Fact is, Ashes needs to actually go a little beyond other games in regards to PvE in order to attract these guilds - and so far it is sitting at having literally nothing.
You are like the infant who the moment they cannot see something thinks it has disappears from their world.
Think for a moment. do you think focusing on PVE content, when the major systems that will make the world function are not yet complete, is the way to go? We wont even have a summoner class at the beginning of A2, but you think they should be focusing their time and energy building complex pve encounters for an end game that is months away at best from even the start of A2?
They have committed to complex and engaging PVE... other than the whole crossbow fiasco, they seem to mean it when they say things.
as far a 'guarantee' about being able to pve wherever you want on any given moment in time, i think you are stuck there.
I think they are building too parallel games... they even said it in the last stream. PVE will build the world up, and PVP will be the change agent. I bet Bill was brought in to start really focusing on the PVE elements.. but I doubt Intrepid will focus too much on that in terms of open development, they will let players find it in game.
You are like the infant who the moment they cannot see something thinks it has disappears from their world.
This seems an apt description of you.
I have said - many times in discussions you have been a part of - that I do not expect to see PvE content as yet, I want them to talk about their plans for it.
It would seem that since you can't see those comments right now, you have forgotten thy exist - despite the fact that you have replied to them in the past.
If Intrepid had plans for PvE that were remotely good, they would be talking about it. The fact that they are not talking about it says either they have no plans, or they don't care about PvE (Steven does not care about PvE - this is known). Instead, they tried to appease those of us wanting to know about PvE by showing us a character model - it was as if they thought the model design is what makes or breaks PvE (pro-tip; it isnt).
So, if we have a game where the world is built via PvE and PvP is the changing agent to that build up, if the PvE isn't actually world class, what is the point of the game?
If PvP is fighting over the results of PvE, and that PvE is dull and second rate, what does that say about the games PvP?
Like you, I want Ashes PvP to have real meaning. If we are fighting over the results of PvE, the PvP in Ashes can only have meaning in relation to the PvE. Better, harder PvE means more meaningful PvP.
Put an encounter in the game and make people fight over it to see who gets to kill the mo and thu get the rewards and it means little. Put an instanced encounter in the game and make it so hard that only 3 or 4 guilds in the game (ie, no guilds at all on some servers) can kill it, and fighting those players over the results of that PvE has real meaning.
Like you, I want Ashes PvP to have real meaning. If we are fighting over the results of PvE, the PvP in Ashes can only have meaning in relation to the PvE. Better, harder PvE means more meaningful PvP.
Put an encounter in the game and make people fight over it to see who gets to kill the mo and thu get the rewards and it means little. Put an instanced encounter in the game and make it so hard that only 3 or 4 guilds in the game (ie, no guilds at all on some servers) can kill it, and fighting those players over the results of that PvE has real meaning.
I don't see how quality of PvE relates to how meaningful is PvP. If there is reward worth fighting for - it is meaningful. Doesn't matter if it came from hardest boss in the game, fell from the sky, or came from within.
You want to attract players that simply would not exist in context of AoC. People you describe would neither play the game long enough to get to the point of fighting such hard bosses, nor be among 3 or 4 guilds able to kill them.
Your comment about PvE players being the target for PvP players is weird. What made you say that? Specially when discussing PvX game.
Like you, I want Ashes PvP to have real meaning. If we are fighting over the results of PvE, the PvP in Ashes can only have meaning in relation to the PvE. Better, harder PvE means more meaningful PvP.
Put an encounter in the game and make people fight over it to see who gets to kill the mo and thu get the rewards and it means little. Put an instanced encounter in the game and make it so hard that only 3 or 4 guilds in the game (ie, no guilds at all on some servers) can kill it, and fighting those players over the results of that PvE has real meaning.
I don't see how quality of PvE relates to how meaningful is PvP.
I mean, I explained it in the post above.
I'm happy to reiterate it though.
Imagine PvE is dead easy - BDO or Archeage quality and difficulty.
Since PvP in Ashes is largely supposed to be fighting over the results of PvE, if that PvE is dead easy, the results of it aren't worth fighting over.
