Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
It doesn't matter if a smaller guild can win which other variables for that if they are out gearing in a game that gear matters more or other variables.
Fing over thousands of people what are you talking about, that makes 0 sense in this context. Sieges are very competitive so there is such a thing I don't know how you would not see that. If they were not competitive top players and skilled players wouldn't matter or improve their abilities.
0 reason a zerg guild should be winning based on numbers bringing 2000 people against 500, or 400 people against 40.
I can say Steven agrees with this point at the end so it really doesn't matter since wars are capped based on the level be it 50v50 or 250v250. 0 Think to be hype about zerging people with zergs being the only people that are laughing and ruining content in the game.
This has nothing to do with instances lol? Its about having balanced PvP and allowing groups to beat zerg guilds that run with like 500+ members and making the player field even.
I find it kind of ridiculous you are advocating for fights to be about who brings more people and not having even based player count in relation to the content.
And they didn't win, as evident by that video
And yet Node sieges are supposedly not only uncapped, but even allow people to come register for either side of the fight.
So to me it seems that Steven agrees that people should be able to experience this content and we'll see same zergs as in that video (if the game doesn't crash).
Except, as I pointed out above, zerg guilds are the ones who win in a capped siege. And right now I don't see any way for Intrepid to prevent that.
Competition leads to underhanded tactics, so I'd rather just have fun with politics and drama than some perceived competitive nature of a siege. I'd be very interested in hearing how koreans decided to work together to try and fuck over the alliance from the video. An entire server coming together to put a fight against a big strong force is what I play mmos for. Some elite snobs fighting it out in their own enclosure is not.
This is why I relate your argument to Noaani's. Because both of you are arguing for a particular kind of design, that's surprisingly similar, but just in different ways.
You want the elites fighting in an instanced castle for the biggest rewards in the game (castles will bring in insane amounts of money), but you're against those same elites fighting mobs in an instance for a similarly big reward (if those bosses gave super rare items).
To me this seems kinda hypocritical. Why should pvers be fucked over by the masses, while pvpers get to play in their own little sandbox w/o anyone else joining in.
I'm fairly sure I've posted L2 siege videos before. So if anything, I'd say it's on you for not seeing that I've always been on the side of open sieges, because that shit's for the MASSivees.
Saying one of the strongest guilds on their server won as a standing point for all players is absolutely silly that also has been zerging other groups and most likely was more coordinated in that fight anyway. It doesn't matter if one of the bet guilds on the server won against a bigger zerg that does not counter out the fact on the issue and the way it ruins content.
Sieges are end game, you can make the same point about end game pve. The thing is there are a lot of nodes which means a lot of potential wars. If someone wants to get into it and works towards it based on their level of skill and experience I'm sure they will have an opportunity.
Node sieges and castle ones are most likely going to be the same I'm unsure where you are seeing its uncapped and anyone can suddenly join that makes 0 sense. Being registered as a defender doesn't mean you are in the war, it means you are able to be chosen to defend. Even more so since they already talked about 250v250 castle siege showing a guideline on making sure things are competitive.
Its a node siege with huge effects on the server, if u are trying to use "competition" as a argument that it leads to underhanded tactics, it is naïve to think there isn't plenty of other reasons to use under handed tactics. Including huge zerging to auto win + plus anything else you can think of..
This isn't throne and liberty, there is 0 money to be made in the castle as you can't pull it out...So any discussion around that is pointless (mayor, leader, guild would control that money anyway)
Feel at this point you are trying to throw anything to stick to try and argue things are better when zerg guilds and ruin most the server with uncapped wars. No one is getting f'd over so that point doesn't even stand.
Now zergs not being able to zerg and destroy a node, the homes and all the loot people have collected from bringing 3000 people against 1000 prevents people from getting f'd over actually lol.
OWPvP of course isn't capped and would offer another type of pvp.
0 balance 0 rules just will lead to a worse experience and a lot of people being annoyed when their stuff is lost do to it.
