The Arena Thread

With Alpha 2 on the way, I have decided to dig deeper into the competitive Arena system offered: 1v1, 3v3, 5v5

This is what has been confirmed, so let's dive into it. Just remember that these are my personal opinions based on what's been said, years of comeptitive gaming and what I am hoping this game mode will turn out to be.

At the moment, I suspect that these will be objective based arenas:
For 1v1 & 20m, FFA can remain as objective based as we have dueling (20man FFA being a battleground style game mode)
For 3v3 & 5v5, I think it should be the classic team deathmatch style (last team standing) with no respawns.
Most of scenario based modes in this game is objectives based, whether it be destroying sieges, caravans etc. so having a smaller scale PvP based arena focused on purely the classes and team vs team will give it some more diversity instead.

The Arena should focus on player vs player, working as a team using skill, game knowledge, cooldown management and coordination to defeat the enemy team with zero respawns. There shouldn't be arena gear - it should be what your character has earnt from raids, dungeons, crafting etc and that is what you use to compete with, therefore skill can only be used so much before it is time to go back out into Vera and get some upgrades (preventing people from just sitting there queuing Arena and letting them still have to take part in the game)

- Confirmed is a ladder system, ranked rewards per season with titles, cosmetics only is perfect
- Having too many Arena brackets will diminish players participating and the ranking system
- Arena should be cross realm to create more diverse battles and different team compositions
- You & your team should have to travel to an NPC to que the Arena (preventing node sitters)

Balancing of the Arena:
We already know that it is a rock, paper, scissor type game style and in dev videos, regarding the arena, they did say skill can help counter it. When balancing the arena, I believe there should be:
- A way to not affect the rest of the gameplay, it can be changes specific to that instance (i.e spell/ability is reduced by -25% while in the Arena but has full effect in open world) this prevents class changes from clashing with PvE and open world PvP
- There should be no potions or outside buffs for the Arena, only what your team can provide, if there is potions make it a big cooldown to use therefore its a more calculated decision
- 6 month seasons with seasonal rewards confirmed, and players can come show off their skills and maybe once a year tournaments can be held so that players can get into it and cheer on later when the game develops a bit more
- Gear cap should be a thing to a certain extent to prevent the hardcore PvE'rs from dominating in the arena (purely from their gear) and still putting it down to mostly skill and team coordination to outplay your enemy team and also (BIG COOLDOWNS can be not useable in Arena to make it a more exciting and competitive game mode)

I have stated some compromises to not break the integrity of this game and enjoy all the aspects it has to offer while still making Ashes of the Creation the game you want it to be. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

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Comments

Ludullu

Pyrolol wrote: »

But you won’t allow PvPers who hit a certain high skill cap rating to get just one upgrade for their efforts?

Just as I wouldn't reward instanced pvers with gear. Any and all gear should be acquired in the open world.

Nightmarelol

NiKr wrote: »

Pyrolol wrote: »

But you won’t allow PvPers who hit a certain high skill cap rating to get just one upgrade for their efforts?

Just as I wouldn't reward instanced pvers with gear. Any and all gear should be acquired in the open world.

I feel like this just rewards people who have more time and are able to grind grind grind more than everyone else or if your apart of a big guild on the server, you will then have an unfair advantage in a competitive scene?

If going by what your saying it’s “purely gear from open world used only”, what if a soft cap or even possibly a Max gear cap or even % scaling in the Arena to at-least level the playing field between people no-lifing 24/7 gear and people who work full time jobs. I feel this atleast shows true to a person of skill rather then a person of gear.

Ludullu

Nightmarelol wrote: »

I feel like this just rewards people who have more time and are able to grind grind grind more than everyone else or if your apart of a big guild on the server, you will then have an unfair advantage in a competitive scene?

This is inherently true even with instances, unless you can ONLY instance hop up to max gear, because you'd need to farm some gear in the open world to use it in an instance, and if the instance is hardcore - you'd need good gear, which is acquirable only if you're strong enough to get it in the open world.

Nightmarelol wrote: »

If going by what your saying it’s “purely gear from open world used only”, what if a soft cap or even possibly a Max gear cap or even % scaling in the Arena to at-least level the playing field between people no-lifing 24/7 gear and people who work full time jobs. I feel this atleast shows true to a person of skill rather then a person of gear.

