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 would support gatherer mastery/spec/augments that give boosts to, for example, movement speed or dodge chance or some survivability mechanic - at the cost of using those mastery/spec/augments to boost gathering proficiency!
The % material loss should never be changeable, as it will inevitably teeter on that slippery slope of becoming too much of a carebear mechanic in subsequent patches. 50/25 already feels kind of low, but will leave that subject to testing.
50% loss if non-combatant and 25% if combatant is WAY more than enough mitigation. There will presumably be mechanics that prevent spawn camping graveyards, so it's not like the gatherer will repeatedly lose 25% of what they're holding, unless they continue going back out in the world to die prior to banking their goods.
Loss on character death and the adrenaline associated with it is an extremely important part of the game, as I'm sure you all acknowledge. It should never be the case that you can reduce what you will materially lose upon death.
No farmer would ever go combatant and it would turn into new world, a free farm simulator with bots running amuck, economy destroyed in less than a month. You’ll be waiting for fresh start servers just to enjoy the game.
Inventory loss is the most least frustrating “full loot” mechanic a game can have. And you can already reduce your material loss by fighting back. If you want a PvE game just play the half dozen games that already exist.
As for artisan mastery skills that would reduce item loss but sacrifice the potential for other skills that would have different benefits (higher gather rates/quality or something similar) I can see those being beneficial, but also being a problematic approach. In order for these skills to have decent benefits, they'd have to provide some visual aura to other players, letting combatants know that if they kill the gatherer, they won't receive as many materials as they normally would. Otherwise, the PvPer will be just as likely to attack the gatherer as they would if the gatherer didn't have those protective perks. If you sacrifice efficiency skills, you should be able to make up for it somewhat by having your breaks in efficiency (combat and corpse runs) lowered through well-communicated decreased combat incentive.
If that's the way it goes, then I would ask - who wouldn't take these perks? The only people I who imagine would choose efficiency or quality bonuses over material protection are those individuals who gather solely for their guild and are able to be provided bodyguards. They become gathering machines in service of a larger player body, who in turn are each willing to invest a bit of money to protect the gatherer's own investment in the guild. This would also incentivize player investment in social organizations. However, few players are going to want to gather solely for their guild, which leaves them high and dry on non-guild gathering runs.
For this reason, if the team chooses to make these choices artisan-skill based, I think those particular skills need to be swappable, but locked in for a certain amount of time. So you pick one, and are stuck with it for six hours, let's say. They also cannot be swapped in combat. Essentially, you must pick what type of gathering you're doing in a day, and stick with the bonus tailored for that purpose. However, this reduces player agency and feels a bit artificially gated, which is never good.
The solution to this, I think, lies in profession gear. When you master a gathering profession, you should only then become able to craft a few sets of gear, the recipes and materials for which must be obtained through some high degree of effort. Maybe not an entire set head to toe, but maybe three or so pieces for each style. One set would provide an increased chance for higher gather quality, one would provide an increased chance for bonus materials of regular quality, and one would lower your material drop percentage upon death. If you choose the protective set, your character will generate a visible aura to other players and display a buff on your character bar indicating that combatants won't receive their usual drop rates from you.
With protection/efficiency pathways linked to swappable gear pieces, but requiring a high degree of investment, players will be able to pick an initial pathway that suits their primary gameplay goals (gathering for self, or gathering for guild), pursue that set first, and then if they feel the need to pursue a different set for a separate style of gathering gameplay, they can then pursue another set, and eventually be able to swap those bonuses depending on their situation.
You wanna do stuff alone ? eh! guess what, its gonna be harder than if you do it with people.
Its not something that is "against" solo players, its just work like that.
Wanna lift a bench alone ? do it! but dont complain that its harder to do it alone.
Wanna gather alone ? do it! but dont complain that you have more risk doing it than if you have friends around.
Its simple as that.
I'll keep saying it, if you give too much benefit to gatherer, its gonna be unbalanced. if you give too much benefit to players that focus on loot other player, its gonna be unbalanced.
So where is the good answer to that ? well finding the right balance.
You should understand as well that AOC is gonna be all about crafting and ressources, so a players that focus only on gank, will have a really, really hard time having a regular/good amount of ressources, unless he is reaaaaally talented or masterfull wich won't be the case for every player.
so i think you should all take in account that in AOC people that "only gather" and people that "only pvp" will represent a very minority in the game.
