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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
But on the personal side of things... Dropping things from my inventory upon death doesn't make me want to die less: I already prefer to die as infrequently as possible. And it certainly doesn't make me want to kill others for their stuff either. But death is inevitable. Thus losing mats and glints is inevitable. Better not getting involved too much with that if possible then.
If we didn't drop resources and glint, I don't say I would then play a master gatherer, but I would keep the door open and maybe dabble a little more in the collecting of fine herbs and sticks. But as it is, I won't spend much serious time into something I can lose at anytime from random events, whether other players, monsters, lag, or a server disconnect. It will remain an extra, a small bonus, but never the main attraction.
Will you guys loot the random ash piles you come across? Or leave them for their dead owner to claim them back?
This depends on the soft power risk variance in my node.
In general, I'll pick up the ash piles, but the question of where that loot goes by the next day or so depends on about six factors we still don't know.
hey! don't text (post) and drive. that's dangerous!
The Game would become "less dangerous". Like in WoW. And You wouldn't need to watch out as much for PvP-Gankers a.k.a. Playerkillers.
Can we Please keep the "Risk" of losing some Stuff on Death ? It makes the Game sound so fresh, interesting and alive. I must sometimes keep myself awake when i do Stuff in WoW-Token Craft.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
At this point it can be applied to single player games, but they only care about tuning the Loss/Surplus value by Difficulty.
(Production Time * Production Method Portfolio Expected Value) - ((maintenance "time" * fungible cost-value analysis of production activity) + access/existence cost) = Progression Cost Investment Incentive Portfolio + Loss/Surplus
Now applies to any game with random drops and actual choices about which ones to go for that doesn't have a single obvious answer (the access/existence cost exists because we must at least assume that two different activities have different access costs, even if only in terms of time). Could still be a single player game.
((Production Time + Disrupted Time) * Production Method Portfolio Expected Value) - (((maintenance "time" + (disruption mitigation time cost)) * fungible cost-value analysis of production activity) + access/existence cost) = Progression Cost Investment Incentive Portfolio + Disruption Mitigation Cost Investment + Loss/Surplus
Depending on the game, you might be able to directly factor Disrupted Time into the Production Portfolio Expected Value, so you can write that part however you prefer to perceive it. Games where you have 'the ability to go to a dungeon but that dungeon has a known 10% chance of spawning a special obstacle that will delay you but not offer any additional reward', for example. Doesn't work as well when the percentage chances are unknown, so this is the version easier to work with for MMOs. You can expand the equation for when that special obstacle offers an additional reward, that just goes back into Production Portfolio Expected Value.
The Disruption Mitigation Time Cost is factored where it is, because there are games where you can spend time beforehand to mitigate disruption itself, but for more complex games these need to be calculated separately because Disrupted Time is almost always a probabilistic distribution, whereas Disruption Mitigation Time Cost should always be a set value for the given player's Risk Tolerance (relative to their perceived Disruption chance).
(Production Time + Disrupted Time) * (Production Method Expected Revenue) - Related Expected Expenses - (((maintenance "time" + (disruption mitigation time cost)) * fungible cost-value analysis of production activity) + access/existence cost) = Progression Cost Investment Incentive Portfolio + Disruption Mitigation Cost Investment + Loss/Surplus
Just splitting up the Expected Value variable. Expenses include basic things like food, potions, taxes, monetary travel costs. Things that tend to pop up in MMOs. This one is a little hard to write up clearly because, for example, the Expense of Taxation on products goes up (and has variability) as your product volume increases, but depending on your play style, your Travel Expenses don't, if you don't travel back to town every time, in most games.
Travel expenses can be grouped into the access/existence cost, if you're particular about it, for certain games, therefore, but I personally prefer to keep it separate unless the only way to access the production method is to pay a Travel Expense. Otherwise, you can't know if a given player will pay the Travel Expense in time, or in Cash.
If all of the above is acceptable, then I'd say that 'dropping things on death' (let's not even bring other players into the picture) counts as a morph of the (Production Time + Disrupted Time). A large enough Disrupted Time addition is equivalent to a material loss, but it is difficult to apply one of these in a reasonable fashion for a game people like, because it must be an actual forced time disruption, not just a theoretical subtraction, and no one wants that.
i.e. it's not enough for you to be kicked out of the area, you would have to become unable to pivot to any other portfolio within any reasonable timeframe.
In strong theory, you'd have to go further and enforce this over at least a 20h period.
But, at the values of Disrupted Time that are acceptable in a game with competition and fiat (to prevent population bleed, debate this value at leisure) it's not actually highly unlikely, and you can just tightly tune the Expected Revenue across most portfolios, and then have death increase Related Expected Expenses and access/existence costs.
