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
Hm? No, their system works. Or should I say 'my system works' and I just assume it's the same?
This is a problem that is pretty common and I think the solution is known, which is another reason for my constant ragging on games like BDO. (basically, HOW did you fail this, you could literally 'read a guide for it').
Tier 1 is instanced and drops materials for armor. In Ashes, this armor would grant probably elemental or status defenses. Lots of people need armor. Very similar or exact same armor. Economy works, repairs work because lots of people run it, interesting mechanics, and since it can just be sold and isn't likely to be hoarded, it doesn't matter as much if you can't arrange to clear the T1, you can gear up experienced players with just money.
Tier 2 is Open World, usually kills anyone without Armor from Tier1. There are 8-10x as many of these bosses as there are T1 Instanced bosses. They drop materials for WEAPONS and accessories, more targeted things that help specific Archetypes or builds. Players can target them and fight over them, but because they're spread out, this doesn't have to happen as much. Eventually a guild has all the 'Zavira's Fang' or whatever they need for their Spears, and either sell them or stop farming it so they can move on to farming something to make some other weapon.
Tier 3 is back to Instanced, funneled in again, DPS and Mechanic Check heavy, you have to have T2 Weapons to clear it, or really good understanding of mechanics, otherwise you're stuck with trickle-down from whatever guilds can clear it. Drops materials for better armor/upgrades to current armor, to allow you to pass the T4 Mitigation checks. Again, you COULD just buy this off someone who can clear it, but that doesn't mean anything, your defense is better, but if you want better offense you still have to contest the T4 in Open World.
Rinse and repeat until you're out of valid Mitigation Boosts.
Result:
15-20 Instanced content across the "Odd Number Tiers".
70-80 OW content across the 'Even Number Tiers' that you can't survive being near for too long without the gear from the Odd Number Tiers.
No direct wastes of time, you can just let the Odd Number Tiers drop MORE of the material when you're strong and quickly killing them. No downside to 'flooding the market with stronger armor' once people are past the general tier. If anything it's required, the more people HAVE the T3 Armor, the more 'T3 materials' the economy needs. Crafters rejoice. OW bosses work better because they're Mitigation Checks instead of DPS checks (which obv you can just throw more people at).
I really don't expect Intrepid to have any problems implementing something at least similar.
To me, this sounds like competition over PvE
It may not be competition everyone is involved in, but what is?
In my experience, there are usually 5 or so guilds attempting top end server firsts, and perhaps 5 or so servers in lost games where they are also competing for world firsts.
As such, there is scope for around 300 people per server to be actively involved in this PvE competition - but that is just for the top end PvE content. There is also competition in regards to solo and group content, harvesting, crafting, you name it.
While I appreciate that this isnt a competition you are involved in, the issue I have is with your false assertion that there is no competition here.
This is so false that even just the claim of it is astounding.
Instanced content is not repeatable (at least rn) so you'd either have to give out waaaaay more gear per run than the raid required to clear the dungeon, or you'd make the dungeon easy enough for everyone to clear (which kinda defeats the point of instanced content being more complex).
But even if you give a ton of gear per Odd dungeon, how much is truly "a ton"? Cause theoretically only some % of guilds would be able to beat said dungeon, while, again theoretically, you'd want everyone on the server to get that gear, but w/o repeatability of instanced dungeons you'd pretty much prevent most of the casuals from ever having that gear, let alone fighting against Even bosses. And this would be an even bigger problem if Intrepid does manage to have 50k players on some servers.
I could maybe see "recipes as rewards" working out for this kind of system, but definitely not direct gear/mats.
No, that's the point. It's not required that the T2 never drop T1 materials.
You start with 1000 players, they all want, idk... SerpentScale armor.
They all have access to either 'An instanced boss quest that rewards materials or the armor itself'. With that armor, they can now 'not die against some other thing'.
If it isn't repeatable (once cleared), then every time someone clears it, they have 'passed the filter'. You can also pass the filter via money, but that required EITHER 'someone higher than you on the ladder sold you their old gear' or 'someone equal to you on the ladder chose to stop climbing it'.
Also if Instanced content is not repeatable 'per character' people will just make Alts, I figure they meant moreso that you can't 'just re-enter whenever'. Weekly or 3-day time gate.
