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.
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.
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
In MMOs where crafting plays a far smaller role than questing and adventuring, gathering raw materials is always seen as a side task. Therefore, when you hit a limit and need to unload, it's always an inconvenience, because it's never viewed as a main objective. You as a player completely filling your bags with valuable items should be a moment to celebrate, not be annoyed. With this in mind, I think it all comes down to context and the perspective the player is presented with through the design of the gameplay loops.
I think Intrepid is on the right path in this regard, considering how much effort is being put into the multi-tier crafting economy, selling large quantities of goods via caravans, etc. For the most part, when an AoC player will be collecting significant quantities of gatherables, I imagine they'll be doing so as their primary objective. Therefore, when their bags are full, it's less of an "oh, this side task took me away from my main task of adventuring and questing", and more of a, "Hooray! Another round of my main objective is done, time for me to drop off this massive haul of valuable goods!" Even if they're adventuring when their bags fill up from the occasional detour to gather something along the way, the importance the game places on gathering for making money and progressing as a player of value to your community will make offloading your bags more of a momentous occasion.
I think players will just have to take gathering more seriously - and hopefully the game's design will encourage that mindset. It's not something where you just pick up whatever you see whenever you see it; it's an actual profession, which engagement in requires a bit of planning.
As for other loot - gear, garbage, consumables, quest items, etc, just give players different bags for different things. A bag for gatherables, a bag for quest items that has no space limit, and generic-use bags for gear, consumables, and vendor trash (some people hate vendor trash, but it's essentially a lore-friendly way for non-humanoid enemies to give you gold for killing them, so I don't mind it).
2. Build Websites (and adhering to them being a social requirement)
Nigh unavoidable these days. If there's a way to customize your character, there's someone trying to min-max all the fun out of playing every which way but one. This is really going to come down to your true focus as you design combative content. Are you focused on making a decent portion of end-game content so hard that only the absolute highest performing builds will be allowed anywhere near end-game dungeons, raids, castle/node sieges, etc? Or are you more focused on providing a fairly challenging experience that prioritizes player expression through unique build options and cooperation between allies?
PvP will always come down to min-maxing and the "flavor of the month" as stats are tweaked back and forth, because players create that content for themselves, and they all want to win. But PvE, at least, can be regulated to allow most builds (at least the "intended" ones that aren't just self-sabotage) to compete at a level that should prevent them from being excluded just for playing the way they like.
Honestly, I don't like his idea about in-game build advertising. Breaks immersion and doesn't reward direct player communication. Exacerbates the growing concept in MMOs of "the rest of the player base" being this sort of amorphous blob with no tangible relationship between anyone in it and the player. You want tips on being a better frost mage? Go talk to some successful frost mages.
3. Daily Chores & Time Gates
I don't like the idea of dailies directly rewarding power progression. Weeklies, maybe, but not dailies. Dailies should be reserved for progression towards fun rewards other than directly getting gear or combative power. New mounts, cosmetics for gear / freeholds / furniture / crafting recipes, fun toy items you can pull out while goofing around with your friends, story progression by unlocking new series' of lore related quests as you gain reputation with different social organizations, etc. These can be ways of giving players rewards for hanging out and participating in the game world every day that they can without excluding those (otherwise) devoted players who can only log on six days a week or less.
4. Gold in Cash Shops
Not applicable (yay!)
5. Multiple Gear Sets
If the game is being designed in such a way that secondary gear sets are viable, and player builds can be changed while out in the open, away from home/bank storage, then I think there should be a special bag for a second set of gear that has one slot for every gear type. This should be a free bag slot that everyone gets at a certain level that doesn't reduce the number of other bags you can equip. From viewing that bag, you should be able to create certain sets and tag them, then equip every item with that tag with the click of a button, or just mix and match one by one, then re-tag as you see fit.
6. Quantity Over Quality Questing
I completely agree here. While sometimes, particularly at the outset of a game, having a decently full quest log of tasks that are able to be completed in under twenty minutes can help make you feel like a "useful" character and give you a sense of propulsion through the world, after a short while, it just becomes monotonous.