I know most of you just relate on what you experienced on other MMO but you should also consider that AOC will probably work differently, therefore we might not have the good view on that topic.
1. Align your ship to your escape direction, mining ships turn slow.
2. Have Local chat open to see who is in or has entered the solar system with you, unless your in wormhole connected space.
3. (best used in wormhole space or large solar system) Check what is near you on Directional Scanners so that you can see a change in objects if someone is getting close to you.
4. Have Electronic warfare drone to help escape being targeted by an enemy ship.
5. Build your mining ship with a tank and some teeth to bait potential enemies so they learn not to mess with you.
6. Cloak an Electronic (only works non-Hi Sec parts of space) warfare alt (Recon) ship in range of your miner ship.
Or get ganked by a bunch of bored PVPers and maybe get paid by them for regretting killing a noob. Often if you contact the gankers you can get some interesting conversation and possibly make a friend.
Having all these options put it on the player to choose how they want to handle a potential threat. Having a local PKer of AoC could give players a reason to organize community watch or use a gather as bait which would result in interesting group play. Like A local ruler wants to attract players but knows he has increased gankers to eliminate to get rid of the reputation of a dangerous region, so the ruler works with others to figure out to to chase out or win over the pvp players in his region.
This is best part of a Sandbox that many ThemePark players would not initially see. The innovative ways players create conflict and over come that conflict given the oppertunity to do so. This depends on good mechanics to provide the options like I listed above.
Which means, murdering a gatherer for their supplies will eventually (as the server's political map stabilizes) lead to the PKer getting blacklisted by the crafters of the region, if not outright being declared the Enemy of the State by the node's mayor.
Or even the mayor contacting the PKers guild or home node for reparations. People love that kind of roleplay.
Ganking might be even less of an issue than I expected – but gods, will it be toxic.
Sportsmanship
I would hesitate to initiate PvP due to victor's guilt. If I engage in PvP over materials, it's because I want a cut of the loot, not because I want to interrupt the player's leveling, send them back to town, and ruin their day.
I would like players slain in small-scale PvP to be knocked unconscious instead of killed outright. They would still be dead mechanically, but the victor could revive the defeated player at little to no cost (or land the finishing blow). It would be nice if this reduced the inflicted EXP debt, but my main concern is the geographic setback. Corrupted players would be exempt from this mercy mechanic.
This shouldn't become a griefing problem so long as defeated players can refuse the revive. I would expect this mechanic to make consensual PvP social interactions more interesting as it adds another layer of kindness / BM. It also gives a way for players to party up or engage in another round of combat after the fight.
I don't know how combat resurrection will work; this mechanic is for the likely scenario where most archetypes do not have access to it.
Updated Question:
Resource Quantity and Division
This is a passive answer, but I would feel content so long as I always maintain a significant portion of my materials. One could interpret PvP as a form of gathering, so I also want to ensure a non-zero amount of materials are at stake.
This can be achieved rather easily so long as
- Materials always drop in quantities of 2 or more, even if they are legendary.
- Material division in PvP is rounded in the victor's favor.
- Defeated players can always choose to respawn in a safe zone.
Note that if material division was rounded in the defeated player's favor, players could just spread legendary materials among allies to prevent any chance of it dropping. That would be a powerful tool for gatherer's, but it would be meta-gamey and detract from the overall experience.
Military node could provide this benefit through being flagged as a combatant in combat, providing more of a benefit when corrupt. (offensive in nature, if you belong to a military node, this works outside your territory, encouraging PVP and attacking players)
Economic node could provide this through a building, which benefits the entire region. Gathering is more so tied to the economy, thus this benefit would have a stronger effect than the others. (defensive in nature, only provides benefits to surrounding region)
Science node could provide an ability via use of an item. (provided you belong to a science node, the item stays with the players for use at any time)
What kind of benefits, some form of gatherable loss mitigation.
According to this article...
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-social-dilemmas-gamesthe-moral-norms.html
beside killing the gatherer there are two other alternatives:
1) not killing him = the PvP-er sacrifices his own potential gain (self-sacrificing / altruistic behavior)
2) cooperating with the gatherer (mutualistic cooperation / conflict resolution that can promote social order and organization)
This 2nd point could be favored by the game design.
