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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
This sounds like a feudal society. 'Subjugate the casuals with the threat of violence' to do all the filthy low level peasant work you can't be bothered for.
I totally expect this from the games current design and the over all disposition of the current fan base. The real question would therefore be 'is that 'fun' for the peasant casuals?' I don't think so but I am not a casual if they dont screw up farming and summoning, so I thankfully, have noble privileges.
Your average Jane Doe who got home from a crappy slave wage job, just to relax in a fun mmo might have stronger opinions.
Caveat emptor.
That's a completely different discussion and not even really argument against what I said. It also has a tacit assumption that Ashes should not have designs to prevent such a situation.
As well as participating World and Monster Coin events?
Who’s arguing? You stated that casuals won’t find what they are looking for - I’m agreeing, while also asserting that the consumer has the power in the equation.
Casuals will have a place in Ashes, but they aren’t the primary audience for design decisions. Unless they are able to short circuit the gear treadmill, they will not be able to compete in a pvp scenario.
Will that leave some poor plebians in the dust? Yes. And it’s those players’ responsibility to know what experience they are buying into. Luckily, the bar for entry is low.
It is because I knew we disagreed on this point that I called it an argument since like I said, accepting that premise tacitly accepts that the premise 'should be how the final product ends up.'
There are a lot of reasons why design should recognize players with less time to play. Mainly, it effects everyone's experience not just the casuals. Why? Because it effects new players experience too. Therefore I don't see them as second class consumers relative to the design of the game.
Although I do agree that the hardcore/veteran audience should have a 20-30 % tilt on decision making. (Those numbers were a joke please don't take my imaginary numbers seriously.)
Right, it's their 'responsibility'. It's Ashes that needs to decide how attractive they need the casual and new player experience to be. Casuals always make up the bulk of both in game economies and a companies wallet unless they specifically choose to ignore the design challenges such payers present relative to their design experience.
Heh, I won't hold you to any numbers.
I get what you're saying, but your point above makes some leaps by lumping the casual experience and the new player experience together as some sort of solid foundation. New players are a heterogenous mix of player-types, so... no, the casual experience isn't necessarily going to reflect the needs of new players. It might reflect the needs of new casual players. I think Intrepid recognizes 'players with less time to play,' but they seem to be prioritizing the hardcore player segment for design (which I agree with). That's not a semantic differentiation.
Ashes is going to make a product that leans hardcore, and provides an environment where casual players can do quite a bit. Where I agree with the vast majority of voices in this thread is that pvp is not going to be one of those places where casuals are going to be competitive. It's city rec league soccer v. MLS.
Also, let's not appeal to data neither of us have re: revenue stream intake relative to player segment. I can see where it's attractive to conjecture, but the data might tell a different story.
I don't disagree with you that they are a heterogenous mix. While I think we can agree to disagree on the fact that it's 'not a solid foundation', I hope you realize that what I really am trying to get across here is that the new player and casual players experience of content leveling up to max is going to be effected by much of the same design principles, not that they will 'be after the same things and therefore have the same over all experience'.
Can we at least agree that a new person who let's say 'get's up to speed' of the first 120 hours in one month is going to face similar challenges that gear disparity brings than the casual player who took 2 months to get to the same place? They both must come to terms with the hardcore person who plays 6-8 hours a day for that same 2 months.
(I tried really hard to make this point without imaginary numbers but I'll admit it was a task beyond my skill, please forgive me.)
We agree on this. However they also seem to be preparing for such players to show up in large numbers given their intentions for the player economy and scale of activities. Their play experience needs to be of some level of consideration to the challenges they face as a result of the rest of the design.
PvP directly effects all parts of the game. If they are not able to compete in PvP, they are going to be relegated to the bottom rung of 'society'. You can't turn PvP off after all (and it should stay that way.)
Now, where I think we agree here is that 'it's kind of inevitable that there is going to be a bottom rung.' My original 'appeal' here was that 'there are many ways the bottom rung can look like and a 'feudal system'' may be particularly unappealing. People want the ability to fight back and have a chance to win. It's part of the fun right?
I'm of the camp that 'skill can be acquired and 'imported' from elsewhere' much more quickly than one can grind gear'. So to me the more gear matters, the less broadly you can appeal to that. I don't know if Ashes current design will make such an appeal possible or not. I simply lack enough data to tell.
