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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
To reduce the number of alts, simply allowing players the option to change their primary class could be effective. I see no downsides to this. It could be restricted so that changes can only be made in cities, but giving players the ability to switch their main class without losing progress could significantly improve player satisfaction. Additionally, it often happens that players abandon the game out of disappointment with their chosen class, as the prospect of leveling up from scratch is neither appealing nor feasible for many. This change could potentially retain players by offering them a way to explore different gameplay styles without the need to invest an excessive amount of time in new characters.
In general, most mmo's don't have that option, and I don't think it will here either.
Their goal is to spend as much time as possible in the game.
But in principle, it will be possible to change subcastes with which you can balance a little
I know how it feels when you reach the max level and go to pvp and realize that this character is not for you. Or there will be 1 balancing update and your character will be useless.
But that's how mmo's are. Decisions affect where you go. And the hardest thing is what caste you start.
You watch videos and decide that this will be good because it is a top 1 caste. You may not even enjoy that caste. And you won't be as good as the person you watched the video from.
What if players get bored? We might pay the subscription for one year in advance.
Having more characters is better as it adds variation.
All characters will have the same citizenship so having more professions is not an issue.
Forcing one character / account will encourage some players to own multiple accounts which is worse than having more alts.
As I said, not all servers are like this, only 1.
I hope that they can put enough content in the endgame so that we don't get bored.
Everyone plays differently and likes the game differently.
They can tell development numbers after which I wouldn't care if someone has 2-5 alt characters. But I don't think they will include 600-1000 hours of such long development (leveling + profession).
This (Com)mission system is not necessarily the same as New World's.
If you defeat minotaurs, without a Commission, you are probably getting a benefit for your Node anyway.
I agree that with the 'sharing' system there might be a good reason to have some alts, but if you didn't notice it, the missions don't really have a 'cooldown', the board refreshes every 30 minutes.
You could still try to make sure to have alts to get extra benefit from not having to run back to town if you think you could clear the same mission multiple times within the 30 minute window. Maybe you're right and Intrepid won't balance the mission difficulty correctly, but this isn't the case in most other games with similar systems and a short cooldown.
How exactly do alts benefit players taking missions in New World?
if it really takes 30 minutes to cool down, that's good, but I haven't seen that much.
new world you don't need alts because there you can use every profession and every weapon with 1 character.
I would add that you only get these missions if you are a resident of the city.
That would be a good thing I think so.
To reduce the number of alts, simply allowing players the option to change their primary class could be effective. I see no downsides to this. It could be restricted so that changes can only be made in cities, but giving players the ability to switch their main class without losing progress could significantly improve player satisfaction. Additionally, it often happens that players abandon the game out of disappointment with their chosen class, as the prospect of leveling up from scratch is neither appealing nor feasible for many. This change could potentially retain players by offering them a way to explore different gameplay styles without the need to invest an excessive amount of time in new characters.
It could be done, but I don't think there will be a caste change at max level.
But if it were included, I would make the change of caste expensive or put a very long cooling time on it.
Don't change caste 3-4 times a day.
What would kill the community would not be meeting more and more people, but changing caste.
This is one of my problems with alts, that if you have several alt characters you can easily switch between castes.
But it would be too convenient and time-saving to change caste at max level. And this is not in the interest of the developers. But it is in their interest that you spend more time in the game and subscribe for more months.
But I also know the feeling of reaching the max level with 1 character. And then in the endgame it turns out that it's not as good or not as you imagined and it's not for you.
Or 1 update comes and the caste is not that good anymore. For example, I choose this character because it has the highest dps, then the update comes that it is too strong and you get - 20-30% dps. And you lost your interest in the game .
So alts can definitely help with that.
But... altaholics are going to alt in any case - especially in an RPG.
Because a foundational aspect of RPGs is roleplaying different characters.
The whole point of making 1 character servers would be to play in a world where everyone is that character they are playing. There are no alts to do extra professions or daily mechanics that further their progress as a whole. Its the only real way of making that character not be just a trivial number among many. If you dont want to play just one character then there are the multi character servers. Simple as that.
I would even suggest they go as far as making you register your computer to the account or something similar so that multiple accounts couldnt be used for alts. Specifically for these servers you could have a 24 hour lockout timer start when you change the account you are logged into. This would remove a massive majority of players attempting to purchase extra accounts and subs just for an alt.
In any RPG, a fundamental aspect of the genre is to play different characters who have different roles and personalities based on each character's interests and life experiences.
Rather than the player.
In Ashes, all servers have the same ruleset, so... all the servers will be multi-character servers.
No need to purchase a separate account/sub for an alt.
Which is the way it should be for any RPG.
Did you forget what the topic of this thread was even about?
And no, rpgs are not about playing different characters. they are about exploring characters in depth depending on the setting. You could have one character, or more. Most games do one character at a time that you play. Just because its an mmo doesnt mean that it needs to have alts.
Also players who like to RP need more alts.
Reaching level cap (50) will be fast. 45 days. Different kind of leveling will probably continue.
Yes, there are some players who play very differently from how AoC wants to be.
Some players do not like to PvP... and want to only PvE. They want zero risk.
Balancing the game properly for them would require NPCs made differently, more story, maybe having a longer time to reach level cap for old school players.
Developers should make two forums and pin different questions for each to find out how to make the game good for each.
