Brother you're worrying about Intrepid losing customers that Intrepid is not even targeting in the first place. You're worrying about people who go to a taco stand asking for hamburgers.
This isn't exactly true.
Intrepid aren't focusing on PvP players, they want players that also prefer PvE games - as long as those players are ok with the PvP aspect of Ashes.
Pretty much the only MMO players Intrepid are not targeting with Ashes are those that want nothing at all to do with PvP.
Again, as has been shown time after time, a game with a persistent world that only has PvP players creates a self perpetuating circle of decline. In order for a game to have a long life with a healthy population (as opposed to a long life with a low population, as is the case for games like L2, Aion, Archeage etc).
While those games have no doubt made money for their developers and producers, if Intrepid want better for Ashes, the key to that is to give people reasons to remain in the game even when the PvP aspects are not going their way. The rest of the game needs to be so compelling in comparison to other games that people are willing to only play parts of it over other games where they can play the whole thing.
Without that reason, the above games are Ashes eventual best-case-scenario fate.
I said that they're not targeting the instanced pve/raid crowd, not that they're not targeting pve players in general. If they were targeting the instanced pve/raid crowd, then declaring your game open world with limited instancing would be a weird way to go about it.
Edit: So it is exactly true. The only way it's not true is if Intrepid is employing some kind of weird, nonsensical scheme to lure the instanced pve/raid crowd by giving them exactly what they don't want.
I'm not gonna back down. I've waited too god damn long for a decently funded, Western, non p2w, open world mmo. Honestly this forum warrioring is more fun than I've had in an mmo in years. Complete desperation at this point.
Maybe I and the others like me lose this battle and Intrepid does a 180. Not much we can do about that. But I'm not giving up and will push back on people who CLEARLY see what the games all about beforehand, then come in and start trying to fundamentally change it to suit themselves ANYWAY. It's like wtf.
You have tons of decently funded options to fall back on. We have next to none.
I'm not gonna back down. I've waited too god damn long for a decently funded, Western, non p2w, open world mmo. Honestly this forum warrioring is more fun than I've had in an mmo in years. Complete desperation at this point.
Maybe I and the others like me lose this battle and Intrepid does a 180. Not much we can do about that. But I'm not giving up and will push back on people who CLEARLY see what the games all about beforehand, then come in and start trying to fundamentally change it to suit themselves ANYWAY. It's like wtf.
You have tons of decently funded options to fall back on. We have next to none.
That's the whole reason why I think this game is worth waiting for. It's pretty much run by one guy (not something like Activision) and from what I can tell Steven's interests are completely opposite from theirs.
If they were targeting the instanced pve/raid crowd, then declaring your game open world with limited instancing would be a weird way to go about it.
Claiming you are going to have progression based raiding with a top end that a single digit percentage of the population will be able to kill in a game where the developers have specifically stated that 20% of the content is going to be instanced seems to me to be a fairly solid way to target that crowd.
You have tons of decently funded options to fall back on. We have next to none.
I think you are not paying attention to what people want here.
We (or at least I, and thus people that agree with me) want an open world game as well. The thing is, adding in a few encounters that are instanced off doesn't really kill that a whole lot - no more than adding an arena kills the open world nature of the game.
I am also not asking for any reduction in death penalties from how we currently understand them, any increase to PvP penalties, nor am I asking for cities to be made safe zones.
What I am asking for is a essentially a guarantee built in to the game that people will always have some content they can do.
The other thing I don't think you are grasping (many people are not) is that the reason people wanting a game like Ashes have so few options is because all such games make the exact same mistakes - the mistakes I am suggesting Ashes avoid.
If Ashes is released as you want it to be, 18 months later when you hear about the next game with an open world, you will be there saying how great that game could be, and lament about how few options you have for open world games.
What needs to happen is a develop needs to make an open world PvP friendly game that gives players a reason to play the game aside from (and despite) that PvP. That is how you have a healthy population in a game that doesn't jump ship as soon as it becomes obvious they are on the losing side.
So sure, carry on your fight to make Ashes a mediocre game. I am going to carry on my fight to try and get the game to have a large population for a longer period of time so that you have more people to PvP with in game.
Because that is what I am trying to do. The difference is, I am looking at it from a realistic standpoint.
I haven't seen exactly what you're quoting but I believe you, and that's good. You're grasping at straws though. We don't know what exactly that 20% pertains to yet. And I hope some of it IS directed towards the instanced pve/raiding crowd, as I've said in previous posts.
