Ashes of Creation interests me but will it put RPG back in MMO

I feel like I am not alone in this but AoC looks just like every other MMO. I know this kind of thread has been asked time and time again, but I wanna know more about AoC and if it will fit me.

I for the longest of times have wanted a mmorpg that I could enjoy, not tolerate but enjoy. I might dream way to big and expect a lot but I think most companies are scared of deviating to far from what is defined as a mmorpg. I would love to see a emphasis on the RPG and not the MMO, The node systems seems to be pushing things in that direction but my hope is that thats not all for the RPG element.

I am the kind of player who hates PVP or PVE really, I dont like it. MMORPG's always turn into a hack/slash grind with fancy mechanics that get completely over looked. i'd love for a game to put RPG back into the mmo and not some lazy grind. in every mmorpg if I want to make a sword all I need are the mats and maybe numerical skill, but what if... I dunno there was more to it then just pressing a button, something to engage the players then waiting on a bar to finish.

Or skillful combat, I have seen it done and its fun if each attack can be dodged by both players and monsters. The lazy combat of WoW always annoyed me and sure one can argue their was stratagy involved... fine but I am no good at that. I would like to be able to dodge and skillfully land shots.

Oh making Taverns more like a tavern then just a social hub. This is a perfect place to add minigames something to role play with other players. Like playing darts/throwing daggers, a game of bones or random challenges, I would spend alot of time in taverns if that was the case.

Also I believe i am not the only one whos wants to say screw npc's in places where a player could operate, set rates and hell even makes sales. I would play mmorpg's if their was more rpg elements.

Games that offer: player driven market, Player based economy, Skillful crafting, alternatives to just PVE and Engaging RPG elements. These games interest me because they are some simple game. I might be asking alot from a games but I know of only one games which has perfectly capture my interest unfortunately I dont know if they will ever release anything so I am looking at other MMORPG's and someone mentions this one. But the livestreams and the videos make me feel like its just another copy, but you guys more then me. So do you think Ashes of Creation is gonna put RPG back in MMO or will this be just like the rest with extra mechanics

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Vhaeyne

The RealMalkie wrote: »

TLDR: Click to craft is far, far superior to any mini game crafting in an mmo, this isn't even a debate due to the issues that arise from mmos being distributed systems, nevermind for AoC where mini game crafting has the potential to negatively impact the effectiveness of profession interdependency and by extension, the player driven economy.

It actually is a debate.

There are trade offs with both systems.
If it is a negative for you. That don't automatically make it a net negative for the whole game.

I want difficulty in crafting as a barrier to entry in the market. It makes my work more interesting and valuable.

You come off as a lazy player in your arguments.

BigPapa1

ariatras wrote: »

Blandmarrow wrote: »

ariatras wrote: »

Blandmarrow wrote: »

A game of skillfull combat as you describe would've been Tera, I truly enjoyed that game from a combat perspective when it came out, but was bogged down by so many other things sadly.

The problem with a skill based system. (Where skills are player skills not character skills like a fireball for example.) Is latency. I even recall a video on Tera's combat a while back that explored that very thing. Resulting in less dps even with "autoattacks" only.

Let's take shooters for example. Which are very skillbased for the most part. Those games, especially at the higher level rely on insane monitor refresh rates and low latency. Which, as you can imagine is fine for most shooter games. However, for an MMO you must make certain concessions.

I rarely had issues with latency from what I remember back when I played. But I do remember I had to pick a server that had 60-80 ping or less for the experience to be enjoyable.

Yes, but that's just allegory. Even though connectivity around the globe is getting better and better. There are still plenty of people with problematic bandwidth. Not to mention inherent advantage based soley on geographical location. For example. In the Netherlands, where I live. I live quite close to the most often used servers. They tend to be in Amsterdam/Paris/London.

So you want to try and design a skill based system. But you want it to be somewhat forgiving. I couldn't tell you how to do that though. But I suspect that's one of the reasons why things like a GCD exist.

Beautifully worded. I would say GCD also exists because it limits the throughput of communication between client and server. Some things off the GCD can still exist, but as long as the bulk of commands are on a global cooldown, this means that the player cannot keep sending information to the server willy-nilly, it's more controlled. Though I suspect these days this might not be as much of an issue with the much better infrastructure we have. That said, with most well designed features, it has multiple benefits. One other benefit is that most actions cost at minimum the GCD time, so you have to keep that in mind that even if a spell is instant you still have to account for that downtime afterwards. Generally a very elegant solution to multiple problems simultaneously.

Jeetoph

The RealMalkie wrote: »

Crafting not just a click of a button...…. No.... Just no.

