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
The existing game loop of achieving things in the world, shaping it to your vision (or competing against other players) should be interesting enough to keep you playing. Aside from the responsive world design aspects, that includes things like dungeons, quests, playing new roles and levelling new characters. But if that isn't interesting to you anymore, you should probably just play another game or do something else with your time, instead of pursuing random busywork checklists the devs generated to keep you paying your subscription.
Even if there are parts of the game you hadn't previously tried out or enjoyed, there's really no good reason why a battlepass would have to be required to get you to explore and enjoy those things. At that point your interest is so low, you might as well do anything else with your time.
Of course I can make that claim and be correct when I did not state that every RPG has xx feature or trait.
Is FFXI the most popular FF game?
Is it instigating a new trend in MMORPGs?
Do you think that I’m claiming that individual dev teams can’t label their game an RPG, even when it’s not or even when it doesn’t have all the parameters of an RPG?
Is Rugby Soccer? Is American Football Soccer? Is Soccer Football?
Yeah. I don’t think I said anything like “requirements”. I don’t know why you are adding “requirements” to anything I said regarding fundamental RPG traits/features/rules/mechanics.
I think the concepts you mean to convey here are emergent story v dev curated story?
And you also seem to be saying, “Among the thousands of RPGs I can find one that doesn’t have a parameter you say is fundamental and then I can find another one that doesn’t have a different parameter you find that makes your claim invalid.
If I can find one Human who can’t speak that invalidates your claim that speech is a fundamental Human trait.
Oh! Look. Someone taught an Ape sign language!”
Yes. It is possible to find individual exceptions to a rule that are not great examples of the rule.
Somebody made a square watermelon.
OK. When I said that Watermelon are fundamentally round, did I also state that it’s impossible to have a square watermelon?
I don’t think I claimed anything like that.
Is it possible to make seedless oranges or seedless grapes. Sure.
I say, “A fundamental feature of Football is an oval ball that players toss down the field.”
You say, “That’s not true because you can sometimes kick the ball down the field. It’s also not true because Soccer is also called Fútbol and that has a round ball and only the goalie can toss the ball down the field.
You have a narrow vision of what Football can be.”
I’m talking about American Football.
Then you give me an example of gameplay from Soccer.
When I say, “That’s not Football, that’s Soccer”, you say, “Well, they call it Fútbol in Mexico.”
🤷🏾♂️
Technically, Kickball could be labeled Football.
Typically when I say, “That’s not an RPG”, when you look at the official website, the devs will not state that their game is an RPG.
The exception to that might be Hack n Slash Action RPGs. Because those games move so quickly RPing is barely even possible.
When practically the sole purpose of those games is to mow down a plethora of targets in less than 15 seconds. And then race to the next group of targets.
Refusing to accept what?
You seem to be trying to give me an example of a Class.
Instead of giving me an example of Tasks/Quests to do at Endgame that are outside of the Gear progression loop.
As far as I can tell, MH does not do a better job of retaining players at Endgame than MMORPGs that have a Battlepass.
RPGs do not need to be about story.
RPG is about the player being able to imagine being the character he plays and having some control over the decisions that character makes, to influence it's future.
If you take away control, then the story is linear, like watching a movie.
If you add control but take curated story away, the world can still offer the experience of being a fighter, bounty hunter, thief, trader, crafter, hunter, mayor...
If you take these and you separate them into different games and focus to amplify the feeling a player would get in an RPG game, you get new specialized games:
figter -> hero fighting game or strategy if you are a leader
bounty hunter -> you have specific (quest like) objectives
thief -> stealth game
trader -> economic strategy/survival
crafter -> economic strategy/survival
hunter -> survival
mayor -> city builder/strategy
Story helps immersion and entertainment when the developer is not able to add the story elements into the random encounters of a sand box world.
But as soon as the developer wants to specialize and wants to push players to follow a story, it takes their freedom away. Basically is not a role playing anymore but about seeing the story.
Example of a game which has all the elements I listed above:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/233860/Kenshi/
The story is whatever you chose to do and you can even amaze other people by telling what events happened and what decisions you had to take, some with ethical or emotional impact, if you can immerse yourself (else you just use the game mechanics to reach a goal but you are not "role playing").
So a good RPG game does not need story but a good story may hide the poor RPG world behind it.
Now you can transform the RPG game into an MMORPG and you can get the same experience while interacting with other players too. And you still don't need a story. Dygz needs but the character doesn't.
King Arthur getting Excalibur. Frodo getting the Mithril coat. Hercules and his Nemeon Lion armor. Ironman with his suit upgrades. Thor creating Tormod. Endgame need to craft time travel suits.
In fact, the only means of gaining power as a troupe in finctional work that is more common than hunting out new equipment is in hunting out allies.
I don't recall Gilgamesh ever leveling up.
Point is - gear acquisition is a key part of fantasy story telling, always has been, always will be, and to say it isn't a key part of MMORPG's is simply missing the point of the genre.
Getting gear is a part of the games storytelling. When you consider the fact that allies in an MMORPG are generally a given, gear acquisition is probably the primary means of storytelling based progression left.
I want new sources for content, while Dygz wants new pointers towards content.
