will need to be balanced to some degree but allowing people to not care or fear death ruins the experience of PvP to begin with. From where I sit I would likely only then spend my time pvping around the flagging system because it would hold real reward and consequences for killing people.
The way I broke this down above would keep the Caravan deaths on par with normal combatant flagging but would adjust the debuffs to a timer versus xp work off. The guild wars would then adjust so you could die 3 times to equal one combatant death and for sieges it would account for 4 deaths to equal one combatant death. If sieges are 2-3 hours long this would mean someone could die 10-15 times and it would only punish them to the cost of 4-5 deaths in combatant mode.
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
These penalties seem far more reasonable to me.
The only thing I would change are the timed stat reductions - purely because I am just not a fan of them as a penalty. I prefer the stat penalty to be tied to having to be active in some manner.
I definately agree that caravan attackers need full penalties as if they were combatants.
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
Oh, I agree that there should be a stat penalty, I'd just rather it be alleviated from experience gain than from time.
If I have a stat penalty, I'd rather that I had to do something as opposed to just having to wait around, which is what happens in most games where a stat penalty is timed.
This also means that developers can add or remove content that players can gain experience on in order to increase or decrease the effectivness of this penalty in a very subtle way.
I do like this. I mean, I don't know how the repair gear works, but I'm starting to imagine that low level players or low geared players might even be used as cannon fodder.
The only thing that worries me is that dying causes you to ruin your gear so much that you become ineffective and I don't think you can repair things on the spot.
I mean, dying 10 times in 2 hours might be standard, but I can imagine melee units dying much more often than ranged for example.
As long as we don't have stat dump during these events, I can take the penalty on all other things.
There is no reason for death penalties. They add nothing to the situation. They just discourage involvement unless the benefits are direct and high. Nobody will form friendships, nobody will come to the aid of a friendly guild.
But this can be said of dying any time, in any situation, in any content.
Your argument here is for no death penalties at all, not for no death penalties in specific content.
In other words, you want a game with about as much meaning to it as WoW.
Because meaning in a game comes from what you stand to lose, and a death penalty is the mechanism by which you lose it.
I would ask you to go and see how Albion online does their objective based pvp. It is a full loot pvp system with massive battles over forts, castles, and hideouts. The high end guilds farm insane amounts of materials and level players up because they are not stupid and understand that you need to spend money to gain money and prestige.
If death penalties deter people from doing objective based content its because the objectives are not valuable enough and that is Intrepids issue to fix. Making there be no death penalties sucks the life out of the entire experience.
But for any other PvP event my experience in other games is that; if the upkeep costs are to high PvE players will bail out, esp in multiple hour fights. And you want alot of ppl to attend for the common goal.