Why Ashes of Creation WILL Fail

https://youtube.com/watch?v=a34Y9Jpxi3o&ab_channel=AMValentine

Hey guys, Valentine here!

I spent the better part of a month putting together a good case as to why this game would fail, drawing inspiration from pretty much every MMORPG that came before it. I did my best to show the core reasons why this type of game usually fails. Ashes of Creation is treading on one of the most dangerous paths a video game can take, and I want to make sure that everyone understands this. That is not to say that it has no chances of success, but I would certainly love to be proven wrong in the future!

One of the main things that I despise about always PvP MMOs is how most of the time the PvE aspect gets sacrificed for it. I really hope this will not be the case with Ashes. Give it a watch and let me know what you think! I spent a lot of time on this, I read pretty much the entire wiki trying to get everything right.

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tautau

Impressive.

Creates an account and makes a single post 11 minutes later and...

...still wins award for dumbest post of the year.

Edit: To be constructive: It is an easy mistake to make to assume that other people are like you. Admittedly, some are, but most are not. Most have different goals, different wants, different hobbies, different outlooks, different things they like about games and different reactions to things than you have.

However, you seemed to base everything you said about assumptions about what AoC will be, and you did not appear to be very well informed at all. You criticized other games and spoke very little about AoC itself, and what you cited (such as balancing combat - which is balanced on groups not individuals) was outdated and inaccurate.

bloodprophet

Why?
Why waste your time on something you don't like and why would any of us here waste 30 seconds watching a video by someone stating they don't like something?

Go add positive value to something, stop shitting on everyone else.

edit

Your not the first to do this and you won't be the last.

Overload

Wow... what an eyeopener

Hold up, I need to make a video about why this post and your Youtube video will fail.

AMValentines

tautau wrote: »

Impressive.

Creates an account and makes a single post 11 minutes later and...

...still wins award for dumbest post of the year.

I've had this account for a long while, just never realized I didn't verify my email until just now since I never posted before.

But I wouldn't call this "dumbest post of the year" considering half the video is just ripped from the Ashes of Creation wiki.

AMValentines

Overload wrote: »

Wow... what an eyeopener Hold up, I need to make a video about why this post and your Youtube video will fail.

Would love to, the whole point is to see if someone can deny what I'm saying. I'll be happy if you can, but at the same time, most of what I said comes straight out of the mouths of the developers, I'm just calling it out.

AMValentines

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why?
Why waste your time on something you don't like and why would any of us here waste 30 seconds watching a video by someone stating they don't like something?

Go add positive value to something, stop shitting on everyone else.

edit

Your not the first to do this and you won't be the last.

Well if we don't criticize things and give our opinions on the alphas and betas of games, then that would kind of defeat the whole point of having those, wouldn't it? I read the whole wiki and I'm voicing my concerns if they keep the direction.

bloodprophet

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why?
Why waste your time on something you don't like and why would any of us here waste 30 seconds watching a video by someone stating they don't like something?

Go add positive value to something, stop shitting on everyone else.

edit

Your not the first to do this and you won't be the last.

Well if we don't criticize things and give our opinions on the alphas and betas of games, then that would kind of defeat the whole point of having those, wouldn't it? I read the whole wiki and I'm voicing my concerns if they keep the direction.

Maybe try a little humility.
Try changing the title to something more like:
I have read through the forums and have some concerns.
vs
THIS
GAME
WILL
FAIL!!!!
I HAVE SPOKEN.

Probably get a better response for the community your attempting to reach.

AMValentines

bloodprophet wrote: »

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why?
Why waste your time on something you don't like and why would any of us here waste 30 seconds watching a video by someone stating they don't like something?

Go add positive value to something, stop shitting on everyone else.

edit

Your not the first to do this and you won't be the last.

Well if we don't criticize things and give our opinions on the alphas and betas of games, then that would kind of defeat the whole point of having those, wouldn't it? I read the whole wiki and I'm voicing my concerns if they keep the direction.

