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
I GOT IT. Make it to where I can be the most clueless, helpless and unluckiest "gatherer" in the world, literally every time I go out I'm killed. Literally every.single.time. But make it to where I can still keep 50-75% of my progress in the form of my loot. Make it to where I can literally be killed every single time (a statistical impossibility) but my progress is unstoppable. Oh it's already like that? Ok. But how about giving greens the ability to flag on reds, so it's just 75% mitigation across the board, instead of 50%, if they so choose.
Create a unique and revolutionary node system where players become part of a community/city so that they can organize and cooperate for their own common defense. Where they can watch each other's backs, counter and run off threats, etc. Where the average player becomes a member of these communities, instead of every player being a FFA pvp wild animal. Give us a zone chat where we can call out to our comrades when "gatherer" killers are spotted. Oh we already have all that too? Well shit.
OK. Make being red very risky and punishing if killed. Make it to where they can't even trade or sell to npcs or other players lol. Also make it to where they can only deposit loot at their freehold if they even have one LOL. Also make it to where their character gets weaker the more they kill and mobs drop them reduced loot, and they can drop finished gear on death. LOLLOL. Oh we already have that?
Well just make it to where the relative safety of a node is almost always no more than 2-3 minutes away. With storage so that you can kind of "self mitigate" loot loss by practicing the age old tradition of putting stuff in the bank. Also make the time to kill vs players abnormally high so it's harder to even kill them before they make the 2 minute run to the nearest node. Oh I think we already have that too. It's a little unclear, but it certainly seems like this is the case to me at the moment.
Alright. Ok ok ok, I got it. Create a bounty hunter system where bounty hunters can see where the killers are on the map ROFLMAO. RADAR HACKS. Oh we already have that too?
Allow me to stop being a sarcastic fuck.
Mounts/mount abilities/different types of mounts being more useful or adapted to certain terrains or areas of the map. Lots can be done with this to give players agency in choosing the right tool (mount) for their gathering job. Where a player can focus more on escape and survival with their choices.
Potions, speed boosts, smoke bombs. Flares. Yes, maybe flares. On top of allowing people to call out "gatherer" killers in zone chat, on top of bounty hunters with radar hacks, maybe give players flares. They can shoot it up, helping to pinpoint the current position of a "gatherer" killer, giving a pinpointed location for other gatherers to avoid, and for people looking to fight to flock to.
I'm sure there's all kind of other ideas people could come up with. But the one thing I'd caution is that too many tools, and tools of certain types, possibly even the ones I've talked about, can create a very gimicky and overcomplicated experience if overdone.
This is not the intention. I assure you that the team isn't making any sort of fundamental changes to the core principles of the game or to risk vs reward and we certainly aren't "giving up" on anything 😊. The example you provided is a good example of this (I myself love and play Tarkov 😉).
Tarkov is a good example of a highly risk vs. reward-driven game. With that said, for those who aren't familiar, Tarkov is a PvPvE FPS game that is known for hardcore risk vs. reward gameplay. Players enter a map with gear, of which they lose permanently should they die. With that said, they do provide 'safe containers' to players. These containers allow you to store items in them, and you keep these items through death. The containers can be upgraded for more storage, allowing players to not only mitigate risk but also improve the mitigation of the risk. Just because that container exists, doesn't mean the game is not a risk vs. reward game or that that core pillar of their gameplay vanishes. (As a reminder, I'm simply using the example that @itsRyanB provided.)
This example of the 'safe container' in Tarkov is just one example of an idea for how a gatherer could mitigate risk.
We have not made any changes to the game, and are simply looking to see what players say and suggest regarding the topic!
Personally I believe this is a dangerous route of thinking to go down. If you're gonna start implementing "tools" to protect gatherers then someone will think its unfair to processors who need to transport their goods from freehold to town. Personally I'd cut out the middle man wait neat a freehold of a known smelter and just ambush them there so now me as a crafter can now make use of the goods after having had my friend kill me and hold on to them. This then leads others down the thought line of 'well since they can mitigate the loos of their loot, why can't I as a caravan user do the same?' It all snowballs and now everyone needs special protection.
I believe it's best to stick with the original plan and at the very least, see how things go in the alpha2 before washing these notions in the air. It's best not to kick a hornets nest and all that stuff.
