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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
If you build a game that is fun and easy to pick up, which includes pvp, you build players toward that knowledge and understanding.
You don't completely "shill" to the PvE only crowd (who are in everyway stubborn and unwilling to adapt) and tarnish the original experience for everyone involved.
A good game that involves PvP (I'm always reluctant to say a 'PvP Game' because there's usually much more involved) will also have good rules and a growth phase, Korean's have for years made PvP involved in their mmo's and included safe zones among other practices like what Ashe's is going to do with corruption, no one, not even hardcore PvP'ers wanted noob areas like the beach a PvP zone, only a low life would want such a thing.
AGS then proceed to just virtue signal "we tested the game and found toxicity in the beaches, therefore we made an opt-in/out system, we respect you!
Yeahhh no. I'm sure the world you live in, the 'groups you encounter', are like this.
Korean MMOs simply 'have people sit in their safe zones for as long as possible' when they're the person I'm talking about. They also generally have such poor owPvP that one literally does not take it seriously when one is attacked and killed.
I'm not talking about the sort of player who 'learns to fight to defend their high level grind spot'. I'm talking about the type of player who 'eventually gets tired of dying on the road a few times in BDO and rerolls to a character that doesn't level past 49 so they can be immune'.
You're a Tekken player, right? So here's the analogy. I'm not talking about 'the people who go to tournaments but lose terribly' or even the 'people who get salty at ranked'. I'm talking about the people who boot up the game to play Story Mode and never fight another living person because it's too stressful for them and the game isn't good enough at teaching you how to FIGHT.
However, it is my opinion that if such a split were to be made today, with a split between PvPMMORPG and PvEMMORPG, one of these would naturally settle on action combat and the other would settle on tab.
This is because we already have the ARPG genre that is basically action combat on PvE taken about as far as I can see action combat on PvE ever being able to go.
However, after a decade playing a game with mechanics and situations like the one I outlined above, hopefully people can start to see why tab target (and PvE in general) can be far more than at least some people ever assumed they could be.
What you call good gear balance others call 'bad gearing system'.
Back to the same problem. For a PvP game to be successful in that way, the effects of 'time spent not explicitly practicing combat skill' end up minimized. Players who come into the game wanting to spend time doing things other than practicing combat skill can be 'forced to endure combat', and with enough unpleasant losses, they tire of this and leave.
The Genre is always hampered by the fact that the sort of person who wants a 'fair fight' (let's define this as a fight in which an opponent can gain a meaningful understanding or skill from the experience) seeks other games FIRST and MMOs SECOND, whereas 'bullies' seek MMOs first and other competitive skill games second. You can predict the effect of this quite easily.
It's just too niche. Especially because it absolutely negates RP.
But, there are other types of MMOs for which PvP-centric action combat should work great.
Ashes is already shifting the MMORPG paradigm in several ways.
I understand that my view of mmos is very skewed because of L2, and on top of that I might be somewhat of a contrarian that just hates everything that's popular - but I just prefer L2's gear system to most other systems I've seen so far.
I guess me and the other L2 bois (not necessarily from this forum) are just bullies that enjoyed L2's pvp system first and foremost and only then went out to try other pvp games and couldn't find more satisfaction there than what we had in L2.
I've played dota 2 for over 1k hours, I've played world of tanks, cod, battlefield, CS, fall guys, rocket league, tried out a few BRs, and know a ton of people who have a similar range of experience in different pvp games - and none of those gave us the same experience as L2's pvp did. We still remember our escapades in L2 after over 7 years of not playing it. We still remember huge pvp fights from different L2 servers, both the ones that we won and the ones where we lost dramatically. We remember rivalries against people whose power lvls matched or outshone ours. Those were all 'fair" pvp fights to us exactly because, even if our enemy had superior gear, we still had a chance at victory and when we managed to achieve that victory - it was all that much sweeter.