Intrepid is appealing to different segments of the market. And they are appealing to instanced pve raiders by having raids and making some parts of it instanced. That doesn't mean that that's their target market. Because many of the other things they're doing are the antithesis of what instanced raiders want. Starting with that 20% number. And many more things.
You're trying to use the 20% number against me and I'm turning it right back on you. It's simply not the target market. It defies logic. If it was, Intrepid would have said fuck 20%, were going 60, 80, 100%. And they wouldn't talk so much about open and contested dungeons. Unless their target market was pvp/pve players who generally don't want to be in an instance(but will tolerate it some) and who want to potentially have to fight other players while doing the dungeon.
The other thing I don't think you are grasping (many people are not) is that the reason people wanting a game like Ashes have so few options is because all such games make the exact same mistakes - the mistakes I am suggesting Ashes avoid.
I just don't agree. I think the vision that Ashes has laid out is the best bet in a long, long time for a pvp focused mmo. That's why I'm here. Pvp mmo players have generally been left with 2 options. Half assed pvp in pve/pvp mmos, where the pvp is really just an afterthought. Or full blown hardcore full loot absolute fuck fest griefing, camping, lol lel get rekt nerd garbage. There is a middle ground that really isn't explored too much.
I think the 20% instancing is just a random number that Steven pulled out of his ass during a Q&A session. My interpretation is that it's basically for story quests and tutorials. It's not meant to be end-game content or anything.
Here. From the wiki.
Ashes of Creation will be a seamless open-world experience.[3]
No loading time or loading screens between regions.
There will be open world dungeons and raids. The aspiration is to maintain the open world feel while being able to capitalize on the benefits of instanced mechanics.[4]
Instancing is only going to happen in certain dungeons where the desire is to have greater narrative appeal. Outside of these and arenas there will not be too much instancing anywhere else.[3]
There will be an 80/20 split between open world vs instanced encounters.[2][5][6]
We're probably going to do instancing only in certain dungeons and in arenas. You probably won't see instancing too much anywhere else. What you see is gonna be what you get.[3] – Jeffrey Bard
So we're back at square 1. What we all knew anyway. I'm cool with it. I hope everyone is.
If you dig a little deeper into the notes it does look a little muddled on what that 20% entails. Some of it could be for story quests and tutorials like bigepeen said. But some will definitely be for dungeons. And I think that's good. The number is acceptable.
I just don't agree. I think the vision that Ashes has laid out is the best bet in a long, long time for a pvp focused mmo. That's why I'm here. Pvp mmo players have generally been left with 2 options. Half assed pvp in pve/pvp mmos, where the pvp is really just an afterthought. Or full blown hardcore full loot absolute fuck fest griefing, camping, lol lel get rekt nerd garbage. There is a middle ground that really isn't explored too much.
I'm curious as to what you think the middle ground here is that Ashes is aiming for.
So we're back at square 1. What we all knew anyway. I'm cool with it. I hope everyone is.
The wiki doesn't have every comment made by developers.
Steven had specifically said that they will use instancing to limit the number of people able to take on encounters if they feel it is what is needed, and that they reserve the right (not that they need to, it's their game) to go up to that full 20% instancing for raids, if they feel it is what is needed.
And no, I'm not going to find the quote for you.
As they said, they want to capitalize on the benefits of instancing as a mechanic. They will use it as and when it makes sense to do so. There absolutely are situations in groups and raid content where it makes sense to do so.
The three main benefits of instancing are as follows:
To limit the number of people able to engage an encounter, so that they encounter can be tuned for a specific number of people;
To limit interference from others, so that the encounter can be tuned to be highly challenging;
To guarantee content for all players.
Intrepid will use instancing when it makes sense to do so, toh and I agree on this.
I could write a book on it.
- Pvp is the focus, pve is a close second. Pve being a close second is important. A distant second would not be as good. 100% pvp games lack depth and substance. 60/40 pvp/pve. Up for interpretation. Pve builds the nodes, unlocks the dungeons and further content. Pvp is the catalyst of change, destroying nodes opens opportunities for new nodes to advance, and new pve content.
- Open world pvp. Open world period. Can't opt out of the pvp, critical. The penalties for dying/losing are meaningful but not catastrophic, maybe even mild.
- Many reasons to pvp, caravans, guild wars, node wars, castle sieges, resource control, guy called me a name.
- Node/Guild politics. Rivalries between nodes, rivalries between guilds, rivalries between individual players.
- Naval combat
- Large map, no fast travel, reduces zerging, makes your decisions of where to go pvp on any given day strategic and meaningful. As opposed to in other games, you ready to pvp? ok you teleport to this zone, pvp zone. Kill guys with yellow and red faction symbols above their head. (Don't get me wrong I love faction based pvp too when it's well done.) Large map also means that if you really don't want to pvp on a given day, you can probably find places where you'll be left alone mostly.
