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
People have been saying that causing economic harm to a guild would require a large amount of resources finding their caravans.
I am pointing out that this is not needed.
Now, sure, you may well go to a different node to gather wood - the thing is, I will still know this because I will see members of your guild and/or friends gathering wood there. As soon as I see this, I know you are gathering wood at that node and can determine where you will need to start a caravan from.
I mean, I've already gone over that above, try and keep up.
However, those resources still need to be moved to that node.
Keep in mind, I do not need to prevent this guild getting wood. I simply need to slow it down enough that the guild is unable to keep up in building ships.
Remember, if I take your wood caravan, I get most of that wood. If you are only able to build 1 ship to every 3 that I build, you have no chance against me on the ocean.
If you can't see how that would cripple a guild trying to wage a fight on the ocean, then honestly, what can I say?
It's not like caravans are restricted to guild v guild combat.
I've been on servers with guilds dominating like this - on both sides of it. While it's a nice thought to think that players will band together to fight that larger foe, they just don't.
If you are currently leaving a guild mostly to itself, they are not going to risk that peace. This would also prevent most guilds transporting resources to that guild to sell.
This isn't an rts. Yes, more ships are better but if a guild doesn't have the numbers to man them, then it doesn't mean much. Just because they can't face you in a full on fight doesn't mean they are crippled. They can still do their own activities. If they are fighting you, they can hit you when you aren't at full strength or while you are doing activities that leave you vulnerable. They can also work with allies.
As dygz pointed out, your scenario is also happening in a bubble. You are picking on a smaller guild in a server of many guilds. Unless you have a strong reason to do this, it's not going to look good for you and the political consequences could bite you in the ass.
You are giving a good reason for people to spend resources to fight you.
If there is something to gain, they will.
If you are harassing a guild, every guild on the server will wonder how long the peace with you will last.
Any guild that is competing with you will see it as an opportunity.
Any guild that is iching for an excuse for a fight will see a good chance.
Every guild will see an opportunity to take what is yours and look like heros for doing it.
The guilds at the top have the most to lose.
Bro, all what you stated here is illogical.... 1200 well organised fine I'll give you that but what on earth makes you think that within that 20 to 30 min of travel nothing would happen where you left.... You know what I'm done trying, when the game comes up please do try it and be thoroughly disappointed
If one mega-guild dominates a server by establishing three Scientific Metros, it's very likely that the rest of the server would band together to try to take at least one of them down in order to have a Metro with a different Node type.
Most likely, the server would band together earlier to make sure the mega-guild's third Scientific City never becomes a Metro. Especially if most people on the server are anti-fast travel.
In Ashes, if people feel "dominated", they will try to put an end to that domination.
That's what alliances are for...but they don't even have to be official alliances.
Especially when defending caravans.
Please go and read the wiki and be informed a lot of you guys don't even know the mechanics of the game you're just bringing up uninformed arguments... I really just have to stop here, if you want to know more check out the wiki else just wait for the game to release and play..... They've basically placed down all what is to happen in the game unless you know and your imagination is too shallow to comprehend in which case we're just wasting our time..... I said it is extremely difficult to rule a server and that's true and good luck to anyone that wants to, in my opinion that's not a bad ambition,but you're not trying to control robots here, it's players you're trying to control, I've said this over and over again there is not so much power difference between players of different levels.
Players outside the guild barely affect this. This is my definition of dominance. Where your actions have no real effect on a group, but they can easily affect yours.
This happens because of the Thousand Spears, relative to smaller guilds.
A dictator has an army of 1000 spearmen. 20% are loyal, the others are less so. But they all appear to be loyal, and don't communicate as much openly (this is what smaller guilds are like, almost by definition, if not, they're a Federation).
The first man to say 'down with the Emperor' finds themselves facing at least 900 spears.
Until the Emperor falls, no one says 'down with the Emperor' because it's pointless. Those who are not yet ready to say that, kill them.
Small guilds don't rise up against big guilds because they would have to successfully perfectly organize a single justified uprising, or they get stomped into nothingness by the big guild and the neutrals.
I have not seen a single game mechanic on the entire Wiki that will prevent the above. I concede that we have completely different ideas of human nature, so I welcome any discussion on the above, but if 'no, that doesn't happen', is your response to the Thousand Spears, or 'eventually there are no loyalists left', then I'll accept that we can't agree.
If a guild can stop them getting wood, that guild can stop them doing what ever. The smaller guild is then left with the ability to only do the things the larger guild allows them to do - or doesn't care if they do.
The method for controlling large groups in games (to an extent anyway) is known and studied. Scope Limited Benefit and Scope Limited Pain (where 'pain' refers to the consequences of defeat and loss).
It is easier to cause large groups to fracture, or in fact, not even form, if the benefit of forming that group, e.g. access to Guild Reliquaries, stat boosts, other bonuses, are limited to a small group of people and then have to be handed out to others at the discretion of the small group.