And from all those experiences I can remember maybe a few people that complained about power differences between them and their enemies. And even that only happened if the enemy was several tiers of gear higher and maybe even OEd on top of that, where you really couldn't do much against them. But the game allowed you to not interact with those people, go farm up some resources or some weaker mobs, get the money for a bit better gear and get the chance to fight against that more powerful force with better chances. And that was the case exactly because of the gearing system in L2.
Or, at least, that's how I remember those things going down. Maybe my mind is completely clouded by nostalgia or maybe I just had such a unique experience that barely anyone else had (doubt it).
Ashes is already shifting the MMORPG paradigm in several ways.[/quote]
And that is exactly why I'm interested in it (on top of it being "L3").
We can just skip the argument over Tab Vs Action and go straight to VR.
God damnit Dygz.
Pvp-centric mmos, which I'm assuming to mean mmos with a higher pvp focus, are capable of doing just fine. Black Desert Online, Archeage, Lineage, others I'm sure I'm missing. We're talking player counts in the millions between all these games. Tens of millions potentially, when you add them all up. Some of those games have massive problems themselves, and yet have still been successful.
Where pvp-centric mmos get very niche is when they go full hardcore, full loot, with no meaningful checks on pvp. Darkfall, Mortal Online, Ark, Atlas, Albion, and all the many other mmo/survival mmo full loot games. And yet, even those very niche games, in total, have player bases numbering in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Some of them are even on their second, third, and fourth sequels.
Where pvp centric mmos can also run into problems is when they're underfunded, p2w, have major bugs and exploits, and a whole list of other issues.
The key to how successful a game is going to be is simple. You. Have. To. ACTUALLY. Make. A. Good. Game. It literally all comes down to game dev 101. You have to make a good game. Right down to the basics. You have to put thought into it, a little love. You have to be driven to some extent by the idea of MAKING A GOOD GAME, instead of driven solely by the idea of making profit.
Certainly there's a higher ceiling of potential (keyword, POTENTIAL) success if your game caters more to the larger pve market. But whether pve or pvp focused, it remains the same, you have to make a good game. You can go on and on about all the pvp mmos that have failed or had limited success over the years.
What about the list of pve mmos that either died or had very limited success? It's a pretty expansive list itself. All the "WoW killers." All the games where the player base blew through the only content the game had in a couple months and went back to WoW, never to return.
Nikr, stop letting these guys sway you with some of their claims. I see you bending in ways in which you don't have to. Many of their claims are objectively, demonstrably, and provably false.
Witcher 3
Zelda Breath of the Wild
Dragons Dogma
Elden Ring
Smite (Moba)
And last but not least: Spellbreak (Very much a BR "action-spellcaster" but could have been an amazing action combat RPG).
For me at least, this game was a complete success in pushing the boundaries of a "projectile" based combat game that resulted in fast paced and intense PvP. The game did however feel pretty chaotic because of the high level of mobility, APOC felt similar in a lot of ways where the pace of combat was consistently at 110mph with very few dips in intensity. The Developers of Spellbreak created a trajectory arc based aiming system, the projection of some spells is shown by an indicator and would cause aoe damage on impact. Please see below images.
All abilities can be combo'd with other spells. Most spells will leave elemental effects behind such as frozen zones, burning zones, poison zones etc and made for some interesting interactions. I will leave a video below that better shows off the spells and combinations.
Spell combination & trajectory indicator examples -
Now, slightly more off topic, but I have always envisioned a toned down style of Spellbreak combat that would be interesting in an MMORPG, I'm not necessarily saying Ashes, but an MMORPG nonetheless. :
The thought of using a system similar to Spellbreak's but incorporating deeper class mechanics & a variety of abilities has always peaked my interests. Using this trajectory based missile system with ranged classes in an MMO where the spells are able to be aimed whilst on the move, causing splash damage + secondary effects that could be combo'd with other classes. The thought of running into battle and arrows / fireballs raining down on my enemies from my ranged team mates behind me just looks awesome in my head. It's also noted that although Smite is similar in it's approach to combat, however it is no way near as intuitive & fluid as Spellbreak's combat in my opinion, ofcourse they are two entirely different genre's but style of combat is similar.