- Large concurrent player count per server, 10k concurrent, 50k total, makes it harder for mega guilds to dominate(though that could still happen), lots of variety in enemies, enemies that evolve over time, plenty of other nodes and their players to migrate to if things aren't working out where you are.
I could write a book on it.
- Pvp is the focus, pve is a close second. Pve being a close second is important. A distant second would not be as good. 100% pvp games lack depth and substance. 60/40 pvp/pve. Up for interpretation. Pve builds the nodes, unlocks the dungeons and further content. Pvp is the catalyst of change, destroying nodes opens opportunities for new nodes to advance, and new pve content.
- Open world pvp. Open world period. Can't opt out of the pvp, critical. The penalties for dying/losing are meaningful but not catastrophic, maybe even mild.
- Many reasons to pvp, caravans, guild wars, node wars, castle sieges, resource control, guy called me a name.
- Node/Guild politics. Rivalries between nodes, rivalries between guilds, rivalries between individual players.
- Naval combat
- Large map, no fast travel, reduces zerging, makes your decisions of where to go pvp on any given day strategic and meaningful. As opposed to in other games, you ready to pvp? ok you teleport to this zone, pvp zone. Kill guys with yellow and red faction symbols above their head. (Don't get me wrong I love faction based pvp too when it's well done.) Large map also means that if you really don't want to pvp on a given day, you can probably find places where you'll be left alone mostly.
- Large concurrent player count per server, 10k concurrent, 50k total, makes it harder for mega guilds to dominate(though that could still happen), lots of variety in enemies, enemies that evolve over time, plenty of other nodes and their players to migrate to if things aren't working out where you are.
I could keep going. But you get the drift lol
If you consider nodes to be factions, then other than no fast travel, you seem to be talking about Archeage.
Archeage was very good, one of the best I've played. P2W ruined it. I'd call what Ashes is trying to be as an even better and more complex Archeage. Nodes are factions but they're not static, and there's a lot of them. Membership of individual nodes can change by people coming and going, through destruction etc.
Archeage was very good, one of the best I've played. P2W ruined it.
Archeage lost 3/4 of it's original population before the p2w got heavy. Entire guilds were leaving the game when it became obvious they were in the bottom half of the pack. Many left before Auroria was even released, because they knew there was no chance of them getting a castle.
The servers would have closed years ago if Trion didn't move the game to p2w.
If Archeage without those aspects is your gold standard for a game, then you can expect to have games that last 12 - 18 months at the most - as I have been saying all along. Again, this is why Crowfall is having a non-persistant world - to try and mitigate these issues.
Archeage is not my gold standard, it was missing all kinds of things I wanted.
Wasn't there only like 4 or 5 castles? If a guild was banking on getting a castle or they're quitting, I think they were playing the wrong game in the first place. And I think you're cherry picking a little. I'm sure you're right that there were people quitting for various reasons before p2w, maybe substantial amounts, I really don't know. But p2w was a huge reason for that games sudden and irreversible downfall. On my server at least, that's all I can speak for. I know some people quit from breaking their gear. Some couldn't get their gear to level up in the way they wanted it to. Like there was a random chance your sword levels up and gains +str, or +int, str obviously being favored. Hard to remember all this stuff, piecing it together in real time. Oh yeah, the labor system drove people absolutely bonkers. Game had some issues that people did not appreciate.
Not sure what your point is exactly anymore though.
What Crowfalls doing, a non persistent world, wipes essentially, I dig it. Definitely a way to mitigate some of the pitfalls. Pitfalls, that yes you're right, if Ashes doesn't get it right, they could fall into.
Edit: OH YEAH, some people didn't even get land. A LOT of people. The land system was a total clown fest. I had 3 or 4 properties with farms, a lot of people had NONE. That alone caused people quit in droves.
Archeage is not my gold standard, it was missing all kinds of things I wanted.
Wasn't there only like 4 or 5 castles? If a guild was banking on getting a castle or they're quitting, I think they were playing the wrong game in the first place.
I mean, Ashes will have 5 castles per server.
While Archeage always had some pay to win aspects to it, it wasn't until Trion saw that the game wasn't viable as a subscription game that they really pushed hard on that front.
Edit: OH YEAH, some people didn't even get land. A LOT of people. The land system was a total clown fest. I had 3 or 4 properties with farms, a lot of people had NONE. That alone caused people quit in droves.
This did cause some people to quit the game, it wasn't what caused multiple major guilds on most servers to leave.