I mean, if the thing you are fighting over is dead easy to obtain, who cares if you win or lose it in PvP?
Thus, if PvP is about redistributing the results of PvE, and PvE is dead easy, PvP is near meaningless because you aren't fighting over anything worth fighting over.
I mean, you wouldn't PvP someone for 2 hours in order to get a reward that you could get in a 2 minute arena and consider it worth it. Thus, you wouldn't PvP someone for 2 hours over something that took 2 minutes of PvE to achieve and consider it worth it.
If you want to claim that PvP over something that is inherently easy to obtain otherwise is worthwhile, have at it. To me though, the worth of PvP is based purely in the effort I would need to go to in order to get the thing I am looking at gaining via PvP.
Thus, if PvP is about redistributing the results of PvE, and PvE is dead easy, PvP is near meaningless because you aren't fighting over anything worth fighting over.
@Noaani Your deep seated personal opinion of multiplayer not being worth it if the PvE isn't difficult or complex has very little meaning towards the desires of most of the competitive playerbase.
BDO and Archeage merely had monsters (non bosses) for farming purposes and that's just a style, it did however not subtract from objective worth in any significant way.
In another open world "pvp game", Lineage 2, mobs were much more of a threat (party focused) and all that led to was not only a waste of time running away from them but a host of other "toxic plays" ie a solo player could screw up any small party.
PLEASE take this post, consume it and don't eject out a small book of text in an attempt to flip this around. I purely just fancied making a post to show morph that there's someone with common sense.
Since PvP in Ashes is largely supposed to be fighting over the results of PvE, if that PvE is dead easy, the results of it aren't worth fighting over.
I mean, if the thing you are fighting over is dead easy to obtain, who cares if you win or lose it in PvP?
Thus, if PvP is about redistributing the results of PvE, and PvE is dead easy, PvP is near meaningless because you aren't fighting over anything worth fighting over.
I mean, you wouldn't PvP someone for 2 hours in order to get a reward that you could get in a 2 minute arena and consider it worth it. Thus, you wouldn't PvP someone for 2 hours over something that took 2 minutes of PvE to achieve and consider it worth it.
If you want to claim that PvP over something that is inherently easy to obtain otherwise is worthwhile, have at it. To me though, the worth of PvP is based purely in the effort I would need to go to in order to get the thing I am looking at gaining via PvP.
PvE content does not need to be difficult to provide meaningful reward that would be considered worthwhile to fight over. It can also be about time investment, not the difficulty, and most of the time it will be exactly that. Mining rocks in a game is not hard, is it?
I feel like i might not be fully understanding what is it that you want to achieve exactly. You want PvE to be more rewarding? Or harder? More accessible?
Talking about how rewarding is PvE without knowing details seems pointless. If anything - it is safe to assume that it will be worth doing, just from common sense, what would be the point of it otherwise?
If you want difficulty - you got it. That's the beauty of PvX game, and why so many of us are excited about it. Lamest boss, that you killed many times can suddenly turn into hardest and most memorable fight, thanks to the best boss mechanic ever invented - "Call Competition". Yes, that means you will not always get to kill the boss - that's the point, it's hard.
There are objectives worth working towards and fighting for - it's the core pillar of AoC. And how hard something is to achieve is mostly based on how contested it is. You are suggesting that some content should be impossible to contest, but the whole game is built on that. Things don't always need to be contested, in fact, majority of content won't be, but it is important that it could be.
Noaani Your deep seated personal opinion of multiplayer not being worth it if the PvE isn't difficult or complex has very little meaning towards the desires of most of the competitive playerbase.
So, that isn't at all what I said.
Your insistance on not actually bothering to read before replying really is tiresome.
Point me to any one word - literally just a single word - where I have been talking about multiplayer gameplay. You can't, ONCE AGAIN, because I wasn't talking about that.
PvE content does not need to be difficult to provide meaningful reward that would be considered worthwhile to fight over.
Actually, it does.
If the best item in the game is from a solo-able encounter, that item is meaningless because anyone can get it. You wouldn't ever bother fighting someone over it.
