Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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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
Especially not New World - I always have PvP turned off.
Same for when I play BDO.
I have never encountered PvP in those games.
I disagree. PvX - as Steven uses the term - seems to be Lineage II with a more symbiotic relationship between PvP and PvE.
And... I would already consider Lineage II to be a PvP-centric MMORPG. Just as I consider EvE to be a PvP-centric MMORPG.
So... again... PvX has little-to-no meaning.
But... we don't even agree on which MMORPGs are PvP MMORPGs, so... it's unlikely we will agree on what a PvX MMORPG is.
I don't care who wins the non-consensual PvP encounter. I'm still going to be pissed off that I had to PvP when I was not in the mood to PvP - even if I win the battle.
Has nothing to do with whether or not I can survive the PvP encounter.
I'm not going to play an MMORPG that is too PvP-centric.
I might play a game that is "PvX". Depends on what is meant by PvX.
My belief as to what pvx is has always been an environment where pvp and pve can happen simultaneously. New world can have this if you toggle on for pvp. ESO has this in imperial city and Cyrodiil. Ashes will seemingly have this everywhere but the instanced based content they are creating.
Most players in any game aren't specifically PVP or PVE focused, but those players are the loudest from my experience. I don't think anyone's definition is wrong, but I am personally looking forward to an environment where polar opposites aren't yelling at the other side in an MMO because it's designed for all encounters.
tl;dr It will be nice to discuss the game as a whole without having to apply a moniker to the specific avenue of the game you're enjoying. It's just the game.
That's not the point. PVP is part of the experience, so as long as you hate pvp it's simply not a game for you. For aoc you have to be open to both. Just wanting PVE without pvp is binary
How can you say it's not the point and then say the same thing he said?
What do you mean by recent? I've been into ashes since 2020 and have seen a lot of risk vs reward discussions.
I am not sure of your gaming experience but I just think in this Case you might want to see how it plays. I am sure you will be around for Alpha 2 in which case you can make a better judgement call on what game play will look like as far as how the PVP parts of this game will affect you.
Do you think that occasionally being attacked like let's say....once a week would deter you from playing? Or is that an acceptable level? Add danger to adventuring while not having too much of a negative impact.
I could definitely be wrong and there could be a ton of open world PVP because the penalties aren't severe enough or people won't care. I just think by design and currently going Red will be detrimental enough and with all the extra content of other forms of PVP that it won't make a lot of sense to open world PVP unless someone pisses you off or to create conflict on high reward objectives.
That was my initial point.
Yeah I disagree with Dygz too.... doesn't seem to me that his vision of the game has changed. Making Naval basically full PVP doesn't change it. It's a massive amount of water and you can run away. So I bet with internal play tests they just found there would be very little interaction, something of that sort is my guess.
It is true that I find non-consensual PvP to be repugnant. Which is why it should at least be punished with Corruption. As it is on the Mainland.
This is one of the primary contentions between gamers who play MMORPGs on PvP servers and players who play MMORPGs on PvE-Only servers.
It's why players who play on PvE-Only servers want to know first, why they would want to play on the same servers as PvPers.
Because the issue for PvPers is PK griefing, while the issue for players who won't play on PvP servers is non-consensual PvP.
And it's unlikely that devs can get players concerned about non-consensual PvP to play on the same servers as gamers who don't respect the concept of non-consensual PvP.
So... you are correct... the moment The Open Seas was added as a permanent zone with auto-consent (Corruption-free) FFA PvP, Ashes became a game I am no longer interested to play.
Again, though... why is risk only associated with PvP?
Caravans should have plenty of risk that does not come from conflict with other players.
I have no issues with Caravans because a Caravan is not a permanent zone with FFA PvP.
Caravans, inherently, are PvP objectives. And I enjoy objective-based PvP. Especially when I can choose when to have PvP encounters. Which is the case for Ashes.
I don't know why you broached this as an example of something I have any issue with.
My issue with Steven's new obsession with Risk v Reward and PvP/PvX is his desire for us to be contemplating Economic Warfare whenever we are choosing which type of bag to bring with us to pick some flowers.
I enjoy cake sometimes.
If I go to a wedding, I expect that there will be cake. I expect that I will eat some cake.