Battlepasses never add new content, they simply point you towards already-existing pieces of content and tell you to do them. For Dygz that seems to be enough to satisfy his everquesting, while for me (and seemingly quite a few others) that is not enough and I want new sources with new reasonings behind the content.
Dygz likes to bring up his high exploratory bartle score, but I feel like that quiz should also separate the explorers into physical and mental ones. A physical explorer is interested in going to different places and seeing different stuff, which can serve as purely its own content and source of reward. A mental explorer would want and seek out new experiences, which would then be their own reward.
Dygz has stated that he wants rewards for doing things that he doesn't usually do. To me this implies that he's not much of a mental explorer, because to him doing those new things aren't enough of a reward on their own.
And because of that, when a BP can point Dygz towards something that he hasn't considered trying and says "this is your new content and I'll give you a reward for doing it" - that's true and is in fact perceived as new content.
But to someone like me, I would've already tried that content, if I was done with all the stuff that I had a higher interest in. So BP telling me "hey, I got new content for you" would be an utter lie, because I would've already known about (and probably experienced) that piece of content, so I would see the BP reward as "something that I gotta do chore repetitive content for" rather than a cool reward for new content.
As an example of this, throughout my years of playing L2 I played every single class to the best of my ability and to the absolute extent of the knowledge of that class. I obviously had "mains" and preferences, but I still tried out every other source of content variant in the game. So if L2 had a theoretical BP that would tell me "to go play this other class" it'd just be a repeat of something that I've already done.
I also think this is the core difference in overall BP attitude among players. All the BP lovers don't really enjoy fully mentally exploring the games they play, so when the BP gives them a direct incentive to do something new (to them) - they're happy with that. But BP dislikers are probably the people that have enjoyed the game to its absolute fullest already and now want something new, while the devs give them a BP and say "here's a pointer towards the content you like, go enjoy it", but these players have an intrinsic liking of content, rather than a desire for external reward structures, so they obviously dislike this BP and see it as lazy gamedesign.
This is why I consider something like this to be akin to daily quests. It is literally just asking me to do something I've already done, something boring and monotonous.
And yeah, people like Dygz do indeed just want text on their screen telling them what to do. It isn't about content at all - as Battlepass type systems generally don't add any.
Dygz is the only person that fits in to this group that I have come across that is against daily quests - this is normally the bread and butter of such players, as they are literally given directions every day.
I really dislike daily quests. Especially if they give some stuff that you need that is important. I play to have fun, daily quests are a chore - basically work. A battlepass is optional. Its not something you need to progress. Its for players who want something cosmetic, and thats a whole different ballgame. Som e people likes to chase that, and more power to them, as long as I dont have to.
Most of the community here does.
I don't recall if it was an Intrepid led vote or discussion, but they bought log in rewards up a few years ago and the community here was VERY loud and near unanimous in saying we don't want anything like that, including daily quests.
So, Intrepid are well aware that the vast majority of the community (or at least the community back then) absolutely do not want them.
Very nice. I mean, if AoC has gotten the features that they are saying it will have, then there will be plenty to do, bessides having to do the same quests over and over.
I think everyone wants new sources for content, but gamers can out race the devs' ability to provide new content.
Ashes has Nodes as a solution for that. Which is great. And Ashes does not need to have a Battlepass for that solution.
But...
Ashes is also going to have a Cosmetic Market. And they already used a Battlepass for APOC. And Battlepasses are trending as a feature for modern MMOs, so I expect Battlepass will be the formin which the Cosmetic Market is implemented.
You seems to be saying that Ashes can't have both. And I'm saying I'm expecting Ashes will have both.
And, sure, the presentation might be similar to the Battlepass in WoW.
For MMOs that don't have Nodes as a solution...
I don't consider PvP to be a new source of content - and since out of the variety of activities that can be done in an RPG combat is low - at Max Level I'm going to want to be rewarded with other stuff than just BiS gear for doing other stuff than combat. Because combat is not the primary motivator for me in an RPG and PvP is the least motivator of all.
I'm not going to continue to play an MMORPG just to be rewarded with gear for killing stuff.
That's the least amount of fun in an RPG for my playstyle.
Explorer/Socializer/Achiever/Killer
For gamers who have Killer first or second or have Achiever first or second, the BiS Gear loop is sufficient for retaining them after they reach Max Level.
For players who have have Achiever third or last or have Killer third or last, the BiS Gear loop is probably not going to be enough to retain them after they reach Max Level.
And that's why we see gamers saying that Battlepasses have them do stuff that isn't fun. Because the rewards on a Battlepass don't help with BiS gear. And most of the Tasks are not going to be about killing Bosses.
Fundamental to RPGs is the game loop of "Here is a Task/Quest - complete the Task/Quest, you get a reward." But a good RPG will have a wide variety of activities for a Task/Quest besides just "Kill this Boss to get BiS gear".
Sure... it's also possible to grind individual mobs for minimal xp without a Task/Quest.
But, that feels like a tedious grind compared to the bonus xp that comes with Tasks/Quests. Especially in MMORPGs.
