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Unpopular opinion : Zergs are necessary and Castle sieges should not be fair
MartianApe
Member, Alpha Two
Now i’m a player that enjoys playing in small but well organized guilds so i’m not strange to been zerged and the frustration that brings, and I admit that in the current day and age content creators and streamers have a little bit too much power when it comes to creating zergs and running people over. However in a world where battles matter because they change the actual state of the world you can say those who win battles have the power to control the state of the world. I just don’t believe a small group of people should have all the power just because they are good at PvP and so increasing the number of people should be a valid response when you can’t win by skill alone.
In my mind the winner of the battle should be the side with the best combination of 4 things:
Skill (PvP players)
Equipment (PvE players)
Organization (Party leaders and/or shot callers)
Numbers (Guild leaders and politician)
The first 3 are fairly common in most MMOs while the fourth “Numbers”, there is usually not much to do other than recruiting more people for your guild.
In Ashes though, there is Politics too, given the way the nodes system works and the fact that there is no fast travel, most guilds will have a base in one city and do activities around that city which means guilds will be competing for limited resources which in turn lead to frictions and battles, but also alliances when it makes sense. And so Guild leaders will do well by keeping good relationships with other guilds with common interests so in case a zerg comes by you have someone to ask for help.
As i said, i don’t believe a small group of people should have all the power just because they are good at PvP because that usually turns to tyranny real quick. Zergs or the potential for a zerg keeps cocky PvPers in place. For this same reason I don't believe castle or node sieges should be instanced or player capped, since that would remove the political factor (Numbers) out of sieges which doesn’t make any sense to me given that the only reason for sieges is actual politics.
We can have fair guild vs guild matches in a coliseum or something i will be the first to sign up for it, but sieges are not the place to define which guild is better at pvp, it's the place to find out which side is more influential and can convince more people their vision for the world is the best.
Now there is a point in which zergs become a problem, this point in my mind is when the difference in number is so big that the fight doesn’t make sense anymore, specially when their only intention is trolling. I’m not arguing zergs are never a problem what i’m saying i guess is forcing equal numbers in fights is not the solution and recruiting more people/guilds to your side should be a valid strategy.
I would love to hear what if people agree or not with this take and please don’t be too harsh on me this is my first post in this forum and English is not my first language
In my mind the winner of the battle should be the side with the best combination of 4 things:
Skill (PvP players)
Equipment (PvE players)
Organization (Party leaders and/or shot callers)
Numbers (Guild leaders and politician)
The first 3 are fairly common in most MMOs while the fourth “Numbers”, there is usually not much to do other than recruiting more people for your guild.
In Ashes though, there is Politics too, given the way the nodes system works and the fact that there is no fast travel, most guilds will have a base in one city and do activities around that city which means guilds will be competing for limited resources which in turn lead to frictions and battles, but also alliances when it makes sense. And so Guild leaders will do well by keeping good relationships with other guilds with common interests so in case a zerg comes by you have someone to ask for help.
As i said, i don’t believe a small group of people should have all the power just because they are good at PvP because that usually turns to tyranny real quick. Zergs or the potential for a zerg keeps cocky PvPers in place. For this same reason I don't believe castle or node sieges should be instanced or player capped, since that would remove the political factor (Numbers) out of sieges which doesn’t make any sense to me given that the only reason for sieges is actual politics.
We can have fair guild vs guild matches in a coliseum or something i will be the first to sign up for it, but sieges are not the place to define which guild is better at pvp, it's the place to find out which side is more influential and can convince more people their vision for the world is the best.
Now there is a point in which zergs become a problem, this point in my mind is when the difference in number is so big that the fight doesn’t make sense anymore, specially when their only intention is trolling. I’m not arguing zergs are never a problem what i’m saying i guess is forcing equal numbers in fights is not the solution and recruiting more people/guilds to your side should be a valid strategy.
I would love to hear what if people agree or not with this take and please don’t be too harsh on me this is my first post in this forum and English is not my first language
9
Comments
I don't quite understand how Equipment as a Strength should be limited to PvE Players.