People that left because of a lack of land were the people that didn't come to the game as a part of a guild. It was people that came with maybe two or three friends. While this was still an issue, the game was never going to succeed or fail because of this - it almost failed because of the loss of large guilds though (it didn't fail becaue the game is still live - and MMO that is still live in an official capacity has not failed).
What Crowfalls doing, a non persistent world, wipes essentially, I dig it. Definitely a way to mitigate some of the pitfalls. Pitfalls, that yes you're right, if Ashes doesn't get it right, they could fall into.
Right now, Ashes has nothing in place to deal with this situation.
The reason people leave is because when they are at the bottom of a heavily PvP focused game, they have no game left to play. Since the winner gets the spoils and develoeprs don't want to reward losers with faster ways to get gear, these people find themselves in a perpetual state of not being able to play the PvP aspects.
Crowfalls way to get around this is to reset the entire game after a period of time.
The way Intrepid should be trying to get around this (remember, Ashes is a PvX game) is to give these people other aspects of the game they can participate in that are not as restrictive based on their PvP enforced situation.
Archeage was very good, one of the best I've played. P2W ruined it.
Archeage lost 3/4 of it's original population before the p2w got heavy.
This statement is straight up false, as before the release of auroria it was alredy P2W heavy as its enchant method was pretty much bound by the cash shop before Archeum trees.
Archeage was very good, one of the best I've played. P2W ruined it.
Archeage lost 3/4 of it's original population before the p2w got heavy.
This statement is straight up false, as before the release of auroria it was alredy P2W heavy as its enchant method was pretty much bound by the cash shop before Archeum trees.
That wasn't heavy P2W - that was fairly light in comparison to where the game ended up.
Pre Auroria, most people just weren't regrading. Heroic level gear was rare, and unique actually was basically unique back then. This is why that wasn't heavy P2W - it wasn't needed to keep up.
People weren't regrading because we knew Auroria was coming out, and we knew what that meant.
I don't care how many castles Ashes has. Didn't care about Archeages amount either. The way I structured what I said probably gave that impression, but I was referring to all kinds of other stuff about the pvp system that made it not my gold standard.
The way Intrepid should be trying to get around this (remember, Ashes is a PvX game) is to give these people other aspects of the game they can participate in that are not as restrictive based on their PvP enforced situation.
I think the better solution instead of separating a pvx pvp focused game into separate pvp and pve aspects, is to make the game a content pinata. Large map, many multiples of dungeons, many multiples of points of interest, taverns, faction/religous system, caravans, node sieges, underwater content, naval content, guild wars, freehold stuff, farming, crafting, gathering, processing, node/city management stuff, general questing, leveling artisan professions. So many things to work on, spread out across such a large map, that you're virtually guaranteed to have content to work on. Even if it wasn't your first choice of what to be working on that day. Everyone's going to deal with that, its ok. And it's going to create SO MUCH FUN. If done right, subject to testing lol
I think the better solution instead of separating a pvx pvp focused game into separate pvp and pve aspects, is to make the game a content pinata. Large map, many multiples of dungeons, many multiples of points of interest, taverns, faction/religous system, caravans, node sieges, underwater content, naval content, guild wars, freehold stuff, farming, crafting, gathering, processing, node/city management stuff, general questing, leveling artisan professions. So many things to work on, spread out across such a large map, that you're virtually guaranteed to have content to work on. Even if it wasn't your first choice of what to be working on that day. Everyone's going to deal with that, its ok. And it's going to create SO MUCH FUN. If done right, subject to testing lol
I never said I want the game to separate out those aspects.
If you are coming last in a race, your goal is to catch up.
If the only content you are able to do is the content that no one else wants to do because the rewards are not good enough, that is not solving your issue.
What you are suggesting here isn't a solution, it is exactly what all of those other games that have not managed to deal with this issue did. It still leaves the players coming last with a fraction of a game left to play, when instead they could have a full game to play if they went elsewhere.
Archeage was very good, one of the best I've played. P2W ruined it.
Archeage lost 3/4 of it's original population before the p2w got heavy.
This statement is straight up false, as before the release of auroria it was alredy P2W heavy as its enchant method was pretty much bound by the cash shop before Archeum trees.
That wasn't heavy P2W - that was fairly light in comparison to where the game ended up.
Pre Auroria, most people just weren't regrading. Heroic level gear was rare, and unique actually was basically unique back then. This is why that wasn't heavy P2W - it wasn't needed to keep up.
People weren't regrading because we knew Auroria was coming out, and we knew what that meant.
If gear enhancement bound by cash shop is no heavy P2W for you, i honestly have no idea what would be.