Yep, I'd definitely expect some kind of cap on gear progress in the arena.

L2 had an enchantment limit. Depending on how gear power is designed in Ashes, I'd expect something similar. Potentially some alternative to "gear score", but hopefully not a dumb lvl of "if you're at 990 and he's at 1k - he'll always win".

Xeeg

I don't think arenas should be for regular characters. Regular characters should do their pvp content in Verra with caravans, guild wars, node seiges, PKing, etc.

Arenas should be an instanced, ranked system where you enter and become max level with all available game buffs to choose from. You should be able to save and create loadouts for gear/secondary archetype/buffs, so you can quickly pick a loadout to suit the arena match.

Systems like Ranked Arenas only work if everyone is entering on an equal playing field. If people have better gear or better characters then it isn't a test of skill, it's a test of in game character progression. That's what the world pvp is for. Arenas are for pvp skill and build competitions, not character progress competitions.

Another side benefit (apart from 100% fair pvp), is that players can use arenas to test builds that they can work towards with their main characters in the world. This allows the arenas to serve multiple functions for the player base, while keeping the world of Verra somewhat separate from the instanced Arenas.

Spif

Keep in mind that the 1v1, 3v3 and 5v5 Arenas comment dates all the way back to 2017. A lot can change.

IS need to be really careful about offering 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 in a game balanced around 8-mans

Small team sizes are going to be terrible for non-healing support specs (bards, summoners and maybe tanks). IMO IS should start on the high side of group sizes. Perhaps 8-man premades for BGs and 4-man Arenas.

Honestly, I don't see a lot of people being as interested in Arenas until the game has matured a bit because of: "Arena points that can be used to buy gear is not currently in the design." Arenas are popular in many games because of "free" gear.

Depraved

Pyrolol wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

he literally just described l2 olys lol

I meaaaan, that shit did give Oly Weapons, and in the early versions those were quite nice and quite op, so not quite L2 oly, but yeah, relatively close.

Or were you talking about Pyro? Cause those oly weapons is exactly why I'd prefer if Ashes didn't have that.

Even just for one slight upgrade?
You will still need to gear your character 90% in other means, raiding, dungeons, world events, crafting etc

But you won’t allow PvPers who hit a certain high skill cap rating to get just one upgrade for their efforts?

it wasnt a slight upgrade XD on top of that you had hero skills...

it didnt really bother me too much tho. lets say 8 out of 10k people will have those..or lets say 64 (1 per class) thats fine. however, the more heroes you had, the more you could control the map

Depraved

Nightmarelol wrote: »

NiKr wrote: »

Pyrolol wrote: »

But you won’t allow PvPers who hit a certain high skill cap rating to get just one upgrade for their efforts?

Just as I wouldn't reward instanced pvers with gear. Any and all gear should be acquired in the open world.

I feel like this just rewards people who have more time and are able to grind grind grind more than everyone else or if your apart of a big guild on the server, you will then have an unfair advantage in a competitive scene?

If going by what your saying it’s “purely gear from open world used only”, what if a soft cap or even possibly a Max gear cap or even % scaling in the Arena to at-least level the playing field between people no-lifing 24/7 gear and people who work full time jobs. I feel this atleast shows true to a person of skill rather then a person of gear.

well you would still need to grind the arena, dont you? its the same thing.

also, what if the gear can be acquired without being in a large guild? problem solved. farm something, sell it, buy mats and craft it. that will get you your items if you cant directly farm the items you need.

Ludullu

Xeeg wrote: »

Arenas should be an instanced, ranked system where you enter and become max level with all available game buffs to choose from. You should be able to save and create loadouts for gear/secondary archetype/buffs, so you can quickly pick a loadout to suit the arena match.

From personal experience this usually leads to full separation of the playerbase, which defeats the point of having open world interaction.

Same applies to instanced pve, which is exactly why I'm against any gear stuff in any instanced content.

Ace1234

I think you should be able to progress within whatever content you enjoy, but the rewards should also only be relevant to that type of content or content of equal difficulty/risk.

