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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Essay on downtime in games
Lash
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
(Rambling post about something you probably do not care about)
What is downtime? For this essay I will be defining downtime as the time a person is not fully engaged in a specific in game activity or gaining progress for their character. E.G. load times, Time to regenerate health and mana, respawn times, ect. What I do not consider downtime is things like travel times unless it is automated (Flight Path, airship rides ect.) or doing crafting or processing activities. Everything in this essay is based on my personal experiences and observations.
Why have downtime in games? I hate downtime!
I often hear people saying outright they hate downtime, They do not like waiting to get back into the “action” of the game. At the same time they might not like the effect this has on a game. There is both a psychological effect and a physical one. Efficiency is always king and that will not change.
An example of a psychological effect is the mindset that if you are not actively doing something to progress you are wasting your time. This means stopping to chat with someone feels bad, Going to the bathroom feels bad, travel times feel bad. All these create inefficiencies in your game play. There is no ratio of activity vs downtime to ease pressures a player will put on themselves to remain efficient. It makes chatting or going to the bathroom a 100% efficiency loss, Vs a 70% efficiency loss if you have 30% downtime. (Random numbers do not read into it). This means if you chat during downtime it takes the feeling of time and efficiency loss from negative to positive. You were playing more efficiently because you did a social activity without any loss to progression efficiency, thus making a player feel like they were double dipping so to speak.
For the example of a physical effect I will be using 2 games that I played a lot of that both use the same control scheme. Path of Exile and League of Legends. Both games involve controlling a character’s movement with your mouse and activating abilities with your keyboard. For Path of Exile efficiency is everything, It gives you more currency, more items, more exp, more progress in every way. An efficient player gains magnatudes more progress than a slightly inefficient player does. Path of Exile basically has no downtime if you want to be efficient. You stop, you lose. League of Legends has downtime when your character dies or in between matches. You can take your hands off your controller and rest your hands and brain. This is significant physically and mentally. I would argue League is more intensive on both your hands and brain in most ways. This is significant because the main complaint about Path of Exile is hand strain. Why is Path of Exile seemingly doing more damage to someone’s hands when League has more clicking? Path of Exile has no imposed downtime. You never have to stop to take a break in the game because the game never makes you, You are punished for it with efficiency loss. People will play for 5 hours without ever stopping to rest their hands. It is incredibly draining to play a game like this imo. Especially an mmo where you are expected to do longer play sessions. There are still reports of hand issues from league players but it is not nearly as pronounced as in the Path of Exile community. To me this tells me even small amounts of downtime such as on character death or in between matches has an impact on player health.
Downtime used as a knob to balance around.
My main concern here is the idea of the choice to play safely vs dangerous and efficient. Downtime is one thing that can be used to tune down how efficient AoE spells usually are. If AoE pulling mobs is taxing on both your health and mana but health and mana regenerate in seconds people will be encouraged to always play that way. Players do not like efficiency loss and will always opt for more efficient tactics. If mana and health regen are not near instant you gain a choice as a player. You can play safely and use efficient single target spells to maintain a high health and mana pool. This also would help keep you safe in spontaneous pvp scenarios. Or you can aoe pull mobs and burn health and mana to kill multiple targets in around the same time you could kill 1 mob playing safe. Without any downtime needed to recover, the second option will always be the right choice. There is no concept of reckless spikes of action vs slow but steady. Players are not going to choose to play inefficiently if the alternative is just worse in every way. AoE will probably always be more efficient in terms of time even with downtime but downtime makes this an actual choice. There are also things like proper group composition to reduce downtime that can come into play when it is present in the game. Something a group focused game like Ashes could make proper use of.
Downtime’s impact in pvp.