Battlepasses provide rewards for a wide variety of activities that aren't just "Kill the Boss for BiS gear". And since my Killer rating is 0%, it should be obvious that I'm going to be happy being rewarded for doing just about anything else in the game besides killing stuff. And, since I am Fashion over Function (because RP/Storytelling/Character Acting are more important to me than combat) Cosmetics are the perfect reward for players who have Socializer first or second and Killer/Achiever or Achiever/Killer last.
You claim that Battlepasses never add anything new. I don't know why you say that.
The Fortnite Battlepass - the free track - gave me 7 new characters to use for storytelling: Artemis, Zeus, Poseidon, Cerberus, Aphrodite, Medusa and Ares.
Doesn't give me more combat prowess - but they do open up more RP/storytelling opportunities. Which is primarily what I want from an RPG (even though Fortnite is not an RPG).
I also did pay $12 for the Star Wars Rebel Pass because that instantly gave me Chewbacka - which normally would cost $12 or more. Plus it also gave me 7 large building sets (and I was hoping to get some sci-fi buildings in the game at some point) which would have cost me at least an additional $24.
The free pass has 10 decoration bundles that would have cost at least $4 each had they been in the item shop. Plus another Rebel building.
The Star Wars Rebel Pass also dropped at the same time Star Wars content was introduced to Fortnite - with Rebel and Imperial NPCs and gear and even a bit of a story chapter.
So your claim that "Battlepasses never add new content, they simply point you towards already-existing pieces of content and tell you to do them." is patently false.
Cosmetics can act as new content. They typically come in Seasons that have a bit of associated story that also acts as new content rather than already-existing pieces of content.
But, sure, the Tasks of a Battlepass are similar to grinding already-existing Dungeons and Raids. They just point you to other activites in addition to pointing you to already-existing Dungeons and Raids.
And, yes, it's quicker and easier to present the Tasks as lists, rather than having to wait extra time for the devs to craft Quest dialogue for each Task. Which is a primary goal of Battlepasses - to offer activities (and rewards) for players to pursue more frequently than is possible to do with expansions. More activities than just the BiS Gear Endgame loop.
That could be helpful in general.
I don't think it has much meaning with regard to Battlepasses.
Because Battlepasses are mostly about offering activities and rewards while waiting for new content via expansions.
I'm pretty sure more than half the current gamer population who do Mythic Dungeons and Raids at Endgame would leave if they were not rewarded with BiS Gear. The vast majority do not stick around just because defeating the Bosses are their own rewards.
I bet the same is true for Monster Hunter. Maybe half of the gamers who currently stick around for Endgame might do so just for the novelty of how the combat dynamically changes, but I bet at least half would quit playing if they did not get better gear or some commesurate reward for defeating the Bosses.
Battlepass Tasks (and rewards) are sufficient to retain me while I'm waiting for new content in a way that Dungeons and Raids are not.
And, they drop new content every 3-4 months rather than every 18 months.
Again, Ashes already has Nodes as a solution for implementing new content more frequently than 18 months.
You seem to be arguing that because Ashes has Nodes as the solution, Ashes shouldn't have a Battlepass.
While I'm just saying that I expect Ashes to have a Battlepass because they had a Battlepass for APOC, they are already going to have a for-pay Cosmetic Market and Battlepasses are a popular trend.
You're really arguing apples and oranges and we agree that apples are a great solution for the dilemma of waiting 18 months for new content. I'm just saying apples are great AND I expect Intrepid to also offer oranges.
I don't think that's quite what I said.
What I actually said is one thing I like about Battlepasses is that the structure of the Battlepass can get me to temporarily play outside of my typical playstyle - which is good from a dev perspective and from a social perspective because I'm trying out other aspects of the game that I would typically ignore.
I don't know how you can try to paint me as not much of a mental explorer when I typically have at least 4 alts of different Races, Genders, Classes, Artisan Professions and Factions. And I typically play through the available story from at least 3 different character perspectives. I also typically have at least one character pursuing the Carebear Challenge of reaching Max Level with 0 Kills.
Sometimes I also have a handful of characters trying the 0 Deaths Challenge.
But that's still only going to take me about 4 months to complete. And then there will be 8-12 months of time waiting on the next expansion.
That being said...
Yes. Each of my alts is likely to have one signature weapon.
Which means I'm going to be focused on just 4 weapons.
A Battlepass can motivate me to briefly use a weapon I haven't tried before.
My Blacksmith will probably be striving to be known as an expert in Melee Weapons and a Battlepass could motivate me to Craft a handful of Ranged Weapons.
My main character in WoW is a Cat who sometimes will change into Tauren Form.
She will never change into Treant Form because she is a Cat; not a fucking tree!
And that has nothing to do with not being much of a mental explorer and everything to do with having restrictions and flaws on my each of my characters to help with RP/Storytelling.
But... a Battlepass Task might be able to motivate me to have my Cat hide in a closet and shift to Treant Form a couple of times.
And individual Quest could not do that. I would just ignore that Quest. I might even try to compensate for that xp by farming flowers. The structure of rewards on a Battlepass are more likely to motivate me to try stuff I would not normally do.
And it's cool to run into stuff that motivates me to stuff I normally wouldn't. That is also a form of mental exploration.
Again...
