Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
It is still a valid point. But you cannot provide reasons why is not
low thousands in ample imo. low thousands is more than enough to do what there designed to do, more than that would diminish there value making them not worth the risk to own them.
In some respects you are right here, but in a way where you are totally missing the mark.
Look at a game like WoW, EQ or EQ2. People come to the game by themselves - especially when these games first came out.
They would play the game by themselves, discover groups and then get in to that, perhaps get a guild, and then maybe move on to raiding.
The key thing is, the reason they did all of this is because the base level of the game kept them playing said game by themselves.
To translate this to Ashes - imagine if there was a smaller, half acre freehold that a solo player was reasonably able to expect to get hold of. It can still be some work, but it is perfectly reasonable for them to assume that if they put a set amount of effort in, they will get one.
So, thye have a freehold, and they enjoy the gameplay that comes with it. Perhaps they want more of that same gameplay, but their small freehold is fully used.
The only way they can get more of that gameplay is to get together with other people and work towards it.
This is absolutely key for every aspect of an MMO. You NEED to have all content types available to essentially all players - but you are able to limit how much of that they have access to without working together with others. Then, if people decide they want more of that content, they know what they have to do to get it.
It is absolutely, 100% true that a solo player should not be able to achieve the same things as a guild. Absolutely true.
However, there also should be no content types that a guild has access to that a solo player doesn't also have access to. It is the level of that content that needs to change, not access to that content.
Freeholds are a content type.
Thus, the issue is that there is only one level of freehold. No matter what Intrepid do, as long as only one level of freehold exists, it will not work - either they make it limited as it seems to be now and solo or casual players miss out on a content type, or they make it more accessable to all in which case guilds and the more organized don't have a means to take it to the next level (though an argument could be made for upgrading buildings).
There is no risk to owning them. I don't know why you've put them on a pedestal. You can replace a lost freehold, do a quest to keep the freehold in a zoi switch with t3 or above. You can mitigate the risk of loss. You can ignore a siege and just let a freehold fall. The only people who see the risk are those who lack the competence to get more.
No more than Zerglords, at least.
As long as Intrepid remembers the average player will not be in massive guilds like some of the thousand man zergs / corpos that'll be playing this game we'll be ok.
Are you insane? The average player WILL be in a zer guild! The best place to hide. Doesn't matter if you perform or not, because your performance is averaged.
There's a reason why you have "elite squads", which are the few, and then the army, which is basically everyone else.
Avarege player will be a npc in a large guild, get access to goodies and contribute some gold. It's the only logical solution.
100% spot on, and even though I agree with most of the stuff you say about Freeholds, this one takes the cake.
Instead of just gating the freeholds so hard, have "smaller level" Freeholds that maybe don't offer as much stuff (like top tier processing, businesses, size etc.). At least this way, every player that sets their goal to own a freehold can actually do so. And if they like it, then they can work towards owning a real big freehold like showcased, where you get a bunch of perks for owning it, like top tier processing, businesses, etc.
inb4 "I've yet to see a good point against the current system" blah blah blah.
Also I like the more natural way of getting into a guild. You play the game, experience the content, find players who also do the same content as you, you create a guild together, or you join their guild, then you do more stuff together.
Rather than guilds that just create the whole structure before the game even comes out, where they plan out everything to be as efficient as possible or whatever.
They wont even bother playing.
The Ninefive gamer wont touch Ashes if it's doesn't respect their time.
and people complain about group finder in wow, and its a solo friendly option xDD
I disagree with the idea that all content types should be easily available to solo players. There should always be content for them to do but I think it's fine if some things are a little trickier for them to achieve solo. The game should be trying to push them to work with others. Working with others takes effort so it should be baited with something that's tasty.
Solo players can come to the game, explore, level up their character, join social organizations/religions, and help develop nodes. There should be plenty for them to do that doesn't require access to a freehold.
I might've missed it, but where did they say it should be "easily" available?
All types of content should be available to all players, with varying degrees of difficulty to reach it.
That doesn't mean ALL content should be easily available to everyone.
You have raids, some are easier, and some are only for elite players. So raid access should be available for everyone, but not every raid will be available to every single player.
It's similar with Freeholds. If they put enough effort, all players should own a piece of land in the open-world, where they can plant stuff, farm animals, etc.
Then for the elite players (or guilds in this case), you have Freeholds as the currently are, which are large plots of land, where you can do all of that + more, with businesses, highest tier processing, etc.
Most players who solo MMORPGs have friends who are playing - and are likely in a guild.
They just prefer adventuring while not in a formal group/party.
You can expect solo players to have access to their friends' Freeholds.
And you can expect solo players to own Freeholds that they share with friends.
I'm not aware of a restriction that limits owning Freeholds to people in a guild.
This and I am not even sure about the 1/5th.
A solo player could save up and buy a freehold as they currently are. Even if I decide to agree that it's impossible, I don't think all content types should be available to all players. As I said, I think there should be content for all players but that doesn't mean they need access to all content types.
As a side note, I really think players need to play it as it's hard to understand how the system will feel. I think people are overestimating how much guilds will value these as well as how the system will feel when you factor in that people will be sharing them.
Well, that's ultimately what we disagree about then. If I pay for the game, I expect to have access to every type of content the game has to offer, again with various degree of time and effort investment. In Ashes, that doesn't look like it will be the case, when talking about Freeholds. Because you rely on whether others own a Freehold or not, there's limited space, and simply put, more than 50% of the playerbase won't be able to own a Freehold at any given moment.
I don't expect to own the best armor around, but I will still own some good armor. I don't expect to own the best flying mount, but I do expect to own some sort of a mount. You get the deal.
