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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.
Idea copied from an old game, one of my all time favorites that could fit ashes perfectly.
Apok
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
In a dev post talking about PvP i kinda mentioned this idea but I've been thinking about it a lot sense then so I'm shooting my shot on this concept in a little bit more detail.
SOE, one of their earliest games was Infantry Online which was so good it was one of the few things that could take me away from playing starcraft at that time.
Infantry online hosted a bunch of game modes but there was one that I fell in love with, and think the concepts for it fit perfectly into Ashes. And that was with their CTF Extreme mode.. I’m going to try my best to explain the concept behind this game mode and how it can fit into Ashes.
CTF Extreme hosted I think a max of either 100 or 200 players on a map that had a middle area with bridges going north, east, south, and west most of the land on these islands were big hollow bases each with a neutral flag in the middle. The game started with players dropping into random areas and scouring to grab whatever flag(s) they could get.
Other islands were connected by bridges in the corners (NE, SE, SW, NW) with resources for Medics and Engineers.
Players could also create private teams to go against the public teams.
There are other things in the game that may or may not fit into ashes like the game saving your money you get from finishing matches and killing players and a loadout you must customize using the money you make in game.
Picture the idea of an NPC who could teleport you to what would be the map/arena you play on. You get thrown into a random team and put into a hub that is pvp free and enter the arena when you’re ready as well as respawn there.
Private teams formed by guilds could use this game mode to poach people who they like on public teams and practice group PvP with other allied guilds by getting on the same team.
Using the server tech, they could create instances each of which generate a name just like a server listing when you login. You basically get a server listing while in game that is shared cross server (the actual servers you play on) allowing a larger pool of players to mingle with each other while allowing bigger premade teams to pick and choose where they go based on open player slots.
As for matches themselves, give them a whole 2 hours before the game ends itself and another starts if no one captures all the flags, record all the data and give performance rewards to whoever was in that instance based on what they done. This way people can come and go from matches without finishing them and screwing over their team or themselves as players will come and go as the match progresses
Whatever PvE stuff like collecting resources for Medics and Engineers could be replaced by using whatever features you have planned for Ashes. All the siege stuff they have (maybe do new world style of resource collection in PvP to build of siege equipment) and stick the bulk of the PvE harvesting stuff away from the high traffic PvP areas of the map.
Personally I would like to see this and the whole thing has it's own currency system. the bag you have on you and your bag in the area are separate, consumables you need are bought there from an NPC vendor and disappear if you leave with them or moved to a stash (private locker/stash inside the neutral area) keeping outside and inside items separate. also list cosmetics and other stuff that can be mailed to the player upon purchase so people have rewards to take outside of the arena and show off the actual MMO world
this is a great alternative to wars for players, a lot of PvP oriented players are going to want more PvP then Wars and simple Arena combat. New World kind of shares this dynamic all your PvP is either Wars or 20v20 and the 20v20 they have is always one side getting stomped into the ground by the other. this game mode would clear a lot of that up with the separate teams holding their own flags while picking and choosing who to go after. The top dogs who gather all 4 flags will have to face the wrath of hundreds of players for 30 seconds or whatever in order to win. and if they get run over they at least get a boosted score for holding time.
SOE, one of their earliest games was Infantry Online which was so good it was one of the few things that could take me away from playing starcraft at that time.
Infantry online hosted a bunch of game modes but there was one that I fell in love with, and think the concepts for it fit perfectly into Ashes. And that was with their CTF Extreme mode.. I’m going to try my best to explain the concept behind this game mode and how it can fit into Ashes.
CTF Extreme hosted I think a max of either 100 or 200 players on a map that had a middle area with bridges going north, east, south, and west most of the land on these islands were big hollow bases each with a neutral flag in the middle. The game started with players dropping into random areas and scouring to grab whatever flag(s) they could get.
Other islands were connected by bridges in the corners (NE, SE, SW, NW) with resources for Medics and Engineers.
Players could also create private teams to go against the public teams.
There are other things in the game that may or may not fit into ashes like the game saving your money you get from finishing matches and killing players and a loadout you must customize using the money you make in game.
Picture the idea of an NPC who could teleport you to what would be the map/arena you play on. You get thrown into a random team and put into a hub that is pvp free and enter the arena when you’re ready as well as respawn there.
Private teams formed by guilds could use this game mode to poach people who they like on public teams and practice group PvP with other allied guilds by getting on the same team.
Using the server tech, they could create instances each of which generate a name just like a server listing when you login. You basically get a server listing while in game that is shared cross server (the actual servers you play on) allowing a larger pool of players to mingle with each other while allowing bigger premade teams to pick and choose where they go based on open player slots.
As for matches themselves, give them a whole 2 hours before the game ends itself and another starts if no one captures all the flags, record all the data and give performance rewards to whoever was in that instance based on what they done. This way people can come and go from matches without finishing them and screwing over their team or themselves as players will come and go as the match progresses
Whatever PvE stuff like collecting resources for Medics and Engineers could be replaced by using whatever features you have planned for Ashes. All the siege stuff they have (maybe do new world style of resource collection in PvP to build of siege equipment) and stick the bulk of the PvE harvesting stuff away from the high traffic PvP areas of the map.