During the declaration period, individuals or guilds can register to attack or defend providing they meet the criteria.[18][19]
The player who originally declared the siege cannot exclude anyone from joining the attack.[18]
Players do not need to be citizens of the node in order to register as defenders, but they cannot be citizens of a node that is at war with the node they wish to defend.[32]
Going around the game's system is not the same as just getting more people to fight for you.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_taxes
Guild castles impose a tax on all revenue for the nodes within its region.[2][3]
The remainder of tax income can be used by the guild for whatever they want.[2][8]
And that "remainder" can be as big as the guild wants, because if you're abusing the capped register system - you don't need defenses. And if you can no longer care about someone else attacking and replacing you from the throne - you don't care about other part of tax use. You can obviously use it to attract more people to your region, but that only brings in more taxes, which means more money for you.
And don't forget that we're discussing this in the context that a zerg guild has taken over the castle, so they can obviously defend their tax caravans, because they're a zerg (and you like to think that it always wins).
No where does this talk about there is no cap on players and everyone can be int he fight. Being able to or already being registered does not = to being in the battle. Same logic can apply to new world where anyone can register or can potentially be a combatant. It doesn't mean they are all in the fight..
You are missing the point the nodes of competitive that is the nature it is PvP you can't say it isn't competitive. If you think because things are competitive people will cheat / exploit then it will happen regardless with the impotence of nodes.
That quote has 0 context and Steven has mentioned taxes can not be taken out by players for personal use multiple times. There is no reward to be had, at worse you can try to make a argument they can use them and pick what node things they want to upgrade or their own castle for defense. If a strange way to make an argument about rewards and players taking "spare" money out to give to people and thinking that is somehow going into the hands of random people as well. When we have multiple direct outs that are clear cut that are recent as well with their node showcase last year.
I have no clue what you are talking about abusing capped? That makes 0 sense, capping he wars so its a even amount of players on both sides has nothing to do with any kind of reward gain, and also there is no reward gain (outside maybe a box for participating they might add if i were to guess). The main thing is your node is still up.
Context of a zerg is all fronts not just want is convenient for you to ignore the point about zergs destroying nodes and all the gear loot / homes people have because they physically can't win against the numbers. not to mention the T&L video is a siege....im not talking about anything related to OWpvp. I'm talking about Sieges / node wars.
I play TL. Although I'm not the one who recorded that video, I was in that Siege and I see the same effects in this video even with the camera very close to my char. TL has done pretty good job to make a good looking combat for Zergs, period. If someone does something well, you say it, and if Intrepid can learn from them, much better.
This was said purely for node taxes. And that quote's context is Steven saying "guilds can use taxes for more selfish needs" on a stream and then replying to a discord question of "guilds can use the money from taxes however they want?" and Steven said "yes, a portion".
Where did I say random people? I said that owners of the castle will use that money (which, even at a fraction still, is a lot of money) for their own benefit.
I already explained this. A zerg guild has one main sub-guild that owns the castle (can be a completely separate proxy btw) and has their other sub-guilds fill up all the attack registration places. So now no one else can even attack the castle.
And I see no way for Intrepid to prevent this. And the same would be true for node sieges, if they were instanced.
I ignored it because the video that brought on this discussion literally showed that bigger zerg doesn't suddenly win just because it's bigger.
But even if that did happen - tough luck. Those people chose the game and knew the potential consequences of playing it. I'd fully expect you to complain if the node sieges were in fact instanced and there was a group of overboosted players who went around as mercs and bullied nodes by easily destroying them in sieges. Which has a way higher chance of happening than "big zerg = win".
Yes, we are indeed have been discussing sieges. Both castle and node ones, which are also separate in their design, which you seem to forget at times.
Just a lot of cool, heavy hits and impacts depending on what for Moves are being used.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
Why would they talk about something that they are still working on / have not worked on yet. If anything the fact you see him talk about making sure people cant zerg and having set numbers should be indication of direction. If we are making arguments based on something not being talked about and able to assume directly ourselves what it will be we can both start making up tons of stuff. The fact anyone can sign up means they are following modern game design, you need to stop thinking sign up means fighting in war that is two different things. Signing up means you can be picked for that war.
Again you can taking the tax thing out of context he has mentioned that int he fact a guild can use it to their advantage not take it out of the bank and start buying items. They have reinforced multiple times that is not the purpose. If another node makes a deal and you use the money in the place for some upgrade / transport thing etc in other to have another guild / node do something for you.
