Questions when talking with Steven

We're very fortunate to be following a game's development which has a person like Steven at the helm. The fact that he's dropping in on all of these podcasts and shows is unprecedented in our genre. I don't fault people for not maximizing their time with Steven because this is such a unique circumstance.

For content creators who get to meet with Steven, my recommendations would be:
-Don't ask questions about balance until we're able to test in Alpha 2
-Don't ask for new systems or big changes to existing ones
-Don't ask questions which have already been beaten to death (like DPS meters)
-Don't ask about dates, you won't get an answer

-Ask questions which encourage Steven to expound on systems
-Ask questions that the community would like answered
-Ask new questions. This is hard because it requires a level of knowledge with the game. If Steven let's you know that he'll be on your channel, maybe run your questions by someone knowledgeable on Ashes.

I'm not taking a shot at anyone. In fact, I hope these recommendations help creators gain more followers by having better interviews.

Any other recs you guys can think of for creators who are fortunate enough to interview Steven in the future?

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George_Black

I agree with what you try to do here but get ready for the backlash

OlympusBurns

George_Black wrote: »

I agree with what you try to do here but get ready for the backlash

I enjoy "soft friction"

George_Black

One thing that I havent seen is questions from the more realistic stand point of 2-4 friends starting in the world.

Everything seems to start with "I may", "I would like".
The same: "I as a guild leader would blah blah blah"

OlympusBurns

Totally agree. Questions from that perspective aren't asked enough. Anytime they are though, it's the "how will you stop big guilds from owning everything" question. That question has been beaten to death.

George_Black

Alright here is another one:

Expansions. Most people are afraid of expansions due to how shitty wow and eso expansions are, due to the lack of owpvp and guild conflict gameplay.

In such mmos expansions mean: play with the npcs in this new map, run 2 new dungeons, be bored of them but keep farming that crit chance dagger.
Yet there are mmos like L2 that did not release content frequently, to give time, value and gravity to older activities.

Due to owpvp, caravans and guild conflict, yearly (or every two years) AoC expansions with new areas, lv cap, few new skills and gear would introduce a new adventure to bring all the owpvp drama into it.

Or let's talk again about "how to make augments for 64 classes", "spoil more lore", "dps meters", "casual/solo", "too many/too few heals", "summoner" "bard", "nodes".

George_Black

It's a hard topic to talk about because it requires work and money, on top of a big project.
On the other hand, considering the changing world of AoC, as is due to the design, expansions can be considered unecessary. Is that however based on SOME bad experiences from a couple mmos only?

Or does it merit discussion about what would be good down the track and what should be included?
No need for promises, but we have Steven share his thoughts on the same things over and over.

Which streamer/youtuber wants fresh input?

OlympusBurns

George_Black wrote: »

Alright here is another one:

Expansions. Most people are afraid of expansions due to how shitty wow and eso expansions are, due to the lack of owpvp and guild conflict gameplay.

In such mmos expansions mean: play with the npcs in this new map, run 2 new dungeons, be bored of them but keep farming that crit chance dagger.
Yet there are mmos like L2 that did not release content frequently, to give time, value and gravity to older activities.

Due to owpvp, caravans and guild conflict, yearly (or every two years) AoC expansions with new areas, lv cap, few new skills and gear would introduce a new adventure to bring all the owpvp drama into it.

Or let's talk again about "how to make augments for 64 classes", "spoil more lore", "dps meters", "casual/solo", "too many/too few heals", "summoner" "bard", "nodes".

Hahaha yeah exactly dude.

Noaani

George_Black wrote: »

Alright here is another one:

Expansions. Most people are afraid of expansions due to how shitty wow and eso expansions are, due to the lack of owpvp and guild conflict gameplay.

In such mmos expansions mean: play with the npcs in this new map, run 2 new dungeons, be bored of them but keep farming that crit chance dagger.
Yet there are mmos like L2 that did not release content frequently, to give time, value and gravity to older activities.

Due to owpvp, caravans and guild conflict, yearly (or every two years) AoC expansions with new areas, lv cap, few new skills and gear would introduce a new adventure to bring all the owpvp drama into it.

Or let's talk again about "how to make augments for 64 classes", "spoil more lore", "dps meters", "casual/solo", "too many/too few heals", "summoner" "bard", "nodes".

You are going to be so upset when both ESO and WoW maintain populations that are easily 10 times Ashes when this game launches.

It is hopefully going to show you that what those games offer is closer to what most people want than what Ashes is.

As a note - I play neither of those games, so I am not saying "the thing I want is the thing everyone wants". Rather, I am saying literally what I said above - ESO and WoW offer closer to what most people want than what Ashes will offer.

George_Black

Noaani wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

Alright here is another one:

Expansions. Most people are afraid of expansions due to how shitty wow and eso expansions are, due to the lack of owpvp and guild conflict gameplay.

