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
I don't think you've played MO or Mo2 if you think that it had slightly more PVP. You would designate this game as Hardcore PVP, the entire point of this game is to fight. Just like Crowfall, you only play to PvP. Infact it was so much that during a campaign you had to play/PVP for 4-5 hours a day of just fighting other players. Not only do you fight most of the time but you also have full drop on items.which makes it pretty hardcore I would say. So it could be a bad day but this was pretty manageable with a guild.
The Node system is huge for PVE, the story events(Tower of Carphin), raiding, dungeons, crafting, exploration and discovery. If they add puzzles or "lockpicking" skills like D and D, there would be that too. Jumping puzzles. It has everything a PVE focused player would want.
PVP focused players don't want there to be a penalty in open world, they don't want to PVE. They want to fight and kill other players. Imagine playing Call of Duty but you had to kill 500 bots before you could join a match,that's what PVE is to PVP focused players. I think most of them will be involved in all the OPT in PVP modes where there's no penalty or backwards progress, which remember is a round about deterrent to open world PvP.
Idk, Ashes has limiters to PvP, where MO2 seems to be rampant killing and loss of progress. And even WoW didn't limit PvP outside of server designations and factions until much later. I remember guilds camping players in shifts to prevent them from playing. Sounds like far more severe PvP capabilities than what Ashes is currently pitching. I will say Ashes seems to have far more complex objective and potentially instanced PvP options,but they all influence and are influenced by PvE
I absolutely haven't played it, and wouldn't waste my time with the game (some may like it, I know it isn't for me).
However, a brief look over the basics of the game told me what I needed to know to have a general idea of how often the games PvP would play out. That look over the basics made me assume that PvP in MO2 would happen a little more often than I expect to see it in Ashes.
That said, taking this comment in to consideration; Maybe I was wrong. May be Ashes will have more PvP than MO2.
Don't go mistaking "full drop" to mean more PvP, or a more PvP focus. That seems to be what you were doing in your reply to this post.
Everything I have heard about MO2 related to many people being too affraid to get in to PvP more often than not. If there was a chance that people could lose a fight, and a chance that they could avoid it, most people would.
Full loot as a game system discourages PvP, rather than encourages it.
Ashes loot system literally encourages people to get in and fight. If there is a chance that they won't be able to get away from PvP, they are better served by fighting - and that is just corruption based PvP.
PvP over a caravan is not something players would run from, nor is siege PvP. It is likely that node and guild war PvP will be the same.
Where MO2 has full loot making people think it is a "hardcore PvP MMO", it actively discourages PvP where ever possible, while Ashes actively encourages people to fight.
I can agree with that, too extreme of penalties hurts PvP and loss of gear/progress is a big penalty
Most likely near a jumping puzzle players will not kill each-other, unless there are also some rare materials to be found at the end of it.
And I do not know if the materials you get from raids and dungeons, if you can move them safely to the storage. If you cannot, then even if inside the dungeon you have a full PvE experience, you have to be ready to PvP as soon as you leave.
I cannot advertise that to a PvE player.
Even wiki states:
It is unlikely that a player could purely focus on just PvP or just PvE.[135][134][136][137]
So the game pushes away players who must accept PvP and still accepts those PvP focused players who you say would see NPCs as bots, by sending them to the deep sea, away from nodes. Maybe those players will participate in caravan and siege fights too. But leveling up might be a problem for them if they really hate killing bots. Anyway, once done, they have their place in game.
Exploration might be the only PvE aspect, if the player doesn't pick up any rare loot. Then has also has no problems being send back to respawn points once in a while unless was witnessing a rare event which might not happen again soon. But exploration is a light PvE, where you fight with open world NPCs which might attack you sometime and are usually farmed by players who want materials: gatherers who must be ready to PvP when needed.
And crafting could also be some activity, to be done only in cities near guards if they protect, or in other people's freeholds if they need some services. Crafting I don't call PvE.
Ok well the entire point of playing MO or Crowfall was to PVP(others like it). The penalty is only as hard as the gear is to get and it isn't that hard. These games are not even designed to have very strong PvE at all, it's definitely tacked on.