As if PvP Players won't also do the many things that PvE Players do, to craft themselves some powerful and nice gear. The only Difference between them will be, that some like to do PvE only Content and others also engage into PvP as well, right ?
Right ? ^.^
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
I'm strongly against 500v500 for castle sieges :x I think node sieges should hold these extremely massive no cap battles with thousand players or more (if they can achieve it like TL did) since node sieges everyone can participate and have very high stakes,
but castle sieges I hope they make it as the top end game Guild content in a controled enviroment, 250v250 almost too much since most guilds wont be able to get those numbers online, but 500v500 is just no longer guild content and it becomes alliance vs alliance, which I really dislike
However, you can throw all of that out if you have characters surviving death. If you want a realistic siege, then only one death per player would be allowed. That changes the strategy and makes the numbers more significant. Also makes the characters who can resurrect more significant, although I think some economic factor needs to come into play there to balance the cost of the siege against the reward.
If you want what most players find as fun, then reviving characters is part of it and the number of players isn’t as relevant. A smaller group of highly skilled, well organized players could offset numbers. Even in this arcade style of siege warfare, I think you need an economic factor associated with reviving characters.
We also haven’t seen the plans for how they’ll allow outside forces to break a siege. That’s very much part of siege strategy. The battle of Alesia being the most famous example, being a siege within a siege. And I get the intent is to make an MMORPG rather than a battle simulator. But how much fun would it be to turn the tables at a point in time in the siege?
Could be something as simple as a timer before those outside the siege are permitted to enter if the battle hasn’t been resolved, whether they are allied with the defenders or are another opportunistic faction. That might even play out where attackers and defenders switch tactics to defend against the new forces. And stakes should be higher if the new forces are allowed to enter.
You also need to make the strategy of taking castles and then allowing them to be retaken, rinse and repeat, having a negative return. The cost of losing a castle needs to be very high, with significant consequences economically and socially. Or the rewards of defending higher if you want a less negative incentive.
Sieges, and major battles in general, should have the opportunity for other characters to play their role in warfare at the fringes. Things such as supplying the defenders, looting the corpses, skirmishes, or supplying the attackers. Should play a part. Would they consider the chaos of running a resupply caravan during a siege, or does the lack of caravan resources at a castle make that impossible (or should they consider it)? To me that would be more interesting that just a Zerg.
Yeah you are totally right, also PvE player will fight the fights and have some skills in PvP. I never said a PvP player can't also be a PvE player and contribute with gear. This is a PvX game my man everybody will do both like it or not.
But the point i was trying to make is the better PvE players you have the better chance at getting the top gear your guild has and the better PvP players the guild has the more chances at winning with lower numbers/gear
Equal numbers is literarily the solution for siege you are trying to make a run around argument on why numbers should be a thing when numbers are already a thing in reality.
You don't just have 500 or 250 guild members on at all times that are realizable first of all, it really isn't that easy. So numbers is already something that has a bit of challenge to it and some element of politics is needed to get the right people to ensure you have the highest chance of winning.
Also we can look at a game that released already which is about zergs being Throne and liberty you ruin all elements of politics and you just have mega guilds on the server, or everyone working together to win and removing any kind of competition since its not a fight...
If i somehow can bring 2000 more people to automatically win and just destroy all nodes that sounds like easy work. Not only do you need to reduce that there needs to be other caps so not just anyone can get thrown in without reason. If your group is attacking a node it should be mostly YOUR group. AkA guild, node, vassals, etc you pull from.
People seriously need to get out of their head pvpers are better or with better gear so you should be able to zerg them to win. It is extremely silly because the reality if they are going to be zerging your ass and than people complaining these hardcore guilds are doing. While people thinking they can win against large guilds with zergs will be doing the Pikachu case when they end up on the other end.
Also no one is TALKING ABOUT OW pvp, this is only in relation to sieges. Also sieges running like dog crap with all the loss that comes to the server sounds irritating as hell if you see 4k people show up to make the performance bad.
I understand the limitations due to technology/server capacity I'm not talking about those but i've seen a lot of discussion about making siege battles fair and how to deal with zergs that go against what you are describing, i'm new here in the forum so if that is the plan I'm glad, it seems reasonable however a bit low of a cap hopefully they manage to increase it a bit
I'm impressed you think recruiting 2000 players is easy work you probably should get into politics for real lol.
