Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
It seems people are against the idea that someone winning should remain winning if he deserves it through a snowball effect.
I agree that it can be frustrating for the one on the business end of the sword, but it is absolutely fair in that the person holding that sword took a risk in PVP and came out ahead. Of course subsequent times, be it through experience or gear/resources, it's likely he'll come out ahead again.
Let's not demand an equality of outcome, just because we want to experience a certain content, but can't, as we lack the means for it, having lost them in battle.
We all get an equality of access to the content. We all have the same world and freedom to do in it as we please. Will there be obstacles? Yes. Will there be stronger groups? Yes; they worked to get there (as there is not P2W in Ashes).
Fairness isn't only for the underdog struggling to move up. It's also for the person on top to not see his hard work (be it honorable or not) stripped away because others couldn't make it.
If you demand that everyone be reset so that you may have a chance, you're against everything MMOs stand for.
And I make no illusions that this will also work against me as a tendentially solo player. Unless I manage to find a group of people to play with, I'll likely never experience a raid in the game or Guild vs Guild.
But if I'm not able to create those connections, it is only fair that I don't get to experience that content.
In other games, PvP has never been my forte, be it because I mechanically was inferior, or because I came into the game too late to compete with people decked out with the best gear for it. However Ashes has mechanics to lessen those issues, and it is up to me to "git gud" and hopefully I do.
But I do not demand that the person who killed me get absolutely no reward for it, so as to keep it equal the next time. That is a dangerous ideology the likes of which has ruined many a game before. Especially because of the perversion of in game success and increasingly high demands from people to unify everything, until no one can feel special. And then people will leave.
Fairness isn't what is fair to you. Fairness is what is fair to all. And in PvP the only rule of fairness is who can kill the other player first. If you died, you have plenty of other avenues to get better, and get equipped better for future encounters.
Most of the focus is on getting people that are losing all the time back on their feet, not on pulling people that are winning down.
There are restrictions in the open world for PvP that could lead to losing Gear if they are the players killing other players. I think most people think it's mostly PVP with little PvE, but from the looks of it, it has more PvE elements than PvP elements in the open world, PvP is mostly in a bubble, not to mention you don't need defend your city, there will be plenty of other people who can do it for you. There will be some limitations of how many people can participate that even a guild alone could do it.
We can't corpse camp in Ashes, as far as I know. The respawn location for the deceased character won't be near enough to the victor for the victor to quickly engage in battle when the previous opponent respawns.
Also, even if the victor could quickly kill the victim multiple times i quick succession, they would likely be risking high Corruption.
The game, itself, is against this snowball effect you describe.
Who demanded that everyone be reset? And what would resetting entail?
In Ashes, it should be fairly easy to find people to play with, if that's what you want. If you live in a town that is past stage 3, you should know where the homes of other players are - especially the players who tend to play when you do. Every week, you could participate in Castle sieges.
It really feels like this was cut and pasted from some other game. In Ashes, the victor of the PvP battle can grab some dropped resources from the ashes of the deceased opponent.
Again, it can still be a significant loss of time wasted in activity you don't like even if you do win the battle. More time than if you just let your opponent kill you. So getting better at PvP combat and getting better equipment is actually a worse loss than than if you suck at combat and have weak gear - for those who don't like PvP combat.