One might also say that agreeing to go to a wedding means I auto-consent to eating a slice of wedding cake. I am OK with all of that.
When I have had my fill of eating cake, I am fine with other people enjoying cake around me.
I am not OK with other people forcing me to eat cake when I decline to eat a piece of cake. Especially so after I have already had a piece of cake.
I'm not going to go to a wedding where people are forced to eat cake when they are not in the mood to eat cake.
And, I'm also going to be reluctant to go to wedding where every single activity is somehow symbiotically tied to being forced to eat cake. If I go to the dance floor, I need to be thinking about how that is going to affect the possibility of me being forced to eat cake. If I go to the drink bar, I have to contemplate how that's going to affect the possibility of me being forced to eat cake. If I check out the room with all the gifts, I have to contemplate how that's going to affect the possibility of me being forced to eat cake.
And, yes, I find non-consensual cake eating to be repugnant.
I'm not going to go to wedding like that.
And... I'm not going to play an MMORPG with auto-consent PvP.
So, I think... at the end of the day... we agree.
Who here said that they want PvE without PvP?
I am not aware of anyone who has been on these forums for more than 4 months not being open to both PvP and PvE.
MMORPGs typically strive to support a variety of RPG playstyles, so...
There will always be categories of player styles - because that's what Humans love to do: categorize things.
New world is a stretch for sure but it's just the point that if you do PVP in that game there are 0 downsides and tons of rewards. It's a carrot on stick so I don't think it's that far off. I think it genuinely attracts PVP players and it's a better game with PVP on. BDO is definitely a PvE game too but just making a point that having severe penalties changes how players play as opposed to rewards.
L2 penalties were FAR less aggressive and it didn't have many other options. Just GvG I believe,it's completely changed now but Stephen clearly wanted to muddy the water a bit between the PVP and PVE design compared to L2 and push it closer to PVE. Not sure why else you would add way more penalties if that wasn't your goal.
PvX means just as much as PVP or PVE it's just a better representation of what the game is and will help new players coming in distinguish the difference between something like Eve or something like WoW. It's just plain accurate. Every other genre does the same thing why is it so hard to accept for MMOs?
Ofc they do. From my experience it's easier to have a conversation about a game when everyone is on the same page. Having the vast majority of the game fall under the same rule set just makes it easier for discussion, without automatically putting people in a bucket.
New World attracts PvPers, perhaps. More importantly, it does not alienate PvEers. Because PvErs can do all the stuff they want to do in the game while completely ignoring PvP. Same with BDO.
L2 penalties may have been far less aggressive, but...
When I asked Steven to name some MMORPGs that are a murderbox - because he frequently said that Ashes is designed to not be a murderbox - he said he doesn't play MMORPG murderboxes, but L2 could sometimes be a murderbox in certain situations. Which is why Corruption is harsher than Karma.
The addition of the Open Seas overly compensates for the additional harshness of Corruption compared to Karma.
Also, I think the PvP/PvE relationship is intended to be more symbiotic in Ashes than it is reciprocal in L2?
I haven't played L2, so... L2 players will have to confirm that for me.
A symbiotic relationship would be too much PvP for me. Because I am rarely in the mood for PvP, so... I don't want to have to be thinking about PvP most of the time I play. That is too "PvP-centric" for me.
PvX could mean "just as much PvP as there is PvE".
That's what I understood it to mean for the first 5 years after Ashes Kickstarter.
Pax Dei might be PvX by that definition.
What Steven seems to mean by PvX is that, as much as possible, PvP and PvE are inextricably fused: a symbiotic relationship, rather than a reciprocal relationship.
The addition of the Open Seas makes Ashes like EvE to me. So, I would not be telling people that Ashes is not like EvE.
When I asked Steven to compare Ashes PvP to EvE PvP, he said that Ashes is different than EvE because EvE has zones with different PvP rules and Ashes only has one PvP ruleset across all zones.
A year ago, Steven negated that difference by adding the Open Seas as a permanent zone with (Corruption-free) FFA PvP.
I'm not sure what you consider to be the "MMO" genre.
An MMOFPS is inherently a PvP MMO.
RPGs foundationally are PvE. In 40+ years of playing D&D, I have only encountered PKing twice.