There is a range of values for those, where enforced Disrupted Time is not, itself, required to be too large. You can also mess with the 'fungible cost-value analysis of production activity' that I haven't explained, if you want, but that's a huge catch-all term for a large number of different things, and this is so game-dependent that discussing it as a real option is impossible in Ashes.
In the end, there's a theoretical tuning of Expected Portfolio Revenue, death-related Related Expected Expenses and access/existence costs, where item drops on death don't matter. This isn't 'it should be removed', I'm saying 'it literally does not matter what the value is, there is a tuning for these things where it works'.
However, full-loot games almost certainly have low death-related Expected Expenses and Access/Existence costs, which then leads to an entirely different structure. As for Ashes, we do not have enough information on the subcomponents of those three things to make any inferences, which also 'unfortunately' theoretically means that they could easily be tuned to optimize for 'no loot drop on death'.
What we do have, is a relatively large indicator that there's some concept around that, because players don't necessarily drop items on death in certain content or under certain conditions. Remember that whole 'guild war dec to get to kill people and take their stuff for free' problem?
If I am gathering, and have items in my inventory and I join a passing caravan in order to walk back to my home node, and I get killed during the Caravan attack, do I drop my gathered items? Do I only drop 25% of them because I was technically purple?
Does a person who was hunting me for my items, get to approach the caravan, choose to Ignore the Attack/Defend option, and still target me, who has explicitly chosen the Defend option, in a situation where the battle has already started?
And if not, is a Caravan Attacker required to actually attack within a certain timeframe, or can I have 'fake bandits' attack my empty Caravan so that anyone approaching won't get anything for killing me, and just have all my mats in my own inventory? Can I use Decoy Caravans to protect my inventory?
Insufficient information.
The presence of mule already is a hint that something is being transported.
Players without a mule will have some obvious behavior either fighting mobs, gathering or running on fast mounts.
So maybe my suggestion is redundant. Explorers might get enough safety.
I will leave them if I recognize or determine that the player is part of my metro nation.
I will collect if I am in enemy territory.
Also depends on server habits.
"Falling apart" might have been a little hyperbolic.
There is no deeper point to this thread other than me being curious what people think about such a change. I think the biggest change for me will be how the game feels, rather than how it plays. Not necessarily better or worse, just different.
The more nuts-and-bolts part of things that you go into in the longer post you wrote all seem very solvable for the developers, IMO. Depending on what they have already done, it might not even require a whole lot more dev time, just a slight course correction.
They were in the passenger seat! But traffic was busy
you had multiple people in the passenger seat? O_O why they didn't sit at the back?
Maybe he is a raid leader and was using a bus to reach the dungeon
deathwarping will make the game a lot easier on many levels weather it's bots going for basic resources or people doing suicide runs in high level areas. this combined with the pvp issues it brings up will just take away from the overall experience of which would make a dynamic world feel more alive
no adversity just participation trophies really. it turns risk for reward into get something for doing something
This isn't necessarily true in Ashes since XP debt may lower your droprates for gathering or collecting things from mobs.
It is true that there would be some period of cost-less 'transportation', but this aspect of the equation has already been at least considered.
Basically, you can only ignore the XP penalty for a certain amount of deaths, which means you must 'pay time to restore the XP eventually', and that time can be factored.
I mentioned your response, because I don't think the "PKers will still drop stuff" was mentioned there, so I thought this clarification would be nice for anyone who's not familiar with the L2 system.
Those who are interested in my opinion can go read that thread (which you allegedly already done), those who don't care and just want to interact with the thread obviously skipped my response because it's inconsequential to them
It just adds that much more meaning to almost every activity outside your doorstep.
Yeah, I get that, but it also adds that much more loss aversion to many people, which is why they avoid these games.
I'd say as long as you get to keep a good portion of your collectables on death it would go a long way to retaining those people. Like 50% or more.
edit: keep in mind we wont be able to pick up everyone's gatherables because of bag slots etc.
50% is already the value.
It does nothing for retention among my small sample size, which consists of '3 people that can definitely understand my econ ramblings', '3 people that sorta understand', '6 people that don't understand but trust them', and about a dozen that just follow without having any real connection to me, but for whom I have detailed data.
It doesn't seem to be connected to the actual amount, in my experience, therefore. In my arrogance, I feel that I know why that is, and it was true mostly before any changes to anything, though Glint and Stolen Glint don't help the matter.
There's a Dev Discussion on it too, which gives a lot more data that is difficult to read with a bias toward what you've said. i.e. even if you interpret responses in a generous/permissive way toward the 50% droprate, it's still a pain-point tier thing.