I do have enough information to tell, though, that PvP is going to massively impact things that are usually places that casuals benefit from and can be competitive in (crafting and some forms of economic activity.) So 'I worry' a bit for their sake.
You are free to tell me that I shouldn't worry or it's wrong to worry about it, but that'd be where our conversation ends in that case. Not because I'd be offend, it's just an impasse. And I know dwarves with arrows can beat me in a rocky impasse like that so I'll just 'forfeit' in advance ;p
Fair, I do not retract it, but that is valid criticism with my argument. I'll make an effort to minimize my using it in my discussions with you.
As a side question, you said 'Ashes is going to make a product that leans hardcore, and provides an environment where casual players can do quite a bit.' What if anything do you think casuals who have a lot of natural and practiced skill from other games are going to be 'competitive' in a game with this level of importance in PvP?
Maybe so, but what most people would call 'hardcore' is one of Ashes' main selling points.
It's not actually particularly groundbreaking in most other aspects, and nearly everything else about it is 'unproven' and 'in development'. So selling itself as many posters put it, as a highly dynamic game with lots of power struggles, and by extension, the related gap between 'Casuals' and 'Hardcore', is its main bulwark against stagnation.
As of now, they haven't reached the point of being able to show anything that they do significantly better than many other games, other than 'not being p2w and not doing stupid things'. So if their initial main audience were 'looking for a big timesink challenge that tells most 'skill-casuals' to 'accept disruptions', then that's what they should probably stick to, otherwise the first 'new subscription model non-p2w' game that gets churned out by a bigger studio because Ashes manages to succeed', would sap a lot of their subscriptions.
If the 'price' of that is high 'turnover' in casual players due to hardcore grinds and disruption gameplay, it may still be better to keep their loyalists and therefore remain 'relevant' in the MMO space.
I don't disagree with your statements that casuals need to have a place. However if they are catered to in any
way, spoon feeding is unavoidable.
Consider the situation you suggested where the meaningfulness of gear is reduced to promote skill. Players that play more WILL be more skillful than casuals, and will abuse casuals REGARDLESS of gear in any PVP scenario. The casuals are not any better off. In other words, gear based, or skill based, casuals are never going to be having a great time in PVP relative to hardcore players.
The ONLY way to avoid that, is to reduce gear meaningfulness AND arbitrarily limit the skill ceiling to a level sufficiently low that skill becomes irrelevant - in other words spoon feeding.
Casuals will be well-supported in Ashes.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Ashes_of_Creation#Casual_vs._hardcore_players
mark: 18:05
I am not sure why this exact idea is being brought up. Yes, players that play more will often be more skillful and therefore defeat players that play less. That does not mean that we need to increase the gap between hardcore and casual players by giving skillful players who play more better gear as well. Let casuals fight with a smaller gear power difference while they work on their skills. We don't need to widen gap even more with great gear power differences.
I completely agree with this statement - however, design should also recognize those with more time to play.
The OP's suggestion fails in that second regard, but is also unsuccessful in the first, imo.
Watching the video, the most important quotes from Steven were:
That casuals would eventually be able to get the same accomplishments as hardcore players, just at a later date. Nobody here disagrees with that, and that's how it should be.
That hardcore players would need large casual player populations to help develop their nodes. And I think that's a wonderful way to have hardcore players interact friendly with casual players, but this still isn't saying that casuals will be able to compete in PvP with hardcore players or that there will be a short gear grind to help casuals, which is what this post is about.
Hardcore-time players don't need a short gear grind to help casuals acquire gear.
Also, I didn't post the video in response to the OP. I posted the video in response to Everdark saying, "I don't disagree with your statements that casuals need to have a place. However if they are catered to in any
way, spoon feeding is unavoidable."
Yep - although it greatly depends on whether those design principles skew toward favoring one player segment over another. Some games make that more obvious than others.
That's tough to conjecture at this point. There are too many factors that would come into play, but it's not unreasonable. The clear exceptions would be any kind of short-cutting of that gear progression curve via crafting, purchase, or gifts.
