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 he was talking about the downsides to gathering a large number of players, not the ability to use discord lol
Killing a world boss with 40 people nets you significantly more per playtime spent than having to bring 250 people to a single world boss kill as the amount of reward doesn't scale with the amount of players you bring.
Making 250 log in, travel there and protect their world boss kill is stupid at best. Neither will anybody participate for long, if it means sharing the loot designed for 40 people with 249 others. At this point, you might as well just grind some mobs or gather some ore because the money equivalent you get from that will be significantly higher than sitting around a world boss.
@Biccus The problem with guilds controlling areas of the map is that mobility will be an issue. The big alliance can control a section of the map, but only that section. Being able to move to an area away from their influence is an option.
With 103 nodes, there won't be monopolies on entire servers. Some servers will - without a doubt - have some server-giant guilds. However, the bigger the guild, the more fractures it will be destined to have. It's more or less a part of that server's character.
I think I know what the OP's base concern is, and really, it comes down to this: Even if it *were* possible for a single player-organization to control and monopolize an entire server (again, that's 103 nodes), how boring would it be, to only have one collection of guilds doing things? Wouldn't sieges have to be entirely staged?
You bring up a good point. Even if there is no official support of massive guilds. Nothing is ever going to stop massive amounts of people from working together if they choose to.
No point in trying to fight player agency on this one.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I think in this situation you make the best of it or jump servers. I see no reason any company would send 5000 subs away (which would lead to more) just because players got together and through shear force of numbers altered the natural flow of a server.
The primary focus of this game, if I'm not mistaken.
Ha- [edit] That's in the ocean by the way.
The Dark Alliance is building the Tulnar Civilization on our server!
[NA] [18+] - We need EVERYONE!
If you want in, send me a message!
That works out to less than 5km/sq per node. tiny. Now factor in concurrent players.what does it matter if you have 103 nodes, a 50k population and maybe 3k concurrent players if you have thousands of people from a mega guild each with a alt account hammering the login servers?
Some streamer shows up with 20k followers to decimate your server for the luls. Is this reasonable gameplay that should be accommodated?
It's a very complicated subject and i don't have the answers. But, I am taking part in most of the similar mmos in alpha or nearing in/beta and this is the problem plaguing all of them. If you simply let the biggest group take over the game is going to die. I am watching this exact issue unfold in other games. There needs to be a path for the little guy to rise to the top. If that isn't feasible the little guy is going to stop trying and move on. Game is then DOA.
Very interested to see how Steven deals with this through to release. Jeff too, seems like a humble brilliant mind to me. I don't think anarchy is the answer here. it might be successful short term but after everything is secured it's basically dead. Looking at a wipe every few months.
Just don't start on a streamer server. It's literally that simple.
You'll know where every single noteable streamer in your region start. Signing up on the same server is on you, not them.
This exactly!
It takes months to secure an area by building a metropolis which locks out an unknown amount of other content. Destroying that metropolis is required to open the additional content. If the winning zerg starts quitting due to stagnation, then their metropolis may become vulnerable to being destroyed and the world changes rather than needing a wipe. On the other hand, if the winning zerg starts destroying another metropolis to build a new metropolis and increasing their zone of control, then another period of months are required to build the new metropolis and lock down the area. This happens for 5 metropolis's. If at any point, the large zerg becomes to spread out compared the competitors, one or more of the metropolis's may become vulnerable and result in a reset of the metropolis area.
As far as a streamer showing up with 20k followers goes, they can try it with all characters at level 1. If they show up at an empty server to take over, they might be able too. The current plan is that that AoE's hit all players in the effect area. There is no target cap. Because of this, I am not sure if thousands of level 1s would dominate even a few high level characters.
Otherwise, if they want to take over their going to have to put in the work of leveling. Which is slow compared to most MMO's. Also, the servers can only hold 10k concurrently. If they want to show up and take over an area long term on a highly populated server, most of them are gonna have long queue times.
I agree that there is very little stopping a large enough group from taking over provided that organization is done outside the game as the in game systems are not optimized for it. However, the gameplay is not setup to make a fun experience for such groups over the long term. I feel like such groups will probably break down over time; and, the server will not only rebalance, but often the content of the server will reform as power shifts.
Also, the available rewards for content is very limited. A maximum of 40 man groups can gain rewards from any given PvE fights and all the max level characters are concentrated into relatively small areas of the map for the rewards. This is intended to be a warzone.
Personally, given my arguments in this post and the one above, I would actually love to see what would happen if a streamer had thousands of players attack such a developed server. I would bet that such an attack would only be effective in low level areas; and, considering that even a village requires a 2 day siege declaration, such streams will probably have little impact on the server as I doubt these streamers are there for the long haul.
Perhaps that is the saving grace.
I hope they don't do this.
Monster coins will cost money to buy. If that becomes a necessary means to an end, that is essentially required pay to win - or in this case pay to make your server playable.
I do assume this was completely tongue in cheek though.
I don't understand why there is an assumption that the people in the mega guild are the Ashes veterans.
Steven is already against zergs, so expect Ashes to have measures in place to prevent zergs.
And small guilds are supposed to have perks that help make them competitive with large guilds - especially when the small guilds form alliances, so...
