also, spectators shouldnt be able to see the fight in real time. maybe give them a min or two of delay.
participants should have a default appearance and shouldnt be able to see the name of their opponents, maybe until the end of the match.
this can reduce cheating and points feeding.
But I want to see live events! ( a bit of a delay is ok though ) if the audience isn't allowed to interact or target etc, I don't see how they would cheat. The only way the contestants could cheat is if they were using add-ons and third party software that allows them to which I believe intrepid is going to be firm about. Do not let players have access to the API, keep it encrypted to also prevent data mining and additional features. The game being able to datamined in my perspective should be illegal in some ways or any game for that matter.
The reason - I would assume - is that if arena spectating were live, it would be easy to set people up as spotters. This is especially viable in larger scale arena fights.
The reason I say this is because it is what I would do if the arena were live and I could be bothered participating.
could you elaborate on this a bit? I mean sure, anyone can use discord and influence choices regardless as they can live stream their game through that but in a perspective with things like MMA, they have several coaches and trainers yelling at them anyways haha.
Just because it happens in some sport, doesn't mean it should always happen.
The arena should be about the people in the arena, not about an additional person feeding them information.
it's different in some ways across different sports but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen and isn't an integral part of professional sports. I've already used the discord/live stream as an example already so i wont reiterate that. If it were a choice.... I'd prefer a live arena event in an MMO rather than using the arena as a movie theater and theme park. Live spectating would seem more practical than just have an immersive version of YouTube imbedded in the game personally.
sure lets go. lets ignore feeding points for a second.
in l2 you have a buff called mental shield that protects you from mental attacks (fear, silence, etc). only a couple of classes have this very good buff, but there is a weapon that has a chance to cast the buff on someone (including you) when you use a buff on your target. there is bless the body too, which basically just gives you extra max hp. when you go into the olympiads (the arena) you have 1 minute to prepare before some gates open and the fight starts
lets say you are an overlord. you are strong in 1v1 arena, but your skills use a lot, and i mean a lot of mana. so its common for overlords to go into the arena using a weapon with mana up (30% more mana) or conversion (60% more mana but you lose 40% hp), ten you buff yourself and use npc buff as well. now you switch to your mental shield up and try to buff yourself again, basically spamming the same ability over and over until you get mental shield, and do the same bless the body. sometimes it takes 10 buffs, sometimes it takes 1-2 buffs, its random but it uses a lot of mana.
if you are going against a class that has no mental attacks, such as a gladi, tyrant or destro (and they have lots of hp and do high damage) you dont want to waste mana on mental shield. you save it for your debuffs and your heal and drain, which use a lot of mana btw. this can be the difference between having enough mana to drain or not. against mages? yeah you want that mental shield, but they also have less hp. but you cant know who you are fighting unless someone spectates and tells you (or you pay another subscription to dual box and spectate yourself)
another more general example. if you are against a soul hound, you need to use your important buffs first and the least important buffs last, and also berserk. why? because they will steal them and the way it works is the last few buffs get stolen. you also dont want to use your important self buffs at the start of the match. you want to wait after they steal your buffs.
on the other hand, if you are against an elder or prophet, you want to use your more important buffs last, to prevent them from removing your essential buffs by overbuffing (it removes the first buff).
you also need to know if you are fighting a destro and he is gonna start frenzied or not.
the game doesnt let you know any of this, but a spectator will.
also, if your friend fought someone and figured out what element they had on their weapon, they can tell you and now you equip armor with elemental defense against that weapon, basically negating the other person's effort instead of figuring it out yourself in the middle of the match and switching. some people might have different weapons with different elements and switch enchantment paths every day of the olympiad and this extra effort to win is negated because someone told you what they are using. maybe you can use the appropiate armor on your 2nd fight with that eprson if you fight again, but you will have an advantage on your first fight that you shouldnt have had (unless you were wearing the same element by luck).
also, if i remember correctly (but i could be wrong on this one) in the earlier versions you couldnt see what buffs your opponent had when you clicked them, so the only way to know was via a spectator. but i dont remember well about this one.
edit: these are just some simple examples. the reason i mentioned this is because aoc is basically l2 l3 so its reasonable for me to expect a similar arena
also, spectators shouldnt be able to see the fight in real time. maybe give them a min or two of delay.
participants should have a default appearance and shouldnt be able to see the name of their opponents, maybe until the end of the match.
this can reduce cheating and points feeding.
But I want to see live events! ( a bit of a delay is ok though ) if the audience isn't allowed to interact or target etc, I don't see how they would cheat. The only way the contestants could cheat is if they were using add-ons and third party software that allows them to which I believe intrepid is going to be firm about. Do not let players have access to the API, keep it encrypted to also prevent data mining and additional features. The game being able to datamined in my perspective should be illegal in some ways or any game for that matter.
for example, you can have someone spectate the fight and tell you who you are going to fight, what class, and what buffs he is using, so now you know what to do before hand, like what gear to equip.
he could also tell you what skills to use mid fight. ur friend could tell you ok run back now, ok now use x then y, etc.
kind of but if you remove the ability to access those features to not let the audience interact with the character/system and API they wont know what you're using or how you're spec'd. Dont let the combatants know anything either. The problem in other games is players can know things by doing such actions because the dev's let them. Provide the minimal knowledge for fairness and UI allowance.
What you're describing is essentially how most sports work. Even e-sports learn about some of their opponents ahead of time as they're all there backed by organisations. As I said, they can just as easily have someone on discord live stream it and tell them things too.
I'm all for minimising the potential for cheating to encourage fair play but some of these examples seem a little lacking if I'm being honest.
If I see someone with a melee weapon I can presume they're going to do what most melee classes do. Range generally does similar things with distance and los. That's just relatively common knowledge. We wont be able to judge armour visually as we can pretty much look how we want which directly translates to open world pvp too. Make it so we can not inspect the opponent regardless of combatant or spectator. Who knows, they could always change their builds and synergy depending if 1v1 or 8v8
what does an api have to do with anything? people can spectate and the combatants cant see info on who they are fighting. one thing doesnt have to do anythign with the other.
and well, remember that everybody can wear any weapons. if you see someone with a bow, doesnt mean that person is a ranger and if you see someone with a sword and shield, it doesnt mean they are a tank.
you will still see them once the fight starts. what i mean is before the fight starts, during the preparation stage.
well, the api can provide a lot of information such as things we already discussed as I mentioned already.
And you're not wrong, you'll find out when the arena starts. Just like in football. you may have an idea of what they're planning, but you wont know for sure until the ball is snapped.
an api for what? so someone makes a website and people can go there and check things out. is that what u mean?
you can still have such api and prevent players from seeing the name of their opponents and load them with a default appereance. -_- one thing has nothing to do with te other.
all the api does is send some info, then the client (the game u install on your pc) decides how to render it .-.
access to api's can provide a lot of information in addition to what was previously discussed
yes but that has nothing to do with the actual match while its happening. unless you are willing to say that you will know you are fighting, and before the fight starts, you will alt tab to find info about that player for whatever reason.
not knowing who you are fighting until the match ends prevents point feeding.
I dont really want to reiterate all the information I just provided you explaining this. No offense
do you know how apis work? have you built one, have you consumed one?
also, spectators shouldnt be able to see the fight in real time. maybe give them a min or two of delay.
participants should have a default appearance and shouldnt be able to see the name of their opponents, maybe until the end of the match.
this can reduce cheating and points feeding.
But I want to see live events! ( a bit of a delay is ok though ) if the audience isn't allowed to interact or target etc, I don't see how they would cheat. The only way the contestants could cheat is if they were using add-ons and third party software that allows them to which I believe intrepid is going to be firm about. Do not let players have access to the API, keep it encrypted to also prevent data mining and additional features. The game being able to datamined in my perspective should be illegal in some ways or any game for that matter.