I'm going to be a bit of a pain. I'd frame this more as 'combat' will directly effect all parts of the game, but not necessarily pvp. The corruption system will curb (hopefully) a good deal of the KOS mentaily that appears in other open world pvp mmos (i.e. MO2, etc).
Yeah - this got me thinking. I've actually been wondering if most casual gamers / carebears will gravitate to processing / crafting professions instead of gathering professions, simple because there is less risk involved where other players attacking you (or having to attack other players) to control access to material won't be an issue.
Ha! You can decide yourself what to worry or not worry about. No skin off my nose. But yes, dwarven rangers and mountain passes can be dangerous things - if you don't bring enough beer.
Quite a bit. There's a whole world to explore. Crafting and economics. Node development. Dungeons and raids. There's a lot. But when it comes to fighting other players - speaking generally - casual gamers are going to be at a disadvantage to hardcore players. I think that's ok.
Hmm...
I'll get back to you on that one. I have qualms but ones worth thinking through to not trigger a hard side bar.
I have been considering something similar. It may happen, but I have two caveats to the logic.
If you or your friends get your crafting materials for free you make more margin, in a properly constructed mmo economy. Better margins does eventually snow ball once an economy starts maturing. A casual has even MORE incentive to gather mats not less, as they have less liquid assets. After all those are usually gained via 'more time input'. And if you want to compete in the economy for sales you will inevitably end up competing with people who have enough money to sell at lower margins.
There are ways around this (friends with more time) but that's not a universal circumstance. Ideally they will make friends, but you can only rely on that so much in your design. In short conflict will happen no matter what unless your casual in spirit not just time available.
Competitive exploration huh. Alright, assuming that's relevant to the game I'll buy that with the assumption that good mounts will be obtainable by dedicated casials and it's a lot more reliant on your irl diligence.
Crafting and economics. Maybe, but it relies heavily on the way intrepid designs crafting and itemization relative to it.
Node development? You'd have to explain to me, but alright I can maybe buy that in the frontier.
Competitive in dungeons and raids though? Open world dungeons and raids where everyone has a strong incentive to hit up for good gear or xp? An enclosed space with less places to run??? That's directly PvP or PvX if you want to call it that. I could believe it if I see it, but not until then. That, I think is a gear vs skill percent question. I leave that to op to discuss.
I wonder how large a market there is for competitive exploration.... Interesting thought there.
I hope you like german black stout. I don't commonly drink something that weak, but when I do I prefer it have robust flavor. ;p
Gear strength shouldnt matter in addition to cosmetics curving visual progression.
Discuss fUrthER....
Personally, I don't know what to think of this system yet as there isn't much information on how this works.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Item_sinks
I think that every game has to be careful when playing with player incentive, which is really what is being discussed. Whether we like it or not, it would be less interesting to a player to pursue gear when it contributes less to their overall power.
To be honest, I think the type of casual player that will be interested in AoC will be those that are somewhat seasoned with having to deal with the broad spectrum of player types in PvP-centric games which will likely mean that their expectations will prepare them for a few savage beatings.
Also, in a game like AoC where the combat system is not just tab targeting, gear acts more as an amplifier of skill than its own power source. In a game like WoW for example, there were many classes where you could just face roll your keyboard and you would win just due to gear, there was no aiming, positioning wasn't nearly as critical and people couldn't really avoid what you did to them (generalizing here people, mostly being comparative). AoC will be much more dynamic and therefore skill will likely allow for someone in much lower gear to compete at a higher level, at least when compared with other MMORPGs that have static combat.
Like others I am hoping that the corruption system protects the casual players from specific formats of PvP where they are most vulnerable (being solo out in the world), because if we are honest, if/when a hardcore player wants to kill a casual player, IT WILL HAPPEN... gear will have little to do with it either way. There might be 1 in 100 cases where this isn't true but for the most part I don't think reducing the gear contribution from 50% to 30% will achieve anything for casuals, maybe for the hardcore elite vs the hardcore, but not for casuals.
I think a better way to tackle this issue would be to have systems in place that push the communities together so that the pool of people you PvP against is diverse. This way your experience would be dynamic, sometimes you would get owned and have that, "Wow, that guy is super geared" moment, other times you would have that "I just stomped that nub" moment. I don't know exactly how to do this but in my mind its the healthiest for the game in every measurable way.
