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
My understanding of the risk vs reward of the open seas has to do with how much more you will be able sell certificates/harvestables, which are prevalent in one biome, to another biome across the sea which has zero of those resources.
If you can make a bunch of money taking goods across the ocean (reward), you must brave the piracy of the open sea (risk).
But like you said, Steven also mentioned that they've had internal discussions whether they should lower the level requirement for freeholds to level 30, so that processing progression would transfer seamlessly from nodes to freeholds. So it would seem that he is talking about character levels.
So, what does "Processing mastery process leaves the nodes at around level 30" actually mean? To me it sounds like, that with in node processing stations (tier 3, journeyman) you would be able to make processed goods that are used to craft up to level 30ish gear. If you could use tier 3 processed goods to make entry level gear for max level characters, like I've assumed before, wouldn't that make Steven's statement as untrue? In this case, wouldn't it mean that processing leaves nodes at level 50?
If you could use in node processing stations to make processed goods to craft max level entry level gear and everything above that would need freeholds, then IMO the processing progression transition from nodes to freeholds would be seamless.
Personally i don't see it being lvl 30, the time it takes to go from lvl 30-50 will be far higher. They aren't go to cap crafting like that (this is in terms of the level gear you make I'm talking about).
More than likely you will only need lvl 30 to craft lvl 50 gear and such. The two tiers after are going to be more so for end game and super end game with uniques , special items and such other things.
There is a logical way to take the off hand commentary from Steven, and there is a "twisting my brain so as to make it not seem so stupid because I need to defend Steven on this" way to take it.
Logically, processing in node goes up to level 30, and then you need a freehold. This means that logically you can only craft gear up to level 30 without use of a freehold, or the production from one at least.
I think we can all agree that is bad design, if this logical way to take what was said is indeed the current plan.
That isn't logical that you can't craft anything in a game focused around it from lvl 30-50 (that would be a upgrade for you). There are some points in development where you don't know everything,. and you need to use your experience with other games to guess on how they might approach it. Based off mid game and relevance of end game.
What you are doing is doing a bad faith guess trying to assume the worse thing possible.
T4 and T5 processing stations only available on freehold.
First wave of players forced to level themselves without T4-T5 processed materials.
Either we'll be to able to manage with T3 only or some people will struggle in crappy gear for a long time. We don't know enough, too much speculations.
that is not necessarily bad design. you are only seeing at one thing in isolation.
if gear gave you the majority of your power, then id agree with you, kind of. but what if gear didnt give you the majority of your power? you will kill slower for sure but you will still be able to kill level 50 mobs. you can also group up. pvp? other players will also be wearing level 30 gear...
its just slows down people ability to gear up, but it isnt necessarily bad. it depends on other factors. dont look at things in isolation.
now, lets say gear gives you a significant part of your power. what is the difference between level 30 gear and level 50 gear? well we dont know yet. it could be that level 50 gear just takes longer to degrade. or maybe the difference is 5% in power. or maybe potions heal you a bit more. maybe gear isnt even tied to t5 processing at all and all you get is just siege stuff? who knows. we dont know yet all the things you can make.
That depends how they design it, they can do drops that are linked to that area using your material bags that drop / destroyed on death. Increasing the risk of losing a fight and threat of people.
Which increases risk with more people willing to fight without worry abut corruption.
If there is no drops, no xp lost, nothing special maybe you could argue less risk and pvp being more a time sink.
Assuming that would be what Intrepid has decided to go with seems in my opinion as either strong proof of complete distrust in Intrepids game design competency, some kind of bait or a huge misunderstanding of the information being put out there.
And that is exactly what this post was originally about: Instead of judging Intrepids work on personal assumptions and insufficient information, we could offer better feedback by making weighted statements, depending on possible decisions where they are clearly not confirmed yet.
Sadly it is the same bad apples and peoples support them do to arguing what they want.
I'm always for more positive discussions like what cool things could they do, how might they approaching crafting (all of which he have seen absolutely nothing on). Instead we got the few trying to doombait instead of making actual discussion and fun brain storming (which could help spark some ideas for designers to look at).