Maybe try a little humility.
Try changing the title to something more like:
I have read through the forums and have some concerns.
vs
THIS
GAME
WILL
FAIL!!!!
I HAVE SPOKEN.

Probably get a better response for the community your attempting to reach.

Completely understandable take but also:
I come from nowhere -- unless I grab people's attention from the start in one way or another, nobody'll listen.

It's also true that I am taking the negative stance. I was just hoping for more "here's why you're wrong" rather than "you're wrong solely because I dislike you".

bloodprophet

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why?
Why waste your time on something you don't like and why would any of us here waste 30 seconds watching a video by someone stating they don't like something?

Go add positive value to something, stop shitting on everyone else.

edit

Your not the first to do this and you won't be the last.

Well if we don't criticize things and give our opinions on the alphas and betas of games, then that would kind of defeat the whole point of having those, wouldn't it? I read the whole wiki and I'm voicing my concerns if they keep the direction.

Maybe try a little humility.
Try changing the title to something more like:
I have read through the forums and have some concerns.
vs
THIS
GAME
WILL
FAIL!!!!
I HAVE SPOKEN.

Probably get a better response for the community your attempting to reach.

Completely understandable take but also:
I come from nowhere -- unless I grab people's attention from the start in one way or another, nobody'll listen.

It's also true that I am taking the negative stance. I was just hoping for more "here's why you're wrong" rather than "you're wrong solely because I dislike you".

Can't dislike someone you don't know.
If you had come in looking for feedback I might have watched your video. But because of the way you came in from on high.
No chance. Same reason I don't watch other youtube people doing the same thing.

AMValentines

bloodprophet wrote: »

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why?
Why waste your time on something you don't like and why would any of us here waste 30 seconds watching a video by someone stating they don't like something?

Go add positive value to something, stop shitting on everyone else.

edit

Your not the first to do this and you won't be the last.

Well if we don't criticize things and give our opinions on the alphas and betas of games, then that would kind of defeat the whole point of having those, wouldn't it? I read the whole wiki and I'm voicing my concerns if they keep the direction.

Maybe try a little humility.
Try changing the title to something more like:
I have read through the forums and have some concerns.
vs
THIS
GAME
WILL
FAIL!!!!
I HAVE SPOKEN.

Probably get a better response for the community your attempting to reach.

Completely understandable take but also:
I come from nowhere -- unless I grab people's attention from the start in one way or another, nobody'll listen.

It's also true that I am taking the negative stance. I was just hoping for more "here's why you're wrong" rather than "you're wrong solely because I dislike you".

Can't dislike someone you don't know.
If you had come in looking for feedback I might have watched your video. But because of the way you came in from on high.
No chance. Same reason I don't watch other youtube people doing the same thing.

Understandable. Don't want to force you to watch. The whole point is to bring some criticism in a space where there's been a bit too much positivity in my opinion. The whole point of having alphas and betas is to gather information, so there's some actual hard information instead of people going 'wow that's so cool!' over and over again.

Overload

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why?
Why waste your time on something you don't like and why would any of us here waste 30 seconds watching a video by someone stating they don't like something?

Go add positive value to something, stop shitting on everyone else.

edit

Your not the first to do this and you won't be the last.

Well if we don't criticize things and give our opinions on the alphas and betas of games, then that would kind of defeat the whole point of having those, wouldn't it? I read the whole wiki and I'm voicing my concerns if they keep the direction.

Maybe try a little humility.
Try changing the title to something more like:
I have read through the forums and have some concerns.
vs
THIS
GAME
WILL
FAIL!!!!
I HAVE SPOKEN.

Probably get a better response for the community your attempting to reach.

Completely understandable take but also:
I come from nowhere -- unless I grab people's attention from the start in one way or another, nobody'll listen.

It's also true that I am taking the negative stance. I was just hoping for more "here's why you're wrong" rather than "you're wrong solely because I dislike you".