Crowfall was full loot drop and I had multiple sets of gear ready to throw on again. Also guild crafters had lots of materials if you needed more. Sorry but clearly you guys have no idea what these games are. Basically they are purely an excuse to go out and fight other players continuously. The PvE only adds a progress type "thing". If you were worried about PVP I doubt you played the game very long and you were not it's target audience.
When you talk about PVP in ashes you are referring to Opt In PVP. Being a Combatant, Caravan, raids,Guild Wars are all things you choose to do. I do not think you PVP in MMOs based on your logic.
If someone jumps you and you take a chunk of damage, fighting back will lower your penalty but you also know that player will be corrupted if they kill you. Some players will try and bait you and if you fight them every time you will probably die alot, they had the upper hand and you essentially gave them a free kill. Maybe they have a rogue buddy nearby too. They don't fight fair. Which means yes it will be pretty hard to avoid but generally speaking you as a non Combatant has the upper hand. The cool thing about ashes is if they do kill you and you tell people. Well you just told a bunch of itchy PVPers that there's a Lootbox out there.
If you lean towards more PvE I would guarantee you that people will definitely avoid Caravans and GVG and Sieges.
First off you don't drop completed items from dungeons and you are also dealing with a large group. You can a portion of mats but I don't see that as a huge advantage.
My point is while there will definitely be PVP In this game as a PvE player unless you are absolutely adamant that all PVP is bad you will enjoy your time. You will do everything you do on a PVE server in WoW and I am telling you most of the time you will be fine. Yes sometimes it will be hard to avoid. Joining a monster coin event, siegeor let's say a caravan pops up and you want to try since there is no death penalty. I am definitely not saying that PVP won't exist. I am saying it's measured and if you want to avoid it and focus on PVE then you definitely can. Is there a chance you get jumped? Yes, even at a dungeon. That's why I want to play it because the world will actually have meaning and danger as opposed to other MMORPGs where the world just turns in to different quest hubs.
MO2 has one worldwide server with 1500 active players at peak time.
Is losing players quite fast and is on sale discount often.
AoC will have to try to attract more players.
Yeah because the game is terrible
Yeah, it's an attempt at a persistent world but where gear is easy to obtain and easy to lose. These two aspects of the game play against each other.
Even if the combat was good (it isn't, from what I have heard), the actual premise of the game is flawed.
That isn't the conversation here, but it is worth pointing out.
That isn't an argument I would make, so I am unsure why you would.
I will say MO2 is a beautiful open world true sandbox. Looking forward to seeing it on unreal 5+ as the milestone of Territory Control mechanics went live last week.
Yeah, pretty small teams trying to make very big games. I tried MO1 and 2 a bit but I've never been a fan of the first person Combat, always felt wierd and janky to me.
To bring PvEers into an environment they cannot survive will not retain them long. But they'll not join in the 1st place, especially if they hear the game is PvP or PvX.
I mean you simply don't play Mortal Online if you don't want to PVP, like I said if your friends avoided PVP then they didn't play it very long. The entire point of that game is to fight other players. Gear is not hard to come by so losing it wouldn't make a difference. It's not like getting epic gear in a raid and losing it. These games are designed to lose gear so if your friends didn't want to lose it well...like I said, it wasn't made for them. It was made for people who want to PVP consistently.
I speak about Opt in because that's the difference between a PVP and PVE MMO. It's what changes PVP MMO to a PVE MMO. You are labeling the primary source of content that you will see if you play said game or at least the focus of the developer. In PVP MMOs your entire focus is to fight other players and everything supports that play style.
In WoW Dragonflight. 95% of new content added was PVE content. Warmode carried over with a few extra quests, changed some gear options etc but really I don't think that's an argument. It doesn't mean they don't have PVP but the majority of new content was PVE and all PVP is Opt In,Warmode,BGs, Arenas. You also don't need to touch an ounce of PvP ever if you don't want.
