Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Comments
I fail to see any other unique thing a freehold offers besides T4 and T5 processing. I think it's likely that the business part of freeholds will be available in nodes.
Also, top-quality gathering and crafting is gated behind high-level and resource bottlenecks as well, albeit of different nature. As long as T3 quality can still be somewhat relevant in the context of existence of higher qualities, then in my opinion the system is fine as is.
Tripling the size of a Freehold is an idea I would not object to - but if had only doubled the size - folks would have been just as ecstatic.
Be well.
Q) If I don’t have a Freehold, does that mean I can’t own a home and miss out on content related to this?
A) Not at all! There are several types of player housing available in Ashes of Creation. While Freeholds are the highest-end processing housing available, players will be able to get citizenship at a node and customize their home by acquiring any form of player housing. Other player-owned housing options include static housing options available inside of a node, instanced Apartments, and renting a room in an inn. Static housing and Apartments provide other best-in-slot access to certain furniture types, as well as unique bonuses only available to those types of housing.
Issue:
Zero mention of Processing which was said Master/Grandmaster ONLY AT FREEHOLDS which is a Huge game breaking issue & if Livestock gathering specifically materials are only at freeholds? Which depending on use would also be a huge game breaking issue.
Also concerned that this issue is so obvious yet everyone is going out of there way from players to devs to Ignore it for smaller trivial matters.
You don't have to be an owner of a freehold to live out your dreams of breeding animals. Make friends with some folks who have a similar goal as you and help each other save up for a freehold. Then work together on getting the mats to create a love shack for the animals and begin breeding them.
Phases/layers are not planned for AoC as far as I am aware.
My friends and I are already scheming about how we are going to pull this off(getting a freehold). From who should be the owner, to what buildings we will want, and where in the world it should be. We will be pooling our money/resources together in game until we get enough to accomplish our goal. We understand that this is no small task and we are up for it. It has nothing to do with whales. Think of freeholds as that piece of armor that drops off a boss that takes months to gear for and maybe months to beat. You can't do it by yourself.
At least for me, I think the fear/ concern is not being able to find the right group. Say I’ve hit level 50, done some group stuff, but mostly did solo PVE. Now I want to keep progressing my animal husbandry, which I clearly need a group and freehold to do. I’m willing to group up with the right people whose goals and play styles work with mine, but how do I find them? We know you probably need a group/ team to get a freehold. We know a couple of types of groups that are available (families and guilds). But I have yet to see anything that says “we’ll have ___ systems in place to help you find a group.” For a less experienced and competitive gamer that won’t be in a big guild, that gap can read like full barrier to entry.
Players can open stalls and shops in certain nodes but these seem to be different to the freehold businesses that are available.
Top level crafting and gathering is achieved through things that players have a decent chance of being able to do and it's open to everyone. Whether that's high level quests or going to a metropolis, it's reasonably accessible.
Whereas we know Freeholds are going to be very limited, so the issue to me is that you are going to have a very small number of players with freeholds and then you say only those few players have the option to be a master processor? Why would you restrict the numbers of this even further, It seems like an odd design choice to me.
Freeholds are great, they offer so much already. I really like the freeholds being somewhat limited, being able to be customised, giving players a space to be creative open business etc but like I said before, I really don't see why processing should be gatekept behind this system.
Also, processing - and by extension freeholds - seem to be designed in a way that if you don't have a steady income you will have a hard time, unlike gathering and maybe even crafting.
Plus, from what I read in the article, one will be able to include guild members as well, meaning that the processing will available to any guild member whose guild owns at least one freehold.The big portion of the playerbase might miss out on land ownership, but access to processing will probably be available to pretty much everyone who puts in some social effort.
And again, I fail to see the "so much" part of freeholds, to me it's just the high-level processing, maybe unique businesses and land ownership. This doesn't look like much.
I think the assumption that lots of different guilds will be getting freeholds might not be right, think the bigger guilds on the server might have multiple freeholds thus limiting processing further.
But suppose we will have to wait and see how it plays out during testing if this is going to be an issue or not.
You keep saying "plenty of other benefits". And I still do not understand, nor see, what those "plenty benefits and gameplay loops" you refer to.
Also, problem for the large guilds is that freeholds are going to be heavily taxed it seems. I would not be surprised if these numbers equate to a more than one person needing to funnel funds (be it owner, "employe" or, indirectly, client) in order to just sustain a freehold. And considering a limited amount of people in the area trying to monopolize everything might become a sink that outscales the inflow. So if balanced right, a state where every available freehold is owned might not actually be a desired outcome for guilds.