Archeage was very good, one of the best I've played. P2W ruined it.
Archeage lost 3/4 of it's original population before the p2w got heavy.
This statement is straight up false, as before the release of auroria it was alredy P2W heavy as its enchant method was pretty much bound by the cash shop before Archeum trees.
That wasn't heavy P2W - that was fairly light in comparison to where the game ended up.
Pre Auroria, most people just weren't regrading. Heroic level gear was rare, and unique actually was basically unique back then. This is why that wasn't heavy P2W - it wasn't needed to keep up.
People weren't regrading because we knew Auroria was coming out, and we knew what that meant.
If gear enhancement bound by cash shop is no P2W for you, i honestly have no idea what would be.
I never said it wasn't p2w - in fact, I specifically said it was.
I said it wasn't heavy p2w in comparison to how the game was later on.
I also explained WHY it wasn't heavy p2w in comparison to later on.
Archeage was very good, one of the best I've played. P2W ruined it.
Archeage lost 3/4 of it's original population before the p2w got heavy.
This statement is straight up false, as before the release of auroria it was alredy P2W heavy as its enchant method was pretty much bound by the cash shop before Archeum trees.
That wasn't heavy P2W - that was fairly light in comparison to where the game ended up.
Pre Auroria, most people just weren't regrading. Heroic level gear was rare, and unique actually was basically unique back then. This is why that wasn't heavy P2W - it wasn't needed to keep up.
People weren't regrading because we knew Auroria was coming out, and we knew what that meant.
If gear enhancement bound by cash shop is no P2W for you, i honestly have no idea what would be.
I never said it wasn't p2w - in fact, I specifically said it was.
I said it wasn't heavy p2w in comparison to how the game was later on.
I also explained WHY it wasn't heavy p2w in comparison to later on.
If you are not going to read, I can't help you.
Forgot to write the "heavy" its now fixed
"in comparison to how the game was later on." Would you give me an example of something more p2w later on than gear enchancement completely bound by cash shop?
Your concept of how heavily something is p2w seems quite broken.
Well if you're not proposing separating the pvp and pve then what are you proposing?
You absolutely have a point. I'm worried about some of those things too. I'm worried about mega guilds. I'm worried about more skilled players repeatedly and persistently taking advantage of less skilled players in a frustrating or demoralizing way. And I'm worried about the snowball effect of a guild or organization having so much success that they just keep getting stronger and stronger.
I don't have all the solutions, kinda hoping the devs do. I think they might. I see potential.
One thing that's important is for the power gap to not be obscenely big. As in the lower shelf guys who've had nothing go their way should still be competitive with the top shelf guys that are having a lot of success in the game. There should never be a gap so big as 50%. Where 1 guy in top shelf group, due to having so much success is worth 2 guys in the lower shelf group, character levels being equal. The gear gap should never be that big, nor 40% or 30 or even 20. I don't know what the number should be.
The crafting and player driven economy should help with that. Everything will be buyable. The stat difference of high end gear should be somewhat noticeably better, but not insanely better than what the average player in the world who hasn't had everything go his way has access to.
I feel like it is too difficult to be worried about the future state of the game. I think the dev team must've considered how to keep the game going and keeping it interesting for all, the majority of, the players involved.
One thing that's important is for the power gap to not be obscenely big. As in the lower shelf guys who've had nothing go their way should still be competitive with the top shelf guys that are having a lot of success in the game. There should never be a gap so big as 50%. Where 1 guy in top shelf group, due to having so much success is worth 2 guys in the lower shelf group, character levels being equal. The gear gap should never be that big, nor 40% or 30 or even 20. I don't know what the number should be.
The crafting and player driven economy should help with that. Everything will be buyable. The stat difference of high end gear should be somewhat noticeably better, but not insanely better than what the average player in the world who hasn't had everything go his way has access to.
Luckily I believe your second statement is the balance for your first statement. Imagine the world where everything is bound on creation/loot....
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Hopefully the in-game structure of guilds and associated alliances has a reasonable cap and players do not take it upon themselves to establish additional alliances and extend that or whilst appearing self serving and positive at first will ultimately be destructive to the over all game intent and experience.
I`m banking that with the lack of fast travel, that clan activities may end up being relatively regional and therefor if certain clans and/or individuals feel that a particular territory is not for them, then there is capacity to move on, to try and find a different territory that is more akin to their play style away from that experience.
Equally if news travels, then perhaps there will be population shifts across the maps to suit.
Similarly with the "goldilocks" amount of pvp, which varies for everyone.. not too much, not too little.
