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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
And ofc, this desicion will have to be taken in the next month. Should the design punish players, or reward. Solo is more risk, so more reward, hm? ;-)
The time scale is different, but existing. So yes, those players should get something.
The game is doing the math, not the player.
Example: If three groups fight a boss, the game knows, which player in which group has spent which time (up from first attack/heal/aggro push) and which performance (tanking, healing, damage). No player knows that. And if the solo player around is helping, just because all three groups a full, why shouldnt he get something? He should. Is it perhaps less than a performing player in one of the three groups? Sure, but also within a group you can play afk-wise (just telling your group you habe to pickup a phonecall, so 7 not 8 are contributing) as long as others perform. We know this from all the other MMOs out there when talking about open world bosses. Within instanced raid bosses thats different of course.
In the context of a boss farm being solo does not have more risk. You won't have the buffs to outaggro a full party, so the boss will most likely never even turn to you. And if you fail to dodge its general attacks - that's on you (just as it is on any other player).
Being solo means that you're not in a guild, which means that you can't be wardecced, which in turn means that you can't just be slaughtered w/o punishment. And that's another decreasement of risk for a solo player, as opposed to full raids.
Like I said, Ashes doesn't care about solo players, when it comes to big piece of content. The game is about groups. So looting rights are centered around groups. 8 people will be a unit that gets the loot. And five such units will work together against huge bosses to get its loot. Solo players won't get anything for their tiny slaps on the boss' ankles.
If you want to get loot for your time - join a guild and go to a raid with them.
If you play 2 hours in the evening both hours should contribute to your (slight) progress. If you play 2 hours content (like my examples) and your progress is 0 just due to a lack of a group at this evening the game will shrink to an elitist, 15h playing a day absolute niche MMO with a very small playerbase. If thats the goal, I wish all the best.
Thats on the tank and the DDs, that this will not happen within the group. Especially the DD.
A solo player can contribute with his healing or damage during such events. It‘s highly likely that in the open world there will not only be groups running around as experience shows us. All these players just not being in a group but helping in those fights should be rewarded.
Same if playing in a group.
Time will show. Its not possible to play every moment, event, day only in 8 man groups, or higher. There are natural downtimes and with meaningful design its possible to consider this and respect this. This is especially an issue as group size is very high in AoC, 4-5 man groups would decrease this issue.
Example: In the 8 man group 2 players did 500k damage, each, during an open world encounter. 10min fight.
Outside of this group there are 3 other players helping, but not forming a group. Each player did 600k damage and was there up from the first hit, so 10min invested. Of course the should get something. They cant group at this moment, why should they be punished? You assume that a player in a group performs better than a player outside a group. But I cannot agree with this assumption, as players have individual skill. Buffs carry bad group players, yes, but if this player dies 10 times and the solo player outside not, than the 10 times dying guy gets loot ONLY because of grouping before and the solo players not, although they are social guys, performing good and helping? What about 3 healers outside helping the groups to survive even better? Maybe one is healing the 10 times dying guy so he will only fail 3 times? Those solo playing healers should not get loot from that fight? Well, no, thats bad and no meaningful and respectful design. Sorry, thats the point.
If you think that the current design is respecting those players, that were even better in performance within the same time scale, than thats very strange.
Sure, but its not possible to always group. There are downtimes. There can be 4 groups fighting an encounter but 3-4 solo players around that randomly entered this event. If the support this fight, they should get something for their time invest, because it should support to play together against the encounter and no punishment.
Again, we are not talking about instanced raid bosses, but world events where everybody can support at any time joining the fight snd for this the game knows the contribution and performance, and not the player (or leader of a group, not even knowing the randoms out there and that they maybe carry their encounter kill).
So agree to disagree, as your opinion is different, and thats ok for me. But you are talking around „all with groups“ whereas I reflect on the situation, whether thats so intelligent or not with porposal to adapt it as testing phases may will show us - just to respect the time of all players, not only the time of group-players, because you are not in an 8 man group every second in the next years of playing AoC. Thats nonsense as we all know from last 20y+ playing MMOs.
Should bosses be reimbursing players for all the weeks spent leveling up to the boss' lvl? Should the rewards equal the time spent preparing the raid, gearing up, doing quests and dpong the encounter itself? What kind of reward would be justifiable if it should?
