Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Joke aside, just considering the size of the oceans, crossing them will probably be as risky as anywhere else in the world, maybe less so from players in fact, and more from deep sea monsters.
Freeholds and housing can be destroyed.
From the wiki:
Safe zones
Players cannot PvP while inside (the footprint of)[180] a freehold (except following a successful node siege).[181][182]
Players are not able to be attacked or robbed while occupying their player stall inside the limits of a node.[183]
Player stalls
Players are not able to be attacked or robbed while occupying a player stall.[183]
Player stalls may not be renewed during a siege declaration.[183]
Freeholds, Housing, Player Stalls... those aren't really zones, but...OK.
Thats what i meant when i said, that people only heard what they wanted to hear.
You really think PvErs (that do not want to fight back) will do any type of contested open world content? Raidbosses, Worldbosses, Dungeon Bosses or whatever?
Maybe its time for reality to crash the party, but the corruption system wont do jackshit in protecting people in their venture to do PvE Content. PvPers that want to keep you away from these hunting ground/boss fights/materials wont need to incur any corruption to prevent you from doing these things either.
They can just flag up and keep stunning you, keep knocking you to the last health bar threshold (20-33%?). Keep interrupting you when you try to mine an ore or skin a monster. Neither of which will incur corruption.
Contesting this critical resources was always part of the game and corruption was never meant to stop people from contesting them. In the ocean, it just became a little less roundabout.
P.S. this is coming from the perspective of someone who is primarily a pve-player / Artisan.
That has been both my focus in Eve, in Archeage and pretty much every other game that allowed me to be focusing on those things.
Im just not blind enough to think, that i will be able to do my preferred content without either dabbling in PvP myself when necessary or for that matter join a community with pvp interested players to have a quit-pro-quo.
Corruption has always been meant to stop griefing (inhibiting the fun of others without benefit of your own), not contesting vital resources and its necessary, because you will automatically have a strong mixture of players, that will end up in the weaker ones being griefed.
All that change tells me, is that they want to place a strong emphasis on contesting for the content they plan to place in the open sea.
Steven, himself, stated that this is an important change.
"Another important change that has occurred is now an automatic flagged location. We have a flagging system that protects and the Open Seas are international waters where you need to be careful."
---Steven
I am certainly over being risk averse.
What changed is there is no Corruption to act as a deterrent for unwanted PvP combat.
Steven literally says that on land, "We have a flagging system that protects..."
Corruption does not prevent the random "bump into" PvP encounter - it deters PKing people who are not interested in PvP combat by punishing the PKers with 4x the normal death penalty.
That is the somewhat acceptable compromise for me playing an MMORPG with no PvE-Only server.
The other change is that everyone in the Open Seas is a Combatant rather than a Non-Combatant by default.
I'm not going to play a game where I auto-flag to Combatant just because I want to explore an area.
I would not be playing Ashes if the entire world started everyone as a Combatant.
And I would not be playing Ashes if the entire world had no Corruption.
I don't play games where I have to play on a server that has zones that are 24/7, auto-flag Combatant, free-for-all PvP combat.
Ashes didn't have that before. It has that now. That's the change.
Opt-in, PvP combat with Corruption where all players are Non-Combatants by default is an acceptable compromise for me to play on the same server as a PvPers.
Including zones with auto-flagging to Combatant and no Corruption mechanic just to explore and adventure in the area is a deal-breaker for me.
Most you can say is for transporting gods, maybe some monster hunting and bosses there, and underwater dungeons for when you resurface with your loot. If you aren't a fan of potential risk of pvp just don't spend as much time on the water. That could be 5-10% of gameplay you are cutting down 2.5-5% of your time. And they will have safe methods of travel.
People out here thinking AoC is going to be sea of thieves and they will be spending their lives on the ocean and not only a fraction of it. Some people more into pvp of course will spend more time depending on the content tat is available and if it is to their liking.
Who are you responding to? 90% of what you wrote is unrelated to my point.
