Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
I played arena competitively in wotlk as well, I remember. But this is about zergs. I dont think there are *enough* counters to zerging/deathballing (yet) other than "just bring more".
Yep they need to introduce either friendly fire. For example any group of 8 has friendly fire toward any other group no matter if they are from same guild.
Or some mass spells that oneshot zergs
Like the friendly fire wont apply in Node/guild wars, in sieges, between non combatant flagged players
So if you want to do world boss you can be non combatants, and face the boss as 5 groups, but if you want to kill some other group there, then you will be combatant and friendly fire will apply
just drag the "Deathball" into a choke point and throw all your groups AoE ontop of them at once if games do aoe properly it kinda demolishes the entire deathball, all that need to be done there is no aoe caps and no mass raid healing
Obviously you never fought a zerg group before, or if you did - you were in another zerg group (maybe even bigger)
defensive counter and it'll be fine.
this still requires you to have almost the same number as them. So its still zerg vs zerg fight
I really like the concept of allowing players to create their own factions.
Factional wars should be related to specific regions, this is for funnelling players to the spot so they can have more fights. Maybe factional warfare should be made for taking keeps, castles, ports, etc, and also for currency like tokens
What I find appealing about EVE Online is that the game is not centered around factions, there are six factions being four empire factions and two pirate factions. Players have the freedom to join or leave any faction at will. This freedom is what makes EVE's Factional Warfare so great. The Havoc expansion is focused on Factional Warfare and proved to be their most successful expansion in two decades, bringing back old players and retaining new ones.
When factions are implemented the right way, it's truly awesome. To achieve this, participation in factions should be voluntary!!! The game shouldn't be overly dependent on factions, the factions should exist for wars on specific regions. Players should have the choice to join or leave factions freely, and they should always have the option to never join any faction at all
I've seen 15 wipe 40+ many a time in daoc.
Below you'll find a video of 6 or so vs 20+. While yes they do die, they kill a significant portion of the zerg with only 6 people.
Here's another quick one, and while I only watched the first clip, it does illustrate how large cc can be used to turn fights.
Every game i play is typicaly zerg pvp games and 90% of the time im on the smaller side cause if u make a zerg there less pvp options.
Ive played Archage, Crowfall, Darkfall, Darkfall unholy war, Myth of Empire, Fractured, Albion online and much more and always in small/medium size guilds
Archage out 25man guild dismanlted a 100+ streamer guild via hit and run tactics on there trade runs, espionage/spyies. We stole upwards fo 500+ tradepacks off their guild plot, stress got the the leader and he basicly just started kicking 70% of the guild out trying to find a spy and still failed
In Crowfall our main enemy guild was the2 largest guild who decided to ally up together sop they could "Win" the alpha/beta i also played heavily in this game in 1-3 man groups and constantly fought 3-10+ groups at a decent success rate
Darkfall faction were constantly changing due to player/guild politic alliances zergs tend to form then the other guild truced and allied up to knock them off there zerg pedistal and then disbanded alliance into the smaller guild again
Myth of Empire: Chinese game that basicly became the whole server of chinese vs the in their word the dirty foreigners and out 10-15 man guild were constantly fighting off 25-50 chinese never lost our city until we quit the game
Albion online 20-30 man guild where most guild ranged between 100-1500 held our own fairly well using choke points and AoE's
So yes we vs zergs constantly we just use/emply stratergy like hit and run, choke points+ Synchronised AoE or ambush tactics to turn the odds instead of complaining about it we tend to see it as a challenge alot of the time, different player mentality i guess.
Also when it comes to factions each player will typical be in 2 factions the node and their guild sometimes they might be fighting their own guild in node wars. Since nodes can only have so many building for crafting u cant do it all at once city so ull probaly have members in other nodes outside of your own.
To be fair, games like Albion actually utilized something like a scaling AoE to counter zergs/deathballs and im a proponent of that personally. I'm just not fully convinced yet that uncapped AoE abilities will be enough on their own. I hope to be wrong but from my experience in games like BDO for example where AoEs were largely uncapped, it wasn't enough to stop death-balling (even with player collision, mind you).
I don't think these potential aoe mechanics should be so powerful as to be totally decisive, I just want the strategy of overwhelming numbers to come with the need to be careful about it rather than just saying: MORE.
And one of the reasons Ashes could very well fail.
Damage that scales up against a "zerg" (IE, you cast an AE debuff that explodes for X AE damage after a few seconds on every target caught by the debuff) is usually bad IMO, because it punishes anyone in a tight formation, even just 8 people.
Factions? Lets see how A2 works. A large enough world means the whole thing will not be takable by one group. No fast travel makes the world very very large. As far as raid events getting zerged is concerned, this can maybe be fixed by setting friendly fire on between guild members and node members that are not in the same raid.
