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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.
Arenas and How to make them Successful
Kusaijshi
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Hey There,
I Played many MMORPGs in my Past and Realy Like PVP and PVE but most Games somehow dont know how to Make instance PVP good "my Opinion".
So i wanted to show my perspective about this Topic and maybe It can Help in some way if wanted.
But before all. My english isnt perfekt so please forgive me this
.
1. The First Thing some Games make wrong is that they think the more the better but thats mostly wrong. True PVP players dont need 100 different maps with 100 different mechanics.
So The focus should be on 2-3 Maps per modi and there shouldnt be much modis
We already have 4 Group sizes
1v1 3v3 5v5 and 20 FFA
for the 1v1 3v3 and 5v5 it should be Enough To give The Players 2 Modis they Play
Capture the Flag+Deathmatch For example. For both modis 2-3 Maps should be enought and thats all real PVPler need to have fun. Because we dont need MANY options we need good options.
Its 100 times more important to make the Maps Equal for Both sides Without Unfair advantage for 1 team.
Examples for this:
League of Legends its 1 damn map but who cares its good for the game
Counter strike: Has many maps but there are only 1-3 maps that will be played most de_Dust 2 for example
Age of Conan: thee were more maps but it nearly only was played 1 Map in PVP CTF because it was good. others got ignored
2.1Give us only 2 options to play.
Ranked or Casual. and VERY important make the Casual maps and team sizes the same Exakt like Ranked.
GW2 made this huge mistake where the public server were 10v10 zerg but the ranked ( bad system in GW2) was 5v5.
So new teams or players who wanted to check out PVP were not able to test the playstyle in public matches before entering ranked and got totally destroyed because they had 0 practice how to play it tactik wise.
2.2 Casual you can choose map and playmodi
Ranked. If there are more than 1 map/mode per teamsize dont give the option to choose. If you want to play for ranks you should know every map and every mod not only 1.
3. Punishment for AFK and leaver.
Lets say its a 5v5 and you are playing a ranked match.
Win +10 points Loose -10 points.
Someone leaves the match for what reason so ever make the Leaver Get ALL - points from the team and the Team gets +-0
ecept He was Premate with someone then the Premate gets 50% of the - and the leaver gets 50% and the other 3 Members dont loose points only time.
Why? because i Play League of Legends and this is The most Frustrating things that happens. im not mad when my team is bad and looses. but what i realy Hate are the People Who leave the game and you still get punished for loosing .... you cant leave yourself because then you can get a ban so you are forced to be "playing" the match while knoing you will still loose to 99% because its 4v5.
Why punish The Premate from the leaver? easy:
1 Leaver will loose his premates so he will keep playing even if hes tilted
2 you denie a twink system where high rank players use the Twinks to make them leave so they dont loose points when a game goes to be lost.
the winning enemy team still gets the normal points because they won. and the fairplay people who kept playing dont loose ranking points whitch is at least a small reward for a 4v5 match.
but know there are people who say: But what if it only was a DC it can happen?
- Yea it can happen but if you are playing Ranked system this should now happen often. i live in germany the county with the worst internet on the whole north earth ball i guess and it only happens 1-2 times a Year.
If your internet is SOOOOO bad that you get a daily disconnect you should not play Ranked where you destroy the Gameplay From 9 other Players. then you should play the public mods where you dont make others who are not your premates loose points.
if you got yourself 4 premates and you are playing 5v5 and still gets your daily DC your - points will be normal because all teammembers are your premates and it gets equally given to everyone. so every member gets - 10. If they are fine with that its ok. But if there are randoms Its not fine to make them Suffer for someone else fault.
4. Give us a Ranking which can be seen ingame in some overview.
many PvP players like to the actual Ranking
Where they stand
where the friends are
who is the Top ranker etc etc etc. They want to show that to others and be proud about it.
you know The internet D
Dont only show the Ranking somewhere extern from the game on a websit or so.
5. If a Team Wins EVERYONE gets the same points + or -. Dont make it different because someone got more kills or more damage. its a Teamgame and if some Team is playing a Craze Taktic with a stunbot with 0 heal 0 damage and still doing his job Perfekt he should not get less points out of the match. a team wins and looses together and so they should earn the points.
6.Make the Arena Cross combat if possible. More enemys are always better for lower Queue Times.