I'm a Carebear. Which means I normally will not kill stuff that doesn't attack me first.
But, in Nightingale, I wanted my Druid outfit to be green. And the only way for me to get Green was to kill some Grendels for their Grendel Thread.
Having a green Druid outfit superseded my typical Carebear nature. Which is a fun form of mental exploration - what can push me out of my typical playstyle??
In the Ashen Forge chat, you will almost always see Taradyn.
Taradyn asked me in our Discord, "Oh! How did you get Green as a color??"
I told her I killed some Grendels.
She said, "Oh! I won't do that because I never kill mobs that don't attack me first."
I replied, "Yeah. I typically don't either, but... I head-canon/RP that I acquired it some other way."
LMFAO
I didn't even know it was possible for someone to jump so far off base.
I don't consider trying a different weapon to be new content.
Using a weapon I normally don't use is not the new content.
The new content is whatever the reward for the Battlepass is.
I like the mental exploration that is the equivalent of "Oh! The way dyes are designed in this game, it was able to push me out of my Carebear playstyle and kill something that won't attack me first!"
But, again, there's usually new in-game content that comes with a Battlepass because there's typically a bit of story to go along with the new Battlepass Season/Chapter.
And then the rewards also act as new content from an RP/Character Acting/Story perspective in the form of Cosmetics or Decorations - not from a combat prowess perspective.
One NW Battlepass dropped when Mounts were introduced. And it was fun to acquire the Mounts I wanted for each of my alts. It was also fun to try out the Races. It was not so fun that after I completed all the different Races I necessarily felt a need to do a Race each week on my own. But it's fun enough that if it moves me along the Battlepass path I'd be down to run a Race once each time I have an 8-hour play session.
I mean...
Dailies can feel like a chore when the fomo is so high that if you don't log in every day you get reset back to the start of the rewards path. Or if you don't log in once a week, you get reset to the start of the rewards path.
But... modern Battlepasses are not like that.
A modern Battlepass is typically available for 8-12 weeks.
You can skip several days or skip several weeks and still get to the end of the rewards path. And there is a wide variety of Tasks availble. Always some stuff that you would typically be doing anyway - and it's usually possible to complete a handful for them in 20 minutes.
I might log into NW to play on my main for a couple hours and notice that I have BP Tasks to "Kill 10 Enemies with a Ranged Weapon" and "Kill 10 Enemies with a Bow".
My main uses a Life Staff for his Ranged Weapon, but I have an alt who uses a Bow.
So, I take 7 minutes out of my 2-hour play session to knock out those 2 BP Tasks on my alt and then switch to my main and finish the remaining 113 minutes of my play session.
Killing stuff with a Bow was as fun as doing stuff with my main. It didn't feel like a chore. And I still had plenty of fun doing other (BP) Tasks with my main.
I won't have to kill stuff with a Bow for a couple weeks if I don't want to.
And, I could even not play for a couple weeks and then play for a couple weeks and then not play for another couple weeks and then play for a couple of weeks and still finish the Battlepass. So.. doesn't feel like a chore at all.
Where likely what would feel like a chore for me is prepping for a Dungeon/Raid.
Yeah. I typically have roles that I want to play and roles that I don't want to play.
I'm definitely not going to want to play every single class available or every single Race available or every single Artisan Profession available. Probably because I'm not going to try to craft so many distinct personalities.
Your perspective seems to have more to do with you being a completionist rather than merely a mental explorer. There is overlap. You can be both.
And, you'll notice that Achiever is third in my Bartle Score motivation ratings.
For instance, there is plenty more I could do with the LEGO Rebel Tasks. I could earn a bunch more points but I already earned all the rewards so there's no reason to do so unless I just want to do it for completionist reasons.
I would still play to build the sets I got from the Battlepass and for storytelling purposes with the new characters I acquired, but I feel no need to actually pursue the remaining Dailies and Weeklies and Milestones.
Similar for the main Battlepass. I acquired all of the new characters I wanted even though I have a few other items on the path that I skipped. I could try to do a bunch of stuff to give me the BP points I need to finish each page on the path, but I'm probably never going to use those items.
Battlepass doesn't really tell you to play a specific class. And, yes, Battlepass Tasks typically include stuff you would probably enjoy doing if you were getting xp for doing so. Without needing to have 10+ alts always seeking to gain xp.
Again, I think what you're trying to say here is that BP players are not completionists who are going to try every single Class, Sub-Class, Race, Artisan Profession, Faction (and in Ashes... Social Org and Religion). The vast majority of RPG players are not going to do that. I think you will find there are relatively few who MMORPG gamers and players who exhaust all combos of gameplay.
I'd conjecture that most of the gamers who are against Battlepasses are already satisfied with running Dungeons/Raids for BiS gear at Endgame.
They could easily have each pass be purchasable with in-game currency, always be available with no expiration (meaning no FOMO), and have progress tied directly to in-game XP or a dedicated currency but also have optional paid progression or the ability to buy the pass with real money outright.