So you are talking about exploiting as your main point, that isn't a reason for uncapped. Resources to get the dec need to be difficult / random and not just a walk in the park where a zerg guild can easily farm everything and spam decs on themselves 24/7. And if that becomes the case gm should take action as it is a exploit. There are plenty of ways to tackle that and honestly war decing should go by a lottery system with multiple people being able to dec and one of those groups being picked which makes this whole point pretty mute.
Exploits isn't a reason to create unbalanced gameplay where zergs can affectively grief a server based on your thinking have infinite money from taxes, destroy all other nodes (gear, homes and loot within nodes), keep all nodes to themselves by zerging every war. And reduce competition on the server with everyone living in a zergs node in order to not be worried about the zerg destroying their node again.
Video shows absolutely nothing you are not going to be a top end pvp guild like any other people. The skill difference from top end players when it goes to wall tactics will be huge compared to people that have not been doing any siege pvp in recent years. This is effectively you trying to be like look Mike Tyson beat (insert whoever) so we can all beat that person easily as well.
I can honestly say you have no idea how bad its going to be for so many people based on my experience with recent sieges. This is why i want people to be able to communicate since what you are saying would effectively be unhealthy for the game. You are making it easier and easier for these massive guilds that have been preparing for years to control a server and effectively stay in power permanently.
You don't know about about node siege so making a point about it being separate makes 0 sense. Only thing we have is the direction of prime time and the fact they want more fair fights when they are important and affect a lot of players hence the siege being 250v250.
And you taking the content of someone signing up for a war as if wars are uncapped and can have 5000 people on one side to attack or defend.
Big zergs are the most common thing its kind of annoying that you refuse to see that when that is the first thing you see in every pvp mmorpg with people trying to win by zerging. And you also think they are going to have taxes and gear out their zerg as well, legit you talked about people being f'd over but your own design you want would f so many people over its insane.
I actually liked where it was at. Enough to be enjoyable to look at but not too much that I couldn't tell what was happening.
I think there are two things they have to be careful of when deciding on effects:
1) Don't tone it down too much. If its boring then the game isn't enjoyable. I mean what is a video game, in the end, besides an audio/visual fantasy?
2) Be careful with filters. If we can filter out what we don't want to see then it could become required in a pvp centered game. If people gain a real advantage by turning off effects then you have no choice but to do it too, or get wrecked. ARK is by far the most egregious example I can think of where this type of thing went horribly wrong.
Please point me to a single quote where Steven is talking about CASTLE TAXES in this context. They've talked about node ones in that context, yes, but you equating node taxes to castle taxes is just you doing that first quote yourself.
It's once a month.
How exactly would GMs prove that this randomly named guild is directly linked to the castle owners? Should they be in every guild discord tracking conversations? Though that doesn't work either, cause all these convos would be in private or locked chats.
Ah yes, the "modern design" of "you spent all that time preparing to attack your enemy? well fuck you - you lost the gacha". Yes, incredible way to keep people in your game.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges#Node_destruction
Freeholds may be attacked by any player for a period of two hours following a successful siege against its parent node.
Zerg got nothing to do with node sieges, because it will already destroy nodes if it wants to.
And if you want to say "oh they'll definitely change it to only attackers", then I refer you to the first quote in this comment.
Where exactly did I say anything about myself doing this? I simply used an example to point out that it's possible. Cause its obvious that your fear of zergs clouds your judgement.
Ah, yes, a player of the game that was one of the few who had this kind of shit back in 2004 definitely doesn't know what a zerg means in the context of sieges. Mmm, yes.
I probably also don't know that defending against zerg is possible, because I definitely never did it myself or so others do it in the very game I was playing (not even talking about TL here).
And I definitely don't know what the impact of a zerg is on the game where they can attack any player at any time.
Yes, none of those things are known to me
Yes, castle sieges are that. If you're implying that node ones will be as well, I'd refer you to the first quote in this comment.
Ah yes, the "modern design" of "you spent all that time preparing to attack your enemy? well fuck you - you lost the gacha". Yes, incredible way to keep people in your game.
Also, the funniest shit ever will be if Metros have anywhere even close to 500 citizens (which I think is a fairly high chance) and those citizens are mostly some randos. And then a proper attack force get picked to attack them, but defenders can't do shit BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T EVEN GET MORE DEFENDERS ON THEIR SIDE.
Or alternatively the autoregistered node citizens CAN'T EVEN DEFEND THEIR NODE CAUSE OF LOST GACHA
Just an absolutely impeccable design that so many people will be happy with. I cannot wait.
