Corruption system in relation to auto-flagging in open sea

This is not a post about if auto-flagging is good or not, or about preference between the two.
It is about the corruption system and the logic inconsistency of applying this system.
(for transparency, I would prefer the complete removal of this system, but what irks me more is the logic inconsistency)

The corruption system was presented as a tool that complies with the risk-vs-reward philosophy.

E.g. an attacker risks becoming corrupted if he kills a player that doesn't fight back and the defender risks losing much more loot if he doesn't fight back.
Both sides are risking in order to get rewarded.

In the open-sea, as Steven mentioned in the stream, the rewards will be grater and the risk needs to be higher.
Is the corruption system unable to handle that?
If the reward is more valuable, wouldn't that make the attacker more willing to become corrupted and the defender more willing to fight back to minimize his loses?

Why is now the corruption system presented as an obstacle to the risk-vs-reward philosophy for open-sea content?

In the open-sea now, with the auto-flagging, what is the risk for the attackers? E.g. if let's say 3 ships that are co-operating spot 1 ship, why wouldn't they attack? Where is the risk?
How are the bounty hunters affected by this change? Would they be able to hunt corrupted players in the open-sea?
Contrary to what Steven said, this change is actually going against the risk-vs-reward philosophy. If you outnumber the enemy, there is no risk in attacking.

You cannot treat the corruption system as a helpful tool for land content and as an obstacle for open-sea content.. those things cannot be true at the same time, just because the ground changes!

When you need to add exceptions to a system, in order to make the content fun, then maybe that system is not good enough.
If it is good enough, use it everywhere.. if it is not, remove it from everywhere!

The approach Intrepid is taking makes no sense.

Find more posts tagged with

Staff

Comments

Dygz

Where are the safe areas?

CROW3

Diamaht wrote: »

This type of open flagging is fantastic. There are clearly defined safe areas, and clearly defined auto-flag areas so everyone will know what they are getting into.

I am thankful this is in the game.

They are no real safe areas in ashes. The closest thing would be inside your freehold - and that’s arguable given node sieges.

Okeydoke

Cough

Dolyem

I am really hoping for some extra speedy small boats for some straight up pack tactics. As well as some massive galleon ships for large group missions and ocean raids. Sea of thieves to me is the top tier ocean/ship/pirate game currently out. Not expecting ashes to be on that level but I hope they take a lot of inspiration from it for design.

George_Black

Dygz wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

Stop attacking the design and claiming that AoC is misleading regarding PvX, based on your biast understanding of pvx and what pve should be in an mmo.

The design is fine. It's great for players who like EvE Online and ArcheAge.
It's just not a game I will play.

nobody makes games for you. Stop saying I as if it matters to anybody if you leave.

Dygz

It doesn't matter to anyone if I leave. I think I already told you we agree.

George_Black

I dislike it when I see people taking the high moral ground and painting the studio as a liar. Same thing was going on when they said that they will open the A1 sales again to bring in more testers.

I will however try to give you some insight and hopefully you are not invested too emotionally on this announcement and you can work on it with a clear head.
Here it comes...

Dygz

He hates everything! Hey, Georgie...!

George_Black

AoC is a PvX game. What is PvX? A term for people that could not comprehend what an open world pvp mmo is. In my opinion it has caused damage not because the devs have not been clear, but because the people for whom this term was created, still lack the ability to use their brain. And here we are in which PvX has become a weapons against the development of Ashes.

An mmo should have never been divided between isolated PvP and isolated PvE. Players should always be able to interact/kill/help each other. An mmo is just that. A massive multiplayer online rpg. Which means that all players exist continuously in the same world. Not stages, not instances, not arenas, not raids, not shards etc etc. But years have gone by, and the playerbase grew up (in name only) and started demanding they have a say in how somebody should run their business.

What PvX means? It fcking doesn't mean that you are promised a 50-50, split to the bit, allocation of PvE and PvP content you (((***&]]%%%$... ))]]]
It fcking means that the progress of your character is directly affected by your ability to explore the world and use resources as well as fend off players with which you have a conflict of interests.

Here comes more...

Dygz

hahahaha
PvX = open world PvP MMORPG
But, that's not misleading or anything.
LMFAO
GTFO

George_Black

What's the purpose of the Corruption system? To protect THE GAME from players that want to go on a killing spree. It's not there to protect you. It's there to make sure that everybody has a chance to lv up, gather, quest and play an mmo. Not a survival game. That's why the corruption system exists. To protect all the above mentioned aspects of the game.

Why isn't there such a system in castle/node sieges and caravans? Why because if there was nobody would risk going red. And if nobody attacked, then castle/node would be meaningless and the caravans would be just a slow but certain spread of all the raw materials found in abundance in specific areas of the map. We might as well have teleports all over and a global auction house. No more adventure and sense of endeavour.

