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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
We have to gate raiding and pvp content by node levels and arena ranks.
Nerror
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I like consistency in my game systems, and with the current freehold system, where only around 10% of the playerbase will be able to own one (if we are being generous), I think we need to expand this concept that Intrepid has introduced to the rest of the game as well. It's not a new concept really. They do like their exclusivity, like only flying mounts for metro mayors and kings and a lucky few drops, and exclusive cosmetics and such, but until now it hasn't been implemented in a way that blocks a large majority of players from major and vital content.
So I propose the following systems, to keep things fair and consistent for all players.
1. Boss Raids
Players who want to partake in raids have to be citizens of a node. The level of the node determines the level of the boss they have access to. If you are a citizen of a lvl 3 node you get access up to lvl 30 bosses, including world bosses. They will simply be invulnerable to you if you don't meet the criteria, and you'll get auto-kicked from raids that start attacking a boss.
As the node level increases, you gradually get access to higher level bosses and dungeons. In order to access the lvl 50 content you need to be a citizen of a metropolis. If you ever lose citizenship, you simply can't participate in raiding until you find a new home, and then only up to the level the node allows.
There is a cap on how many citizens can live in a metropolis of course, and citizenship gets progressively more expensive the more people already live in the node, but that's just the way it is. Land isn't infinite after all.
2. PvP content
Anyone can participate in random open world PvP, but your arena-level determines which other types of PvP content you can join. So in order to prove you are worthy to attack a caravan or join a node or castle siege, you need to prove your mettle in the arena first.
In order to be able to attack a caravan, you need to be in the top 70% of players in the arena ranks. That shouldn't be too hard to achieve if you really set it as your goal. To join a node siege, I think top 20% in the arena is fair, and if you want a shot at a castle, you need to be in the top 10% arena players on the server. Then there's guild and node wars, and we can say top 50% and 30% for those respectively.
So basically around 10% of the player-base has access to all the PvP content, and the rest have it to some lesser degree, if at all.
3. Crafting
Just like processing requires a freehold, crafting should require in-node housing (not apartments) in order to reach Master and Grandmaster content.
To make things consistent, Intrepid should increase the sizes of the in-node houses and reduce the numbers, to really make us feel the exclusivity. Like with Freeholds, you can invite your entire family to live with you, and they can set up their own beds and redecorate your house and such. And obviously gain access to your amazing crafting stations.
4. Other
I am not quite sure what to do about gathering yet, but we clearly need some gatekeeping there as well. Maybe you guys can help me?
The same goes for naval content. We can't have a bunch of landlubbers out on the open seas. That's just too dangerous for them. They could drown and what-not. So see if you can come up with a system that stops around 90% of players from ever sailing on the big ships.
So I propose the following systems, to keep things fair and consistent for all players.
1. Boss Raids
Players who want to partake in raids have to be citizens of a node. The level of the node determines the level of the boss they have access to. If you are a citizen of a lvl 3 node you get access up to lvl 30 bosses, including world bosses. They will simply be invulnerable to you if you don't meet the criteria, and you'll get auto-kicked from raids that start attacking a boss.
As the node level increases, you gradually get access to higher level bosses and dungeons. In order to access the lvl 50 content you need to be a citizen of a metropolis. If you ever lose citizenship, you simply can't participate in raiding until you find a new home, and then only up to the level the node allows.
There is a cap on how many citizens can live in a metropolis of course, and citizenship gets progressively more expensive the more people already live in the node, but that's just the way it is. Land isn't infinite after all.
2. PvP content
Anyone can participate in random open world PvP, but your arena-level determines which other types of PvP content you can join. So in order to prove you are worthy to attack a caravan or join a node or castle siege, you need to prove your mettle in the arena first.
In order to be able to attack a caravan, you need to be in the top 70% of players in the arena ranks. That shouldn't be too hard to achieve if you really set it as your goal. To join a node siege, I think top 20% in the arena is fair, and if you want a shot at a castle, you need to be in the top 10% arena players on the server. Then there's guild and node wars, and we can say top 50% and 30% for those respectively.
So basically around 10% of the player-base has access to all the PvP content, and the rest have it to some lesser degree, if at all.
3. Crafting
Just like processing requires a freehold, crafting should require in-node housing (not apartments) in order to reach Master and Grandmaster content.
To make things consistent, Intrepid should increase the sizes of the in-node houses and reduce the numbers, to really make us feel the exclusivity. Like with Freeholds, you can invite your entire family to live with you, and they can set up their own beds and redecorate your house and such. And obviously gain access to your amazing crafting stations.
4. Other
I am not quite sure what to do about gathering yet, but we clearly need some gatekeeping there as well. Maybe you guys can help me?
The same goes for naval content. We can't have a bunch of landlubbers out on the open seas. That's just too dangerous for them. They could drown and what-not. So see if you can come up with a system that stops around 90% of players from ever sailing on the big ships.