The devs are already designing with these concerns in mind.
We just have to see how well those concepts are implemented - similar to Corruption.
We know there will be (almost) no fast travel, so it will not be easy to gather large groups of players, particularly for chance encounters. If 8 members of Small guild run into 8 members of Large guild, Large guild will not be able to port in a dozen more to swamp them.
More importantly, to have a Large guild, they will have to choose 'size expansion' over other possible guild skills. Small guild will be choosing other skills, often PvP related, making the members of Small guild individually more powerful than the members of Large guild. Small should win most 1 v 1, all else held equal.
If Small and Large were at war, many of the fights would be parties running into each other, perhaps parties of eight. Who would tend to win? Small guild would, since they choose PvP skills over having a larger guild. Perhaps a group of five Small could routinely kill a group of eight Large, all else held equal. So, in many of the guild war conflicts, Small would win.
But what about the big battles, sieges for nodes and castles? These fights are where Large guild is betting that their larger numbers of 'weaker' players would win, since everyone from both guilds is at the same place at the same time, hence more Large players. Right? Personally, I am not convinced that even here numbers will be the determinative factor. Think back on similar battles you have been in and what do you remember?
Fights at choke points (gates, doors, castle rooms, etc.) and other crowded areas. Fights that come down to 20 vs 20, or maybe 25 vs 35? Again, the individually stronger members of Small guild will have a fighting chance against the more numerous but individually weaker members of Large guild.
In Summary: I think that the community may tend to use experiences with zergs in other games to assume that zergs can dominate in AoC. I think that is it possible that AoC's innovative design will make well designed Small guilds competitive with Large guilds, given even leadership ability.
I think this will rock.
uhh 10k not 3k
Here comes it's biggest enemy, individual wants or desires.. The world has a lot to do and a lot to discover and over time there would be internal conflicts that could erupt and many more similar issues for mega guilds.... Plus the only thing à mega guild gains from taking over a server is the fact that they did... Nothing else, therefore even if a mega guild manages to take over a server (which is near impossible) it would be exceptionally harder for them to maintain it unless you have 80% of the whole server working together, let's keep in mind that not all 8000 to 10000 people in a server know each other before joining the server.
😩I really don't like having to type long explanations, so I won't explain everything check the AOC wiki to better understand some of these things, just know a méga guild is not going to find it easy to grieve the whole server as the world is way too big and busy for it to grasp let alone maintain
Here's the wiki address: https://www.ashesofcreation.wiki/
Sorry don't know how to share the link 😅
Not just influence. Dominate.
History (both gaming and real) is full of this. You do not need to be in the majority to have domination over others - you can easily achieve this with 10% or so of the population. You just need to be better organized.
This statement is made assuming game mechanics is the same as the ones you've played.... Anyway once alpha 2 shows up I think you'll be enlightened better, but I do recommend you read the wiki so you could understand better the dynamics of the game..... With how big the world is they can not easily dominate on their own, they would need allies willing to give them control and of course the allies would need to be numerous enough, bro it is not easy to manage a large group in games, let alone a huge territory with lots of possibilities.
Please read the wiki below so you're better informed on what you want to know
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/
Yeah, Noaani, go read the wiki you uninformed noob. lololol
You say 1,200 players as if all 1,200 are perfectly coordinated, skilled players working towards a single vague goal of "controlling the server." And even if a significant number of them are working together, their impact will have diminishing returns.
There's zero chance that a smaller guild of better players (perhaps only better because of the bonuses being in a smaller guild provides) can do nothing. 1,100 random noobs running around saying they're part of the big team that is basically run by only 100 vs 40 hardcore raiders? Yeah, who cares?
What is it you're afraid they'll control, anyhow?
They'll zerg your nodes in sieges? Node loyalty matters before guild loyalty, and being part of the guild isn't necessary to partake in a siege. Not to mention castles are purposefully designed to be a force multiplier, meaning being outnumbered doesn't matter.
They'll farm resources, control supply, and manipulate the economy? Opportunity for profit.
They'll camp bosses? Diminishing returns on numbers; the smaller guilds can camp bosses just as easily, because it's designed for 40 people.
They'll gank people? Corruption system, bounty hunter system, personal skill, easier to coordinate smaller groups, guerilla warfare.
You're missing out important details, it's extremely difficult to control the whole server, while I understand we're not giving detailed reasoning to that conclusion you have to understand that it's not easy to type these explanations, at least for me, that's why I referred you to the wiki it has in depth information on nodes, dungeons, openworld pvp and so on which are supposedly what a mega guild is to control, when you read on them you'll see for yourself why that is a very difficult task.... And if any mega guild should achieve this then its a big accolade on it's own, it shows great leadership and coordination within the group... And even maintaining it is another big issue as the world is dynamic and multiple things happen on different parts of the world at relatively the same time. To be able to achieve this is tremendous feat and that shouldn't be taken away from those that can. But you guys assume it's something a group of players can just come and do it, for that to be the case the game has to allow for pay to win mechanics or overpowered character leveling, that's not the case so there is really no issue with mega guilds in theory at the moment,we'll just have to wait for the alpha and beta phases to test these things