Dygz

LMAO
Castle/Node Sieges and Caravans have no death penalties, so... it's not just about players not being Corrupted.
Pretty sure The Open Seas include death penalties, so... that's not analogous.

George_Black

Why isn't the corruption system present at the sea?
Well, this is why I said the playerbase grew up in name only. People have become too entitled and demanding.
Steven said what he said on the live update regarding this change, and I agree with everything.
But what he didn't go into detail (rightfully so) was the fact that the sea involves ships, cannons and other compartments in a naval battle other than your characters that can be targeted.
What would you propose? The every time a cannon fires that cannon becomes purple, as well as the player themselves? Every time a ship fires a cannon the ship becomes purple itself? And you have 20 people on a ship. Do you expect them to coordinate to perfection in order to avoid hitting a green cannot accidently, gaining corruption?
Fck all that, it becomes tedious and takes away from the fun.

The devs said make the oceans a siege zone, without a defender and attacker, in which success and reward lies every time a group attains their goal. For technical reasons they made this change. Get off your high horse and accept it. And if your plan was to roleplay and skip around on your aquatic mount you will miss out on the ocean gameplay, just as well as you would miss out on a lot of other content that requires you to be a part of competent and organized guilds such as...... sieges and caravans, in which...? also the corruption doesn't apply.

Going out to the sea to take down the big raids would never be a gameplay design for casuals or randoms looking for members via a group finder. You never lost something that you would never have managed to complete.

Some people say "oh a pvp free zone... that is going to take away all the pvp/pk action from the mainland.."
Wrong again. You didn't think it through, you didn't look at the big picture.
Gathering the resources and designs to build a ship and all its equipment will take dedication. Nobody will go to the see "just to have some brainless pvp". Whoever manages to sail such a ship will have grand goals for their group. People that lack focus and vision will not do that. They will just try to PK some gathered in the mainland or attack a caravan. Not spend days or weeks to create a ship and find a crew. So yeah. the game isn't becoming mainland pve and sea pvp. ffs... what a quick and lame conclusion.

Doesn't the open sea pvp change the dynamic of the game? Not one bit. Why? Because you still need pve to lv up and get resources, you still need crafting to get wealthy and equip yourself, there will still be little instanced contant and ZERO arena rewards to progress just through pvp.

"What's next? PvE only zones, like dungeons or world bosses?" Get out of here. These things are isolated pve and pvp concepts that will never ever have anything to do with the design of AoC. How your mind leapt over there I will never know.

And you know what? Even if it does, I wish people changed their attitude and if they rly need to provide feedback and not cry a river to attract some sad online attention to themselves, first get your facts right and see the big picture, second realize that you are a video gamer and not some affluent stakeholder. Stop roleplaying as somebody that matters.

George_Black

Here, compiled...

I dislike it when I see people taking the high moral ground and painting the studio as a liar. Same thing was going on when they said that they will open the A1 sales again to bring in more testers.

I will however try to give you some insight and hopefully you are not invested too emotionally on this announcement and you can work on it with a clear head.
Here it comes...

AoC is a PvX game. What is PvX? A term for people that could not comprehend what an open world pvp mmo is. In my opinion it has caused damage not because the devs have not been clear, but because the people for whom this term was created, still lack the ability to use their brain. And here we are in which PvX has become a weapons against the development of Ashes.

An mmo should have never been divided between isolated PvP and isolated PvE. Players should always be able to interact/kill/help each other. An mmo is just that. A massive multiplayer online rpg. Which means that all players exist continuously in the same world. Not stages, not instances, not arenas, not raids, not shards etc etc. But years have gone by, and the playerbase grew up (in name only) and started demanding they have a say in how somebody should run their business.

What PvX means? It fcking doesn't mean that you are promised a 50-50, split to the bit, allocation of PvE and PvP content you (((***&]]%%%$... ))]]]
It fcking means that the progress of your character is directly affected by your ability to explore the world and use resources as well as fend off players with which you have a conflict of interests.

Here comes more...

What's the purpose of the Corruption system? To protect THE GAME from players that want to go on a killing spree. It's not there to protect you. It's there to make sure that everybody has a chance to lv up, gather, quest and play an mmo. Not a survival game. That's why the corruption system exists. To protect all the above mentioned aspects of the game.

Why isn't there such a system in castle/node sieges and caravans? Why because if there was nobody would risk going red. And if nobody attacked, then castle/node would be meaningless and the caravans would be just a slow but certain spread of all the raw materials found in abundance in specific areas of the map. We might as well have teleports all over and a global auction house. No more adventure and sense of endeavour.