On the other hand, if the best items in the game is from an encounter that only one guild on the server can kill, and everyone else has to fight them for the crafting materials to make those best items, then those fights over those best items have real meaning.
In both cases, we are talking about the best items available. The difference is in the difficulty of acquiring the items.
Now, obviously item rarity plays in to this as well, but encounter difficulty is a factor of rarity of the items that encounter drops.
If you want difficulty - you got it. That's the beauty of PvX game, and why so many of us are excited about it. Lamest boss, that you killed many times can suddenly turn into hardest and most memorable fight, thanks to the best boss mechanic ever invented - "Call Competition". Yes, that means you will not always get to kill the boss - that's the point, it's hard.
Yeah, this is poor game design.
Leaving the challenge of your game up to it's players means that as your player population wanes, your games challenge wanes. This is why I was able to kill Archeages Red Dragon with 15 players in less than 15 minutes - no one showed up to stop us.
A lame boss but with PvP around it is still a lame boss. Being able to just convince or bribing others to not prevent you from killing a lame boss is still a lame boss. People not showing up to stop you killing a lame boss is still a lame boss. Setting up a perimeter around a lame boss so you aren't interrupted is still a lame boss.
Take any of these scenarios and substitute that lame boss for a not lame boss and you have an immesurably better game.
If the best item in the game is from a solo-able encounter, that item is meaningless because anyone can get it. You wouldn't ever bother fighting someone over it.
But what if that encounter can only be cleared by one person once a week for the entire server? If there's even just a 100 people who'd want that item - that's 100 weeks of farming this super easy encounter just to get the item. I'd assume people would definitely kill each other to be as high on that list of farmers as possible.
This whole game is built around this. Higher reward = higher risk. Guess where most of that risk is coming from? I'll give you a hint - not from the boss, or the ore you are harvesting in the world.
If the best item in the game is from a solo-able encounter, that item is meaningless because anyone can get it. You wouldn't ever bother fighting someone over it.
Another example detached from reality. Who would design the game like this? And you know what, sure, let's say it exists and is meaningless, and no one wants to fight for it - players will go fight over something that isn't solo-able and isn't meaningless. Now what?
If the best item in the game is from a solo-able encounter, that item is meaningless because anyone can get it. You wouldn't ever bother fighting someone over it.
But what if that encounter can only be cleared by one person once a week for the entire server? If there's even just a 100 people who'd want that item - that's 100 weeks of farming this super easy encounter just to get the item. I'd assume people would definitely kill each other to be as high on that list of farmers as possible.
Though I'm sure you'd just call this bad design
As I said, rarity does play a factor.
However, if a game has itself in this situation, the game in question has already given up on any attempt at having reasonable PvE. At this point, we are talking about a PvP game - not even a PvX game.
A game attempting good PvE (which I would argue is required to consider a game to be PvX by any reasonable definition of that marketing term) should be striving for reasonable PvE. Part of that reasonable PvE goal is in the basic notion that mob spawn rate × required number of players × actual encounter difficulty = item desirability.
A game that isn't performing this very basic math is a game that is not attempting PvE at all.
Another example detached from reality. Who would design the game like this? And you know what, sure, let's say it exists and is meaningless, and no one wants to fight for it - players will go fight over something that isn't solo-able and isn't meaningless. Now what?
No one would - at least I hope not.
I purposefully took what I was talking about to the very extreme in order to very clearly illustrate the concept I am talking about. I am right in the basic notion that you agree taking it to that limit is so bad that no one would ever design a game like that.
Thus, the basic point I am making is something you agree with.
Thus, the basic point I am making is something you agree with.
The solution to your model of a problem would be to not make BIS trivial to obtain, not whatever you are trying to suggest.
I feel like you misunderstand the whole reasoning behind open world PVP, content that can be contested and risk versus reward. It is not to make everyone fight everywhere all the time for anything of value. There will likely be maybe 5% of content that is always contested (such as world bosses), maybe 10% that will be contested most of the time (anywhere between once an hour to once a day) and remaining 85% will get contested between once a day and never. Giving you a somewhat realistic example based on experience. So when it comes to PVP, having something be not worth fighting for is absolutely normal, most things will be that way. And if it happens to be a BIS item that was made too easy to obtain - just make it harder. This is why i don't like your example - it's only a problem because you made it into one.