Throne and liberty has fast travel which contributes to zerging the whole map that is not true in AoC and with 2000 people in your clan and 83 nodes you only get 24 people per node if you distribute your forces, otherwise its impossible to do what you are suggesting. I don't think you understand the limitation of an actual world you need to travel
Sieges should be about power, and power includes money, influence and politics as well as fighting skills
Also you misunderstood me i'm always in the PvP guilds fighting against zergs
That to me sounds like you aren't really fighting zergs or understanding them in any kind of competitive setting as you try to use the word "get good" Yet you aren't fighting against anyone good.....
Also you thinking mega guilds wont' form and use zergs with a large amount of players in AoC is pretty wild. Based on how popular the game is you will have the most competitive groups work together and gate keep content by zerging. This was already shown to be the case in Throne and liberty to the point it ruined the pvp scene. BDO was also in the same boat with people passing off places and doing fake mock battles.
So ill just bring up actual game examples. Cause its silly to think you are better than fighting 4 of yourself but that is the point of a zerg you vrs *multiple of you.
Thanks,
what i want to say, is -> PvP Players will also aim for the strongest Gear they can get - so they have their desired absolute Maximum Power against other Players in PvP.
So when You can get the strongest and best Gear only by being Artisan Grandmasters for Example - and need rare Ingredients and Materials for the strongest Weapons, Armor Pieces, Enchantments, whatever,
WHAT DO PEOPLE EXPECT will PvP-Players do every Second they are not engaged in PvP ?
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
If numbers are important, why don't you/your guild/your alliance recruit more?
Oh for sure but by the definitions I see in this community you are then a PvX player and not a PvP player.
But for once i expect the bigger bosses to be contested in open world and so PvP oriented players will guard the area and stop other guilds from getting to the boss while PvE oriented players will be on the main team in charge of killing the boss.
On the other hand i can see a world where you can get any gear you need as well as leveling by just attacking/defending caravans and then buying the gear in the market and do exclusively PvP if you want to
Dude I'm trying to tell you from the beginning there is no competitive settings siege should not be a competition. Plus if they can get 2k players as skilled as you i'm sorry to tell you the one that is not competitive is most likely you
Also please stop bringing Throne and liberty is complete irrelevant to this discussion server size was 5k plus fast travel, it was pretty much designed for zergs
you keep saying mega guilds, all i hear when you say that is guilds bigger than mine
Lets do some simple logic ok
Big map + No TP + all sieges at the same time = a zergs can take a city but never control the server. and if they split to fight many nodes well that is not a zerg any more right
Plus in this game resources are not unlimited so taking a city with 2k plus might not be even worth it in terms of profit.
Each side should bring to the siege as many people as they can and the server allows with good performance which apparently is 500 v 500 or not even that so i'm not sure why you are bringing 2k players zergs to beging with but in any case 2k is only 20% of the max concurrent users which is not enough to dominate the server without another alliance to be able to fight back
Ya that would make sense to allow 500 vs 500 for a node, seeing as it effects so many more people.
Wednesday's at PM Cst
https://www.youtube.com/@TheHiddenDaggerInn/featured
You honestly are not going to be in competitive sieges gear / skill thing. Based on your knowledge / input it is showing you are lacking actual experience here.
If you want to do logic we will do it based on the actual game and how it works, not your magic up logic.
1. You need to dec a place with a siege scroll, that scroll takes a lot of effort to make based on the level of the city. And there is cooldowns based on node progression as well as if you defend. So do not try to say sieges all happen at the same time when that is false information and nothing to do with logic.
2. Sieges are most likely going to get instanced out since its a set amount of people righting in them. By chance they are not or you still need to travel to the area. You will have AMPLE TIME to make your move towards the city and be ready for when the siege happens. Stop trying to use false logic like people don't know how to go somewhere for their event.
3. We are talking about upcapped wars with zergs, if it is not uncapped and even fights there is not much to talk about.
4.20% of the server is a lot when you are talking about sieges and high end content, that is going to be a large % of the strongest player base that will be getting those players together to do it. Please don't try to use a argument that the whole server works together to fight that 20% as some unrealistic point.