This is a lot of my own personal preference I think. I do not want to see siege gameplay devolve into endless projectile and aoe spam into a choke point. I do not see it as fun or engaging gameplay. This is where some downtime would come into play. If you use your mana spamming aoe it should be an opening for your opponent. If mana regen is too fast there will be few gaps to exploit decisively. A good leader should be able to see a gap in defense and take advantage imo. Not to say I think it should be impossible to spam. I just think a player should have to give up damage stats and passives to maintain their mana pool. I like the idea of a mana regen mage spec that has full mana gear that can be used to lock down a choke point in exchange for dealing way less damage. This means you have more interesting choices in exchange for some downtime for people who are just spamming.
Economic and group play dynamics.
I like the idea of people playing around downtime. Gear sets that reduce downtime in exchange for other utility or power. Consumables that exchange gold for efficiency. Encouraging grouping up and playing to your strengths based on group composition. E.G. Using CC vs aoe pulling depending on what kind of group you have. Will you single target down a pack of mobs and never have to stop for mana or will you blast the pack down and then pause for a moment to recover but leave your group weakened for potential pvp. None of these things are really possible without some kind of downtime.
What is there to gain?
I am not a huge fan of the Go, Go, Go mentality and it is not caused by players. It is all in the game design. I think downtime is an important concept to implement early into testing. No one would like it if you decided a year down the line that it is now important. It is 1000x easier to start with a baseline and increase it to a point where you are happy then reduce it after players have already played with a system. People hate when you take away efficiency even if it makes the game better overall. Not many people are going to tell you they like “being slowed down” but I believe some amount of friction and action slow downs can be good for the overall health of the game and the players. You can increase actual player choice that is not just “You are choosing to play less efficiently for no gain”. 10% efficiency loss because of a trade off is an easier downside to swallow than a 100% efficiency loss because you had to answer the doorbell.
Players will not change but the design of the game can. Downtime is just 1 knob that can be tweaked.
TL;DR - I like downtime in games when used in the right places.
What is downtime? For this essay I will be defining downtime as the time a person is not fully engaged in a specific in game activity or gaining progress for their character. E.G. load times, Time to regenerate health and mana, respawn times, ect. What I do not consider downtime is things like travel times unless it is automated (Flight Path, airship rides ect.) or doing crafting or processing activities. Everything in this essay is based on my personal experiences and observations.
Why have downtime in games? I hate downtime!
I often hear people saying outright they hate downtime, They do not like waiting to get back into the “action” of the game. At the same time they might not like the effect this has on a game. There is both a psychological effect and a physical one. Efficiency is always king and that will not change.
An example of a psychological effect is the mindset that if you are not actively doing something to progress you are wasting your time. This means stopping to chat with someone feels bad, Going to the bathroom feels bad, travel times feel bad. All these create inefficiencies in your game play. There is no ratio of activity vs downtime to ease pressures a player will put on themselves to remain efficient. It makes chatting or going to the bathroom a 100% efficiency loss, Vs a 70% efficiency loss if you have 30% downtime. (Random numbers do not read into it). This means if you chat during downtime it takes the feeling of time and efficiency loss from negative to positive. You were playing more efficiently because you did a social activity without any loss to progression efficiency, thus making a player feel like they were double dipping so to speak.
For the example of a physical effect I will be using 2 games that I played a lot of that both use the same control scheme. Path of Exile and League of Legends. Both games involve controlling a character’s movement with your mouse and activating abilities with your keyboard. For Path of Exile efficiency is everything, It gives you more currency, more items, more exp, more progress in every way. An efficient player gains magnatudes more progress than a slightly inefficient player does. Path of Exile basically has no downtime if you want to be efficient. You stop, you lose. League of Legends has downtime when your character dies or in between matches. You can take your hands off your controller and rest your hands and brain. This is significant physically and mentally. I would argue League is more intensive on both your hands and brain in most ways. This is significant because the main complaint about Path of Exile is hand strain. Why is Path of Exile seemingly doing more damage to someone’s hands when League has more clicking? Path of Exile has no imposed downtime. You never have to stop to take a break in the game because the game never makes you, You are punished for it with efficiency loss. People will play for 5 hours without ever stopping to rest their hands. It is incredibly draining to play a game like this imo. Especially an mmo where you are expected to do longer play sessions. There are still reports of hand issues from league players but it is not nearly as pronounced as in the Path of Exile community. To me this tells me even small amounts of downtime such as on character death or in between matches has an impact on player health.