The majority of gear in Ashes is from crafting - potentially even the VAST majority of gear.
Are you really suggesting Ashes could have the entire top 20 levels of the game have no gear upgrades, and you think this would FIX issues rather than cause them?
Never forget - it can literally always be bad game design. It may not end up being that, but it literally always is a possibility.
There have been several times in this games history where players have pointed out bad game design to Intrepid and they have remedied it. There is no reason to assume it can't happen again.
Yes, it can be, but leading a whole debate hammering on the worst case scenario is either conveying deep distrust in the design team, looks like baiting for emotional reactions rather than information exchange or just bitterness without the ability to just move on.
And before I discuss the last paragraph I would need an example of a dysfunctional set-in-stone design choice that Intrepid has made; dysfunctional meaning counter to the goal of Intrepid to create a changing, group focused and PvX MMORPG.
not for a caravan
i didnt say no gear upgrades...they just come by harder. also you might get upgrades from sources other than crafting /facepalm, while reserving the BEST gear for crafting, for those who dedicate themselves to it.
i never said gear progression wasnt important. i was talking about gear power and %
Are you really suggesting that Ashes could have the entire top 20 levels of the game have no gear upgrades?
Do you really think that is even remotely possible?
Honestly?
I disagree.. the penalty for a caravan being destroyed may be the same, but by reducing player death penalties and removing corruption, they are encouraging pvp'ers to be out there, potentially in MUCH higher numbers. Thus the risk is increased, because the chance you have to defend you stuff is higher.
I think that is what they are thinking.
For Open Seas, Risk is not increased. Just a greater instance of PvP combat.
And the Risk for Caravans is the same on the Open Seas as it is on the Mainland.
If Intrepid have plans other than what we know and/or assume, they will be ignoring all if this discussion. As such, from their perspective, all of this doesnt matter.
On the other hand, if they dont have plans, all of this discussion is valid.
There were some things about the corruption system that were pointed out to then very early on - such as a key means of lowering corruption being quests obtained in nodes, yet with corruption making all node guards attack on sight.
This has since been changed, because it was obviously bad design, and was pointed out first by posters here.
No, no one is saying this
We are saying that the current system will leave some players without reasonable access to that gear.
Even then, if you ask me if this is possible, I would say no. It will CLEARLY need to be changes. Yet what we know of current design makes that above statement (mine, not yours) true.
All this suggests is that changes are essentially guaranteed. It may be changes to the design, or it may be changes to our understanding of it - but it is changes regardless.
if you are saying the current system will leave some players without reasonable access to that gear (and by that gear i think you mean level 30-50 gear) then you are suggesting that ashes will have 20 levels of no upgrades.
remember that there will be other ways to acquire gear, not just processing, but you are completing ignoring that, or dont wanna talk about it.
also, steven said people wont be doing processing until a stage 3 node(village) exists. following your logic of no gear because no processing, people will be fighting naked from levels 1 - 20/30.
which makes no sense...or it means there will be alternate ways to gear up..maybe not just the top gear for each tier because thats craftable, but you still progress your gear noneteless.
If you are talking about from the perspective of some players, then sure.
While there are indeed other ways of acquiring gear, I did specifically point out in my above post that the cast majority of gear is to be player made.
Your point about no processing until nodes hit level 3 is an interesting point. It suggests that at least some gear will be produced without the need for processing - I'm sure we all agree that the notion of no crafted gear until node level 3 is stupid
However, if processors arent needed for low level gear, there is a chance that they may not be needed for gear from level 30 to 50.
If this is the case, that renders processors to being far less useful than we previously thought - which is also not good game design.
Which is exactly my point: Wait for actual information before making final judgements or make weighted statements depending on the possible but yet unclear outcomes.
This response doesn't make sense.
You asked for an example of when Intrepid wanted to do Thing A and it was bad. Thing A in this case was 'having corruption reduced by quests in nodes'. That was bad, and it went away. They could also have 'changed the entire corruption system in some extremely convoluted way' or 'removed node guards attacking the corrupted'.
How did we get to 'making final judgements'? The point was 'a thing that looks flawed could always just be bad game design'.