How can a gatherer and a PvP-er wish to cooperate if they have different activities?
Definitely both would like to receive some buffs, one for gathering & defense the other for attack & defense.
I am sure Steven wouldn't mind casting a blessing on these two souls if they spend 10 minutes together
The spell would bind them together for a while and maybe just in that region:
- if one is attacked, the other would be notified
- if one dies, the other would lose the buff too
It could maybe even allow multiple bindings: 1 PvP-er to multiple gatherers or 1 gatherer to multiple PvP-ers
A binding with a bounty hunter could bring some stronger or different benefits.
I do not want to take part in any PvP at all as a gatherer. My purpose is building a life, a settlement, help communities. I am not going outside to kill people.
That said, i would love to have a system in place that protects me the more i stay on this non hostile path. A buff, a status, a progression system that allows me to climb up nearly endless levels of support and divine protection or protection of the land (whatever works).
If i get attacked and killed, my losses should be smaller and smaller. The more i work with a town/settlement, the more work i put into establishing life, the less frustration i should experience.
Gatheres are not fodder for PvP. We are not THE element of PvP fun in the world. Death may come, but when it does, it should be a hard decision for the attacker, as he will face dire consequences.
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TLDR: Tool = robust progression system, that allows to miminize losses the longer i play the game. A goal to work towards for peace of mind and body
I have an opinion that open world PVP adds a level of emotion and imersion to the PVE aspect, but at the same time attackers should be VERY wary of trying to kill gatherers. How to do that?
- Criminality rates clearly shown somewhere inside the Node: it goes up everytime a random open world pvp resulting in death occurs inside the area of that node. This could warn unnaware players that that particular node is not know for being a peacefull place. This could also incentivize guilds within that area to activelly do some police work in order to attract more players to live in their region. (this leaves a gray area for ppl to try to manipulate the formula with alt accounts but with a level filter there should be no problem)
- Bounty hunter system: every time someone attacks or kill a player, this should add "wanted points". After reaching a certain treshold, that attacker will be listed on the Bounty Hunters Guild as a wanted person. (this could also be something for attackers to brag about, so its not that bad)
- If the attacker is at a much higher level (lets say 5+) than the gatherer, then the punishment should be way WAY bigger
Risk vs Reward doesn't mean all things must be very risky. For example if a person could farm 40 slots full in an hour if not ganked, but could loose say 13 on the way home if ganked. If then the same gatherer could get a crafting bad that only has 15 slots available and then takes it back to home and goes again getting another 15 but only getting now 30 stacks within an hour, there is definately still risk vs reward happening. You could risk it and get the full 40 but only managing to get 27 home safe if killed, or you could do the more laborous thing and only get 30 within an hour, but this time it would be more safe for you. I think this sort of balance would make sense for the crafter.
Risk vs Reward should mean that risking things could give you more, not that without risk there should be no benefits in doing something. Also people forget that the environment is risk as well. So gathering in the wilds is always risky anyway.
I think discouraging people from killing gatherers is a good and positive thing. And I do think it's pretty fair to be able to enjoy the exploration, gathering and crafting experience in a game without too much harassment. Like a said in a previous post I don't mind pvp, just don't want it to be the only mode of gameplay possible. I want to also just chill and roam around.
How will the gankers have hard time getting resources if they can just grind poor gatherers for it? How many gatherer's can one efficient ganker kill in an hour? I bet it's a quite a lot.
Having PvP in all gathering areas will make it so it'll be all PvPers and no gatherers.
Check out this amazing comment about how many ways gatherers have to survive
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/369613/#Comment_369613
This is an amazing suggestion. Let me see if I got it right.
Basically your gatherable materials have a separate inventory, and items in that inventory are on a timer. For example, I go out chopping wood, my wood stacks are in that temporary inventory, and each time I gather that type of wood, the timer refreshes. Now the timer could be 10 minutes, 15, 30, or whatever minutes. So I could stop gathering those items, and wait for a certain amount of time before the wood gets transferred to my main inventory where it is safer. Alternatively the whole inventory could have a timer, so I would need to stop gathering stuff altogether, regardless of the type, and wait for the timer to run out. Or certain types of gatherable items would have separate timers, e.g. all wood types, all herbs, all animal stuff, etc. would have separate timers. So even if I gather a different type of wood, my overall timer for wood items would refresh in that temporary inventory. Maybe the whole inventory would be for different wood types, then another inventory for herbs, etc.