I play MMORPGs to experience the fun of playing RPGs cooperatively with masses of other players whenever I have time to play. And I play RPGs to RP in realms similar to those found in Fantasy novels, where the antagonists and opponents are NPCs.
Sure... competitive gamers love to have PvP in every genre of video game - including MMORPGs.
Just as many E-Sports gamers want to turn every genre of video game into E-SPorts - including MMORPGs.
All of that can be fine...
L2 is a great game for the gamers who love L2. EvE is a great game for the gamers who love EvE.
I think Ashes is going to be a great game for the gamers who love L2, EvE and ArcheAge.
But... those games are all too PvP-centric for me to play.
And, the moment a permanent zone with auto-flag, (Corruption-free) FFA PvP is added to the design, I place Ashes in the same category as L2, EvE and ArcheAge.
And, at that point, the PvX label becomes moot.
Minus the cake thing this is why it's important to call it PVX.
To be fair I don't think I've really seen any conflict outside of PVP that matters. Maybe I am told the conflict by a story but socially generated conflict always seems to be better. Not sure what sort meaningful content you are referring to.
So, dungeons, raiding, and open-world bosses aren't conflict, aren't meaningful, or neither meaningful or conflict?
L2 definitely was more reciprocating PVP. Like UO the penalties were mostly minor deterrents and because there wasn't much else to do there was potential for murder box gameplay. Even with that setting though I played many many hours with very little PVP in the open world.(I quit once I started encountering the massive grind)Same with UO, the majority of the time it was barely any PVP. With such a harsher system and so many other options it's hard for me to accept that much PVP will generate out side all the consensual PVP.
The main reason I like a criminal system is I love reading books. In those booka with grand tales, the main character has to venture out and brave the scary world. It was dangerous and scary. I know that Steven is a DM and I feel like he just upgraded his DM level with the intent of creating a world where Stories will happen, not just gameplay.
PVX is any game that tends to create both PVP and PVE in a symbiotic relationship. It could be varying degrees but they aren't just stacking on a War Mode or a Battleground, or zones with PVP rules. It could be different break downs but I personally think that Steven has found a 50/50. The last part of how Steven views it definitely seems accurate. Maybe Lineage was 70/30.
In Voices of Verra someone in chat mentioned all players being KoS but I think once we hit alpha and they see how it works they will quickly change their minds. Hard to say with out actually playing it but if you kill another player and with in 10 minutes you are hunted down and killed and left with a 2 hour experience deficit after losing some actual gear well, there's only so many times a player will go down that road. Iwould like to try a few things in Alpha as far as PVP and a Corrupted guild but we will see.
I really just think it's important to categorize games properly for players. The more variety there is the more direction players will need. We Want players to play. They need categories to help them decide if they are interested in a game. We see metric shit ton of MMOs on the way too. So where as you have done an indepth review of the game, more so then most, the vast majority players will not. So if you think it being PvX is moot because there's too much PvP for you well that's just fine. For the players that don't though it should help them further distinguish what they are getting in to.
What conflict happens in dungeons and raids? People arguing over DKP or need vs greed? Open World drama of who tagged the raid boss first?
Yeah. I definitely don't think I've ever experienced any worthwhile conflict unless it was just players being toxic because your gear score was too low.
Yeah not interested in that type of conflict.
Hit the nail on the head. Can't have full immersion or Meaningful conflict with out Good Vs Bad.
Having rivals in game can be infuriating but it's not boring. Long as you can handle that there will be conflict it should be a good time
Are you sure you're talking about the same thing? Cause I feel like either you have a misunderstanding, or I'm completely misunderstanding what you're both talking about.
Meaningful conflict? not that I have ever experienced. You can read a story about it and maybe that dungeon has a good story but it hardly creates much conflict for you.
I mentioned I don't think you can get meaningful conflict with out PVP. He is apparently trying to imply that there is? I am not sure yet.
Maybe watch the Kickstarter video.
Ashes defines Meaningful Conflict as Sieges, Caravans, Node Wars and Guild Wars. Objective-based PvP.
Meaningful Conflict - as defined by the Ashes devs - is Sieges, Caravans, Node Wars and Guild Wars:
Objective-based PvP.