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.
Why XP Debt can be good gameplay
truelyyy
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Firstly let's explain the reason why people don't like XP debt.
1) They are just not used to being punished with a risk/reward system. So being punished for things that happen doesn't feel good as many people are used to casually grinding through content to get rewards. Simply I think not being used to it as it hasn't been a standard part of of MMOs is part of the reason.
2) People can potentially get abused and put into a unfair situations where they get PKed over and over and they have no control over it and the amount of XP debt needed to grind back is demotivating.
3) Overall people like to feel they are progressing with their character and if XP debt over time stops their progression too much they will quit the game.
During the phase of levelling to max level skill/guilds/community will play a part in how much XP debt you incurr getting to max level which can make it a bit more interesting than just pure grinding. However for me I believe XP debt can be most useful when at max level. This is because in some ways it adds more content to the game because in most MMOs you level up/quest and then you are max level done. However if you incurr XP debt at max level then it's still important to do quests/gain XP every now and again which adds another element of replayable content. You maybe at XP debt at max level but then see some quests at a node that just levelled up, so now you have a reason to do those quests to get xp. Also this XP feeds into levelling the node it that area. It creates more content to do.
For me what's lacking in most MMOs is endgame as it's mostly just grinding instanced raids/dungeons for items/cosmetics which gets a bit repetitive and stale in my experience. So my hope is this XP debt works as an XP sink which you replenish with another form of enjoyable gameplay. The way I see why MMORPGs can be fun is the mixture of content they can give you even at end game. xp sink so you still do levelling(open world PvE)/quests at max level, crafting, open world pvp, node/castle/siege pvp/ arena pvp, dungeons, raids, economy, exploration.
thoughts?
1) They are just not used to being punished with a risk/reward system. So being punished for things that happen doesn't feel good as many people are used to casually grinding through content to get rewards. Simply I think not being used to it as it hasn't been a standard part of of MMOs is part of the reason.
2) People can potentially get abused and put into a unfair situations where they get PKed over and over and they have no control over it and the amount of XP debt needed to grind back is demotivating.
3) Overall people like to feel they are progressing with their character and if XP debt over time stops their progression too much they will quit the game.
During the phase of levelling to max level skill/guilds/community will play a part in how much XP debt you incurr getting to max level which can make it a bit more interesting than just pure grinding. However for me I believe XP debt can be most useful when at max level. This is because in some ways it adds more content to the game because in most MMOs you level up/quest and then you are max level done. However if you incurr XP debt at max level then it's still important to do quests/gain XP every now and again which adds another element of replayable content. You maybe at XP debt at max level but then see some quests at a node that just levelled up, so now you have a reason to do those quests to get xp. Also this XP feeds into levelling the node it that area. It creates more content to do.
For me what's lacking in most MMOs is endgame as it's mostly just grinding instanced raids/dungeons for items/cosmetics which gets a bit repetitive and stale in my experience. So my hope is this XP debt works as an XP sink which you replenish with another form of enjoyable gameplay. The way I see why MMORPGs can be fun is the mixture of content they can give you even at end game. xp sink so you still do levelling(open world PvE)/quests at max level, crafting, open world pvp, node/castle/siege pvp/ arena pvp, dungeons, raids, economy, exploration.
thoughts?
3
Comments
One thing I'd like to see regarding it is if Corrupted players incur 10 times the amount normal players do. So they have to pay back the karma of farming the same players over and over like they probably will do.
Another idea is to add the xp debt of the killed player to their xp debt. So if they die while corrupted it is equal to as many players they killed. So if they just killed a few it won't be that punishing, but if they killed a lot then it wouldn't be odd to farm back a ton of exp. While it shouldn't delevel you I think it should go past what a level worth of exp is. Just cap it at a point so you wouldn't have to grind back a month's worth of content for xp debt. xD
U.S. East
I don't ever like XP loss in a game, it feels like shit, but if it isn't overwhelmingly huge or has diminishing factors on repeat deaths where you weren't the aggressor then I don't see it as a big deal. It definitely gives you something to think about if you want to go play mass murderer in a starting area.
We can make adjustments after we get some testing in with the current suggested system.
I agree. It is hard to evaluate the demotivating effect of exp debt without playing the game yet.
It won't be a problem. It will be an opportunity to grow and get better.
With experience, you gain nothing at all until you have enough to gain a new level. At that point, you gain a tangible benefit in being a level higher.
Experience debt doesn't take that away. All it does is move that next tangible gain a little farther away.
It will either feel reasonably OK for most people or it will get nerfed until it does feel reasonably OK for most people.
XP debt in something like WoW where all the content is at max level would be horrible. One of the worst parts of leveling in theme park games is knowing that it's essentially just a timegate between you and the real game.
However, if Intrepid succeeds in making 80% of the game the "endgame" then I think XP debt can be fine b/c you won't feel like you're just being locked out of the true game.
In before Dygz tells you that there is no end game in Ashes.
I will say that at least in this case that is Intrepid's goal
Whether or not that actually happens remains to be seen but it's nice that it's the goal.
While it may be their goal, making that their goal is kind of forgetting the notion that "endgame" is a player created term to denote what ever activity it is that players do once they reach the level cap, or get to the point where gaining levels is no longer the primary means of progression.
Not having an end game either means players have no level cap, or there is nothing to do when you get there. If there is something to do when you get there, that is the endgame, and thus it is impossible for Intrepid to meet that specific goal.
But still, in before Dygz says it.
It's something I keep pointing out to people that have hopes of high end raiding in the same vein as WoW. I just can't see Intrepid being able to put in hard bosses when people will gain xp debt just getting to the bosses let alone any deaths that happen due to PvP
And, as people gain levels, the percentage of XP debt from one death is less.