Yes, because literally not letting people do a thing is the same as making it somewhat harder to do it.
I want any person to be able to fight for what they want, if their skill/connections/money allows them to. You want to have a fucking lottery for who gets picked to fight. To me that is the annoying thing.
Zergs are only spooky if you allow them to be so. And you sure are not only allowing them that, but even encouraging other people to do the same, instead of rallying people to stand the fuck up and fight back.
That is up to you on proving players can take money out of the node. Everything is in contradiction to what you think and there has been questions int he past that directly asked about mayors just taking money to which that is against what they are going for. And worded mayors could use things to their advantage in making deals etc. Not there is "spare" money so they can use the node taxes to buy the market of all mats.
That depends on the node level, either way you went from wanting to say people are getting f'd over to saying its part of the game if all their stuff is lost do to a zerg...
Yes and it shows a pattern in what they are going for with set numbers and why they talked about making things fair. This will be even more the case when you are talking about a node being destroyed and the loss that comes with it to effected players.
OWpvp (freeholds is owpvp) has nothing to do with what I'm talking about that will be the most lawless pvp where you will get zergs that is fine.
Gotcha, no it gives people a fair chance at warring and being able to take it over. You are trying to have it both ways where you say they will exploit but want 0 solutions so you can use it in your argument. Freeholds already having a bidding system anyway this would just be more fair than the bidding system.
You are taking what I'm saying also and skewing it into a argument and meaning I'm not even talking about, because you want to imagine it belong wrong in your head so badly. Half the thing you said literally doesn't make any sense nor would happen, nor has anything to do with what I'm talking about.
Randoms owning a node? based on the work it takes to be mayor, and guilds moving to make nodes home it isn't going to be just a bunch of randoms. Your whole point in not wanting people to communicate on a global scale was so they can build relations there. Atleast make the things you want make sense...
Those who live in the node and the higher up node its a vassal to should be the ones protecting it as it is their node. This has nothing to do with making sure they cant be zerg down, which by your logic if they are just a bunch of random they will stand no chance against a zerg.
You have not done wars in recently mmorpgs so I feel you have lost touch to the effect a zerg can have while I've literally had to fight them and seen the effect of it ruin content / servers. And yes I want people to have a fair shot a decing territory which also helps fix the issue you talked about. If 3 guilds want to dec they should all have a fair shot at being the one to lead it.
I'm talking about CASTLE TAXES ffs. Why do you keep mentioning nodes and mayors? Castles get their own taxes, which can then be used by guilds that own THE CASTLES for their own benefit, as stated by Steven himself in 2 separate responses. This has nothing to do with mayors.
C A S T L E S I E G E S. Once a month. A zerg guild can easily get enough resources in a month to make sure that their sub-guilds are the ones who get the registration first.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_sieges
Multiple guilds may register to attack and the first to complete the scroll and lay down the declaration may begin to have their members register to attack (there will be a cap).[42]
The siege scroll deployment is a 5 min rooted cast that alerts the region at the cast initiation and names the caster that must be the guild leader.[42][43]
If the guild leader is killed, the casting is interrupted.[44] The scroll will remain until it is recast. It will disappear if it is not cast within the declaration period.[45]
As written there, CASTLE SIEGE registration is on the first come first server basis, with a cap. So the zerg sub-guilds will simply be the first ones to come and the first ones to get served. Any other guild leader will simply be PKed on sight.
This is why I keep saying that CASTLE SIEGES will not be what you think they'll be. Although you can't seem to differentiate between castles and nodes at this point.
How exactly destruction of freeholds in the context of a node siege not what you're talking about?
What do you then mean by "people's stuff getting destroyed in a node siege"? The fraction of stuff that's in the node storage? In-node housing, of which there's maybe a dozen houses in a big node? Apartments?
Cause all of those things can be easily destroyed during the siege w/o even winning the siege. So zerging or not has no impact on the destruction of people's property.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges#Node_destruction
Player housing designs and decorations are retained and can be placed again later if the housing is destroyed during a node siege.[124][122][123]
Apartments may be destroyed in the following circumstances:[122]
If their building was destroyed during a node siege, even if the siege was not successful.[94][122]
Letting more people join in is the literal solution to the abuse I pointed out. If there is no cap on the siege members, the defending guild will have to use all their people on the defense, because that's the only way to defend themselves against the attackers. My abuse literally doesn't exist in an uncapped system.