Luckily I believe your second statement is the balance for your first statement. Imagine the world where everything is bound on creation/loot....
Brother, I'm not gonna lie, I'm not quite sure what you're saying to me lol. It sounds clever, but I've taken a few minutes and re read it a couples times and it's just not coming to me. It's rare but it has happened before haha
Comments
This isn't exactly true.
Intrepid aren't focusing on PvP players, they want players that also prefer PvE games - as long as those players are ok with the PvP aspect of Ashes.
Pretty much the only MMO players Intrepid are not targeting with Ashes are those that want nothing at all to do with PvP.
Again, as has been shown time after time, a game with a persistent world that only has PvP players creates a self perpetuating circle of decline. In order for a game to have a long life with a healthy population (as opposed to a long life with a low population, as is the case for games like L2, Aion, Archeage etc).
While those games have no doubt made money for their developers and producers, if Intrepid want better for Ashes, the key to that is to give people reasons to remain in the game even when the PvP aspects are not going their way. The rest of the game needs to be so compelling in comparison to other games that people are willing to only play parts of it over other games where they can play the whole thing.
Without that reason, the above games are Ashes eventual best-case-scenario fate.
Edit: So it is exactly true. The only way it's not true is if Intrepid is employing some kind of weird, nonsensical scheme to lure the instanced pve/raid crowd by giving them exactly what they don't want.
Maybe I and the others like me lose this battle and Intrepid does a 180. Not much we can do about that. But I'm not giving up and will push back on people who CLEARLY see what the games all about beforehand, then come in and start trying to fundamentally change it to suit themselves ANYWAY. It's like wtf.
You have tons of decently funded options to fall back on. We have next to none.
That's the whole reason why I think this game is worth waiting for. It's pretty much run by one guy (not something like Activision) and from what I can tell Steven's interests are completely opposite from theirs.
Claiming you are going to have progression based raiding with a top end that a single digit percentage of the population will be able to kill in a game where the developers have specifically stated that 20% of the content is going to be instanced seems to me to be a fairly solid way to target that crowd.
We (or at least I, and thus people that agree with me) want an open world game as well. The thing is, adding in a few encounters that are instanced off doesn't really kill that a whole lot - no more than adding an arena kills the open world nature of the game.
I am also not asking for any reduction in death penalties from how we currently understand them, any increase to PvP penalties, nor am I asking for cities to be made safe zones.
What I am asking for is a essentially a guarantee built in to the game that people will always have some content they can do.
The other thing I don't think you are grasping (many people are not) is that the reason people wanting a game like Ashes have so few options is because all such games make the exact same mistakes - the mistakes I am suggesting Ashes avoid.
If Ashes is released as you want it to be, 18 months later when you hear about the next game with an open world, you will be there saying how great that game could be, and lament about how few options you have for open world games.
What needs to happen is a develop needs to make an open world PvP friendly game that gives players a reason to play the game aside from (and despite) that PvP. That is how you have a healthy population in a game that doesn't jump ship as soon as it becomes obvious they are on the losing side.
So sure, carry on your fight to make Ashes a mediocre game. I am going to carry on my fight to try and get the game to have a large population for a longer period of time so that you have more people to PvP with in game.
Because that is what I am trying to do. The difference is, I am looking at it from a realistic standpoint.
Intrepid is appealing to different segments of the market. And they are appealing to instanced pve raiders by having raids and making some parts of it instanced. That doesn't mean that that's their target market. Because many of the other things they're doing are the antithesis of what instanced raiders want. Starting with that 20% number. And many more things.
You're trying to use the 20% number against me and I'm turning it right back on you. It's simply not the target market. It defies logic. If it was, Intrepid would have said fuck 20%, were going 60, 80, 100%. And they wouldn't talk so much about open and contested dungeons. Unless their target market was pvp/pve players who generally don't want to be in an instance(but will tolerate it some) and who want to potentially have to fight other players while doing the dungeon.
I just don't agree. I think the vision that Ashes has laid out is the best bet in a long, long time for a pvp focused mmo. That's why I'm here. Pvp mmo players have generally been left with 2 options. Half assed pvp in pve/pvp mmos, where the pvp is really just an afterthought. Or full blown hardcore full loot absolute fuck fest griefing, camping, lol lel get rekt nerd garbage. There is a middle ground that really isn't explored too much.
Ashes of Creation will be a seamless open-world experience.[3]
No loading time or loading screens between regions.