So 80% of players have the skill to clear The Serpent, and this results in say, 500 of them having good enough gear to not die while in combat with The Eagle. They don't even have to wear it all the time.
Anyways short version is that now you know you've got 500 players of whom many managed to deal with The Serpent, and you can throw them at The Factory (T3) with all its crazy mechanics. Filter restarts.
There's multiple reasons why I'd assume 'not repeatable' isn't as strict as that. What happens when a guild has cleared it and then a new member joins who 'needs to clear it', for example? Presumably they need to be able to take a bunch of members who have cleared it before. If that's what it means, then I'll be interested to see what they do, because the weird outcomes of 'yeah you need OW bosses to gear up Defense'...
Well, let's just say that I know another game that tried that...
What are you talking about?
Clearly I won by making the 2^10th post.
Mega.
EDIT: Ah no, I missed it, OTR wasted the MegaPost on noting that we were at the PenultiMegaPost.
Shame.
If that's what it means, then I'll be interested to see what they do, because the weird outcomes of 'yeah you need OW bosses to gear up Defense'...
Well, let's just say that I know another game that tried that...[/quote]
I mean, I played a game like that for 12 years
I understand that this is not the experience of the predominant mmo gamer population (with wow/ff14 being the largest mmos to date and pretty much giving out their best gear through instances), but it can be done in a good way w/o relying on instances. Especially considering that Intrepid could look at what was good in L2 and what was bad in BDO and find the golden middle between them.
To be clear, I don't know why Ashes has any instanced Content.
I'd assume it was either 'to be challenging while not allowing players to just overwhelm the DPS check' (in which case I'd expect it to be at the top end') or 'just to give casual players some proper challenge' (in which case, the low end).
OW bosses NEED the Mitigation check though.
BDO's last update on Console (2 days ago) put a new drop that everyone is going to want for an event, on one of their World bosses (which for some reason share health across all 'servers').
Today I logged on to check the aforementioned Frame Data, saw the spawn message at the usual time, and saw the death message 2 minutes later (normally at least a 20m kill with the current game population on a weeknight).
I had to check if my clock was off (I hadn't checked the update). After that little doubletake it took me about 30 seconds to go 'FFS what did you all make Nouver drop THIS time?'
Surely enough...
Nouver FUNCTIONALLY has no Mitigation check. If you are good enough you can fight it in gathering gear (I sometimes forget to switch mine out). And so, DPS reigns and it can just be deleted. This outcome is exponential.
Don't make your OW bosses DPS checks, kids, not even in competitive owPvP games (this does not apply to BDO, World Bosses turn the entire server into a no-conflict zone or something, temporarily).
Having some boss talk about lore at you while there's hundreds of people running around yelling shit in chat (or god forbid VC) would take you right out the immersion. Same would go for just having any kind of bosses related to the story. You'd have to either put the boss on a 1 min timer to let anyone clear the story when they get to it, or make it unkillable in some way so that people wouldn't get stuck on this boss during their story quest.
In my opinion, the two playstyles should be so closely linked in AoC that you really need to actively use both (!). That would be great!
it is not .4% You are talking about killing a boss first between the people on the server and the amount of content present as well as future guild that will aim towards the top a well. Again nits not competitive it is who has the bigger guild and more time on their hands to not work.
PvE is not competitive wearing a fake badge saying you did something first doesn't mean anything. Fighting players is competitive, just because you have a mind set to make something competitive doesn't mean it is you simply are, and simply have more time on your hands. Same way if you walk up to a lowbie in PvP and one shot them and camp them at spawn that isn't competitive either. Not going to have a whole argument on all the aspects that make PvE not competitive, it is not a normal experience for that to be so.
I think you guys need to keep your copium in check and not over think expectations.
1. How much of story will take of instanced content in the game
2. Remember the world size amount of nodes and spawns of enemies and the work required to make everything. If you do things unique and don't want things feeling generic it is an extreme amount of work with this world size.
LMAO
I think you should take your own advice LMFAO.
How do u think tabcombat works...? If you look at your actionbars instead of your enemie you are already dead. By your writing I understand that you have not a single idea about how fast paste tab target gameplay is. You have to keep track of every buff, debuff, animation and cooldowns of all participants at all times.