Instead of server with one character you could suggest a server with different corruption balancing, one which punish PvP more, to reduce how often happens. Because some players enjoy lower level (but not zero) adrenaline level.
Wiki already states that
"There won't be separate PvE and PvP servers but some servers may be more PvP focused than others.[148][152]"
Those references point to 2017 and even 2016 (never seen a 2016 reference before)
But still that separation is pure chance, by what kind of players end up on each server.
For me is a better design to not have two different server types.
I said what I said.
It's a free world. It is OK for you to disagree with me and be factually incorrect.
You can believe the Sun circles the Earth if you wish.
You do understand that rpg stands for role playing game, right? Not multiple role playing game. Not roles playing game. Role. Singular. You are not correct saying that all rpgs are about playing multiple characters. If that was true, people that only play one character are what? Doing it wrong?
OPTION 1: I think that we should first be given only one character creation slot, and then allow for additional slots be upgraded in the future. For example, once you have a maxed level character with at least X artisan professions learned, then you unlock a new slot. That way folks can experience other classes after they have played the game.
OPTION 2: Just only allow one character to be created. I'd rather pay double or triple the subscription price if it means we don't have a class and character creation system that works for solo-oriented players or players that want to avoid PVP.
OPTION 3: Only allow one character to be created (e.g., so they can't have an army of all the different artisan professions), but institute a way to change primary archetype (at a huge cost) and a way to change gear to fit the new archetype (e.g., farm X materials and convert healer weapon to ranger weapon etc.)
Let me remind you that Ashes only has just one Server Type for all servers.
No different than asking to add a PvE server or asking to add an RP server.
Or any other specialty server type.
I'm telling you why any RPG that has multi-character servers (99.99% of RPGs) is highly unlikely to include a server that limits players to just one character on that server.
It's also not labeled Singular Roleplaying game. (nor Single Character Roleplaying Game)
In RPGs, one character can have multiple roles, like Tailor as well as Ranger and Scholar and Trap Disarmer.
You also understand that Football allows you to use more than one foot, right? Even though it's not called Feetball? Handball allows you to use more than one hand even though it's not called Handsball.
The vast majority of RPG players would say that having a server that limits players to just one character would be exceedingly poor game design for any RPG.
(Just as Football does not limit players to manipulating the ball with only your left foot or only your right foot. And Handball does not limit players to manipulating the ball with only your left hand or only your right hand.)
Make Ashes even more niche.
The level cap at launch is expected to be level 50.[17][18]
On release the developers anticipate max level should be attainable in approximately 45 days if playing 4-6 hours per day.[19][20]
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Crafting_stations
Higher tier crafting stations are unlocked with node progression.[11]
- City (stage 5) nodes may have one Grandmaster crafting station.[12]
- Metropolis (stage 6) nodes may have two Grandmaster crafting stations.[12]
I do not know if all players on the map can access the crafting stations from any node.
In any case, rare resources must go to freeholds and from there to the high level nodes through the caravan system.
And not all players will find all the rare resources they need.
And not all players will have freeholds, or access to one with the right processing station.
In New World you don't need alts - also New World is a Survival Game; not an RPG.
But... New World allows 3 alts per server.
I have characters on two servers and I have two characters on each of those servers (for a total of 4 characters).
They either have to only ever make changes that are fine with all rule sets or they have to develop and test multiple versions of the same change when conflicts arrive.
Do you think you'll get better development, balancing and expansions over the life of the game with one rule set or several?
Is the new world a survival game? have you starved many times while playing?
You're so cute.
You don't need alts, but you have 2 characters per server.(I know because there are 3 nations and I think that's why)
I don't think blocking alts on 1 server would affect it so much that it should be dealt with separately.
but you can give examples but not too extreme. What really matter.
I also consider 6x46 hours too little. if there are altos.
I still want 1 character on 1 server.
so in 1 year there will be people who will have 8 characters..
But maybe it's just me who sees the problems.
or my imagined problems.
I'm typically going to have at least one male character and one female character on the same server regardless.
I'm not particularly motivated to have more than 2 characters per server in New World because NW only has Human characters.
My alts don't necessarily have to all reach Max Level.
I have a bunch of characters because I like to explore a variety of roles.
I might have 4 characters - I might have 20 characters.
All depends on what differences they offer in terms of experiences - especially if NPCs respond differently to different Genders, Races and/or Classes.
Maybe the example with the town with 100 woodcutters was not the best.
Definitely multiple alts will have some impact onto how players trade.
But I think AoC is limiting the impact of multiple alts onto the economy well, way better than other games.
I am not sure about the possibility to buy freeholds which Steven announced last summer. I see both positive and negative aspects related to that.
I see you like to develop and create characters.
I don't want to calculate how many characters you have to make in Aoc.
8 species, 8 castes and 2 genders.
I don't care how many characters there are, but on which server I would be there, there could only be 1, so we wouldn't meet.
But that would make me very sad, so it might not be such a good idea.
the 8 basic castes are not ready either.
Things are described in theory, but we haven't seen anything in practice.
a good example is the development of the Nod rancher area.
And it was replaced with this one, you develop the area with the missions.
But I'm glad you're so positive.
I look at things much more negatively
I don't care what was written on wiki in 2017-2022,
I believe it when I see it.
Many things have been said and are still being said.
we waited 1 month and they renovated 1 older caste.