If you want endgame level stuff, then you need to play endgame level content, meaning if you want gear relevant to high end pvx content (like highly contested boss areas, combatant flagged content, and any other type of content that is more emergent in nature with the most amount of overlapping systems, complexity, and risk), then you should have to play that stuff to get those relevant rewards.

Not everyone wants to do that stuff though and theres nothing wrong with that because being able to play the way you want is part of agency and mmos, but that just means those people dont get the best stuff for the hardest type of content. You should be able to progress within whatever type of content you enjoy through playing it, and your rewards should be relevant to that type of content or content equal in difficulty/risk.

Pvp players should be able to progress in arenas, and get arena related rewards, and pve only players (players who only do corruption enabled areas/instanced pve) should be able to progress in that type of content with rewards relevant to it. I think this is also a good argument for adding more specialized session-based/instanced content as well, because you can provide specific content and progression paths to all sorts of player niches and tight communities, because you are still incentivizing players to improve, grow, and take more risks in the open world and higher-end content, but without forcing them to do so and pushing them away from the game through instead providing them a space to play the way they want to play until they are ready to try new types of content.

Xeeg

NiKr wrote: »

Xeeg wrote: »

Arenas should be an instanced, ranked system where you enter and become max level with all available game buffs to choose from. You should be able to save and create loadouts for gear/secondary archetype/buffs, so you can quickly pick a loadout to suit the arena match.

From personal experience this usually leads to full separation of the playerbase, which defeats the point of having open world interaction.

Same applies to instanced pve, which is exactly why I'm against any gear stuff in any instanced content.

Well the idea here would be that there are no rewards from the arena content.

I think that there are a few advantages to this system:

Players can test different builds at will. This is a lot of fun and a great way to plan out your main character.
Players can compete in 100% fair pvp at will. Very nice aspect to have in a game as an option.
Players with limited time can still play with friends on an equal playing field. One of the biggest problems with MMOs in general.
Players may be incentivized to enjoy the content in the world of Verra for what it is, rather than try to rush to max level, because they have max level experience already.

As for the separation of players concept, I share your concern. However, I think that if the main world is fun and interesting enough, the instanced max level arena serves more a complementary function rather than a total replacement. After all, why waste time in arenas that aren't increasing your power level when you could be out levelling up, running that caravan, or preparing a node seige? I'd imagine that node wars changing the world of Verra are going to be much more rewarding and fun than an easy to access arena battle. Personally, I see myself using it as a utility and to play with friends who aren't the same level. My main playtime would still be around the actual game.

Maybe in order to make this work you would ahve to remove the ranking concept. As soon as there are ranks, teams will be incentivized to chase ranks in arenas and then they may not care as much about node seiges and the regular game.

Ludullu

Xeeg wrote: »

After all, why waste time in arenas that aren't increasing your power level when you could be out levelling up, running that caravan, or preparing a node seige? I'd imagine that node wars changing the world of Verra are going to be much more rewarding and fun than an easy to access arena battle. Personally, I see myself using it as a utility and to play with friends who aren't the same level, with my main playtime being around the actual game.

Because to a pvper "showing off" is the best reward. And when the tools to do so are presented on a silver platter - all you do is show off.

I doubt a lot of pvpers would even care about what's happening in the open world if they immediately got max lvl and best gear/buffs in the arena. Why do anything when you already have everything.

And this point would only be driven further once those pvpers do in fact try participating in open world stuff, but then get fucked by some pvers that got much better gear and simply stomped the pvpers.

Xeeg

NiKr wrote: »

Xeeg wrote: »

After all, why waste time in arenas that aren't increasing your power level when you could be out levelling up, running that caravan, or preparing a node seige? I'd imagine that node wars changing the world of Verra are going to be much more rewarding and fun than an easy to access arena battle. Personally, I see myself using it as a utility and to play with friends who aren't the same level, with my main playtime being around the actual game.

Because to a pvper "showing off" is the best reward. And when the tools to do so are presented on a silver platter - all you do is show off.

I doubt a lot of pvpers would even care about what's happening in the open world if they immediately got max lvl and best gear/buffs in the arena. Why do anything when you already have everything.

And this point would only be driven further once those pvpers do in fact try participating in open world stuff, but then get fucked by some pvers that got much better gear and simply stomped the pvpers.