Having varied recipe complexity and hopefully the potential for the customisation of recipes (adding extra mats of top of base recipes or something) is great, I love the idea of making an item specifically suited for my character. However, crafting not just being a button click would mean its button combos or combos with mouse movements etc to make crafting into a mini game, which is a terrible idea for several reasons. Crafting skills are something you level up meaning they are based on your character's stats/abilities/profession trees etc. sticking a mini game on top of this would basically be adding an extra barrier to making things. This creates one of 2 scenarios:
- Players invest massive effort and time to max crafting, but can't actually craft because the mini game is too hard for them at the peak of the skill (a challenging mini game).
- Players max the skill and get annoyed at the time wasting of the mini game. (the mini game is easy enough so that almost anyone can do it, this is usually what happens with crafting mini games).

Gating crafting skills with mini games can also lead to some skills being far more difficult than others, or worse affected by a little lag, which creates problems when crafting skills are reliant on other crafting skills as skills with difficult or annoying mini games will be massively under-utilised by the community which potentially messes with the economy. For example a processing skill with a bad mini game would leave certain craft skills too short on materials to be an effective choice. If you want to have crafting failure and the potential to lose materials, these things become even greater issues.

More often than not, mini game crafting, even in single player games, serves no purpose other than bloating completion time and mildly annoying a generous portion of players after their first few times doing it. As much as I've loved some crafting mini games, I have never encountered one that didn't result in me getting annoyed at it because it became repetitive and boring and just made me want to have a skip button. Professions in mmos are something people will spend many many hours doing on repeat, no mini game will ever remain fun after that much time. Also given the number of professions in AoC, having a mini game for each is a tall order.

I would far rather have robust and flexible professions with some risk than some silly mini game that will eventually turn any profession into an irritating chore.

TLDR: Click to craft is far, far superior to any mini game crafting in an mmo, this isn't even a debate due to the issues that arise from mmos being distributed systems, nevermind for AoC where mini game crafting has the potential to negatively impact the effectiveness of profession interdependency and by extension, the player driven economy.

Having tried the two extremes « One button push » vs a 2 minutes crafting rotation (looking at you FFXIV) I’ll add my two cent to that debate (it is a debate).

First of all it will remain the creator’s choice what system to implement because they have to mantain a synergy with the rest of the game and whatever the best system is, it doesn’t mean it fits in AoC.

In FFXIV crafters are classes. They need separate gear, tools and there are about 30 different crafting skills to make a rotation. You’ll need to get the mats as well. It’s very time consuming but by your logic only a few people would bother with this. Except not. There are countless of crafters in that game.

I’m not saying this is the go-to system because it has its flaws as well. But iirc AoC announced that crafted* gear will equal raiding gear. So I sincerely hope that it will be a little harder than buying recipe+mats and pushing one button.

Kingzookins

The RealMalkie wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

By requiring at least 25% of your chosen skills in combat to be each action and tab abilities, the above is exactly what Intrepid are doing with combat. There are people I have played MMO's with that simply do not have the physical ability to use action based abilities, and ass such they will be unable to function 100% with any class in Ashes.

If it is ok for them to create this skill gap (even if the skill cap is very low for an able bodies person), then it is perfectly fine for there to be a skill gap in crafting.

Combat and crafting are two very different beasts with different requirements and goals. The two activities are completely different, saying that because something exists in one system it should exist in the other is just wrong. Whether or not that thing should exist in both systems depends on whether or not it is appropriate for that system. For example, if I was baking a cake I wouldn't add a gear lever just because my car has one.

Ashes is an mmo aiming to be driven by player action. The interdependency of game systems is central to that design philosophy, processors need gatherers, crafters need processors, community development costs and requirements dictate the demand for crafters. The mere existence of mini games for each profession adds unnecessary potential to throw off that complex web of interdependencies.

Its not about there being potential for skill expression in everything in the game, its about systems and gameplay that not only facilitate, but also promote communal behaviour, that is the entire design philosophy behind the world. Whether you want profession mini games or not, their inclusion would be contrary that design philosophy and I 100% guarantee that undermining that philosophy can only provide a net negative for the game. I know many mmo enthusiasts that would view mini games on crafting professions as a serious mistake as far as design decisions go. It will please a few players at the cost of annoying the majority (it will definitely annoy every single hardcore player I know and most of the casual players I know because it starts out interesting then gets real old, real quick when your doing it on repeat) and providing potential problems for certain interactions as well as bloating development time for something that would at the very best provide a minor benefit, and would far more likely providing a constant minor annoyance.