The way it is now forces players to actually interact with each other or at the very least, plan appropriately. I'd rather see gatherers group up and farm resources or find player mercenaries or simply be well equipped before going into a high danger zone to farm the best resources in the game as opposed to just pulling up and knowing " No matter what, in in no real danger and even if I die, enough of my loot will be safe. "
That being said, I'd like to see ways for a player to get a fighting chance. Maybe have artisan gear afford them certain benefits like 2 maybe 3 seconds of invisibility when they are attacked or maybe gear that would give them a 50%movement increase for a 5 seconds. Or even possibly gear that makes them immune to CC while gathering or something. These effects should ofcourse only be available if they've been gathered resources within the last 10 or so seconds to avoid it being abused for exclusively pvp content. (It should also only proc if the gathered material Is relevant to the gear they are wearing. )
These are just some thoughts from someone who wishes for this game to not be like all other mmo's that have no real substance.
Thanks for the clarification but here is my two cents on why it works in tarkov and won’t work in AoC and that is purely because tarkov is truly a full loot game. You get killed by a player your gear is gone, you die to a player without insurance…gear is gone. Tarkov embodies full loot and risk vs reward.
A safety container in a game that doesn’t have gear drop or even full loot drop just is another level of safety artificially created by game design not by player design and in my opinion will ruin gameplay.
As a guild member, one should (if the guild is of value), be bestowed with the benefit of some protection.
Protection in the sense that the guild may seek retribution should their member be killed while gathering.
The consequence being that player that killed the guild member becomes KoS, that player`s guild becomes KoS, or gets engaged in war (consensual or non-consensual war), their guild gets booted from a node, and their guild ceases to be invited to raids.
The community will need to develop and evolve in maturity and hierarchy and politics and use the measures already within the game to deal with issues.
So long as there are politics and community, there will be higher measures of peacefulness and little to be concerned about.
This. I mean in Ashes almost your entire character and inventory already is a safety container.
I had a lot of fun with Tarkov for awhile there. The safety case has a much better fit in Tarkov than Ashes. Yet, the safety case is one of the main reasons I quit. They were just too big, allowed for too many items to be put in them. You could do naked "hatchet runs" with no gear, nothing to lose, and make a ton of money just throwing stuff in your safety case. I realized the whole game was trivialized, whether you lived or died didn't really matter. Whether you lived or died didn't really matter.
Be careful Intrepid.
Disengage and run away.
Tools/Skills/Items that can be used to get out of cc and give you a headstart in getting away, either through speed or invisibilitly for a short period.
Sacrificial configurations.
Tools/Skills/Items/Gear which hampers your ability to harvest or carry things, in return for either some mitigation on drop or for "Disengage and run away" activities.
Variation on mules
Some with more speed and less carryweight. Others with more carryweight but less speed. Manage your risk-reward trough choice there.
Homing mules
Skills/Items/Special Mules that allows for mules starting to run towards nearest node when owning player is attacked/killed.
Can still be tracked and killed, but means they need to put in a bit more effort as opposed to killing something just standing there or running around randomly in the same area.
Combines well with trying to defend yourself even if you know you are going to lose, to give your mule more time to get to safety.
Scorched Earth
Tools/Skills/Items that can be used to destroy that which would have been dropped. And yes, if you want to be hardcore this could be about destroying all the materials in your inventory before drops are even calculated.
Sometimes it's not about the money, but about sending a message
Caches.
A crafted item which can be used to hide resources in the wild.
Better quality lasts longer.
Hidden unless you get close enough or have specific skills to find.
Could also be locked and require Tools/Skills/Items to "lockpick".
If outright destroyed, most of the content is destroyed with it.
Enable escrows for pickup?
"Public Service Announcement"
Tools/Items/Skills to "scream" to your surroundings about how you are being attacked, or mark the player that did so. Like sending up a large nice flare or throwing paint at them which takes a while to disappear.
Mount intereference
Items/Skills/Tools that allows for setting up zones where you will be dismounted, or maybe even forbidden from dismounting while your mount runs away scared for a few seconds.
Could be useful for less peaceful things than gathering too.
Some of these can make for interesting combinations. Like if someone always runs "Scorched Earth" and uses Caches to offload reguarly, it would make it very hard for anyone else to figure out how much is actually ever lost. But if you get taken out while overdue to offload or while gathering your caches up, you just had a lot of resources burn, and you cant even react badly because in doing so you provide that information anyway.
Say it louder for the Final Fantasy, Lost Ark, and WoW mains.