The reason - I would assume - is that if arena spectating were live, it would be easy to set people up as spotters. This is especially viable in larger scale arena fights.
The reason I say this is because it is what I would do if the arena were live and I could be bothered participating.
could you elaborate on this a bit? I mean sure, anyone can use discord and influence choices regardless as they can live stream their game through that but in a perspective with things like MMA, they have several coaches and trainers yelling at them anyways haha.
Just because it happens in some sport, doesn't mean it should always happen.
The arena should be about the people in the arena, not about an additional person feeding them information.
it's different in some ways across different sports but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen and isn't an integral part of professional sports. I've already used the discord/live stream as an example already so i wont reiterate that. If it were a choice.... I'd prefer a live arena event in an MMO rather than using the arena as a movie theater and theme park. Live spectating would seem more practical than just have an immersive version of YouTube imbedded in the game personally.
sure lets go. lets ignore feeding points for a second.
in l2 you have a buff called mental shield that protects you from mental attacks (fear, silence, etc). only a couple of classes have this very good buff, but there is a weapon that has a chance to cast the buff on someone (including you) when you use a buff on your target. there is bless the body too, which basically just gives you extra max hp. when you go into the olympiads (the arena) you have 1 minute to prepare before some gates open and the fight starts
lets say you are an overlord. you are strong in 1v1 arena, but your skills use a lot, and i mean a lot of mana. so its common for overlords to go into the arena using a weapon with mana up (30% more mana) or conversion (60% more mana but you lose 40% hp), ten you buff yourself and use npc buff as well. now you switch to your mental shield up and try to buff yourself again, basically spamming the same ability over and over until you get mental shield, and do the same bless the body. sometimes it takes 10 buffs, sometimes it takes 1-2 buffs, its random but it uses a lot of mana.
if you are going against a class that has no mental attacks, such as a gladi, tyrant or destro (and they have lots of hp and do high damage) you dont want to waste mana on mental shield. you save it for your debuffs and your heal and drain, which use a lot of mana btw. this can be the difference between having enough mana to drain or not. against mages? yeah you want that mental shield, but they also have less hp. but you cant know who you are fighting unless someone spectates and tells you (or you pay another subscription to dual box and spectate yourself)
another more general example. if you are against a soul hound, you need to use your important buffs first and the least important buffs last, and also berserk. why? because they will steal them and the way it works is the last few buffs get stolen. you also dont want to use your important self buffs at the start of the match. you want to wait after they steal your buffs.
on the other hand, if you are against an elder or prophet, you want to use your more important buffs last, to prevent them from removing your essential buffs by overbuffing (it removes the first buff).
you also need to know if you are fighting a destro and he is gonna start frenzied or not.
the game doesnt let you know any of this, but a spectator will.
also, if your friend fought someone and figured out what element they had on their weapon, they can tell you and now you equip armor with elemental defense against that weapon, basically negating the other person's effort instead of figuring it out yourself in the middle of the match and switching. some people might have different weapons with different elements and switch enchantment paths every day of the olympiad and this extra effort to win is negated because someone told you what they are using. maybe you can use the appropiate armor on your 2nd fight with that eprson if you fight again, but you will have an advantage on your first fight that you shouldnt have had (unless you were wearing the same element by luck).
also, if i remember correctly (but i could be wrong on this one) in the earlier versions you couldnt see what buffs your opponent had when you clicked them, so the only way to know was via a spectator. but i dont remember well about this one.
Technically that's how combat systems work. You learn about classes and the games design around the system to do your best to counter the opponent or opponents. There's visual queues and the UI can provide some details with buffs and status effects depending how liberal they choose to be. This can all be handled relatively by preventing unnecessary access to the API as well as UI allowances. I already said you can make it so the audience cant interact with the contestants to prevent this so they cant inspect to learn details while the combatants are in the arena/system. It would be no different than watching people having a 1v1 duel in the open world or players surveying what kind of opponents they're about to engage with in the open world conflict. The game probably wont be perfectly balanced for 1v1 through various systems like gear, actives, passive, augments etc. The games balance is around open world and group synergy. This is why I mentioned intra-archetype pools for 1v1. To be honest, if the game was hypothetically so imbalanced to the point where someone knowing that I was using a pillar to LOS them or they knew I had a strong counter to their build (assuming I dont ever change my build) then it probably could've gone back in the oven for a bit metaphorically speaking. If players strategies are that fragile then perhaps they should just get better. As mentioned, there is nothing stopping them from live streaming to various people in discord regardless of 1v1 or 8v8. If cant figure out what kind classes/archetype you're competing against within the first moments of the encounter you may need to practice more through experience. Professionals are used to live events and spectators. It's all part of it.
I doubt people will be spotters. If you need a spotter to succeed, it is bad arena design. The whole point of arena is the pvp and pvp can't happen if the environment is too complex. For example, in a 1vs1 you really do not want to be hiding. Why would you go into the arena to hide?
Not sure Arenas have to be ‘perfect.’ If Intrepid implemented the core 1v1, 3v3, 5v5 design in WoW, it would be good enough for 80% of the interested players to augment Ashes’ core gameplay pillars. You can iterate from that baseline once Ashes hits a steady player population.
also, spectators shouldnt be able to see the fight in real time. maybe give them a min or two of delay.
participants should have a default appearance and shouldnt be able to see the name of their opponents, maybe until the end of the match.
this can reduce cheating and points feeding.
But I want to see live events! ( a bit of a delay is ok though ) if the audience isn't allowed to interact or target etc, I don't see how they would cheat. The only way the contestants could cheat is if they were using add-ons and third party software that allows them to which I believe intrepid is going to be firm about. Do not let players have access to the API, keep it encrypted to also prevent data mining and additional features. The game being able to datamined in my perspective should be illegal in some ways or any game for that matter.
The reason - I would assume - is that if arena spectating were live, it would be easy to set people up as spotters. This is especially viable in larger scale arena fights.
The reason I say this is because it is what I would do if the arena were live and I could be bothered participating.
could you elaborate on this a bit? I mean sure, anyone can use discord and influence choices regardless as they can live stream their game through that but in a perspective with things like MMA, they have several coaches and trainers yelling at them anyways haha.
Just because it happens in some sport, doesn't mean it should always happen.
The arena should be about the people in the arena, not about an additional person feeding them information.
it's different in some ways across different sports but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen and isn't an integral part of professional sports. I've already used the discord/live stream as an example already so i wont reiterate that. If it were a choice.... I'd prefer a live arena event in an MMO rather than using the arena as a movie theater and theme park. Live spectating would seem more practical than just have an immersive version of YouTube imbedded in the game personally.
sure lets go. lets ignore feeding points for a second.
in l2 you have a buff called mental shield that protects you from mental attacks (fear, silence, etc). only a couple of classes have this very good buff, but there is a weapon that has a chance to cast the buff on someone (including you) when you use a buff on your target. there is bless the body too, which basically just gives you extra max hp. when you go into the olympiads (the arena) you have 1 minute to prepare before some gates open and the fight starts
lets say you are an overlord. you are strong in 1v1 arena, but your skills use a lot, and i mean a lot of mana. so its common for overlords to go into the arena using a weapon with mana up (30% more mana) or conversion (60% more mana but you lose 40% hp), ten you buff yourself and use npc buff as well. now you switch to your mental shield up and try to buff yourself again, basically spamming the same ability over and over until you get mental shield, and do the same bless the body. sometimes it takes 10 buffs, sometimes it takes 1-2 buffs, its random but it uses a lot of mana.