You either make an equally compelling, equally latency-dependant mini game for each profession or it is a bad idea pure and simple and there is no way you can legitimately argue against that if you've invested a significant amount of time in any mmo before because it unbalances professions at their baseline, before recipes and material requirements even come into it. Besides, as I said before, given the number of professions in AoC, a good mini game for each would be a very, very tall order.

The RealMalkie wrote: »

Finally made my account because the original post in this thread utterly confuses me thanks to this:

Kingzookins wrote: »

I am the kind of player who hates PVP or PVE really, I dont like it.

I don't understand why you are interested in an mmo if this is the case. You're saying you don't like 99.9% of typical content. Every system in ashes is designed to incentivise PvP conflict, whether its people fighting over resources, nodes, castles/prestige, guild conflicts or people hiring merc players to destroy your business or whatever. If you don't like PvE or PvP then mmo is the wrong genre for you, nevermind an mmo that specifically aims to base its longevity on PvP relationships and rivalries that develop naturally as the server ages.

As for putting the RPG back in MMORPG, that to me would suggest more in depth character building as, at least systemically, that's the basis of an RPG. Intrepid seem to be doing really, really well on that front as far as I can tell, I mean as much as I would like even more freedom to customise my build, what they have is already bordering on insanity when it comes to balancing. Though it helps that there won't be damage meters or addons as that'll make it more difficult to develop cookie cutter builds.

Vhaeyne wrote: »

All jokes aside, we clearly want some of the same things for AOC.
-Crafting to not just be a click of a button.
-Player driven economy.
-Dodging and Aiming in combat.
-Minimal NPCs.
I think we will get all of the above.

Crafting not just a click of a button...…. No.... Just no.

Having varied recipe complexity and hopefully the potential for the customisation of recipes (adding extra mats of top of base recipes or something) is great, I love the idea of making an item specifically suited for my character. However, crafting not just being a button click would mean its button combos or combos with mouse movements etc to make crafting into a mini game, which is a terrible idea for several reasons. Crafting skills are something you level up meaning they are based on your character's stats/abilities/profession trees etc. sticking a mini game on top of this would basically be adding an extra barrier to making things. This creates one of 2 scenarios:
- Players invest massive effort and time to max crafting, but can't actually craft because the mini game is too hard for them at the peak of the skill (a challenging mini game).
- Players max the skill and get annoyed at the time wasting of the mini game. (the mini game is easy enough so that almost anyone can do it, this is usually what happens with crafting mini games).

Gating crafting skills with mini games can also lead to some skills being far more difficult than others, or worse affected by a little lag, which creates problems when crafting skills are reliant on other crafting skills as skills with difficult or annoying mini games will be massively under-utilised by the community which potentially messes with the economy. For example a processing skill with a bad mini game would leave certain craft skills too short on materials to be an effective choice. If you want to have crafting failure and the potential to lose materials, these things become even greater issues.

More often than not, mini game crafting, even in single player games, serves no purpose other than bloating completion time and mildly annoying a generous portion of players after their first few times doing it. As much as I've loved some crafting mini games, I have never encountered one that didn't result in me getting annoyed at it because it became repetitive and boring and just made me want to have a skip button. Professions in mmos are something people will spend many many hours doing on repeat, no mini game will ever remain fun after that much time. Also given the number of professions in AoC, having a mini game for each is a tall order.

I would far rather have robust and flexible professions with some risk than some silly mini game that will eventually turn any profession into an irritating chore.

TLDR: Click to craft is far, far superior to any mini game crafting in an mmo, this isn't even a debate due to the issues that arise from mmos being distributed systems, nevermind for AoC where mini game crafting has the potential to negatively impact the effectiveness of profession interdependency and by extension, the player driven economy.

Here is what I think to your response, I think you love your systems. The ones developed because games could not be complex. UI and UX was all they had to work with, adding more polys and more complex systems would make a game unplayable on older pc's, But now that's not case. The computers we have today can do amazing things so why hasn't the genre changed with the times.

I recently got into playing wow, I am not fan but I can see it. I can play and have fun, but not the way other do. I like to mess around, I like to RP more then anything. I hate having to play the idea of doing the same repetitive task over and over again till max lv and max gear. Crafting systems are old and out dated, players like me want to be able to have a bigger role then what is offered. I think we dont understand what RPG means when we talk MMORPG, because While yes it is a Massively multiplayer Online Game, but its also a RPG. Role Playing Game.