As an example of questing I enjoy - I love OSRS questing. Those are real quests. Those are stories that have several steps, sometimes leave you to figure a few things out on your own, have you answering riddles, following clues, and traveling around entire cities, or even across the world at higher levels, meeting and getting to know memorable characters that you love (or love to hate), and give you special rewards at the end for seeing some of the more monumental tasks through. Access to fun new areas, access to magical chests that sell you exotic goods at a good price, access to new schools of cooking, that sort of thing. If delivering a message is part of a larger quest, fine. If getting reagents from a particular monster is part of a larger quest, fine. But I don't want to be collecting 10 wolf ears for the local guard. Maybe at lower levels, but it should pick up in pace and complexity from there quite rapidly. That sort of work is the guard's job. Not mine.
7. Addon Requirements
I, too, detest addons becoming a requirement for completing content. This is somewhat related to the solution for avoiding reliance on character-build sites. If the content is structured in a way where you'd be considered a poor player for needing addons, because the content is learnable and achievable for most people without them, then people won't use them. But if you make a significant portion of the game so difficult that anyone would be at a severe disadvantage by not using them, no matter how much they realistically practice, then everyone will require them.
8. Alt-Unfriendly MMOs
A large part of replayability for me is leveling an alt. Unfortunately, I do think AoC, in it's current direction, will be somewhat alt-unfriendly. You can only own one freehold and you can only be a citizen of one node on all characters of a server at a time. Your alts can be members of different guilds though, which creates opportunities for espionage. On the wiki, this is claimed to be intentional and a perk, but that makes no sense to me. It's not real espionage or spying. There's little to no risk involved at all. You're literally playing as two completely different characters. I'm not saying any of this needs to change, nor even that it should, but I do think it creates somewhat of an unfriendly environment for alt characters compared to some other games.
These limits also encourage alt characters to be solely made on different servers so that they can all have their own identity, which could have the unintended effect of making significant portions of any server's population non-committed. Let's say some huge event is happening on your server, but several characters you play with there have something equally pressing on their main character's server at the same time, and you loose a handful of people for that event which would've otherwise given you the upper hand. It just makes forming reliable connections more difficult. It might not end up being that big of an issue, but we'll have to wait and see. Hard to test your way out of that possibility without the game being live.
9. AFK Gameplay
Hopefully not applicable.
10. Minimal User Interface
Agreed. I don't like to feel as though I'm looking at the world through a picture frame. If a UI is going to take up most of my screen for anything, it better be fun and thematic or absolutely necessary, like opening a beautiful, interactive world map, or accessing my inventory and equipping gear. Keep as much information and storytelling within the actual world as possible through voice-lines, chat bubbles, animations, and "living" NPCs.
11. Transmog
At this point, if people are going to be allowed to look however they want in game just by opening their wallet, you might as well allow the players who actually play the game to look good customize the way they look as much as possible. That being said, I still don't like either of those things and still hope beyond hope that Steven will look at the success of BG3 as an example of gamers rejecting on-demand cash4pixels and embracing games that make you earn your visual achievements (not to mention status in a social environment) through fun, engaging gameplay that you pay money to experience. Looking at a player's gear should be able to tell you something about their abilities and achievements. If we reduce projected player power to a UI widget, then that's just more un-immersive UI clutter. But I digress.
For example an ox mount with massive bag space in its saddle, yes slower and less agile but great for the materials farmer.
Or... a cheeta mount super fast and quiet with a natural furr camo for pvp scouting enemy lines.
I do really hooe that when it comes to mount simple laws of physics are considerd. I always hated seing giant bulky mount running an manuvering at the same speeds as smaller more agile posture. I mean for real a slug moung should not move as fast as a panther. Maybe instead give said slug some other awesome passives like high hp or holds more gear in its bags. Hopefully you get what I am trying to say here.
Useless items just become annoying at some point, however if there are a lot of different items with different uses I think its okay to expect players to wonder about what to store and what to throw away/sell. I mean that's what one has to do with storage space in the bank as well. And yes if you want to have the benefits of being prepared for a lot of different situations, you might have to run around with 20 battle items - what is there to complain about? Sounds more like a cry for more convenience and less thinking.
