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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
The corgi is fine! Fite me.
And, it's called "That Fricking Corgi".
That said. I consider greaving when the behavior of one person ruins the experience of on or more players over an extended duration of time.
In my experience the worst offenders of this are spawncampers and high lvl. players tormenting low lvl. players. I don't believ I need to further elaborate the bain of existance which are spawncampers XD. What makes high lvl. players so annoying is that they feel, and most of the time are, impossible to deal with on your own. This is usually to an extend where I, and many other players abandone a area of the game for good, since we have no desire to face a "hardcor pvp player" during our casual playthroug of the game. This notion is further enhanced, since we are all smart human beings and know that the other person has so much more experienc fighting players that even once we reach a simmilar in game power lvl. we wont even try to face them.
Some of the most common responses I've seen from greavers acussed of their behavior is either: "get good noob" or "well its a multiplayer game, its part of the game". So here are a few Ideas to takel these two issues:
1. Make different worlds with different descripions
Birds of a feather flock together, so said, make like three different worlds, and make clear that one is for hardcore pvp, one for peacfull colaberation and one somwhere in between. This seperation would alow you to finetune the curuption system for the different player bases in accord to what they wish for most. And after a few months, a year at most, you will see where the majority of your players stand.
Since suggestion 1 is probably way to expensive and time consuming from a dev. perspective.
2. Make lvl. ranges a thing.Killing people outside of your lvl. range should be treated special. If you kill a higher lvl. person, make it rewarding to the point where you feel properly windicated to beating your newest nemessis, and appropriat for the great feat you just achieved. On the other side of this coin, killing some one in a lower lvl. range should bring next to no benefits and only pile up the negative consequences. This should prevent the tormant of new, or casual players until they know how to defend themselves.
(actually quit simmilar to killing low lvl mobs and high lvl ones, now that I've stoped to read my stuff XD)
3. Ease the process of getting help. As the greavers declaired, its an multiplayer game, Implemeant featrures that make it easy, to get ingame help from other players. maby if you died to the same player while you are in a non pvp mode, you get the abillity to post a help request on a local scale which is treated much like a NPC quest with a timelimit. In order for this system to work, the UI must be easy to acces and the feature prominently shown and explained to every one.
Congrats you read through a post wich way to long (^^)/
All this results in, is people saying of how they or others have been the victim of a games flaws in design but only from their word of mouth (ie players could be disliked or "in the way" of others for whatever reason and attacked as a result, which is all fine and dandy in the games rulesets).
I'm not one for denying villanous or uncharacteristic actions, if a person wants to play like that or is infact like that personally I have no problem with them and they shouldn't be punished.
Just create a good "growing up" phase for the player where they also naturally learn about how the game functions that is free of PvP and then afterwards it's all game, the corruption system will work just like it did in Lineage 2 and that is that!
P.S. - not all player playthrough's are equal, if I bump into player conflicts on my playthrough I ask for help, join a guild, look for other avenues, resolve the issue, that is how an MMO should function and I'm not up for any silly FF14 like quest and solo playthrough!
Now, you can ask a thousand players their definition of "griefing" and it will range from minor things, such as being PK'd while leveling (
I think it's smart of them to use that word, because they are the ones having to deal with thousands of player reports about griefing, and getting a good idea in advance what their playerbase thinks is only a good thing. That way they can better mitigate and prevent a lot of the reports and feelings of outrage. At least in theory. It requires them to actively inform the playerbase of their design choices and what is or isn't griefing in their game, in language the players understand and use themselves.
Myself and 4 other teammates went into an enemy city looking for nothing more than a fun fight! The best parts about this here is that we had to dodge the insanely high and strong city guards (took us about 2 hours to get into the middle of the city) and then once we were there we couldn't actually attack anything but those guards until someone attacked us. The first thing that made this feasible for us was that we were amongst the greatest clan on the server and my wards and heals were unmatched (game was EQ2 and I was a defiler {Nykkon if anyone knows
My group and I found an optimal spot that made it so we could not be hit from behind by assassins (nearly instant kill) and they couldn't tab target between all of us (you had to have definitive vision to tab to the next target) as we all stacked on each other. We fought for ~4hours before calling it a day and everyone had a blast and the opposing team was SUPER excited to not only banish us from their city with ~100 vs 20 people but we also spoke of this great battle for a number of years to come!
This was my most favorite experience in the realm of PvP (which I usually despised as a healer/warder) and would gladly do something like this again!
While that is just bad game design that's another discussion, but my point in mentioning that is I think ashes should be mindful of what game mechanics and systems will encourage what type of interactions players will have. Especially with today's MMO culture people will find any way to min-max any mechanic or system which could encourage griefing type behavior. I think Ashes is on a good track with the mechanics and systems they have covered so far.
