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.
Freeholds should be instanced
Kravell
Member, Alpha Two
I think freeholds should be instanced because the way they talk about it makes it seem like it is very limited and ultimately game breaking.
2
Comments
If you can grant access to players outside of your family to use freeholds then the current plans are perfectly fine.
Go make friends.
Additionally we are still in the Alpha phase which is hugely important as these systems are not set in stone and will be put to test extensively. There is no need to change them now unless one is concerned with Intrepid being utterly incapable of understanding the consequences of their design decisions.
For now, I think it is best to wait for the Alpha somewhere around next year and then see if things are truly in dire needs of adjustment. And even if they were: How would an instance barrier change any of the issues? Limitation is not bad (just like the ability to siege and destroy a node is not "bad") it is part of the deliberate designed ways to induce change.
If they were to add more freehold it would diminish the value of owning one to the point of not being worth the risk
There's instanced apartments already.
There's the Family system as well.
If you must have a player "house", there's Pax Dei
This is just for those who want to play around/live in a freehold without the processing/fasrming mechanics since that would diminish the value of the actual freeholds
Freeholds should be limited, but attainable.
The current system isn't attainable enough for enough of the potential population, but making them instanced removes the limited aspect.
I mean, they could obviously just limit the number of instances available, but then why instance them at all at that point?
They're limited on purpose.
Sieges are absolutely required for AoC to be properly successful. With how much the majority of the MMO community absolutely despites PvP with the burning passion of a thousand suns, and due to the price of a siege declaration, limited freeholds are going to be one of the only incentives to siege.
Also.. please God no... keep instancing and sharding as far away from this game as possible, in all ways shapes and forms.
i disagree with you with the attainability i think there attainable for majority of player who would want and use them properly
Name one limited thing in any competitive MMO where solo players were able to get a thing that guilds wanted - before guilds got as many as they wanted.
As far as I can see, the answer to that is a simple "that has never happened".
If guilds want a thing, they will get the thing before solo players. With how limited freeholds now are, guilds will want more than is available on any given server.
I highly and respectfully disagree with this. Freeholds being non instanced based and apart of an open world affected by players is what gives them their allure and uniqueness. That’s just player housing at that point which by the way you still have and it’s instances based. Yes freeholds will be limited, but that’s what makes them great. Everyone won’t get this trophy but eventually your time will come with enough dedication. Don’t fall victim to fomo, just set your mind to getting a freehold.
But freehold being part of the open world is what make them special. Just minding your own business before a whole raid just trample of you, forcing you to hide in your house for a while.
The designed "friction" this creates is that if someone is holding a plot of land "hostage" and not utilizing it to it's fullest to the benefit of the Node, other players will have to either work with the land owner or turn against the Node and overthrow it, destroy the freeholds and start over under new management.
The game is designed with diplomacy, player driven economy, pvp friction, and an ever changing world. The more you make the game "instanced", and the more you make every part of the game available to all players at all times, the more separation you create between players. They have been very clear that it will not be a game for everyone.
if 20 killing mobs to get something compared 1 person killing thing to get thing generaly 20 people will get 20 times the item than the 1 person i feel common maths here?
but thats unrelated to my statment because there are levels of desirability these major guild if they want to be relevant in the big scheme of things there desired location for freeholds will be the T6 and T5 nodes this is where the majority of competition will be on freehold and due to the nature of the game of no fast travel they want to have there freehold around where the guild want to call home base so any of the node far away from these T5/T6 node are less likely to have guilds going after them, so these less desirable location will geneneraly be for the taking for the solo players (Despite the solo player never gonna get it high enough relevance due to being designed for 8 people) but still i digress. Your assumption is that the population gonna spread out equally across the map and everything be snapped up by major guild however generaly a server will get a handful of major guilds and they generaly settle around high rank nodes leaving much of the out of the way places unmolested by there pressence. Thats how it goes in almost all territory MMO's ive played like darkfall for example which is very akin to AoC but was very crude implementation compared to AoC (Darkfall even had open world housing called villages) and major guilds didnt snap them all up quite a few were no named players/guilds who owned them when they were not located in key spots for a guild
yep if everyone has one they kinda become worthless and irrelevant for what they were designed to do
1. Guilds are going to be different. They are going to be smaller and not the primary groping for PvP. Belonging to a node, and being a citizen is the main PvP "faction". Guilds are a sub-division of a node.
3. 85-100 nodes, 50,000 accounts / server, means that less than 20% of players will be able to own a freehold, and it is likely that they will need constant maintenance and will come at a cost in time and in-game money.
3. Freeholds are not the only form of player housing. There is in node housing that will be more suited to crafting professions over gathering and processing professions, and instanced apartments that will suit people that don't like professions and take gathering to just earn more cash.
Honestly, I think MMOs have become too much of a one-size-fits-all deal. My hope is that in order to own a freehold, you have to enjoy games such as Animal Crossing at least a bit. If you are more of a "Lost Souls" type, just leave Freeholds alone. Own a Castle with your guild, or become mayor of a military node. Buy a ship, and use that as your home.
I really hope that this is a throwback to old style MMOs where you don't have to be able to do everything in the game in one run-through.
They are making it so you can't do everything, you would need multiple characters.
I think hyperbole will not help your case.
If you are unsatisfied with the current acquisition method simply do not play.
Not playing Ashes is a very loud signal that will be heard and received, things will change.
Sure, guilds will want more desirable locations.
However, the way you get freeholds in tier 5 and 6 nodes is that you buy them while the nodes are tier three.
Even if guilds are going to be that picky about what freeholds they want, it is only the top end guilds that will get it. Second, third and fourth tier guilds absolutely will take what they can get, and any one of these guilds still has enough of an advantage over a solo player that there is no chance at all for the solo player to compete.
Again, a solo player will only be able to get a freehold in Ashes as it stands today if no guild wants that freehold.
This is an odd thought to have.
The kinds of people that will be organizing sieges will be fairly well connected, and have significant organization behind them.
Essentially, they and their guild will have freeholds. They wont need to conduct a siege in order to get access to freeholds.
If you dont have access to multiple freeholds, you likely dont have the resources to initiate a successful siege.
It is possible that a siege may be initiated to damage a rival guilds freeholds in a given node, but increased access to freeholds wouldnt stop that.
I had a lot of fun with my instanced house in ESO.
Not saying this as part of the main discussion, but just replying to your point.
Edit: I didn't do a good job reading what point you were making. My fault.
Instancing is not an answer though. What people are arguing for is a visible place in the game world, instancing defeats that.
No one is arguing for 100 percent access, but 5 percent fundamentally changes the game.
And those that work for it will be able to achieve having a place in the world. We don't need gimmicky towns and little houses everywhere for the sake they want to put a random building in the world. Their goal is to have freeholds be meaningful in how it feels to acquire one. To be honest if they did have 2k freeholds i feel that would be more than they should have and id say less. Though if they are designing it around like that do to the processing I can understand that.
Too reductive. That sounds more like you are trying to make some sort of social statement.
Its the same way not as many people have flying mounts, or will have legendary gear.. Though freeholds being in much larger abundance. The idea of seeing player housing everywhere (only in open world) it is tacky and doesn't make it as special.
They have housing in game instanced and non instanced housing. People will have housing and the features that come with it.
Having freehold would be a social statement which gives them more meaning. I don't see this as a survival mmorpg where everyone is building bases. There is more of a reason to every element that they are trying to do.
Though it will be up to the balancing so it makes sense, if there is a element where it is too one sided than things would need to be adjusted.