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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.
Realm Size vs World / Mega guilds / zerg
Prieston
Member
Hey, wasn't sure if this topic had been covered yet, and wanted to throw my two cents in on it.
basically, I want to know how Ashes will Handel realm populations vs what the world is designed for, not speaking about performance, but rather I believe that when servers become too large it can actually be a bad thing, and have a massive effect on the way the game is played, as often times these "Mega guilds" can form and run everything and I worry that Ashes' systems are extremely vulnerable to this sort of thing happening. and what others thoughts on it were.
I can give my personal experience in other games to show my perspective on the matter. In Classic WoW for example on my server during the AQ event (for those unfamiliar it is a server-wide event that is driven by player resources) our realm was basically controlled entirely by 1 "mega-guild" that had cross-faction ties. the amount of griefing and sheer degenerate behaviour that happened during this event was legendary. it was "Conform to the demands of the mega guild or be crushed" and with basically no hopes of fighting back against a literal army of players in a zone that was far too small to handle the amount that was added, it was impossible to avoid, also the event was driven by player contributions which were completely trivialized by such massive zerg efforts by these sorts of Mega-guilds.
I really want to know if ashes will draw a line saying "Hey our game isn't designed for this many players, even if our servers can technically handle it, the effect on gameplay is too great"
basically, I want to know how Ashes will Handel realm populations vs what the world is designed for, not speaking about performance, but rather I believe that when servers become too large it can actually be a bad thing, and have a massive effect on the way the game is played, as often times these "Mega guilds" can form and run everything and I worry that Ashes' systems are extremely vulnerable to this sort of thing happening. and what others thoughts on it were.
I can give my personal experience in other games to show my perspective on the matter. In Classic WoW for example on my server during the AQ event (for those unfamiliar it is a server-wide event that is driven by player resources) our realm was basically controlled entirely by 1 "mega-guild" that had cross-faction ties. the amount of griefing and sheer degenerate behaviour that happened during this event was legendary. it was "Conform to the demands of the mega guild or be crushed" and with basically no hopes of fighting back against a literal army of players in a zone that was far too small to handle the amount that was added, it was impossible to avoid, also the event was driven by player contributions which were completely trivialized by such massive zerg efforts by these sorts of Mega-guilds.
I really want to know if ashes will draw a line saying "Hey our game isn't designed for this many players, even if our servers can technically handle it, the effect on gameplay is too great"
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Comments
If a mega-zerg with 25k players wants to start on one server and play house, then let them.
Let them have their server, pay for it with their subs and let others that aren't interested in this join another server.
Matter of fact is, these mega zergs are far and few inbetween. Joining a server where they are not is a very simple thing.
My worry is when they become the norm. and less about exact numbers as much as how the amount of players affects the design of the game. and if they are thinking about such things when they make their zones
its cool when its a guild, less so when its a virtual mafia lol
I would typically agree though my main concern is about the gameplay impact large numbers of players might have, and if servers should be capped for design's sake rather than just a technical limiattion
they haven't become the norm in the last 25 years of online gaming and they won't become the norm now
I can see them running part of the map but not the whole area, plus with the way the game works people will have many chances to fight back effectively
depends on your server
But, at the end of the day, keeping a guild that size in check would be quite the undertaking. Managing, much less coordinating, that many players would be incredibly difficult. Then throw in the fact that if they were to hold several castles for instance, and they'd have practically the entire server against them. From that, an entirely new dynamic forms between the massive mega-guild empire and the several large guilds that put constant pressure on it. Now that sounds like an interesting server.
Ultimately, the best way to take on a mega-guild is to form a coalition with your fellow guilds to even the teams. As the game prides itself on being player driven, it is up to the players to decide how they shape it.
I hope your right, but still I want to know what people think about the idea of capping players based on design, rather than what could or couldn't happen
I agree. My main point / concern is if a server can become "Too big" for the world and game systems to properly support it. basically, if the players can overpower via numbers and trivialize the content
1. Players being able to trivialize content via zerging
2. there simply not being enough world to go around if server populations are too high
With the lack of fast travel and guilds sizes being linked to bonuses Zerging should have less of an impact on ashes than other games, as for the size of the world I don't think will be a problem with how the nodes work and how content works around them.
I could be wrong, but from what the devs have said, they want to prevent mass zergs. Yet like everything we will have to wait and see.
I hope you're right. guess I've just seen it fail before so I'm worried lol
Understandable. I know Zergs can ruin games but the devs do seem to want to fix that.
You cant really look at WoW and then claim to have seen a competent game developer that has put actual effort in to making a good game has failed in a specific aspect of that.
Blizzard have not been competent or interested in making a good game for almost 15 years now.
So, what is it exactly that you have seen fail?
I used them as an example of failure, concern was never with competence but sure jab at blizz they deserve it at this point i guess lol
You missed the point.
You said you have seen it fail before.
I am asking you where you have seen a developer making actual efforts on several fronts and failed.