It's easier to cause 'conflict and drama' when the loss is also limited to a small group, mainly because those people often resent losing and blame other people who were supposed to help them (from outside the group) for not trying hard enough. See example: Any coordinated Team Game.
So far, I see no signs of this in Ashes. 300 people getting a Reliquary bonus, the whole alliance having access to the same market and crafters easily, the whole node and surrounding nodes having a direct benefit from the stability of the node, with few direct limits on this...
I'm not saying Ashes can't implement the answer. I'm saying we don't have any real indication that they have plans to do it. If all I have to do to stop someone who complains 'you are monopolizing this gathering spot and I want to use it, I'll rise up against you' is to go 'oh well if you don't rise up against me, I'll let you use it sometimes as long as you don't sell the materials' (giving an example from my own gaming in this situation type), then I have at least needed to trade.
But if 'Our dominance on this Metropolis causes a Dungeon to spawn that has good drops and exp and most people can benefit without any effort on our part', I don't see a reason for this large group to fall.
Finally, I am surprised by one other thing...
We expect the highly organized big guild with a common goal, external resources, and probably an entire well-understood ranking hierarchy, to eventually fracture due to drama...
But not the ragtag bunch of motley adventurers making up 'The Resistance'? Is that a point I should just accept, or is there another explanation?
An even bigger part of dominating a server than fighting is in politics.
You need to make sure that people know you will only attack guilds for a specific reason, and any guild that isn't doing something you don't want them to do, won't be attacked.
If you do this, you have most of those guilds on your side in the event of a rogue guild.
By the devs.... All that is up to the player community
Ok, I think I understand where we diverge. We don't agree on the effect of world size, and your perspective is that if a group can achieve it, it is a testament to their skill.
Whereas I am hoping that the skill ceiling to successfully do it, is raised more than the game implies. I agree that I will need to see the difference in ability between small and large guilds in terms of their guild augments, but I also feel that I personally don't want to play a game where 'by having a 30 person guild rather than a 300 person guild', I can consistently squash members of that 300 person guild in PvP or logistics.
So it's again, a matter of my tunnel vision. I agree that what you perceive is a way to solve the problem, I just don't want to play a game that solves the problem in that way, and that's no good reason to claim that your points are wrong, so, consider my position conceded.
You should probably stop using real world examples since it's a game. Main reason that your situation works is if someone dies in real life, it's over. It's not the same in a game. Not only that, the metaphor is wrong. It would be more appropriate to have a bunch of dictators and the spearmen divided among them in random amounts. Some with more and some with less.
There aren't mechanics designed to directly fight it because the situation doesn't happen and anything you did to try to fight it would hinder cooperation.
Indirectly, the limited resources and node mechanics go against it. Not everyone can live in a metro but many will want to. If you are in a large guild, this could mean that you are stuck living outside the metro, where they tell you. It's not hard to imagine how some might not like that and consider rebelling. Even in a vacuum, a large guild would get to a state where the number of people outside of a metro outnumber the people in it, who could have the power to overwhelm the people in the metro. Remove this from the vacuum and put in a world with a variety of guilds/alliances, the group outside of the metro doesn't even need to wait for more to feel like them. They have other guilds they could join or ally with. The limited resources will cause the same situation.
I think the best example of how this has gone in other games can be seen in this video of eve's evolving politics. the blobs are alliances and the space they cover is the land they control.
That video is not in any way an indication of the thing you claimed it was an indication of. I thought you had played EVE? Am I misremembering?
I see large groups establishing trading companies of some fashion or another, to have the most weight behind the trades being made across the world.
Without fast travel, and with the size of the world 1200 players will at best control one area of the map at a time.
If your goal is domination through PvP or just combat in general, not accounting for issues with Corruption, here's how your series of events looks like:
Subdivide your Alliance's forces to expand your reach --> You are now outnumbered by the local guilds --> You piss them off --> You get attacked --> You can't get any reinforcements in time --> You get destroyed --> rinse and repeat.
Yep and every guild you tell that to will bend the knee and do what you say. I'm sure none of those guilds interests will ever go against what you tell them to do so they will never fight you and your guild will live happy ever after.
I'm sorry for the sarcasm but anyone who has played a game where player politics could have a significant impact of the game knows this doesn't last. Things are always changing. People are always talking and scheming. Only guilds that avoid conflicts are the ones chilling out and doing their own thing. It's going to be the nikua villiage that was built up by an rp guild that is going to last long. Not the metro of the guild that thinks it's hot shit and tells people to stay out of it's way.
What do you think that is an indicator of?
Is there another map layer you think does a better job of representing my point?
I see, sadly that's one of the ways they decided to deal with it I guess you'll get used to it ☺️
It is an indicator of the fact that the largest guilds eventually 'chose to stop being dominant' (i.e. fractured).