In Crowfall/MO2/Eve/Albion The PvE is filler for the PVP. It's just there to provide a gap filler and to be a form of RPG but if you go out there is basically 0 reasons not to PvP every player you see. In both games gear/levels have a much smaller impact on your character to allow less disparity between players. Literally everything is designed to PUSH players to PVP. The reason you lose gear is it puts skin in the game. Also why I don't play poker unless there's money on the table. Either way you absolutely will spend a large portion of time PVPing and if you want to progress you will have to actually fight other players actively.
This is the core of why Ashes is different. The focus is NOT primarily on PVP or PVE. It's intertwined to promote social and conflict interactions. Most players will do a mixture because that is the vision of the game. Risk VS Reward and Player agency. Its very possible to focus on one or the other but avoiding it completely will be hard. There will most likely at some point be a player that wants to kill you, PVP battles around you or Node sieges to name a few scenarios where you might be involved in some PvP interactions. Your level of involvement is very much a choice and if you want for 2/3 of those you can just choose to not be a part of it. The ONLY Non Opt in PVP is being Green. That's where you as a player chose not to PVP but we're forced in to it.
I specifically mentioned "Combatant" or a purple tag character since that would be Opt in PvP. The BIG difference besides just developer focus is that as a Non Combatant you will have the choice to severely decrease your PVP engagement. The Criminal system or Corruption in Ashes penalizes characters for PKing(killing greens). The penalties are harsh plus if you really want to avoid PvP you can have a friend/s watch your back.(social design). PVP games don't penalizes you really, dropping gear barely matters, it's why Albion,Crow,MO, Eve gear matters MUCH less and can be lost with minimal recovery. It's just to make it more exciting not to penalize the player. Ashes does NOT fit in to the same category as those games.
In Ashes it's very clear that PVP and PVE are about 50/50 in content. Which is not necessarily a new idea but it's rare, can count it probably on one hand and some of them are very old. So players don't have a lot of experience with these systems. They play very different from from other MMORPGS of both the PVE and PVP focused development. You can choose to focus PVP or PVE or split it.
The subject that everyone gets caught up on is the Corruption system and allowing other players to PVP non consenting PvE players. The idea is adding this makes it a PVP focused game. I am saying that AoC is very different to both PvE and PVP focused games. It has similarities to both,enough to call it one or the other would be confusing.
Comparatively to Sieges in AoC, Wow had Winterfall and Siege of the Ancients in Battlegrounds but that hardly changes the context of the game. Warmode in WOW could be compared to GvG. Basically Ashes just created a cool new roaming PVP idea with Caravans but with 0 penalties and the choice to join or not it wouldn't be much different then an Arena/BG. So that just leaves the corruption system, Open Seas,Nodes . Open Seas you have to work to be a part of and I am sure you can avoid that too if you wanted. Node sieges I am.not entirely sure how they will work, the incentive is to join them like Caravans but really it's still Opt in because you can leave. Chances of avoiding all PvP is pretty rare all in but my point is that you have a lot of control as to when and where you can engage with PVP
So we're back to Greens and Reds, the only time you might not have a choice. You didn't have any friends to watch out for you and the other player just for some reason wanted to attack you. If you could roam,do dungeons,raids,quest hubs with out ever being at risk then you would compare this game to WoW with just extra development for PVP players. It's this system though that adds Risk and gives meaning or a very good reason to be more social. Changing the entire dynamic of every player interaction and how you will play. So wiping the silly argument that any game with PVP is a PVP MMORPG, this game will play VERY differently from the PVP MMOs in Crowfall/MO/Albion/Eve etc and it will also play SUBSTANTIALLY different then PVE focused MMOs in WoW, BDO, Guild Wars 2/Star Wars TOR, etc.
I have played plenty of both and AoC will play SUBSTANTIALLY different and judging by how the market is leading towards more genuine experiences it's especially important we describe this game properly to prevent confusion and MAKE them ask the question, What is PvX?
Yeah that's generally true. Things change though and I see lots of change in the market.
That being said we've all been told that and game development has followed that line of thought for a long time.