If i understand what you are trying to do - i don't think it is possible within core principles of AoC, or at least neither your suggestions seem functional, nor i have a better one. L2 had something closest to what you want, but still not quite it. Most world bosses were instanced once the fight would start, but there would still be massive battles for hours to get into an instance in the first place.
Leaving the challenge of your game up to it's players means that as your player population wanes, your games challenge wanes.
It's really wild to see someone say that difficulty based on challenge from other players is bad design.
Main pillar of AoC "risk vs reward" is inspired by content being open world and contested by other players in L2. The more value something has - more players will be competing for it and harder it will be to obtain. Who are you going to compete against to become a Mayor, to collect rare ore, skin an animal, play auction house? Everything you do in AoC will involve competing with other players one way or another at some point (not always and not necessarily through violence, scaling up with reward).
Would you say MOBAs are also bad design, because if you have no opponent to play against - there is no challenge? You don't say! Conclusion that should come from this is that player base is important, not that it's bad design. Irony.
Leaving the challenge of your game up to it's players means that as your player population wanes, your games challenge wanes.
It's really wild to see someone say that difficulty based on challenge from other players is bad design.
Main pillar of AoC "risk vs reward" is inspired by content being open world and contested by other players in L2. The more value something has - more players will be competing for it and harder it will be to obtain. Who are you going to compete against to become a Mayor, to collect rare ore, skin an animal, play auction house? Everything you do in AoC will involve competing with other players one way or another at some point (not always and not necessarily through violence, scaling up with reward).
Would you say MOBAs are also bad design, because if you have no opponent to play against - there is no challenge? You don't say! Conclusion that should come from this is that player base is important, not that it's bad design.
If you focus onto a PvE fight, it is easy to not notice PvPers approaching behind you. They can even damage you to help the NPCs win.
You are right that pure PvE encounters are not supposed to be in AoC because it is a PvP game.
But that will cause PvE players to have a different kind of experience than they are used to enjoy.
They might try the game being confused by the PvX label used so often but eventually they will realize that it is not what they want. And they will leave.
All we can do is to accept that this is how AoC is supposed to be and repeat Steven's mantra: "and that's ok".
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Bigger issue is that it actually taints the basic foundations of an RPG - poisoned by PvP gamers.
Because the true motivation for killing the Winter Dragon should be to save the region from the Perpetual Winter it brings, rather than killing others attempting to achieve that goal out of greed and/or the desire for glory.
PvP makes way more sense in a Fighter or an FPS.
Typically MMORPGs have used racial hatred to try to justify PvP which, obviously, is... less than ideal.
Similar to e-sports - just because something is fun is one game genre, does not mean it needs to be added to every game genre.
It's probably fine for people to try Ashes. It's subscription, so... they can cancel their subscription if they don't enjoy it. But, we have YouTube and Twitch to take a look at gameplay before spending money on the game.
Not to worry, though...
Ashes will be a great game for its target audience.
And it's very likely there will be plenty other games that are more fun to play for those who don't love PvP in RPGs.
Your insistance on not actually bothering to read before replying really is tiresome.
To be fair, there was something you said, that caught my attention as potential direction for improvement. Maybe you didn't present it well enough, or everyone already formed an opinion by that time, so it did not catch on. I sure did get distracted bashing on what i found to be wrong in your posts. Maybe it needed separate topic and more thought through angle of delivery. I'll try to convince myself below that something can be done with that idea.
It had to do with Caravan System.
Before i continue, i want to point out that some systems and mechanics aren't inherently bad - they might just be poorly designed or misused (for example see long leveling topic).
Back to Caravans. TLDR: players put effort to collect raw materials and deliver them to a node. Then to process them and deliver to another node through Caravan System. Now, would it break anything to replace effort put into processing materials within safe zone of a node, with an effort to kill an instanced boss for let's call it a mid-tier trade pack, that can only be claimed once delivered to a node through Caravan System? Materials would get consumed of course. Many players hate instancing, me included, but i did just remind myself that L2 had a form of world boss instancing that i did not find to be an issue, or at least a compromise worth making. Would that work? Make raiding something equivalent to an artisan class? In addition to all other content obviously. As long as best gear is not obtained this way, and no other system is made worse - could be ok? Am i missing an obvious issue?