I think there are 2 very promising ways in Ashes to handle this potential issue without sacrificing game quality:
External information for builts
His suggestion to make community rated builds is not a "fix" its just submitting to the meta mentality. Taking DOTA as an example seems even stranger to me because an MMORPGs gear pool is much broader than that of a MOBA. I've recently experienced the same thing in Magic The Gathering - people go to some website look up the best decklist within their budget and then just copy that. In that scenario I've invested nothing of myself other than money into the process of building up my deck (or character) - I fail to see how this can be fun. Sounds more like a money spending, hype following NPC to me. So this point sounds like he is not against just copying others from the get go but he wants to do so without having to rely on external sources.
I'm fine with having the stats and skills explained to me. Then I can go on to test out, experience and ultimately decide on what build suits me best - and that process is whats fun to me, especially when after all that time it works out as intended.
Daily quests/Time gates
I think if done right, dailies and time gates can actually add to a game. However, the application opportunities for that are rare and that is what daily tasks should ultimately be: Rare. Good example for a daily quest I wouldn't mind doing: Gathering a rotating set of plants to lay down at some ghosts grave for 2 weeks to appease the spirit enough to receive a quest from it. When it comes to time gates I think this is entirely up to how it is done. If I can only hunt vampire bats at night, because they are nowhere to be found during the day that is absolutely fine imo.
But overall I agree - daily quests and time gates will ruin a game if they are deployed as direct tools to gobble up players times instead of an engaging quest line ending up using one or the other element because it made sense.
RMT
100% agree. If you can't be bothered to just play for the games sake - DON'T PLAY. It does not matter whether you are just hungry for cash or the game is just so horribly designed that nobody would play it without the chance to make it a side hustle. From my perspective that is exactly the reason why playing with big influencers is repulsive. They are not there to play the game, they are there to earn money first and foremost. All decisions are not being made for the sake of the best gaming experience, but to increase and/or retain viewer numbers. Earning money and playing games just doesn't mix well.
Multiple gear sets
This point here seems to me like it only makes sense under the premise that the game itself is not fun. If I am a high level character and go from the frozen palace in the winter biome to now challenge the fire dragon in that volcano over there - changing gear is not "a waste of time", it makes sense and (in case of a fun) will help me to immerse myself in the new scenario I am entering instead of just hoping in and bonking another bosses head. Gear cycling is basically the substitute for levelling in that sense.
Having a universal gear set "to conquer them all" degrades gear and stats in my opinion into irrelevance to not even worth existing, instead the gear just is some base for me to slap some cosmetic on and never think about again because now I got it and I am done.
It screams "zero effort giving full access" to me and it sounds like a sure-fire way to make the game feel flat and pointless at the top. It also takes away from PvP if the same gear set provides me with only upsides no matter the encounter.
Boring quests
Yeah, games are meant to be engaging and interesting. But for all that he says in the video it seems the most important point to remember is: Peon does not really care about story, his primary interest is combat. He wants to play the game, while having a stream on another monitor. In short: F*ck immersion. With that in mind a lot of things are coming into picture.
I personally can't wait to get back into games that suck me in and grab my undivided attention. If I am watching a livestream or listening to a podcast while playing that's basically just glorified nose picking. And no, doesn't mean that I dislike a good semi afkbrain farming session while listening to a podcast about Australians giving people wild nicknames, but if the majority of the game is structured in a way that it does not require my attention, then the game is absolutely not immersive and overall not what I would call "good", I'd probably rank it more as a tool than a game.
Community mods
Yeah, I don't like those either. Make the game in a way that I can acquire all the necessary information from within and can apply a certain mechanic reasonably well within a month.
Alt unfriendly game design
If someone can divide lets say 10 hours per week over multiple characters without having a disadvantage to someone playing 1 character, that to me is bad game design because its too shallow. On the other hand if someone plays two characters 10 hours a week each that should be advantageous to playing just 1 character for 10 hours a week.
Account wide achievements
Depends on the depth of the system. The deeper it goes the more effort it takes the more likely I'd say it is that making it account wide would be a good decision.