Overall, good job Intrepid team, can't wait to play Alpha 2!
Anyway my point is not that big guilds will dominate the freeholds, just that I don't see why they would gatekeep top tier processing behind the freehold system.
But if that's what it's decided then that's absolutely fine and I'm looking forward testing it and seeing how it plays out.
And I may have phrased myself a little incorrectly before. The "heavily taxed" part was meant to be more in line that the tax is going to probably be more on the significant side.
Well, that's what A2 is for, to tune the knobs in a way where having everything is not the most profitable outcome.
Sad times after so many years of patiently waiting already.
- players who are in a guild with at least one character should not be able to get a Freehold
- the Freeholds should look better than Guildhalls while Guildhalls should be more efficient
- Freeholds in the zone influence of a node should be obtainable only by citizens of those nodes
- Freeholds should become vulnerable only after the Guildhalls were destroyed after the siege of a node
You don't need to have access to everything that gives a semblance of an advantage. Let the whales have their one tiny corner of the game that's semi-exclusive to them, and that they excel at. Who cares?
You can do other things with your time and resources.
Regular players will still have freeholds. Just perhaps not all the most sought-after ones.
And more importantly, there will the tons of other things to do and excel at in the game.
You know what really makes sure that an MMO "breaks"? Streamlining everyone to own, do, and work for, the same things, in the same way, for the sake of balance and fairness. If balance and fairness are your only concerns, just go play an arena game and spare yourself the trouble. Otherwise this will just end up being ESO 2.0. If that's your ideal, there are plenty of those themeparks out there already, no need to wait for this game to publish.
Boundless opportunities .. if you managed to get a freehold (and you probably don't, for many reasons, already expressed above by others).
I feel you guys are taking risk vs reward to the extreme. It's said the it will be a tremendous endeavor to obtain a freehold, then it can be destroyed by a siege - node destroyed, and we have to start all over again?? How many players will say fuckit? if it takes this amount of time and resource, it's not worth to play this game!
There is so much content gated behind freeholds. you are alienating a lot of players. Many are keen to start a business and supply services to others, seemingly vanished with this update.
The bidding i will leave i the middle, but the more hardcore players will drive the price up, leaving us casuals behind. Or is it a way to incentivize guild participation (because they will have a huge impact, and freeholds are proxy guild halls then)? then that is a very bad decision.
We are also roll players. And some can't do that without a house. There are some really good points made by others. You have such a vast open world. If it means making the freeholds smaller again, no worries.
But you can't have a dynamic changing world and freeholds being this rare and time consuming. I really hope you will come back on this exclusivity.
Cheers
-i rly liked that harvesti ng takes some time and that u have to harves every single plant.
That way it actually makes sense to do it together.
-it would be nice if freeholds are not the only places where you can keep animals.
If its similar to other professions where you can do the highest lvl of animal hubandry only at Freeholds its ok.
But low lvl should be able to do somewhere else too(like you rent a place at the stable or something)
-About freeholds : im more of a pvp player and it would be nice if there is a use for freeholds for pvp players too. For example a arena where you can make pvp Duells for some honor or something like that. Ofc it would have to be balanced so you cant abuse it. For example you can always duell in the arena but you only get honor 1 time per day per player you fight so you cant just fght your friend 100 times.
-im rly liking the way that your doing the skill lines for Buildings but i think having 3 Skill lines per building would be nice.
I like that you have to choose and cant have everything.
-for customs it would be rly cool to have some "rare" customs that can change like the overall mood. For example a Boneyard where the ground looks corrupted and maybe some zombies walk around. Or a Lava one for example.
-i think its fine that you have to kill the animals to get the products
-it would be cool if certain classes can interact with certain buildings. For example if bards perform in a tavern they get some little rewards like something like rested xp. i dont know if trhat would be too restrictive but if not that would be cool
Inventory management looks fine, Will not know if I like it until i get my hands on it.
How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Will there be a way to upgrade crops by upgrading to a greenhouse or building vertical planters to save space, or tall crop towers to save space and or man made waterfalls or magical auto watering crops for faster growth?