Personally I would like to see this and the whole thing has it's own currency system. the bag you have on you and your bag in the area are separate, consumables you need are bought there from an NPC vendor and disappear if you leave with them or moved to a stash (private locker/stash inside the neutral area) keeping outside and inside items separate. also list cosmetics and other stuff that can be mailed to the player upon purchase so people have rewards to take outside of the arena and show off the actual MMO world
this is a great alternative to wars for players, a lot of PvP oriented players are going to want more PvP then Wars and simple Arena combat. New World kind of shares this dynamic all your PvP is either Wars or 20v20 and the 20v20 they have is always one side getting stomped into the ground by the other. this game mode would clear a lot of that up with the separate teams holding their own flags while picking and choosing who to go after. The top dogs who gather all 4 flags will have to face the wrath of hundreds of players for 30 seconds or whatever in order to win. and if they get run over they at least get a boosted score for holding time.
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Also, if I understood it correctly, this would be an instanced near-always-on mode that would directly remove people from the main game. I definitely would not want that, because minimizing instanced content is the entire point of one of the pillars of the game. Why splinter the game's playerbase when we need them to populate the world at all times.
Yeah I'm aware more people want less instanced areas, I'm with you on that too. was hoping for one game mode outside the normal world though. kinda like how WoW has battle grounds or New World with it's outpost rush. MMOs have always taken from what other MMOs have done that ended up working (which is why they all have mounts now) with ashes taking the best of the games and making everything better (hopefully) this would be their answer to wows battle grounds or final fantasies crystalline conflict
But it does NOT sound like Ashes of Creation.
Having an entire separate gameplay mode will only make that worse. WoW and NW are horrible examples in this context, because afaik quite a lot of people dislike those mechanics for what they are, especially when you consider that the entire point of Ashes is open world pvp, rather than what those 2 games have now.
There is 0 reason to limit pvp by not allowing constant arenas even more so when you don't get gear from doing them. Pretty much that is making less content in the game for no reason
Arenas and such is something that need to be pushed and creating a community around it as that can create a story itself for a server. It also limits people griefing greens and such as they have an outlet to pvp and have fun.
Just because there are arenas doesn't mean people are doing nothing. People use it to practice and get better, when there is major pvp stuff going on people are going to go towards that content. It makes 0 sense for you to think pvpers suddenly would not do OW pvp content. It helps fillt he void when there is less OW pvp going on in the game.
Idk why you are saying players dislike this content, im unsure where you are even getting this information as well. People enjoy this kind of content, the issue with NW is they didn't expand on it. Other mmorpgs that lack this basic kind of pvp content is also a issue.
A ton of people will not care about owpvp if arenas are limitless, because arena is way more controlled, so they'd rather just polish their skills in 1v1s (let alone fucking 3v3s or party v party, cause that shit would be literally several times worse for the population of the server).
I was just reiterating things I've heard from content creator communities throughout the years. Obviously the features themselves had some problems that reduced their popularity, but making them better while also keeping them as a constant instanced alternative to the rest of Ashes would make things only worse.
I want people to be forced to participate in the game that they chose to play, not sit in random gamemode that completely removes them from said game.
Ashes is not forcing anyone to do owpvp. You choose to do it. You choose to play a game that has owpvp by simply logging in. Now arena's should not have any downtime. That should not have any limitations other than maybe other players in the actual arena at that time. There will be some intanced stuff now, but it will not be the focus. If instancing becomes the focus of the game then it will fundamentally change the game's focus.
I'm speaking from experience how current players are and not ones from 20 years ago. In NW you could get famous in their battleground mode and people would know of you and get you into sieges. I even had a rep for myself in that as well from all the people I killed in it. Communities want this sort of thing I don't know where you are going where people are saying they don't. Which also doesn't make sense because if you are talking about the bulk of people which are casual they are not screaming to be forced into pvp constantly. So it must be some smaller bias community where you are even getting this kind of thing from.
Having OWpvp content that people are active in will be an obvious thing as you need to progress your gear to become more effective, or to help your node. Most people aren't going to be ignoring that, at the same time you don't need an entire node population to be there at every war.
Arena is not a separate world, it is also something that builds the world in a pvp sense with players. And like all things players should have choices on the content they want to do. I highly doubt AoC is going for forcing people into pvp stuff 24/7.They will want casual players playing their game and not forcing people that lean more towards pve to just want to quit cause they cant pve at all since they are forced to do this pvp content.
Again i feel you try to fight for casuals but reasoning are always more towards the hardcore side that would completely kill the casual side. This topic even more so without a good reason, as PvP players will be doing owpvp content when it pops up and not only doing arena.
I know that people love instanced shit. It's obvious by the genre and by my own experience. People also love a ton of things that are not good for them or others, but it doesn't mean that they should be free to do those things.