My thoughts are that spells could be "charged" and then released, e.g certain spells damage would increase based on the length of charge time, therefore encouraging ranged classes to think moreso about positioning and setup to get a clear shot, but they could also get their spells off quickly and reposition by casting the spell earlier in it's "charge", this wouldn't be hugely effective damage but they wouldn't be locked into a cast timer that they are forced to cancel halfway through due to being gap closed. I think this would encourage dynamic combat and spell placement rather than having a pre-determined location or target. Additionally AOE damage would mean that the player didn't have to be 100% accurate to hit, similarly to melee swings or charged melee attacks that are usually based on proximity and "cleave" rather than accuracy.
The spell cycle would go something like this "Press spell > Spell charges > during spell charge player movement is still possible > button is clicked to confirm missile release > right click / dodge / esc to cancel spell charge" The "missile" based spell in these scenarios would have multiple outcomes such as direct hit, AOE damage & zone control but could also combo up, E.G if two direct hits land from a frost spell in the last 5 seconds the target will be frozen in place for 2 seconds. This in combination with cone, frontal & line based "Skill shots" would, in my opinion be very interesting in the MMORPG space.
One thing I think an MMORPG desperately needs when compared with these action games is a variety of meaningful melee barrier spells and ranged zone control spells. What I mean by this is physical blocks, cone & frontal "skill shots" and abilities to disengage effectively, whether that's blocking an opponents path toward you, reflecting spells or telegraphed attacks that allow for counter play. I'm frankly a bit bored of an AOE blizzard or a big slash of my sword, give me abilities like Sejuani's Bola Ulti or Braums Shield.
Now I know this is a completely different genre of game, but seriously lets take LOL for example, the champion Taliyah can wall off parts of the map, lay down large aoe slows & displace her enemies using a dynamically positioned & rotated AOE ability, they have 4 abilities but the pace and dynamic feel, fluidity & polish of the combat is unmatched (Sorry Dota Fans). However, the possibility of outplaying these abilities is always there which is a key part of PvP and "skill expression".
Is it a case that these sorts of combat interactions can't be incorporated into a 3rd Person game, or they simply haven't been successfully incorporated yet? Alas the above is just opinion and take from it what you will ☺️.
Edit: Possibly the direction in which Riot are going with their MMO? Who knows?!
And just as you said, there's been countless mmos that failed for multitude of reasons. Usually it's the basic failures of development, but game design is definitely one of them and having owpvp is a yet another barrier to overcome on top of bad development. And that's why I try to place myself in the shoes of a filthy non-pvp casual and try to find some middle ground that would keep the core idea of owpvp w/o just saying "fuck you" to the casual player.
Again, I don't think there is a definite answer between Tab or Action leading to a good game. I think it's a false choice. We have a long history in the mmo genre showing that well implemented combat is crucial to success, and poorly implemented combat being a detractor (and in some cases a critical defect).
Not sure if I can think of a game with crappy combat that survived the test of time (let's say three years).
So let's not get all tribal about this conversation and focus on what elements of action combat and what elements of tab combat would be most beneficial for Intrepid to implement best for Ashes to be awesome.
"The groups you encounter", look, I have buddies in work who just play games purely for fun and they couldn't give a crap about being more dedicated on it but then they have that one game that they love to a degree that they are a bit annoyed at but they're losers on it. They improve at their own rate, very slowly though...
Devs have a long way to go to come up with ideas to get people involved with the game as a whole for sure, with AoC I hope that the corruption system protects them a lot as it should and they can help out to tackle a violent player when they feel like or actually step into wanting PvP for something they deem worthwhile when they're ready.
You're right tho, BDO's skill gap and people wanting to remain 49....I remember, sucky
Negates RP? ridiculous, PvP is more niche than that? PvP is the most popular gaming experience in the world!
