Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
And I echo the animation cancelling in ESO. It is solely what made me quit that game. It got found out by players, devs acknowledged it, ultimately said they couldn't fix it without a whole rework of the combat system, and that they weren't going to do that. It was now a feature.
But the crazy thing was that the majority of players didn't know about it. It was never added to a tutorial, or highlighted as a valid mechanic. So you'd have these new or inexperienced players come out to pvp and just get absolutely destroyed by veteran players in the know with insane damage in very small windows of time. I remember the first time I was killed by it, enemy player kinda looked at me, his character model spazzed out for a second and then I was dead, that was it. Awesome
people would discover a game-breaking exploit (like item duplication), but keep it under wraps. They'd do a bunch of high-risk upgrades - and if it didn't pay off, they'd publicize the exploit and make a big fuss about it to trigger a rollback and get everything back.
I can totally see people doing the same thing in Ashes if a stock didn't behave the way they wanted it to.
Stuff like this is really important to watch for because unlike in normal games where people are playing solo and their 'sleazy motivations' are directly tied to their own gains, in MMOs you can't tell if 'person who reported the bug' is actually gonna benefit.
Maybe they were the 'fall guy', and all their guildmates and friends are the ones who did the big upgrades. Since you can no longer prove that this was collusion, it's a problem.
There are many other things like that, which are inherent to MMOs because player power is distributed and someone doesn't need to personally gain from an action in order to gain from it overall, so you can't tell when someone is being 'decent' and 'upstanding', from when they are 'the person designated to appear that way while their group gets away with murder'.
That's the type of abuses I expect to see the most in Ashes.
a system where alliances have a limit of X guilds but where more alliances are just created under the same name. basically mega-alliances
Extremely nasty player communications to go unpunished
PVP leaders to get auto-banned by mass reports right before a siege
Bots and exploiters to be allowed to continue operating for years despite hundreds of reports and video evidence submitted via email
These types of activities damage the integrity of the game's experience. The best thing Intrepid can do is have a very hands-on system for handling player reports. Full-time player report investigators with a strong sense of community will be worth their weight in gold.
Exploits, especially gold generating and combat related ones.
What types of abuses of the system do you think would be very harmful to AoC?
What abuse of the system would you not want to see in AoC?
Alts Abuse/Advantage, any form of advantage provided by alts is outrageous in my eyes, it not only can be a indirect form of P2W in a subscription game depending on the advantages it can provide, but it also causes damage to the interdependence and sense of community of a game by incentivising a more "solo like" playstyle.
The less advantage an alt can provide in the game, the better.
Aren't we all sinners?
IMHO.... I'm not worried about Uber alliances.
A server is born into absolute chaos and starts a transition into law and order. Uber alliances are part of the law and order, but some players love the opportunities that the chaos gives them.
I define an "Uber alliance" as the use of Discord or other tools to communicate with a larger group of players than the in-game alliance system will allow, with the intention of increasing group cohesion and working on common objectives.
The overall impact that I would expect from an Uber alliance is fair rules under which most players can find a place to prosper and develop. If an Uber alliance tried to form from selfish jerks then they wouldn't have enough player support to get far. If the rules laid down by a group of players are reasonable then they will attract more support and nearby nodes will develop quicker making the region more wealthy and attractive.
If you are planning on running a group of PvP orientated players; there are no victimless crimes and an increasingly large group of players may not take kindly to being repeatedly robbed. You may need to move from place to place to avoid attention or engage in some politics to keep your group safe, perhaps working for a Monarch to undermine adjacent Kingdoms. Don't be surprised when a Monarch throws you under the bus and denies any prior arrangements!
Eventually, as the server politics stabilize (assuming that they will, as player groups learn which battles they can and can't win) an Uber alliance allows for majority rule of a server. The server can then discuss and manage node swaps to access specific PvE content.