Since most griefing is around PvP I personally would like to see a PvP flagging system where it gives players an opt-in/opt-out option for PvP, but also restricts the systems they can interact with while not flagged for PvP. That way it gives players the consent for PvP, but doesn't mess with any other mechanics. You could even have a system where the PvP flagging is based on location rather than character preference, making PvP zones have higher value resources/mobs, but also letting players know if you want to try and get these high-value resources or enter certain locations then you are opting into PvP.
Looking at griefing from an economics point of view, my concern is that large groups/guilds will use their mass player's size and influence to intentionally gouge markets and exploit systems to get ahead in the market. This could be anything from gold buying, item duplication, purposefully inflating prices on items to make them either inaccessible or way too expensive for the average player. I am still undecided when thinking about economic topics as I feel it would hurt the game to cap items at specific values or have staff influence/control the markets, but i've also seen large guilds grief markets by inflating prices of necessary items then controlling the mobs that drop them and causing price increases of 200-300% to the point where most players couldn't afford it.
A pair of players who kills me and takes my gathered items, when I had no chance of defeating them, and gives the items to the one that didn't get the last hit and therefore the corruption, has performed what I consider to be a very light form of 'griefing', in that I have been caused grief, but if the game sanctions it, then it's fine. It's not necessarily fun, but it's fine.
A player who gets online, ganks a bunch of lowbies for laughs, and logs off before the bounty hunters can be summoned to the area, forcing those Bounty hunters to sit around and wait 'just in case that player logs back in and someone sees them in time', is griefing. They'll be punished later probably, but the lowbies not only can't punish them, they also can't 'enact their punishment' necessarily. To me, this is less fine and I object to it being sanctioned, but I understand that there are fewer solutions.
A player who, because they are the head of a big guild with good PvPers, can do whatever they want in terms of killing or harassing others, and explicitly does so to provoke others into attempting to attack them, to be cut down, is griefing. Again, the game almost explicitly sanctions this, it's supposed to 'drive conflict'. It might, assuming that the usual snowball effect doesn't happen.
A player stealing information through any means and using it to cause other players to fail at an activity in the game because of time restrictions on their play is a form of griefing that I consider absolutely unavoidable in MMOs and something we all just have to live with, but depending on exactly how that information was stolen, I feel like there should be a concept of a penalty applied by GM staff that comes up explicitly because of the combination of the two things, if you could even manage to prove it.
A player group 'deciding that a single person is Kill On Sight and just hunting them' in a game where reputation and server actually matter is griefing, and it's the type I'm most likely to directly engage in personally, along with some members of my group. We won't necessarily 'hound you' but sometimes we'll go out of our way to find and kill you if you're not doing anything else just because you're annoying or we have a grudge in some way. This is griefing that I don't want to be allowed to do, by the game. I want something to prevent this, particular when we decide to just have a specific player who is completely ok with being Corrupt or dropping gear always be the last hitter when we go a-murderin'. We play enough teamwork games that I don't expect us to 'miss' this requirement more than 20% of the time. And then we'll just wait for the 'party of bounty hunters' to show up, because if the game's balanced it should require a party to stop us from just protecting our one 'mistakenly Corrupt' player.
My friends and I actually are in that section of a playerbase that 'will PvP you, will hunt you, will take out frustration on you', and the only thing that prevents us from being griefers is that whole 'realizing that you're literally killing the game'. We don't 'get bored of killing some annoying person on sight'. We don't 'stop because some bigger force shows up and punishes us for doing it'. We don't care what level you are if you run your mouth to the wrong person in the wrong way, and we don't care if the fight is 6v1 because 'fair fights' are for fun, and ganking is for 'not having to see someone's stupid face for more time than it takes to break it'.
Griefing is what you get when I no longer care how your game experience improves through interactions with me, and your effort to bring them to even or do anything about that, massively outweighs mine. Everyone's breaking point is different, so people won't agree on what griefing is, but in the technical sense, if you offer 'Well why don't you just go gather up a party of 5 friends with X amount of game skill to take on Azherae's gang and make sure you never log in without those people nearby, or get out of town because that gang doesn't want you around here' as a solution to someone who we kill on sight every time, I think you're 'condoning griefing', and I don't think it's right that just because I dislike someone enough to get my group together and kill them every time I see them, that their game experience should depend on 'having to watch their step every moment'. This game isn't for everyone, but there are definitely people out there worse than us, and I'm pretty sure we're griefers by my own definitions, I just haven't often encountered a game that didn't say 'No that's perfectly acceptable'.
tl;dr I think games that have too loose a stance on griefing and also too lax mechanics to protect people from others ruining their playtime are not good games, and I think -I- should be reined in, far less 'the psychos out there worse than me'.
