Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
But that's not a completely valid argument either, that's just 'the ability to prevent your Artisan from getting PKed at World Bosses'. Meaningful, but not overwhelming since if owPvP is gone, you can't have that issue anyway. Basically, this only applies to high level gatherers. But 'low level gatherers' who just want to 'play to relax' are exactly the sort of people that make easy targets, so to them, 'preventing them from being able to relax and enjoy the game so that some top level player can be subject to being killed by a different top level player'... what benefit is that? Again, I would use gathering as my big argument point, if it were up to me, but I wouldn't count on it, because it's so much easier to solve this by putting high level gatherables behind strong mobs.
Everything that can be viewed as an 'exploit' can also be viewed as a perfectly legitimate and often 'expected option' from the casual player, which is the problem.
And in case you forgot, Freeholds are safe zones as of last check. You can do this now if you have people willing to just bring the resources to you. That's why I say that there are a lot of oddly contradictory offerings here. There are so many ways to avoid PvP 'problems' now for those who aim to do so, that only fail to help the exact people who would be complaining, that changing it is just 'extending an olive branch to those people'.
As I said, I need to recheck some systems, it's just that we've never seemingly got this far before in this sort of discussion (that I've seen) because these always devolve into what we were heading for a page or two ago, long before they get to the point of 'wait does this even work?'
I'll just leave this here from community moderator Vaknar (posted on June 21 , https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/52674/gradual-transition-zones-pve-to-pvp#latest).
"Certainly a hotly debated topic in the community..
My hope is that when Alpha Two releases, players who aren't familiar with or perhaps not overly enthusiastic about true open-world PvPvE / PvX will see how it works and perhaps better understand what makes it fun. It certainly isn't for everyone. I think that some people will be surprised with how well it can work, though!
Perhaps some of you can share interesting or fun open-world PvP stories for those who are hesitant about the feature? ^_^"
You're saying "your stance" like as if this was exclusive to me. This is literally the game's vision, and you are arguing with people on what the game should be. This is not just my stance, this is Steven's and the team's stance who are working on the game.
And i would massacre you in Shadowbane lmao, I would massacre your whole guild by myself in BDO.
All i hear from you is you play old dead mmorpgs. I played old ones and then moved onto new ones. PvPing in a dead mmo means nothing years down the line even more so. I played new world at its peak before I stopped like every other mmorpg. Funny thing is new world has had way more players then your mmorpg don't get it twisted bud. Only big mmorpg that was relevant with a ton of players was WoW.
If you read all of my comments you would have seen that I don't want it. I was saying that I don't care if they make them or not...
Some people sound offended that anyone even says they would enjoy a PvE servers, and I'm saying I wouldn't be bothered by it... Because making a separate PvE server that I wouldn't play on isn't going to effect me playing on a PvX servers at all.
So I was trying to figure out why people cared... Most answers were meaningless fluff
If you can't see how Steven would have a truly good reason to deny that suggestion...I don't even know what to say really. That suggestion would be pretty game breaking.
Level 35, un guilded, un noded alts would be in style like never before.
Haha scary scary
Let me take your word on that and say: Thanks God Steven's main inspirations for Ashes is L2 and AA and not Shadowbane and BDO!
Funny thing is A single Lineage 2 server would hold ~5K players back in 2003 and a NW server is barely able to hold 2K in 2021!
Aren't we all sinners?
What do you mean "that makes this kind of system truly required"... the point is fun, and that they have their vision and plans... or is that not something that we should focus on anymore? The team wants this game to have that true MMO feeling where people interact with each other in the open world, and PvP is just as much of a part of that immersive world as PvE. That's why the game is identified as "PvX", and majority of the content will be in open world (even PvE).
I'm surprised this has to be explained, I always assume people know what they are talking about when they engage in conversations such as game design, balance changes, etc. But this is clearly not the case when it comes to some of these people. If you think PvP can be restricted like this without completely undermining like half the systems in the game you are part of the people who are not very familiar with how the game is going work.
Yes, so I ask... why?