Leaving the challenge of your game up to it's players means that as your player population wanes, your games challenge wanes.
It's really wild to see someone say that difficulty based on challenge from other players is bad design.
Main pillar of AoC "risk vs reward" is inspired by content being open world and contested by other players in L2. The more value something has - more players will be competing for it and harder it will be to obtain. Who are you going to compete against to become a Mayor, to collect rare ore, skin an animal, play auction house? Everything you do in AoC will involve competing with other players one way or another at some point (not always and not necessarily through violence, scaling up with reward).
Would you say MOBAs are also bad design, because if you have no opponent to play against - there is no challenge? You don't say! Conclusion that should come from this is that player base is important, not that it's bad design.
If you focus onto a PvE fight, it is easy to not notice PvPers approaching behind you. They can even damage you to help the NPCs win.
Bigger issue is that it actually taints the basic foundations of an RPG - poisoned by PvP gamers.
Because the true motivation for killing the Winter Dragon should be to save the region from the Perpetual Winter it brings, rather than killing others attempting to achieve that goal out of greed and/or the desire for glory.
what if my true motivation is fame greed and glory? am i not allowed to RP as the villain, or anti villain, or anti hero? why do i have to RP the way you want me to RP?
also, again, games (and i dont mean video games only) were pvp. you had to compete vs other players to win. i could actually say that it was pvers who "poisoned" games
Now, would it break anything to replace effort put into processing materials within safe zone of a node, with an effort to kill an instanced boss for let's call it a mid-tier trade pack, that can only be claimed once delivered to a node through Caravan System?
Noaani has already suggested this in the past So you agree on this.
Noaani has already suggested this in the past So you agree on this.
Yea, i am bringing his suggestion back, in a way that does not make me instantly say "no" to it. I liked trade pack idea. Didn't like everything else So i'm debating if such form of instancing can be ok.
Bigger issue is that it actually taints the basic foundations of an RPG - poisoned by PvP gamers.
Because the true motivation for killing the Winter Dragon should be to save the region from the Perpetual Winter it brings, rather than killing others attempting to achieve that goal out of greed and/or the desire for glory.
what if my true motivation is fame greed and glory? am i not allowed to RP as the villain, or anti villain, or anti hero? why do i have to RP the way you want me to RP?
also, again, games (and i dont mean video games only) were pvp. you had to compete vs other players to win. i could actually say that it was pvers who "poisoned" games
Leaving the challenge of your game up to it's players means that as your player population wanes, your games challenge wanes.
It's really wild to see someone say that difficulty based on challenge from other players is bad design.
Main pillar of AoC "risk vs reward" is inspired by content being open world and contested by other players in L2. The more value something has - more players will be competing for it and harder it will be to obtain. Who are you going to compete against to become a Mayor, to collect rare ore, skin an animal, play auction house? Everything you do in AoC will involve competing with other players one way or another at some point (not always and not necessarily through violence, scaling up with reward).
Would you say MOBAs are also bad design, because if you have no opponent to play against - there is no challenge? You don't say! Conclusion that should come from this is that player base is important, not that it's bad design.
If you focus onto a PvE fight, it is easy to not notice PvPers approaching behind you. They can even damage you to help the NPCs win.
that comes with practice and being good ;3
You can also designate somebody to observe the area. But the consequence is the same.
You have to be able to disengage safely the fight, heal up and be ready for the PvP part.
Normally PvE encounters do not let you do such things easily or don't let you leave the area at all.
If you cannot, then is like having human opponents with very powerful summons fighting against you.
Imagine a summoner getting summons as strong as the strongest NPCs the other classes can barely solo.
Everyone would rage and ask the summoner to be nerfed, either his summon or the player attributes.
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https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Sitting
And I believe they've mentioned sitting on furniture as well. Not sure if we've seen that so far though.
If I am not dabbing in midair as I plummet to my death, then what has all this been for?