Agree completely. I edited my post to say we might have to remove the competitive ranking system to arenas to make it work. If it's "unranked" it loses the showoff appeal.

Pyrolol

Some good opinions happening here

I will say however, I disagree with not having some form of competitive ranked play that’s a high skill cap, having these smaller scale game modes (such as 3v3 or 5v5) is essential and shows a better indication of skill, in bigger masses a lot of people just hide to do the bare minimum but receive the same rewards. It also encourages players to push their classes to the limit and improve their own skills in the game also giving them motivation to improve and this can be done through smaller scale instanced PvP with no outside influence, as quick decisions, high intensity situations occur. It also gives players something to aim for trying to climb a ladder in ranked mode can do this and keep the game interesting and competitive.

People need to understand when there is an Arena involved as stated previously on here, you do not just spend 100% of your time queing arena, you only que arena when your teams on (can’t say much about this 1v1 mode). You spend your time participating in other aspects of the game weather it be PvE, Sieges, Dungeons, Raids until your main Arena team has logged on to then que, even then you have things such as ladder inflation and other things to then push higher rating on the leaderboard

At the moment zero gear is earned through the Arena, so this encourages players to go out and get gear through the other aspects of the game
(Receiving only cosmetic rewards is something i don’t agree with, however it is a compromise) to get this whole ideology of Arena demons just spamming 24/7 out of there heads and they’re still in fact taking part in the rest of the game to make there characters stronger, to counter the hardcore PvE’rs with a gear advantage is to simply add a gear cap in the Arena which has been done in other mmo’s that offer the Arena system

Nightmarelol

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Voeltz

Interesting discussion here. There's nothing wrong with giving rewards in both PvP and PvE. Most MMOs I've played give the best rewards only in PvE/Dungeons. Thats wrong because it alienates PvPers and forces them to do boring content when they would rather be doing something else that's enjoyable. Best MMO I've played allowed you to fully level and gear up in any path you chose or a mix of everything which included PvE, Open World PvP and Instanced PvP. This was fantastic because it alleviated the tedious max level grind by allowing you to have fun while still being rewarded instead of just mindlessly grinding mobs all the time. Being that this is a 'PvX' game, it would only make sense to adopt a similar philosophy. Then the dials can be adjusted depending on how much engagement Intrepid wants with each system. It's pretty simple actually. If all the rewards are obtained through PvE only, everyone almost exclusively does PvE whether they want to or not because that's how you progress and get stronger. So if the goal is to be another typical grindy boring PvE MMO where PvP is an afterthought, yes go ahead and design it that way. If the goal is to innovate and "move the genre forward", then rewards need to be distributed evenly within each level of gameplay (PvE, PvP, Crafting/Trading, Node Building) so players can decide which playstyle they enjoy most and engage with it.

Endowed

Cadac wrote: »

Iand rewards.

Any rewards should remain in the arenas/BGs. And not ever be seen in the open world.

Nightmarelol

Endowed wrote: »

Cadac wrote: »

Iand rewards.

Any rewards should remain in the arenas/BGs. And not ever be seen in the open world.

Spoken like a true player who’s never seen any rewards from Arena/BGs ever in his lifetime

However, @Voeltz, spot on mate that sounds exactly like the direction AOC needs to go to survive in an ever changing industry.

Krisco

As some have stated... as long as PvP doesn't have its own skills, gear and progression (because that absolutely breaks immersion) I'll be happy.

Pyrolol

There’s already so much open world activity in this game, I don’t see how offering something slightly different thats part of the game and not obligatory wouldn’t be a good thing

Yet to also see a bad reason for rewarding players who achieve something in the Arena with rewards, even suggested an absolute minimum reward, other than just cosmetics?

Also, Arena isn’t only popular because it gave gear. It was fun, fast paced, intense and quick decision made combat in an environment with no outside influence. It’s also popular already in a lot of other genre games, there’s ranked 3v3 Arena & ranked Trio even in FPS’s too because it’s fun. It kept me playing WoW for years because in an MMO there’s really nothing else that gave that competitive edge and even bonds a team closer then an Arena type scenario, there were times where it was legit heart throbbing when you had to clutch win it for you team

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