Greetings, glorious testers!
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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I don't think of Faction PvP as a playstyle. But, I'm pretty sure the devs expect such players to be content with Siege and Node Sieges. They are in the target audience.
Whether Faction/RVR PvP players believe they will enjoy the game with the features and systems the devs provide is a different question.
How about three questions/issues.
The family summons is rock solid proof of this.
Intrepid; the game is for a more "core" gamer, where travel and location matter.
Some random player; I'm casual and want to be able to catch up to my friends that don't like me enough to wait for me to log in.
Intrepid; FAMILY SUMMONS!!11!1!
To be fair, family summons isn’t a sure thing.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Family_summon
The game is targeting pvp players. Faction pvp players would be a subdivision of pvp players. Point being that I made in another post, is that you can subdivide almost everything to a point of ok it's not targeting this thing we've whittled it down to. But yeah most people who prefer faction pvp won't care. Some might though.
I found out about Camelot Unchained and AOC around the same time. I was initially more hyped for Camelot Unchained because it was faction based. I like the structure faction based provides. I like that mega alliances can't steamroll servers as easily because if the devs are doing their jobs they reasonably balance the faction populations on a server. I also like AOC's style too, more dynamic, more exciting, more player choice etc. They both have pros and cons.
I'm just rambling but I pretty much agree 100% with your last 2 posts Dygz.
I'm honestly not looking for much more clarity. I just agreed that more clarity would be good because popular opinion seems to want more clarity. So what would more clarity hurt?
The only clarity I want is Dear Steven, is there any chance that at some point you will fold and give in to the demands of whiners and completely change the vision of the game for them?
I don't even really need that clarity. I don't think he's going to do that. But that's the one clarity I'd want, is it possible that you fold Steven.
Indeed it isn't, which just makes it more obvious that it was pandering to a specific market - further proving that Intrepid need to put some effort in to getting the right message about the game out.
"Hey Steven, you're on record saying that 80% of dungeon content will be open world, with only 20% instanced for narrative story quests, but you were just kidding right?"
Steven: Yes, was just kidding, it's actually going to be 80% instanced, 20% open.
There may be some clarity that is needed. But I think most people are just looking for appeasement, and if not that, then the option to absolutely rage.
But I'm a boomer.
100! XD
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I like everything related to giving a quality product or at least they try
That's why I hate WOW, and the copies of it in the last 8 years
Honorable mention for BDO in its first season, it was different, BDO tried to be original but in the end they could not with everything promised and until now they do not release things that "supposedly" should make BDO a great MMO.
As much as I would like to see instanced top end raid and single group content in Ashes (with the PvP risk associated being shifted rather than lost), this isn't a comment I am placing too much emphasis on.
When you look at the comment (and the associated comments) from Steven, you could actually come to a somewhat logical conclusion that falls anywhere from 2 out of 10 dungeons in the game are instanced, up to all dungeons being instanced, as well as basically any point in the middle.
Since there is such a wide variety of interpretations, even if we discount the fact that Steven has said they aren't sticking to it as a strict rule, I don't see any real value in making assumptions about the game based on it, and even less value in asking for changes to the game based on it.
So many people are immediately turned off just by seeing that acronym because they assume it'll be focused on PvE where the main objective is to grind against NPCs for countless hours.
If Ashes turns into 80%/20% instanced to open, then I don't know what to say other than I quit and that all popular MMOs are destined to be glorified instanced PvE mini-games.
Where are those comments at. Those would definitely be contradictory.
I agree.
Wow eso ff14 arent mmos.
They are co-op online versions of their IPs. All the content is optional to do with friends.
Mmos are all about creating a character:
Exploring
Progressing/gearing up
Making gold with various ways
Make friends and enemies by intetacting without prohibitions with every other player you see in the open world.
The associated comment was
So, if you take this one statement, in order to derive anything meaningful from it, you first need to define "content".
We could define "content" as mobs/bosses, as space/area, or as the time players would expect to be in a location.