If you want to make a argument there is a larger fraction of the server in another group than I would use that as my example for a zerg.
5. Stop trying to make it seem like most people want to fight 1v3+ ratio for siege which will be competitive.
6. You need to realize when people have all their mats in a city and its destroyed to a zerg people are going to be ok with losing all their items in storage to what they would think is BS even more so if it becomes common.
I have memories like this from the Linage 2 times when we manage to maintain our castle for 4 sieges in a row after our previous allies attacked us with 3 times our number it was epic
Ok let's try to keep this civilized, i know you are passionate about the topic and this game, I am too, but I didn't come here to make enemies and frankly i don't enjoy discussions like this.
So i will make the first step and try to answer with no provocation.
I'm 37 years old, i played MMOs all my life i only played PvX/Full loot PvP game including Lineage 2 for about 10 years and my assumptions on how the system will work are based on Steven mentioning he is a big fan of Lineage 2 and the fact that other systems already implemented are really similar to what L2 had
from the wiki this description to me sounds extremely similar to L2 siege system including the use of the term guild war or node war to describe the suspension of the Corruption system between members of two guilds or nodes until one of the two surrenders or losses the node in case of nodes.
This description tells me there will be a time window once a month where all declared sieges will be resolved in a period of around 6 hours during server prime time. At least this is how L2 sieges worked back in the day. Now this description can also be interpreted as every castle and node has their own time window on prime server time but different days maybe, however given all other similarities i'm willing to bet its the first option.
Also from the wiki, sieges will most likely be open world with some instanced locations, this is also really similar to L2 castle siege system. In L2 there was a limit for how many guilds could register as attackers or defenders but no cap on how many could actually randomly join with no registration and start attacking people. The limitation for no registered guilds was no respawn point near the castle and they were unable to actually conquer the castle
I have awesome memories trying to hold a castle outnumbered 3 to 1 waiting for the rest of our alliance to finish conquering another castle and come to our rescue.
A system similar to this would force guilds no matter their size to prioritize some fights over others while still allowing small guilds to somewhat influence the fights by just going in with no registration and help the side the want and maybe make some favor with the wining side or at least get some reputation for being good at fighting.
This is an old game but this is by far the best siege system I've seen in all my years playing MMOs and i sincerely hope this is what Steven has planned.
Guilds and Alliances size and limitations are also pretty similar to Lineage 2, although a bit bigger the guilds in AoC are still limited to 300 max and alliances to 3 guilds, now if my guess is correct they will implement it so only one guild actually holds the castle and reap the benefits of it, not even the alliance members.
This system all together makes for zergs to make little sense and crumble over time when internal politics raise inside the mega guild because not everybody get to benefit.
And this is mostly why i sincerely believe Steven when he said
Now i agree that zergs could be a problem and i mentioned it in my first post, i'm concerned about zergs following a content creator or whatever external factor decide to destroy a node for no reason, yes of course and Intrepid has to find a solution for this, I just think there must be another way to avoid troll zergs other than limiting siege sizes.
Now if half the server hates your guild and or node for in-game reasons and they want to zerg your town to the ground i'm all for it and i don't see anything wrong with that
Now hope this helps you see my side of the argument a bit better and sorry for lashing out at you after your first comment.
Pvp too... if you are looting other players actual items from corpses. Absolutely not as BG/Arena awards.
Ok si ill further explain some things based on the game. Because sieges are 250 vrs 250 (or 500v500) instantly there is going to be a way to prevent people from engaging be it blocking off the entire zone so no one can go in that area or doing it as an instance. Instance would be the best choice as it be a way that doesn't impact other people from accessing areas / content with what they need to do.
Lets not mix up the prime time reference as well as this has been talked bout before not allowing wars during times when people are sleeping so everyone has a fair shot to attack / defend. Pretty much its going to be time slots that you can pick from and have your war during that time it isn't going to go on for 6 hours or anything of the sort. I'm unsure the timeframe from alpha 1 (not that it wil stay the same) but I think it was around 45min for that.