Limiting raid-wide buffs/protections is another good way to hinder zergs. I'm not talking about long term buffs, I'm talking about short term stuff, chants, Tank protection auras, ground target heals, etc. Force every group in the zerg to have a bard, tank, cleric, etc.
1.) I SUPER agree with the idea that buffs should be limited to group and not raid. This is actually a pretty underrated point. This acts as an organizational "tax" on making a zerg more effective. The more zergs have to be coordinated and managed to be effective, the better. Also big agree on "raid wide" effects in general.
2.) Im still not convinced having uncapped AoEs will be enough however, but I agree it should be considered as a *minimum*. My problem with it is it can be used in reverse against a smaller group, and secondly something like a scaling AoE that does more damage after a certain target threshold could be more effective instead. That way the zerg cant utilize it against a smaller group as effectively as a smaller group against the large. It doesnt have to be a massive damage scaling ramp, but enough to make the zerg think twice about positioning/formation.
Even if your preference of "an aoe hit 16+ people way harder" would immediately apply to any raid-sized group. And raid-sized groups would be barely even a start of a zerg. 40 people is nothing, yet 40 people would be hit for a ton with a scaled aoe.
That's why I think of time-bomb type AE debuffs/dots that explode on every target. It's an understandable mechanic. The targets have a chance to scatter when hit by it, or purge or throw up defense buffs/heals to help eat it. That shows skill. But any incarnation of these skills will likely trivialize defending choke points combined with regular AE, which is one of my main objection. Another is that in a large group vs large group battle, it's all about landing that zergbuster and a lot of other things become secondary.
I guess zergbusting skills may be needed if AE damage is not very strong. For example, if you have 8 people casting AE into an area how long do non-tanks in that area survive? I'm guessing 2 casts. That sounds plenty fast for me, especially with tools like AE stuns or knockdowns.
No, not a ton. You said I made assumptions and then assumed id suggest scaling would be absurd. Maybe 15-30% at an absolute maximum beyond a certain target threshold.
I think these systems already exist with the perks that exist for small guilds, which is a structure anyone has access to but will hinder communications and logistics of high player number factions, while being just the right size for a patch work faction of smaller player groups. There are managing costs associated with having these big guilds and those will hinder dominance over an entire server.
Additionally, this presumed "world domination" means complete stagnation, if a guild tries to always maintain their current status, it means they are blocking all other possible content, eventually losing support from their more adventure oriented allies, while the politicians are only focused on maintaining control. If they somehow manage to stay in power, players will eventually leave the server and all that remains is a server with a reputation of being some guilds circle jerk that nobody else will recommend to join.
And with the mayor election processes not being subjected to gate keeping processes, the only way to maintain control would be to drive out any competition which basically would mean full demographic control over the server, basically 50k accounts registered for control over this ONE server.
This isn't going to happen, if anything I'd expect maybe 1 guild per region being able to have maybe 50% control over a server and maybe 3-4 influencers for short amounts of times. But full control over the entire game, still sounds like a nightmare to me that is nothing more than that - a bad dream.
40 people is a lot. And AOC should punish every group bigger than 8 players. And ye zerg groups of 400 players should be punished so hard that they dont exist at all.
You will just have 5 ultra large guilds, each dominating 1 full region. So instead having 1 large guild you will have 5, but the end result will be the same- which is - smaller groups will get destroyed.
And dont get high hopes, Those 5 large guilds wont fight each other needlessly. Why? Because the SOLE reason they formed this large guilds was to "feel great about destroying smaller guilds" . People like this dont search for fun fights.
Sounds like a simple switch to another server where these 50'000 people aren't is enough to fix this issue.
Those are some Jungian demons that haunt you dear.
EVE had alliances in the tens of thousands. Composed by corporations (guilds) of 30-100 , each one patrolling their front lines.
Also, those large ass Alliances had people dismantling them from the inside due to petty rivalries. One guy threw under the bus a large alliance in EVE cause someone told them "stop whining about your KDR"
And I won't cover how many "contracts" for PK i took part in because of said petty rivalries. People would tell us where someone they hated - FROM THEIR OWN GUILD, like the GM's GF - and we would show up to gank them. Yes, spooky spooky cloak and dagger stuff goes down in such guilds. And that is why they fall apart. Especially if the Leader is not charismatic.
Those "smaller guilds", those are the guys hitting caravans at random and vanishing.
Or should I say "totally not random, the guy you pissed off leaked your route and protection detail numbers to a third party in order to cause grief to you". 🤷♂️
i have no doubt that the guilds will fall. This doesnt mean they wont ruin the experience of other players f or several months before this.
Ruin the game? Uhm, they ARE the game. Your arguement about small guilds holds as much water as "small businesses are the backbone of the economy". Nope, Amazon is, you just get to be a seller in it at best 🤷♂️
We live in different worlds probably. Because in the world i live in, Amazon is almost nothing compared to the WORLD Global economy