In such mmos expansions mean: play with the npcs in this new map, run 2 new dungeons, be bored of them but keep farming that crit chance dagger.
Yet there are mmos like L2 that did not release content frequently, to give time, value and gravity to older activities.

Due to owpvp, caravans and guild conflict, yearly (or every two years) AoC expansions with new areas, lv cap, few new skills and gear would introduce a new adventure to bring all the owpvp drama into it.

Or let's talk again about "how to make augments for 64 classes", "spoil more lore", "dps meters", "casual/solo", "too many/too few heals", "summoner" "bard", "nodes".

You are going to be so upset when both ESO and WoW maintain populations that are easily 10 times Ashes when this game launches.

It is hopefully going to show you that what those games offer is closer to what most people want than what Ashes is.

As a note - I play neither of those games, so I am not saying "the thing I want is the thing everyone wants". Rather, I am saying literally what I said above - ESO and WoW offer closer to what most people want than what Ashes will offer.

Ok so you said: eso and wow offer what most ppl want.
Now what do you want me to do with this fact? It's not relevant.
You said it. It's still not relevant or of any use.
Most ppl want reality shows, tiktok, youtube social media etc.
No, let me go on: most ppl eat mcdonalds, most ppl havent stepped outside their city, most people are unfit, most people work in meaningless jobs.
Most rich people invest instead of making their dream videogame.
Most of your commends are without a point.

Now what?

Noaani

George_Black wrote: »

Now what?

Nothing.

Some times, comments just exist on their own. They don't always need discussion. If the statement made in the comment was complete and left no room for discussion (even if just not at that time), then there is nothing to discuss.

I simply wanted to point out to you something that you already knew. I have pointed that out, there is no need to discuss it further.

daveywavey

OlympusBurns wrote: »

We're very fortunate to be following a game's development which has a person like Steven at the helm. The fact that he's dropping in on all of these podcasts and shows is unprecedented in our genre. I don't fault people for not maximizing their time with Steven because this is such a unique circumstance.

For content creators who get to meet with Steven, my recommendations would be:
-Don't ask questions about balance until we're able to test in Alpha 2
-Don't ask for new systems or big changes to existing ones
-Don't ask questions which have already been beaten to death (like DPS meters)
-Don't ask about dates, you won't get an answer

-Ask questions which encourage Steven to expound on systems
-Ask questions that the community would like answered
-Ask new questions. This is hard because it requires a level of knowledge with the game. If Steven let's you know that he'll be on your channel, maybe run your questions by someone knowledgeable on Ashes.

I'm not taking a shot at anyone. In fact, I hope these recommendations help creators gain more followers by having better interviews.

Any other recs you guys can think of for creators who are fortunate enough to interview Steven in the future?

Yeah, with what is likely a limited amount of time with the top dog to get as many answers as they can, why would they waste time on the same old questions and "ALFA TOO?!!!?!" nonsense.

Completely agree with you here.

morphwastaken

I find it hard to ask questions when most things either don't yet exist or are a placeholder.
Here's one question i had for Steven in regards to reduced death penalty for flagged players:
"I am worried that during pvp encounters one of the participants (most likely unwilling) would flag back with no intention to fight, but just to reduce the death penalty - which can create hallow PvP experience. Or rather i am worried about that scenario being too common, to the point of it being the likely outcome. Reason being - it's the lower risk + no effort solution for the player. Isn't an opportunity to win and take no penalty at all enough of a motivator to fight back? Was such motivation - the goal of flagging penalty change? What if some of those, who would actually fight back, and try to completely avoid the penalty, now would take the lower effort way instead, while those who didn't want to fight - still will not, and will just flag to reduce the penalty?"

Depraved

morphwastaken wrote: »

I find it hard to ask questions when most things either don't yet exist or are a placeholder.
Here's one question i had for Steven in regards to reduced death penalty for flagged players:
"I am worried that during pvp encounters one of the participants (most likely unwilling) would flag back with no intention to fight, but just to reduce the death penalty - which can create hallow PvP experience. Or rather i am worried about that scenario being too common, to the point of it being the likely outcome. Reason being - it's the lower risk + no effort solution for the player. Isn't an opportunity to win and take no penalty at all enough of a motivator to fight back? Was such motivation - the goal of flagging penalty change? What if some of those, who would actually fight back, and try to completely avoid the penalty, now would take the lower effort way instead, while those who didn't want to fight - still will not, and will just flag to reduce the penalty?"

cant make it so that flagged players have an increased penalty than non flagged players...or no one would flag then when they are attacked .-.

if they flag to have reduced death penalties, thats fine. you kill them and wont go red lol. you dont kill someone so they incur penalties, probably not even to take some drops from them. you kill them because you are trying to take a spot for yourself, farm a gatherable, etc etc

George_Black

morphwastaken wrote: »

I find it hard to ask questions when most things either don't yet exist or are a placeholder.
Here's one question i had for Steven in regards to reduced death penalty for flagged players:
"I am worried that during pvp encounters one of the participants (most likely unwilling) would flag back with no intention to fight, but just to reduce the death penalty - which can create hallow PvP experience. Or rather i am worried about that scenario being too common, to the point of it being the likely outcome. Reason being - it's the lower risk + no effort solution for the player. Isn't an opportunity to win and take no penalty at all enough of a motivator to fight back? Was such motivation - the goal of flagging penalty change? What if some of those, who would actually fight back, and try to completely avoid the penalty, now would take the lower effort way instead, while those who didn't want to fight - still will not, and will just flag to reduce the penalty?"