Some posters : This gives me license to write the book "Griefing : A Victims Tale".
(sorry! but 500 words or less come on
It's a massive multiplayer. If someone attacks you, make friends and fight back. The tools are there.
Handing out punishments for anything beyond foul language and cheating is wrong.
I only draw the line at someone at significant advantage in their personal capabilities, what I mean by that is mostly a person at significant level advantage say a level 50 corpse camping a level 10.
I'd only ever call it griefing when the other person has literally 0 chance of living in a situation where they should have a chance to live for example I wouldn't consider getting rushed by 40 people griefing because you know you have no chance. I wouldn't consider getting corpse camped by a dude at or near your level griefing because if you play it right you have a chance to survive are these things frustrating to the victim, of course but they aren't nescessarily bad enough to be called griefing.
You've got to remember that in mmo's Bad
People make the world feel alive just as much as the good people. And if there were no players that annoyed everyone, who would we have to be mad at?
You can't design a solution for every problem, but some situations can 'be better'. As a gathering focused individual who likes consensual PvP, I currently consider Karma Bombing griefing in the current design of corruption. I am in the category of people who Karma Bomb.
The reason I am a Karma Bomber, is because when someone pks me and causes me to lose progress, I want to make a positive game play experience out of it for myself. This usually means I want to either 'mitigate my losses' or 'gained enough loot that it's equal to the time lost doing my usual activity (gathering/hunting mobs.)
Currently, if I get jumped, end up at disadvantage, and then choose not to fight back, I lose a death's worth of resources. I have earned nothing from not fighting you. However if I fought you in the disadvantaged state, I lose less than a death's worth of resources. So to 'recoup' the time I lost from doing the things I find fun, it's best for me to stay green and then repeat the proccess until you have enough corruption that I have a significant advantage against you in PvP. Corruptions's combat penalty is good. This let's me both regan all my stuff, and some of your belongings as profit. If you removed Karma Bombing, you would remove this strategy from being possible and I would no longer have recourse for you wasting my time and resources with your harassment.
The above loop is bad design in my opinion, but it DOES allow me to make profit and fun out of a situation that would otherwise not be. Still I would like for this to NOT be how this goes. If there was no difference in the death penalty between greens and purples in this situation, I might feel less inclined to bomb you, because there is no longer an incentive difference in me fighting you vs not. I would be more likely to just shrug off the loss and let the fact that you are red mean that if I see you next time, we might be on a more even footing.
Thank you for your time.
Having limitations on PVP has historically made games feel limiting, boring and like there are no consequences to actions. Games where item drops occur on death are far more thrilling.
Neutering PVP elements in the game makes the game more of a singleplayer experience and absolutely should not be done. WoW classic was so much more popular than retail WoW because of the non-neutered PvP elements and PvP focus. Runescape is still one of the most popular mmos 20 years to this date because its a game with consequences such as item loss on death and choices, making every interaction have more meaning and more risk/implications rather than a meaningless game with no consequences.
On the note of the demise of WoW - Automated looking for group systems destroy the multiplayer element in games, and the need to socially engage to look for groups should be a requirement for a multiplayer game as thats what makes multiplayer games stand out to singleplayer games, the social experience. Automating groups with group finders remove all social elements from games and should be avoided, as this is what partially caused the downfall of WoW into a singleplayer-esque game where no social components are noticeable, nor required to play the game in its current modern state and form.
A good way to combat griefing, without limiting in game freedoms and gameplay elements, would be to do as follows:
1. Repeated player killing causes you to be kicked out of faction, where guards in towns become aggressive and obtaining NPC services becomes far harder as punishment, after being tried in Court and found guilty and serving multiple hundred hour sentences in real-time like in ArcheAge.
2. Only allow players to attack each other within 5 levels of each other, unless the player has a PKing debuff, then they can be attacked by all higher level player pvpers and player bounty hunters. This makes it so "twink guilds" or "twink" characters can't become unkillable.
3. Hide player levels from each other when PVP flag is on, but only allowing players with PVP flag on to engage each other if they are + or - 5 levels between each other, this way every PVP scenario becomes more risky in terms of consequences they might entail and PVPers may think twice before engaging in fights.
4. Have a player bounty hunting system. People who PVP and engage someone who has no PK/PVP debuff can appear on the map of bounty hunters who activate a bounty hunting skill such as "Detect wanted criminals/Tracking" and then PVP flagged players with a PKing debuff obtained by attacking other players will show up on the map/minimap of bounty hunters.