AFK gameplay
Yep, afk gameply is just stupid. Even more than mandatory afkbrain gameply.
Bad UI desgin
As long as it is fullfilling it's function I am mostly okay with it, though it obviously would be beneficial for it to support the immersion. His wish for a minimal UI speaks to his desire to not really engage much beyond running and fighting with the world anyways, so not sure how relevant that is for Ashes in particular.
Cosmetics
This is probably the biggest worry of mine with Ashes particularly, the cosmetics debate however has been going on for long enough that I'll wait for Alpha 2 to prove my concerns to be valid or false. If Intrepid manages to make cosmetics not confuse players too much in PvP, I have no complaints whatsoever. But I have to point out: If they don't make it work, this could be game breaking for the PvP portion of the game.
CONCLUSION
To me lots of it sounds like points on how to make MMORPGs more influencer friendly, rather than more engaging and fun to play - and whatever floats you boat, but my point with this is that influencers are not a MMORPGs primary target customer base so optimizing a game for them can't be the focus. But some of the points I definitely agree on.
I'm fine with repeatable quests. Bounty quests. Bring back the crystal core of a corrupted creature, get x gp and y reputation within a social organization. I'm fine if there are limits for how many time you can do the quest daily. Some quests could require to be in your active quest for the needed item to drop, not for other. Some reward you with a buff, reputation or whatever. The node's forge is always taking fuel donation! Citizens in the good graces of the master smiths have a discount in node currency transactions.
It's basic, but somehow it's been a long time I've seen repeatable quests. Might just be the games I've played.
I think Daily quests can be perfectly fine and welcome among most people if they
1. Are not tied to progression
2. Are a supplementary item, not the core of endgame.
I have no issue with daily/weekly quests if it is a somewhat simple fetch quest that nets x gold or y items that aren't detrimental to my gameplay experience if I skip (lost ark is a great example of exactly what I am NOT talking about). Also I personally have always found daily quests welcome when it's somewhere last or close to last on the checklist of things I would like to do that day and I don't really feel pressure to do them.. For example, at the end of the night when my guild logs off and I have an hour or so to kill I may run some dailies for some extra gold while I have the time. That always seems to be the sweet spot at least in my experience.
For what it's worth I also think the quoted ideas here are exactly what I am talking about in terms of simple repeatable quests that land in that sweet spot for me.
I dont think build guides are bad, but thats only because I have used them in other games to see how a games mechanics combos mesh or how they can be manipulated. Then I take that info and make something of my own. For example eso had a build that was basically a aoe all burst all at once zerg buster based of a set proc.. aka bomber. I seen hundreds of people build it and fail... why because the didnt master how it worked. But I took the core of it and turned it into something truely isane if used right. It was almost a year before anyone figured our build out. Shout out to (Addiesmash) ps na servers she held emp for months on end with a build we created.
I had a lot if hours in trial and error to perfect it. That was the end game progression for me. I remember reading patch notes just to see if i could sqweeze 0.5% more dps out of the build.
The piont being build guides can be good to help people catch up on a learning curve but anyone who is actually a theory crafter wont release their perfected version. So that is why the sweaty gamers talk trash about them. Build guides are a learning tool not the holygral of how to be good at a game
People don't hate pvp, they hate that they dont win everytime. When you pvp you dont always win. It is the truest challenge in any game. AI can only be so intuative but fighting another actual player that is where true excitement lies. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY WILL DO!!
This is a cultural issue at its core... (the everyone is a winner bullshit) Games at they're core are about compatition and struggle to acheive victory. The OG gamers, you know those people who still remember getting face rolled by Goro time after time to get the last boss, are pleading their hearts out in all types of platforms for someone to make a game that will provide a challange and progression system that is nearly infinate. Striving for that next level bump, that next loot drop. Not some cash grab that a experianced player will blast through the content in a 100 hours and have to move on to the next game cause there is nothing meaningfull left to do. Skins and acheivments are cool and all but thats not real progression to competative thinking players.
Why are you bashing LazyPeon instead of addressing the topic being discussed. Also, your comment makes it clear you don't actually watch his videos. As, if you had you could answer your own comment.