Freeholds are also on the first come first server basis and I hope you remember people's reaction to that shit. I don't think you have as many people on the side of your idea as you think you do.
Who said anything about owning anything or mayors? I was talking about general citizens.
Nodes will have random citizens and not just super coordinated pvp guilds. Those citizens become defenders by default. And if the node has more than 500 citizens (that is in the case we even get 500vs500 sieges btw) - some of those citizens will get fucked over and won't even be able to defend their own homes, but, even outside of that, the ones who do defend it might not be anywhere near geared enough to defend the node properly.
In an uncapped sieging system this node can ask for help from guilds or other nodes. People can come together and fight against the oh so spooky zerg. In your suggestion this node is fucked if the attacker lottery picks several coordinated pvp guilds.
You're afraid of the ephemeral zerg, while making people die to the very thing you're afraid of. And I'm making that judgement on your last paragraph.
If zerg are so scary and spooky and have somehow changed completely in the last 15 years, then why do you think they wouldn't just overwhelm the siege registry with their super strong members and do the exact thing that you're scared of, but w/o the defenders having any chance to win?
Your own suggestion makes it harder to win against the zerg.
Why are we talking about castle sieges and mixing that up with nodes when we were clearly talking about node wars being capped. This flow of conversation doesn't make any sense to me at the moment. ?
Castle siege is 250v250 its already balanced really not much else to say on that.
I know the difference between castle and node lmao you are capping right there with that one. This conversation at its core is they care about balance and going by castle siege which is CAPPED, that is expected for node where there is much more consequence to node destruction.
You are making a big assumption on "dozens" of houses in a node there. with a game planning to have 10k concurrent players. Rather not get into a disccusion about the amount of housing. I feel you really don't understand the consequences of a node being destroyed mixed with the mental affect it has on players.
All that loot players have in their apartments and housing will be lost to them. This idea a zerg could show up and win where it becomes not even a fair fight will be pretty toxic towards players where they feel f'd over.
Your abuse literarily exist the strongest its common sense if wars are uncapped and a zerg guild can just overwhelm a node and bring double the amount of players and win through share numbers. Where if numbers were even you are stopping a guild/s from zerging.
People on my side, you are literally advocating for zergs to be able to use all their members in uncapped wars against smaller nodes lol? It has nothing to do with people on my side, it has to do with what the devs have been deciding to do. IE they wanted siege to be fair. so its a heavy example on how node sieges can be as well.
This makes no sense...you are literally saying they don't be able to defend their node because tis capped and at the same time you are trying to say others should be defending their node and suddenly the people defending are under geared? You are trying to find weird loopholes here when it should just be simple. The people defending should be the people that live int he node + vassal system. That is plenty of skilled players to pick from.
And even than it should still be a large chunk of the people that live within the node 60-70%. (different rule sets could follow based on tier of node a lvl 6 and a lvl 3 should have different variables of rule sets with numbers). This idea that we aren't strong enough to defend the node so we need to slot wars with people from else where for all players sounds pretty silly. All these stuff I've already seen before and games pull them back since its cancer. Same war loggers fighting every single war making the whole scene stale.
People aren't dying because its a fair fight between both sides with even numbers, you are trying to twist things around to fit your own narrative. And again another naïve point with you trying to say everyone is going to come together to fight the zerg, the whole point is everyone is coming together to be the ZERG. You literally empower them to do that with uncapped wars where fights become 1-3 and end as fast as that caravan PvP. While reducing any kind of strategic play as it doesn't matter since zergs just run everything down.
I dont know how you are talking about everyone is going to somehow get together to zerg the other zerg. You literally were advocating for no global chat so no one is going to know anything when majors guilds are zerging them down.
You are again not making this make any sense. Any strong members any NODE or player can have. All these points do not add anything to this conversation you are trying to do what ifs on strong players vrs weak players.
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The only thing that matters is you are trying to suggest tis ok for 2000 members to zerg down 500 people in uncapped wars and somehow suggesting that is content people will enjoy and they aren't getting f'd over having to fight a 2k zerg. When in fact They are getting f'd over losing their node, their home, their loot in the storage with your limited bag space.