What is an MMO, its technically any game (if we play by description) Where multiple instance of player can be run in one open world, I don't think the genre was intentionally designed to cater to just dungeon crawling. Otherwise why would their be RPG in the genre, ROLE PLAYING GAME. Dungeons and Dragons is a TTRPG because enables players to role play as their character and pursue what they want to do, but little know fact DND was similar to MMORPGS except it was for a party but over time they innovated and now you cant play and TTRPG without RPG mechanics.

I like PVE I guess... I don't hate but I don't love it either. I will take part in it if their is a reason too, but if you tell me the only thing I can do it run the same instance of dungeon over and over again, just to have fun its a combat sim at this point. I understand the MMORPG shouldn't be taken literally because if it was, you could be anything.

I know I'm not alone when I say, We are tired of having to be forced do dungeons or Raids to have fun, What if we just want to be a cook, no one special. Just make food and have fun doing that but mechanics are so bare bones that its not worth focusing. Games shouldn't reflect real life thats true, but nor should they be easy. I think thats another sentiment that some have, easy = boring.

Play a casual mmo if you are afraid of being bad, if crafting required numerical and player skill not only would add a reason for people to focus it, but for items to have value. If you think that it shouldn't exist because someone might be bad at it, then go play a casual game really. MMORPGS have been hand holding the community for a long time, why do you think games with a challenge draws people in.

Hand holding is bad, its helpful but its bad. I am for RPG mechanics having a reason, I am for players who PVP or PVE alot to be enabled by those who like to support. The mechanics that are thrown at the mmorpg community are straight up boring. Where is the creativity, where is the ability to make one unique.

Why do we have to be a hero or villian why can we just be that guy who spends his live at the anvil or the farmer who supplies the cooks and cooks who feed and buff the fighters. A economy function off of people who like those normal boring tasks. Wouldn't it be better to give a whole new cooperation to mmorpg then just dungeons raids.

To have a living breathing world. Its what AoC boosts a world not stagnant, giving players impact and a role in a story.

Minigames shouldn't exist in crafting or rpg mechanics unless they are meant to be, but they should be immersive. Allow players who enjoy and are good to be good and have fun not grinding, collecting and clicking a button on a recipe list to create legendary. Make a legendary sword be crafted by a legendary action

Asgerr

I think you're likely mistaken about what this game wants to be or is likely going to be.
It might be a good RPG, however this game is looking to put the first M of MMO back into MMORPGs, as most MMORPGs right not are just MORPGs.

The focus here is about forcing in game community engagement, interaction and dynamics. This is not going to be a solo PRG. I'm sure you can get by playing solo, but good luck running most of the content that is designed for parties (it appears to be that there will be no party finder).

PoliceGirl

Kingzookins wrote: »

I for the longest of times have wanted a mmorpg that I could enjoy, not tolerate but enjoy. I might dream way to big and...

Gotcha. I am very interested to hear; what was the last mmoRPG that you really enjoyed?

Kingzookins

PoliceGirl wrote: »

Kingzookins wrote: »

I for the longest of times have wanted a mmorpg that I could enjoy, not tolerate but enjoy. I might dream way to big and...

Gotcha. I am very interested to hear; what was the last mmoRPG that you really enjoyed?

Turns out the first 20 levels of wow, if you classify wizard 101 and that's about it. Path of exile really isnt one more of a instance RPG Hack and Slash... oh BDO was okay, but the early levels are fine until I get to the point where the only way to play is to respectively dive into the same dungeon. I am still playing WoW, but casually whenever I can on stream. I am just enjoying the story

Kingzookins

Asgerr wrote: »

I think you're likely mistaken about what this game wants to be or is likely going to be.
It might be a good RPG, however this game is looking to put the first M of MMO back into MMORPGs, as most MMORPGs right not are just MORPGs.

The focus here is about forcing in game community engagement, interaction and dynamics. This is not going to be a solo PRG. I'm sure you can get by playing solo, but good luck running most of the content that is designed for parties (it appears to be that there will be no party finder).

I think your misunderstanding what I am saying completely. No I never said I wanted a solo RPG, I wanted to option to not be forced into dungeosn or boring systems. I want to interact with the world as some other then a fighter or adventurer. Screw the dungeon content I couldn't care less about tbh, I dont want to even see the inside of a dungeon anymore. Sorry was way to aggressive, but I want a mmorpg that encompasses a form of play that isn't dungeoneering but cooking, smiting, farming and stuff like that and allow players to interact and form groups specifically on those areas. To be able to Farm crops and provide food to bakers or Ore for a blacksmith. Create an economy without npc's, not get rid of the multiplayer aspect but allow players to work together with other players in a unique way.

Allow players to be the ones to create the weapons, Allow the cooks to make food and allow the farms to grow said food and at least allow those who adventure to buy food and weapons from players not npc's. I see no way for these things will last long if their is no skill and if the mechanics are not fun to do.