You're narrative is full of holes, every single god damn time. MMO's are, undoubtedly one of the most demanding games, concept wise at least to create!
Look, besides early WoW back in the day where there was barely any online gaming competition in the market, current WoW and 14 managed to collect a decent crowd. That isn't an ultimatum on "this is the best and only way to make an mmorpg", that is a style, it's also really ignorant to ignore what were the real factors that led to alternative MMO's failing...
When Steven has said MANY times himself of Archeage ruining their game by gifting a rare resource (thunderstruck tree) via the cash shop when everyone was happy grafting it.
Are you even capable of a fair perspective Dygz....fuk, more wasted text.
Actually, lemme roll with this, for a bit. Know that I'm not actually 'serious' nor attacking you with the outlandish 'claims' I'm about to make.
Yeah, if you chose an MMO first and would still do that you're more likely to be a 'bully' than not. But here's the thing. I don't think you're necessarily a bully, I think you're 'a person who would remove most of the incentive or capacity to be one, from MMOs'.
You don't have to be a bully within the game, you just have to hold that mindset of 'If I can get good, through my effort, so can anyone else, so the game shouldn't have to be changed for them at all'. You don't seem to hold this view either, but remember that the faster games become, the more mechanically intense they become, and a lot of people don't 'speak that language' in terms of gaming, so those people have years of catching up to do 'mentally'.
So when that person says "I don't know how you manage this, I just can't do it, I wish they'd make it easier/make it so that I could stick to only my own tier of opponent and not have to worry about high level players flattening me'.
If your response is 'Well just practice more and get good, it's more interesting', that's the start of it, and if you find yourself thinking 'you just gotta live with it, it's part of the game, you're too soft', then you're at the 'bully' tier.
I don't think most players hate PvP. I don't think most players hate owPvP, conceptually. I think players hate being victims and/or helpless. The 'bully' response to this is to go 'well you should just try harder, I don't see why you're letting this get to you'.
It's absolutely FINE and technically FAIR to have this response, but it's also 'the response that leads to people leaving the game'. Which is no issue if all you want is to have mechanically-skilled players playing the game until the next iteration thereof. It's just enacting a natural filter that some could argue is supposed to be there. If someone doesn't have the skill+mindset to enjoy a game, it is beneficial to EVERYONE involved if they stop playing that game.
Except the producers of the game.
I agree. As much as I argue from a pro pvp stance on the forums, there's a limit, a threshold, which if reached would see me arguing against certain types and forms of pvp. I absolutely do not want a hardcore gankbox fuckfest of pvp.
If the system in Ashes is done right there should be a certain percentage of "casuals" and pve only types that get shaved off, game just isn't for them. And there should be a percentage of hardcore full loot pvpers who the game just isn't for either, too carebear lol.
There is a "middle ground." But the definition of that middle ground is not going to be the same for everyone. Someone who argues some variation of "pvp mmos were never good, pvp mmos pretty much always fail because of pvp, pvp mmos are a relic of the past, your game will die unless you fully cater to casuals, and on and on with the provably wrong bullshit lines...those people aren't seeking the healthy middle ground for what is, based on what we know now, a pretty pvp focused mmo.
That is just my observation from 25 years of playing mmos. Honestly I don't even know if I'm good at mmo pvp anymore. I'm 40 years old. Last mmo pvp I did for any significant amount of time was ESO like 7 or 8 years ago.
Maybe I should switch sides haha
And this is fine, I just don't know if an MMO can support this style of thing, because MMOs (with actual gear and enemy strength/challenge tiers in them) allow other people to get stronger than you and DENY YOU STUFF, including the game experience itself, while you are improving more slowly than they are. In some cases they can deny you improvement itself.
This is why Action Combat and Open World PvP are a 'problem' for certain player types. I absolutely believe that players who are willing to play games they constantly lose at, exist. But a game where someone can take up your time, while you know that you have NO chance of beating them, and take away your access to stuff?