We supposedly won't have farmable instanced pve (if even repeatable at all), so why in the hell should pvpers get pure instanced content for themselves? Fuck 'em.
You are trying to force something for no reason to the implementation becomes bad in the game. People being able to que up for arenas and fight with their build is for their own fun against people. Just liek there should be a open arena for people to walk and free for all fight randomly, there should be a qued based one as well for people wanting competitive fights.
Your point also makes 0 sense talking about pve instances and you are just throwing whatever you can at the wall. Creating hard pve instances is nothing even close allowing people to que up and fight some teams in an arena. I shouldn't even need to explain why that is a lot more work....Legit a terrible take and comparison.
Arena doesn't take away from OWpvp, you just don't want them to have it because of fear of people not doing owpvp (which makes no sense), and the fact you don't like arena. As i said before arena helps the pvp social element of the game.
Thankfully the devs know what they are doing and are not going to miss out on this. Which is what we would call a easy win, minimum work for maximum gain. https://www.ashes.wiki/Arenas
In a prime-time game, as long as any instancing exists it'll inevitably take away people from open world content. Those people will be taking up server slots, while not impacting the world in any way (well, except for their absence in it).
And I don't care how long any given feature takes to develop. I care about the results of the feature on the game. And if Steven decided to minimize instanced pve for some reason - I'd imagine the same reason can be used to minimize pvp instancing.
You are trying to skew things for your own reasoning you have no basis in this point lmao. Expectation is it will be normal akin to every other mmorpg that has arenas even more so the fact they talk about seasons.
There is no reason to minimize arenas that don't give you gear. A reason to minimize PvE instanced content isn't the some context as arena. You aren't even trying to make sense you are just saying it.
Edit*
To further drive it home you are trying to say na those 5% of players that want to focus on pve and focus on pvp arenas since they hate ow need to be froced not to have arena content just cause. Even though it hardly effects the game as a whole. And those players need to do pve to get gear to begin with which means pvx content.
You don't lose community involvement that doesn't make any sense. You main more community rep in the server in a wider margin based on the size of the server.
you would have community involvement in open world arenas by having to post guards and police the area. You would have the announcers and such. You would have an audience to watch the event. You have zero community involvement when you que up for an instance.
going from simple team vs team play on infantry to what ctf extreme offered was just way better on so many levels. If you make the game mode fun you won't have to incentivize it so much. RO, WoW, L2, FFXIV all do this, the PvP they add ends up being too straight forward and boring so they make you grind out rewards out of it for something to do.
This makes no sense in an open area arena u don't need guards around. The point of these place is to test dmg and such and you don't waste healing pots, mana and have no death consequences.
There is plenty of a community in qued arenas people know each other, or see people they have heard about.
People could do this in the open world, but there should be a open world arena as well. Where people can test the things i mentioned above and do whatever they want. Same way as BDO.
So you are just wanting the game to be worse just cause from what I'm seeing. I'll trust the devs to not kill off content in the game for no reason and lower the player base, and actually work against pvp players. OR ways to get people into pvp.
You are literally trying to make the game worse and add mobile level mechanics for when people can do arena . Collectively people would say you are trying to make it worse because you don't want people to do it just cause.
Yeah obviously but thats not the point. The point is that you are missing out on players who might want to choose to log in and play the game but decide not to because it would be limiting the ways they can enjoy the game. We can argue all day about who the game is for, but the fact is that agency and choice is a design pillar so their is an argument to be made for providing this type of choice even if that means instanced content. So, if you are aiming to satisfy that certain subset of players then you would be failing by not providing their preferred type of content through things like arenas, so you are removing their choice to choose between owpvp or arenas.
Even if we disagree on whether this is the goal of Ashes, I also disagree that it would be taking away from the open world so it shouldn't even matter regardless. The open world would still be the focus even if some more instancing existed, and you would only increase the playerbase and funnel more players into that open world who might otherwise not play the game, through providing those additional choices for players who like to switch things up based on their mood. Obviously instancing is a part of the vision and a part of providing choices for different types of players because they are already aiming to provide that type of content to an extent, I am just saying that expanding a little further in that direction could be a good idea, without taking away from the rest of the game.
Well, I think the difference is the farmable aspect. We don't want to undermine the open world through instanced content being farmable, so I think a better comparison would be instanced dungeons/raids which happen to already be planned for the game, which would be more comparable to instanced pvp/arenas, conversely. Its supposed to add options to the game and appeal to more types of players. The game is pvx, and about having choices, so its reasonable to have a certain amount of all types of content: pvx content (open world contested areas/combatant flagged areas) pvp content (arenas), and pve content (instanced pve/corruption deterred areas). I think ideally the game should lean more towards the pvx emergent type stuff, which it already is doing, but it doesn't need to be so niche that you ignore other types of players altogether. Players who don't want to play pvx stuff arent going to play the game regardless of how much you try to "remove their ability to avoid playing in the open world", so it would only help the game to draw in more players by allowing them to play the way they want, since they may end up developing an interest in the open world content, while keeping more players happy by giving the the flexibility to adapt how they can play based on the mood they are in.