With Freeholds, you either own them, or you don't. There isn't a more "shitty" version of Freeholds. In-node housing could be that, but as it stands, it could be even harder to get. And I feel like all the concerns we have about Freeholds, will apply to in-node housing as well, again leaving regular players out of them.
The only other housing type is instanced housing, but it just doesn't compare to Freeholds. The only common thing they have is that they're both types of housing.
By your logic because you can do everything without having a freehold that isn't crafting the most high end stuff they already service you like that.
Anything you need or want to obtain or types of content can be done without a freehold, but to get the best it requires a different degree of time and effort.
So you should have no issue if it is simply about having access to everything, and not about having access to the best thing.
But is that the case? Am I gonna be able to own a stable and do animal husbandry on my own plot of land, somewhere out in the world?
Am I gonna be able to plant and harvest stuff to then use for crafting or to sell for profit, on my own plot of land, somewhere out in the world?
You're thinking about solely what services the Freehold offers, but what about the type of gameplay it offers? What about just going out in the world, exploring, killing stuff, maybe gathering, then coming to your house/farm, depositing stuff, planting stuff on your farm, managing animals (harvesting resources from them), breeding stuff if you want to? I very much doubt that will be available without a Freehold.
Nowhere has Steven explicitly said you could do farming, animal husbandry, etc. without a Freehold. It's all just vague confusing words, and please don't bring that discord screenshot again, because it says nothing.
Oh I absolutely agree with the first part.
You can expect a tiny, tiny % of "solo" players to own a Freehold, sure. But again, large majority of the playerbase won't own one. One, because there are only a certain number of Freeholds available, meaning it's inevitable players will be left out. It's in low thousands, when they expect the servers to go up to 50k players with 10k concurrent players. That's 87.5% players playing the game at any given moment that don't have a Freehold. And it's 2% out of whole server population that will own one.
It absolutely shouldn't be equated to getting legendary gear or top tier mount (in terms of percentage of people owning them), because they're simply not the same.
You aren't going to own land that is tied to freeholds, housing wise you will have an apartment or non instanced house. You should be able to do farming as well as animal husbandry, though of course not to the same level as a freehold.
If you can't do farming or animal husbandry than people are free to complain since that would be feel like you are cut off from content.
You can kill stuff and come back to your home, that is going to be a major gameplay cycle to put the stuff you found or gathered safely away. But owning land is for players that are competitive enough to work towards that, as well as able to defend it.
I agree he hasn't said it, but there are a lot of things not said, and we will learn more as we get closer to alpha 2. Regardless they are looking for feedback so complains are still valid, and concerns of being locked out of content if you are unable to do it anywhere else in lower tiers.
And for animal husbandry that could be a node thing where you got o the stable and do the interface there and see what you have.
Yup, it remains to be seen, we're still some time away from Alpha 2. It's why we are providing them with feedback, so they can hopefully adjust things if necessary.
It's also the problem of open-development, because you might not get the full picture if they don't explicitly confirm something.
But if it takes me 6 months to save enough gold and resources to buy one but they are turning over on average every 3 months, the math doesn't add up.
thats why steven has made very clear that not everybody will have everything. now let me ask you this. if you are paying for wow or ff, do you have access to everything all the time? are you able to do a dungeon or kill a boss all by yourself? no right? you need other players. you depend on other players.
the difference is those games are cooperative and ashes is cooperative-competitive, but the basis of not having access to everything any time you want doesnt stand. you still need other players.
even in ashes, there are other things that people wont be able to get. flying mounts, castles, rare gatherable resources. why arent you complaining about that? you are only complaining about fh maybe because thats the part of the game that interests you?
Please read again everything I said.
If we look at Anthem as an example they had removed flying in the game at one point. If people knew that they would be mad as if they felt it was a item / feature they owned personally. A lot of things goes on behind the scenes and things change, but people have a hard time seeing the change, even more so when they don't understand why or do not know the full picture.
People always reference the wiki and its good to keep track of things, but there has to be a understanding things change (as they have been).
I've played MMO's since the Everquest days and was always social up to a point in WoW. Usually small/medium sized family like guilds doing content together. As WoW started loosing popularity my guild members left and I was by myself mostly. WoW over the years had made it super easy to just play never knowing anyone and that ended up being how I played. Then when I went onto other MMOs more less they did the same thing so I just play on my own in those too.
I think you have a balance that works out well for everyone if you want to take the time to figure it out. I feel like the Ashes of Creation team does.
I agree, that is essentially what the post was about.
However, you dont push people to work together by saying "you cant do this activity at all until you work well with others". You need to give people a smaller taste of the activity and then let them know that getting more of it requires working with others.
If I am playing the game, leveling up, exploring etc, how will I know I enjoy the content that comes with a freehold?
Until I get one, I wont.
As such, why would freeholds be a reason for me to go out seeking to work with others?
The short answer is, it wont.
People haven't even played the game and seem to be freaking out about the fact they might not be able to get a freehold so it doesn't seem like they need to do any activities related to freeholds to want one.
Most activities you can do on a freehold you can do off of one, like gathering, processing and crafting. I don't think it would be hard for people who do those to see the advantages of a freehold.
If they don't know if they would enjoy a freehold and don't get one, I don't see that as a problem. More freeholds for the people who figure out they want one.
We would grab every one of them up that we could.
The reason people know this is how it will work has little to do with the system, and everything to do with people.
In order for the system to work, it needs to be effective enough to divert human nature.
The current system just isnt.
The "type" is housing. And all players do get access.
Apartments and inns. You could consider me a "solo" player. Idgaf about freeholds, hence why I read about them on the wiki and never bought the freehold pack.