7.Dont Scale The Characters or Gear for Arenas (my personal opinion). I want to play the Whole Game and i want to feel it in Arenas too. if someone got strong gear i want to get smacked from him in arenas like i get smacked in the open world.
i realy dont liked the system From GW2 where the PVP players stood afk in the mist with max gear and waited for the match.
and as soon there was a patch with a new OP class/skill they changed the character and enteres witch the new one just to play him. i want the people to play the character they like and not the class they are forced to because the meta says to play 3 rouge so every group forces 3 players to reroll for arenas.
I Played many MMORPGs in my Past and Realy Like PVP and PVE but most Games somehow dont know how to Make instance PVP good "my Opinion".
So i wanted to show my perspective about this Topic and maybe It can Help in some way if wanted.
But before all. My english isnt perfekt so please forgive me this
.1. The First Thing some Games make wrong is that they think the more the better but thats mostly wrong. True PVP players dont need 100 different maps with 100 different mechanics.
So The focus should be on 2-3 Maps per modi and there shouldnt be much modis
We already have 4 Group sizes
1v1 3v3 5v5 and 20 FFA
for the 1v1 3v3 and 5v5 it should be Enough To give The Players 2 Modis they Play
Capture the Flag+Deathmatch For example. For both modis 2-3 Maps should be enought and thats all real PVPler need to have fun. Because we dont need MANY options we need good options.
Its 100 times more important to make the Maps Equal for Both sides Without Unfair advantage for 1 team.
Examples for this:
League of Legends its 1 damn map but who cares its good for the game
Counter strike: Has many maps but there are only 1-3 maps that will be played most de_Dust 2 for example
Age of Conan: thee were more maps but it nearly only was played 1 Map in PVP CTF because it was good. others got ignored
2.1Give us only 2 options to play.
Ranked or Casual. and VERY important make the Casual maps and team sizes the same Exakt like Ranked.
GW2 made this huge mistake where the public server were 10v10 zerg but the ranked ( bad system in GW2) was 5v5.
So new teams or players who wanted to check out PVP were not able to test the playstyle in public matches before entering ranked and got totally destroyed because they had 0 practice how to play it tactik wise.
2.2 Casual you can choose map and playmodi
Ranked. If there are more than 1 map/mode per teamsize dont give the option to choose. If you want to play for ranks you should know every map and every mod not only 1.
3. Punishment for AFK and leaver.
Lets say its a 5v5 and you are playing a ranked match.
Win +10 points Loose -10 points.
Someone leaves the match for what reason so ever make the Leaver Get ALL - points from the team and the Team gets +-0
ecept He was Premate with someone then the Premate gets 50% of the - and the leaver gets 50% and the other 3 Members dont loose points only time.
Why? because i Play League of Legends and this is The most Frustrating things that happens. im not mad when my team is bad and looses. but what i realy Hate are the People Who leave the game and you still get punished for loosing .... you cant leave yourself because then you can get a ban so you are forced to be "playing" the match while knoing you will still loose to 99% because its 4v5.
Why punish The Premate from the leaver? easy:
1 Leaver will loose his premates so he will keep playing even if hes tilted
2 you denie a twink system where high rank players use the Twinks to make them leave so they dont loose points when a game goes to be lost.
the winning enemy team still gets the normal points because they won. and the fairplay people who kept playing dont loose ranking points whitch is at least a small reward for a 4v5 match.
but know there are people who say: But what if it only was a DC it can happen?
- Yea it can happen but if you are playing Ranked system this should now happen often. i live in germany the county with the worst internet on the whole north earth ball i guess and it only happens 1-2 times a Year.
If your internet is SOOOOO bad that you get a daily disconnect you should not play Ranked where you destroy the Gameplay From 9 other Players. then you should play the public mods where you dont make others who are not your premates loose points.
if you got yourself 4 premates and you are playing 5v5 and still gets your daily DC your - points will be normal because all teammembers are your premates and it gets equally given to everyone. so every member gets - 10. If they are fine with that its ok. But if there are randoms Its not fine to make them Suffer for someone else fault.
4. Give us a Ranking which can be seen ingame in some overview.
many PvP players like to the actual Ranking
Where they stand
where the friends are
who is the Top ranker etc etc etc. They want to show that to others and be proud about it.
you know The internet D
Dont only show the Ranking somewhere extern from the game on a websit or so.
5. If a Team Wins EVERYONE gets the same points + or -. Dont make it different because someone got more kills or more damage. its a Teamgame and if some Team is playing a Craze Taktic with a stunbot with 0 heal 0 damage and still doing his job Perfekt he should not get less points out of the match. a team wins and looses together and so they should earn the points.