5. People who have been griefed can pay a sum of gold to a bounty hunting auctioneer who will make a reverse auction in an auction house, allowing gold to be claimed in exchange for the named players ear whom a bounty hunter listing has been made and paid for by the griefed player to a bounty hunting auctioneer NPC.
6. Players drop "nose/dogtags of playername" on death by script generating dogtags or the players nose/ear if they have a PKing debuff, which can then be redeemed/exchanged for gold from bounty hunting auctioneer if a bounty hunting auctioneer listing is made for that PKers ears/nose/dogtags (A listing may be automatically generated by the State/NPC auctioneer upon killing 5-20 player characters within 1 hour of playtime with a gold reward tag scaling to the PKers level)
7. Only enable item loss on death of player gear (not just menial items/trash loot) in specific PVP areas. (such as a Wilderness like in in Runescape), and first starting zones and towns are strictly pvp-disabled "safety zones"
8. Only enable player fighting between players who have PVP mode enabled, allowing people who do not want to pvp to have that option. (This would not be an option in forced PVP flag specific areas which have item drop on death enabled such as a wilderness)
These are the best ways to limit griefing in my opinion whilst also not limiting gameplay elements or stunting player freedoms.
On a side note, could you please pass this special request on to Stephen and whoever works on Camera/UI?
Please please please allow for a first person camera without body clipping where the player character's body and/or just the arms are visible, simply by allowing the camera to be zoomed in the whole way through the player model to sit in absolute minimum zoom right outside the forehead of the playermodel. I'm not suggesting altering player animations at all to accomodate such a first person mode in any way, so this should be an easy thing to do (even possible with Cheat Engine just by altering camera positioning)
Having the camera able to be positioned in such a place would allow for VR mods to exist, such as those made with VorpX and other mods, and such mods would be far much more immersive. Such a small feature which is able to be achieved just by altering the minimum camera zoom position by adjustment, would allow for such a rich usecase with VR mods and will enable Ashes of Creation to have far far much more public engagement, better public perception when people realise that Ashes is in fact VR compatible (not natively by design, but with a Leap Motion and VorpX it can be made so if the camera may be placed just outside the player models forehead to avoid body clipping issues to ensure the playermodel body is visible within 1st person, and to give the right perspective of height.)
(Otherwise without this slight camera adjustment, you risk also segregating all VR users who are willing to use cheat engine to privately hosted servers of the game which is not ideal, and the game would compete with ESO and take more of their userbase if there is an option for first person camera where the body and/or just the arms are visible)
Thanks for your consideration.
Examples - purposefully shooting/killing allied players in shooter games. Purposefully attacking allied players in Chivalry. Joining pvp scenarios/battlegrounds in a game like WoW and purposefully sabotaging your team by afking or otherwise "throwing" the match. Exploiting bugs/RMT/game mechanics in ways unintended.
It should be very hard to grief in Ashes because based on what we know, it will be an ongoing competition over finite resources. War. Everything is fair game at all times. Ashes is going to allow killing in cities/towns. Not griefing. But the killer is sitting in a glitched spot that no one can get to or attack him at. Griefing.
There will be legitimate reasons why one group of players might want to kill another player on sight, every time, at all costs. Not griefing. But there will be instances where a particular group has gone too far, it's no longer kosher, it's griefing. That'd be a case by case thing that'd have to be rooted out when a player feels he's being targeted for harassment for no legitimate reason.
I have no issues with corruption, but I think it should be very well balanced out as good as possible.
I feel like 10 PKs is too little to basically get all weakened down i.ex, but thats just me. I'd totally sit with a total of 20PKs and get worn down if that works. I like to trigger fights, but yeah
World PvP should be World PvP regardless of what (I'm sorry for this) casuals think. There will be players who aren't good at pvp in the game, and there will be players who are good. This cannot be avoided.
I've done my fair share of world pvp, as some of my fellow WoW veterans here. And the ones who knows, they know what world pvp is and what it stands for.
Griefing (Take it from one who's done this, willingly, repeatedly, without the consequences of it - I also apologize if I fall into your scumbag category)
Griefing to me, is continuously killing the same guy. I would use abilities that was triggered by a mob and kill low levels with it (Snake trap for hunters back in the days) in Durotar.
I would be all over stranglethorn and fight/kill anyone I saw, because I knew they'd log onto their mains and they would then fight and die.
If there are methods abilities, trinkets, tools, mechanics, whatever that is triggered by the world and does some kind of damage, you know for sure someone will find a way, even if its just for that 1 specific time and moment. It'll happen, not only once but multitudes of times.
