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 mean, if Steven says it's a change and you say it isn't, I'm going to take Stevens opinion over yours.
And yes, Steven did say it was a change.
There are MMOs where you can level doing PvP only.
In other words your game rewarded some players by making others players quit
― Plato
What you are describing is PvP activity - if you have to go through all of that then you just alienate everyone except the PvP crowd
Don't slap PvX label on a purely PvP activity and not call it PvP
I get it you want a PvP mmo, those are out there (New world was supposed to be one of them) but you can't just force every player into a choice between doing PvP or logging out.
The best way (imo) to get PvE players the option to participate in PvP with rewards, but to not force it
― Plato
PvE players don't want to do anything PvP and will avoid it without trying to attempting to grow. This is a PvX game, both types of content will lean on each other. People will learn to adapt and grow and give it a try and be able to judge for themselves. Sometimes you will not have as much pvp, sometimes you will have more, sometimes you will need to war to take a spot or more on to another area.
Play the game, improve and understand it, else if you want to just teleport to dungeons, no pvp, have less meaningful gathering, etc WoW exist. I don't see people trying to saying WoW needs to become a PvX game all the sudden.
I'm not disputing that, I am agreeing with it - because I believe that if you force a choice on a PvE player to either participate in PvP (almost always inbalanced against him - cuz he isn't building towards PvP) or leave the area or leave the game then he will mostly choose one of the leave options
However if you present an incentive to participate in PvP like having a currency that can be exchanged for goods if you PK someone who attacked you then PvE players a reward for doing PvP that they can see value in
If you drive a PvE player away by non-consensual PvP he is lost forever. Give PvE player a reward for doing PvP and he might become casual PvP player
― Plato
People who typically play on a PvE-Only server want to know why we would want to play Ashes of Creation.
Previously the answer to that has been, "Ashes is a PvX game with Corruption-flagging. It's not a PvP game. It's not a PvE game. It's a PvX game. Corruption-flagging should deter PKing enough that only those who never want to experience PvP should feel comfortable playing Ashes."
PvX was mostly hype to try to help convince PvE players to give Ashes a try.
But... it really just means that the PvPers who enjoy Ashes will have to also do some PvE.
Just like in every other PvP-centric MMORPG.
PvX is not at all related to the answer of why players who typically play on a PvE-Only server would want to play Ashes of Creation.
Originally, Steven said that there was a healthy balance between PvP and PvE, but...
The Open Seas permanent auto-flag zone skews that balance too much towards PvP combat for me.
And, the addition of Node Ruins doesn't help balance gameplay more towards comfort for PvEers.
I feel the mats would be the reward(currency), though corruption is a pretty high price to pay so i don't see liek 90% of pvers actually going red.
Based on the systems int he game that give consensual pvp that should help nudge them into being more comfortable with it if they give it a try and enjoy the gameplay of it. Like fighting to keep your node from being sieged as an example.
Though when it comes to node / guild wars i don't think you should lose xp for dying or mats imo. Sounds kind of chaotic / too hardcore so will be interesting to see more systems and their view on it. As I also could see player pks not giving xp debt.
Just as they test things and have things working yes more pvp systems will be talked about and shown but I'm sure there will also be some cases like with the CC thing that benefits people that are not as pvp heavy.
Never been done before
Whoa, whoa, whoa, now you're just making too much sense.
It looks it is going in a good direction, I am loving almost everything
I am very interested in guild wars and power struggles between nodes, being masters vs slaves included
I agree it's a bad change to the game, but I have a feeling the game will slowly turn into EVE or Albion PvP wise because that's the easiest way to cater to the biggest number people from both the PvP and PvE audiences, which I personally very much dislike.
That's very unfortunate, in my opinion that (P2W/greed) is one of the top factors that killed the genre.
I have a friend who hates chocolate and I'm all, "!!??!!??"
P2W matters more for more competitive games, when it comes to pve it is just paying to skip content faster.