The question then becomes - why limit these quests to being daily?
The reason most games limit quests to being daily is because the reward/time investment ratio is high.
If a quest has its rewards so low that it is among the last thing you would spend your time on, there is no need to restrict it to being done daily.
I do care if some other player can choose to add time to my game session goals.
And I do care if some other player can force me into hardcore gameplay when I'm in the mood for casual gameplay.
In Bless Online, Open World PvP was fine because I only encountered it a couple times per week, the TTK was less 30 seconds if I didn't fight back, partial loot and corpse had minimal effect on my game session time - like less than 5 minutes.
In Neverwinter Online, PvP was instanced. I could choose when to participate (and more importantly when not to). And it was mostly Capture the Flag. I let people kill me has much as they wished and focused on capturing as many flags as possible. Which worked well since flags were double the point of kills. And I often landed at the top of the leader boards for flag captures.
I have little interest in the "excitement" of fighting with other players.
I do sometimes like the story elements of defending towns -and that can be OK if other players are attacking- but really the intersting part is in the defense (or in the stealth involved in stealing plans or sabotage).
I prefer being able to anticipate or figure out what mobs will do.
But... I am primarily a Casual Challenge player rather than a Hardcore Challenge gamer.
It's just different playstyles; not different cultures.
I'm an OG RPG player. OG RPGs were all about co-op play; not PvP.
Some players PvP for fun. No need to win every time. If the fun is the reward, you could even carry something valuable to give to your opponents, if they win.
All things considered I'd say the A2 will make things much clearer on that front.
Fair point, I guess I personally wouldn't care if they were limited daily or not. The point I was attempting to make (poorly I see) is that I would expect dailies to have rewards in the form of gold or whatever that would at least be worth your time, but not be something that provides required materials or becomes a "must do". As long as it falls into that wide area of the spectrum than I see them as perfectly fine.
I might call the tasks on the New World Season Pass cards "dailies" - even though many of the tasks can be repeated multiple times per day, if multiple cards are completed in a day.
I think, typically, the issue is fear of missing out - when you can lose significant progress by missing a day.
APOC indicated that the IS devs know how to do this well.
I guess the root of it is what is exactly being missed out on.. For me personally if I am "losing" some share of gold/resources by not doing those quests but I am doing OWPvP/Arenas or experiencing the game for what it is and can still get said items other ways. I am not going to lose sleep.
But if it's something like the Gypsum grind in NW or similar systems people are aware of where it is a "requirement" then that is a more problematic thing.
Not really, all mmorpgs have some daily kind of task. What people are talking about is your entire meaningful progression is gated on daily content. The best / worst example of this is looking at lost Ark. If you are playing as ingle character you can only progress so far before you can't do any more for the day unless you use multiple character.
It becomes a repetitive circle doing the same things every day which becomes boring, rather than players freely doing what they want to progress how they want.
Instead maybe link quest types to multiple types of progression. Im assuming religion progression will be a reputation grind with cool shit locked behind set milstones.
I just dont want the milestones to be.... well lame as fuck. I could see / uninstall happening if a major milestone is something stupid like kill 1800 pink flower monsters and the pink flower monster is a 1 in 20 chance to spawn.
Progression is one thing Grinding to the point of mindless killing like in bdo. Is anothor. Its why i quit the game. The same quests to kill the same trash mobs everyday at that power bracket for a month straight to farm enough silver to push to the next bracket. Its the worst progression system I have ever experianced. And I have grinded some wow toons to all types of differrent exhaulted status. So I have done my share of repeatables...
Rep xp that incresses reward value as you push through sometype of relevant story would be ideal. Putting the crazy tear "shinny" shit behind walls that are contributed to by things you would want to do everyday not "chores"
Like say that you complete the main story line for the 'holy" religion to get to member status. The next or last teirs should be tied to all types of acts that fit into what a holy player would do. Healing, rezzing, general content completion. Feeding the pour, donating to towns your not a citzen of ect...
Before people AoC wiki this to death with cant do this cause this. This was intented as a creative thought to help designers build something better then what we have on the market today.