Are you responding to other people that live rent-free in your brain?
You argued about PvX, about "pvp free zone... that is going to take away all the pvp/pk action from the mainland.." and other nonsense.. Are you in the wrong thread?
The only relevant argument you had to my initial point of 'inconsistent logic about the corruption system' is that it might be hard to implement and that's why they don't want it in the open sea. First of all, this was not mentioned in the stream and second this argument falls apart, since Steven mentioned that the corruption system will be active in coastal waters, which will have also ship battles.
So, again, in some cases the corruption system is presented as helpful for the risk-vs-reward philosophy and is some as an obstacle to the same philosophy. You have said nothing that convincingly counters that.
This was not a thread about PvX, or if you like auto-flagging or not.. this thread is about the inconsistency in logic on what Steven said (not what you imagined he meant).
Please, next time gather your thoughts and try to focus on the point, not the points you think you have arguments that you 'can win'.
This was meant to discuss the specific point I mentioned in relation to the corruption system and how it is presented as having different effect for different content.
Yes. I can be PKed on land - and there is a punisment for that - a punishment that does not exist on the Open Seas. In addition the default is a flagged state that indicates I'm in the mood to be a Combatant - when I'm probably not.
PvP Brain addles your logic. Yes.
There would be a lot of issues like:
1. Do damaging/destroying other ships flag you or makes you corrupted?
2. Do one flagged/corrupted player make whole ship flagged/corrupted?
3. How ship abilities like cannons work when only part of the enemy crew is flagged/corrupted? etc
I can imagine that corruption system was just not suitable to make balanced and exciting naval pvp content.
The world is large enough that you'll have the benefit of the corruption system's protection on something like 80% of the whole world. Throwing a tantrum over the 20% seems odd to me.
Especially because of that 20% there will be a significant portion that still counts as a Node's ZOI, and thus has Corruption applying as usual.
And not to disregard the level, economical might and Guild size necessary in most case for you to even own a ship that can go into open waters, or fight in it, being manned to optimal cannon usage.
Not every schmuck can get on a dingy and start ganking people. That's just not how it's going to work.
That might be the case. But that is not how Steven explained that. He said it was a design decision to increase risk and rewards. If it was a technical problem, there might be technical solution or not and we would be discussing that. Instead we are currently discussing a design decision and its impact. That is a completely different beast.
I never said or implied that PKers wouldn't fight each other before or after the removal of corruption, that's just an assumption y'all made.
Regarding the question "Why is it less risk for PKers now?" it's mainly because, according to Steven, corruption = risk, so that risk has been removed. On the other hand, like you all know, in a null sec zone PKers have no reason not to attack each other, even if the losing party doesn't drop anything (because, obviously, only raw mats and processed goods are dropped, which I'm guessing nobody will have reason carry those to go PKing).
I will say that until we have more information regarding Naval content, it's possible that the risk of becoming corrupted was greater than the risk of dying in the open sea making my argument valid, just as much as it's possible that if you lose a battle in the open sea, your ship is guaranteed to be sunk by the winning party for "ship debris", which would balance the risk lost with the removal of corruption, making my argument invalid.
Regarding the request to elaborate on "why the open sea was already going to be a great place to PK", it's because I'm assuming that, generally speaking, "PvE players" will usually be on ships tailored with ship components to help in their non-PvP goals (fit loads of people or loot, lots of HP to fight bosses, defensive abilities, etc.). On the other hand, PvP players will usually be on ships tailored with ship components to help in their PvP goals (speed, turn rate, offensive abilities, etc.). For that reason, I believe that it was already going to be much harder to try to seek revenge or just chase PKers in the ocean than in land, making it a better place to risk becoming corrupted than in dry land. Which, in my mind, is another reason why a zone like this should have corruption.