Helldivers 2 is almost the perfect example of how battle passes can be handled well. They never expire, you never have to spend money on them to unlock everything, and you get the currency just by playing. But they do have optional objectives that reward bonus currency so there's still some room for improvement to move away from this whole "I don't need the game telling me how to play" thing some people get so hung up on. Honestly if Intrepid implemented passes just like that but instead of adding the optional daily/weekly stuff, they set it up to where every x amount of general XP you gain you get BP currency, what would be so bad about that?
I was talking about what the BP makes you do, not the BP reward, which is why I said that BPs don't provide any new content.
Yes, cosmetics can be content, but that's a post-action reward, rather than the action itself.
You're still stuck on the gear acquisition actions, even though several people have already said that it is not the only thing you do even in non-rpg games, let alone mmorpgs.
Making BP-like tasks should be as difficult as making bulletin board tasks in Ashes, at least code-wise. Both are just "interact with this menu that spits out a random action - do action - get reward". This is one of the reasons I don't want a BP. We already have a feature that functions nearly identically.
And those boards could be node-type-dependent and you'd get your wide variety of actions, from military nodes asking to kill people to divine nodes asking you to talk to different npcs. And players would be free to choose which tasks they want to get.
As for speed of content release. If 3d modelers and animation riggers can create several cosmetics per 3 months, I sure as hell expect some people to be able to write a few lines of dialogue and the coders to put that dialogue into a few npcs in those 3 months.
This completely blew my mind tbh. Do you have an internal logic for this and could you explain it to me? Because I simply cannot understand how you're ok with doing smth because the BP asks you to do it, but would ignore a quest purely on the basis of it asking you to do the same thing.
What's your reasoning behind this distinction?
Did that Grendel Thread come from a BP task? Cause to me this sounds as if a quest made you do something that you denied wanting to do in the quote above. And if it was in fact a quest, then what's the difference between you going against your own nature, to the point of having to head-canon yourself out of the situation, while a WoW quest of "turn into a tree for a few minutes" would make you completely ignore it (supposedly due to a reason of "that's not my rp")?
It would feel like a chore because it's something that people tend to repeat a lot, right? Though afaik big raids are usually a "once a week" thing.
But in the context of longer play sessions, where BP is providing people with reasons to keep playing the game (this assumes that they already did what they themselves wanted to do) - the BP tasks would be a chore to those who already do a variety of things in the game. This is why I brought up the mental explorers.
A person who's interested in trying out a ton of different stuff will try out that stuff on their own, because they're interested in that. And if BP brings up an action that this person had absolute 0 interest in - the action would be a chore (except its seconds meaning)
This obviously goes against your reasoning for liking BPs even though they might ask you to do smth that you have negative interest in, which is why I asked about said reasoning, because I can't quite comprehend what kind of difference your mind sees between a BP task and a quest-related task.
Is it just the reward type? Cause that can be easily fixed by having more quests with cosmetic rewards or, as I said before, adding a cosmetics currency to bulletin board tasks.
To me "achiever" thing is more about "I overcame this struggle/hardship" rather than simply a "I got everything" thing.
The acquisition of knowledge itself is more important to me than any given reward. And according to the wiki page about the bartle taxonomy - that seems to fall under the explorer archetype.
Also, the funniest quote from that page, given the context of this discussion
However, Explorers will often become bored with any particular MMORPG when they have experienced its content. They will tire quicker than other gamer types, and feel the game has become a chore to play.[21]
And to me, playing all characters with all professions and different builds is simply a part of exploring the game, just as a person might want to explore the entire map. I also always come up with a special name for my characters, related to their class/race/profession (usually just one of those) and could easily come up with rp backstories for them, but never needed to do that because I don't play in RPing circles.
It's more like I'd say that they're not mental explorers at all, or at the very least have very low score on that type.
But I'd also conjecture that majority of players only care about the BP rewards rather than the "it keeps me playing the game" part of BPs. Which is why I say that we don't need a BP and simply need to use that reward structure in an already-existing feature of the game.
Those who want to get those rewards can do that at any time, while people with shorter playtime hours won't have a BP timer looming above their head reminding them to go play the game more. You say that modern BPs have a ton of time to finish them, but this then implies that they can be finished very very quickly by someone who aims to do that. This would then mean that BP would not add enough content for the exact people that it's meant to keep playing the game - the hardcore timers.
So for a part of the gaming population a BP doesn't serve the purpose you claim it serves, for another part of the population it doesn't matter at all (cause they create their own interest or are drowned in overall content) and for another part it's a doomclock constantly ticking ahead and saying "you will miss this cool cosmetic if you're not done with the BP by the end of its period".
As I see it, all of those players could be easily satisfied by simply having a better reward structure in the game, unrelated to any BP-like mechanics.
Why do we need BPs in mmos that do have all that structure? Simply move the rewards away from the BP to literally any other system in the game.
The question is why are you dedicating omnipresent sections of the menu to that, if you could just make it an organic part of the actual game through quests or by making certain content (dungeons, exploration, guild events) more visible. You could have node ministry NPCs proclaim challenges for players to participate in 50 arena battles and get cosmetic currency as a reward. It's like you actively abandon the 3d game world to hand-deliver the chore list to your worker drone player. It's so perversely corporate. If you would rather do inane work than play a game, there are plenty of real life jobs that will give you 60 hours of tasks, and they'll be much more rewarding.