Why isn't the corruption system present at the sea?
Well, this is why I said the playerbase grew up in name only. People have become too entitled and demanding.
Steven said what he said on the live update regarding this change, and I agree with everything.
But what he didn't go into detail (rightfully so) was the fact that the sea involves ships, cannons and other compartments in a naval battle other than your characters that can be targeted.
What would you propose? The every time a cannon fires that cannon becomes purple, as well as the player themselves? Every time a ship fires a cannon the ship becomes purple itself? And you have 20 people on a ship. Do you expect them to coordinate to perfection in order to avoid hitting a green cannot accidently, gaining corruption?
Fck all that, it becomes tedious and takes away from the fun.

The devs said make the oceans a siege zone, without a defender and attacker, in which success and reward lies every time a group attains their goal. For technical reasons they made this change. Get off your high horse and accept it. And if your plan was to roleplay and skip around on your aquatic mount you will miss out on the ocean gameplay, just as well as you would miss out on a lot of other content that requires you to be a part of competent and organized guilds such as...... sieges and caravans, in which...? also the corruption doesn't apply.

Going out to the sea to take down the big raids would never be a gameplay design for casuals or randoms looking for members via a group finder. You never lost something that you would never have managed to complete.

Some people say "oh a pvp free zone... that is going to take away all the pvp/pk action from the mainland.."
Wrong again. You didn't think it through, you didn't look at the big picture.
Gathering the resources and designs to build a ship and all its equipment will take dedication. Nobody will go to the see "just to have some brainless pvp". Whoever manages to sail such a ship will have grand goals for their group. People that lack focus and vision will not do that. They will just try to PK some gathered in the mainland or attack a caravan. Not spend days or weeks to create a ship and find a crew. So yeah. the game isn't becoming mainland pve and sea pvp. ffs... what a quick and lame conclusion.

Doesn't the open sea pvp change the dynamic of the game? Not one bit. Why? Because you still need pve to lv up and get resources, you still need crafting to get wealthy and equip yourself, there will still be little instanced contant and ZERO arena rewards to progress just through pvp.

"What's next? PvE only zones, like dungeons or world bosses?" Get out of here. These things are isolated pve and pvp concepts that will never ever have anything to do with the design of AoC. How your mind leapt over there I will never know.

And you know what? Even if it does, I wish people changed their attitude and if they rly need to provide feedback and not cry a river to attract some sad online attention to themselves, first get your facts right and see the big picture, second realize that you are a video gamer and not some affluent stakeholder. Stop roleplaying as somebody that matters.

George_Black

Oh Dygz.. the little victories, hey?

Dygz

Oh, Georgie... the delusions in your head.
I wonder who needs to change their attitude the most...

Warth

NaughtyBrute wrote: »

XiraelAcaron wrote: »

The difference is that the removal of the corruption system does not increase the risk of attack equally for everyone. Basically you get more corruption the less risk you have when attacking a player (e.g. killing a low level player and doing so repeatedly gives you much more corruption than killing a player of the same level or higher). If you remove the corruption system, the risk of attack rises disproportionally for those players that are less risky to attack. Since they present a much more tempting target. So it is not simple a shift of risk, It also increases the risk for those that would normally be protected by the corruption system. I admit that this is a kind of academic argument

Yeah, you are right. The corruption system was mostly introduced to deter high level players from killing low level ones. However, it is still in effect for all on land, so even a max player can chose not to fight back and you still have the risk gaining corruption when killing him.

However, this is not my initial point. Steven mentioned on stream that everyone will be auto-flagged in open sea, because the rewards will be greater so the risk needs to be higher, essentially saying that gaining corruption is an obstacle for the risk-vs-reward system in open-sea, otherwise why effectively disable it?
How is this consistent with what was said before about the corruption system?

So, killing low level players in the open sea is fine but on land it is not?!
Why create this separation of zones?
What's next? PvE only zones, like dungeons or world bosses?
I don't think that this is a good approach.

For one part, going into the open sea is a conscious and completely optional decision. Neither low level players, nor weak players, nor players who do not want to partake in PvP ever have to be in the open sea if they do not choose to be there.

Thats different for all zones on land. Lowlevel/weak/non-pvp-interested players have to be there. They have to co-exist with the pvp enthusiastic players, so some protection is necessary and valid.

Creating a PvE only zone would be completely different, as that would go against everything they want to do in a PvX game. PvE and PvP Content being intertwined.

We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody. But you know it is an important reciprocal relationship between the content that's related to PvE and the content that's related to PvP and they feed off of each other. - Steven

We like to really refer to ourselves as a PvX game, because in those systems of PvP, PvE, crafting they're all intertwined: They're interdependent on each other... Our system of development really requires some interdependence there between those things. - Steven

Ashes is a comprehensive game. It is not a PvP focused or a PvE focused, it is a comprehensive PvX game and as a result these systems are all interconnected and have to coexist with one another with certain types of mechanisms that can provide that give and take, that push and shove.