At this point, (and note, I AGREE) you're saying 'I would rather that people who would make these types of characters be forced to fight instead even though they don't want to, or leave'.
This is fine. What I want is beyond that. I want them to want to fight. I want them to want to learn to fight. I want Ashes to be the game that teaches some of those players 'PvP is fun'. But let's assume that for right now, nothing is implemented to make that aspect more likely.
From the other side, you're saying something interestingly different by default. "The point of owPvP is to make it so that a level 34 gathering can just be killed whenever in order to maintain some form of economic/power balance."
Again, I agree. But you can probably see why, especially when talking to someone who isn't as interested in this prospect, the only reactions we've managed to come up with, as a community, basically so far, are:
"Ashes might not be for you."
and
"There will be winners and losers."
Most people who come in here asking for PvE are not JUST going 'I don't want to fight', they're scared that the greatest game they've seen proposed in years might die/be super niche because it unapologetically contains a mechanic that is now a strong negative for the dwindling MMO population (and yes I have data for this but it's not massaged because you can't be SURE about everyone, sentiment is a score).
We haven't offered a single actual backing to 'Well try it maybe you'll like it'. Now, that's not on us, we can't do that yet because we haven't seen the combat/escape options. But focusing on what I'm saying here, if you tell people 'You still have to learn to fight in order to defend your node, to defend your guild, to move your goods around', some will go 'I will play but not do any of that' and some will go 'I will learn to do that later when I've become comfortable with the game'.
If our only answer to someone that asks 'Well what if Azherae's gang decides to just murder me while gathering when I haven't made any strong friends yet', is 'Someone will punish them' or 'well you should make friends faster', I see this being about as effective as New World's Alpha.
You don't think there's a massive number of crazy sadists out there who will pay $15 a month (maybe just ONCE even) just to kill newbies and laugh about it? Or are we expecting the newbies to not only run the gauntlet/join late but also become consistent fodder for all those sadists who now have lots of PvP practice?
The only thing protecting the Hardcore PvP MMOs from this sort of thing is that those people are often actually weak players who get bored once they've chased off all their prey and everyone left is an actual fight, then they leave too and the only remaining people are people like us.
The thing I want is for Intrepid to make the game so that only the most PvE person possible even thinks "I'll just stay here at level 34, I don't want to learn to fight." I want everyone else to go 'ok I think I know how to do this, time to level to 36 and give it a try'. If that's not achievable, then I don't have much reason to have faith in the vision of this game anyway.
There's battlegrounds PvP associated with Castle Sieges at least once per week for each of the 5 Castles.
Steven wants Guild Wars to be objective-based, but I would expect Guild Wars to be rare on a "PvE Server". Yes.
I think the "sand" part will still be fairly substantial, but RP and cooperation, working together to progress the world in specific directions, will be more prevalent.
Rather than progressing the world via competitiveness and conflict motivated by a love for PvP combat.
Meaningless fluff? That was my line. The whole conversation is meaningless, especially when you keep focusing on this imaginary scenario that people are offended by pve servers. We just dont want the devs to waste time and money on a side project when there are things like expansions that always need that.
Are you still trying to figure it out?
They are trying to bring back the old mmo designs.
If money and wallets were the concern, an mmo would not be the investment of choice.
Actually a different take on this.
"That suggestion would be pretty game-breaking."
What is 'the game' it is breaking? I will definitely give you gathering, as noted before, this is our strongest argument right now.
What else is it 'breaking'? Because the only thing I see is 'other people are supposed to be able to kill you'. The underlying reason for this is still unclear (again, I'm giving the Gathering point). Why EXACTLY are other people supposed to be able to kill you? Why is that 'the game' other than the fact that 'Steven said so' and 'us PvP-ers want people to fight'?
That number isn't important, it depends on the mass of the land and player expectation to fill it at the end of the day. So depending on the map size and player count would be a better judge. Also player number for live players is irrelevant, all that matters is you win and become the top guild and beat your competition.
