How far should systems go to prevent snowballing? What systems should be in the game to prevent guilds or individuals from becoming so strong that they keep all the rewards for themselves?
Taking this into account :
- Not everyone gets a cake, you gotta work for things
- A core aspect of the game is Risk vs Reward, the bigger the rewards you want, the more you have to risk
- Ashes is a social game, building communities and working with others is a good thing
- There is no end game, you should have fun as you progress, not just at the end
How do you think Ashes should handle guilds/individual snowballing out of control in the open world PvX content where players interact with eachothers (ex: competing for raids/dungeons, PvP wars/sieges)? Do you think snowballing should be fully allowed, no punishing the winners, let them reap the rewards until they quit? Or should we have systems that make them struggle to keep that edge?
I think when guilds or individuals get stronger and make more money, it becomes easier for them to enter systems that allows them to get bigger rewards. But
as you get bigger rewards, you should be confronted more risks. Without punishing success, I think it allows to create a progressive game loop where the stronger you become, the harder the game loop becomes, as if you reached a new league to compete in.
There was talks about
horizontal progression and gear specialization which are money sinks that will give u edges in some instances but not other. So someone very rich will simply have more tools to adjust to situations, but in one particular situation, if caught offguard, they won't have an edge over other players that much.
And another concept that exist in every mmorpg is the diminishing return, where leveling from 49 to 50 doesnt give that much benefits yet takes a ton more time.
--- My suggestions ---Blue shell
I like the concept of the blue shell in Mario Kart. I think the stronger you get, the more ahead you get, the bigger the target should be on your back. Creating a
risk that makes you want to not get too far ahead, to properly strategize and pace yourself instead of simply getting better
rewards and go further ahead. This makes everyone wants to race against the one ahead of them rather than bully the ones behind them too.
ex:
The bigger the guild assets, the better the rewards for guilds that declare wars against them. This should incite guilds to declare on a guild that monopolizes raids for exemple or one that has owned a castle for a long time.
Time limited benefits
Something new for individuals could be to have augments behind time/money investments where players compete for them, but they only get them for a limited amount of time. This would let them be the badass of the month, but the investment wouldnt be worth being the badass of the month for consecutive months. Having it be a time/money competition should ensure someone just doesn't keep getting it for cheap and instead they have to invest in that particular system to get its benefit rather than own every single benefits in the game cause they are the richest.
Social investments
Allowing players and guilds to invest into upgrading nodes, applying policies and progress POI can be a good sink for those who get ahead. This investment would be for intangible social gains like getting your names out there. Allowing for that kind of investment is pretty cool and the incentive for individuals and guilds to get their name out there is great in a game where cohesion with larger masses enables changes in the world.