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Comments
Gathering can be limited by those very raids, so that we're fucking over the pve people equally. Gathering is pve after all, ain't it
Seas can be traversed only with ships that require top lvl wood, which requires top lvl gathering, which requires top lvl raid access, which requires metro citizenship. EZ
Before there was no reason to siege hardly at all, and the vast majority of MMO players either hate pvp or prefer not to.
Sieging in AoC is fundamental, the games built around it from the ground up, from the very first concepts of what Steven wanted before a single person was hired, I grantee you. It's required to keep the world alive, living and breathing, to keep things fresh, to keep the tension. All of this greatly lessens the need for what all other MMOs do to retain players, timegating.
I think you - and they - underestimated this a bit.
Yes, players want them. Quite a lot.
In fact, it was the biggest draw card for a LOT of players.
Gating freeholds doesnt mean people will work for them, it means many people will look at the one appealing aspect of Ashes, decide it is out of reach and just not play.
In the last few hours, I've seen over 100 people attempting to just give away their accounts because they have no intention of playing the game any more - even though they have spent money on subscription time already.
A number of those people have lifetime subscriptions, just fyi.
Oh, the current understanding of freeholds wont last forever. The one thing we know for sure is that it will change. Like, that is the only thing we know for sure - we dont know what the changes will be, we just know there will be changes.
I've posted my prediction in another thread. Let's see if you are brave enough to do the same.
My prediction is that even if they make small changes, Freeholds will remain Limited in numbers, extremely hard to obtain especially for solo players, and there will not be a universe where a solo players can get a freehold before players in large guilds can. They will also remain better suited for groups/guilds.
I will ping you at launch.
Oh no, I'll be fine and I will probably have access to a freehold if I want to. I just want all aspects of the game to be under the same consistent logic as the freehold system.
And to be fair, I dont think anyone here thought anything other than what you have said here would be the case. Everyone that put any thought in to it would know organized players would get a freehold first, knew that they would be limited in number, knew that they would be hard for a solo player to obtain.
These aren't the facts that are disappointing people - it is the level to which each is true that is disappointing. Freeholds can be a lot of work and can be limited without essentially cutting out 75% of the potential player base, which is what just happened.
The goal should be that half of all active players on a server should be able to have some land, not 10%.
Read over what my prediction is, and then see if you can come up with what you think will change either before launch or shortly after. You know, if you're brave enough to make an actual prediction rather than a general design goal statement.
I was under the assumption that you were siding on a complete change of the system, haven't been keeping up with your posts in these past few days. I won't make a prediction similar to what you did because I do believe the details may change, just the overall design philosophy that I am certain will remain, so we actually agree on this one.
How could I make such prediction when I can't even imagine how close Alpha 2 is? lol
I mean - I did.
From what I have seen, most of the complaints about the details rather than the system as a whole.
There are some complaints about the auction nature of it, but the rest are just to do with the details.
The really big problem right now though, this people that aren't even on these forums, but are still following the game.
I've seen well over a hundred people offer up their account to anyone that wants it for free. The freehold change was the catalyst for that, but not the reason.
The reason people have decided to just ignore this game is because of the constant rug pulling. Even people that never gave a shit about naval content or about freeholds are looking at Ashea and thinking to themselves "that could easily have been a part of the game I care about".
Further, many of these people (perhaps most) played ESO back when they would release content that altered the meta every 3 months
You would farm to get what you needed, and then a few weeks later there would be another rug pull and you had to start again.
To many people, the way Intrepid are delivering news of changes to how we understand game systems is like that. To these people, if Intrepid are doing this now, there is no reason to assume they wont do it when the game is live.
As such, a good number of people have very recently decided they just dont want to play. They dont want to put up with that, and so they wont. To many of these people, playing no MMO is better than playing an MMO that does that.
That is Intrepids real challenge right now. Not sure of that is something that @Vaknar has any impact on or not (I suspect it is all Steven), but I see that as a major issue for Intrepid right now.
Everyone should be able to get a T1 mount. We can't be too exclusive now, can we.
But T2 mounts? The gliding mounts? And the aquatic mounts? They should require a license to operate. The amount of licenses have to be limited to the low thousands, because of the same reason that freeholds are limited: It's a privilege to own one. Licenses are sold via a bidding system at first, where each node has a limited number available. Coastal nodes would have more aquatic licenses, and mountain nodes more gliding mount licenses to sell.
Obviously players have to be lvl 50 as well, and do a quest. Later on they can be sold directly from player to player.