In a PvE Only Zone, PvP and PvE isnt intertwined anymore.
In a Open World Auto Flag Zone, you still have PvE content to do, which is the primary reason for being out there in the first place. So PvE and PvP is still intertwined.

Where does this illusion come from, that PvP being featured suddenly makes PvE Content any less relevant? The PvE Content is the same it was before, merely the risk of being attacked is higher. The PvE Content still is there and the reason most players are out there in the first place.

palabana

What I'm worried about is whether Intrepid has thought of the things that happens outside of the Risk vs Reward pillar. How to keep the PvE crowd in the game with this change? So far what he has said is there will be other means of transportation but those requires a tremendous amount of work as we already know of from years ago. Caravan both land and naval being a battleground is fine and is what we were already expecting.

But this goes beyond getting onto the waters to access content in the open seas. With this change, no one can cross the sea to the other continent with the protection of the Corruption system. What Steven has said is only one part of the game: Risk vs Reward. When you don't care about the content in the seas and only want to cross to the other continent, it's becomes 90% risk and 10% reward. What if their server doesn't have any Scientific metros at all that could link between the two continents?

On the land, one can ride a Mule, transport small amount of goods back and forth with the protection of the Corruption system. Why can't they do the same on the waters with a smaller ship or a boat that's not a naval caravan?

Why is the land protected by the Corruption system while the open seas isn't? The land have just as many unique and great content. Does this change means the land content less valuable than the naval content now?

I like this change. It makes sense. However, I'm not speaking for myself. My only concern is how the game would thrive without the so-called "carebears" being able to do things that they want to because of those inconsistencies. Previously, they have the protection of the Corruption system. Now, they still do but they kind of don't. Steven can say Ashes will not be for everyone as much as he wants. But if it's something that not a single one of the carebears will be able to put up with, it will be very detrimental to the game.

palabana

Warth wrote: »

In a PvE Only Zone, PvP and PvE isnt intertwined anymore.
In a Open World Auto Flag Zone, you still have PvE content to do, which is the primary reason for being out there in the first place. So PvE and PvP is still intertwined.

Where does this illusion come from, that PvP being featured suddenly makes PvE Content any less relevant? The PvE Content is the same it was before, merely the risk of being attacked is higher. The PvE Content still is there and the reason most players are out there in the first place.

It does not make PvE content any less relevant. However, it does set the precedent of de-valuing the content on the land. On the land, you are protected by the Corruption system. As of now, that includes all open world dungeons, raids and world bosses.

Suddenly when you're on the waters, you are not protected by the Corruption system anymore. Because as Steven said, with greater rewards comes greater risks. That statement alone confirmed that the content on the land is less valuable than the naval content. I'm not opposed to this statement at all. But it should answer your question of "where the illusion comes from."

Even though I'm not opposed to it even though I want answers for the inconsistencies.

Warth

JamesSunderland wrote: »

BaSkA13 wrote: »

For the people who liked the removal of Corruption from the open sea I have a few questions

Q: If the corruption system works as intended, what are the reasons to have zones without it?

A: To Increase the Zone Risk alongside its rewards

Q: Can these reasons be distorted by big zers, alliances, etc. abusing them?

A: Possible, but mostly depends on what you define by "abuse" if by "Abuse" you mean total control over, i believe it to be extremely unlikely due to the sheer size of the open seas.

The Ocean was probably going to be one of the best places to PK in general, even before yesterday's announcement. From a game design perspective why make one of the best places to PK even better, as in less risk for PKers?

A: This one i would like to require you to elaborate on why "The Ocean was probably going to be one of the best places to PK in general", and would like to ask you how it is less risk for PKers if it will be flooded by other PKers.

Q: From a game design perspective, will that make the ocean content better or worse?

A: Certainly better as it created a variation and a new Tier of Risk vs Reward

If, for whatever reason, Intrepid backpedals on this decision and the open sea goes back to having corruption, will the number of potential sailing victims increase? Will the number of pirates decrease? Will there be less PvP in the ocean?

A: If Intrepid backpedals on both the extra risk and extra rewards of the open seas, the number of "sailing victims" will certainly decrease alongside the number of pirates and that would indeed result in less PvP in the ocean.

Agree with pretty much everything @JamesSunderland says. @BaSkA13

Id really like an answer to this part as well:

how it is less risk for PKers if it will be flooded by other PKers.

Do you think that PKers wont attack and fight each other? Where does that notion come from? The right to attack anybody automatically comes with the threat of being attacked by everybody.

Child Item