Ashes will already be much slower than majority of mmos out there, so I'd prefer if the rewards were on the same time scale as well. Entire raids getting well rewarded from just one boss seems a bit too fast of a pace to me.
Those players will be removed one way or the other, because most groups would see them as spies for the enemies, who're waiting for the boss to get to low enough hp, in order to sabotage the farm and steal the boss.
I've been farming open world bosses in an owpvp mmo for 12 years. Randos are not welcomed there.
The design has alreadyy accounted for this. Majority of important content will be prime-time based, so, yes, it will be designed around full groups that are gathering to player during those prime times.
4-5-member groups will have their own little content that they can do on the side.
Groups are singular units in this game. So I don't care if some solos outdid a small part of the group's dmg, because the group overall will do way more dmg to the boss.
And as I said, group buffs and synergies will make it nearly impossible to outdps party dpsers if you're solo. That's the entire point of being in a group - sum is more than the parts.
Healers who are helping some random party should've just found their own party, cause god knows every mmo is always short on healers. Anything else is charity work and should not have the expectation of rewards.
If every damn bum was rewarded for existing near an open world boss, the game's economy would be in the shitter faster than you can say "economic decline".
Ashes is not a cooperative game. It's competitive. Open world design dictates that and Steven wants it that way. He literally said so when explaining how Ashes will counter zerging of its open world bosses.
What you're suggesting is directly supporting zerg, which is something that not only Steven doesn't want but also what the majority of feedback has been. People hate when zergs get free handouts, and you're suggesting exactly that.
If those solos can't find themselves a group - that's their problem. Though it's more of a "what are you doing near a boss w/o a group" problem, rather than a solo player problem. Those solo players could go do countless others things that would've given them way more benefits, with which they then could buy the same kind of items that the boss would've dropped.
Dungeons and boss content are meants for groups, because Ashes is a group-based game, not a single player mmo.
That might be nonsense in some "modern" single player mmos, but not in the games that inspired Steven. In Lineage 2 you couldn't do shit alone (valuable shit that is). And that is the exact design Steven liked and chose for his game. If he wanted to appeal to the single players - he wouldn't have chosen that design.
You have issues if you think your entire group are ninja looters
You get back what you put in. Single players seem to mistrust every damn person they meet and want the rewards to be person just for them, so of course everyone around them will treat them with the same mistrust.
I've trusted every player I've partied up with, because otherwise why the hell would I even party up with them
And: I'm talking about the time here, not the rewards. If time for a goal is invested, it should provide progress for the character, otherwise investing time for that goal makes no sense. PK-ing, ganking, is one example for this. But this behaviour shouldn't be supported, good thing AoC is not doing this.
Well, if a guild or group is acting like this, to just remove members and friends, than we are anyhow talking about completely different approaches how to play such a computer game.
Why should a player being afk because of picking up a phone call be removed? Or why should he if dps is 4% less than from other players (plus the current fact: No DPS meters, which is a very very good thing - so nobody knows that beside the game - that's why the game should do the loot, not a human person living out his bad behaviour)
Spy? Those players play together one year long within a guild or group, with discord, and they are spies? Oh well, interesting.
I've been playing MMOs since over 20 years with all sort of content and randoms are no bad people, elitist (or self named elistist) players are not welcomed. Players that exclude other players are the bad people, of course not those players that want to support and join a fight.
Some events are triggered due to other events before. The dungeon + afterwards Firebrand are a good example. You just CAN join this free open world dragon boss encounter whenever it is triggered and available. Perhaps you are just in a group with your friends in discord and say: "Let's join this fight" or you are just running around in that area for resource farming and then you are joining this fight by accident, random. This can and will happen, this is a fact of all other MMOs out there since 20 years that offer open world encounters and events. AoC is not the first one doing this..
That was not the point. A group is full with 8 people. To always get 8 players will at every second of playing not be possible, there will be natural downtimes, so to design the entire game and loot around groups will not work and time will show this, I'm quite convinced about that due to my experience in such games.