You think walking all the way back to where you were, without teleports, through mobs is prefered to trying to win the fight, or even never fighting back and making the other guy go Red, risking his items?
And you want Steven to answer that?
Give people a tiny bit more credit.

morphwastaken

Depraved wrote: »

cant make it so that flagged players have an increased penalty than non flagged players...or no one would flag then when they are attacked .-.

if they flag to have reduced death penalties, thats fine. you kill them and wont go red lol. you dont kill someone so they incur penalties, probably not even to take some drops from them. you kill them because you are trying to take a spot for yourself, farm a gatherable, etc etc

I'm not suggesting to add a penalty. I pointed out that not losing is enough of a motivation to actually try to win. Lower penalty based on flagging might result in some players that would otherwise be a willing combatant just to flag and die without a fight. You wouldn't argue that killing someone who does not fight back in PvP does not feel very good, regardless of the reward, would you? Motivation to flag is not the same as motivation to fight, and i suspect that the goal was the latter.
Maybe a different example can help here. When someone is presented with a choice - put in a sizeable effort and get 100$, or get 20$ on the spot, with no effort - i am afraid that most will take 20$. I could be wrong though.

morphwastaken

George_Black wrote: »

You think walking all the way back to where you were, without teleports, through mobs is prefered to trying to win the fight, or even never fighting back and making the other guy go Red, risking his items?
And you want Steven to answer that?
Give people a tiny bit more credit.

Was this change not aimed at exactly the people who think that way (or unable to evaluate the situation altogether [yes, i give this much credit to some]), and prefer to die without even trying to fight? Then i misunderstood. What was the goal for it then?

Also, i'm not the one who made the change, i'm questioning it, trying to understand it's goal. Because if the goal was to make players fight back more often - i can see result being the opposite.

Ludullu

morphwastaken wrote: »

Was this change not aimed at exactly the people who think that way (or unable to evaluate the situation altogether), and prefer to die without even trying to fight? Then i misunderstood. What was the goal for it then?

Yes, it was meant as a helping tool to those who'd either be willing to fight or who don't mind dying w/o punishing their killer.

The point for the attacker should be the location itself. You'll have enough sources of equal pvp through caravans, wars, sieges, open seas, node ruins.

But if your victim simply flags against you to lose less of their shit on death - that's a benefit to you because you're now not a PKer. And if you were going after them purely for their loot - the choice is theirs: is the loot valuable enough to fight for it or is it fine for them to just die.

morphwastaken

NiKr wrote: »

But if your victim simply flags against you to lose less of their shit on death - that's a benefit to you because you're now not a PKer.

I like the change from this perspective. I don't like to get punished for resolving a conflict through PK, when it really should've been a PvP.
But i see the goal as to turn some situations that result in PK into PVP. Instead it turns PK into a consensual execution, and i worry that some of the PVP will also turn into that.

Those who are willing to fight - don't need help with that. Those who aren't - still won't. And some of those who were - may become those who aren't, because it's less(zero) effort. Maybe this affects too small of a group of players to worry about, i don't know. I'm just bringing attention to it.

Ludullu

morphwastaken wrote: »

Those who are willing to fight - don't need help with that. Those who aren't - still won't. And some of those who were - may become those who aren't, because it's less(zero) effort. Maybe this affects too small of a group of players to worry about, i don't know. I'm just bringing attention to it.

So there's really only benefit in this though. The only "bad" thing in all of this is for pvpers who're trying to get "proper" pvp fights out of attacking random passerby, but at that point those pvpers are kinda part of the problem (as Steven sees it at least).

Executions are inevitable in a game that lets you attack and kill anyone. Having the flag state reduce death penalties allows for both parties of the encounter to suffer lesser penalties for that inevitability.

morphwastaken

NiKr wrote: »

So there's really only benefit in this though. The only "bad" thing in all of this is for pvpers who're trying to get "proper" pvp fights out of attacking random passerby, but at that point those pvpers are kinda part of the problem (as Steven sees it at least).

Don't tell me you never had a situation where someone had all the reasons to fight and just didn't - to mess with you and feed you karma, while taking all the losses themself, just to annoy you, out of spite. This happened even in L2. In BDO that was all over the place because running back to where conflict happened took 10 seconds, and it was very annoying. This is what made me consider if any form of lowering death penalties is a good idea in the first place - it really was not in BDO.

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