Here's where you're wrong:

1. You're calling Wildstar a sandbox MMO.
2. You're saying Ashes is planning to be WoW killer, which it clearly isn't, because the target audience for Ashes is not the same as the target audience for WoW. There might be some overlap in those 2 circles, but they are vastly different, and most people know or should know that by this point. The people claiming that Ashes is a WoW-killer at this point are either dumb, delusional or ignorant.
3. The PvP imbalance in the Military node election is going to be addressed by players building a champion instead of participating in the contest as their main character.
4. This game is not meant to be played completely solo, so balancing it for 1v1s is complete nonsense and an impossible task given that you have a trinity. The solution to it is that you just avoid fights that you can't win, and you try to get into a group or ask for help/protection from other players in your guild while you do your thing. Everybody that ever played an open-world PvP game knows that rule. If you're not going to play the game the way that it's meant to be played - it's not a game for you, and it's okay.
5. You clearly have never played Lineage 2 or Archeage in your life, so you don't know shit about the purpose of the bosses in those games, or what makes an open-world PvP game fun. In Lineage 2 the boss is the reward, some of them, like Valakas or Antharas, spawns once or twice per month, there's only 1 of them throughout the whole server, and he drops 1 piece of very powerful jewelry. The challenging part is when 800 players (10-15 clans) are fighting to enter his lair to be able to slay him. He's not meant to be a challenge, he's meant to be a reward.
6. Excitement makes games fun, whether it comes from Bosses or not. Some games give excitement by making boss mechanics very engaging. Other games provide excitement by making getting to a boss a risky venture, where you have to fight to get to the boss and it's goddamn amazing when your clan is the one that beat all of them and killed that Antharas. Some games don't have bosses at all. Some people are playing FIFA and there's no bosses at all, I'm sure they're having fun. Have you ever played LoL or DoTA? I don't see much people complaining or quitting that game because Roshan is not powerful enough (because Roshan is meant to be a reward, and getting to him is purposefully made challenging), yet a whole bunch of players play those games.
I'm sure I could go on if I bothered with watching more than half of your video.
Conclusion: Ashes is probably not for you, and nobody is going to try to convince you otherwise. Try looking for a different game. If I made a video for every game I didn't like the concept of, I would have no time to actually play any of the games I like.

akabear

Thoughts are, this is the wrong place to post such a video. Your summary demonstrates an uninformed understanding of the game.

All up a relatively unsophisticated effort to garner attention, quite frankly, as just click bait here to lead to a click bait youtube video.

If you genuinely care about the outcome of development and the community here then suggest contribute to the discussions in a focussed constructive manner.

AMValentines

Overload wrote: »

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why?
Why waste your time on something you don't like and why would any of us here waste 30 seconds watching a video by someone stating they don't like something?

Go add positive value to something, stop shitting on everyone else.

edit

Your not the first to do this and you won't be the last.

Well if we don't criticize things and give our opinions on the alphas and betas of games, then that would kind of defeat the whole point of having those, wouldn't it? I read the whole wiki and I'm voicing my concerns if they keep the direction.

Maybe try a little humility.
Try changing the title to something more like:
I have read through the forums and have some concerns.
vs
THIS
GAME
WILL
FAIL!!!!
I HAVE SPOKEN.

Probably get a better response for the community your attempting to reach.

Completely understandable take but also:
I come from nowhere -- unless I grab people's attention from the start in one way or another, nobody'll listen.

It's also true that I am taking the negative stance. I was just hoping for more "here's why you're wrong" rather than "you're wrong solely because I dislike you".

Here's where you're wrong:

1. You're calling Wildstar a sandbox MMO.
2. You're saying Ashes is planning to be WoW killer, which it clearly isn't, because the target audience for Ashes is not the same as the target audience for WoW. There might be some overlap in those 2 circles, but they are vastly different, and most people know or should know that by this point. The people claiming that Ashes is a WoW-killer at this point are either dumb, delusional or ignorant.
3. The PvP imbalance in the Military node election is going to be addressed by players building a champion instead of participating in the contest as their main character.
4. This game is not meant to be played completely solo, so balancing it for 1v1s is complete nonsense and an impossible task given that you have a trinity. The solution to it is that you just avoid fights that you can't win, and you try to get into a group or ask for help/protection from other players in your guild while you do your thing. Everybody that ever played an open-world PvP game knows that rule. If you're not going to play the game the way that it's meant to be played - it's not a game for you, and it's okay.
5. You clearly have never played Lineage 2 or Archeage in your life, so you don't know shit about the purpose of the bosses in those games, or what makes an open-world PvP game fun. In Lineage 2 the boss is the reward, some of them, like Valakas or Antharas, spawns once or twice per month, there's only 1 of them throughout the whole server, and he drops 1 piece of very powerful jewelry. The challenging part is when 800 players (10-15 clans) are fighting to enter his lair to be able to slay him. He's not meant to be a challenge, he's meant to be a reward.
6. Excitement makes games fun, whether it comes from Bosses or not. Some games give excitement by making boss mechanics very engaging. Other games provide excitement by making getting to a boss a risky venture, where you have to fight to get to the boss and it's goddamn amazing when your clan is the one that beat all of them and killed that Antharas. Some games don't have bosses at all. Some people are playing FIFA and there's no bosses at all, I'm sure they're having fun. Have you ever played LoL or DoTA? I don't see much people complaining or quitting that game because Roshan is not powerful enough (because Roshan is meant to be a reward, and getting to him is purposefully made challenging), yet a whole bunch of players play those games.
I'm sure I could go on if I bothered with watching more than half of your video.
Conclusion: Ashes is probably not for you, and nobody is going to try to convince you otherwise. Try looking for a different game. If I made a video for every game I didn't like the concept of, I would have no time to actually play any of the games I like.

1. I do consider Wildstar a sandbox MMO because of the huge housing emphasis. You got buffs from there, it could act as a central hub and very much was a focus of the game. It was the sandcastle to your sandbox.
2. I know Ashes isn't "planning" on being the WoW killer, it's the Ashes community that's saying that. And it might not even be the majority but there's certainly a wide range of people who think so. Hell, pretty much every Narc video is him saying this game will kill all other MMOs. The rest of the Ashes creators aren't really any better either.
3. I know that, that's why I included the exert from the wiki inside of that section. It was more so to emphasize the fact that they already gave up on ever balancing for 1 vs 1.
4. I know that very well, played some of those games myself after all. What I also know is that most of those games are currently dead, servers shut off and it had nothing to do with microtransactions or stuff like that, those games were dying long before they added any of that stuff.
5. Yeah, open world bosses don't put up a fight, that much is well known. That's my whole point. Imagine if every boss in WoW was just Azuregos with a different skin. Azuregos himself is weak but he has good loot so there's often a war fought over him. The point is: people don't play PvE or play WoW for Azuregos and it's entirely possible to have both open world bosses AND proper PvE fights inside of the same game.
6. To my shame, I'm a diamond league player. I can assure you that League of Legends was at it's most fun and most popular from seasons 1 through 5 when the game was a lot more centered around putting 4 other randos on your back and carrying them yourself. The more they pushed for forced cooperation and forcing people into their roles, the worse the game got and the more players it lost. Google Trends also agrees with me, it tells the story to you by itself, just look through league forums and trace how people felt about the changes and you'd understand.
The point I had with the bosses was that they are the center piece of every RPG. You don't remember warcraft 3 maps or random units as well as you remember Arthas and him becoming the Lich King. You don't remember where a certain mission was set but you remember when Illidan took the skull. Sans from Undertale. Emet-Selch from FF14. Ender Dragon from Minecraft. Moonlord from Terraria. Every legendary RPG has memorable bosses. If you make an RPG with no memorable bosses, you've kinda lost the race before it even began.

My point was never that I don't want to play Ashes regardless of how it will turn out. My point was more like: Will I be playing yet another dying game or will we get another MMO that intends to stick around. If it intends to stick around, are they willing to expand the range of the players they would allow in? Or is it going to be the same ~10000 boomers who've been playing this type of game since the dawn of time and after a few months will immediately leave again for whatever reason.