I understand you like L2 and AoC takes inspiration from a lot of games including L2 but at the same time AoC is its own game and things are going to work different. Rather than castle sieges being uncapped they set a number on it for a reason technical reasons of course. But even Steven doesn't want things to be a zerg fest and have more tactical elements of wars.
Not that it is going to be easy to not make it a zerg fest with the main strat is to just run in a big balls unless they have good design to counter that. Which that can be a whole discussion in itself). But if he is already desiring to not make it a zerg fest, I don't see why it would be empowered by making node sieges uncapped and allowing zergs to rush it and ignore any tactical elements of the game they could have designed around it with defenses and such.
We need to remember the effect of a node being destroyed literally removes content and removed every single item every player had in the town into nothing for them as well as their homes. When people lose things in a way they feel is unfair it is going to damage the game. Zerg strats are powerful and hard to deal with and why there is excitement if you manage to win. Though at most times what happens is complete discouragement meant because most people are going to lose. People will end up living in the town where the zergs are strongest just to stay protected and further ruin the balance of the world and cause overall less pvp since it isn't worth the risk of being attacked by the zerg.
I've fought mega guilds and won but i can see the fatigue that sets in for people, I've fought zergs and of course loss as well and see the frustration. For any good or excitement you get, that is easily outweighed by the feeling of loss that usually is what ends up happening to most people. Not everyone is as battle hungry to fight odds or will be happy about winning / loss while the zerg keeps bringing more people until they win.
So for important kinds of fights that destroy node and such zerging it would be terrible. If we are talking about OWPvP zerging of course will happen and give plenty of people a chance to fight against it and that is fine.
While i get what you want to say,
the PvP-Players will probably not even care what they are called. Their Goal remains the same, right ? Master the Game/their Characters as much as possible and then engage into amazing PvP Battles for more or less World Dominance in the Area's they want to succeed in.
Guild 1 (PvE) recruiting Guild 2 (PvP) to protect them while they farm a Worldboss ? I can see this happening.
No Idea though if Players can get purely PvP-based Gear alone just from ambushing or defending Caravans, or participating in Node Sieges.
I admit, i don't have as much Oversight right now as i want to.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
Interesting... is there any comments from the developers or Steven about this, because based on what I've seen so far I'm willing to bet this will not be the case unless an instance is absolutely necessary because of performance reasons.
I don't think you understand my point, I don't really like L2, not anymore, I would not play another L2, in fact pretty much any other system from L2 i would complain if they implement. It just happen than based on my experience and what information i have from AoC, L2 siege system is the closest i know and happens to be a really good answer to zergs in my opinion.
Also i don't really want a zergfest (maybe my use of the word zerg in the title was a bit too strong and clickbaity ) like you call it either, i just don't think capping the fights is the right solution to zergs and i'm yet not convinced it is needed, i believe the systems i described before would take care of most zerg issues. Maybe i'm a bit naïve but still
I'm also not advocating for any system in particular, i guess if i could summarize the idea i wanted to transmit in a few sentences would be something like this:
"I don't believe capping the fights is the right solution to the zerg problem, it removes most of the influence of politics and strategy from the fight and makes it so it only depends on tactics and fighting skills. Sometimes even numbers does not mean the fight is even. Sieges can me something more than just a competitive pvp activity"
You might not agree with this I'm guessing, and that is fine. If it ends up being like you are describing it, its fine too, I will be doing my best with the existing rules, but it will be like any other MMO in my opinion.
This i completely agree, a complete destruction of a node its something to severe for a random zerg to be able to accomplish, however losing a node will be discouraging and feel unfair anyways. Also it will feel even more unfair and discouraging for a guild with 250 of the best PvPers to take over and destroy a 2000 citizen town without them being able to do anything just because they are good at PvP, specially if 80% of the citizens can only watch and prey.
Also one more point i wanted to pick your mind on, you mention you would prefer if Castle Sieges are a Guild content instead of an Alliance content, i'm not sure if this was discussed at some point or not but for example let's say a server has 15k users, at 300 members per guild there is 50 guilds just to get a number, but there is only 5 castles and this can only be attacked once a month. How do we decide who goes first? is there a months long queue to attack or how does that work? can there be multiple attackers? how do you imagine this working?