if you are going against a class that has no mental attacks, such as a gladi, tyrant or destro (and they have lots of hp and do high damage) you dont want to waste mana on mental shield. you save it for your debuffs and your heal and drain, which use a lot of mana btw. this can be the difference between having enough mana to drain or not. against mages? yeah you want that mental shield, but they also have less hp. but you cant know who you are fighting unless someone spectates and tells you (or you pay another subscription to dual box and spectate yourself)
another more general example. if you are against a soul hound, you need to use your important buffs first and the least important buffs last, and also berserk. why? because they will steal them and the way it works is the last few buffs get stolen. you also dont want to use your important self buffs at the start of the match. you want to wait after they steal your buffs.
on the other hand, if you are against an elder or prophet, you want to use your more important buffs last, to prevent them from removing your essential buffs by overbuffing (it removes the first buff).
you also need to know if you are fighting a destro and he is gonna start frenzied or not.
the game doesnt let you know any of this, but a spectator will.
also, if your friend fought someone and figured out what element they had on their weapon, they can tell you and now you equip armor with elemental defense against that weapon, basically negating the other person's effort instead of figuring it out yourself in the middle of the match and switching. some people might have different weapons with different elements and switch enchantment paths every day of the olympiad and this extra effort to win is negated because someone told you what they are using. maybe you can use the appropiate armor on your 2nd fight with that eprson if you fight again, but you will have an advantage on your first fight that you shouldnt have had (unless you were wearing the same element by luck).
also, if i remember correctly (but i could be wrong on this one) in the earlier versions you couldnt see what buffs your opponent had when you clicked them, so the only way to know was via a spectator. but i dont remember well about this one.
Technically that's how combat systems work. You learn about classes and the games design around the system to do your best to counter the opponent or opponents. There's visual queues and the UI can provide some details with buffs and status effects depending how liberal they choose to be. This can all be handled relatively by preventing unnecessary access to the API as well as UI allowances. I already said you can make it so the audience cant interact with the contestants to prevent this so they cant inspect to learn details while the combatants are in the arena/system. It would be no different than watching people having a 1v1 duel in the open world or players surveying what kind of opponents they're about to engage with in the open world conflict. The game probably wont be perfectly balanced for 1v1 through various systems like gear, actives, passive, augments etc. The games balance is around open world and group synergy. This is why I mentioned intra-archetype pools for 1v1. To be honest, if the game was hypothetically so imbalanced to the point where someone knowing that I was using a pillar to LOS them or they knew I had a strong counter to their build (assuming I dont ever change my build) then it probably could've gone back in the oven for a bit metaphorically speaking. If players strategies are that fragile then perhaps they should just get better. As mentioned, there is nothing stopping them from live streaming to various people in discord regardless of 1v1 or 8v8. If cant figure out what kind classes/archetype you're competing against within the first moments of the encounter you may need to practice more through experience. Professionals are used to live events and spectators. It's all part of it.
why do you keep saying inspecting? do u come from wow or something?
you didnt get the point. the olympiad was built in such a way that you couldnt see who you were fighting until the last 10 seconds before the match started. this only gave you time to get in position. however, your preparation changed depending on who you were fighting (such as putting your important buffs first or last) which was impossible unless you had a spotter, and you couldn't re buff in the last 10 seconds (the npc would be gone after u buffed and you didnt want to waste more mana). you had to conserve mana a lot. starting your fight at 50% mana or a 100% is the difference between beating a mana burner or not, for some classes, but these are advantages that you get by having a spotter. theres no inspection on l2, you just look at what they are doing and wearing and thats it. i think there wont be any inspection in ashes.
and before you talk shit again about not knowing what class you are fighting and needing to practice more, etc, blah blah. again, we arent talking about wow. how do you know in l2 when you are fighting a prophet (buffer) a bishop (healer) a sorceror ? you cant because they use the exact same gear and look exactly the same (both human mystic). you have to wait until the fight starts since the game doesnt let you know beforehand and they use a skill, or you have to know them by name in the last 10 seconds, or you use a spotter... and your strategy changes depending on who you are fighting. warcryer or overlord? same thing. elder or mage? same thing, etc, etc.
i expect aoc have a similar strategy since anybody can be of any race and can wear any type of gear. theres no gear / race restrictions like in wow or other games. so i expect players to equip one weapon then switch to their main one when the fight starts. for example lets say you are a rogue but you start the match with a bow, so now people think you are a ranger, and instead of running away from you before the fight starts (what they would naturally do if you were a rogue) they get close to you instead because they expect you to start kiting (like rangers do), then you switch to your dagger and they are already in melee range, easier for you to hit them and you dont even have to waste a gap closer. spotters will ruin this type of strategy since they can just tell you "hey that dude is a rogue with a bow, run away, dont get close".
people who used a spotter had an unfair advantage over those who didnt by bypassing game restrictions. thats the fucking point. i dont even know why we are arguing over this anymore. there is no way in which not having a spotter is better than having a spotter when the game doesn't give you information on purpose so you have to adapt when the fight starts.
cant do much about streaming on discord, but at least, if you are streaming on discord, your friends cant see your opponent. you probably just dont get it because you played wow arena and not l2 arena, which is understandable and everything makes sense now.
I doubt people will be spotters. If you need a spotter to succeed, it is bad arena design. The whole point of arena is the pvp and pvp can't happen if the environment is too complex. For example, in a 1vs1 you really do not want to be hiding. Why would you go into the arena to hide?
you hide vs archers or vs tanks and daggers using ultimate defense/evasion and wait it out. we already saw tanks having ultimate defense in aoc
also, spectators shouldnt be able to see the fight in real time. maybe give them a min or two of delay.
participants should have a default appearance and shouldnt be able to see the name of their opponents, maybe until the end of the match.
this can reduce cheating and points feeding.
But I want to see live events! ( a bit of a delay is ok though ) if the audience isn't allowed to interact or target etc, I don't see how they would cheat. The only way the contestants could cheat is if they were using add-ons and third party software that allows them to which I believe intrepid is going to be firm about. Do not let players have access to the API, keep it encrypted to also prevent data mining and additional features. The game being able to datamined in my perspective should be illegal in some ways or any game for that matter.
The reason - I would assume - is that if arena spectating were live, it would be easy to set people up as spotters. This is especially viable in larger scale arena fights.
The reason I say this is because it is what I would do if the arena were live and I could be bothered participating.
could you elaborate on this a bit? I mean sure, anyone can use discord and influence choices regardless as they can live stream their game through that but in a perspective with things like MMA, they have several coaches and trainers yelling at them anyways haha.
Just because it happens in some sport, doesn't mean it should always happen.