There will be open world dungeons and raids. The aspiration is to maintain the open world feel while being able to capitalize on the benefits of instanced mechanics.[4]
Instancing is only going to happen in certain dungeons where the desire is to have greater narrative appeal. Outside of these and arenas there will not be too much instancing anywhere else.[3]
There will be an 80/20 split between open world vs instanced encounters.[2][5][6]
We're probably going to do instancing only in certain dungeons and in arenas. You probably won't see instancing too much anywhere else. What you see is gonna be what you get.[3] – Jeffrey Bard
So we're back at square 1. What we all knew anyway. I'm cool with it. I hope everyone is.
If you dig a little deeper into the notes it does look a little muddled on what that 20% entails. Some of it could be for story quests and tutorials like bigepeen said. But some will definitely be for dungeons. And I think that's good. The number is acceptable.
Steven had specifically said that they will use instancing to limit the number of people able to take on encounters if they feel it is what is needed, and that they reserve the right (not that they need to, it's their game) to go up to that full 20% instancing for raids, if they feel it is what is needed.
And no, I'm not going to find the quote for you.
As they said, they want to capitalize on the benefits of instancing as a mechanic. They will use it as and when it makes sense to do so. There absolutely are situations in groups and raid content where it makes sense to do so.
The three main benefits of instancing are as follows:
To limit the number of people able to engage an encounter, so that they encounter can be tuned for a specific number of people;
To limit interference from others, so that the encounter can be tuned to be highly challenging;
To guarantee content for all players.
Intrepid will use instancing when it makes sense to do so, toh and I agree on this.
The above is when it makes sense to do so.
- Pvp is the focus, pve is a close second. Pve being a close second is important. A distant second would not be as good. 100% pvp games lack depth and substance. 60/40 pvp/pve. Up for interpretation. Pve builds the nodes, unlocks the dungeons and further content. Pvp is the catalyst of change, destroying nodes opens opportunities for new nodes to advance, and new pve content.
- Open world pvp. Open world period. Can't opt out of the pvp, critical. The penalties for dying/losing are meaningful but not catastrophic, maybe even mild.
- Many reasons to pvp, caravans, guild wars, node wars, castle sieges, resource control, guy called me a name.
- Node/Guild politics. Rivalries between nodes, rivalries between guilds, rivalries between individual players.
- Naval combat
- Large map, no fast travel, reduces zerging, makes your decisions of where to go pvp on any given day strategic and meaningful. As opposed to in other games, you ready to pvp? ok you teleport to this zone, pvp zone. Kill guys with yellow and red faction symbols above their head. (Don't get me wrong I love faction based pvp too when it's well done.) Large map also means that if you really don't want to pvp on a given day, you can probably find places where you'll be left alone mostly.
- Large concurrent player count per server, 10k concurrent, 50k total, makes it harder for mega guilds to dominate(though that could still happen), lots of variety in enemies, enemies that evolve over time, plenty of other nodes and their players to migrate to if things aren't working out where you are.
I could keep going. But you get the drift lol
If you consider nodes to be factions, then other than no fast travel, you seem to be talking about Archeage.
Archeage lost 3/4 of it's original population before the p2w got heavy. Entire guilds were leaving the game when it became obvious they were in the bottom half of the pack. Many left before Auroria was even released, because they knew there was no chance of them getting a castle.
The servers would have closed years ago if Trion didn't move the game to p2w.
If Archeage without those aspects is your gold standard for a game, then you can expect to have games that last 12 - 18 months at the most - as I have been saying all along. Again, this is why Crowfall is having a non-persistant world - to try and mitigate these issues.
Wasn't there only like 4 or 5 castles? If a guild was banking on getting a castle or they're quitting, I think they were playing the wrong game in the first place. And I think you're cherry picking a little. I'm sure you're right that there were people quitting for various reasons before p2w, maybe substantial amounts, I really don't know. But p2w was a huge reason for that games sudden and irreversible downfall. On my server at least, that's all I can speak for. I know some people quit from breaking their gear. Some couldn't get their gear to level up in the way they wanted it to. Like there was a random chance your sword levels up and gains +str, or +int, str obviously being favored. Hard to remember all this stuff, piecing it together in real time. Oh yeah, the labor system drove people absolutely bonkers. Game had some issues that people did not appreciate.
Not sure what your point is exactly anymore though.
What Crowfalls doing, a non persistent world, wipes essentially, I dig it. Definitely a way to mitigate some of the pitfalls. Pitfalls, that yes you're right, if Ashes doesn't get it right, they could fall into.
Edit: OH YEAH, some people didn't even get land. A LOT of people. The land system was a total clown fest. I had 3 or 4 properties with farms, a lot of people had NONE. That alone caused people quit in droves.