Basically, it would be a risk to go on a big gathering run/grind, without stopping to let the items transfer to the safe inventory. In that case, you better be prepared to defend yourself against potential PvPers.
And yes, still having a chance to drop a certain portion of materials in your main inventory should also be a thing. But again, it shouldn't be a large number. So there's always a risk of losing stuff.
PvPers could maybe observe, and see a player gathering for a longer period of time, without stopping. Which would mean he probably has more stuff readily available to be looted. It should hopefully reduce the number of random attacks, and pointless ganking.
It is a nice rough idea, and I wouldn't mind something along those lines being introduced.
Similar system to tarkov but leads to a balance issue. If a player is smart they will go out and fill there “craft bag” to the max and then go Home Depot the farmed material and go back out. They would incur 0 risk if they only farm one material up to the max “craft bag” allocation. Hence free farming aka no risk. Maybe if that craft bag could hold 1 item that would seem fair. [/quote]
Risk vs Reward doesn't mean all things must be very risky. For example if a person could farm 40 slots full in an hour if not ganked, but could loose say 13 on the way home if ganked. If then the same gatherer could get a crafting bad that only has 15 slots available and then takes it back to home and goes again getting another 15 but only getting now 30 stacks within an hour, there is definately still risk vs reward happening. You could risk it and get the full 40 but only managing to get 27 home safe if killed, or you could do the more laborous thing and only get 30 within an hour, but this time it would be more safe for you. I think this sort of balance would make sense for the crafter.
Risk vs Reward should mean that risking things could give you more, not that without risk there should be no benefits in doing something. Also people forget that the environment is risk as well. So gathering in the wilds is always risky anyway.
I think discouraging people from killing gatherers is a good and positive thing. And I do think it's pretty fair to be able to enjoy the exploration, gathering and crafting experience in a game without too much harassment. Like a said in a previous post I don't mind pvp, just don't want it to be the only mode of gameplay possible. I want to also just chill and roam around. [/quote]
Risk vs Reward does mean everything has a risk for the reward that is literally the definition. If I am understanding you correctly that "craft bag" doesn't drop on death but you get 15 guaranteed if you die then you have removed risk...dying and losing nothing is not a risk it's just a hindrance. You need to lose something to incur risk..
I think people should play how they want and gathers will and should be PvPed. This isn't a PvE or PvP game it is a PvX game. IF corruption works as intended then we should need to provide no other systems to gather.
When nodes go to "war" gathers and crafters will be PvPed hard but if they don't loose anything they won't care.
The environment is not a risk, if you die to AI/Mobs you are just a bad or undergeared player.
That is the game, if you want a safe area to gather it should have no real valuable materials. Having area's to free farm leads to new world economies which just die 2 weeks into launch.
Basically, place large areas of resources in centralized areas, and still sparcly put gathering elsewhere. That way there's a choice: Go to the high populated areas with more resources, maybe taking a team, or get less resources scavenging about but be safer. This draws away people from threatening individual gatherers, because thief's will want to gank the high populated areas where there's more certainty of player action. Might not be perfect, but it's a start at least.
In addition there could be a gathering incentive from the killer. Lets say a miner took some high quality ores, but they got killed by someone on the way back because reasons. If the murderer was a lumberer, would they really know what resources to take from the miner that would be high quality? (Minus taking the most shiny rock, but still, point exists.)
The basic idea i'm trying to get across is that if gathering is going to be a pure risk/reward factor, maybe the players progression into the gathering field should mean more than simply what they can gather. A max gatherer shouldn't have no risk from PVPers, but they should have a reward from their hard earned progression to save their hard earned materials.
Let's also not forget that the majority of people on this forum are here for a PvP game, so the answers will tend to lean in that direction. However, game systems can and should change due to player feedback and testing, and to say that removing loot drops for gatherers, or even (hypothetically) removing XP debt, unilaterally removes the goal of risk vs reward is overstating the effects.
If the risk for gatherers is losing their time and loot, the attacker should also lose their time and loot in near equal amounts, if not more. The Corruption penalty should be severe enough that the attacking player can't gank multiple players in a row (or same player multiple times).