Kingzookins

You need fun, innovative and Skillful mechanics that can separate a player from those who are bad other then a number, allow markets to form and competition to breed. A mechanic like that can only exist in one genre and thats MMORPG but companies decide never to stray from what was made 25 years ago

bloodprophet

The crafting systems look very promising and close to what you sound like you are looking for.
Check the wiki(my phone doesn't like to link or I'd link it for you).
Almost all gear will be player made.

Kingzookins

bloodprophet wrote: »

The crafting systems look very promising and close to what you sound like you are looking for.
Check the wiki(my phone doesn't like to link or I'd link it for you).
Almost all gear will be player made.

The problem is that not much is actually known its all been combat posts.

Vhaeyne

Kingzookins wrote: »

The problem is that not much is actually known its all been combat posts.

Hold your horses?

bloodprophet

They are looking to have crafting on par with what SWG had way back when. Being this early into development there is a lot they haven't shared yet.
Personally I prefer combat over crafting. I get bored with that stuff pretty easy. Other people get all into non-combat stuff. To each their own. Just like the RP crowd. Not for me but I hope they have fun with it and get some neat tools for all the thee's and thou's they can handle.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Artisan_classes

Kingzookins

bloodprophet wrote: »

They are looking to have crafting on par with what SWG had way back when. Being this early into development there is a lot they haven't shared yet.
Personally I prefer combat over crafting. I get bored with that stuff pretty easy. Other people get all into non-combat stuff. To each their own. Just like the RP crowd. Not for me but I hope they have fun with it and get some neat tools for all the thee's and thou's they can handle.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Artisan_classes

Though I do fear without some sort of skill based crafting system it may become like wow where its almost meta to learn how to cook. Someone can self supply at a high level that would make cooks less frequent in the world.

I know they have said they are looking into a skill based system for artisan classes, but so far no update which worries me. I either wait or take the plunge with 0 information on what they have decided, id reckon though its hopeful that nothing has been released so far but its been a long time since it was brought up. I have my doubts and might just spend the money for alpha 2 but still don't know if its the risk I can take.

Kingzookins

Okay nevermind this whole thread, just watched an interview from February and it seems crafting is just like everyone's else crafting system, boring and just a menu to click on things. Really am glad I went back but if they scrapped it for a normal menu and UI system to play towards casual players, will keep listening in on what happens but really seems like it.

bloodprophet

Fair enough. No shame in waiting to see how it plays out in the next year or so till we see how the system is designed in practice vs theory. Unfortunately as you pointed out we have very little information so far but they have bigger fish to fry right now working to get all the really big major systems in place.
Shame these take so long to build. Seems like forever since KS but I think it will be worth the wait.

Ostaff

I've only seen one crafting and gathering system that I've actually liked though even it could still be improved. And that was The Saga of Ryzoms. For some reason crafting seems to be the left behind piece even though I keep hearing and know many people who's main drive fair is actually crafting or gathering, so why is it so hard for companies to actually produce a good crafting system?

In Ryzom it is very hard to craft an item with the exact same stats as another person because there is real knowledge needed in the creation of the item, The item has NO RNG in it (RNG is the lazy man's method of coding. it sucks) Instead an item will have a total of 2 to 7 different category of mats that are needed to create it. With those different categories of mats there are like 20 different types of materials that will fill that category (some may be used for more than one category type) and those different types of mats have levels and quality associated with them. Each mat type has its own stats (pros and cons, color, etc) that are adjusted by the level and quality of mat used. So a crafter has the ability to mix and match all those different mats to create the item that they want. The crafter also has crafting skills that come in to play that allow them to "over craft" which means make items that are much lower level than their crafting level with much better stats for that item's level. It also allows crafters to add their own stats (extra hp, sap, focus) and combinations thereof to the item. All in all, crafting is very fun and the best crafters keep their secrets.

Harvesting is just as good. All materials that are mined have different stats depending on the humidity in the area, the time of day, the season, the location, how fast or slow the material was dug up, the carefulness in which is handled, and etc. Harvesters tend to go in groups with one person doing the actual digging while the others in the group "care" for the land and materials being dug. All mats garnered in the "same" conditions have the same stats so you can always guarantee the stats that you want, however, since there are so many factors that change the stats of the material, the harvester has to be very knowlegable about the materials they are getting to have the stats that they want.

With that said, I also like the concept of group crafting by having other professionals being able to improve an item being worked on. Ie. Artisans making a sword blade or pommel look better and increased the stats, an enchanter to make the item magical and etc.

Child Item