I'd camp dungeon entrances with traps or pop flasks, cds, buffs and just Explosive trap (Wotlk period) into a group of people, watch them get 100 to 0'd, because i would outgear them. (also because this ability then was broken)
I reckon most of this falls under the category of griefing and is it avoidable? No, I dont think so. Even if I quit a long time ago doing this, I don't think it's avoidable as people will find ways to grief, regardless.
What can we do then? Back in the days, at least in my Battlegroup as we called it then, we would name the offenders in the Server forums. People used to hangout there at one point, and name offenders, ninja looters, anything. Im not saying this is an option, but the bounty board is a great method to basically put the offending player on the list to get hunted.
But, ones corruption should very much be balanced. I havent gotten the chance to test this and I am waiting for Alpha 2 to release, so I can give this a go.
An action by player / players that prevents another player / players from enjoying the game.
But how do you define "enjoying the game"? It is entirely player-dependent, everyone enjoys different types of games in different ways, and a single game won't be able to accomodate all of these ways. Hell, for some people their way to enjoy a game is what others would consider directly counter to their own enjoyment.
It is essentially for the developers to choose which ways of enjoying their game they approve of, and would want to protect, either by ingame mechanics or by the rules.
So this Dev Question is really "How do you like enjoying your games, and what you would want to be protected from? Tell us, and we will pick and choose which ways we accept and which we do not."
Now, we already know in part where the developers stand, such as:
With this in mind, here's where I stand on PvP:
- Personally I don't care for world PvP, but I don't mind it either; Some aspects of it look like they could be fun.
==- I like all the orchestrated ways to engage in PvP that Ashes intend to provide (sieges, caravans, etc.), they alone are quite enough to satisfy my murder fantasies.
- I like the idea of fighting for bosses (true PvX, where you are pressured from both PvP and PvE sides).
- I like the idea of being able to have a friendly skimrish with one / several people on the spot, without having to go to an arena.
- I like the idea of guild wars in open world, as long as there is a limit to number of declared wars, and one guild can't simply war everyone they see; Perhaps a complex quest, similar to what we hear about the siege declaration quest, could be added, to further facilitate these guild wars being a commitment, rather than an easy way to avoid PvP penalties.
- I am mildly interested in the idea of figthing for farming / gathering areas, but also would not care if it was all but eliminated, and only be viable in higher-end dungeons doubling up as higher-end gatherables locations.
==- I don't like the idea of being attacked and/or killed for no ingame reason (valid ingame reasons listed above), simply to cause me as a person an inconvenience / annoyance. I'd like it if such behavior was killed in the crib, and such players were plainly told they are not welcome. If it is not done - I'll take it as such players and behaviour being welcome and encouraged, and will likely not stick with the game.
- I don't like that the resources drop can be used as an easy excuse for the above; Yes, anyone might have some resources on them, but that's a lousy justification for randomly attacking passer-bys; Perhaps, an indicator of some sort could be added, to show whether a person is carrying many and/or valuable resources, to make this a more valid mechanics. Perhaps, their bag can be bustling with goodies, or their posture slightly hunched under the weight of all the invisible logs they just chopped down, the more logs - the hunchier the pose.
==Non-PvP grief:
- Scamming
- Chat misuse (bigotry, harassment, real-life threats, spam, etc.); "Mute" is a great functionality to protect oneself, but such actions should also be reportable / punishable, to discourage copy-cats.
- Unintended applications of game engine limitation / bugs that prevent others from normal ingame actions (could be things such as body-blocking to prevent passage, dropping off monster trains on players, etc.; depends on whether these are considered unintended applications by developers / Game Masters).
- etc.
Honestly this is all pretty standard, world PvP is a much more contended topic.Another comment that resonated with me:
____
A more theoretical take on the issue:
In theory, anything allowed by the rules and possible within the game mechanics is not griefing.
As it is impossible for such a complex game to fine-tune game mechanics to disallow each specific type of behaviour developers don't intend for / don't condone - statements such as "If I can do it - it is not griefing" make no sense. Rules external to game mechanics will still need to be in place.
Below I explore two opposite approaches to it on example of world PvP system:
Approach #1:
For example, it can start with -
"World PvP is intended for:
- Contesting farming resources
- Consensual fights in the open world
- ..."
And when later on a guild arranges a PvP-blocade of a quest NPC to prevent another guild from completing a complex guild quest - they might be reported, and it would be for Game Masters to decide if this is going to be a new acceptable use, or an offense.
This approach is on the safe side: a person attempting a non-intended PvP action always risks repercussions, even if they believe they follow the spirit of the law.
Approach #2 is the opposite:
This is a non-safe approach:
Players can expect to be exposed to all kinds of unpredictable grief behaviour, and no guarantee that any of these will be considered as such by Game Masters.