Not even your actual stuff in your inventory, literally just your access to other stuff for your desired experience, is something that can happen. If you log into Ashes and you decide 'I want to fish', and the stronger player next to you goes 'nope sorry this entire beach is my spot go somewhere else', EVEN if Corruption happens to them for chasing you off, you still didn't get to fish. The other player's skill dictates whether or not you get to play a part of the game you enjoy. If you don't enjoy the other player AS the challenge (which is entirely possible in an MMO, even bad matchmaking in MOBAs leads to this), and you don't get to enjoy the other content you wanted to enjoy, you might just log off.
Since people don't all have the immediate reaction of 'I should practice my PvP' as a response to 'being chased off their fishing spot when they have only an hour to play that night', some of them don't keep playing the game. There are multiple reactions one could have, many of which don't involve you personally fighting the person at all, which is where I hope Ashes goes, but at the end of the day if you can't win a fight in an owPvP game you 'become a second class citizen' temporarily, and until games start to incentivize 'fighting anyway because it is fun even if you aren't that good at it', this will stay so. It isn't enough to 'discourage people from fighting those who don't want to fight back', because this doesn't change the reaction of people I'm talking about, it just delays it.
Any game that punishes the 'stronger player on the beach' from pushing the other off the beach, isn't really owPvP at all, imo.
EDIT: Actually now, I have a question? What game type? Because I was assuming you meant PvP MMOs.
And as far as I think, none of those suggestions go against the core principle of "risk vs reward" or remove pvp from the game, or remove material scarcity, or interrupt the hierarchy of "people who play more have more" that quite a few people on this forum dearly hold onto. Now obviously I might've missed smth or left a potential exploit in my ideas, but that's what happens to any untested and unchecked designs.
All that's to say "I believe that we can appeal to both sides of this issue w/o completely shutting either of sides off or removing some mechanics that one of the sides prefers".
And when it comes to mechanically weaker players going against superhumans that have 1k apm, I've always supported tab target and a properly balanced gear exactly because both of those things help mechanically weaker people win in pvp (or at least have a better chance at doing so). Even back in mid 00s, I've played with dudes, who were way over 40, who could kick butt and lead other people while they were at it. They knew their class' potential, they knew other classes' abilities and used that knowledge to their absolute benefit. And they could teach that knowledge to anyone else in their group/guild/alliance, which they did quite often (specifically to me too). None of it was bullyish "you either get this or you're fucked", none of it was "get the fuck out of our super elite guild until you learn this on your own" and none of it was on some artificial timer at the end of which you'd have to be the apex predator of the server.
But as you've said, games have indeed become quite a bit faster, but you know what also changed? Information availability. If back then I had to talk to that older dude to get some real knowledge about the game, then now he could just point me towards a few info sources and I could learn at my own pace on my own time. So the only problem, when it comes to game speed, is the people yelling at you "TO BE FUCKING FASTER, YOU TURTLEFUCK". But I believe that we could solve that issue by just ostracizing people like that from our community.
And afaik FF14 community has this to some extent. They let newbies watch cinematics for their first time w/o yelling at them to pick up the pace. They're friendlier to those who might not know some boss mechanics during raids. And the overall in-game community is just friendlier to each other's interests (or at least they act friendly).
Now obviously that might be because FF14 is barely competitive (outside of world first runs), but even in my L2 experience, I've always shunned dickbags in any of the guilds I was a part of and promoted friendliness towards our enemies as much as our members, when I was a leader. And if there was some conflict within the guild, I'd either take blame onto myself and made the conflicting people calm down, or I'd kick the person who was being a big ol' dick about the situation, making them an example of what not to do and what not to be in my guild. And I'd say it worked out quite nicely.
In other words, if everyone cleans up around themselves - the whole world will be cleaner.