"Experience debt will scale to approximately 2 or 3 percent of the total XP for a max level player."
---Steven
Still won't be like the current raid experience where you go in expecting to wipe 20+ times in a single night, let alone however buffs from Taverns and the like might work
It's still an inherent game balance issue or high end raiding that your power would scale down to any degree. I don't expect you to understand this though as you have not been a hardcore raider in the past.
Steven has said in the past that there are not death penalties in the pvp events like sieges, caravans, etc. He mentioned that losing those big stakes activities is risk enough. Applying that concept to raid encounters would make a lot of sense. (Far better than dumbing down the difficulty of the encounter).
Most people don't raid hard content already in MMOs when there isn't major death penalties... xp penalties just has the potential to increase toxicity among players and dissuade more from engaging in the content. It will actually make it harder for new players to get into raids as the leaders don't want to take the risk of the unknown player wiping everyone.
I could see the logic for xp penalties attempting to promote more risk to balance the reward in general world content since world content is typically a joke to do (although I'm not a fan of the penalties, it does dissuade people from overpulling and taking risks). I don't think you need the extra risk for raid content that should instead be tuned to be very difficult and naturally lead to wipes as part of the progression experience on the content. If the expectation is to not wipe on raid content because of penalties It's going to be super boring. If the expectation is to wipe and come out of a raid night with a bunch of xp debt and underpowered then it's going to be a grondy non-fun experience.
Gear taking durability from deaths that requires materials + gold to repair makes sense. Your gear doesn't drop in combat effectiveness in a single death like xp debt would so you can keep attempting the encounter (assuming another group doesn't take it from you).
Perhaps if xp debt only impacted your performance when it got below a certain threshold? That might work as well.. like say when you get to -50% of your level. If you lose 2% per death that would give you 25 wipes before you have to call the raid to go grind xp. Of course some people might show up to the raid with some xp debt due to whatever activity they were doing before raid time.
(Regardless, I'd still want to see a xp debt cap as well. Maybe put it at somewhere between 50 - 100% of the level).
@Saedu
"Hardcore raiding" is going to be significantly different in Ashes.
The focus of Ashes is on Meaningful PvP (objective-based) Conflict; not "hardcore raid farming".
XP debt is intended to have people who are defeated, leave, regorup and return later. Rather than completely ignore consecutive defeats.
Because that's more like what would happen in a story and Ashes is an RPG.
The expectation isn't that people won't wipe - the expectation is that if you get defeated by a Dragon, you will go home, lick your wounds, find some new gear (or at least repair your current gear) and return later to try again.
XP debt will help push people to do that.
I mean wiping over and over in a raid is a standard that was set back in 2004 and the same is true in any hardcore game such as the Souls genre or any masocore platformer. For that not to be absurd the bosses would have to be at childish levels of difficulty compared to what modern gamers handle.
You will find that Steven hopes to return to a time when that was not a standard.
Again, you think that the conclusion is supposed to be that the boss is so easy players won't wipe or won't wipe frequently.
The design is intended to send players who wipe frequently home to regroup and get better prepared to come back and try again later.
Defeat during a raid isn't intended to be so meaningless that you just keep trying 20 times straight until you succeed.
It's the standard b/c it's the only way to have very difficult bosses/mechanics
You have one of two options:
* Have the bosses be truly difficult, such as in WoW where mechanics are so tight that losing 5 people is a full wipe b/c the checks are that close or
* Have the bosses be easier but the journey to them be the difficult part
There's just no other way around it and it's not that the defeat is meaningless it's just that modern raids in WoW/FFXIV are so difficult that you need to run the crap out of them to ensure you have perfect reflexes through them.
That is highly unlikely to be the case. It will take practice to learn how to defeat the boss.
Expect to retreat, regroup and return several times before defeating a boss. And don't expect to use the exact same tactics when defeating the boss again.
There will be multiple wipes. XP debt means you will likely have to retreat, run home and return several times.
That is the design intent.
Perhaps I should have been more clear:
People should not be expecting to wipe 20+ times in a row in any case.
20 can happen in a single day, it can take several hundred wipes before killing a boss. 300+ isn't unheard of in WoW raids
If bosses take 300+ wipes to kill and it takes multiple deaths just to get there then that's straight up bad game design, no ways about it.
You are fabricating a false dichotomy of wiping 20 times in a row or killing the boss in the first 1 or 2 attempts.
Instead of repeating attempts 20 times in a row because you don't have to work off xp debt, you will now have to leave and work off xp debt.
XP debt does not make killing the boss easier or more difficult. It will just take longer because people will have to stop, go do other stuff and interact with people outside of the raid for a while, before making subsequent attempts to kill the boss.
Don't brush that off as just "game design I don't like." Remember your entire argument started by calling the standard set by WoW and followed by FF "absurd." You clearly have no experience in hardcore raiding or how difficult it is to keep moral up enough to continue pushing through insane mechanics until 20 people have the dance down perfectly. The reason for the 20+ wipe a night standard is because it takes multiples of hundreds of wipes just to get good enough to kill WoW's Mythic Raid bosses. We're talking weeks, if not months, of play in a game that requires far less grinding for mats, buffs, and equipment repair than AoC will have per boss.
Hardcore raiding already makes up only a fraction of this niche playerbase and if Intrepid makes it too difficult by trying to achieve WoW's level of mechanics then there's no way in hell guilds will be able to reliably gather 40 people to attempt it.
There's absolutely wiggle room between "100's of wipes" and "1-2 attempts" but if bosses are tuned to take more than 50 attempts in this game then that'll be nightmarish and people will flat out stop raiding b/c the inclusion of PVP multiplies those attempts exponentially. It is possible to make the game too difficult and if Intrepid does that then it's objectively bad game design.