Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
If you want PvE you go to divine nodes.
u gonna spend 95% of your time in ashes killing mobs and doing pve xd
All the rest of the content in the game is PvX. Even the reward part of a successful node siege is an open world zone for several days. Only the actual siege part is probably instanced.
So in terms of instanced rewards, PvP isn't favored.
Limited Access
The single most strongest way of limited access is distance. With no fast travel and a huuuuge map with rugged territory to cross, there will only be a limited number of players in any area to compete with you over a given thing.
Another important way that access will be limited is through the competition itself, as people will instinctively limit information. If you do not know that this boss in this fairly easy dungeon has a small chance to drop this very rare ingredient, they will not compete over it with you and you and your guild will not tell them where you got it.
And lastly the temporary nature of almost everything guarantees that with every change happening in the Node system competition will become more or less fierce. If you as a peace loving guild play your cards right, you might establish and run a fairly unimportant Tier 4 Node that survives various changes of your Parent Node. In peace times, you comply with the rules of the parent Node, after all the worst thing they can do is put some taxes on you, while you could secretly support their enemies if the Parent Node is no good. And when the Parent Node is gone and players in your region begin to fight over the leader position, your guild scatters out for adventures further away so that your Node does not accidently ends up as the Parent Node with a Damocles Sword hanging over your head. That also has the added benefit that you go away as other pour in meaning you leave the area of highest conflict until things settle in again.
With all that being said - the impact of access limitation in the above mentioned ways will to a good portion come down to us testing and giving feedback during the Alpha 2 stage as the current impact is impossible to calculate beforehand. Intrepid needs to closely monitor how far apart/close together we are on Verra and whether that helps or limits the flow of the game.
I picture you living in that showcase because you were hiding under the caravan until everyone else in the fight died and someone found you under the caravan.
My PvX.
Now with more Equality.
Ok, so a fairly standard raid boss fight with two competing raids.
I have questions!
In T&L is it the raid group with 50%+ damage that gets the boss kill?
Are the members of the other raid group not enemies until they engage inside that circle?
It looks somewhat like what I envision we'll see in Ashes, except for all the teleporting. For dungeon bosses I hope there are chokepoints where you can have friendly groups preventing others from even entering, at least if they are flagged as combatants somehow, until they are strong enough to overcome the blocking force. For worldbosses out on the open that may be difficult.
Would you prefer that, actually? I feel like that would just lead to the situation becoming more stale, faster.
Losing side loses more rapidly, zergs get advantaged, etc.
I don't care either way, but I'm interested in the concept in terms of what people find good.
To be clear, I feel like the entire premise of territory/chokepoint control doesn't work in modern MMOs and Ashes does not seem to be going 'back to when it mattered' (this is sort of a good thing, but in effect it can be a bad thing if you try to design it like old games but with a new coat of paint... the paint is toxic in that case, is what I'm saying).
im guessing the blue out line is the boss fight area and the other group cant see the bosses health unless they have a member in that area... i liked the moment at 11.28 wiped them in seconds that time...
this type of PVP content is what people will be expecting i think, what people complain about is the thought of getting killed out in the open world more often...and for no reason...
I don't want it for all fights. Actually, I think it's more about the flagging than the choke points really. I would like to reward organization in terms of having forces ready to take on competing raid groups before they even reach the boss.
It looked like people were able to run back to near the boss uncontested, and the fighting only took place while engaged with the boss. I think that is a bit silly. If all you have is enough for the raid to kill the boss, then that is what it is, but I don't have a problem at all with one raid group on the boss and one raid group protecting them outside the immediate boss area. Yes, it favours large guilds or alliances, but that's fine. The competing group will have to bring two raids groups as well, and they will dispatch the first raid group through sheer numbers, unless the raid group on the boss peel off and help them.
The main issue will probably be the flagging if starting a guild war on the opposing raids isn't a thing. Having to go corrupt to contest a boss through other means than DPS would suck a little IMO. That and boss-fights lasting long enough to where that back and forth has time to take place.
But back to the question, how did the flagging thing work in that video? Did it happen automatically when entering the circle?
Yes, basically.
Thanks for the data.
Ok. Well, it's certainly a way to do it, and it circumvents the flagging issues to some extent. Without having tried it versus how I imagine Ashes will do it, it's hard to say which system ends up better, but maybe we'll find out in A2.
Well, given what we've seen of Ashes' combat design so far, I'm willing to say.
For Ashes combat as it is designed now, TL's way is better.
I'd love a game where Ashes' system would be better, but our current combat direction ain't it.