It will also most likely result in more reports than Approach #1, i.e. more work for GMs.
Approach #3:
Combine both of the above.
New ways to grief would only occur once, and afterwards everyone will know for sure if behaviour is acceptable or not. Players, especially new players, can make an educated decision whether the permitted behaviors are something they want to deal with in their game. At the same time, due to no retroactive application, players won't be afraid to experiment with new ways to explore PvP conflict.
This might result in very detailed ruleset, somewhat of a rule bloat, but would also help all types of players to know where exactly they stand, and whether their chosen way of enjoying the game is allowed / protected.
People tend to forget something very important before they describe their view of griefing, how is the game advertised, both in description and by the people who run the game. Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but your opinion is worthless if it does not align with the fundamental ideas. Therefor the meaning of griefing might alter slightly in different games, but the base concept of it remains the same.
There are examples very easily given as for myself I have put thousands of hours into two very different types of MMORPGs:
FFXIV: The team of this game punishes you for the slightest hint of bad behaviour if you get reported. I have been banned for have "f*cking" (yes it was censored) in my own quote for a day. When PvP was initially released in the form of 4v4 arenas they had to disable the function to be able to write in your team chat, and replace it with sound commands, but even after that people still use the sound commands in a toxic way(similar to how in League people spam question mark you). To be frank PvP is the easiest option for 2 or more people to have a clash of opinion, thus be toxic at a very likely possibility. But the game at the end is advertised as a very friendly, all flowers and rainbows game, so everything is aligned. But then again there are sweet summer children also, who call you out for giving them a friendly advice. People simply feel offended, hurt, insulted over the smallest things nowadays that I hope the vast majority will just overcome, as from my point of view it is just ridiculous. In short, everything is griefing in FFXIV for the most part if you do get reported.
BDO: This game was initially described as a hardcore open-world game, and was advertised as well, no one was truly your ally or truly an enemy(this is the idea behind AoC also). I have killed thousands and more of people at the early days for just coming nearby my grinding spots, it was a risk vs reward both sides took. I killed them with the continous risk of going red for the reward of keeping my grind spot, while they took the risk of losing EXP with the reward of possibly getting the grind spot. No words were said, both sides understood that this is how the game is designed to be. But the very moment they removed the EXP loss from PK death, the game changed in an instant, people kept coming back as they had nothing to lose anymore and just tried to force you to go into red player. This further developed into people trying to last hit each other with monsters to enforce EXP loss and possible crystal loss etc. I am not going to further explain this, as I am fully aware that Steven does know how bad these systems are as I have had my share of talk with him back at gamescom. One thing to add about BDO.
ArcheAge: Difference in this game from BDO was that you were assigned to an alliance of factions, partially(pirates). This game has had the oppurtunity for many ways of griefing that it was absurd. Blocking your own alliance's progression, being a pirate in mind yet still in the alliance etc. It was somewhat refreshing at the beginning, but at the end it turned out to be a clownfiesta. A system that was easily abused for very high reward for close to no risk. Basically there were so many ways to annoy people, that it pretty much became the norm. But on the other hand this game in it is 1.0 stage offered the most MMORPG-like feeling I have ever experienced in the past 15 years of MMORPGs. Supports were being absolutely crucial and useful(until damage outscaled it, because devs always put more effort into damage increase but not defensive for some reason). People protecting gatherers, trade packs, securing spots for trade etc.
So what should be considered griefing in AoC?
Well, the game is advertised as an open-world PvPvE, high risk vs high reward etc, very social interactive, player driven.
In my opinion, based on how the game is described and advertised as, griefing comes down to the condition of: Someone spending much of his time with no real disadvantages/loss with the sole reason to irritate someone, the irritated disagreeing with this, for a prolonged time. As we have no real info how the karma/corruption system will work, I cannot give any example but I am sure the griefers will find their back doors.
I honestly believe, want to, that the vast majority of griefing in AoC can be solved by just forcing the people who died by PK to spawn in the nearest town of the ZoI, with the idea of no fast transport and distance having a meaning it does not sound like a bad idea, this also gives a better meaning to securing World Boss spots potentially. Meaning a heavily valuable grinding spot should be far away from town, thus eliminating a good portion of the possibily to "karma bomb" someone. Also if so called valuable spots are in a deep spot of a dungeon where people cannot just run back into without their party that would eliminate an another batch of possibilities.
However, I do believe that killing lower level players should be heavily discouraged and punished and that PK should not come into the options from the moment you login the first time, low level PvP in many games is chaotic and discouraging, so I reckon the first 25 levels or so should be PvP-free. This gives the chance also for new players, or people who not want to pvp to have a bad early experience.