Intrepid are making it so larger guilds miss out on passive buffs that smaller guilds have, having nodes that players chose to live in rather than factions that require them to live there, giving players an exponentially increasing reason to war with other nodes rather than ally with them, having 5 major nodes per server rather than the usual two factions which makes it significantly harder for one alliance to dominate a server, allow players and guilds to move to a different node if they don't like how theirs is functioning, almost completely limiting fast travel meaning the simple logistics of moving large nu.bers of people around the game world make zerging an actual logistical nightmare.
Basically, Intrepid have put a whole lot of thought in to it, and you say you have seen that fail.
So again, I am asking where you have seen that level of thought on the matter of zerging fail. What games have you played have even put half that much effort in to it?
no, you missed the point of the entire discussion. my point has nothing to do with how guilds function or how nodes work, just a simple question of if server populations should or should not be capped based around game design. as no matter what measures are put in place eventually by sheer numbers its possible to overwhelm and trivialize content and overrun the world.
I stated that in a server-wide event that I had seen how it could go horribly wrong due to the numbers of players.
as far as if I had seen developers who put "actual effort in" well that seems like a bit of a loaded question. I've played many different MMO's over the years and have seen many things play out and I, of course, have High respect for the developers here its why I'm here on the forums trying to have discussions about the design of the game, I want it to be the best it can be. The developers on this project are the main reason I have such high hopes and passion for it, So I meant no disrespect.
And all jokes aside I'm sure it's not for a lack of effort that makes games like WoW slowly fail over time but rather misguided effort.
The Devs here seem to be on the right path and I want to do what I can to give feedback and drive discussions where possible. and part of that is me showing my concerns about what "Could" happen, based on what I've seen play out in other games, using extreme examples and seeing what others think about it
As I outlined, Intrepid have done a lot to make it so that there wont be a lot of people that want to do this.
The idea of limiting players isn't something that would work. If a server is home to 5000 players and 500 of them are in an alliance, that is functionally no different to a server that is home to 2000 players with an alliance of 200 players.
The difference is that if the game world were the same size, one would feel empty and the other would feel alive. You would be just as oppressed in either.
Rather than taking that clearly non-starter route that you think you want, Intrepid have put work in to eliminating the root cause of the problem. That root cause is not a large server population, it is the fact that players can be more successful when working together like this, even if it is to the detriment to others.
Since that is what the problem is, that is where Intrepid have taken aim.
As to you saying you have seen it go wrong in a serverwide event - well, yeah, that's my point. Events like that don't get the time and effort put in to them that the game as a whole does. They are literally developed based on the idea of "it would be cool if". They go wrong all the time.
What you are saying here is that you have not seen a developer put that effort in and fail, as you earlier claimed. Rather, you have seen a developer not put any effort in and fail, which obviously doesn't mean a whole lot.
If AOC shapes up to be the type of game it seems it will be, giant zergs will destroy the game and people will simply cancel subs and move onto something playable. I hope this is not the case. I like the guild size cap and limitations to sieges. I like that there is no fast travel and I like the corruption system as all of these are ways to deter zergs from working. Now zergs vs PVE is another issue I have. I really hope I am not able to just bring 300 people to down end game content. This would be poor design. I know that this is a hot button topic but think about it, zerging any bosses in any mmos has never been "enjoyable". I want to earn my kills and loot.
You are so right seen way to many zergs in games and been a part of them to many times and they flat out ruin games GW2, BSG, Elite Dangerous just to name a few with over 100 players just rolling over maps, the zergs need to end.
Server population really doesn't matter in this regard. The amount of concurrent players allowed to play on the server does.
With ~ 250km2 of habitable landmass an projected 10k players concurrent,
that would mean about 25,000 m2 of space per person. The current limitation seem to be just fine in this regard.
Better question would be if they were able to populate this massive world with interesting content to a sufficient degree
The world should have tons of players for sure, it's a MMO after all, but when you could not go anywhere in any zone without always having another player on your screen you'll have to ask yourself if capping a server is for the greater good.
WoW is not directly applicable to Ashes systems, but with how the game was designed for vanilla, it was clearly too much.
this is exactly what I meant. and my concern, while I understand that Ashes is a very different game I wonder if player realm sizes should be capped to fit the needs of the game. instead of just what the technical side will allow
player realm size is capped.
We have receiced infos about that like 3 years ago.
While WoW isn't directly applicable, a private server of WoW is even less so.
I mean, the people running it specifically allowed for more people to log in to the server at the same time than Blizzard allow for, and did so without any thought as to what would happen.
If anyone thinks Intrepid would make this same mistake as this, they clearly haven't looked in to who is on the team.
In your wow example, the root of the problem is the whole server at that point was being tunneled into a single location for content - AQ, which makes it relatively easy for a zerg to dominate. This hopefully will not be the case in Ashes, as high-end PvE contents are unlocked as nodes progress, and eventually there should be enough contents spread through-out Verra, eliminating the need for the whole server to gather in one place.
And if you want to see an example of a game-world so huge that even multiple mega alliance cannot dominate, check out Eve Online. Mega alliances are a thing in Eve (the top 5 alliances have 10k ~ 29k members each, although that number include alts & inactive players). But even the largest alliance (Goons) cannot dominate the server. The most they could do is bullying, but New Eden is so vast that you can always move to somewhere & avoid them. In recent years ppl also periodically band together to start wars against them too.