Player skill >>> Random advantages that I won't know that a player has
@Vaknar, on a tangent, if you like Tarkov, try out The Cycle: Frontier. Season 2 is about to start.
On topic, I would be ok with a Tarkov style safe pocket where gatherers stick their most valuable resources in their butts, with one caveat: Legendary materials should not be able to fit inside. I think the raid that gets the kill have to protect the loot all the way back to town.
As the gatherer increases in rank, their butts can either grow bigger passively, or you can force the players to allocate skill points into an increased size. Either system works.
As an alternative to a safe pocket, I previously posted an idea about letting players allocate skill points into either a higher yield when gathering, or a lower percentage dropped upon death. Make it a binary choice. This way risk averse players get some agency, and risk takers get some agency.
Appreciate the video link and visualization but absolutely disagree with the proposed change mentioned in the video.
You now have removed the only ability that allows players to get farmed raw material and essentially removed open-world PvP's relevance. What happened to green drops 50% and Purple drops 25%, he practically threw the concept out the door. This Youtuber took a complex issue that hasn't been tested in the game and gave a half-baked loaded response because he doesn't deem it "fair" when nothing has been tested yet.
He would have had a valid argument if he said the original aggressor would have a slight corruption gain if the player he attacked (turned purple) and still died. Instead, he wants to rework the concept entirely and he somehow still thinks open-world pvp would happen.
System changes:
Remove death penalties (aside from the increased material loss compared to purple players) entirely for green players
- Loss of materials is plenty deficit on them. Costs time to get those mats back.
- it only serves as a deterrence to gathering altogether. It's one thing if you suffer penalties when you die because of your own miscalculation in combat or choice to engage (even then i feel at least a few of the penalties are bad)
- gives players the choice of whether they'd rather keep more mats and suffer penalties or suffer no penalties and lose more mats
- current system overly punishing against greens and people who don't want to pvp, effectively forcing them to fight in order to get the best option for them. Forced fights would actually reduce the amount of red players and thusly affect all downstream gameplay surrounding reds
Currently, players have the choice to:
1) do nothing, lose a large chunk of materials and suffer the worst death penalties possible (as the defender)
2) fight back, become purple, and suffer less loss in literally every regard - "A combatant (purple player) who dies suffers these same penalties, but at half the rate of a non-combatant."
So why would you ever just let the person kill you? Making them red and hindering your ability to play any aspect of the game is just an extremely hard loss on greens.
With this change:
1) do nothing, lose a larger chunk of materials and proceed on your way with no penalties aside from time wasted/ mats lost.
2) fight back in a chance to keep more your stuff (or all if you survive), but also you risk death penalties in the process
Now the player actually has agency and their decision to fight back or not; they're not locked into engaging just for the sake of minimizing loss. This change would actually increase risk/ reward circumstances for the defender and thusly magnify the risk/ reward of the pursuer.
Allow players to opt in to purple status with a toggle
- gives both parties the high risk high reward that comes with pvp loot
- protects people who want to pvp from being locked into extremely high stakes just for free-form pvp.
- allows gatherers that would like to pvp as well have an option to put a target on their back to help guide other pvpers and possible draw heat away from their friends (more social interactions)
-- have a time frame after disengaging the opt-in where the player stays purple to help prevent abuse of the system
-‐‐or make it instant when toggled off in safe areas to help with fluidity of gameplay
Make sure materials are spread around the large areas rather evenly
- having guilds make entrance fees to engaging with content is bad design [you can look to OSRS Revenant Caves for how small groups of players can completely ruin an entire slice of content gating]
I'm unsure if any tools or activities that would help protect gathers from unwanted pvp but looking at the death penalties page and flagging system page these were some glaring issues that I saw and felt were being overlooked.
however, my original concern Still holds true - there are No risks for the crafters, it's unbalanced, crafters don't drop crafted items they can run around with caravans/inventories or mules full of crafted items and be good to go, while processors and gatherers have the drop chance risk - this needs to be addressed and crafted items need to drop when caravans/mules/ships are destroyed OR crafted items need to have a max amount of times that they can be repaired and then get destroyed
same goes for mounts and pets, they need to die of old age to make for a sink and keep the professions relevant.
In all cases, when a player dies, the epic/legendary resource (from raid) or item (from corrupted player) should be a guaranteed drop.
Rare resources which are one time gatherable should have a high chance of drop too.
I wouldn't even mind a notification as a sound in the vicinity to indicate that a person picked up a piece of a rare resource nearby (a plant growing randomly or from the ashes of a player).