Another potential buffer for this is a slightly different take on progression that includes power diversity rather than escalation. Tough with gear but the concept is that you progress and get "stronger" by having more options and choices rather than just an increase in your character's metrics. A larger pool of skills to choose from or gear having talents or perks that interact with the way you play all increase your strength but not through straight up numbers.
This allows for gear to be less of a contribution to your characters metrics but the net result is likely the same, if not worse than the current situation as this emphasizes skill and adds complexity.
Why? Why would the hardcore players need casuals if they have so much more time to play? Also, is farming fun? Is getting ganked while farming fun?
As casual you won't be able to join dungeons, except maybe on the weekends. That means that your knowledge of the dungeon itself is lower, your gear is lower. Why would hardcore players take you with when they can take another Hardcore?
That leaves you with farming. So, what exactly are you offering that hardcore players can't do themselves? We could say that leveling an alt takes a lot of time, and maybe professions will reflect this, so maybe a casual will bring what a hardcore player needs.
Does that mean that casuals will only farm close to the node? What about ganks?
I think the game is greatly designed for people with 6+hours a day, but I struggle to find what casuals will do, that is actually fun.
And then the game will die. You act like casuals are a pest… when in fact casuals are what keep MMOs alive. They are the masses that bring in the money to non p2w games. They also bring in content… the more players you have, the more content there is. AoC needs to be designed for casuals as well or else it will die… especially with its massive intended server capacity.
Edit: word
There will be plenty of PvP between the flagging system, guild wars, node wars, caravans etc. If your main option as a casual is to accept your defeat because gear disparity is too great, then the game is not fun. That's all there is to it.
Forced PvP is major factor.
The entitled little brats appear to be the "hardcore" players.
Here's what Steven says about Ashes:
"I don't think there is an answer that will satisfy everyone - depending on where you end up on the hardcore/casual side you're going to have a different feeling with regards to this. Striking a balance is obviously one of our endeavors...
Traditionally in MMORPGs you're going to see a larger population of casual players than you do of hardcore players; and that's just the way the cookie crumbles from a population standpoint. And because of that and the way that nodes collect experience and advance as a result of player activity, those casual players will actually have more impact on node progression than the hardcore players will: at least as I predict, because of the sheer quantity disproportionate between the two different groups of people."
---Steven
Just as Ashes is designed as PvX game; not a PvP game... Ashes is also designed for both casuals and hardcores, with the expectation that most players will be some form of casual either casual-challenge or casual-time or both. Casual players will be well-supported... with gear as well as with progression paths designed for those who have only have casual time.
That doesn't mean the devs need to "cater" to casuals to make their gear competitive with the gear hardcores acquire. The devs just need to find the proper balance. Which they will do during testing, regardless of whatever percentages Steven has tossed out prior to testing.
All of that being said, most casuals playing Ashes are not going to be quitting because it will take them longer to acquire the best gear. They will expect that to be the case and take steps to befriend hardcore-time players who can help them acquire excellent gear more quickly than is possible if they try to acquire gear on their own, without help. And they will likely take advantage of systems like the Mentoring system to acquire gear faster. Casuals will likely take advantage of other shortcuts, like Monster Coin Events, rather than relying on farming raids.
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
And that is going to be curbed by Corruption. Not because casuals have to accept defeat over and over again, but because the downsides of Corruption will cause the vast majority of players to not kill non-combatants.
It really has little to do with defeat and everything to do with Corruption.
You simply don't understand the game design.
Stop it. Please.
I never talked about sieges. I talked about guild wars and node wars... Those are events that get declared and then people of opposing guilds and nodes will be able to fight each other freely in the world. Wars don't automatically exclude solo gameplay. Caravans are also open world events and they don't necessarily assume that casuals and hardcore players will group for them. Sometimes they might, but sometimes/often they might not because hardcore players might want other hardcore players to defend their valuable goods. Stop it. please don't tell me that I don't understand game design when you don't even understand that I'm not talking about sieges when I say wars.
Gear disparity in Node wars and guild wars is not significantly different than it is in other forms of combat with mixed groups of casuals and hardcores - especially not Node wars.
You can't assume who will join a caravan battle because anyone can join.
You the one making the HUGE assumption, and...
You don't understand the game design.