The arena should be about the people in the arena, not about an additional person feeding them information.
it's different in some ways across different sports but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen and isn't an integral part of professional sports. I've already used the discord/live stream as an example already so i wont reiterate that. If it were a choice.... I'd prefer a live arena event in an MMO rather than using the arena as a movie theater and theme park. Live spectating would seem more practical than just have an immersive version of YouTube imbedded in the game personally.
sure lets go. lets ignore feeding points for a second.
in l2 you have a buff called mental shield that protects you from mental attacks (fear, silence, etc). only a couple of classes have this very good buff, but there is a weapon that has a chance to cast the buff on someone (including you) when you use a buff on your target. there is bless the body too, which basically just gives you extra max hp. when you go into the olympiads (the arena) you have 1 minute to prepare before some gates open and the fight starts
lets say you are an overlord. you are strong in 1v1 arena, but your skills use a lot, and i mean a lot of mana. so its common for overlords to go into the arena using a weapon with mana up (30% more mana) or conversion (60% more mana but you lose 40% hp), ten you buff yourself and use npc buff as well. now you switch to your mental shield up and try to buff yourself again, basically spamming the same ability over and over until you get mental shield, and do the same bless the body. sometimes it takes 10 buffs, sometimes it takes 1-2 buffs, its random but it uses a lot of mana.
if you are going against a class that has no mental attacks, such as a gladi, tyrant or destro (and they have lots of hp and do high damage) you dont want to waste mana on mental shield. you save it for your debuffs and your heal and drain, which use a lot of mana btw. this can be the difference between having enough mana to drain or not. against mages? yeah you want that mental shield, but they also have less hp. but you cant know who you are fighting unless someone spectates and tells you (or you pay another subscription to dual box and spectate yourself)
another more general example. if you are against a soul hound, you need to use your important buffs first and the least important buffs last, and also berserk. why? because they will steal them and the way it works is the last few buffs get stolen. you also dont want to use your important self buffs at the start of the match. you want to wait after they steal your buffs.
on the other hand, if you are against an elder or prophet, you want to use your more important buffs last, to prevent them from removing your essential buffs by overbuffing (it removes the first buff).
you also need to know if you are fighting a destro and he is gonna start frenzied or not.
the game doesnt let you know any of this, but a spectator will.
also, if your friend fought someone and figured out what element they had on their weapon, they can tell you and now you equip armor with elemental defense against that weapon, basically negating the other person's effort instead of figuring it out yourself in the middle of the match and switching. some people might have different weapons with different elements and switch enchantment paths every day of the olympiad and this extra effort to win is negated because someone told you what they are using. maybe you can use the appropiate armor on your 2nd fight with that eprson if you fight again, but you will have an advantage on your first fight that you shouldnt have had (unless you were wearing the same element by luck).
also, if i remember correctly (but i could be wrong on this one) in the earlier versions you couldnt see what buffs your opponent had when you clicked them, so the only way to know was via a spectator. but i dont remember well about this one.
Technically that's how combat systems work. You learn about classes and the games design around the system to do your best to counter the opponent or opponents. There's visual queues and the UI can provide some details with buffs and status effects depending how liberal they choose to be. This can all be handled relatively by preventing unnecessary access to the API as well as UI allowances. I already said you can make it so the audience cant interact with the contestants to prevent this so they cant inspect to learn details while the combatants are in the arena/system. It would be no different than watching people having a 1v1 duel in the open world or players surveying what kind of opponents they're about to engage with in the open world conflict. The game probably wont be perfectly balanced for 1v1 through various systems like gear, actives, passive, augments etc. The games balance is around open world and group synergy. This is why I mentioned intra-archetype pools for 1v1. To be honest, if the game was hypothetically so imbalanced to the point where someone knowing that I was using a pillar to LOS them or they knew I had a strong counter to their build (assuming I dont ever change my build) then it probably could've gone back in the oven for a bit metaphorically speaking. If players strategies are that fragile then perhaps they should just get better. As mentioned, there is nothing stopping them from live streaming to various people in discord regardless of 1v1 or 8v8. If cant figure out what kind classes/archetype you're competing against within the first moments of the encounter you may need to practice more through experience. Professionals are used to live events and spectators. It's all part of it.
why do you keep saying inspecting? do u come from wow or something?
you didnt get the point. the olympiad was built in such a way that you couldnt see who you were fighting until the last 10 seconds before the match started. this only gave you time to get in position. however, your preparation changed depending on who you were fighting (such as putting your important buffs first or last) which was impossible unless you had a spotter, and you couldn't re buff in the last 10 seconds (the npc would be gone after u buffed and you didnt want to waste more mana). you had to conserve mana a lot. starting your fight at 50% mana or a 100% is the difference between beating a mana burner or not, for some classes, but these are advantages that you get by having a spotter. theres no inspection on l2, you just look at what they are doing and wearing and thats it. i think there wont be any inspection in ashes.
and before you talk shit again about not knowing what class you are fighting and needing to practice more, etc, blah blah. again, we arent talking about wow. how do you know in l2 when you are fighting a prophet (buffer) a bishop (healer) a sorceror ? you cant because they use the exact same gear and look exactly the same (both human mystic). you have to wait until the fight starts since the game doesnt let you know beforehand and they use a skill, or you have to know them by name in the last 10 seconds, or you use a spotter... and your strategy changes depending on who you are fighting. warcryer or overlord? same thing. elder or mage? same thing, etc, etc.
i expect aoc have a similar strategy since anybody can be of any race and can wear any type of gear. theres no gear / race restrictions like in wow or other games. so i expect players to equip one weapon then switch to their main one when the fight starts. for example lets say you are a rogue but you start the match with a bow, so now people think you are a ranger, and instead of running away from you before the fight starts (what they would naturally do if you were a rogue) they get close to you instead because they expect you to start kiting (like rangers do), then you switch to your dagger and they are already in melee range, easier for you to hit them and you dont even have to waste a gap closer. spotters will ruin this type of strategy since they can just tell you "hey that dude is a rogue with a bow, run away, dont get close".
people who used a spotter had an unfair advantage over those who didnt by bypassing game restrictions. thats the fucking point. i dont even know why we are arguing over this anymore. there is no way in which not having a spotter is better than having a spotter when the game doesn't give you information on purpose so you have to adapt when the fight starts.
cant do much about streaming on discord, but at least, if you are streaming on discord, your friends cant see your opponent. you probably just dont get it because you played wow arena and not l2 arena, which is understandable and everything makes sense now.
Nope I understood. I took the time to read it and I was not talking shit. Not sure what you're trying to get at. You may potentially be taking this to a personal level.
As I mentioned, if arena's are going to be like battle grounds IE capture the flag, point capture etc. then their goal is to introduce theme park game design which will essentially kill off the open world conflict as it has been proven to in most mmorpg's that have done.
No, all the arena needs in order for a spotter to be valid is to not be an open empty field.
If there is scope to hide, there is reason to want a spotter.
my favourite part is how you choose to only respond to part of the post lol.
If I only reply to a part of ampost, it is because the rest of it isn't worth replying to (potentially for a few reasons).
In your abovempost I previously replied to, the part I didn't reply to was at least in part about how you thought military nodes would be "less appealing if they're just a place to queue up for instanced combat and replays haha", as if an arena is the only point to a lilitary node. It wasn't worth replying to at all.
As for
It was great years ago when these tools were not accessible but hey, here we are in 2023. Let's create a socially dynamic game but demand theme park design for the sake of it to reduce the social aspect of the game design to a hypothetical system that could have no weight in the game because of an audience member potentially "spotting".
I think you've lost it a bit.
It's almost as if you have forgotten that streaming is optional, and if people don't want to give away an advantage they can just not. With live spectating, you take that option away from people - which you simply shouldn't do.
If people want to hand it away, that's their call - developers shouldn't take it away.
Your entire comments about "themepark" here only apply to the existence of an arena - if the game has one, and has a ladder, that is about as themepark as I could imagine PvP content to ever be. Unless you are arguing that there shouldn't be an arena at all, you ay not want to bring up how Ashes is trying to not be a themepark.
As I mentioned, if arena's are going to be like battle grounds IE capture the flag, point capture etc. then their goal is to introduce theme park game design which will essentially kill off the open world conflict as it has been proven to in most mmorpg's that have done.
No, all the arena needs in order for a spotter to be valid is to not be an open empty field.
If there is scope to hide, there is reason to want a spotter.
my favourite part is how you choose to only respond to part of the post lol.
If I only reply to a part of ampost, it is because the rest of it isn't worth replying to (potentially for a few reasons).