From stealth! ala feral druid knocking people off the cliff at LM. Fond memories.
You are like the infant who the moment they cannot see something thinks it has disappears from their world.
Think for a moment. do you think focusing on PVE content, when the major systems that will make the world function are not yet complete, is the way to go? We wont even have a summoner class at the beginning of A2, but you think they should be focusing their time and energy building complex pve encounters for an end game that is months away at best from even the start of A2?
They have committed to complex and engaging PVE... other than the whole crossbow fiasco, they seem to mean it when they say things.
as far a 'guarantee' about being able to pve wherever you want on any given moment in time, i think you are stuck there.
I think they are building too parallel games... they even said it in the last stream. PVE will build the world up, and PVP will be the change agent. I bet Bill was brought in to start really focusing on the PVE elements.. but I doubt Intrepid will focus too much on that in terms of open development, they will let players find it in game.
I have said - many times in discussions you have been a part of - that I do not expect to see PvE content as yet, I want them to talk about their plans for it.
It would seem that since you can't see those comments right now, you have forgotten thy exist - despite the fact that you have replied to them in the past.
If Intrepid had plans for PvE that were remotely good, they would be talking about it. The fact that they are not talking about it says either they have no plans, or they don't care about PvE (Steven does not care about PvE - this is known). Instead, they tried to appease those of us wanting to know about PvE by showing us a character model - it was as if they thought the model design is what makes or breaks PvE (pro-tip; it isnt).
So, if we have a game where the world is built via PvE and PvP is the changing agent to that build up, if the PvE isn't actually world class, what is the point of the game?
If PvP is fighting over the results of PvE, and that PvE is dull and second rate, what does that say about the games PvP?
Like you, I want Ashes PvP to have real meaning. If we are fighting over the results of PvE, the PvP in Ashes can only have meaning in relation to the PvE. Better, harder PvE means more meaningful PvP.
Put an encounter in the game and make people fight over it to see who gets to kill the mo and thu get the rewards and it means little. Put an instanced encounter in the game and make it so hard that only 3 or 4 guilds in the game (ie, no guilds at all on some servers) can kill it, and fighting those players over the results of that PvE has real meaning.
I don't see how quality of PvE relates to how meaningful is PvP. If there is reward worth fighting for - it is meaningful. Doesn't matter if it came from hardest boss in the game, fell from the sky, or came from within.
You want to attract players that simply would not exist in context of AoC. People you describe would neither play the game long enough to get to the point of fighting such hard bosses, nor be among 3 or 4 guilds able to kill them.
Your comment about PvE players being the target for PvP players is weird. What made you say that? Specially when discussing PvX game.
I mean, I explained it in the post above.
I'm happy to reiterate it though.
Imagine PvE is dead easy - BDO or Archeage quality and difficulty.
Since PvP in Ashes is largely supposed to be fighting over the results of PvE, if that PvE is dead easy, the results of it aren't worth fighting over.
I mean, if the thing you are fighting over is dead easy to obtain, who cares if you win or lose it in PvP?
Thus, if PvP is about redistributing the results of PvE, and PvE is dead easy, PvP is near meaningless because you aren't fighting over anything worth fighting over.
I mean, you wouldn't PvP someone for 2 hours in order to get a reward that you could get in a 2 minute arena and consider it worth it. Thus, you wouldn't PvP someone for 2 hours over something that took 2 minutes of PvE to achieve and consider it worth it.
If you want to claim that PvP over something that is inherently easy to obtain otherwise is worthwhile, have at it. To me though, the worth of PvP is based purely in the effort I would need to go to in order to get the thing I am looking at gaining via PvP.
@Noaani Your deep seated personal opinion of multiplayer not being worth it if the PvE isn't difficult or complex has very little meaning towards the desires of most of the competitive playerbase.
BDO and Archeage merely had monsters (non bosses) for farming purposes and that's just a style, it did however not subtract from objective worth in any significant way.
In another open world "pvp game", Lineage 2, mobs were much more of a threat (party focused) and all that led to was not only a waste of time running away from them but a host of other "toxic plays" ie a solo player could screw up any small party.