Here's the one suggestion I would have to make the battlepass less cancerous for me: Don't show me the menu unless I opt in somewhere. Advertise it through quests or in some store, but don't throw the battlepass in my face every time I log in or go through menus. Or at the very, very least let me opt out (for good; not once every three months.)
Prove to me that you've developed a game with gameplay mechanics you believe in, and objectives that don't requrie hand-holding, dailies lists, and flashy brainrot menus to be enticing.
I think that's also the reason it's so contentious that needs to be addressed: There's more behind the battlepass than just the extra checklists.
- The more you let devs rely on those checklists, the more lazy they will be with the immersive, enticing world experience itself.
- And the more the community is handheld by the checklist, the fewer players you will find who will be available and interested to make deliberate, active, interactive, coordinated decisions on their own.
IT is a easy way for them to monetize skins at a cheaper value to interest players. Also you dont even know if the shape the market place will even take.
AoC is getting money off subs and the market while not doing a box cost or expansion box cost. If not enough people are subbed tot he game than the outfit market will be next main soruce of income. If that market isn't enough than they need ways to get people to spend money on it IE battlepass can be another option, if that isn't enough than they are to get their money in other ways. Being high cost for all players, less armour sets being made to get in game, p2w, etc.
The more you fight methods to monetize that aren't p2w the closer you get to p2w as the option, or the game shutting down.
If Intrepid were to net even a quarter of WoW's peak total sub count and paid their employees each 200k a year they'd still have a revenue near 500million left over yearly. WoW was at one point really good but, their aims shifted and so did their core staff. It's all about maintaining the same culture and business practices that kept the game popular to begin with. I don't believe a Battlepass is necessary at all for a good MMORPG. It's a sign of dead or dying MMO that can no longer appeal to their customers with the product they're offerring. It's why WoW turned into a whale hunter with their overally priced cosmetic items rather than improving gameplay and introducing content.
I'd rather have a varying cost on cosmetics than a BP. Mostly because cosmetics are just cosmetics. And being able to buy them outright is also simple and direct. Having a BP usually means having a free part and a paid one. If both sides require their own cosmetic rewards (with the paid part having "better" cosmetics) - that's not only double the work for the devs, but also double the corpo feeling of the game.
Everyone knows that BPs exist purely to keep the players playing the game. It's just a carrot on a stick. Intrepid have been promoting themselves as a "we don't have shareholders to appease" company, so having a corporate tool like BP would go against that promotion. Simply selling cosmetics directly, but with varying costs, would come off as much more consumer-friendly, more confident in the game's quality and way less corporate.
Game doesn't need to be bad to not be attracting enough people when you have a company that isn't going the route to attract the most people. It means monetization is even more important because hardcore pvers will not be playing the game.
Its this kind of attitude about something that has 0 effect on you, which can actually self destruct the game if a ton of people start to hate train it.
Also you are trying to view it as being alive or dead, I'm viewing the in-between, unless we are going to go with the internet tread after the first week of losing a lot of players (or month) the game is dead. For it to grow more monetization options might be needed based on their goals, and the employees they have.
BP as cosmetics is the least worse thing if they feel they need a bit of extra monetization to keep peoples jobs. Even more so the current landscape of so many people being laid off in the industry.
Corpo feeling is all in your mind, this game won't grow on trees. Whatever they feel they need to do, they should do as long as they stick to not dipping into p2w.
I offered a whole list of counterarguments to this claim in my last comment. Are you going to engage with the criticism to your positions, or will you keep clinging on to your phobia of loss of playerbase until it turns you into a spineless marketing mascot?
There are ways you could make them have no effect on people who don't use the battlepasses. But it's certainly not the default. That has been part of the reason for this discussion.
As well as the idea that even if some such alternatives might exist, and the potential slippery slope effect of the battlepass on the development ethos might be prevented, the better solution might still be not to have to rely on them in the first place.
What's the point of this argument? If you want Intrepid to do whatever they think is best to keep the game's marketing successful, regardless of what anyone thinks about it, what's the point of being on the forums?
Because implemented that way they could also still be an additional revenue stream for people that want to pay money for the BP content. The game is already going to have a real money cosmetic shop. If they went the route that Helldivers 2 did maybe they could offer players a way to get at least some of those cosmetics without paying.
Why add a BP to that? BP adds nothing to the game that any other system couldn't add.
So far the only reason I've seen for adding a BP feature has been "well others do it, so why should Intrepid". Next thing Intrepid should do is go jump off a bridge, cause all the others are also doing that, I guess.
The solution to your issue is not select the shop button and clicking on battle pass if you don't want to see it.
You are talking about phobia of player loss, im talking about what is the money they need to make to not just keep the game up for it to grow, and to keep the jobs of the developers they have. Clearly battlepass is an effective model and why games use it, and if it is something that could work for them there is not an issue if they feel they need additional monetization without increasing the base price that would end up alienating more people from playing the game.
The only thing the matters when it comes to business is money at the end of the day, and the balance of them sustaining / growing themselves and keeping their goals / morals (ie no p2w). This game isn't a free charity for you to be the perfect free / super cheap experience. That or you need to start advocating for box prices / expansion box prices. So since they would be getting back the monetization they lost it would balance out not needing additional monetization.