6.Make the Arena Cross combat if possible. More enemys are always better for lower Queue Times.
7.Dont Scale The Characters or Gear for Arenas (my personal opinion). I want to play the Whole Game and i want to feel it in Arenas too. if someone got strong gear i want to get smacked from him in arenas like i get smacked in the open world.
i realy dont liked the system From GW2 where the PVP players stood afk in the mist with max gear and waited for the match.
and as soon there was a patch with a new OP class/skill they changed the character and enteres witch the new one just to play him. i want the people to play the character they like and not the class they are forced to because the meta says to play 3 rouge so every group forces 3 players to reroll for arenas.
5
Comments
Does that delegitimize the existence of 1v1 arenas in any way?
Aren't we all sinners?
kinda, if a major part of the duels are predecided, the appeal of 1v1 arena's are kinda losed.
i wouldn't mind them skipping 1v1 arenas altogether and focus on 4v4 pugs and 8v8 premades instead.
I honestly would, it would be 1 less type of arena, and the thrill of fighting a counter class and the amazing feeling of overcoming odds through pure skill and winning are pretty interesting in my opinion.
Aren't we all sinners?
Team vs Team. Successful arenas are successfully made.
None of that Team v Team v Team eso crap where 90% of the time the losing team hinders the second best to end the BG quicker.
Also, no instanced PvP progress in the form of tokens, gear, exp etc etc.
Mmos are community based. Not ladderboard based.
They should be there to blow off steam, not to play AoC as if it is LoL.
My opinion is that the most successful way to implement arenas in a game like Ashes is to just not, but failing that, I agree with this.
I'll second that. One of the building available in a city evolution should be an arena type, where the fighting ground is considered a battleground (so city guards don't attack anyone fighting there) and let the players organized whatever games they want there.
I remember that in WAR, even without any structure for it, inter-faction duels were happening some nights, with spectators watching without intervening.
Afterthought... WoW has had an arena since launch. There was one in the original EQ too.
2.1./2.2. You're forgetting about one mode: "Testing Grounds"/"Custom Match".
There's a reason many games have custom matches created purposelly by players to train or just do stupid stuff.
BUT....
The problem here lies on answering this: shouldn't mmo game devs devellop better ingame systems that bring into the game the PVP community? Most of the community is all time off-game, in Discord/forums/etc., always asking for LF Scrim / Training partners?
I mean, we all want to belong to the community ingame, but the competitive PVP community has many needs (logistics, communications and training) and most MMORPGs cannot give them solutions, forcing them to search elsewhere for solutions and thus separating that community from the other communities (casual PvP, Wars/PVX and PVE).
No wounder there's such a strange wall between PVP community and PVE/PVX/Casual communities (just look at the post above my own).
3. Agree to most, except the bad connection part. No game develloper will or should promote conditions to force bad-internet players out of the game, that's like saying to their buyers that they don't want them to play the game in full (also, if you think Germany has bad connection... "you know nothing, Jon Snow!" 😂).
A solution to this could be using their idea of having different servers for different subs pricing countries/regions... make sure the players on each server get simillar connections and get matched more often as a priority for ranked games.
4. Totally agree 🙏.
5. Again, Totally agree.
6. Not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean they should match differenr rank teams/players if needed?
7. Don't agree at all.... but I see your point.
Scaling is very important in order to have a lower entry for new player in the game who just like to try pvp. It is also good to make it more balanced between classes.
Giving too much difficulty/relevance to gear in PVP is wrong, whether it it stats or cosmetics.
I also played a lot of GW2 PVP and WvW, but not as much PVE, in the first years. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't have certain skins in PVP and I had to do dungeons to get them (I think it changed, right? can't remmember).
The problem with many games balancing issues is this: when classes/champions/heroes stop beeing unique and they all do almost the same thing in different ways, you will find some of them are better at it then others. Almost all classed in GW2 can do every kind of actions like conditions/boons/CCs/long-range/mid-range... they stopped beeing unique.
Also look at Overwatch, where there are multiple heroes doing almost the same things, some are better at it and they become META. Valorant might be going in the same direction if they aren't careful enough.
The secret is to keep it easier, simple, unique. The more they fail in doing this, the easier it gets to get METAs and forcing them to work on balance more than they wish. Games like CS and COD work because of this.