Would the player stay in the area and harvest further, looking for more rare resources?
Or imagine that player running, somewhat convinced that nobody noticed him and finding one more rare resource. Would he pick that up to trigger an alert in the vicinity again?
The game should not tempt innocent harmless greedy players to reach a state where they can secretly (or by mistake) pickup something valuable and expect to be further protected by game rules. To carry them should be possible but not picking them up. Then if one kills them and loots the material, that would also trigger that notification, even if it ended up as a combatant vs combatant fight.
This can even lead to a situation where a player having some valuable materials is attacked, wins but decides to not pick something up from the ashes of the attacker, as his own inventory is more valuable. Rare resources if not looted should contribute to hidden treasures in the area (not exactly on that spot).
If the player will not be able to visually tell what the result of harvesting will be then, a rare resource at the end of the harvesting animation should first drop onto the ground to allow the player to make a choice, to pick it up or to leave it.
In general rare resources should involve some battle against stronger NPCs too. Should not be found just by roaming randomly in safe areas. The NPCs should be at the limit of what one player can solo.
Then most likely players would rather team up to be able to defeat the NPCs and to acquire such resources.
New players who start solo, they would first grind low tier resources. Then moving to try to farm rare resources solo would still bring them in competition with already established teams farming them and fighting each-other for those spots. And could join one side or another.
The common and uncommon tier resources which involve long time harvesting should not happen in dangerous areas. Protecting the abundant common and uncommon resources would also be impractical with small invulnerable inventory slots.
Defending such hours long farming spots, should be a game mechanic and not solved by mitigating drop rate.
But then, the value of those common and uncommon tier resources should justify that. For example those could be needed for node defenses, caravan production, food from crops would provide long time health buffs which should not be lost etc. Not defending them should eventually hurt the local community of that node, not only the players who farm.
Such long time farming spots could also be located between nodes causing conflicts, both feeling entitled to harvest there. Even NPC events should target such areas and try to create outposts there.
Insulation is not how you grow.
ad·ven·ture
[adˈven(t)SHər, ədˈven(t)SHər]
NOUN
an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity:
hard-earned
[ˈˌhärd ˈərnd]
ADJECTIVE
having taken a great deal of effort to earn or acquire:
While adventuring there should be no protection. Protection lowers the effort.
After adventuring... in the city, the player could add an "owned by" label and pay taxes too.
This would make the caravans as a "lawful" way of transporting owned goods.
Transporting owned resources from a node to the other with mules should have some consequences, like gaining the reputation of a smuggler.
Not yet owned or wrong owner things should drop in PvP with higher chance than the owned ones except from corrupted players who should always drop the highest tier things first.
Transporting legendary drops from the raid to the node should be an adventuring in itself.
I agree ganking is horrible and to lose everything without an avenue of escape sucks. Perhaps give the gatherer utility in gatherer gear escape. Maybe gatherers are not beefy and can kill others but if they have the tools to escape, stealth, and flee pursuers that would feel better than oh they found me... time to die. The risk would be to go back to the node and try to flee again...
About the guilds going looting. I would not go out and loot and babysit someone gathering... Where's my reward? Where's my incentive? The gatherer could just leave or sell the mats without me collecting easy. Social interaction and incentives need to be assured for low value stuff (minor items that are common yet still valuable. Perhaps the gatherer can't find someone and the protector becomes the very source of danger that they were hired to protect. 9/10 they will not take the risk. Allow the gatherer to get the common items without absolute fear of getting ganked immediately and losing out on the rewards. This only incentivizes bots MORE. A bot can die 100 times and not care. An honest player dies 10 times and it's time for bed. allow players to hire body guard npcs and give gatherer gear utility for escape and stealth. Balance the one shot with escape mechanisms and hiring out body guards. Or create contracts between players to award a butt ton of corruption if the bodyguard ganks the gatherer.
I have now watched the video. There's some problems here.
1. If we have two greens (anyone who isn't red and hasn't hit a player in the last 90 seconds), and they want to have a fully agreed-upon and willing duel...
Both flag so they can hit each other. Green1 hits Green2. Green1 is now Purple1. Green2 fights back and becomes... Green2. The only person 'allowed' to win a duel they both agreed to is Green2. There's no fully willing and intentional (on both sides) PvP configuration that doesn't guarantee corruption for one of the participants should they win.
