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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.
Comments
Yea I agree with most of this. I think you are right on the divine nodes, those will be for those who have the most time to do the easy quest content. Or maybe not all quests are created equal and some of the more difficult ones "skilled" players could do to get more credit? Still though, your 10 hours/day person is probably also doing these more difficult quests.
You can have players competing against each other not be 100% time based. A good example of this is PvP ladders. You have to be of a certain level of skill to progress in a ladder. Some people will move up the ladder quickly, some more slowly as they get better over time. Others could play 10x the top end players and never make it to the top.
It's probably harder to do with open world content, but also one of the inherent problems is the ability to balance open world content (whereas instance based combat you can control the size of the groups involved and balance the content based on that).
I'd say replace "casual" with "skilled" and this statement is probably right. Of course this would be based on being skilled with a champion, not necessarily your actual character, but I think that's okay (and a good way to balance the issue of classes not being balanced for 1v1).
I wonder if there will be a practice mode for these champions? I think that would be important so that would-be mayors can hone their champion's skills outside of the battle.
The issue isn't the amount, it's the core idea behind it. Regardless if you can use it up in an hour or it takes 100 hours it's still terrible game design.
It's literally just a punishment on the dedicated in order to cater to the casual.
It's the equivalent of someone dragging you down a slope so that you don't get too far ahead of them climbing up it, or even more accurately, tying a rope between both of you so that you can't progress too far ahead, so you're stuck waiting for them to give you some leeway.
If you think this is a good argument in game development I don't know what to say. I'm completely astonished someone would actually argue this.
"They can find other things to do than play our game if they don't like that we're stopping them from playing it"
This is absolutely a "it's not fair they spend more time than me so they achieve more, I want handouts or them to be forced to stop to be on par with them too" mindset.
I'm sorry but you don't put Usain Bolt in a wheelchair because he's too fast for his competitors. Your logic is insulting to people who have favourite games to spend their entire day on.
Edit: This is actually getting me tilted because you're saying I'm only allotted 100 points of fun, and once I use up those fun points guess I'm shit out of luck because you don't want me to have more fun than John Doe who complained I spend my time on the game and he doesn't have as much time to spend because of his life choices or unfortunate circumstances.
I'm extremely insulted at this.
Consider this: If everything is time based rewarding, then you will alienate the majority of the playerbase to satisfy the minority who can afford the 10 hours/day. Then that minority looks around and wonders why everybody else stops playing the game...
The game needs to be something where the dedicated players can compete against the basement dwellers. The casuals can/should expect to be able to have fun with the game, but they don't need to compete to the same level.
If competition is just time based = win... might as well just make it a participation award because time does not equal skill. My argument is to reward skill before other factors such as time.
It's not about expecting casuals can do as much as hard core players. Casuals are not spending the time needed to master the game and so they will not be as good at it.
However, at some point there is diminishing returns on the time spent relative to the ability to develop the skills. You don't need to play 14-16 hours a day to be hardcore in a game. You could play ~4-5 hours a day ~4-5 days a week and be a top notch player in a game from a skill perspective. Those top players should be able to compete against the people spending 10+ hours/day.
People that spend 10+ hours will reach faster higher lvs, access skills, have more gold and gear.
Once you reach them you can compete on skill. Where? In a friendly duel or BGs.
Dominating the world? Not unless you join a guild.
Dont see the point of these casual v hardcore threads. As some1 said alrdy, only shallow games provide for that.
If people could balance casual v hardcore they would do that with real life things, like $$$ and stuffs.
It wont happen.
WoW has done this on multiple fronts just within their current expansion (with mixed results in terms of fun). Primarily with limiting how fast you can get gear, not the leveling:
1) You can clear a raid only once per week (good design)
2) There is a weekly cap on the conquest points that goes up each week in the season. You use these points to buy pvp gear. But you have to have rating (aka skill) to level up the gear to higher levels. (excellent design)
3) Leveling doesn't take forever. All of the dedicated players had level cap within the first 1-2 weeks of the expansion (some people like me took off a few days and leveled up 2+ characters from 50-60 in the first week). (excellent design)
4) Weekly chest rewards slows the flow of the highest level gear, but the next level down of gear can be farmed by repeating high level M+ dungeons (which early on in a season takes a decent amount of skill as you are doing it under geared). (good design overall)
5) Weekly/daily quests on progression in the Maw (I'm not as much of a fan on this time gating, but the daily quests didn't reward much so you could skip them most days and still be competitive). (okay design).