In your abovempost I previously replied to, the part I didn't reply to was at least in part about how you thought military nodes would be "less appealing if they're just a place to queue up for instanced combat and replays haha", as if an arena is the only point to a lilitary node. It wasn't worth replying to at all.
As for
It was great years ago when these tools were not accessible but hey, here we are in 2023. Let's create a socially dynamic game but demand theme park design for the sake of it to reduce the social aspect of the game design to a hypothetical system that could have no weight in the game because of an audience member potentially "spotting".
I think you've lost it a bit.
It's almost as if you have forgotten that streaming is optional, and if people don't want to give away an advantage they can just not. With live spectating, you take that option away from people - which you simply shouldn't do.
If people want to hand it away, that's their call - developers shouldn't take it away.
Your entire comments about "themepark" here only apply to the existence of an arena - if the game has one, and has a ladder, that is about as themepark as I could imagine PvP content to ever be. Unless you are arguing that there shouldn't be an arena at all, you ay not want to bring up how Ashes is trying to not be a themepark.
I figured you'd say that haha why I found it funny and pointed it out previously
obviously it's not just the only point to the node but it will be an important attraction for players who like certain features they provide aside from the pro's and con's for the global aspect of the Verra's world building.
To be honest I don't believe I lost sight of the point at all. Contextually it's directly relevant to the queuing and theme park style of arena's we've all experienced even to this date from various games. If in the event they choose to have arena's to what ever degree instanced and queued, they could potentially make it an option if people could spectate but that's not solely what I was more advocating for. Ignorance isn't bliss ansd leaving things optionally never truly solves the issues that will progress from it.
Why go for the same style of arena and segregated pvp systems that clearly divert players from the social dynamic? I dont need to reiterate the foundations for the theme park snowball effect. I'm not saying get rid of arena all together. If they really wanted to design a game around arena combat they could easily do that outside of the regional servers as well. You're not wrong about the weight of the arena systems reward systems impact which I pointed out already. Our main discussion became tangential about the spectator mode during live pvp events.
Unless Intrepid come out with new information, just saying that "Instanced PvP arenas is against their direction" is just folks hoping for their version of pvp to be the thing.
The arena system may support cross-server combat.[10]
Arena style combat is instanced but spectators may be possible through an interface.[11]
Instanced PvP existing with a ladder system and ELO system that players interface with from an arena in a military node doesnt prevent anyone from going to pvp in the open world, and people will hardly be hiding inside an arena.
And if you don't want to queue in to arenas to earn the gear enhancements, go raid caravans instead. Or be in a guild warring against other guilds.
Having instanced pvp in an arena where you can fight anyone in the world at other arenas and potentially cross server (per the wiki even), is only a positive thing for pvpers. I mean honestly, be real with yourself, Arenas will be popping off 24/7, but open world pvp is a lot of.... waiting, hoping someone is somewhere you can fight with.
Players who spend time to play in arenas should get rewards which they would also get from open world, but maybe fewer. Those could be provided by other players who want to support the arena. Or through a tax system. In this case the arena should bring a benefit to the node too or it's citizens.
Sometime ago @Boneshatter mentioned that freeholds may have arenas too:
Growing crops, having a ginormous house, opening a tavern, and opening a fighting arena are just a few examples of what a freehold might be used for that isn't processing. Each is just as valid as any other.
opening a fighting arena ?
Is that a feature?
One of the cosmetic skins for freeholds looked like a fighting arena to me. Also look at:
The youtube video thumbnail 100% looks like an arena (scroll down for a still). It probably isn't automated and you'd have to do the announcing yourself, though.
To be honest I don't believe I lost sight of the point at all. Contextually it's directly relevant to the queuing and theme park style of arena's we've all experienced even to this date from various games.
Any arena with a ladder system is inherently themepark.
Why go for the same style of arena and segregated pvp systems that clearly divert players from the social dynamic?
I have no comment to make on different types of potential arenas (in this thread).
I am simply pointing out to you that actual live spectating wouldn't be a good idea.
I mean, even if the game just has a stealth based class, a spotter could just tell their allies where that character is - or you could multibox and watch it yourself.
It's just a bad idea.
Additionally to it being a bad idea, you have given absolutely no reason as to why it needs to be live - no reason as to why a two minute delay would be an issue.
To be honest I don't believe I lost sight of the point at all. Contextually it's directly relevant to the queuing and theme park style of arena's we've all experienced even to this date from various games.
Any arena with a ladder system is inherently themepark.
Why go for the same style of arena and segregated pvp systems that clearly divert players from the social dynamic?
I have no comment to make on different types of potential arenas (in this thread).
I am simply pointing out to you that actual live spectating wouldn't be a good idea.
I mean, even if the game just has a stealth based class, a spotter could just tell their allies where that character is - or you could multibox and watch it yourself.
It's just a bad idea.
Additionally to it being a bad idea, you have given absolutely no reason as to why it needs to be live - no reason as to why a two minute delay would be an issue.
My goal isn't to spend the next 20 pages having a pointless back and forth as I have no intention of trying to convince you especially considering you haven't given any (if much at all) merit to your opinion on it. You clearly have your perspective and I have mine lol. I've seen quite a bit of back and forth opinions dragged out on these forums trying to convince each other
My goal isn't to spend the next 20 pages having a pointless back and forth as I have no intention of trying to convince you especially considering you haven't given any (if much at all) merit to your opinion on it.
As far as I am concerned, the fact that with a live arena it would be possible to have a spotter watching a match feeding info to those competing is all the merit that is needed. Adding a few minutes delay completely eliminates this, with no stated detriment.
Honestly, what more merit to a discussion could you ask for than that?
I like the idea of arenas and I'm not really fussed about spectating as it's not something I'd do, but others do like it so can see why they'd want it.
If there's going to be rewards of any kind, I think you can't have live spectating. People just giving real time updates to their mate or pre gathered info wouldn't be fair.
Not that bothered about live spectating if there aren't any rewards but agree with others that a delay then would be fine as it still allows you to see the fights.
My concern with live spectating is how much work would that mean for the Devs and how much load would it put on the systems. If it's a decent amount of work/load then I'd be in favour of leaving it out.
My goal isn't to spend the next 20 pages having a pointless back and forth as I have no intention of trying to convince you especially considering you haven't given any (if much at all) merit to your opinion on it.
As far as I am concerned, the fact that with a live arena it would be possible to have a spotter watching a match feeding info to those competing is all the merit that is needed. Adding a few minutes delay completely eliminates this, with no stated detriment.
Honestly, what more merit to a discussion could you ask for than that?
Not trying to pile on this incredibly exciting back and forth. More trying to understand the angle here. I can agree that adding a delay would render all of this moot, but I really have no clue why anyone would even want a feature that is a "movie theater" for arena play. For that matter even watching it live is a bit of a "why are we doing this" in my mind unless there is some other mechanic to make it interesting for the viewer or providing value (rested XP ??)
But how hard is it to just hide information/obscure players until 5-10 seconds pre match or at match start. As an avid PvPer in a myriad of games, I don't see any benefit of a spotter in terms of them providing information I don't already have. Outside of an insane corner case of a stealth class trying to leave combat to heal up or something that I am unable to locate, but I probably am aware of this happening to some degree. It just seems to me that removing the ability for viewers to see them pre match removes any edge a spotter would provide in a game such as this.
More clarity on this would be helpful, not trying to ruffle feathers but I am losing you on the importance of a spotter.
Having instanced pvp in an arena where you can fight anyone in the world at other arenas and potentially cross server (per the wiki even), is only a positive thing for pvpers. I mean honestly, be real with yourself, Arenas will be popping off 24/7, but open world pvp is a lot of.... waiting, hoping someone is somewhere you can fight with.