Last i checked you were not a shareholder. They will decide the best monetization for the game and adjust it over time based on the money coming in. You yelling you don't want something while they aren't meeting their goals will mean nothing. Even more so if people are willing to pay money on top of it that monetization having 0 impact on your gameplay.
People out here like NO box cost, cheap prices, cosmetics are p2w, no battle pass. 0 pay for convince (aka p2w), larger dev team to make the game better
People out here like YES cheap subscription (old school price in inflation increases) and/or free with nothing else only even if games are way more expensive than they have ever been. And its ok if companies are losing money cause corpos.
Money, its a really obvious answer.
*edit
There should be a clear difference between greed or if the money is being used and put back into the game / company (doesn't mean you can't recoup your investment first and be making some sort of money yourself)
We've all been seemingly talking about BPs that reward you only with cosmetics, right? And let's say this BP gives 10 free cosmetics and 10 paid ones across 3 months (I know this is a low number, but still) and costs $10 for that whole period.
Do you really believe that more people would spend $10 to get those 10 cosmetics, rather than paying $1 per cosmetic they like, except in the case of direct purchase they ONLY need to do that purchase and not waste their time on some random bullshit activity that the BP requires?
Cause to me it seems way better to simply have those cheap cosmetics as proper micro-transactions, and get all the free cosmetics into quest/task rewards. And definitely be way more willing to spend a few buckaroos here and there, even though I personally despise cosmetics.
Ashes is going to be built on subs and a Cosmetic Market. And I expect that to be in the form of a BP.
Ashes combat being "more" actiony would need a comparison. More actiony than what.
The difference between my expectation and Mag's expectation is that Steven has specifically stated that if it came down to a choice between Tab Target and Action he would choose Tab Target.
We don't have a quote of Steven saying that if it came down to a choice of Cosmetic Market without a BP and Cosmetic Market with no BP, he would choose the former.
But, it's really not that deep.
I've made my prediction... and then we see what actually happens.
BPs don't make players do anything. BPs offer rewards for Tasks.
And, like I said, BPs do also come with some new content in the game.
I'm not sure what this means if some of the BP Tasks include completing new content.
Like when Mounts were added to NW and then some of the BP Tasks included Mount Races.
I'm stuck on gear acquisition as the primary game loop for individual characters at Max Level/Endgame in MMORPGs. Yes.
That is my primary point.
Bulletin Board Tasks would be a subset of BP Tasks.
Kind of a similar function programming-wise although the BP reward path(s) would be significantly different.
And also the objectives and rewards would be significantly different.
Kind of like saying a soup kitchen isn't necessary when a town already has restaurants.
I mean again... you are talking about apples when I am talking about oranges.
You're saying a BP isn't necessary if there are Bulletin Boards and I'm saying I expect the Cosmetic Market will be in the form of a Battlepass even though Ashes will also have a Bulletin Board.
Tasks on a BP are not exactly the same as Tasks on a Bulletin Board.
It's kind of like saying there's no need to have female Kaelar if the game already has male Kaelar.
It's OK to have both.
It would not be just a few lines of dialogue. It's not like you get one item for doing one Task like you would for doing one Quest. You have to do quite a few BP Tasks to get one BP Reward. But, each Task is typically quicker to complete than a Quest. Also no need to deal with multiple NPCs.
Well for one thing, a BP Task is not going to trigger my character's personality quirks because my character isn't interacting with another character. A BP Task is going to trigger a player motivation rather than a character motivation.
BP Task is going to inform player goals for my play session, rather than character goals based on the personality of my character. A BP Task informs what I as a player wants to do during my play session rather than what my character wants to do. And then it's easier for me to head-canon why my character might make an exception to their restrictions rather than my character adjusting the restrictions for the reasons another character told me to.
Also, BP rewards are something I want as a player and goes to my player account, rather than something my character receives or hopes to receive. After I get the reward, I'll decide which character gets a particular award.
The NW Battlepass works via Cards that have a pattern like Tic-Tac-Toe.
There are categories of BP Tasks:
PvP, PvE, Bulletin Board Tasks, Gathering, Music
The Card is 4x4. You try to get 4 in a row at least 2 or 3 times.
Well, it's usually only two or three times because I typically try to avoid the PvP tasks.
Twice, out of hundreds of Cards, the configuration of categories was such that I felt the path of least resistance to completing 2 or 3 rows of categories was to do one PvP Task.
But, Quests are not configured like that, so... in other MMORPGs, I always ignore PvP Quests. I enjoy PvP sometimes. And NW PvP is basically the form of PvP I like - when I'm in the mood for PvP. So, 30-40 mimnutes out of 600+ hours play time feels OK.
Nope. Not a Quest. And not a Task.
I progressed my alt to a point where she could Craft the Druid Outfit. I wanted her Druid outfit to be green. The only way to Craft green outfits is to use Grendel Thread.
The only way to get Grendel Thread is to kill Grendels. Even though Grendels won't attack players first. And I typically won't attack mobs that don't attack me first.
That's just emergent gameplay.