So my points are correct, but just are ignored from game design. That's ok, that's another discussion than. Ignoring makes it no better solution, it's just one out of other solutions and for me other solutions are better. For me every player invested time is important, I don't care if this is only considered during one difference: Being in a group or not, because again, nobody will always play everything and every minute in a group. That's not gonna happen.
Invididuals can perform bad, but be in a group. The sum of 8 bad players will not be better of 3-4 individual skilled players. I can tell you pvp stories of my playing time where we (3-4 guys) outplayed a group of more people, or dungeons, where good players peform with 4 players doing everything and 1 nothing (just imagine boosting scenarios) wheres 5 players are dying at the same boss 10 times because their individual skill is bad.
So, sure, grouping is the usual goal and helping, but also surrounding players invest their time and perform their attacks and heals. They contribute to the fight that is going on, not only the "barrier" of being in a group is changing this fact.
Should, but what if they didn't? They just than should pass away and not contribute with their healing at this world boss event? Seriously? What a strange behaviour and thinking about game design.
Of course the should and can help, if they want, and a group will like this support as things will be easier than. But this healer should get something for his time and support. Imaging a small fight with a small encounter. An 8 man group is starting to prepare a fight against a mini boss. 2 random players, a healer and a DD (perhaps friends) join the situation. It's a 10 player group than, but only one group is formed. Your "design" is the 8 man group are the elitists and better players, because of "group based" and so on and "you don't care about the randoms". And I'm different. I care. I thinkt, both can - if they want - support. If they just want to pvp, they can start doing a 2 vs. 8, will not be successful, let's guess. So, they decide to help and so it's a 10 man fight. And than 8 should get loot after 10min and 2 no loot? Very, very - I mean very - bad game design.
Will not happen. There a loot tables, with percentages. Usually. Or is it different in AoC? Show me, that's my lack of knowledge than, can happen. Otherwise it means something like this:
Mini-Boss jungle snake drops (really just doing examples):
- 100 gold - 90% change to drop
- 3 crafting materials ABC - 40% change to drop a piece
- 1 rare shield ("blue" quality) - 2,5% chance to drop
- 1 rare dagger - 4% chance to drop
- 1 legendary sword ("orange" quality) - 0,0002% chance to drop
Why shouldnt the 2 randoms mentioned above be in a position to get 20 gold, 1 crafting material and the dagger? The supportet the kill, the where contributing with time and actions during the fight, right? They only missing point: They were not in the same group. And that's an artificial argument.
So this loot only will drop enterily for the group? Both "randoms" should get nothing?
So it will punish players that want to contribute, want to play social and support and all 10 players agree on that but loot will not be shared?
It is, playing together is one of the highest goals. That's done by being cooperative. Players want and should to play together. Your point is the barrier called "grouping", my point is that this is only an artificial barrier, a differenc in the UI and group-interface, but no social and cooperative difference during this fight just happening against a random world encounter in the open world free for everybody.
It can bei competitive but also cooperative and social.
He says a lot, but also that he will listen on feedback. Time will show us, how this "group-only" will work.
Ok, that's an answer and opinion on that. For me this barrier is existing. Sometimes you will have situations where grouping is not possible, but playing is. Also playing together is, but group-size or other circumstances just don't allow it in a better way. In all this scenarios, that will happen quite often, all players should be respected with their playing time, as the invest the same time for the fight than a player within a group - there is no difference in this aspect. And that an individual player perhaps is even better than an individual player within a group is even more showing, what I explain.
I don't understand. Whats the problem of running and playing around in the open world and than an boss event occurs and happens? Should this solo player than log out or run away? What's your proposal what should happen next? Talking to him and saying he is not allowed to support the fight or other not very social suggestions?
That's not the point, because this situation will happen as I've mentioned them and thus there will be a lot of situations where randoms or different outher groups in different sizes will join battles. They will be there before the battle starts, although not triggered from them, they will be there during the fights and they will come shortly after the fight is over, because it's an opern world for everybody and not for ONE elitist guild where the members think and feel they can do what they want.
But he wants to be AoC to be successful and games like Lineage 2 are not successful any more and not in the existing market, he must consider that life, market and players have changed. It's the same for him, being mid 40 or whatsoever. He will definitly not play 15h a day, he will work. During his speeches to motivate his DAoC group (we all know the vid) he was bit younger, right, and nostalgia is one thing, but a MMO that will work and have meaningful designs is another.