From what ive seen free hold take a huge and i mean huge amount of investment to get going looking at the resource costs to upgrade on the screenshots is expensive as lumbermill for example 10k gold, 12000 stone, 1000 arcane dust, 8000 ingots on the T5 upgrades and each harvest gives single digits. Comparison crafted weapons currently take 10 ingots and 10 wood and each node gather drops single digits on resources (With a supposable maxed out gathering)
of course all these numbers are subjected to change but currently i see it as for the majority of players a hassle most wont want to deal with if they can help it
You know Steven is a gamer and a very stubborn one right? If you were smart about it, you'd be making actual legit posts and arguments to bring discussion about it - what you are doing here is Literally doing me, and others that like the changes a favor by making sure that intrepid just ignores the feedback
This is the "how to not ask for something 101"
Same as a fellow content creator has done with the recent copystrike drama. (posted today)
You are contributing for Steven looking at these nonsense posts and just wanting to double down on his decision lol same happened with DPS Meters so... please, carry on XD
It's his money to lose, so obviously he can do what he wants here. I have made plenty of constructive feedback in the official thread and a few others. This thread just shows the freehold logic applied to other game systems. I have faith he can discern between types of feedback.
Name 1 MMORPG that failed because of having a "bad" housing system.
I can name multiple that don't even have housing or relevant life skilling at all and succeeded, lol
and I say "bad" because its bad for you, I really enjoyed the changes so, you do not represent all of the playerbase.
This a lot of theorycrafting, and very little hard data, so do take it for what it is
Games have failed because they lack casual players and pve-oriented care-bears though. While hardcore gamers may make up for the bones, the skeletal framework if you will, casual players make up the meat, the volume. It is my belief you need both for a game to stay healthy in the long run. A game with just hardcore players tends to become like rats in a barrel slowly eating each-other until until there is just one starving rat left. Similarly, a game with just casuals tends to get incredibly unexciting and will need artificial excitement regularly added to not dwindle out like an oxygen deprived flame.
For reference, I'd say EVE Online is an example of game that maintains a healthy balance between them both, which is why it's player base is somewhat stable. Despite how hardcore that game can be at times, enough bones are thrown to the casuals that they stay as "food" for the hardcore gamers.
On the opposite end we have New World, who has never really had a proper balance, and as such fairly quickly was reduced to a barrel of rats. With short "breaks" from this state when they had expansions. But most of the time New World has been up, it has been a time of server merges, as the rats keep eating each other, reducing the number of active players on a server in a fairly predictable manner.
Also on the side of not having a proper balance are the "everyone is a winner" themepark MMO's that retain their players only by virtue of adding new content very often. While it works, it means the game needs constant coddling from the devs.
And, as I did see someone else point out somewhere in one of the threads here, the people most likely to truly enjoy the gameplay loops in freeholds, and not just do them because their guild demands it of them, are not the people most likely to be able to acquire them. While this might not on its own doom the game in any way or form, it is most certainly going to affect the number and types of players interested in it, affecting this balance. Potentially a lot more than other things being exclusive or hard to get.
Most games with competitive or demanding aspects rely a lot on some kind of suspension of disbelief. Most players know, deep down, that they will never have that BiS-weapon or that end-game gear. But they must be able to trick themselves into believing they can get it, otherwise doing all the content up to that point loses all meaning. The way the freeholds have been limited AND placed as a gateway for endgame artisan skills simply makes it too obvious, so many players will not be able to maintain that suspension of disbelief.
You probably don't need this suspension of disbelief, since having the position you do in a large(presumably) guild means you actually "know" you will have those things. You might even find the idea of relying on this kind of suspension of disbelief to able to enjoy a game to be a bit silly.
But it is very likely that AoC, just like any other game, will require the padding of casuals to run smoothly and live a long time. And they will have this need, so if it isn't catered to at all, AoC may end up struggling because of it.
From the feedback on all social media alot of people are not happy. And just because you want to feel special with your guild you're also not representing all of the player base
Just because freeholds are hard to achieve doesn't mean the game won't appeal to casuals. FF14 also has limited housing and it seems to do just fine appealing to casuals.
This is hard to talk about since we don't have the game and I get the lack of a guarantee is scary to some but if you want this, you should be able to work for and get it. If necessary, joining a guild or at least finding a group of people who work with is also something you can do.
I do think that the problem we are having is that we are having 2 discussions at the same time. The limited amount of freeholds, and the gatekeeping of end-game processing behind them. I would guess that more casuals can deal with the first one, but the second one might really affect player attraction due to how it messes with the suspension of disbelief. They might deep down know that they will never have the materials to level that anyway, but more or less being told upfront that they probably wont get that far makes even trying boring.
I assume most MMO players don't expect to get the highest-level gear without working with others.
This is an assumption, but the highest level of processing is probably for processing the highest level of materials, which most likely comes from the highest level of content, open-world raids.
The best gear in this game is craftable which I don't think people are used to but having this be somewhat exclusive doesn't seem like it would be new for MMO players.
And if they know they can't "finish it", chances are they will not even start it. Whether this means a complete loss of players, or high end-processors being stuck processing every tier of material because most people avoid processing skills altogether, even if they originally wanted to do them, I cannot really guess.
EDIT: To be fair though, if the value of low-tier materials grows large enough, you will probably get a bunch of "empty" T3-processing alts just to profit from it, so "stuck" is probably taking it to far. But still.