Downtime used as a knob to balance around.
My main concern here is the idea of the choice to play safely vs dangerous and efficient. Downtime is one thing that can be used to tune down how efficient AoE spells usually are. If AoE pulling mobs is taxing on both your health and mana but health and mana regenerate in seconds people will be encouraged to always play that way. Players do not like efficiency loss and will always opt for more efficient tactics. If mana and health regen are not near instant you gain a choice as a player. You can play safely and use efficient single target spells to maintain a high health and mana pool. This also would help keep you safe in spontaneous pvp scenarios. Or you can aoe pull mobs and burn health and mana to kill multiple targets in around the same time you could kill 1 mob playing safe. Without any downtime needed to recover, the second option will always be the right choice. There is no concept of reckless spikes of action vs slow but steady. Players are not going to choose to play inefficiently if the alternative is just worse in every way. AoE will probably always be more efficient in terms of time even with downtime but downtime makes this an actual choice. There are also things like proper group composition to reduce downtime that can come into play when it is present in the game. Something a group focused game like Ashes could make proper use of.
Downtime’s impact in pvp.
This is a lot of my own personal preference I think. I do not want to see siege gameplay devolve into endless projectile and aoe spam into a choke point. I do not see it as fun or engaging gameplay. This is where some downtime would come into play. If you use your mana spamming aoe it should be an opening for your opponent. If mana regen is too fast there will be few gaps to exploit decisively. A good leader should be able to see a gap in defense and take advantage imo. Not to say I think it should be impossible to spam. I just think a player should have to give up damage stats and passives to maintain their mana pool. I like the idea of a mana regen mage spec that has full mana gear that can be used to lock down a choke point in exchange for dealing way less damage. This means you have more interesting choices in exchange for some downtime for people who are just spamming.
Economic and group play dynamics.
I like the idea of people playing around downtime. Gear sets that reduce downtime in exchange for other utility or power. Consumables that exchange gold for efficiency. Encouraging grouping up and playing to your strengths based on group composition. E.G. Using CC vs aoe pulling depending on what kind of group you have. Will you single target down a pack of mobs and never have to stop for mana or will you blast the pack down and then pause for a moment to recover but leave your group weakened for potential pvp. None of these things are really possible without some kind of downtime.
What is there to gain?
I am not a huge fan of the Go, Go, Go mentality and it is not caused by players. It is all in the game design. I think downtime is an important concept to implement early into testing. No one would like it if you decided a year down the line that it is now important. It is 1000x easier to start with a baseline and increase it to a point where you are happy then reduce it after players have already played with a system. People hate when you take away efficiency even if it makes the game better overall. Not many people are going to tell you they like “being slowed down” but I believe some amount of friction and action slow downs can be good for the overall health of the game and the players. You can increase actual player choice that is not just “You are choosing to play less efficiently for no gain”. 10% efficiency loss because of a trade off is an easier downside to swallow than a 100% efficiency loss because you had to answer the doorbell.
Players will not change but the design of the game can. Downtime is just 1 knob that can be tweaked.
TL;DR - I like downtime in games when used in the right places.
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Comments
WoW downtime was there, but not incredibly impactful if you had food/drink/bandages. EverQuest downtime was huge, even when soloing with a non-healer class as a race that had the best base HP regen in the game (Iksar or 2nd best Troll).
Any opportunity for someone to go out and touch grass without feeling like their efficiency just tanked because of it, is a good opportunity.
Maybe something like crafting taking 5 minutes to make an item is enough downtime to go to the bathroom and chat for a few minutes.
Also, really loved the idea behind WOW rested exp and would be happy to see something similar.
Regaining health and mana are not supposed to be "fun".
These days, those are so fast it's not worth discussing.