Giving people a button to click to queue for PvP so they could AFK in the meantime means there will be even less OWPvP.
Having instanced pvp in an arena where you can fight anyone in the world at other arenas and potentially cross server (per the wiki even), is only a positive thing for pvpers. I mean honestly, be real with yourself, Arenas will be popping off 24/7, but open world pvp is a lot of.... waiting, hoping someone is somewhere you can fight with.
Giving people a button to click to queue for PvP so they could AFK in the meantime means there will be even less OWPvP.
Having to travel to the arena means less people in arena and more ganking outside the arena. Cross server systems would help the first issue I think.
Having instanced pvp in an arena where you can fight anyone in the world at other arenas and potentially cross server (per the wiki even), is only a positive thing for pvpers. I mean honestly, be real with yourself, Arenas will be popping off 24/7, but open world pvp is a lot of.... waiting, hoping someone is somewhere you can fight with.
Giving people a button to click to queue for PvP so they could AFK in the meantime means there will be even less OWPvP.
Having to travel to the arena means less people in arena and more ganking outside the arena. Cross server systems would help the first issue I think.
You mean the fighters will be ganked when they want to enter the door into the arena?
My goal isn't to spend the next 20 pages having a pointless back and forth as I have no intention of trying to convince you especially considering you haven't given any (if much at all) merit to your opinion on it.
As far as I am concerned, the fact that with a live arena it would be possible to have a spotter watching a match feeding info to those competing is all the merit that is needed. Adding a few minutes delay completely eliminates this, with no stated detriment.
Honestly, what more merit to a discussion could you ask for than that?
Not trying to pile on this incredibly exciting back and forth. More trying to understand the angle here. I can agree that adding a delay would render all of this moot, but I really have no clue why anyone would even want a feature that is a "movie theater" for arena play. For that matter even watching it live is a bit of a "why are we doing this" in my mind unless there is some other mechanic to make it interesting for the viewer or providing value (rested XP ??)
There are some people that clearly want it. I don't get it, wouldn't use it, but that isn't the point.
As with any activity that some others want in an MMO, rather than asking "why?", i simply say "sure, if the developer considers it worth their time", and then work out if there are any detriments to it that need to be discussed.
As for the value to it, being told where a stealth player is would in itself be insanely useful. Just drop an AoE on them.
Having instanced pvp in an arena where you can fight anyone in the world at other arenas and potentially cross server (per the wiki even), is only a positive thing for pvpers. I mean honestly, be real with yourself, Arenas will be popping off 24/7, but open world pvp is a lot of.... waiting, hoping someone is somewhere you can fight with.
Giving people a button to click to queue for PvP so they could AFK in the meantime means there will be even less OWPvP.
Having to travel to the arena means less people in arena and more ganking outside the arena. Cross server systems would help the first issue I think.
We either consider this an issue with both PvP and PvE, or with neither PvP or PvE.
My goal isn't to spend the next 20 pages having a pointless back and forth as I have no intention of trying to convince you especially considering you haven't given any (if much at all) merit to your opinion on it.
As far as I am concerned, the fact that with a live arena it would be possible to have a spotter watching a match feeding info to those competing is all the merit that is needed. Adding a few minutes delay completely eliminates this, with no stated detriment.
Honestly, what more merit to a discussion could you ask for than that?
Not trying to pile on this incredibly exciting back and forth. More trying to understand the angle here. I can agree that adding a delay would render all of this moot, but I really have no clue why anyone would even want a feature that is a "movie theater" for arena play. For that matter even watching it live is a bit of a "why are we doing this" in my mind unless there is some other mechanic to make it interesting for the viewer or providing value (rested XP ??)
There are some people that clearly want it. I don't get it, wouldn't use it, but that isn't the point.
As with any activity that some others want in an MMO, rather than asking "why?", i simply say "sure, if the developer considers it worth their time", and then work out if there are any detriments to it that need to be discussed.
As for the value to it, being told where a stealth player is would in itself be insanely useful. Just drop an AoE on them.
That in itself is enough to just not have it.
I guess I don't see why the spectator would even see the stealth character in the first place, but that at least answers my question regarding what you are talking about. I appreciate it.
My goal isn't to spend the next 20 pages having a pointless back and forth as I have no intention of trying to convince you especially considering you haven't given any (if much at all) merit to your opinion on it.
As far as I am concerned, the fact that with a live arena it would be possible to have a spotter watching a match feeding info to those competing is all the merit that is needed. Adding a few minutes delay completely eliminates this, with no stated detriment.
Honestly, what more merit to a discussion could you ask for than that?
Not trying to pile on this incredibly exciting back and forth. More trying to understand the angle here. I can agree that adding a delay would render all of this moot, but I really have no clue why anyone would even want a feature that is a "movie theater" for arena play. For that matter even watching it live is a bit of a "why are we doing this" in my mind unless there is some other mechanic to make it interesting for the viewer or providing value (rested XP ??)
But how hard is it to just hide information/obscure players until 5-10 seconds pre match or at match start. As an avid PvPer in a myriad of games, I don't see any benefit of a spotter in terms of them providing information I don't already have. Outside of an insane corner case of a stealth class trying to leave combat to heal up or something that I am unable to locate, but I probably am aware of this happening to some degree. It just seems to me that removing the ability for viewers to see them pre match removes any edge a spotter would provide in a game such as this.
More clarity on this would be helpful, not trying to ruffle feathers but I am losing you on the importance of a spotter.
people watch twitch streams with a delay
depending on how the arena is made, a spotter can give you information you wouldn't have access to that would change the way you propare for combat, rendering your opponent's strategy ineffective.
I really have no clue why anyone would even want a feature that is a "movie theater" for arena play.
Why do people watch esports? Why do people watch sports? It's the spectacle and the representation of the best players in the game at their peak performance.
Having instanced pvp in an arena where you can fight anyone in the world at other arenas and potentially cross server (per the wiki even), is only a positive thing for pvpers. I mean honestly, be real with yourself, Arenas will be popping off 24/7, but open world pvp is a lot of.... waiting, hoping someone is somewhere you can fight with.
Giving people a button to click to queue for PvP so they could AFK in the meantime means there will be even less OWPvP.
Having to travel to the arena means less people in arena and more ganking outside the arena. Cross server systems would help the first issue I think.
You mean the fighters will be ganked when they want to enter the door into the arena?
There might be a gentleman's agreement whereby the fighters are not attacked. However, it will be dependant on server populations. Also, I think it would be hilarious if spectators of the opposite team ganked the winning team after an arena battle.
Having instanced pvp in an arena where you can fight anyone in the world at other arenas and potentially cross server (per the wiki even), is only a positive thing for pvpers. I mean honestly, be real with yourself, Arenas will be popping off 24/7, but open world pvp is a lot of.... waiting, hoping someone is somewhere you can fight with.
Giving people a button to click to queue for PvP so they could AFK in the meantime means there will be even less OWPvP.
Having to travel to the arena means less people in arena and more ganking outside the arena. Cross server systems would help the first issue I think.
We either consider this an issue with both PvP and PvE, or with neither PvP or PvE.
I opt to not consider it an issue.
You would consider it to be a non issue because you're not an arena junkie like some of us. Don't particularly want to fight 1000 games with only 10 other players.
My goal isn't to spend the next 20 pages having a pointless back and forth as I have no intention of trying to convince you especially considering you haven't given any (if much at all) merit to your opinion on it.
As far as I am concerned, the fact that with a live arena it would be possible to have a spotter watching a match feeding info to those competing is all the merit that is needed. Adding a few minutes delay completely eliminates this, with no stated detriment.