As far as AoC goes though, if you've played other Games with a corruption system it's not super active PVP. Players will try and bait but generally speaking they won't risk being red, that was with less penalty then AoC offers. Which is where my opinion comes from. I think it's only logical that I would expect less PVP with a harsher system.
Just to be clear in L2. Going Red meant you got a death penalty, couldn't use town services and you could get a higher chance to drop items. In AoC Steven put a higher curb on this. x4 death penalty, loss of stats, no storage whatsoever, player guards, can't go near town or use NPCs,bounty hunter guilds with rewards, and multiple way to PVP outside of Open World. I am waiting for alpha 2 to see if the bounty hunter guilds will be almost irrelevant.
With only a subscription as a barrier, I think alot of players will definitely give it a shot and just like Hardcore WoW and Tarkov, players will probably find they enjoy the higher risk. Hard to tell since nothing is being built on this level that offers anything close. Pretty confident T&L looks like it's dead on arrival.
"x4 death penalty" is just relative to the "1x death penalty"
To be able to estimate what impact onto the game has, we need to know real numbers, like how much time it takes to clear the corruption.
If a gatherer roams the world 2 hours and in the end finds some very rare materials, if another player sees him, makes sense to decide to kill him, if the time to clear the corruption is 1 hour.
Also the wiki states that:
These ash piles are immediately lootable by any player.[89]
Player flagging is not triggered by looting.[76]
So if you have an alt or a friend nearby, you can immediately pass the items by letting him kill you.
We could also consider that letting yourself killed by a friend is detrimental because your gear loses durability.
But knowing that, the one dealing the killing blow has to use a normal gear, not something too expensive to repair.
And in the process you will also remove some corruption. And you will also respawn in the vicinity, where you are protected by your friend.
The only problem with this approach is that the two gankers have to share the loot. But maybe they do that for fun just like the gatherer likes to explore and search things.
If the penalties are sever enough, players will see this activity as something they have to work for, and pay to have fun. Instead of having material gain, they will lose. But they gain the fun. They'll welcome the BH too.
Anyway, things can be very different depending how many players are on the server, how often they meet other players while roaming... If there are many who prefer peaceful play then a few gankers will not have a big impact. Imagine a server where 10K players like Dygz join and normal PvP players have to stay in a queue to login...
Getting a large number of PvE players will be possible with help from streamers, if they bring their large communities and if the PvE in AoC will be indeed good. But because the main focus of the game is on caravans and sieges, PvE will not be the main focus.
I mean if PvE would be the main focus, Steven would not keep saying that the game is not for everyone.
By PvX makes players alert and those who dig for the meaning, find out that they have to do both.
Yeah x4 is definitely relative but it's still x4 what you would gain in game. L2 won't matter at all because it will still be x4 of what you would have experienced in game. Either way you would be tossing your play time and progress away at a much higher rate, and even higher rate then if you competed in designated PVP systems. Decreasing stats, dropping full items, no storage or NPC interaction are workable but with each step you will have less and less percentage of players whom will participate. Add in incentives to do Caravans, Arenas,GvG etc then it becomes.even less enticing.
I fully expect players like you explained to exist. I am not saying they won't just that it will be reduced even further.
I have thought about starting a Bandit Guild after all based on The Others. I am waiting for A2 to see if it's possible but might be fun to create tolls/offer assassinations, mercenary work for players and mess with it in Alpha. With friends and control of an area you can probably lower risk as well for Red Players. Offer storage for your Red players and keep an area "clean" of hostile characters. If they don't die, kill that many greens and you can trade them your items as a guild then you can probably create some meaningful content as a Corrupted Player/Guild. This idea has been thought of I am sure which is why Bounty hunters exist.
"Who cannot deal with PVP at all" People are not binary. There's a spectrum of players on multiple levels. Yea, if you hate PVP on any level AoC is definitely not for you. Doesn't make it a PVP game. Why does it have to be PVP or PVE? Are people not more complicated then two acronyms?
remember, if you satisfy the demand for non-griefing OWPvP while still deterring griefing in all aspects, the game will be better for it as a PvX focus. Prioritizing either PvE players or PvP players is the wrong mindset, the correct path of design as far as Ashes of Creation is designed is to encourage players to be both PvE players and PvP players at the same time, and fully prepare them to go into the game upon release knowing they will need to actively participate in both to progress to the highest content in the game.