PLEASE take this post, consume it and don't eject out a small book of text in an attempt to flip this around. I purely just fancied making a post to show morph that there's someone with common sense.
PvE content does not need to be difficult to provide meaningful reward that would be considered worthwhile to fight over. It can also be about time investment, not the difficulty, and most of the time it will be exactly that. Mining rocks in a game is not hard, is it?
I feel like i might not be fully understanding what is it that you want to achieve exactly. You want PvE to be more rewarding? Or harder? More accessible?
Talking about how rewarding is PvE without knowing details seems pointless. If anything - it is safe to assume that it will be worth doing, just from common sense, what would be the point of it otherwise?
If you want difficulty - you got it. That's the beauty of PvX game, and why so many of us are excited about it. Lamest boss, that you killed many times can suddenly turn into hardest and most memorable fight, thanks to the best boss mechanic ever invented - "Call Competition". Yes, that means you will not always get to kill the boss - that's the point, it's hard.
There are objectives worth working towards and fighting for - it's the core pillar of AoC. And how hard something is to achieve is mostly based on how contested it is. You are suggesting that some content should be impossible to contest, but the whole game is built on that. Things don't always need to be contested, in fact, majority of content won't be, but it is important that it could be.
Your insistance on not actually bothering to read before replying really is tiresome.
Point me to any one word - literally just a single word - where I have been talking about multiplayer gameplay. You can't, ONCE AGAIN, because I wasn't talking about that.
My dude, English is your language - learn it.
If the best item in the game is from a solo-able encounter, that item is meaningless because anyone can get it. You wouldn't ever bother fighting someone over it.
On the other hand, if the best items in the game is from an encounter that only one guild on the server can kill, and everyone else has to fight them for the crafting materials to make those best items, then those fights over those best items have real meaning.
In both cases, we are talking about the best items available. The difference is in the difficulty of acquiring the items.
Now, obviously item rarity plays in to this as well, but encounter difficulty is a factor of rarity of the items that encounter drops.
Yeah, this is poor game design.
Leaving the challenge of your game up to it's players means that as your player population wanes, your games challenge wanes. This is why I was able to kill Archeages Red Dragon with 15 players in less than 15 minutes - no one showed up to stop us.
A lame boss but with PvP around it is still a lame boss. Being able to just convince or bribing others to not prevent you from killing a lame boss is still a lame boss. People not showing up to stop you killing a lame boss is still a lame boss. Setting up a perimeter around a lame boss so you aren't interrupted is still a lame boss.
Take any of these scenarios and substitute that lame boss for a not lame boss and you have an immesurably better game.
Though I'm sure you'd just call this bad design
This whole game is built around this. Higher reward = higher risk. Guess where most of that risk is coming from? I'll give you a hint - not from the boss, or the ore you are harvesting in the world.
Another example detached from reality. Who would design the game like this? And you know what, sure, let's say it exists and is meaningless, and no one wants to fight for it - players will go fight over something that isn't solo-able and isn't meaningless. Now what?
As I said, rarity does play a factor.
However, if a game has itself in this situation, the game in question has already given up on any attempt at having reasonable PvE. At this point, we are talking about a PvP game - not even a PvX game.
A game attempting good PvE (which I would argue is required to consider a game to be PvX by any reasonable definition of that marketing term) should be striving for reasonable PvE. Part of that reasonable PvE goal is in the basic notion that mob spawn rate × required number of players × actual encounter difficulty = item desirability.
A game that isn't performing this very basic math is a game that is not attempting PvE at all.
No one would - at least I hope not.
I purposefully took what I was talking about to the very extreme in order to very clearly illustrate the concept I am talking about. I am right in the basic notion that you agree taking it to that limit is so bad that no one would ever design a game like that.
Thus, the basic point I am making is something you agree with.
I feel like you misunderstand the whole reasoning behind open world PVP, content that can be contested and risk versus reward. It is not to make everyone fight everywhere all the time for anything of value. There will likely be maybe 5% of content that is always contested (such as world bosses), maybe 10% that will be contested most of the time (anywhere between once an hour to once a day) and remaining 85% will get contested between once a day and never. Giving you a somewhat realistic example based on experience. So when it comes to PVP, having something be not worth fighting for is absolutely normal, most things will be that way. And if it happens to be a BIS item that was made too easy to obtain - just make it harder. This is why i don't like your example - it's only a problem because you made it into one.
