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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
Yes, I thought NiKr had moved beyond having that reaction, but if it ain't so, then it ain't so.
More people showing up doesn't mean more demand.
Demand is in how many people want the item. If it is the best in slot, everyone of that class wants the item - thus the demand is everyone of that class.
The people that show up to try and get the item are those that think they are in a position to get it.
If you create a Ven Diagram of these two groups, you would have a large circle that is 1/8th of the servers population (assuming the item is only of use to one class), with a smaller circle partially overlapping that represents the people that think they are in a position to defeat the encounter.
These items will be able to be bought and sold, there is no item binding. Thus, everyone is part of the demand.
Demand is how many people want the item, not how many people are showing up to kill the encounter on any given day. You suggesting that it is the latter that is what dictates demand is you changing the definition of demand to suit your purpose.
Part of the idea of Ashes even having top end content - by Steven's own words - is to be aspirational to all players. Thus, the literal idea of these items existing is that everyone wants them.
As for the spredsheatedness, I guess I didn't understand how trackers work after all. Is it not a list of actions of players and the boss/mobs that you analyze to figure out the best approach in your next attempt? Cause to me that is precisely "a spreadsheet on how to beat the boss".
Now, as I said, it was an exaggeration, so it probably came off harder than I meant it, especially considering that this "spreadsheet" is just a digital representation of what a person who knows the encounter would have in their mind.
My point was "instanced - you fight a mob and only that mob, ow - you fight a mob and players who also want to fight that same mob". To me, the latter is a more social interaction with more potential for variety. But I know that my experience with good pve is too limited, as compared to rngness of FF11's bosses or insane design of EQ2's ones, both of which probably matched any of my big boss farms with hundreds of people involved.
At least on FF11 side, nah, they definitely didn't.
PvP-enabled bosses that are not instanced will always be more social, more dynamic, and more straining, even if only through the addition of 'scheming how to make the boss kill your enemies and not you'.
As for the other aspect, probably shouldn't discuss it much. But since we now have the point of commonality...
"If Baltheus can be perceived as a spreadsheet by you, then your comment is internally consistent."
If it's too narrow, then spreadsheet would be a wrong word to use. But I feel like you could do a decision tree in a spreadsheet and it would look nice and presentable? Maybe? I dunno, last time I worked with excel was over a decade ago
The most ironic thing about all this...
My group actually DOES use spreadsheets...
For PvP opponents in fighting games and Predecessor.
Just goes to show how different the experiences and priors can be.
Can be measured in time too. High risk can mean more time.
But you can also be lucky and get something on first attempt.
Or you can be very skilled and then is mostly skill vs reward for you.
Knowing something can push the balance to get things in less time. Or using tools or cheats.
The value of the reward is also about what you want. You want the thing? You want the gold you get if you sell it? You want to prevent others getting it to have monopoly? You want the fame of being able to get something?
There are cases when things break down.
I thought i am just not being specific enough, or just doing poor job of explaining, but going through this "demand back-and-forth" just reaffirms my initial opinion on you. You really don't need to understand demand either, just think logically. Think about what you said here. Why do you have lower chance to get it? Why does it seem like there is less reward? I will give you a hint: boss drops same loot, so something else must've changed. Any ideas?
If a server has 25000 people on it, and an even split of all classes, that means there will be 3125 people of the class that the item is for. Since the item is best in slot, all 3125 of those players will want it.
Thus, the demand for the item is 3125. If 3125 of them existed on the server, 3125 of them would be used.
That is how demand is literally determined - the number of items needed to exist before one is not used, minus 1. The top 5 best items I ever saw in Archeage were all put up for sale.
These items absolutely will be put up for sale. I think you should think about what I said, because it was quite basic.
More people being present for the encounter means more risk (you have more enemies to kill you, thus stand to lose more time and resources in dealing with those deaths), and less chance of getting the reward (since your reward is the statistical chance of getting the reward, that means you have less reward).
Thus, more people at the encounter means more risk, and less reward.
Proper risk vs reward dictates (not "says", not "suggests", actually dictates) that higher risk equals higher reward. That is literally the point.
You seem to somehow be conflating risk vs reward and supply and demand. They are not even remotely related to each other. Yes, not everyone gets it. I'm not sure why you think I am missing this part.
I did not even try to disagree with what you said, why are you repeating yourself?
"thus stand to lose more time and resources in dealing with those deaths" - one could say you have to pay a higher price for it, huh? But if you have to pay a higher price...
I think the difficulty will be the PvP arround the boss. Would like the bosses to be very long to kill, to make sure there will PvP fight to deny it.
And if less rewarding boss dies without contest - good job on being faster than competition
And the very top guilds would greed that shit up, so they'd go after the item even if every appropriate class in their guild already has it, so the demand would remain higher than the base supply requirement.
Was this the case for those AA items or was AA even weirder than how weird I already think it is?
Don't get baited into irrational discussion. He is literally assuming 7/8 of the server would not want the item in his example, if they can't use it. There is no logic there. No need to reinvent the wheel, when 30 seconds in google would give you an answer.
I agree with his logic there. I just disagree that it applies to Ashes in particular. There's a limited amount of people creating the demand. Those people might be represented by a bigger number of people during the encounters, but the demand itself doesn't change. And if that demand gets fully saturated, I'd imagine that the boss would drop in popularity.
Now, there's also the fact that, hopefully, the game will be getting new players all the time who'll need those items, so the demand will never stop (even outside the repair/OE context), but I'd definitely imagine that the boss' popularity will drop with time, exactly because the demand (the people who NEED the item) will inevitable drop.
Also, obviously the boss in question wouldn't just have that single item, so it's all on a scale of importance and popularity, but that's beside the point for this particular discussion.
This si why we need to know the enchant system it changes everything with so many unknowns. This argument on value of items are working with incorrect information since we know so little.
Also noaani's perspective is about pve and instanced gameplay he won't understand more complicated matters, that is why his arguments seem flawed. But he isn't open to other opinions just his own.
I still feel its debatable how much he played it. He also only references older games and generally just eq when he is comparing anything or saying the right direction something should go. IVE heavy pve focused type stuff.
PvP does not change the value!? PvP Is literally the only price to be paid in some cases.
It depends, are you trying to make a pvx game or are you trying to make a instanced or focused pve game. His takes seem more focused on pve than pvp.
Which is half the issue, the other issue is having a strong take focused on pve, but also not considering other games pve or not, and understanding other view points and opinions. And just having a combative thinking everything else is wrong but what you think and not open to other possibilities
So no it wouldn't be pointless both issues you aren't really tied to in wanting a pve focus experience and you understand better pvp and how that effects things.
Yeah, the demand is actually higher than this, but I was trying to give a base level explanation I don't expect people to need to deconstruct top tier items in order to maintain other top tier items (I expdct there to be other means by which you can get the materials), but there will be an amount of destruction.
But at a base level, this is how demand is calculated. One of the factions that contested the Red Dragon that I've talked about used to sell the drops if they got them and divide the money between those present.
Some of the sales I saw in Archeage absolutely were RMT based, but the fact remains that these items will end up on the market (be that in game or ebay).
Fun fact, I was invited a few moths ago to give a lecture on the real world implications of supply and demand.
Risk vs reward only take those that show up in to account.
This is why supply vs demand has no real place in this discussion. It encompasses a much larger proportion of the population than just those present at the fight.
I don't really know which design I would prefer for Ashes though, so that's a discussion for a different time.
A boss could drop a high tier ore, you could find it in the world, it could be a quest reward, etc.