Any idea can only become its best self after you've tried any and all ways to counter it and it still stands up as a good idea. The only reason I'm even interested in Ashes is exactly because it has this pvp system across all lvls. But at its core, even L2's system existed just because it did. And I personally loved it. And I know several thousand people that did so as well. But you know what I also know? That millions of people loved when there was no pvp. And if Ashes wants to be successful, it gotta find a way to be appealing to people who might not be as ok with pvp, while not sacrificing the pvp entirely. And knowing/understanding the real root of the pvp design might give us a good clue as to how we can appeal to the pvp-dislikers w/o removing pvp completely.
Just saying "it's there cause I wanted so" doesn't help us, no matter how much I'd love it to.
Do tell!!
Go away. I saw you saying how you "like it when mobs have a leash. It means I can choose when to disengage from pve".
You got nothing of value to say.
If you cant fight off other players from materials or bosses it means that the game will provide progress activities through npc gameplay and dailies, daily vendors daily currencies, instanced gear farming and battlegrounds to "itCh yOur Pvp SCratch".
Not what Ahes plans to be. Why even ask such a question, both you and the other one?
Just because its a good bunch of resources doesn't mean you will be attacked. Mainly based off the consequences, if it was something extremely rare that doesn't spawn often maybe there be a higher chance they attack if they see you. I don't think this will be a common thing mainly because of how often one will be gather resources for, you are taking corruption hits for resources that often all the time. In the end you would just lose far more then gain. Its not a realistic situation.
A more fitting situation would be you see a guild doing something and dec, and the guild dec takes 15 minutes to go through or such. Giving you some leeway and warning.
I think you're almost getting it now, so I'll springboard off you.
We got to 'well people will just have Alts you can't attack'.
But we also have 'The Corruption system will deter attacking'.
Why wouldn't you just make an Alt that is much lower level and go with a friend? The Alt gathers the materials, or holds them. If you the 'rival' kill this low level Alt to get the mats... now you are red. Very red.
There is no situation I can see in which you 'get very red for killing lowbies' to the point where you should think twice about doing it, AND where other people won't use low level Bait Alts to gather with since Artisanship isn't part of level.
I'm taking bets on how long it takes before we see such a character named Karmabomb.
With what skills will the low alt manage to gather high resources? How will the low lv player fight nearby agro mobs? What stops players from killing the low lv alts protective group of decent players? Why would a high lv player be near low lv resources?
You do understand that Artisan skill is completely unrelated to Adventuring level, right?
You can be a level 1 Master Gatherer in this game.
How will a low lv gatherer reach an area with good resources before dying to mobs?
Genuinely sorry here, George, I didn't realize you had jumped in at the spot you did.
The hypothetical, if you care, was 'what if PvP only starts at level 35' (or some arbitrary lower level than that). The problem posed was 'we'll see a bunch of guildless level 35 alts'. Presumably because they could just not be PvPed while doing... something of importance, I assume gathering, but could also just be 'healing someone randomly'.
My point was 'if you are worried about level 35 alts being unattackable, why aren't you worried about level 10 Alts who you don't want to attack because Corruption?'
Just ignore me if you don't care about this.
The protective group can be PKed as I said alrdy in the previous post. Not a good answer.
I am still waiting to see where this new ridiculous scenario of a lv 1 Mastergatherer who can potentially be wealthy, avoiding all pvp in Ashes of Creation is going to go. I am still waiting, since the post that started this new rabbithole of weak arguements for the sake of arguing ("why is it gamebreaking to not be able to attack?")
Honestly its kind of vague on the wiki as to what they mean by progression between leveling class and leveling artisan skills not having a correlation. That being said, having a level 1 character gathering high tier materials efficiently is kind of a laughable concept even if that is possible. According to the wiki, the amount of time it will take to get to that level of artisan skill even as a max level player will take a ton of time and resources, so that would be even more so for a low level alt.
And I will put this here as an easy fix to prevent that... Make both crafting levels, and class levels count towards the amount of corruption a character gives. If they are level 1, but have mastered an artisan skill. Treat them as a max level character in regards to how much corruption they give after being killed. Simple fix.