2. The presenter claims you are punished for fighting back. You are not.
- Fighting back means you lose less stuff if you die. (Setting aside that you might win.)
- Not punishing your attacker is not a punishment to you. You are already dead. You gain nothing and lose nothing based on whether your attacker turns red or not.
The stated purpose of the corruption system is to encourage PvP, encourage people fighting back, and discourage only serial ganking. That's why you are required to pay a price (higher green death penalties) to put a bounty on your attacker's head. You're only intended to do this if they're enough of a troublemaker that it's worth that to you.
1. cant be attacked when in process of gathering.
2. if not flagged as combatant then you can NOT drop mats. NOT half of your mats. This would be ANNOYING AF. If someone griefs you or kills then nothing drops. If you choose to fight back and get flagged as combatant THEN at this point you can drop. But otherwise NO.
3. people will get stalked by griefers, or groups of them. Need to consider this being something that can become a thing. Guilds of thieves etc just going and rotating who kills the gatherer.
4. If someone attacks you have a sort of shield that warns the gatherer they are being attacked before their HP starts to drop. Then they have 3-5 seconds to decide to engage or run. If they do engage then they have a chance to earn MORE mats from defending themselves then if they were the initial attacker. Risk and reward.
PVE is top dawg in MMORPGs so in this case I think it is more important to give gathers some protection and advantages.
I didn't mention this in the video but there could be a special gathering area that is FULLY open PVP but also can yield more gathering mats. So a gatherer has to really consider entering this sort of area.
I totally hear you. I was not and am not in any way, shape, or form suggesting or saying that the safe container should or will be added to Ashes of Creation. I'm simply using the example you provided as a way that BSG, Escape From Tarkov's dev studio, decided to implement mitigation into their game, and how that worked ^_^
Corporate Tools - Great machines that are prohibitively expensive and difficult to build/maintain, but specialist operated. E.g. Arcanium Beam Extractor
- This puts threat onto the corporation who owns the machinery, they'll want to protect their machinery setup
- Let other players choose to destroy the existing machinery to replace it with their own operation
- Idea is that rich people wage battle over who gets to build (and own) the great machine that extracts certain resources - security is their concern.
- Specialist gatherers pay a fee to use the machinery - thus these machines only become profitable on high-demand resources
Massive downside is that this type of setup is not spontaneous but very deliberate (not sure it's particularly riveting gameplay for anyone involved except the big wigs trying to keep their operation running). You could partially fix this by having resources deplete, thus requiring players to always be on the hunt for new resource spawns to set up their machines - and consequently, gatherers are always looking out for new machines that have popped up.Fish example of the above: Ocean Salmon Farm.
Greed vs Droprate-on-death - Implement a rule: The more you put in your bag, the higher your droprate on death will be. (Can apply to mules as well)
No offense some of these suggestions would make a totally different game. So let me break down each one and we can take it from there’s
1. Actually agree here somewhat, I think farming should be more free flow and should be able to instant cancel a gather so you can fight/run
2. Don’t agree here at all, now we’re playing a game with a PvE server and PvP server. The key point is risk vs reward. You already get 0 loss of gear (minus dura) and either 25%/50% raw material loss compared to other PvP games that’s nothing. Your solution is to remove loot drop entirely… that’s crazy. I’d bet 90% of all interactions would lead to farmers just dying so they don’t drop loot. No farmer would fight back because there is no incentive too. Literally just remaking new world boy farming sim again…
3. Can’t disagree here, 100% groups are going to roam and grief but that’s on the devs to make the system oppose that play style. Either way those groups exist..it’s a legit play style.
4. Be honest just don’t like the idea or see how it fits. 5 second warning to decide to run or fight? With your system I’d take my hands off the keyboard and just get blown up and respawn with my farmed material.
You don't lose all your materials on death
The idea that the auction house should always be stocked with goods for your taking is absurd. Like in WoW where there is at least 2-3k of iron ore all the time for buying. It is much better if there is a lack of materials on the auction house and players instead have to ask gatherers or farmers for materials that they need or put out requests for specific materials which will create more communication between players. The gatherers then need to establish a party in order to gather these materials in hostile locations which will also create a higher need for a type of "gatherer guilds" or mercenary guilds.
I feel it is a good way to use a small amount of basic resources up and have it balanced out where your safety net is some sort of overall negative to how many resources you can get since you want to be conservative
could be anything from much slower gathering speed to just being pretty heavy + would lose both its positive and negative effect if dropped and truly become trash