Being dominant is not about 'preventing anyone else from doing anything', only 'being a powerful enough force that no one could reasonably oppose your goals without paying a heavy, sometimes crippling price, to their own'. If it wasn't clear that I was making the argument from this stance, I apologize.
Anyone can aim for pyrrhic victory, but most gamers won't, because they play games for fun, not 'to punish or hurt their oppressors'.
It's precisely because it's a game that I expect Thousand Spears to work more effectively, because it always has in any situation I encountered. In short, the little guy realizes that they have no power unless they go along with the big guild anyway, do nothing or help to squash anyone who does try, and wait until the big guild 'decides' not to be a superpower anymore.
EDIT: I just realized that you didn't actually clarify if you played EVE or not. A lot of the groups in that heatmap in the video are allied.
As you said, it's a game. In a pvp game, most people think it's fun to win. People don't want to win to "punish or hurt their oppressors," they want to win because people like winning. I'm not going to die fighting the oppressors or lose loved ones in the process. I'm going to have fun trying to overcome a challenge.
I don't think the Thousand Spears works because there is never one dictator. You can join another "dictator." You could even seek out one that is in conflict with the one you are being "oppressed" by. Can you tell me a game where your thousand spears scenario played out and explain what happened?
Ashes mechanics encourage you to fight. Only so many guilds can control castles and only so many people can live in metros. The best items will be from worlds bosses that only one group will be able to claim each spawn. Wither it's through caravans, wars, or sieges, you get something from it and the reward will generally be greater the stronger the opponent.
There was never a time when somebody managed to control zerging. That's why there is some sort of diplomacy going on in such games in order to form other alliances to go against them or generally try to outplay them. Intrepid will have some incentives to stop people from zerging but it won't have much effect imo. Ashes is trying to revive the old mmo genre with a more hardcore playstyle rather than these shitty themeparks we live with today and zerging is a big part of it. Embrace it, live with it and do your best to compete against those zergs buddy
Sorry, i enjoy getting sucked into your scenarios and sometimes need to back out of the question to see if it makes since.
You created this scenario where you can "cripple" a guild by stopping them from making a boat (which you can't). You followed that up by saying they must submit to you because they can't make their boat (which they can).
Yes, i decided that even if they couldn't get a boat, the lack of a boat doesn't mean your guild is crippled. I also haven't come up with a replacement for the boat that would cripple a guild.
I'm honestly willing to give full examples (two, actually) but both are long, and I'd like to clear up one prerequisite first.
You say that Ashes' mechanics encourage you to fight. This is the part I'm not confident in/willing to support. I don't doubt that if Ashes has enough psychological triggers to actually encourage people to fight even when their chances of winning are less than say, 15% (arbitrary number, for some interactions it might as well be 0, but claiming that is hyperbole), then it will play out the other way.
My point is that I don't see those as existing in a way that will topple any large powerful guild, unless the benefits for being in smaller guilds will be massively more powerful than whatever benefits one obtains from Reliquaries, etc.
But I've already conceded that point to @Taiphee . So if I give an example of a game where 'the size of your large guild did not give you a relative weakness', it is useless if the perception is 'Ashes has strong bonuses for small guilds', because the scenario wouldn't match.
I'd be giving those examples as examples of 'the fact that people who are going to lose and then suffer, chose not to fight, and instead just went along with the powerful'. That's what the Thousand Spears is about, at its core.
Lots of games encourage you to fight, many of them don't even penalize you for losing, and people still get demoralized simply from 'losing too much' and quit those games (an equivalent action in Ashes could be to give up and join the winning side). As I always say, MMOs don't even get matchmaking.
So just so I don't waste your time and mine, what exactly do you think Ashes does that encourages a meaningfully disadvantaged group, to engage in a fight where they can lose something? Let's for example say that the 'Rulers' of the Metropolis respond to any aggression (in the form of sabotage or just Guild Wars with the rulers) from a Vassal node by initiating a siege to destroy that Vassal node. The Guild in the Vassal Node can lose their node, the Metropolis can't be attacked by their Vassals anyway. If this is a useless scenario to your point, feel free to ignore it.
Also, this is just an observation, I am not arguing at all about the subject of this thread.
Thanks though, you're right, I should specify that by 'fight' I mean 'make an organized effort to affect the other party', not just 'defend yourself against aggression', if that was unclear to anyone reading.
The game isn't going to encourage you to enter an un-winnable fight and it's not supposed to.
What the game encourages you to do is win and you need to figure out how you are going to do that. Most likely, the disadvantaged group needs to talk to people and get allies. A big part of this game is supposed to be interacting with people. Yes, you can play in a small group but if you want to challenge 100+ people, you should be bringing a similar number of people.
As a side note, i get a since of urgency from your posts. They don't need to win tomorrow, it's something they can work on over time and challenge them when they are ready.