"Downtime" should not be so long that I decide to start reading a book while I wait for some activity in the game to finish. Which is what I used to do while Medding in vanilla EQ 25 years ago.
Ashes is not trying to be an action-adventure game or an FPS.
What do you do during "downtime" in an RPG?
RP.
You could take a lot of skills that all 'add up to' approximately the same effectiveness, and then have short periods where you run out of mana so you stop using them even though technically they're off cooldown.
You could alternately take a lot of skills with big impact and big cooldowns and then have short periods where you have enough mana, but no 'appropriate skill off cooldown' to use it on.
The problem with this is usually that if you give a class this option, but allow them to front-load the damage one, they'll just find 'whatever dies quickest to the damage' (preferably instantly) and fight those to make sure they are in no danger, but often, this isn't so bad, as long as it is tuned right (doesn't kill PvP opponents instantly at-level, doesn't 'stack' easily with other players doing the same thing).
So it's a trickier design, but they're already aiming high, so perhaps we'll see it. We might even see it through Secondary Archetype, adding the 'expectation' part to it so that players could group with the Classes that usually have the playstyle they prefer.
Longer downtimes are usually a matter of mob density and strength, since that's the only way to get some types of hyper-efficient players to slow down at all. I have lots of opinions on that, but they're unpopular enough, I THINK, to derail your thread, so.
Its extremely important to make sure that player efficiency and optimization aligns with the intended experience. Fun should always be optimal. What would be the point in adding certain experiences that players will never do because something else is "better" for progression? Its a great point that part of the gaming experience should allow for time to take breaks, to make sure its a good experience even when you are not playing.
@Xeeg brought up a great point, that if you take this approach, it should happen when you would expect it too.
1. Dowtime is meant to be relaxing, therefore it should be implemented within the aspects of gameplay that are meant to be relaxing, which would make more sense than forcing breaks when someone is doing something exhilerating
2. You would only want force breaks when neccessary. This would be when a specific gameplay loop calls for an excessive amount of time invested at max efficiency. If someone is just hopping on and doing pvp matches (assuming a form of pvp thats just for fun, with no benefit when grinded), they can just naturally take breaks in between, wheras if they are wanting to get better at pvp and go out to grind levels and gear, then that is a lot more time involved if they are being as efficient as possible, which might call for implementing some dowtime during some of those relaxing portions.
I am a huge advocate of the EQ system and will have to agree here, EQ was extreme.
To give an example - in P99 recently, I have a 40 enchanter soloing a Hill giant.
Hill Giant Respawn every 6min 40sec
For me to solo kill it, it consumes 80% of my mana bar if I dont fizzle a spell and needed to re-cast root once because it broke early.
4 out of 5 hill giants I run into a big mana issue.
So within the 6min 40sec and with CLARITY (increase mana regen) I would hit full mana at 6min 20 seconds.
Now I usually need to rebuff myself with AC and rebuff my clarity. I can't afford both spells and have 80% mana to fight on respawn. So I would need to sit and watch the hill giant walk away from the camp spot, which is also bad for me, cause now I need to find him, kill him then run back to the spawn point, losing 30 seconds, thus making the next respawn, shy of full mana.
I cant even imagine a mage, necro without clarity dealing with stuff, when I am the enchanter with mana crack buff.
Do I believe 2-3 min DT is enough? probably not. I think 4-5 min is the sweet spot to mana regen to full from 0%. So figure out the match, the amount of tick per seconds needed and the % base needed to handle mana regen to equate 5 min (300 seconds)
1 min = 60 seconds aka 20%
30 seconds = 10%
15 seconds = 5%
so basically, mana regen ticks every 3 seconds.
1% mana regen every 3 seconds
10% mana regen every 30 seconds
20% mana regen every 60 seconds
I like DT but shouldnt be extreme like EQ - Agree, but shouldnt be super fast either. Content should be meaningful and burning through things for speed/efficacy is a big NO for me.
risk/reward/ earn it, feeling of accomplishments is better dopamine feeling then quick dopamine of nothing then diminish in time.