Honestly, what more merit to a discussion could you ask for than that?
Not trying to pile on this incredibly exciting back and forth. More trying to understand the angle here. I can agree that adding a delay would render all of this moot, but I really have no clue why anyone would even want a feature that is a "movie theater" for arena play. For that matter even watching it live is a bit of a "why are we doing this" in my mind unless there is some other mechanic to make it interesting for the viewer or providing value (rested XP ??)
But how hard is it to just hide information/obscure players until 5-10 seconds pre match or at match start. As an avid PvPer in a myriad of games, I don't see any benefit of a spotter in terms of them providing information I don't already have. Outside of an insane corner case of a stealth class trying to leave combat to heal up or something that I am unable to locate, but I probably am aware of this happening to some degree. It just seems to me that removing the ability for viewers to see them pre match removes any edge a spotter would provide in a game such as this.
More clarity on this would be helpful, not trying to ruffle feathers but I am losing you on the importance of a spotter.
people watch twitch streams with a delay
depending on how the arena is made, a spotter can give you information you wouldn't have access to that would change the way you propare for combat, rendering your opponent's strategy ineffective.
I mean I understand where you all are coming from, but it seems like a near non-issue to obscure certain features or information. Such as not giving the viewer the ability to see the invisible player in Noaani's example, or in your example mask who is playing until they step out of the gate. Again, it totally makes sense what you all are saying but it seems like a non-issue with minor adjustments to stop a spotter being useful.
I really have no clue why anyone would even want a feature that is a "movie theater" for arena play.
Why do people watch esports? Why do people watch sports? It's the spectacle and the representation of the best players in the game at their peak performance.
In other words - Entertainment.
I am sitting here watching The International as we speak so I definitely know what you mean by entertainment from watching streams/esports. I guess we will see how they implement it as I will most likely be an arena player if no pvp is happening outside the node walls.
I am sitting here watching The International as we speak so I definitely know what you mean by entertainment from watching streams/esports. I guess we will see how they implement it as I will most likely be an arena player if no pvp is happening outside the node walls.
And you're watching it as a spectator, right? So you see both sides and even stats of both sides. So I'd imagine you can see how that kind of info could be insanely beneficial in a situation where the spectator is in cahoots with one of the sides.
Even if there's some sort of obfuscation of info, w/o delay spectators can still provide some beneficial details about the opponent. Countless such cases were present in L2.
Comments
sure lets go. lets ignore feeding points for a second.
in l2 you have a buff called mental shield that protects you from mental attacks (fear, silence, etc). only a couple of classes have this very good buff, but there is a weapon that has a chance to cast the buff on someone (including you) when you use a buff on your target. there is bless the body too, which basically just gives you extra max hp. when you go into the olympiads (the arena) you have 1 minute to prepare before some gates open and the fight starts
lets say you are an overlord. you are strong in 1v1 arena, but your skills use a lot, and i mean a lot of mana. so its common for overlords to go into the arena using a weapon with mana up (30% more mana) or conversion (60% more mana but you lose 40% hp), ten you buff yourself and use npc buff as well. now you switch to your mental shield up and try to buff yourself again, basically spamming the same ability over and over until you get mental shield, and do the same bless the body. sometimes it takes 10 buffs, sometimes it takes 1-2 buffs, its random but it uses a lot of mana.
if you are going against a class that has no mental attacks, such as a gladi, tyrant or destro (and they have lots of hp and do high damage) you dont want to waste mana on mental shield. you save it for your debuffs and your heal and drain, which use a lot of mana btw. this can be the difference between having enough mana to drain or not. against mages? yeah you want that mental shield, but they also have less hp. but you cant know who you are fighting unless someone spectates and tells you (or you pay another subscription to dual box and spectate yourself)
another more general example. if you are against a soul hound, you need to use your important buffs first and the least important buffs last, and also berserk. why? because they will steal them and the way it works is the last few buffs get stolen. you also dont want to use your important self buffs at the start of the match. you want to wait after they steal your buffs.
on the other hand, if you are against an elder or prophet, you want to use your more important buffs last, to prevent them from removing your essential buffs by overbuffing (it removes the first buff).
you also need to know if you are fighting a destro and he is gonna start frenzied or not.
the game doesnt let you know any of this, but a spectator will.
also, if your friend fought someone and figured out what element they had on their weapon, they can tell you and now you equip armor with elemental defense against that weapon, basically negating the other person's effort instead of figuring it out yourself in the middle of the match and switching. some people might have different weapons with different elements and switch enchantment paths every day of the olympiad and this extra effort to win is negated because someone told you what they are using. maybe you can use the appropiate armor on your 2nd fight with that eprson if you fight again, but you will have an advantage on your first fight that you shouldnt have had (unless you were wearing the same element by luck).
also, if i remember correctly (but i could be wrong on this one) in the earlier versions you couldnt see what buffs your opponent had when you clicked them, so the only way to know was via a spectator. but i dont remember well about this one.
edit: these are just some simple examples. the reason i mentioned this is because aoc is basically l2 l3 so its reasonable for me to expect a similar arena
do you know how apis work? have you built one, have you consumed one?
Technically that's how combat systems work. You learn about classes and the games design around the system to do your best to counter the opponent or opponents. There's visual queues and the UI can provide some details with buffs and status effects depending how liberal they choose to be. This can all be handled relatively by preventing unnecessary access to the API as well as UI allowances. I already said you can make it so the audience cant interact with the contestants to prevent this so they cant inspect to learn details while the combatants are in the arena/system. It would be no different than watching people having a 1v1 duel in the open world or players surveying what kind of opponents they're about to engage with in the open world conflict. The game probably wont be perfectly balanced for 1v1 through various systems like gear, actives, passive, augments etc. The games balance is around open world and group synergy. This is why I mentioned intra-archetype pools for 1v1. To be honest, if the game was hypothetically so imbalanced to the point where someone knowing that I was using a pillar to LOS them or they knew I had a strong counter to their build (assuming I dont ever change my build) then it probably could've gone back in the oven for a bit metaphorically speaking. If players strategies are that fragile then perhaps they should just get better. As mentioned, there is nothing stopping them from live streaming to various people in discord regardless of 1v1 or 8v8. If cant figure out what kind classes/archetype you're competing against within the first moments of the encounter you may need to practice more through experience.
You can buy wheels these days.
why do you keep saying inspecting? do u come from wow or something?
you didnt get the point. the olympiad was built in such a way that you couldnt see who you were fighting until the last 10 seconds before the match started. this only gave you time to get in position. however, your preparation changed depending on who you were fighting (such as putting your important buffs first or last) which was impossible unless you had a spotter, and you couldn't re buff in the last 10 seconds (the npc would be gone after u buffed and you didnt want to waste more mana). you had to conserve mana a lot. starting your fight at 50% mana or a 100% is the difference between beating a mana burner or not, for some classes, but these are advantages that you get by having a spotter. theres no inspection on l2, you just look at what they are doing and wearing and thats it. i think there wont be any inspection in ashes.
and before you talk shit again about not knowing what class you are fighting and needing to practice more, etc, blah blah. again, we arent talking about wow. how do you know in l2 when you are fighting a prophet (buffer) a bishop (healer) a sorceror ? you cant because they use the exact same gear and look exactly the same (both human mystic). you have to wait until the fight starts since the game doesnt let you know beforehand and they use a skill, or you have to know them by name in the last 10 seconds, or you use a spotter... and your strategy changes depending on who you are fighting. warcryer or overlord? same thing. elder or mage? same thing, etc, etc.