To focus on the point about the people in the city not being able to fight because its capped to whatever number that might be. Yes people will complain if its loss cause people are attached. People will also complain if they can fight and its loss from something they deem unfair even more so. If that thing is unfair and feels like they can not win against it they will be even more vexed and start blaming the game over blaming players. Which has a much more negative impact.
Castles sieges are guild content based on the game.
Though i am for that being guild content as i view there should be a lot of layers of different elements of pvp. Nodes, guilds, corruption, etc. Rather than everything just being the same allowing for different elements of groups to be able to enjoy pvp like smaller groups.
I'm unsure what their plans to do are for it, my only guess is like how you dec on a node you will have to make a scroll to dec on a castle. IMO when someone decs it should give a window to allow others to dec and pick a random dec of that pile that go for it. (Which helps reduce people trying to game the system and do fake decs so they can remain uncontested).
Though i feel once a month is too long I'd rather have it be more bi weekly or atleast once every 3 weeks. But everything is down to testing and can be changed at the end of the day.
My own question to you so i can better understand is why do you think more numbers of equal power are not going to win. Be it defending or attacking and removing the bias advantage either group might have. More people = more dmg, healing, tanks, etc. If you have a group doing double the dmg there is no reason why they won't be winning.
I also don't really think politics on bringing more people is really that big a deal, generally people will want to fight even more so if they re rewards. Things are going to be skewed for people to want to come to destroy a node and get a bunch of loot. People in PvP always lean more on the destructive side even more so when there is a reward so getting people isn't hard.
Also more on politics unless we are going to be very punishing with the amount of sieges you can do in attacking I don't feel that leans too much on the politics in a sense. Mainly because there isn't a cost for an individual to help in an attack (i can explain more on this if needed).
.. does anyone know if PvP will offer gear/mats/whatever rewards on a par with PvE at all?
In my experience that's v rarely the case (for those who can't dedicate their life to the game anyway).
My understanding is no. That's kind of the whole pvx thing, everything comes from the world(PvE) and PVP is just a way you can fight over the world. I wouldn't be surprised if you can get some items, like accessories, from pvp but you probably won't be getting a full set. You aren't going to grind a set in pvp and then go into the world and terrorize people grinding pve.
Yeah fair.
Tbh it's already a massive improvement over my experience, where pvp is usually nothing more than a massive gold sink (+ a bit of resource battle advantage).
Whereas AoC has PvP/PvE and the economy far more interwoven.
Imagine there would be always 500 Fighters defending a Node, when there is enough People (+500) Node Citizens available.
The Attackers might number up to 800 or even 1000.
But then comes System and says : "SIIIKE!!! Only 500 of You at Maximum can attack the Node ". (lol)
That would not only break the Realism with a massive kick into the Balls, but it would also nerf the Game.
Nodes should search Allies. More Allies -> more possible People to come to your aid and defend your Node. Battle of Minas Tirith-Style.
And People should be able to "gang up/team up" against Other Nodes. Because honestly -> how is an Alliance of different Guilds and/or Nodes EEEVER supposed to otherwise take down a tyrannic Despot-Metropolis held by Elitist Guilds who enjoyed beating up other Nodes for half to full a Year or more,
with them basically steamrolling all other Players with superior Characters once the Numbers of Defenders and Attackers clashing are equal ? 😁
You WILL see that, in Ashes. Mark my Words.
Some few Guilds being the absolute Rollercoasters of Power, while others can just not keep up with them. It happens in World of WoW-Token Craft and i bet it happens in other MMO's as well. Why should it be different in Ashes ?
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
I feel you guys are stuck in trying to rp thinking you are the main character and its going to be like 300( movie). And are not actually thinking about actual game design and the effect of having 500 more people....
Nothing is going to be epic you are just going to lose the fight quickly. And the large guilds are going to be the coordinated hardcore guilds that will forever end up staying in power since now they can zerg down anyone they want.
How you imagine it happening in a rp (movie) is not going to be the reality for players.