6) Weekly gating of the main campaign questline/renown system (I also did not like this much. While it did help ensure a good pace for power growth, it also gated the pace of the story progression which was not good for immersion). (poor design)
7) Weekly cap for Torghast runs that give you the crafting components for legendary items (okay design, somewhat necessary for the legendary system, but limited the rougelike gameplay)
A lot of repetitive content. I dont want limitations to how much I can gain. I might wanna play for 20h on a Wednesday and then not log back in for the rest of the week. Freedom.
Also 3). Worst idea ever for mmos. Not gonna happen here.
You can, and that is why the notary node leadership contest exists.
My point here is that there absolutely are things people with less time can do, and there absolutely are things that they cant do that those with more time can. It is up to each player to pick what they spend their time on.
The idea that everything in the game should cater to those with only a few hours is as absurd as the notion that the game should only cater to those with many hours.
Pick and chose what you spend your time on wisely.
Well said!
It's all about balance and with this balance I could see the "dedicated" player able to do most stuff competitively (assuming he/she is a skilled player). Sure there may be only some things the basement dwellers can do (divine node mayor I'm looking at you), but not the majority of the content. Likewise casual players probably shouldn't be hoping to do raids or other competitive content because they don't have the skill or the time to develop that skill. However they should have content they can do as they participate in the growth/defense of their node/guild.
or... the player that is playing 16 hours could spend 2-4 hours doing the same thing as the casual player, and then the other 12-14 hours doing other content... There should be multiple paths for progression/content.
But... there should also be paths where they can spend that entire 16 hours - if they wish to do so.
Catering to someone with more time is not the same as catering to someone with less time, several times over - which is what you seem to be suggesting here.
haha...cause no game ever has made a mistake right? No redemption for the devs?!?
What will you do when IS makes its first mistake?
Yea, it's the difference between creating more content, and restricting content.
Restricting is obviously less enjoyable.
Not even close to the point.
An MMO is defined as much as anything by its persistence. While it's fine to swap out the rewards of a PvP season, the method by which they are attained should remain the same.
Blizzard treat WoW more as an ARPG or BR than an MMORPG.
Fair enough. Let's use an example. My preferred content is rated pvp. Assuming I win ~70% of my games, I need to play about ~4 hours to hit the cap for conquest points to get the best gear for the week (less skilled players it will take longer because you only get points for wins). However, I can continue to play as much as I like to keep working on increasing my rating (and farm more honor points that I could use for lower level gear that I can use or sell).
Look at that, content for everybody without catering too far one way or the other. The more hardcore player is going to move up faster in the ladder (assuming they are good) and they will have something to work on. The more casual player doesn't get left in the dust and can come back the following week and still be competitive, but it will take them longer to move up the ladder.
Rating is going to matter as well because the higher the rating, the better you can make the top end gear.
Multiple tiers of rewards/reasons for doing content works.
You keep talking about WoW, and how Ashes could/should be more like it.
What you seem to have missed is that Ashes exists - in part - to be the game that isn't like WoW.
I think the advantage that hardcore players have will largely level off the further it is from release. Usually, there's a huge difference in power level by character level, so until the casual players hit max level, the hardcore players spending 7x the time on the game will completely dominate them. Depending on how much skill, knowledge, and communication the combat requires, it's possible that people spending much less time on the game can outperform no-lifers. I know some people who spend tons of time on something, yet are kind of perma-noobs whom quickly get stuck at a plateau, resulting in them being beaten by people who spend far less time on the game. I personally think this is fine, and I hope that skill weighs more heavily than gear when it comes to combat, but we'll see.
Eventually, casual players can accumulate the experience and skills of a hardcore player. It just takes a longer time. So I wouldn't worry too much about it in the long run.
I'm simply providing an example of a system that works (more skills based than time spent based reward system). Not saying it can/should be the same in this game.
But it isn't skill based.
Someone without the same ability can simply spend longer and get the same.
All it is, like it or not, is a gated system so that people cant progress in gear too fast. It is literally nothing more than weekly grinding, a concept only slightly less abhorrent than daily grinding.
I spent a few years working in a situation where I was flown in for three weeks of work without a day off, and then had two weeks off.
I would often spend 12 hours a day for that two weeks playing my game of choice. This would work out to 168 or so hours of game play every 5 weeks, or a bit over 33 a week.
With the system you described, you could spend 4 hours a week on that system to my average of 33, and I would only ever be able to get 2/5 of the rewards that you are, as I am only playing 2 weeks out of every5.
Artificial gating is bad.
Period.
Sure, sometimes artificial gating may work in your favor, but it always screws someone over.
Developers should just be adding content to the game, assigning suitable rewards to it, and leaving us players to work out what we want to do.