I meant that you should be able to get matched against Players From other servers not only your own Server.
7.
i am not sure if i understand what exactly you understand from my post.
i meant.
Someone who reached max lvl and got complete white gear should NOT get higher stats in PVP arena and someone with full Epic/legendary Gear should not get a downgrade when entering Arenas.
Intrepit said there will Be Ranking in Arenas. So in my Opinion you have a low entry level Because all Low gear Players will sit at the bottom while the Good Geared+Skilled Player will be on the top and if there are enough Players it should be possible To match
High vs high and
Low VS low.
I remember 1 Day in GW2 and we were a full premate team waiting 15 minutes for a Damn match and what happented? we got the "Rüstige Rentner" (english something like= Old grandpas) group who tried Group PVP the first time and guess what happened? we stomped them 500:0
This is no fun for us or the enemy. they never touched PVP again i guess and we were bored like before.
Thats why i like a Ranking system which works where you get enemys at your Gear/skill level.
And your secend part is exaktly the point WHY i dont want to get scaled in PVP.
AoC is a Game where Leveling and Gearing Costs much time and efford. so if there will be some kind of a Meta after 1 Year when every player is max level + Geared etc etc etc ( only then metas can exist because in lvl phase or gearing phase many metas tent to shift lik ein aion when everyone suddely realized that gladiators are damn strong after month of playing. before that they were told to be useless ^^).
People CANT and many will not change the charakter just for Arena.
And yes In my opinion the DEVS are forced to make the game as balanced as possible (100%) will never work sure. but since you played GW2 like me you should have noticed that the DEVS there waited like 6 month to make any PVP balancing patch what realy sucked.
Sure 1v1 3v3 arena will never be balanced since the game get balanced for bigger groups but if all classes are equal in some way every class should be able to Play arenas if the dev team is good in managing and scaling???
But this are just our 2 opinions. i understand both of them i just Prefer the one where my efford in the world counts in PVP too not like in GW 2 where you could play high lvl PVP while never killed 1 PVE monster
2. i would like to Have a Collesuem for things like that.
i played Silkroad online up to lvl 110 ( without botting yeaaaa im stupid braindead farmer xD).
But every PVP liking guy knew that if you want to test your skills go to Town A and meet others at the soughtgate. There were 24/7 players who made duells.
since we got a Node system with the option to create a war node? ( donnu the name) there should be PVP buildings like A Colloseum and so on. all PVPler with free time will automaticly meet at these nodes after some time ( i hope) when everyone knows there goes the action and LFG etc etc etc
Giving us seperate custom Servers doesnt solve out Problem to be a Part with the rest of the world.
Maybe there should be a Option to make Group Duells too like
you are in a Group and im in a Group.
then you send me a request for Group Duell and all players are etting flagged for a 4v4 or 8v8 etc etc
Arena's were added in BC and many of the devs came out saying they wished it had stayed in BC b/c trying to appease players that wanted tighter 3v3 fights made balancing PvE nearly impossible and has led to many of the problems that still plague the game today.
Frankly, I don't even like that Intrepid is considering ladders as I don't want to risk the community pushing for balance changes. Intrepid can say they'll stand their ground as much as they like, but I've seen plenty of devs cave to community pressure and it'd only be a matter of time before it happens to AoC.
I'd be happiest if Arenas were RP buildings in Military Nodes and nothing more.
I meant the Gurubashi arena in Stranglethorn Vale, not the ranked arenas. A RP building
Ah ha, I see.
They said they will Balance the game for 8 VS 8 games so it would be perfekt to make the Arenas the Same way.
Sure its Harder to get yourself 8 Premates but its ok.
Give us a 1v1 and 2v2 Arena For fun whitch will never be balanced since its a 8v game what should be fine if its told Direktly to everyone.
but on a more serious note, lots of staging options for each arena in accordance to node level.
Line of site obstacles, pillars with/without spikes that can cause damage when touched or knocked back in to.
Destructible obstacles that can be used to topple on to your enemies and allies.
Turf options (sand, grass, shallow water etc)
Maybe things such as leashed beasts that attack if you're in range
Personally I like larger scale battle grounds better than arenas. 10v10 and higher. Alterac Valley, and Hutt ball were 2 of my favorite battle grounds. And most anything that pits 2 large teams against each other with objectives involved is what I enjoy.
No realy need for 3v3 5v5 when its not gonna balanced for this group size.