Anything Steven (will) says is intended, is not griefing. If he says is OK to kill 5 greens before you become visible to bounty hunters and your chance to drop items is significantly increased, then killing 5 is not griefing but killing 6 it is.
That's why I do not like the word griefing when analyzing concrete cases. First should be analyzed and after that to decide if are griefing or not.
Steven wants to make a themebox rather than a sandbox. Killing greens fits more to sandbox games while the caravans to his themebox approach. Is like legalizing crime and calling it a good thing to do.
Never once got in to a PvP fight in that game. Not going to get in to what I was actually doing for my corporation, but that is where I learned to fight against other guilds without PvP (I've talked about this on the forums here a few times recently).
The thing with EVE is that the people that matter rarely actually fight - same with the people directly around them. The only time they really do is in regards to major PvP events (literally no major events happened in the time I played). There are people on the periphery that fight often, but the people that matter literally can't afford to get in to fights often.
I spent more time PvP'ing in EQ2 than I did in EVE - yet I would still consider EVE to be a PvP game and EQ2 to be a PvE game, simply because even though we weren't PvP'ing every day (or every year), every action we took was in relation to winning that next PvP encounter.
You say that literally everything in these games is designed to push players in to PvP and so they are PvP games - yet don't seem to say the same thing for Ashes.
Have you even looked at the game systems in Ashes?
Literally every system Steven talks about in any detail is designed to incite player conflict - even the land management system is literally just a means of inciting conflict in relation to resource harvesting.
If your definition of a PvP game is one where the systems are designed to incite PvP, then Ashes is far more PvP oriented than any of the games you have listed.
In the same way EVE had people on the periphery that were PvP'ing every day while the bulk of players simply weren't (in my experience of the game), Ashes will be the other way. The bulk of players will be involved in PvP daily (many times a day), and there will be that periphery of players that are less involved in PvP (but still are on occasion).
Additionally, in the same way I consider EVE to be a PvP game due to the fact that every action you take is in service of trying to win that next PvP fight, the same will be true in Ashes.
Sure, players may put effort in to nodes - but they will do so to get stronger either personally or as a guild. Sure, players may spend time tending their freehold - but they will do so to get stronger either personally or as a guild. Sure, players may kill world bosses - but they will do so to get stronger either personally or as a guild.
By our current understanding, there is no top end goal in Ashes other than PvP, so everything in that game is in service of PvP.
You seem to want to say the game isn't PvP focused - yet the literal focus of the game is PvP. It just happens to be one more step than those games you talk about.
A better way to do this would be to describe Ashes as PvP, and then continue to explain.
PvX means nothing, and so is just a barrier in communication. There is no world in which accurately communicating anything is best served by using an undefined term, and PvX is indeed an indefined term.
Any argument that using that term is good as it will encourage questions of what ever is literally the same argument as saying good communication involves creating your own words as it encourages questions.
That is clearly not the case.
We know his definition. Repetitive killing with intent to disrupt intended gameplay and/or low level kills. Whether that's 4 kills or 10 will just be decided through testing, OWPVP has just as much of a place in Ashes as Caravans, otherwise it'd never have been implemented.
I don't recall Steven ever saying that Ashes is 24/7 forced PvP everywhere.
I'm on the Forums a lot - and I don't recall anyone saying Steven said that.
Even PvE can create an adrenaline rush for the player. I agree.
But, when Steven discusses Risk v Reward and adrenaline rush - he relates that to PvP; not PvE.
That is what we should expect... yes.
It's more like gamers willing to play on a PvP server and players who are not willing to play on a PvP server.
I don't play MMORPGs that only have PvP servers.
And, I won't really be "playing" Ashes. I'll be in the game running around the map, observing and socializing with players, but... I will mostly be ignorning progression and
MMORPG players who don't play on PvP servers will tend not to share that perspective.
That's typically just how PvPers hope PvEers will respond.