That doesn't sound legal ... ... ^^"
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
Yeah, but that's the idea behind the game. If people are so risk adverse that they can't handle any loss, no matter how miniscule, then the basis of the game falls apart.
Just to be clear, are you saying that 50% is 'required' for the 'risk behind the game'?
Because at no point did I mean to say 'these people don't want any risk'.
The ones I know have extremely specific and detailed workable risk profiles, and the Dev Discussion is a good way to look at more of that.
I don't know what caused the shift from '50% is ok', 'well no, that number might still be too much', 'well the game breaks if people can't handle any risk'.
No one's debating that, but dropping things on death isn't even a thing that happens in a large number of situations that 'should' matter to this.
I have no idea what the number should be at for the majority of players to accept it as gameplay risk that is worth the pain. 50% seems like a good start, shrug.
And yes, players who are actively going out "to pvp" are likely going with bags empty so they have nothing to lose. But who knows? Maybe a triggered pvp event rolls up while your bags are half full and you need to make a decision on whether to join it for the fun/glory and risk your mats or head home.
The whole "dropping things on death" creates a decision dynamic for the player that isn't there otherwise. There is a strategic value in depositing things, which equals travel time, and I think that's what they are going for at the end of the day. Just an added element to the game to consider. If the pain isn't too high, then more people might be willing to accept it as part of the game they enjoy.
I'll check out the dev discussion.
If that risk is indeed real, there is no reason to assume a person would only be killed once on any given outing. In fact, if we are able to see that someone has experience debt, it is likely that being killed once will attract others to attack you (easier target).
The thing to keep in mind with 50% - that means if you are killed twice it is 75%. If you are killed 3 times, it is 87.5%. It is reasonable for people to expect this to happen on occasion, and so it is this compounded loss that people would be looking at.
On the other hand, if it is set at 20%, being killed three times would see you losing 49.2% of the materials you originally had on you.
If it were dropped down to 10%, even being killed 10 times in a row would see you retaining almost 35% of the materials you originally had.
Obviously what ever loss players recieve needs to be reflected in corruption - the more loss on death, the more punishing corruption can be. The less is dropped on death, the less punishing corruption needs to be in order to ensure there are still people willing to gain corruption.
The whole corruption system is aiming to limit that incentive, or at least create two opposite incentives: their stuff vs corruption.
There is a strategic cost/risk element to this. If corruption lasts 30m and lowers your stats by 10% and flags you, it might not be "worth" it to kill the guy for his stuff. Meaning, you might have been able to farm the equivalent amount of stuff you just picked up if you didn't kill them or something. This is only something we will be able to measure by playing the game. People may fight back just to lose less stuff, and then you don't get the corruption. Shrug.
It's all speculative at this point, but they have provided incentives for many different actions. Alpha 2 can help fine tune these so that the game play is fun and doesn't collapse into 1 or 2 strategies that everyone does all the time and turn the game stale quickly.
This is assuming that you immediately run back into danger after respawning over and over. Maybe you run back to town and depot first? Not sure how respawn works here.
If you are in a situation where you are getting killed over and over, it's probably because you are heading back to help allies in a fight and aren't as concerned about your mats.
You might just get killed in town though.
Ashes can easily be the sort of game where you're safer before death #1 than you are after it, in terms of location.
If you're in a dungeon, gathering, and some unfriendly groups arrive, dying to one person might be a chain reaction.
Would it be 'your fault' for gathering in an area with too many theoretical unfriendlies? Maybe. But...
"Hey I see a target, log in your alt at the spawn point just in case you can get the double kill when I drop them, I'll let you know how much I get from their corpse so you know if it's worth it'."
(note that it does not matter if that person does not actually spawn at the spawn point, the cost to the PK-er who happened to be doing something in town and switch to their alt is not large, even less so considering the currently proposed 'BDO style' NPC-processing)
Honestly a 'town PK alt' is one of the best things a group could have. Guards should just kill them repeatedly to un-corrupt them, and you just log them in and let that happen whenever someone is around to pick up any loot they drop.
Unless we get guards confiscating Red player drops when they kill them, NOT having such an alt in your home node as a serious player group would almost be an oversight.
Yeah, that is what the 10% figure I had was for - half of 20% that you drop while green.
The point I was making is that in order for the game to have that risk factor that everyone (including Steven) considers core to the games premise, people need to be attacking each other in open world PvP. If that isn't happening, the game doesn't have that base level risk.
Honestly, this is such a core component of Ashes design that I don't expect it needs discussion - in order for the game to have the risk that Steven talks about all the time, people need to be fighting in open world PvP.
It is assuming literally nothing at all other than that if players can see that a character has experience debt, they will consider that character to be an easy target.
What you seem to be assuming is that it will be easy to get back to town. I don't consider this to be something that can be assumed.