I'll note (mostly for others who might not be reading through my long posts) that I'm not opposed to ANYTHING Intrepid wants to do except the whole 'no innate incentives for actually learning PvP mindsets' bit, which isn't even assured.
That said.
In order for Action Combat to be understandable to the majority, it must be slow.
If it is slow, it is barely meaningfully different from most 'Tab Target' combat except if you design it a specific way. I therefore see no difference either.
If one wants the game to be faster, it's a rush for people like me, and an unending slog for some people I know. They try, believe me, but it just does NOT work out for them. Therefore, if Ashes aims for 'slow and simple' as a way to 'cap' the skill ceiling for the absolute maniacs out there that see things in literal Frames Per Second and onscreen distances by the quadpixel, I will not get that rush, but I will think that the overall outcome was better.
Everyone's definition of 'awesome' will be different. But we can get a reasonable lower bound for 'playable'.
Anything pushing the limits of human reaction time (not aim) is effectively a Fighting Game (capitalized for Genre reference), and anything below that isn't 'Action enough' for some people, but that level, where it 'isn't Action enough' is the point where the industry mostly already knows what to do, so we don't even need to discuss it. Convergent evolution alone should handle it.
"Everything is just Breath Of The Wild with extra steps."
Higher PvP focus than what?
I don't have anything additional to say, relative to that line, so I'mma get back out of the way and let NishUK and whoever else discuss stuff.
Sorry, higher than average, higher than the pve focus, in as much as that is measurable. Take your pick. Generally just games with a very pronounced pvp emphasis is what I meant.
Lineage II seems to be PvX, rather than PvP-centric. A PvP-centric game would not have a Karma system.
So clearly, we don't have the same concept of PvP-centric MMORPG.
It was pleasing to hear that some of the designers were - in fact - part of the SWG team, including the former lead designer for Ashes, Jeffrey Bard. In addition to an amazingly in-depth and long-term-based crafting system, EVERY item in Star Wars: Galaxies had some kind of a use. Even the junk loot from trash mobs could be Reverse Engineered into sub-components for things like +Stat modifications.
SWG's PvP was quite the subjective experience. Group PvP tended to operate around specific POI's, such as the bombed-out ruins of the former NPC city of Restuss for PvP reward-tokens, there were PvP-only player bases, and later GCW City Sieges, featuring a 30-minute build-phase, followed by a 30-minute battle-phase. Hitting the Defensive main objective would give you a warning, then open you up to PvP, and the sieges offered their own rewards. Balance was an issue in 1v1, as only certain professions could match eachother - such as Jedi and Bounty Hunter.
But group PvP?
It was just a factor of sheer numbers - and you could always tell when the numbers were even/un-even, as this happened in giant swarms of players. The only area wherein personal skill really shone through was Space PvP, and I haven't seen a space combat flight sim to match it.
Tried Lineage 2 within the last couple of months. Can't speak to L2's PvP, as I couldn't stand the click-to-move interface, after only a couple of hours of playing.
Yeah I don't have a firm grasp of what pvp-centric even means.
Centric - in or at the center; central.
So what does that mean? Pvp is at the center, or the central part of the game? What's your definition of it? And what games are pvp centric?
All in all, I'd definitely say L2 was pvp-centric, even if most of the pvp happened around mobs. And Steven's trying to bring Ashes closer to the middle of the PvX spectrum, with all the super difficult bosses and artisan professions.
Shadowbane's tag line was "Play to Crush".
New World is not an MMORPG, but the devs made it clear that their primary design was focused on PvP. By Beta, they made it so that you have to opt-in to PvP. Since, it's easy to play New World while completely avoiding PvP, it's no longer PvP-centric.
If there is a Karma system, the game is probably not PvP-centric. If you can play the game and only rarely get ganked - which is what Steven describes - that is probably a PvX game. So, Lineage II seems to be more PvX than PvP-centric.
Wiki's can be edited, so, I'd still have to look through some other sources, but the wiki mentions PvE combat first and then says, "Players can also fight other players through a PvP system."