Adding "lawless" zones into the game is an idea of mine, such spots would draw a perfect line between people who want to PvP for their spots, and people who do not(i think Lost Ark has something similar). I do believe such spots should not be the most valuable, unless it is an area that is out of any ZoI, let's say an underwater dungeon.
In short, I believe people should have the option to progress steadily without having the risk factor at all times around them. However those who do have should have the oppurtunity for faster progression without high possibilities of being griefed.
Read here: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_corruption
Assuming your understanding of ZoI is nearest node rather than the spawn checkpoints out in the wild we saw in Alpha1, here are the problems I see, and keep in mind most of them arise from it not being optional:
Problem 1. This solution indirectly makes clearing and securing a grind spot a lot easier. The red is incentivized to keep player killing in this scenario because more mobs means you can slowly erase corruption. In short it creates an incentive for the red to keep pking in a system that originally intended to not have such incentives.
Problem 2. The green's game play is not just minorly disrupted. This is a major disruption because of the very travel bonus in question. That is bad. You have robbed the green not just karma bombing(good), but fighting you back or knowing revenge has been enacted(bad).
Problem 3. In the normal system, if you really are just securing a grind spot and not ganking, the green doesn't have a strong reason to immediately karma bomb you if they aren't a griefer. After all there is a death penalty in this game. Every death costs them future time and profit. In this new system not only are they losing xp, they lose the entire profit they would otherwise have gained if they just avoided you/respected your grindspot in the time it takes to travel back. You can't have both a death penalty and teleporting back to ZoI or PvE and crafters will quit.
My opinion: This solution needs more work and creates two unsolvable problems for the greens side. In my opinion it's better if the teleport to ZoI is optional like in BDO. You, the grinder, should probably just inform the person they died because you want the grind spot so they don't make bad assumptions. It is a social game after all.
It would also lower the frequency of karma bombing by people like me who only grief because I don't have a better way to condition you to stop being a jerk/opportunism. If I could teleport to ZoI I might leave after the second death if I know/learn I can't beat you, and I don't have anything better to do in this zone/could be making profit elsewhere. After all the death penalty costs me time and money right? Without the teleport to ZoI otoh I have more incentive to weaken you via karma bombing, so I can kill you and move on with my day (see my previous post.)
If you were a particularly rude pker otoh, I would still want to bomb you tho. I might die a few times if you were particularly dumb but also stronger than me and definitely just out to pk so you are at a disadvantage for my bounty hunter friends. So yes there would still be reasons to bomb and exploits for bombing, but it is definitely a step in the right direction in terms of empowering good faith actors.
I have no disagreements here. I would tie the PvP not optional marker to 'whenever you get your secondary'. Heck maybe even make it a level cap. That would lead to an extremely off topic discussion though, so lets not.
I know the base idea behind the system, after all I played the game it is from. But we still do not have numbers, nor information how respawning works. Without reference I cannot make statements.
Yes, I do mean such locations. I forgot to mention, that having a closer spawn point probably won't be a problem if death penalty is discouraging enough and there is no cash shop item like in BDO to erase this penalty and even rez on the spot. I believe you should be able to farm back your corruption, at least a good portion of it. Let's not forget if the game is abundant there are a lot more chances other people will show up. If I constantly kill different people and turn to red because of that then that is rather unfortunate you could say. This is a scenario though I am fine with, I do not really have control over it, I personally just don't want that a single person may be able to sabotage me/my party. But as I said above, I am waiting for numbers.
I see your point, and I agree and disagree. This is one of those where 1 person needs to make the difficult decision, and people either live with it or moan about it for life. And I mainly talked about purple vs purple. I do hope such griefing where a green player can just be a nuisance around me is non-existant.
I have a strong belief that PvE players, aka crafters and gatherers mainly, won't be much of a nuisance to people who grind. These are the players who tend to whisper you before anything, but those are the players that truly do only such activities. This was the case in all MMORPG I have played. Such players usually get by with doing their respected activities and trade, which has been lacking lately as this feature was completely killed by latest MMORPGs lmao.
I do not need to add anything here, the key factor being social.
That is actually a great idea, and it is even the same level as I suggested, level 25. But then they need to make necessary factors like, if player does not pick second class then they cannot advance beyond level 25. Putting them at a constant disadvantage. Because I think there should be no reason why someone would not want to level up, and the game should encourage it that you reach the end of the road at one point. Like I remember when people were doing high-end value content in BDO with their lv49.99 alts so they are 100% safe, that is just foolish.
I'm looking forward to testing the system in Alpha 2
Super off topic, but you are refreshing to engage. Yeah I would want it to cap their level.