It's a bit concerning to see that you believe that the open sea with corruption would have less potential victims, i.e. players who did not set sail with PvP as their main goal, than the new corruptionless open sea. I think it's clear that the total number of players who were going to set foot in the open sea decreased with the removal of corruption, regardless of the increase in PvE rewards, not the opposite: PvP players who would sail will still do it, but PvE players who would sail now may not. To me, that means now there will be more PvP between PvP players and less PvP with PvE players, which might turn out to be great, but nothing guarantees that.
Also, saying that it's okay to remove corruption because they increased the "PvE rewards" in the open sea feels like it's the only reason they found to justify their design change, which I'm personally not sure if it's a good or bad design change in the first place.
Last but not least, zergs don't need to control the entire ocean. If many different zergs control many different harbors and the nearby waters, that's bad enough. It was probably going to be bad even before the removal of corruption, now it became worse. As a PvP player myself, I see that many other PvP players don't worry too much about the effect of zergs in open world content, open seas or land, with or without corruption, and I don't understand why. I guess each one has their own experiences, and I know from my experience in online PvP games that people who underestimate the power of zergs usually regret it.
Nobody it 'throwing a tantrum'.. unless you consider discussing stuff as something negative and since this is a forum, that would be weird.
Again, I am not arguing about what is better.. You are responding to something that was never said.
Let me make this clear:
- Do I like the corruption system: NO, as a PvPer I would prefer if it was removed completely.
This is not about 'if you don't like it then don't go there', because I can say the same for the whole world 'If you don't like PvP then don't enter the game' and argue that the corruption system should not exist, but that wasn't their design philosophy and I respect that.
Also, if we assume that they are disabling corruption in open sea because it is more of an end-game area, then why not disable it also in the high level dungeons or world bosses?
A discussion like that is meaningless imo, since each one of us have different preferences.
It is not about what each one of us want, or what we think it will be better.
The only think I don't understand and was the reason for creating this thread, is why:
- In land & coastal waters: Corruption is good for risk-vs-reward because it adds some risk to the attackers for the reward they are trying to get.
- In open sea: Corruption is bad because it interferes with the risk-vs-reward philosophy, since we need higher risk for greater rewards.
These 2 descriptions imo are inconsistent.
It is like they are separating the world and targeting different parts for different playstyles/levels and they are using this weird logic to justify the change. If there are other reasons, then tell us what those are, e.g. 'it's difficult to implement', or 'we want less PvEers in the open sea', etc.
But, Naval Content was a Kickstarter stretch goal. It's not one I would have supported had I known it was going to add a 24/7 auto-flag Combatant, free-for-all PvP zone to the game.
It's fine if the devs determined that this was easier for them to implement.
Doesn't mean I'm going to play the game.
I just don't play games where I have to play on a server that includes zones like that.
I don't play games were I have to play on a server that has zones that are 24/7, auto-flag Combatant just to explore or adventure in the area.
I dunno why that is offensive to anyone.
That's also something that is bugging me, because this change contradicts many things said the in the past. People who are dismissing your reasons, in my opinion, are unable to see that if they are now removing corruption from certain zones, nothing stops them from removing PvP from others, as long as Steven gives enough reasons to justify it. Unfortunately I bring bad news: Steven can be wrong and make mistakes, like everyone else.
Don't get me wrong, many games do this, EVE is a more or less applicable example with their null sec, low sec and high sec zones, and it works just fine in my opinion. However, I wish that Ashes didn't have these zone segregations, because that's not the kind of game I thought Ashes was going to be and not really the kind of game I want to play.
If the only thing that corruption does is to stop griefing. Thats the only thing you add by removing it. So why is it necessary to add that?
If they want to make it even more contested, thats ok with me. Adding griefing to it is the wrong way to do that, however. At least in my opinion.
just dont flag so u dont injure the player but only dmg the ship that way u can sink the ship and leave them in the water to swim very very slowly back
Yes, I want to stop the excessive griefing in the naval content as well.
If there are technical reasons for them to change the system they should tell us and not pretend its about risk vs. reward.