Saying DING every couple of days is meaningful vs DING every 3-5 hours.
anyway, you are supposed to leave the computer for a bit, stretch, drink some water, do other things
Any longer break should be a voluntary decision. If you require the game mechanics to force you to stop and socialize, do you really like to socialize?
idk bro... its a MMO and ROLE PLAYING game
I would expect socializing, group content to be king and this genre like how it used to be. If your not a social person, why r u playing - go play FF7, Dark Souls if you want to solo content.
Same goes for MOBA games. I play to play with teamwork in mind. Not a game where 1 person logs in and expects to hard carry 4 random players or everyone playing in that mindset. (Not a LoL player, but I have heard League has changed things to make it feel that way, whereas smite - its possible to solo carry but higher ranked games requires team work and teamwork always wins vs 5 solo players)
If you require the game's mechanics to force you to stop to socialize, do you really like socializing?
Forced downtimes are not necessary to socialize. We can always take or make the time to do so.
how is killing one monster every 6 minutes more meaningful than killing 20 every 6 minutes?
if your concern is leveling and speed and you want 1 level to take a few days, you can still do that while allowing players to kill 20 monsters every 6 minutes instead of just 1. just play around with how much exp each mob gives, or how much you need to level up .-.
it all depends on what type of player experience you want for the players, but I have to say that killing 1 monster, then sitting down for 6 minutes doing nothing, is boring as fk
How EQ set up XP for mobs was based on a flat system for simplicity.
lv 40 mob, regardless of type of mob = same amount of XP. so they just used a baseline. Do AoC want to create dynamic XP for lvl 40 mobs and figure out the math?
Also, more immersive fighting something 1 vs 1 as opposed to a BDO like type of game, where a player is zooming into a 20 v 1. Fighting 6 v1 shouldnt allow you to win that fight. Since Steven also comes from D&D/Pathfinder - 6v1 would be a lvl 6 fighting lvl 1 goblins - shit xp because there is no way a lvl 6 fighter is gonna take on 6 stone giants and survive.
In terms of "Boring" - personally disagree. Cause I would be chatting with guildie, party mate, world chat, stretching, hydrating, eating. A lot of EQ massive Downtime went directly to world chat. Listening to drama, rumors, who's being blacklisted because of ninja looting, answering newbie question - there was a massive sense of community in game. Which we have unfortunately moved SO FAR AWAY FROM IN MMO.
MMORPG is a TEAM game, a SOCIETY game.
I wish, I HOPE - Steven enforces this aspect and make it so, Introverts are gonna need to break out of their shell and gamers begins to learn ettitique, patience, respect to achieve a goal. If not as Steven said "This game isn't for you". Thats a game I would like to see and hope AOC goes in that direction.
what I mean is, if one mob gives you 10 exp, and you need 100 exp to level up, you would kill 10 mobs. if you want one level to take days, not hours, just make it so you need 10,000 exp to level up and now you need to kill 1000 mobs. or make it so that one mob gives 1 exp instead..etc etc. you don't have to make the fight harder to adjust leveling speed.
how is killing 1 monster more immersive? that's opinion based. so if you are at an orc camp and you kill 1 orc, there are spells flying, meteors coming down from the sky, other orcs nearby wont come help his friend? that's less immersive in my opinion
boring is subjective. you are sitting downfor 6 minutes, and in that downtime you are doing things to keep you occupied, other than actually play the game, as in use your character in combat, or to do something. you are chatting in world chat and reading drama..you know why? to prevent you from getting bored while you are sitting down. you know what else prevents you from getting bored? killing mobs and playing the game. hell I could play fur elize twice on my piano every time I kill a mob with that 6 minutes down time
you can make the game social without making it boring. make it a bit harder to people to progress if they are soloing, you know cuz they will run out of mana or health, maybe every 5 minutes or so, then they will have to sit for a minute to regen, and if they group up, leveling will be easier. you can make it so that they cant obliterate mobs as well. make it so that 1 class cant heal hp, mana, buff, kill and solo a boss by dodging everything, so you depend on other classes.