The problem you see in bdo is more so due to the amount gear effects your character power and the lack of level restrictions on top tier gear (and their gear design is horrible in general.) In AoC they have explicitly stated in the past they are going to be less gear heavy and more reliant on level, build, and skill.
I totally agree with you bdo's system is dumb relative to this. The fact that a person without open PvP unlocked could feasibly buy equipment and go do end game stuff like cresent at any moment (and do reasonably well risk free).... I think that sort of thing goes against Ashes design philosophy. But lower level spots being filled with unkillable 25ers just means the prices for those goods will be super low (since there is low risk of dying and thereof a higher constant supply) and its better to farm other things. I think it would still fit risk vs reward. As a serious crafter I would certainly prefer less serious people grind less profitable stuff while I go stick my neck out with my group collecting shinies. Less grind work for me. More power to them.
Otoh I think you should be able to be so good at markets and networking as a crafter that you could eventually master your craft,. I just also think it should be significantly easier to just go and get your own higher level materials.
There are lot of serious design obstacles that would need to be solved if they have level caps though. Certainly not an unsolvable task, but one that requires careful design. I think it'd be worth it in the end to prevent immediate quit moments. (To bring it back on topic) Griefing shouldn't be a worry at any point when you are starting a new game. People need time to learn, adapt, and build in game relationships in a game as heavily social as this.
1. There is no faction. No horde or alliance. Race doesn't accept perhaps augments and racial bonuses which haven't been revealed yet.
2. There are no twinks nor is there going to be pvp match making of the same level. I would be all right with limiting the ability to attack players within a certain level, but here is how it could be exploited. A guild could have level 1 alts with mounts. The guild could 50 of these characters loaded with valuable materials to the capacity of their backpack. Those players could then transport the goods from one city to another city knowing they couldn't be attacked. The players would effectively be a caravan. The same would happen in gathering. I could have a lot of level 1 characters go to where the valuable materials are contained and start gathering them. Bring a long a few high-level characters not in their party to protect them from the mobs in that area. Now, you broke the PVP system.
3. Hiding levels isn't to matter. As a max level rogue, I would attack anyone I thought was any easy target if they didn't have friends around.
4. The game does have a bounty hunter system and players with corruption will appear on the map. That is how they plan on reducing the overall griefing.
5. I have no problem with being able to put out contracts on other players.
6. No reason for that.
7. I don't think people should be able to lose the gear they have equipped on their character, but resources like stone, wood, jewels, and even a small amount of money seem fair upon death.
8. Never going to happen. Then everyone would turn their flag off and you would have World of Warcraft. I am fine with the town being a safe zone. I think inside the node would be fine as a sanctuary. I would however not let you walk out, start a fight, and then run back into town. However, if you make it into the nodes or castle not in combat then I think you should be able to relax, craft, or have a drink at the tavern.
Back in the +15 era this was less of a problem, but yes BDO gear system is just straight up lazy design. This is again an another topic where gear and skill runs next to each other on such thin line they can knock each other away really easily. As long as level other than the stat gain from leveling up(if there is any) does not give any advantage I am a happy man. I hate in most games where I or someone is higher level and you are literally an indestructable god lmao, same goes to mobs.
Yes, I see your reasoning with the lower level farming. I think AoC will take this idea from Lineage 2 where low level grind spots are still valuable as their material drop is still necessary for high-end level crafts, or just repair. This system somewhat keeps the entire world running without areas being completely deserted. However, I do believe unkillable lv25 would be fine, if lv50s still get drop from low level areas, which they should. I never understood for what reason can a high level player not farm low level spots, it just kills the content on that level meaning only max level is worthy. So if lv50s can grind the low level spots too than they will very likely outgrind the lowbies, but then again I hope this is not the case because this would be a barrier to low levels to just grind, in MMORPG everything is an endless circle of problem-solution-problem-solution.
In short, I think low level areas should have value to them but not as much as it is outrun by high level, ie Sausan in BDO for a long time. And the GM team needs to maintain these areas bot-free, this is probably the harder part as it is a constant problem that bots just take over, "ruin" the market by just making things invaluable thus currency in general becoming less and less meaningful.
Yes, I did have friends back in the days that saw riches in games like I have never before because they solely played the market, crafting, gathering game. Very valuable players to the life of economy in a MMORPG, and supply to the grinders.
I do hope that high-level gatherable materials are going to be some random spawn in X area at Y time at certain node level. BDO had such, and they were very valuable because of that. So valuable that flagging up seems to be normal rather than being a 2nd thought. The basic idea behind the node system can fluctuate value so well and "easily" it just drives me crazy.
Yes, as again the key factor is being social. At the end as Steven said, there is only so much they can pour into the bottle before it overflows. As ambitious as he is, there is a technological limit.