If it is a Lineage 2 copy with additional and different stuff, than time will show us, how this will work. All the best, we will see.
I mean, Lineage 2.. Lineage 2 Classic is dead and full of bots. No active players, right? All the rest is an afk mobile game with P2W to progress. So, if this is the basis, than we already know the future. If AoC will ONLY be design around frequent players and 10h+ a day hardcore pvp players it will run into troubles witihn the first half of a year. The ones that play the Alpha will be the ones, maybe, still playing it. The rest seems to be a very very small market, otherwise this kind of MMOs would work and there would be plenty of them out there. They are not due to several reasons.
Of course this design will not work nowadays, nostalgia by it's best, that's fine, but a solid and working MMO must be different today, respecting the time from the players first and foremost.
Maybe you know Guild Wars 1. I do. In the end it was an entirely instanced game. Some loved it. For Guild Wars 2 ArenaNet changed this design completely and Guild Wars 2 was an even better, more successful and more fun game. I've played it for several years in PvE and s(structured)PvP. So, "modern" MMOs are "modern", becaue players, the market, want them to be modern. It's ok to have old-school aspects, that's why all of us are here - but the good things out of old-school aspects, not the bad ones. Investing time and getting nothing is a bad one. Nobody will invest if nothing will come up, it will not only be a niche MMO, it will fail faster than you can say "but groups count the most".
So, agree to disagree, still.
For me, and I guess and know I'm not alone on the market with this opinion, every player that invests his time and plays/performs should get progress for his character in all means that make sense in this particular situation (so maybe exp, maybe gold, maybe gear, maybe ressources, maybe rare random world drop, what so ever). But not nothing only because of artificial barriers ignoring his invested time and performance.
It's clearly just exactly the opposite of what you think.
Same here, that's all about in MMOs. But the MMO should not punish players that are not in a group in a specific moment or scenario, because they can't at this point of time, but they invest time and performance. Again, it's not possible that you are playing always in a group. It's a different thing if you are permanently within a guild but you are not permantely in a group when you play. It's just untrue to assume that.
And, it's okay and meaningful to approach open to other players, perhaps it will be the next group- or guild-member.
Before you said "you don't care about solo players". But you should, because solo or random players are not bad player, they are no damn bums, you don't need to mistrust them (although you talk in one direction, your behaviour shows the complete opposite).
Again, I've been playing MMOs since 20y+ with all different kinds of content and most of the time within guilds or with friends/groups, as leader, officier, member, consultant, friend, mentor. This experience we share. We only don't share the same attitude and behaviour when it comes to randoms, solo players and "grouping" in the context of time invest, loot/reward and the social aspect of it. So I'm surprised that your behaviour you explain (like: This members will be removed from the group) is the one that should be the goal within an social, cooperative MMO which emphazises that players are doing content together (or playing against each other within that content, which makes no difference for all the other mentioned points before).
I didn't say they are bad, I said they are not part of the group unit. And anyone outside of the group unit are not part of the same competitive side, so they should be removed from the premises of the encounter so as to not mess with it in any way.
And as I keep saying, if some high value content (as a boss would be) pops up - people will compete over it, so your group of friends won't be able to just join a random raid or smth.
This has also been happening in Lineage 2 for 20 years, so it's nothing new as well.
And I'm convinced of the exact opposite, also due to my experience in open world pvp mmos (namely, L2).
Every evening I'd play with the exact same group (full party group) of people. And prime-time design will only help with this, because people will know the exact time when they gotta be online and will party up with others who can be online at the same time.
This is also nothing new.
And if your 3-4 player group is more skilled than a full party - it'd be super easy to find a guild that would take you on, add another 5-4 players to you and you'll be able to join raids easily.
Or if your 3-4 people are stronger than the entire party, then simply party yourselves up and outdps them. This will give you the looting rights and you'll get your loot.
You'd be deciding to help out of charity. I've done so many times and to many people.
If a boss is meant for an 8-player group - taking 10 players to it means you're "zerging it" (even if not by a lot), which would then trigger its anti-zerg mechanics and make the entire fight harder for the initial 8 people that came to farm that boss. Which means that your help is not helping and instead making things worse.