Also not defending it p2w is complete trash and i agree it is ruining he genre while also trying tot urn it more casual.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that Ashes will have MULTIPLE high level areas. One dungeon being blocked? Lame. But, even if you decide to fight, the 'blocking' participants will get continued corruption penalties, then it will be free to kill them with ease(corruption penalty), take extra loot(corruption penalty), and punish them with exp denial that they have to work off(corruption penalty).
I think so many mechanics in the game will rely on the gameplay features being fully fleshed out. Unfortunately, this won't even begin to happen until the Alpha 2.
Founder and Guild Leader of -Providence-
I spent 10 years as a purely PvE MMO player, then moved over to a mostly PvP setting.
In my experience of top end PvE players, most of us are quite happy to PvP, but we dont want to play a game to PvP if it means we cant also have top end PvE (why few PvE players stuck with Archeage).
Put a game up that has top end PvE on par with any other game on the market, put some PvP aspects in, and you'll pull both top end PvE players, as well as many PvP players who will love the chance to take on said top end PvE players and take their top end loot.
That is what Ashes *should* be.
I don't believe this applies tot he normal player just wanting to play a pve mmorpg and isn't really in any kind of constant end game scene. But hopefully I can be wrong, just not may experience talking to some people that do pve and confused at them avoiding pvp content like the plague or me needing to do some serious convincing.
Players only wanting PvE are probably not interested in PvP, this is true.
In my experience though, this is a very small group of people. Most people would be happy with an amount of PvP along side good PvE - the problem is that all games with open world PvP so far have been more PvP focused with PvE as an afterthought.
This is why it appears that many PvE players dont want PvP - there are no games where PvP is the minor aspect to PvE being the major aspect - and as such these games are lacking in quality PvE.
Some people would look at PvE playera not playing those games and come to the reasonable conclusion that PvE players dont want to PvP, when in reality it is just that PvE players dont want to compromise on a game with sub-par PvE.
And honestly, why should they?
If a game wants to attract PvE players that are accepting of PvP, they need to have PvE to attract then - which means being on par with other games.
If your PvP isnt on par with other games, then you only have PvP to attract people, in which case you are a PvP game, not a PvX game.
Guess it will be interesting to see how AoC turns out since I can't think of any other mmorpg that has a focus on pvp and is doing pve as well. With seeing how players react to it if the pve does hold up.
you arent beign forced to pvp...you can just farm something else.
also, there isnt a "best way". there are different designs and player experiences. thats like saying basketball is better than soccer or baseball...
There aren't any that are doing PvP and attempting to have PvE that is anything other than a support for that PvP.
So far, I see no reason to assume Ashes will be any different. Steven has said they intend to have good PvE, but has not dared to discuss how they plan on having it actually work.
Going by Steven's experience, I see no reason at all to expect PvE past what L2 and Archeage have done. He seems to consider these to have good PvE, where as PvE players consider these games PvE to be so bad that PvE preferred guilds will leave the game after seeing just how much of a joke they are.
I mean, I'd love to see it, obviously, but Intrepid won't be able to do it unless they replace Jeff with someone with the testicular fortitude to tell Steven he is wrong about his own game, while on a livestream.
And even if you yourself dislike the concept of L2's "world instances", I do think that Steven could allow that mechanic as a way to develop super hardcore pve that still has pvp in its farm process.
And while it is absolutely possible to produce top end PvE content faster than that, it is only possible if the systems and tools to do so are in place. Without those systems and tools, hundreds of hours for good content is an understatement.
As to L2's world instances, as I said last time we talked about them, I don't dislike them, they do an acceptable job of half of the point of actual instances.
And I feel like if its the latter, the devs could make a proper hardcore mob and then present it to Steven saying "this is an example of what we can do at max output. Does it fit your vision or not?"
But maybe I'm just delusional about the dev process overall
I am curious how Throne of Liberty will balance the PvP.
If will show what the devs think players want.
And then we will also see what players really want.
AoC is based on the assumption that some PvE players want (or can enjoy) PvP.
For sure there are players who do not call themselves PvP-ers but play the PvP aspect of the game too if it is there, rather than doing scripted quests over and over to get a rare drop from a boss.
Those players are the target audience, not the pure PvE-ers or pure PvP-ers who obviously want more of their favorite aspect of the game, untainted by the other play-style.