Waiting until a person has ganked 10 players before their corruption is high enough to have "a significant dampening to your skill effects" is way too long. And then allowing a corrupted person to fight a bounty hunter without corruption penalties is defeating the point of having the bounty hunter chase a corrupted player. As soon as you gain corruption you should be scared and on the run, not looking for more low-level players to gank, knowing that when a bounty hunter does show up, you get to fight a full strength 1v1.
I feel that some of the proposed solutions are overly complicated, and propose the following instead:
Thanks
Gatherer Ganker: Investing real world time and effort to level, explore, or do whatever the fuck. Simply needs to stumble upon gatherer(s) and roll the dice for killing them. Associated risk: Penalty for dying and getting flagged by a system whose penalties can be easily ignored / mitigated.
Why gather, when i can just gank the gatherer? If i kill them i get half their spoils and get to do the more exhilarating PVP. Sure I might get corrupted but i can just die a few times after i deposit my loot and everything is peachy.
Gatherer's have much more to lose than gankers. I think that the risk / reward thing ashes has going on is good, but I'd like to see more "risk" on the ganker part because it seems like they're getting more reward than risk. Corruption goes in the right step but I'd like more to be done. There is also the player satisfaction to consider. The Risk Reward as I put it is very unequal at the moment. Considering the types of players that would gank, pvp and PKING is enjoyable for them. Conisdering the types of players that enjoy gathering, Having your effort and time wasted and a chunk of your gathered items stolen from you is not enjoyable.
Give ganking more risk.
Note: The more gankers and gatherers there are can change the situation more and makes it more complex which is enjoyable, but as it stands, all things equal (in terms of amount of player characters and lets say level as well) the ganker will always have lesser risk and greater rewards. If they kill the gatherer they get their spoils and have a satisfying pvp experience, if they die they take a penalty and get some of their random shit stolen.
Also: note this the more I think about this and read the more complex this can be due to player interactions and strategies that could circumvent gankers etc etc. I speak more from just viewing it as simply as possible using the pillar of Risk vs Reward. Which is what I think these interactions should be tailored to. What's the risk of the gatherer, what's their reward? What's the risk of the Ganker? what's their reward?
Will respond to each bullet in numbered format to make it easy to follow:
1. Agree with that "some" corruption should be applied on the initial attack but I do not believe a bounty should be able to be placed immediately unless a certain threshold of corruption has been hit. (IDK how they will add those values but that is for the devs to do)
2. I agree here leads to more player involvement and interaction
3. Don't think I know enough about this but I think the issue with them not having full effects against a BH is that they will most likely always lose. There is a fair fight between a farmer and PvPer (assuming famers can wear pvp gear over there farming gear). I think a slight debuff should exist but maybe not "full penalties" as you mentioned
4. Agree with that as long as the BH kills the corrupted with the loot on him
5. I disagree with a green not turning purple if they fight back. Steven wants PvP to happen not griefing which I agree will kill a game. If you remove the system of fight vs no fight you are essentially changing a massive part of the system. All a player would need to do is attack once to lower their a chance of loosing loot. That seems like a small price to pay to not lose half materials.
6. Pretty sure once you hit a certain threshold you have a chance to drop gear, so I guess I agree here.
7. Numbers should be adjusted once tested A2 releases
8. Not really a bad idea can't argue helps against Perma griefing
Hope my answers can show some light that there is a middle ground where both groups can be happy.
I'll assume that this percentage is somehow influenced by the Gods through the Essence.
Then the gatherer who is afraid by a certain class could bring some gifts or do quests to the corresponding religion in order to lower the percentage dropped if is defeated by that class.
But the overall percentage over all classes must remain the same or increase.
There are 8 classes and only 7 religions so maybe the gap could consider that the player is not supposed to influence the % dropped when fighting against it's own class.
So if the gatherer is afraid or wants to defend against the Rogue class, it would have to increase the percentage against some other class, for example Cleric.
This correspondence should be decided by the developers, depending how the classes are designed (the rock paper scissor relationship between them)
If the gatherer would like to lower the percentage against both Rogue and Cleric, then he would have to do more more things with more religions.
Eventually the gatherer could reduce the percentage against those who is afraid of but also sacrificing some percentage against the classes he is confident he can defeat.