If i understand what you are trying to do - i don't think it is possible within core principles of AoC, or at least neither your suggestions seem functional, nor i have a better one. L2 had something closest to what you want, but still not quite it. Most world bosses were instanced once the fight would start, but there would still be massive battles for hours to get into an instance in the first place.
It's really wild to see someone say that difficulty based on challenge from other players is bad design.
Main pillar of AoC "risk vs reward" is inspired by content being open world and contested by other players in L2. The more value something has - more players will be competing for it and harder it will be to obtain. Who are you going to compete against to become a Mayor, to collect rare ore, skin an animal, play auction house? Everything you do in AoC will involve competing with other players one way or another at some point (not always and not necessarily through violence, scaling up with reward).
Would you say MOBAs are also bad design, because if you have no opponent to play against - there is no challenge? You don't say! Conclusion that should come from this is that player base is important, not that it's bad design. Irony.
If you focus onto a PvE fight, it is easy to not notice PvPers approaching behind you. They can even damage you to help the NPCs win.
You are right that pure PvE encounters are not supposed to be in AoC because it is a PvP game.
But that will cause PvE players to have a different kind of experience than they are used to enjoy.
They might try the game being confused by the PvX label used so often but eventually they will realize that it is not what they want. And they will leave.
All we can do is to accept that this is how AoC is supposed to be and repeat Steven's mantra: "and that's ok".
Because the true motivation for killing the Winter Dragon should be to save the region from the Perpetual Winter it brings, rather than killing others attempting to achieve that goal out of greed and/or the desire for glory.
PvP makes way more sense in a Fighter or an FPS.
Typically MMORPGs have used racial hatred to try to justify PvP which, obviously, is... less than ideal.
Similar to e-sports - just because something is fun is one game genre, does not mean it needs to be added to every game genre.
It's probably fine for people to try Ashes. It's subscription, so... they can cancel their subscription if they don't enjoy it. But, we have YouTube and Twitch to take a look at gameplay before spending money on the game.
Not to worry, though...
Ashes will be a great game for its target audience.
And it's very likely there will be plenty other games that are more fun to play for those who don't love PvP in RPGs.
It had to do with Caravan System.
Before i continue, i want to point out that some systems and mechanics aren't inherently bad - they might just be poorly designed or misused (for example see long leveling topic).
Back to Caravans. TLDR: players put effort to collect raw materials and deliver them to a node. Then to process them and deliver to another node through Caravan System. Now, would it break anything to replace effort put into processing materials within safe zone of a node, with an effort to kill an instanced boss for let's call it a mid-tier trade pack, that can only be claimed once delivered to a node through Caravan System? Materials would get consumed of course. Many players hate instancing, me included, but i did just remind myself that L2 had a form of world boss instancing that i did not find to be an issue, or at least a compromise worth making. Would that work? Make raiding something equivalent to an artisan class? In addition to all other content obviously. As long as best gear is not obtained this way, and no other system is made worse - could be ok? Am i missing an obvious issue?
that comes with practice and being good ;3
what if my true motivation is fame greed and glory? am i not allowed to RP as the villain, or anti villain, or anti hero? why do i have to RP the way you want me to RP?
also, again, games (and i dont mean video games only) were pvp. you had to compete vs other players to win. i could actually say that it was pvers who "poisoned" games
Yea, i am bringing his suggestion back, in a way that does not make me instantly say "no" to it. I liked trade pack idea. Didn't like everything else
May thy knife chip and shatter.
You have to be able to disengage safely the fight, heal up and be ready for the PvP part.
Normally PvE encounters do not let you do such things easily or don't let you leave the area at all.
If you cannot, then is like having human opponents with very powerful summons fighting against you.
Imagine a summoner getting summons as strong as the strongest NPCs the other classes can barely solo.
Everyone would rage and ask the summoner to be nerfed, either his summon or the player attributes.