The design is not bad. It's meant to reward groups of people rather than solos. If your 2 people from the example are so strong - you can suggest finding a stronger boss, splitting into groups of 5 and fighting it as a mini-raid. You'd get a higher reward for it, instead of making a weaker encounter worse for the initial 8 players, while not making the reward better.
The loot is predetermined to be limited and to go only towards the players that have gotten the looting rights for it. Those 8 players will not want your help if it would mean lower rewards for themselves. This is an owpvp game, not a cooperative pve game.
The loot is limited, which makes it a competitive game. If everyone was rewarded, as you want, it would then be a cooperative game. But it's not, nor does Steven want it to be.
Every group of players will be fighting for their loot against other groups of players, because the better you defend your loot - the more of it you'll keep.
Except player time is not equal between a group and a solo player, for the exact reason you point out.
It's difficult to keep playing as a group. It takes effort and coordination, which means that each person in the group has invested more time into the boss encounter than a random solo player that was just passing by. This, by default, makes their time more valuable and makes them more deserving of the loot.
That player should've been in a guild already and as soon as the boss (or other high value content) spawns, this player should ping their guild to come help him clear it. This is the social aspect of the game and mmos in general.
And if there's gonna be some second pre-established group that was in the vicinity - they'd be the ones to make use of the opportunity and get the loot for themselves.
This is also something that's been done in L2 for 20 years now. You'd farm your own random stuff, then see a boss spawn and call up your guild to come clear it with you. And if another guild/group comes there before your own guild - it'd be on you to try and disrupt their farm to the best of your ability, because that loot is limited and you want YOUR guild to succeed and not some other random group. Again, a competitive game.
And those small groups are fully welcomed to try and pvp for this encounter. But I'd imagine they'll lose to bigger numbers, which is why they should've found more people for their group or, even better, found a guild for themselves so that they don't lose to bigger numbers.
Steven already knows it'll be a niche mmo. In almost every damn showcase he says "this game is not for everyone and that's ok".
If he wanted to appeal to modern gamers - he would've done so from the start. He wants a successful game with his own preferred design, not with the design that the majority prefers.
He's been told "this game is DOA if this, this, this and this doesn't change", yet he has only doubled down on design points that were mentioned in thos "DOA lists".
Investments can fail. They are not always successful.
So if you, as a solo player, come to a boss in hopes of your time investment paying off - that was a bad investment. If you had instead went to play the market economy and made money there - your investment would've paid off tenfold. If you went to a guild and said "I'm a high skill player, I want to invest my time well" - your investment would pay off tenfold.
This game does not reward everyone for simply existing. This has also been stated by Steven several times in the past.
And how exactly did those guilds and groups come together? Did they pop into existence at a large number out of nowhere?
Guilds are built by randos and solos coming together because THEY HAVE TO, if they want to succeed.
And then those guilds trust each other more than randos exactly because they've come together and have been playing together. If solos want to join them - they're welcomed. They'll be required to invest their time into the guild (kinda ironic, given the context of the conversation, don't you think?
Solos are bums by definition. They don't have a guild home. And if you're in a guild but happen to be playing solo at the time - go ask someone from your guild to party up with you.
I don't remember a single time when this wasn't available to me, in my 12 years of playing L2. Even in tiny guilds of <20 people I'd still have at least a few others that could join me.
And in Ashes, where a lot of content will be centered around prime-time - this will be endlessly easier to do. Entire guilds will be built around that and will target their recruitement around that as well.
And as I already said, if you literally cannot find a party, for whatever reason - invest your time better than trying to siphon some loot from a boss. Bosses are meant for groups and raids. That's the entire point of large scale encounters. If you're solo at the time - that content is not targeted at you, so do something else. And then when you ARE in a group - you're free to farm what you couldn't before.
Such contrast of activities would create a much stronger social structure than "I can do whatever I want at whatever time I want and still get rewarded equally w/o problems". "When everyone's super - no one is". When all of your time investments are equally rewarded - no time is special.
Our experiences are not the same because I played the competitive L2, while you played cooperative GW2.
As for "removing party members" - you misunderstood me, as I pointed out above.
