Diverse Playerbase Playstyle Synergy

Haemosu

In my experience in games there is some friction between playstyles (Casuals/Hardcore : PvP/PvE etc. )
I propose a system in which players within a Guild can augment other players within the Guild with certain benefits all based on their activities.

For instance, Players who focus more on "lifeskills" (for lack of AoC terminology), their Activities would grant a certain buff or benefit for, lets say, a Player whose Activities are focused on PvP orients and vice versa.
Maybe a Player is PvE farming for certain Materials that either benefit oneself and/or Guild and their Activities could garner some incentive for certain players to "protect or defend" them in OWPvP.

I just look for ways to unify the Playerbase and their Diverse Playstyles in a unit of friendship and not criticism.

Warth

You mean like guild buffs? They will be a thing

mcstackerson

We kind of already have this naturally baked into the game.

All resources comes from the environment (pve and gathering). The best gear comes from a combination of endgame pve content and crafting as crafters have some control over the stats they put on there items. With so many things being in the open world, pvp is able to be used to fight over the resources.

Vhaeyne

No, that is something that would be to easy to exploit. You are basically incentivizing hardcore players to at a minimum multi-box to have complete control and benefit from effects like this.

If you are skeptical of this than look no further than L2, where it was common to see someone level. A main, a buffer, and a crafter. On three different accounts. This is already going to happen to some extent, but your idea would amplify it.

You are also missing out on a larger design goal that intrepid has stated is important to them. Which is incentivizing people to participate in all of the playstyles the game has to offer. Instead of having people that only PvP or PvE, they hope to get people participating in everything.

Your idea comes from the right place, but it would not be good for AOC. Intrepid seems to have a unified player base as a major design goal. The best advise I can give you is, when the game goes live. Don't expect to be able to avoid any content.

Khronus

This would force everyone to just pick a pvp boost or not be viable. You are going to craft? I'll kill you consistently and take your stuff. Same for PvE. You want to run that raid? Well my raid of pure pvp boosted players are around the corner. I like the idea of meshing together the playstyles but not this way.

Jamation

I would actually consider the current guild buff system (and prefer it) to be more unifying in that way. Certain guilds will have different focuses, so if a pure PvE crafter who refuses to PvP joins a pure PvP guild their ideals already would clash.
There will be a vast array of guilds and many many many of them will indeed be a diverse group of all types of players. Just have to find the right one for you.

Haemosu

Vhaeyne wrote: »

No, that is something that would be to easy to exploit. You are basically incentivizing hardcore players to at a minimum multi-box to have complete control and benefit from effects like this.

If you are skeptical of this than look no further than L2, where it was common to see someone level. A main, a buffer, and a crafter. On three different accounts. This is already going to happen to some extent, but your idea would amplify it.

I did not know AoC was allowing multibox or multiclient

You are also missing out on a larger design goal that intrepid has stated is important to them. Which is incentivizing people to participate in all of the playstyles the game has to offer. Instead of having people that only PvP or PvE, they hope to get people participating in everything.

Can you direct me to these incentives?

Your idea comes from the right place, but it would not be good for AOC. Intrepid seems to have a unified player base as a major design goal. The best advise I can give you is, when the game goes live. Don't expect to be able to avoid any content.

I am not seeking to avoid any content but may opt out if i find something unnecessary or even not what i would find interesting gameplay.

I think requiring players to adhere to a "you must do this in order to play this game" could limit playerbase IF that is THEIR position, and maybe it is, i dont know and am not criticizing it to a large extent

Vhaeyne

Haemosu wrote: »

I think requiring players to adhere to a "you must do this in order to play this game" could limit playerbase IF that is THEIR position, and maybe it is, i dont know and am not criticizing it to a large extent

We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody. But you know it is an important reciprocal relationship between the content that's related to PvE and the content that's related to PvP and they feed off of each other. They're catalysts for change: Their progression, their development. It's things that people can value when they see something earned and they see something lost. That elicits an emotional response from the player: That they've invested time in to either succeed or fail; and PvP allows for that element to be introduced into gameplay. And we're very clear that is our objective: That risk versus reward relationship, that achievement-based mentality. Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay.[172] – Steven Sharif

They know that they could limit the player base by making the game they want to make, and are okay with it. A lot of MMOs play it too safe and fail, some MMOs put things that no one ever asked for and fail. AOC is using a ton of proven systems from. Yes, failed, MMOs but ones that had a long standing legacy in the MMO genre. Most of which failed only due to mismanagement.

Haemosu wrote: »

Can you direct me to these incentives?

Our castle system, our sieges against nodes, the caravan system, battlegrounds that exist, guild wars: We want there to be a meaning to this conflict. We want players to actually have some skin in the game when it comes to participating in PvP.[5] – Steven Sharif

For further information this is my favorite page on the whole WIKI.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Design_pillars

In some areas, on the WIKI yes they acknowledge that some players may never be interested in PvP or PvE, but they do want to make everything in the game enticing enough to get people to try everything. If they wanted crafters, PvPers, and PvEers to play in separate areas they would have used a Full loot pk system, and separate servers for each gameplay style.

Haemosu

I see. Thanks.
What about multiclient/multibox? What is the Official position on this?

Vhaeyne

From the wiki:
The current policy on multi-boxing (multi client) is that players are allowed to own multiple accounts, but may not launch multiple game clients from the same computer. Players may not use any software to automate character actions or mimic keystrokes.[140][141]

This was previously stated to be: If a user has a legitimate account and is not botting or using complex scripting then multi-boxing will be permitted.[142][143][144][145]
Multiple accounts and multi-boxing, that's a little bit difficult for me because it could be conceived as pay-to-win, because you can progress on a second character and you can then gift that progression to your primary character. In that scenario yes I can see the argument. However if the character progresses with the same amount of effort and time needed by the person who's playing and they maintain that progression on that character, then I don't consider it pay-to-win. I consider it a second account. So initially what I'm going to say is having multi-boxing capability will be allowed within Ashes of Creation. There are a few safety nets that I put in place that kind of restrict the ability for abuses that we've seen in other games.[144] – Steven Sharif


It's just to unrealistic to do anything to prevent it. Even in Korea with KSN(Korean social security numbers), people just buy, and sell KSNs to get around this type of stuff. It just leads to more illegal activities.