If we go mobs/bosses as our definition, and we make the assumption that 20% of the games bosses will be overland - and thus fall under the open world part of that 80/20 split, this now means that of all dungeon bosses, 25% are instanced. That 25% of instanced bosses being in instances is 20% of all bosses, but since 20% of all bosses are not in dungeons, it throws out the ratio of instanced vs non-instanced dungeons.
If we look at the 80/20 being space, we could probably assume that 60% of the game world will be non-dungeon space. Since this space is also open world and so falls under the open world portion of that 80/20 split, it means half of the dungeon space needs to be instanced in order to make that 20% of content instanced.
If we look at it as time spent, we could easily assume that harvesting, crafting, PvP, wars, sieges, caravans etc would take up an average of 80% of all players time in game without going down in to dungeons at all - which would mean that 100% of dungeons would need to be instanced in order to make up 20% of all content if we assume player time 8is the definition of content.
Now, I am absolutely not saying that I think all dungeons in Ashes will be instanced, nor any of the other outcomes above - all I am saying is that technically, mathematically, any of the above could be the case, and that 80/20 comment could still be considered accurate.
As such, I put no weight at all on that comment, and I don't think others should either.
But I think some of that analysis on the extreme end of the spectrum is through rose tinted glasses and ignores the context of a lot of what Steven has said and the context of the game itself. Whoever is writing the Ashes wiki also had the same impression as me because they just say it point blank.
80% of dungeons will be open world.[7][8]
Instanced dungeons will also be present and will cater for solo and group questlines.[6]
20% of dungeons will be instanced.[7][8]
Half the problem won't just be solving the dungeon, it will be solving other players too.[6] – Jeffrey Bard
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Dungeons
Those statements should definitely be corrected by Steven if they're not true, they're just chillin on the wiki for his game.
All said though, from a very lawyerly point of view, you aint wrong Noaani.
We need to not just have one sentence with no context, but... when compared to what's in the wiki,
Content = dungeons.
80% open world dungeons/20% instanced dungeons
Steven is specifically talking about dungeons - dungeons that are in the open world and dungeons that are instanced.
Noanni has poor reading comprehension and likes to make shit up and pretend it's true.
None of that crap in that post is relevant.
There should be no confusion and there's nothing to correct in the wiki.
It's nothing more than, "I can kind of think of a way where it might possibly be a problem so we should act as if it's truly a problem."
"It could be all dungeons are instanced" is not in any way a logical or rational conclusion.
smdh
It really is important to listen to the source to understand the context of a quote.
I finally looked at Jahlon's video and then went to the source of:
"Our game's not going to be for everybody."
The context is about not having P2W boosts.
The very immediate context is:
"Players who join a game, if the player-population has moved on to level 60 or level 70, or some arbitrary level number, and you're a level 5 player... nobody wants to have go through the process of leveling to that level.
But, as part of our ideals as a game, we're not going to give boosts away, we're not going to auto-level up a character. You have to spend time acclimating yourself to what this game is... to what the world you're a part of is. And that's a time investment. And that plays towards our ideas of Risk v Reward. And I've always said, like, our game is not going to be for everybody. And that's OK. It doesn't have to be. There's a large enough population of gamers out there who are interested in this type of game, where players have to invest time or have to invest smart gameplay in order to achieve a particular reward."
---Steven
That is all about having to actually play the game rather skip past or rush past swaths of gameplay via boosts, auto-leveling and P2W items. It's not really about target audience.
That's saying you have to play the game they design, rather than skip past vast portions of the game.
And, if you want to skip past vast portions of the game - this is not the game for you.
mark 48:28
Also, again, with Risk v Reward...Steven tends not to talk about that in regard to hardcore PvP, open-world PvP or carebears hating the game. He typically focuses on how all the systems work together to change the world.
"I think it all comes down to the general game philosophy of Risk v Reward. And spending time to get somewhere.