How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Loving the livestock
Other thoughts
- Give us some outdoor hang out areas like a firepit with benches around it
- ability to add outdoor decor like ruins, castle walls, watch towers,
- Taverns should give us customization, adding bar countertops, shelves with mugs and ale barrels, indoor benches and tables, stage for playing music, hang hunted deer trophies and head mounts
- ability to add sign posts with menu lists or drink prices
- Special Hunting taverns or hunting freeholds that are specific to hunters who hunt animals and bring back skins, and antler trophies
- archery practice targets (preview of how much damage we can do)
- attack dummies for melee practice (preview of how much damage we can do)
- interactive Poker or card game tables for 2, 4, 8 players
- dart games for taverns
- outdoor dance floor with npc musicians (interactive) 8 player dance floor/stage
member of Gray Sentinels
Here is my concern: The Freehold auctions bids should only use account bound currency (I do understand that there will be different ways to obtain them). If tradeable currencies such as gold are allowed to be used, only large guilds will own those freeholds. Large "Zerg" guilds will outbid every small guild or friend group on the server. To think otherwise is very naïve.
If Ashes does not do something about Large guild "zerging" or "money pooling" they will push out smaller teams. People quit playing when this stuff happens to servers. Archeage, New World, and many other MMOs have seen this first hand when one giant group/guild takes over a server. They push everyone else out. Then when small groups are forced to change servers, just to attempt to play the game. They then will be so far behind and these spots will be taken by either the same reason, other players have purchased all the freehold spots on that server, or be to far behind to catch up if one comes available. That is when people will quit playing the game period. Then here come the "Fresh Start" servers that will be dominated for the same reasons.
I really hope they lock Freeholds to individual achievements only, to allow everyone a fair chance at competing for them. I have no issue with competition and firmly believe in not having "participation trophies". However, my small friend group/guild will never be able to outbid a large guild. We will never have the chance to compete at that point. It will be like the over 40 men's league softball team VS the New York Yankees. Is that really competing at that point?
Has the team thought of solutions for the scenarios above?
Thank you for your time and dedication to gaming! We are rooting for Ashes!
- How do you feel about the systems shown thus far for planting crops on your Freehold? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
I think the crafting and the crops and recipes will be cool, the more intricate the better, but if they are gated by a freehold it may be discouraging when you learn that.- How do you feel about raising livestock and collecting resources from them? Does anything in particular concern or excite you regarding this?
Sort of similar to above, it may be discouraging to learn that you can't progress without access to a freehold or can't produce the best items without a freehold. I also liked the suggestion from someone I saw on youtube for harvesting the animals. The pig harvest specifically could be for some, pretty intense. Any slitting of the throat or stabbing should make you cringe just a bit. You could use a simple "Gore" drop down in the options menu, change it from that action to a simple, idk hands working in front of the character, or a generic "using" animation. Could solve that gripe without creating too much extra work.- What kind of customization do you want with your Freehold, or buildings on your Freehold?
Maybe simple signs out front, it doesn't have to say what you want on the visible sign, but perhaps when targeted it would read the text you want in the target box "Wimplo's House"- Is there anything in particular you’re excited about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I think it could be exciting if everyone has access, but if it's restricted that much it will be mixed depending on the player base and the community type that forms.- Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Freehold Preview?
I think everyone will have a ton to say on this one, and some are too harsh I think. From someone who is new to the project and pre ordered to get involved in Alpha 2, I think there are a lot of loud voices with a lot of complaints but not many solutions.What is the solution that allows freeholds to be valuable, but not exclusive, that's doable, but requires a unique answer.
Personally my first thoughts were that it sounds like the average player(very likely myself) will be ostracized once the server community has settled itself out.
If you look at some other games where the live version is dead and private servers are running, you see this all the time. The smaller the player base gets, the more elitist and toxic it becomes. The community dies.
That being said, one game comes to mind, Star Wars Galaxies. Sand box MMO that allowed(as far as i know) EVERY single player to have at least one home and could place it wherever the ground was flat enough to place it. Some planets were off limits. They also were allowed to have harvesters which took up land, and factories to produce goods, so the overall footprint could be very similar to the size of a freehold.
The surveying and harvesting professions also had a similar system to the nodes I believe, with the highest concentrations of a particular or coveted resource being available in one location for a week or so and then they would swap out somewhere else on the planet or another planet randomly.
This made it fair for everyone, and the surveyors of the time worked together on forums to track these things so everyone could get in on the action.
Just what comes to mind for me, and maybe ideas you can research to implement changes in this game.
This game looks great and like something very special!
It's best to make the right decision first, and if not, make the one that can be corrected at a later date.
Cheers!
As for log out options, those are some good ideas you have.