AMValentines

akabear wrote: »

Thoughts are, this is the wrong place to post such a video. Your summary demonstrates an uninformed understanding of the game.

All up a relatively unsophisticated effort to garner attention, quite frankly, as just click bait here to lead to a click bait youtube video.

If you genuinely care about the outcome of development and the community here then suggest contribute to the discussions in a focussed constructive manner.

I can guarantee you it is not uninformed, considering most of it is me just reading out exerts from the actual Ashes of Creation wiki.

MMOAddict

watched your vid half way true...your points dont make sence at all your like blizzard telling everyone you don't want vanilla right before it becomes more poplular then most other AAA MMO's
everything you say is your point of view and you act as if yours is the only one.

- As a studio intrepid might be young however the dev's developing AoC do have exp from developing other games for other studios, the problem with other older studio's is that they do NOT want to invest more money to get a better product, they wanna just earn money
- "its not classes that keep you intrested its bosses" dude...again speak for yourself
- Many of us enjoy a certain degree of complexity
- we have all read the wiki extensively, if this game doesn't float your boat thats fine but why insult our intelligence by telling us what we do and do not like

what i don't understand is why would you go out of your way to make a video like this? and even more why would you post it on a forum like this? do you enjoy being disliked?

novercalis

bloodprophet wrote: »

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

AMValentines wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why?
Why waste your time on something you don't like and why would any of us here waste 30 seconds watching a video by someone stating they don't like something?

Go add positive value to something, stop shitting on everyone else.

edit

Your not the first to do this and you won't be the last.

Well if we don't criticize things and give our opinions on the alphas and betas of games, then that would kind of defeat the whole point of having those, wouldn't it? I read the whole wiki and I'm voicing my concerns if they keep the direction.

Maybe try a little humility.
Try changing the title to something more like:
I have read through the forums and have some concerns.
vs
THIS
GAME
WILL
FAIL!!!!
I HAVE SPOKEN.

Probably get a better response for the community your attempting to reach.

Completely understandable take but also:
I come from nowhere -- unless I grab people's attention from the start in one way or another, nobody'll listen.

It's also true that I am taking the negative stance. I was just hoping for more "here's why you're wrong" rather than "you're wrong solely because I dislike you".

Can't dislike someone you don't know.
If you had come in looking for feedback I might have watched your video. But because of the way you came in from on high.
No chance. Same reason I don't watch other youtube people doing the same thing.

Clickbait titles work, your upset you got caught in a clickbait title and now dislike the person for it. Fact is - Clickbait is a thing, a psychological marketing tool that is effect. you see it in the NEWS and YT videos.
Cant blame OP for utilizing that tool - sure most ppl dont like clickbait / hyperbole titles but it grabs attention

Ph0bos

AMValentines wrote: »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=a34Y9Jpxi3o&ab_channel=AMValentine

Hey guys, Valentine here!

I spent the better part of a month putting together a good case as to why this game would fail, drawing inspiration from pretty much every MMORPG that came before it. I did my best to show the core reasons why this type of game usually fails. Ashes of Creation is treading on one of the most dangerous paths a video game can take, and I want to make sure that everyone understands this. That is not to say that it has no chances of success, but I would certainly love to be proven wrong in the future!

One of the main things that I despise about always PvP MMOs is how most of the time the PvE aspect gets sacrificed for it. I really hope this will not be the case with Ashes. Give it a watch and let me know what you think! I spent a lot of time on this, I read pretty much the entire wiki trying to get everything right.

Hello, EvE online is still up and running, since 2003. So there is indeed a niche for a PvP centric sand box MMO. Also Ashes will have way more PvE content than EvE, there is a lot of stuff actually!

MrMeme

So, I gave your video an honest go and my impression is that you have completely misunderstood what Intrepid are trying to do with AoC, and the target audience. Clearly, you are not part of the intended audience, but that doesn't mean everyone is. You assume that most people think like you, which might be true, but it doesn't matter even.