That content will be relevant in a few ways:
Obviously, it's going to be relevant because, even as a low level player going through that content, you're contributing to Node progression, you're contributing to the world development, you're acquiring resources and materials that work in a very foundational way with how the Artisan system is developed. You're able to deconstruct items that you get and get unique components from the deconstruction so you can play a part in the Economy. You can join and participate in community focused questlines that are relevant from a religion and from a social organization standpoint and from a Node organization standpoint. So, you become a citizen early, they are going to give activities that are up-to-date with the current political climate of the world because they relate to neighboring Nodes' activities. So even if you're a low level player or a brand new player and you're doing this kind of content, you're still going to have access, even at a low level, to participate in certain questlines that effectuate change in the world. And can also inhibit or aid a neighboring Nodes' development.
So, there's still avenues in which players who are new, even if the core population of a server has moved on to a later level, they're still going to have relevance as part of that process as well.
---Steven
mark 46:20
When I say, "The Risk v Reward folk", I mean that the people who I see toss out "Ashes is a Risk v Reward game" as a rallying cry, typically use that in the context of Open World PvP and how gatherers and PvErs will have to risk getting ganked and their resources/rewards stolen because... Risk v Reward...
"Carebears will hate this game because getting ganked and looted will make them qq. Soloers, Casuals and Carebears aren't the target audience."
But, Steven doesn't focus on that when he discusses Risk v Reward.
If we create a list of Steven's Risk v Reward concepts which I find appealing:
No boosts 8/10
No character auto-level up 8/10
Have to spend time acclimating yourself to what this game is 10/10
Contributing to Node progression 10/10
Contributing to the world development 10/10
Acquiring resources and materials that work in a very foundational way with how the Artisan system is developed 5/10
Deconstructing items that you get and receiving unique components from the deconstruction 7/10
Playing a part in the Economy 3/10
Joining and participating in community focused questlines that are relevant from a religion and from a social organization standpoint and from a Node organization standpoint 10/10
Participating in certain questlines that effectuate change in the world and can also inhibit or aid a neighboring Nodes' development 10/10
Sure, getting ganked while gathering technically also falls under Risk v Reward.
It's possible that Corruption will not be as satisfactory for me as Steven hopes it will be - and, if it's not, I probably won't be playing Ashes after launch - but we have to wait to see the implementation during Beta 2 to know.
But, I've been waiting since EQNext to see how well the SOE/Daybreak vision of PvPers and PvErs on the same server works out. So, it's going to be a grand experiment in any case.
I didn't say he was right, just in a very technical sense, not wrong either. Based on the context of those quotes, the context of other things Steven has said, and the context of the game itself, I think 80/20 open/instanced dungeons is what Steven was referring to. It's a stretch imo to think any different.
Ashes is not that game.
Ashes is Stevens vision, not the resurrection of EQN.
To be clear, I am not saying that what I wrote in the post in question is right either.
That is the point though, there are multiple ways it can be correctly read, as the comment is ambiguous (on purpose, no doubt).
Is there even anyone at intrepid still that worked on that mess?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
One literally just has to listen through the Q&A section as a whole (the parts that relate to game mechanics), practically a rapid fire of 'each thing I was worried about being confirmed to be going in the way I was worried about'.
Literally everything, it was an amazing relief, I am sure that for someone out there, these were all great answers, and I am happy for those people.
But now I can say 'I am definitely not part of the Target Audience'.
Actually it wasn't that, it was something that 'represented'. I don't want to speak ill of people though. I think you were around to know what I mean without spelling it out, right?
It's not 'the decision to go with split body', it was moreso 'the data gathering process' surrounding that decision.
And honestly a lot of other little things too. As I said a long time ago, I trust developers until I get that sinking feeling that they 'can't see' something, or don't have a specific process.
I'm not gonna spell it out, just like I didn't say anything about the last 'issue' I found during the test. Game development is hard. If that leads you to conclude it's just the split body, then so be it...
I was taking a look back through and remembered I heard an answer about Split Body and just wondered if that was it or if I need to keep looking.
(I gotta go run to the UPS Store first)
It was moreso 'the answers to all of the gameplay related questions', but honestly, it's probably tied between 'the Split Body', the 'Tattoo based Respec', and the 'Well we wouldn't want people's guilds to have to suffer when they get corrupted, that might stop them from considering the option'.
Y'know. Little things.