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
Thank you!
Hell naw. What if I am both a gatherer AND a hardcore pvper? Those potential "random gankers" basically would be bringing PvP content to me.. Win-Win. I get to gather shit, and then have the possibility of either having my ass kicked, or doing the ass kicking. If I lose, then losing some material is what I get for under performing. You win some, you lose some. Never losing is never fun, because then pvp gets old and I have nothing to strive for. If taking a few random ass beating and losing little material here and there is a turn off.. then this prolly isn't gonna be your cup of tea.
1. Do the trees a;ways fall the same direction map wise or do they fall to the right based on your location to the tree?
2. What happens if a tree falls in the woods and someone is around to hear it, but the tree lands on him? Can we use falling trees as a weapon?
3. I may have missed it, but will there be events that happen based on how much or little we gather in an area. Like a boss mob spawns mad that we are chopping all the trees down or there is a type of tree that gets bigger and bigger the long it goes without being chopped down?
1- idk
2- no
3- yes
I miss the UO days when killed, you were turned into a ghost and had to run to a wandering priest for a res.
OooOoOo OO O o OOOOO Oo ooOOO Oo OOo
When thinking of a streamer's experience, even if people are being banned for griefing or killing them, they will keep making new accounts that outscale the rate at which reports and bans can be issued.
My solution for this implementing a anti-griefed death system. That is to say if someone is repeatedly killed in open world flagged combat without getting kills themself, they will increasingly become more defended.
Example:
If they have died 2 times in a row without attacking, they gain bonus movement speed on being attacked to help them escape.
If they have died 4 times players who attack them gain much larger corruption than a standard player (could scale based on number of deaths. At x deaths in a row, flagging on this player instantly makes you go red)
Then for the extreme cases like streamers, if they are still being killed after this (6+ deaths), they are given 4-8 hours of open world immunity, assuming they don't flag on anyone.
This system could also be time gated so it resets every 24 or 48 hours so for most players they will never even see this system, but for many streamers, it will allow them to actually play the game. This system also works to help the experience of players that are just having a bad session or keep getting killed wherever they go.
One thing that needs to be solved is that there need to be activities you cant do while under immunity. The easiest way to abuse this system would be to have your friend kill you on a useless character 8 times to give you immunity and then you go out and profit from the riskiest content without fear. Certain content would require that you give up your anti-griefing bonuses. (like large raids or dungeons)
Would love to hear people's thoughts on this and thanks for reading!
Yes, griefers shouldn't be able to ruin your evening, just for the kicks. But....no, carebears are not entitled and protected to just chill and mine ores comfortably, like there is no tomorrow.
There is no such thing as gatherer noob. They come already with a lot of experience from other MMOs
Fun times
But here they could do evil things to those attackers.
I don't know what but I wouldn't mind the loss of resources to be rewarded with a bit of fun and chance of revenge. At least emotional revenge.
Hrmm..
Assumption - you PK a player, you turned purple, killed the player - get corrupted - not enough to turn red.. you become green in 5 minutes.
BUT if the ghost wishes to follow you, you stay purple until the ghost gives up and moves on.
So I can chase you around the world, keeping you purple for all the BH.
Caveat - Ghost can't speak in chat. All attempts is OooO Oo OoOooO. Whispers are blocked. Global/Node/Guild chat is blocked. Only Area chat is "allowed'
H4H4H4H4HH4H4 ... u r cl0wn . 🤡
Will there be teamwork when it comes to gathering outside of what was explained already? What I mean is...
Scenario #1:
There is a rare or special resource in a cave; however, in that cave hides a dangerous beast. The gatherers/surveyors need to work with cobat-focused players to acheive the greater goal for their node/guild which is: Aquire some rare resources to progress or improve their node/guild while also progressing their own profession of gather, combat, surveying, etc.
Scenario #2:
There is a rare, mostly unknown resource you've learned about that sounds exactly like what you were looking for; the only issue is... None of the other [insert race/class here]s have ever seen it before. You learn that there is a mage that can summon a beast which holds this resource. He can only be summoned at a frozen mountain top. You find this Mage and he informs you that you need 3 Mages to be able to summon this creature. You bring 3 Mages, some warriors to fight the beast, and gatherers who have the skill to gather this resource.
Scenario #3:
There is a very dark forest that is highly dangerous to traverse. There is trecherous terrain, wild beasts, and unwelcoming inhbitants (intelligent NPCs to an lesser extent). You have the choice as the gatherer to find a Wood Elf who is willing to escort you through this terrain as they are friendly with the locals and can vouch for you. Another option you have is to fight your way through the locals and wild animals to the resources within. Perhaps you are sneaky enough to be effective as a solo gatherer, slipping in and out of the forest unnoticed.
Conclusion:
The resources could be specific to the ways you get them. This would mean that relationships would matter between races/classes. Being friendly with the Gnomes might be beneficial in a different way than being friendly with Orcs. This would make some very dynamic gameplay IMO.
- This would help players feel like their race/class choice has some inherent benefits and unique interactions in the world.
- It could help professions actually work together at the same time while progressing thier own skills.
- It would help with role playing, immersion, and build social relations with players in game that is cooperative rather than simply combat interactions.