Steven has personally funded this game and its development out of his own pocket. He is fully aware that this game might not be profitable, but that isn't even the goal of the game. He wants to create his dream MMORPG and anyone who share his ideas are welcome aboard, the rest can suck it, he doesn't need their money.

Regarding the topics you discussed in your video:

1. Balancing - You claim Intrepid is a new studio, which is true, but they are made up of very experienced and dedicated developers. So they are not completely new to balancing. Balancing is also not that big of a deal unless you try to make a competitive type of game, like CS, OW, WoW Arena etc which are focused on small scale battles with limited players participating. If you are gunning for a big, open world type of PvP with battles having 100s of players participating, the impact of individual class balances significantly decreases (WoW BGs vs Arena for example).

All MMORPGs have the same rock, paper scissor type approach to balance, but to varying degrees. However, balancing is always an issue and some classes will always have an advantage. This doesn't mean you need to reroll your class and level a new one. The classes will be tuned continuously and if you find yourself getting ganked, you are encouraged to call for help from your guild or friends or just other random players. AoC is not focused on 1v1 duels but rather communities. Heck, even FPS games have the same issue, some weapons are for CQB and some for long range and you will configure your loadout based on how you like to play. The same will be in AoC, people will play the class they enjoy.

Regarding the tournaments to determine a mayor in some nodes you will be able to have a champion fight in your stead, so it won't be your own character who does the actual fighting, but rather an NPC that you can control in the fight. This means they can balance the tournaments around that instead.

2. Boss design - You say bosses make a game? Get out of here, there are plenty of successful games that don't have bosses. It depends entirely on what the focus of the game is. EVE Online is very successful and doesn't have any bosses or raids or dungeons. Instead it's a bid player driver universe where players form factions and fight each other over resource, make alliances and trade partnerships etc. AoC is aiming for something similar, while also including elements from other games that people enjoy, like raids and dungeons.

Almost all of the bosses you think are good are from single player games! You can't compare Sekiro, SoulsBorne or Elden Ring bosses and mechanics to an MMORPG. There's no way those type of mechanics would work in a 30 or 40 player raid. This point is completely irrelevant, regardless of how awesome thoses bosses are (and they really are awesome). And just because a game AoC takes inspiration from has bad bosses (in your opinion) doesn't mean they will just copy paste those fights into AoC. They might just as well go for WoW boss design which I think is pretty good for the most part.

3. Map Size - The land area of the map will be around 500km, and the ocean 700km, making the total to be 1200km. But the majority of players will be focused around points of interest, such as nodes, trade routes, dungeons etc. And the ocean will only be accessible by boat or sea mount where players will most likely also hang out close to the points of interest. So I don't think the population density will be an issue.

4. Senior Game Designer - What's wrong with the senior designer not having done a raid before? He isn't the sole person designing the game you know. It also means he is more unbiased and can see raids from another perspective compared to people who have done tons of raids. He seems to like dungeons which means that he will probably spend time making sure those are great as well, compared to many other MMOs where the dungeons often feel like an after thought or just a stepping stone to the raids.

5. Final thoughts - Clearly AoC isn't the game for you. Just because you don't enjoy staring at textures and clicking on objects in the world doesn't mean other people feel the same. And if you think AoC seems crazy in this regard, wait until you see Minecraft. There are no raids, no dungeons and only one boss with boring mechanics, the graphics suck and you just click on things (but somehow, it is very successful anyway).

The general goal of AoC is to facilitate in game communities and let the players drive the events and economy of the world through risk and reward. If you have spent a lot of time building up a node and your house and it gets attacked, you will want to defend it so you don't lose your progress. There are plenty of games doing this as well, such as Rust or PVP Minecraft servers.

AoC isn't really doing that many new things, it's just doing them on a larger scale.
I'm sorry to hear that this doesn't seem appealing to you, but frankly it doesn't matter.
There are plenty of people who disagree with you and we will be playing this game anyway.
If you won't be joining us that's ok, you are more than welcome to play whatever game you like, just leave us out of it.

Child Item