While Archeage always had some pay to win aspects to it, it wasn't until Trion saw that the game wasn't viable as a subscription game that they really pushed hard on that front.
This did cause some people to quit the game, it wasn't what caused multiple major guilds on most servers to leave.
People that left because of a lack of land were the people that didn't come to the game as a part of a guild. It was people that came with maybe two or three friends. While this was still an issue, the game was never going to succeed or fail because of this - it almost failed because of the loss of large guilds though (it didn't fail becaue the game is still live - and MMO that is still live in an official capacity has not failed).
Right now, Ashes has nothing in place to deal with this situation.
The reason people leave is because when they are at the bottom of a heavily PvP focused game, they have no game left to play. Since the winner gets the spoils and develoeprs don't want to reward losers with faster ways to get gear, these people find themselves in a perpetual state of not being able to play the PvP aspects.
Crowfalls way to get around this is to reset the entire game after a period of time.
The way Intrepid should be trying to get around this (remember, Ashes is a PvX game) is to give these people other aspects of the game they can participate in that are not as restrictive based on their PvP enforced situation.
This statement is straight up false, as before the release of auroria it was alredy P2W heavy as its enchant method was pretty much bound by the cash shop before Archeum trees.
Aren't we all sinners?
That wasn't heavy P2W - that was fairly light in comparison to where the game ended up.
Pre Auroria, most people just weren't regrading. Heroic level gear was rare, and unique actually was basically unique back then. This is why that wasn't heavy P2W - it wasn't needed to keep up.
People weren't regrading because we knew Auroria was coming out, and we knew what that meant.
I think the better solution instead of separating a pvx pvp focused game into separate pvp and pve aspects, is to make the game a content pinata. Large map, many multiples of dungeons, many multiples of points of interest, taverns, faction/religous system, caravans, node sieges, underwater content, naval content, guild wars, freehold stuff, farming, crafting, gathering, processing, node/city management stuff, general questing, leveling artisan professions. So many things to work on, spread out across such a large map, that you're virtually guaranteed to have content to work on. Even if it wasn't your first choice of what to be working on that day. Everyone's going to deal with that, its ok. And it's going to create SO MUCH FUN. If done right, subject to testing lol
If you are coming last in a race, your goal is to catch up.
If the only content you are able to do is the content that no one else wants to do because the rewards are not good enough, that is not solving your issue.
What you are suggesting here isn't a solution, it is exactly what all of those other games that have not managed to deal with this issue did. It still leaves the players coming last with a fraction of a game left to play, when instead they could have a full game to play if they went elsewhere.
If gear enhancement bound by cash shop is no heavy P2W for you, i honestly have no idea what would be.
Aren't we all sinners?
I never said it wasn't p2w - in fact, I specifically said it was.
I said it wasn't heavy p2w in comparison to how the game was later on.
I also explained WHY it wasn't heavy p2w in comparison to later on.
If you are not going to read, I can't help you.
Forgot to write the "heavy" its now fixed
"in comparison to how the game was later on." Would you give me an example of something more p2w later on than gear enchancement completely bound by cash shop?
Your concept of how heavily something is p2w seems quite broken.
Aren't we all sinners?
You absolutely have a point. I'm worried about some of those things too. I'm worried about mega guilds. I'm worried about more skilled players repeatedly and persistently taking advantage of less skilled players in a frustrating or demoralizing way. And I'm worried about the snowball effect of a guild or organization having so much success that they just keep getting stronger and stronger.
I don't have all the solutions, kinda hoping the devs do. I think they might. I see potential.
One thing that's important is for the power gap to not be obscenely big. As in the lower shelf guys who've had nothing go their way should still be competitive with the top shelf guys that are having a lot of success in the game. There should never be a gap so big as 50%. Where 1 guy in top shelf group, due to having so much success is worth 2 guys in the lower shelf group, character levels being equal. The gear gap should never be that big, nor 40% or 30 or even 20. I don't know what the number should be.
The crafting and player driven economy should help with that. Everything will be buyable. The stat difference of high end gear should be somewhat noticeably better, but not insanely better than what the average player in the world who hasn't had everything go his way has access to.
Luckily I believe your second statement is the balance for your first statement. Imagine the world where everything is bound on creation/loot....
I`m banking that with the lack of fast travel, that clan activities may end up being relatively regional and therefor if certain clans and/or individuals feel that a particular territory is not for them, then there is capacity to move on, to try and find a different territory that is more akin to their play style away from that experience.
Equally if news travels, then perhaps there will be population shifts across the maps to suit.
Similarly with the "goldilocks" amount of pvp, which varies for everyone.. not too much, not too little.