Might be too much to achieve, maybe I'm missing some holes in this plan. I think that this could be a really cool aspect of gathering/surveying and I'm curious how other people feel about this idea.
First of all let me say i think you all are doing a fabulous job. The graphics are amazing, what you're doing with the gathering looks wonderful, you all actually care about the game and i think some of your devs need some free keys to play lol.
That said i am having some Lineage 2 flashbacks.... and remembering all the bad things in it related to gathering resources and pvp which i hope don't happen in Ashes. I'll try to keep this short.
In Lineage 2 i was an alliance leader on Sieghart server of over 40 clans, we owned numerous castles, i was one of the highest lvl players and played it over 2 yrs. I played the game 12-14 hours a day as well...
Some of the issues we had. In lineage 2 we killed mobs for crafting materials, the materials were scarce and were limited to certain level mobs (many lower level mobs) and areas depending on what you were needing. I do understand.. there is a difference .. however i still see the scarcity as being an issue.
One of the problems was the amount of materials needed in order to craft anything. It was a ridiculous amount. (it could take a month to gather enough materials to make a set of boots for your lvl)
The second issue was (especially at higher levels 80+) it took an incredible amount of time, say 12 hours of solid grinding mobs in order to gain 1 percent of the total xp needed for your next level.
You had a choice, do you grind mobs for xp for your level or do you go kill low level mobs for a few materials.
These issues cause chinese gold / mat farmers to appear everywhere. If you went into an area to grind mobs for mats they would tell you to go away. The devs implemented a few various ways to combat this but was unsuccessful. I don't want to get into all of the things they tried because i don't want this to be long.
You could say all you have to do is kill them and take their stuff. Unfortunately there was a flagging system in Lineage 2 as well and it simply wasn't possible to do so without serious penalties as the farmers... didn't fight back which would cause you to go red and then you would have to go grind xp while red with a very high probability of losing a lot of gear if someone seen you red and decided to kill you.
The only way i can see to combat the issues above is that whatever mat requirements to make items be kept low. Another way is to not make leveling so time consuming and.... make it to where even lower levels can compete with higher levels with player skill.... In lineage 2, if someone was a level or 2 higher than someone else you didn't stand a chance of winning against them in pvp.
If you have to grind mobs for xp 12 hours a day just to keep up with the higher people, you simply wont have time to grind materials for items which creates an influx of gold and mat farmers which is prevalent in most games. This created conditions to where if you wanted to buy the mats just to make an item, depending on the item, it would cost you hundreds or thousands of real life cash in order to purchase them.
I could see a farming clan in a group moving in a large circle around an area and taking everything. Once the materials respawn they would be right back where they started and do it all over again, leaving nothing for anyone else. You could say this will never happen, but i assure you IT WILL. Lineage 2 had more asian gold and mat farmers than anything else.
There would have to be a system in place to eradicate a 'clan' from an area otherwise i don't see how you would be able to effectively gather materials without substantial issues.
Ideally... a guild leader or officer should... be able to make a player or clan as KOS and be able to take any mats they have on them without penalties. Its really the only way i can see to combat it.
Another thing that can be done is adding protection zones close to cities/towns etc, so a bunch of gankers don't stand at the gate waiting for people to return home.
mic drop
I also think that the "lootbox" stone idea is really nice. this way enough of all kind of stone items are gathered instead of the "best" thing only. surveying sounds nice but only if it isnt always needed. The trees look nice but as far as i know it didnt move the water the tree fell into. this is a minor touch but it feels weird that dusts moves but water doesnt. also the big tree cutting spot was as high as the charaters head. the gathering also felt a bit weird as the product that is being gather (in this case petals) just break and fall but this is yet again nit picking.
regarding the "land score" thing i am not too sure how to prevent griefing with this one. for example if one person is farming the best spot what happens if 1 other guy just try to steal everything and not only grief but also deplete the rescource score. i personally wouldnt want to give them all the rescource so is it maybe an idea to keep the depletion of rescources for some time even if they leave as punishment for both peoples greed? but if this is the case couldnt people grief and walk on to the next spot to grief?
very nice update overal
Thats the idea of risk vs reward, the guy who killed you becomes corrupted if you didnt attacked him which means that he takes the risk to loose some of the equipment which he uses if he get killed for the 25-50% of your mats. So he risk his equipment for saving time from gathering, but its unlikely that he will take the risk to kill you and loose some of his equipment if his equipment is very expensive. If he is not using very expensive gear and wants to just kill you for your mats but you have better gear then you will have easy time defending your self. Ofcourse that address just 1v1 scenario, we have to see how its going to play out if we have group of gankers, what will be your escapebility when outnumbered , for example if you dont engage in fight with the enemies they cannot CC you so maybe if you have good mobility they will not be able to kill you at all, so it really depends and we have to see how the system will turn out.
If you dont make money out of playing games then playing games is waste of time in general so if you are worried so much about wasting your time , maybe gaming is not a good hobby for you.
PvE games waste your time with a lot of grinding and rng stuff so that is not a good argument at all.
Okay that scenario is impossible, because if you are corrupted you cannot bank your equipment in the bank you cannot trade it to others and etc. Thank you Steven for addressing this in the latest dev video.