Yeah, I think so.
Steven says that the potential for that is necessary. I sort of agree.
But there are a lot of places where that's not true (for me) and at least a few where it feels more like Intrepid 'made up a reason to support that happening' rather than the other way around. But honestly I still feel like I know too little to say, so it's just 'feedback', nothing meaningful.
'Themepark-y' feels fairly subjective to me here. Like, my first reaction was 'what the fuck are you even talking about', but I thought about it and was like 'nah if I step in Nerror's shoes I can sorta see it.' Still...
As for your actual point the actual reason I'm chiming in. I feel like I've observed enough of the people interested in this game to come to the conclusion that this 'i want less fairness in the game' to be a common sentiment. But given the combat design of Ashes specifically, I do not think that really makes sense.
Of course, it's subjective
Can you elaborate what you mean about the combat design of Ashes that goes against the "I want less fairness" sentiment? I don't quite follow.
You saw the caravan stream right?
Cuz let me tell you, Ranger is built about as 'peak soul crusher' rn in a choke point design scenario. Rangers even accounting for future balance, will immediately demolish almost any situation with a choke point just by sheer range. This isn't even a balance thing, the combat is just tuned to have a certain amount of oppressive output and cc and a certain type of mobile and fast that Ranger has been given every tool and the box to make most classes miserable and the range to KEEP it that way. That's a factor of the archetypal build of how they approach ranger, not numbers, speed of output or balance.
The reason why this doesn't happen in older games with choke points is ammo, and speed. Without limiting factors on those thing, the 'fairness' falls apart and whoever got to the choke point first has a large enough advantage that an attacker trying to close the gap will feel /miserable/. Which will lead to zerging to force the issue.
I'd want proper party-based balance, where a party (and definitely a raid) could use their combined abilities to push through a chokepoint. This would obviously need to have a cd of sorts.
This "I can respawn and just run back w/o being stopped" is really bad imo. I want the entire party having to respawn together and immediately regroup, before attempting to go back, because they'd respawn flagged and would be most likely flagged all the way till the boss room (unless they stand around doing nothing for over a minute).
Obviously this can be abused by spawncamping, which is why I've asked about multiple respawn points before. L2 had several TP spots from which you could approach a location (and the location could have 2+ entrances to it), and I'd definitely want Ashes to have several options when it comes to respawning.
This makes the entire encounter fairer and more strategic overall. And if the boss is designed well enough, the newcomers would also need a slight pause before continuing the farm, cause the boss would be a bit too strong for them due to all the anti-zerg (or potentially "flagged people around") buffs/effects.
But just waiting outside the circle in safety until everyone is back and then going "1..2..3... wheee, back on the ride for another spin" is not for me.
The problem is when you hate risks in a game which has risk vs reward as a core pillar.
To like AoC you must love the caravan concept and risks in general.
This whole game is about resources:
- artificially created scarcity
- moving them around trying to avoid being attacked
- taking resources from other nodes
You must see the PvE as the source of resources and with the associated risk that you will not get them.
If Steven removes risk, it goes against a core pillar of the game.
So if you want PvE just to chill or to show how skilled you are to defeat some AI then AoC might not be the right game for you, because only 20% of content might overlap with your expectations and you might lose the resources anyway on your trip back to the node.
The thing is I don't hate risks. I like them, they should be there. I was just saying I prefer PvE.
Haha yes! I was just lucky, people give me too much credit haha
Also as people mentioned, yes, "PK" is gonna be primarily between gatherers who are greedy. Some call it "robbery", some prefer the term "Advanced Stalinism".
I don't play MMOs solo haha, I have played with different guilds off and on. I just typically don't get into solo pvp fights because I don't enjoy them as much
Is that you talking?
I would not mind the mega catacomb generated by the Divine metropolis which extend it's vassal nodes, to be closer to the PvE you like but only if you find a way to make it so only for the divine citizens, without relying on instances.
Yeah we have ventured into those as discussions as well, some who are looking for more specific PvE have mentioned liking the idea of some sort of boss room lock out, but that is also just us chatting and not expecting it haha. At the end of the day, regardless of my preferences, I think Ashes will be fun!
Love to see this. IMO this is exactly what PvX is all about, and people being all absolutist about their position (pvp vs pve) doesn't serve this game, or any of us, at all.
Personally I'm much further on the pvp side of the spectrum, but an MMO is all about being part of a broad, multi-faceted world, and I like the fact that our different motives + objectives serve as a natural basis for a functioning economy. That's proper PvX.