If the game makes you do it - it's already failed.
Regardless of how the group formed - if I'm in a group, I should want to socialize.
Of course - if everyone in the group has had the exact same themepark experience over and over and over again - there is no reason to socialize from an in-game perspective.
Especially if combat encounters/boss fights can be memorized.
As an introvert this is a complete nightmare.
“But it forces you to socialize with friends”… Umm, I can do two things at the same time you know. Like actually playing the game AND have a conversation with friends. I know, mind blowing right?!
This is more of a punishment than anything. Killed two enemies, now I have to sit in a corner and think about what I done for 10min…
Sorry. Bad experience. Back to the drawing board. NEXT.
Unfortunately I think the only answer might be 'you shouldn't'.
It's likely that even with an attempt to please both sides, the game will definitely displease and lose some players either way.
You might be one of them. So instead I'll ask something else.
You've played this sort of game in situations where you have a class in your group that does Mana Management and therefore you don't have to rest as much (if at all) when that player is doing their job, right? Is it also a dealbreaker for you, to have to rest when you don't have that class with you?
We already know that Steven is bringing this aspect back. We already know hitting max level is 45-60 days (which is still short imo) and its group focus not single player solo mmo.
so, as steven also stated - this game might not be for you.
Those of us who loved mmo back in the days dont give a fuck about instant gratification. Instant gratification and convivence is what ruined the genre.
The constant short term, shallow dopamine with no meaning wears off quickly vs something that took effort, time and creates this larger sense of accomplish.
I want quality dopamine not quanity of shitty dopamine.
I am glad, after yesterday dev gameplay - the quickness they went through in the graveyard isnt an indication of difficulty and that it will be much higher.
Now to correct the mana consumption and mana regen rate which was a red flag on display.
"Those of us who loved mmo back in the days" It is natural for a gaming company wanting to be the biggest there is, that won't be accomplished by catering to gamers "back in the day". Their ad spend will go towards new gamers who have yet heard about Ashes. Majority of those gamers will be Gen Z and millennials as that is the largest demographic using FB/IG/TikTok. They are not excited about "back in the day gaming".
Sorry but that GenZ money trumps "back in the day" gamers. It's like comparing $20mil in revenue vs $200mil.
"wears off quickly vs something that took effort, time and creates this larger sense of accomplish." Yes, because sitting around took you sooo much effort. You felt like you accomplished something by spending half of your $ubscription sitting?
Example: crafting. I want to be able to stack 10k logs and spend a whole day crafting them and only having to be infront of my screen once everytime I need to replenish my backpack with materials.
In that way, I can be both productive in-game and productive IRL, doing dishes, cleaning, cooking, training, etc.
Players who want to stay active in-game could also enjoy this mechanic if, lets say, you could setup a stone cutting machine in your freehold, and have it running while you go out in the wilderness to quest or hunt things. Doubly productive
Edit: the continuous "power" could be provided by a mule or cow going round in circles, with a gear system. Like what happens in certain areas of the world.
When I tried playing FF14, I could solo pretty much any open world content and then had an autofinder for dungeons, in which I had no reason to socialize, because the content was super easy and most people just ran through it w/o saying a single word.
This is what I mean by "the game should force me to socialize". I can definitely concede the point of "sit around and talk" as that is not a necessity for socializing, but the content itself should push people to be more sociable, because otherwise they won't be. Of course some will be extraverted enough to just talk with whomever, but in my experience those are a rare breed in mmos. It's a nightmare if you're trying to do this with complete strangers. I explained why I didn't see it as a nightmare in the response above. If the content is difficult enough and constant enough - you have no time to just talk. You'll be listening to or giving out commands on what to do and where to go. Pauses in the content allow for simple discussions to happen and such discussions then lead to a much better feeling of comradery, because you get to know people you're playing with.
You can't convince me!!