What kind of tab games did you play in the past...?
Thats exactly why action combat can never have an advantage over tab combat. Because everybody that has ever played a single competitive tab pvp match knows about the skill and the speed that is needed and only a fool would say, that adding an aiming funtion to all attacks will not sets the skillbar way to high...
Tell me you haven't played action combat without playing action combat..... I've already given my list, I've been playing mmorpgs since EQ. You are mixing up fast pace with easier. Animations in tab target lmfao you que your skills you don't worry about animations they don't effect if you are hit or not.
Debuffs, buffs and cooldowns exist in all games especially the mmorpg genre, you saying this is tab is telling me you do NOT playing action based mmorpgs and refuse to be open about trying and understanding different kinds of mmorpg. You are in a bubble.
Speed in tab is overexaggerating its not fast, it is slower so people have more time to focus on min maxing their debuffs and having time to look at these other elements. While if you are playing action you have to know it off feel and skill use as your focus is literarily tracking, positioning, countering their movement, dodging, etc.
Forever you will bring up elements in tab target mmorpgs as a point and it will just look silly since those exist not just in action combat but a ton of other games as well. I literately could bring up outriders having all of those as well lmao
I'm busier today and don't have time to discuss things with you, so if you make claims like this, there will probably be more responses, and then you will get tired for no benefit.
Action combat is way more advanced and needs more skill ... if you really think its skillfull to rotate through your abilitys im sorry but it isnt.
Mostly it ends in pushing your buttons in the same pattern everytime ... 8,4,6,2,1 ... 8,4,6,2,1 ...
And that comes from someone who played a freaking lot of MMO's since 1998.
i mean tab targeting pvp mostly works without looking at the screen ...
When WoW came out it was okay ... but in todays time it would be boring af.
Just as max level Adventurer is not synonymous with endgame.
That said, how about we look back at EQ2.
The games open world raid encounters were labeled - by the developers - as 'contested raid encounters'. The first raid to arrive with enough players and successfully kill said encounter gets the rewards.
Since these encounters had actual competition over them (there would often be 5+ guilds attempting them), and since literally every item they dropped was best in slot, and ALSO since they were added to the game in order to be a form of competition, you cant say there is no PvE competition in MMO's.
Unless you want to say the developer of that game - a number of whom are making this game - dont know English well enough to properly label their own content.
However, I doubt you are literarily diluted enough to make that claim of anyone else.
Then you could look at games that have dungeon leaderboards.
Again, you are welcome to say you haven't participated in competitive PvE. No one would doubt this. What you cant really say though, is that there is no competitive PvE. Not without being outright, objectively wrong.
He likes his fake badge saying hes killed alot, when he could just be ganking lowbies...... but i mean. At least thats competitive right? Unlike pve, which is just busy work. Obviously.... i hope the sarcasm comes through.
PvE is not competitive it doesn't matter how you try to swing it in your mind or trying to create some scenario where it is to you, manipulate the conversation in attempt to make me say something about other people, you are fighting AI.
Combat is on a spectrum from spasm inducing spamfests to 1-ability every 3 second snoozefests.
There is many aspects (targeting, pacing, active vs. passive counterplay + many more) to combat that need to be compared individually rather than going with the above mentioned tropes, which someone (in my opinion) would only use to argue in bad faith / undermine the opinion of the discussion partner through overexaggerations.
With this mindset, you dont need leaderboards, or rankings in pvp either. Because the pvp itself is the competition. No point in recording stats as recording stats is obviously not competitive.
Look back at old school arcade machines where you would put your initials in if you got a high score. There was a lot of competition there.
Or you could look at what is easily the most competitive aspect of gaming today - speedrunning.
At this point, the number of examples of player vs AI I have given you where there is competition between players, you literally have to be willfully not wanting to understand in order to, well, not understand.
Nonono. Everything that isn't pitting people against each other isn't competitive. Even in sports...
Don't you know that racing, climbing, swimming, skiing... aren't competitive sports? Only sports like Tennis, Boxing, Chess etc. can be competitive
The billions of people following other sports are simply wrong and would be better off looking for real competition @Noaani
/s
Oh yeah, swimming is, after all, just player vs water.