i expect aoc have a similar strategy since anybody can be of any race and can wear any type of gear. theres no gear / race restrictions like in wow or other games. so i expect players to equip one weapon then switch to their main one when the fight starts. for example lets say you are a rogue but you start the match with a bow, so now people think you are a ranger, and instead of running away from you before the fight starts (what they would naturally do if you were a rogue) they get close to you instead because they expect you to start kiting (like rangers do), then you switch to your dagger and they are already in melee range, easier for you to hit them and you dont even have to waste a gap closer. spotters will ruin this type of strategy since they can just tell you "hey that dude is a rogue with a bow, run away, dont get close".
people who used a spotter had an unfair advantage over those who didnt by bypassing game restrictions. thats the fucking point. i dont even know why we are arguing over this anymore. there is no way in which not having a spotter is better than having a spotter when the game doesn't give you information on purpose so you have to adapt when the fight starts.
cant do much about streaming on discord, but at least, if you are streaming on discord, your friends cant see your opponent. you probably just dont get it because you played wow arena and not l2 arena, which is understandable and everything makes sense now.
you hide vs archers or vs tanks and daggers using ultimate defense/evasion and wait it out. we already saw tanks having ultimate defense in aoc
If that's the case, then they should include at least one arena in the first half of the alpha 2, to let players test and give feedback.
Nope I understood. I took the time to read it and I was not talking shit. Not sure what you're trying to get at. You may potentially be taking this to a personal level.
If I only reply to a part of ampost, it is because the rest of it isn't worth replying to (potentially for a few reasons).
In your abovempost I previously replied to, the part I didn't reply to was at least in part about how you thought military nodes would be "less appealing if they're just a place to queue up for instanced combat and replays haha", as if an arena is the only point to a lilitary node. It wasn't worth replying to at all.
As for I think you've lost it a bit.
It's almost as if you have forgotten that streaming is optional, and if people don't want to give away an advantage they can just not. With live spectating, you take that option away from people - which you simply shouldn't do.
If people want to hand it away, that's their call - developers shouldn't take it away.
Your entire comments about "themepark" here only apply to the existence of an arena - if the game has one, and has a ladder, that is about as themepark as I could imagine PvP content to ever be. Unless you are arguing that there shouldn't be an arena at all, you ay not want to bring up how Ashes is trying to not be a themepark.
I mean, I'm sure if we tried we could.
But why try?
I figured you'd say that haha why I found it funny and pointed it out previously
obviously it's not just the only point to the node but it will be an important attraction for players who like certain features they provide aside from the pro's and con's for the global aspect of the Verra's world building.
To be honest I don't believe I lost sight of the point at all. Contextually it's directly relevant to the queuing and theme park style of arena's we've all experienced even to this date from various games. If in the event they choose to have arena's to what ever degree instanced and queued, they could potentially make it an option if people could spectate but that's not solely what I was more advocating for. Ignorance isn't bliss ansd leaving things optionally never truly solves the issues that will progress from it.
Why go for the same style of arena and segregated pvp systems that clearly divert players from the social dynamic? I dont need to reiterate the foundations for the theme park snowball effect. I'm not saying get rid of arena all together. If they really wanted to design a game around arena combat they could easily do that outside of the regional servers as well. You're not wrong about the weight of the arena systems reward systems impact which I pointed out already. Our main discussion became tangential about the spectator mode during live pvp events.
LOL - no comment
Players who spend time to play in arenas should get rewards which they would also get from open world, but maybe fewer. Those could be provided by other players who want to support the arena. Or through a tax system. In this case the arena should bring a benefit to the node too or it's citizens.
Sometime ago @Boneshatter mentioned that freeholds may have arenas too:
I am simply pointing out to you that actual live spectating wouldn't be a good idea.
I mean, even if the game just has a stealth based class, a spotter could just tell their allies where that character is - or you could multibox and watch it yourself.
It's just a bad idea.
Additionally to it being a bad idea, you have given absolutely no reason as to why it needs to be live - no reason as to why a two minute delay would be an issue.
My goal isn't to spend the next 20 pages having a pointless back and forth as I have no intention of trying to convince you especially considering you haven't given any (if much at all) merit to your opinion on it. You clearly have your perspective and I have mine lol. I've seen quite a bit of back and forth opinions dragged out on these forums trying to convince each other
I've said my piece, take it however you want.
As far as I am concerned, the fact that with a live arena it would be possible to have a spotter watching a match feeding info to those competing is all the merit that is needed. Adding a few minutes delay completely eliminates this, with no stated detriment.
Honestly, what more merit to a discussion could you ask for than that?
If there's going to be rewards of any kind, I think you can't have live spectating. People just giving real time updates to their mate or pre gathered info wouldn't be fair.
Not that bothered about live spectating if there aren't any rewards but agree with others that a delay then would be fine as it still allows you to see the fights.
My concern with live spectating is how much work would that mean for the Devs and how much load would it put on the systems. If it's a decent amount of work/load then I'd be in favour of leaving it out.
Not trying to pile on this incredibly exciting back and forth. More trying to understand the angle here. I can agree that adding a delay would render all of this moot, but I really have no clue why anyone would even want a feature that is a "movie theater" for arena play. For that matter even watching it live is a bit of a "why are we doing this" in my mind unless there is some other mechanic to make it interesting for the viewer or providing value (rested XP ??)
But how hard is it to just hide information/obscure players until 5-10 seconds pre match or at match start. As an avid PvPer in a myriad of games, I don't see any benefit of a spotter in terms of them providing information I don't already have. Outside of an insane corner case of a stealth class trying to leave combat to heal up or something that I am unable to locate, but I probably am aware of this happening to some degree. It just seems to me that removing the ability for viewers to see them pre match removes any edge a spotter would provide in a game such as this.
More clarity on this would be helpful, not trying to ruffle feathers but I am losing you on the importance of a spotter.
Having to travel to the arena means less people in arena and more ganking outside the arena. Cross server systems would help the first issue I think.
You mean the fighters will be ganked when they want to enter the door into the arena?
As with any activity that some others want in an MMO, rather than asking "why?", i simply say "sure, if the developer considers it worth their time", and then work out if there are any detriments to it that need to be discussed.
As for the value to it, being told where a stealth player is would in itself be insanely useful. Just drop an AoE on them.
That in itself is enough to just not have it.
We either consider this an issue with both PvP and PvE, or with neither PvP or PvE.
I opt to not consider it an issue.
I guess I don't see why the spectator would even see the stealth character in the first place, but that at least answers my question regarding what you are talking about. I appreciate it.
people watch twitch streams with a delay
depending on how the arena is made, a spotter can give you information you wouldn't have access to that would change the way you propare for combat, rendering your opponent's strategy ineffective.
In other words - Entertainment.
There might be a gentleman's agreement whereby the fighters are not attacked. However, it will be dependant on server populations. Also, I think it would be hilarious if spectators of the opposite team ganked the winning team after an arena battle.
You would consider it to be a non issue because you're not an arena junkie like some of us. Don't particularly want to fight 1000 games with only 10 other players.
I mean I understand where you all are coming from, but it seems like a near non-issue to obscure certain features or information. Such as not giving the viewer the ability to see the invisible player in Noaani's example, or in your example mask who is playing until they step out of the gate. Again, it totally makes sense what you all are saying but it seems like a non-issue with minor adjustments to stop a spotter being useful.
I am sitting here watching The International as we speak so I definitely know what you mean by entertainment from watching streams/esports. I guess we will see how they implement it as I will most likely be an arena player if no pvp is happening outside the node walls.
Even if there's some sort of obfuscation of info, w/o delay spectators can still provide some beneficial details about the opponent. Countless such cases were present in L2.