I've shared the Kithicor Forest example in the Forums before:
The EQnext example is that dark elves from Serpentspine Mountains are farming dryads in Kithicor Forest, stealing their Life magic and transmuting it into Shadow magic to power their spells and augment gear and abilities, like Stealth.
Players who rely on Shadow magic will go into Kithicor to farm NPC dryads, but the players in Kithicor will want to prevent that because as Life is drained from the region, blight spreads and eventually the bonds which hold the Shadow Demons at bay will break.
The Shadow Demons destroy anything living...even the dark elves... should the Shadow Demons encounter them (unbeknownst to the dark elves). So, player avatars in Kithicor are very likely to attack anyone killing NPC dryads in Kithicor Forest.
Kithicor Forest is just common space. It's not a designated PvP combat zone. But, PvP combat is very like to happen there because the needs and objectives of the people nearby conflict with the needs and objectives and safety of the people who live in Kithicor Forest.
Since Stealth is my most cherished stat - this kind of conflict can push me to PvP>
If someone tries to prevent me from killing Dryads and I need Resources from dead Dryads to increase or max my Stealth.
That has nothing to do with Quests or Tasks. That's mostly character personality.
Nope. Of course, the stuff people repeat a lot would be the activities people like to do most. And the stuff you don't like to do you can ignore and/or do once every 4-8 weeks.
Again, it only feels like a chore when you get reset to the beginning of the reward path if you miss a day or miss a week.
You have to spend a bunch of time prepping for Raids. More time than I want to spend. And I don't think there is any reward that could get me to Raid more than a couple times per year. The motivation for participating in those Raids would probably be to be social with the TheoryForge community.
I'm not sure what you are envisioning.
If I'm at Max Level, I'm probably primarily playing to complete the Battlepass and then to create vids with the stuff I acquired from the Battlepass. So, that's not really in the context of longer play sessions.
If you feel BP Tasks are a chore; don't do them. Just like no one forces me to do Dungeons or Raids.
You brought up "mental explorers". They seem to just be obsessive completionists.
I also do a variety of things while taking multiple alts to Max Level.
Mmmn. I don't think that's quite accurate. Otherwise, MMORPGs would not give out so many rewards. And gamers would continue to do Dungeons and Raids with no BiS gear drops. And there would not be a desire for expansions.
There will be tons of Tasks on the BP that an individual has 0 interest in.
Ignore those Tasks and complete the BP with Tasks you enjoy doing.
That's a win/win. If you like Cosmetics.
If you don't like Cosmetics, the BP probably won't be enticing anyways.
It doesn't really go against my reasoning - so much as it's inaccurate mental exploration on your part that has little to do with reality.
Again, Quest-related tasks would be a sub-set of BP Tasks.
You seem to think that they are mutually exclusive, when they are not.
It's the reward type in tandem with the reward path structure.
There is no need of a fix.
Bulletin Board Tasks would be a subset of BP Tasks.
Again, you seem to think that they are mutually exclusive, when they are not.
Except in actuality it's another conflation similar to physical explorer and mental explorer.
In the Bartle Test, Explorer covers both physical explorer and mental explorer.
And Achiever covers both completing challenges and completing collections, but the questions in the Bartle Test mostly skew more towards the latter, I think.
What's your Bartle Score?
https://matthewbarr.co.uk/bartle/
Yep. I think I said that in previous posts.
Exploring many permutations is simply a part of exploring the game.
Playing all configurations is completionist; not simply explorative.
Anyone can come up with a bunch of special names. And even coming up with a bunch of distinct backstories is not necessarily daunting.
I don't play in RPing circles either. That doesn't stop me from RPing distinct personalities, interests and quirks for my alts. Especially if I'm playing any form of RPG. I'll do that for about 4 characters.
I'm an actor; not schizo.
And you would be wrong. Again, you are just projecting your biased, fabricated perspective on others. Especially, you know, when you use absolutes like "at all".
OK. Drop some support for that claim.
I didn't say that Ashes needs a BP.
I said that I expect Ashes to have a BP.
The reward structure of a BP is kinda too meta for an "already-existing feature in the game".
I don't think it works in a way that those who want to can get the rewards any time.
Modern Battlepasses provide ample time for people with shorter playtime hours to complete the reward path.
I don't know why you like to use so much hyperbole such that "quickly" becomes "very, very quickly". That doesn't help support your claims. And actually inherently invalidates them.
I don't know what that means. It's like saying there is a part of the gaming population that the BiS gear Endgame loop doesn't serve. And we know that's the vast majority od players because we see massive population spikes when a new Battlepass or Expansion drops.
Again, it's not better. It's just different.
But also this is your apples argument when I'm talking about oranges.
because of the perceived value. its a sales strategy.
would you pay 10 dollars for a skin, or dollars for a skin and some potions, etc? a lot of people will see the battle pass as a better deal. and if you want the rewards now, you can just buy the remaining levels.
Yes, they are - which is why this discussion is mostly pointless.
Intrepid adding a battlepass to the game would only serve one function - ticking that box off in a list of game features.
It serves no other specific purpose, because there is no definition for what it does and no reason the same functionality can't be achieved through less convoluted means.