Agreed. These games are time consuming enough. I'm saying this based on everything I said, not a crying baby lol, but I won't be playing this game if the loot system remains as is. I don't have the time, energy, or desire to want to deal with loot BS.
1) The established TAs will likely stick around regardless. Changing the loot system won't be a deal breaker for most of you all.
2) New players are more likely to stick around if they don't need to deal with artificial obstacles and frustrations to experience character development. Even players like me are more likely to stick around. Restricting my character development with these thoughtless and artificial systems are deal breakers for me and a lot of people.
No one is restricting you. You play the game, farm money in whatever way you decide to, then buy items you need with that money.
And if you can join guilds that do raids - do that and experience more of the game.
This game will not reward people just for showing up to the encounter. Especially if they show up completely alone and expect some valuable prize for it.
"Guilds are built by randos and solos coming together because THEY HAVE TO, if they want to succeed."
Nor
are true.
This is not a necessary incentive, Intrepid.
Wouldn't "everyone who did dmg or healed or tanked around the boss gets loot" impact the balancing of the economy? If a boss can reward 300 people that were doing random stuff around it, why would anyone only bring 40 people there?
And even if they did, wouldn't the balancing of the reward require to designed in such small increments that the boss reward could be the same but could also be splittable into tiniest fractions of itself?
I know that I'm not going to convince you even if I explain it.
But to clarify as much as possible, having read the thread, I still believe both sides are making their points in relatively good faith, so, a reminder.
Very few if any people on the 'opposite' side of you have said 'literally everyone who touches the boss gets something'. If they did mean that, this would still be possible, but the lowest tier rewards would be quite silly.
In a game with no fast travel, 200 people converging on a world boss slows down the influx of goods or (ugh) Glint. With Ashes' design as it is, if you do not give most people something for putting in a real effort against something like FireBrand, you have created a poor design where people do not bother to come kill nor contest it.
For 'fighting FireBrand' or similar bosses to be a logical thing to do in this game at nearly any time, there is a certain level of rewards required to offset the opportunity cost of it, or the boss will mostly only be attempted by altruists who don't care that they are losing out for doing so, PvP players who see it as another arena, or the unfortunate who don't really understand that in a game with durability loss and exp debt, they shouldn't take this action.
It leads to shallow incentives and poor politics, turning Ashes into 'just another PvP sandbox'.
I mean, I'd probably be fine with people getting some random amount of glint, just cause I'm sure that caravan abuse will provide waaaay more benefit to any large group of people seeking profits with the help of their numbers.
I just doubt that people would see glint as a good reward for participating in a boss fight.
I guess I haven't experienced deeper politics, cause I quite enjoyed L2's inter-guild politics and there bosses gave a few pieces of gear per once-a-week (and up to once-2-weeks) farm of a boss, with the only truly valuable thing being one-of-a-kind drop AND EVEN THAT had a sub-100% drop rate on several bosses, though those bosses usually had lower respawn timers due to that fact, so there was a balance of sorts.
But this then mostly depends on non-boss gear acquisition, or lack thereof. In L2, those few pieces of gear (or the mats for them) that dropped from the boss could be acquired from other places (mob grind included), so farming bosses wasn't a be-all and end-all situation.
Do you expect AoC's gear acquisiton to be the opposite, judging by the tiny info that we have on that topic, or do you just dislike L2's whole apparoach to gearing?
Or do you think that even if there ARE several ways to get boss-equivalent items out there, people would still be butthurt over the fact that they don't get anything if they try to join a raid as a fully solo player?
If there is a group of 6 man running around and two randoms show up and those 8 players come together, than the 2 players are spies? That's your way of playing and thinking in a MMO?
Would you please mention the MMOs you've played so far? It was only Lineage2, right?
Why not? Maybe they are or must, due to the difficulty of the encounter. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I'm talking about another situation. If 8 players play together in one "unit" (are grouped) than 2 more randoms outside must not be rivals or opponents. Players (like you) are making them to enemies, other players make them to supporters, and that's why game design can and should consider this, because it's no bad scenario. It's player driven content, so if players feel/think like you do, this can happen, if not, it will happen differently as long as the game design supports this, and that's crucial and will be feedbacked during testing phase, believe me. There will not only be Lineage2 players interested in AoC, and of course, you can exclude all the other players and their opinions, but that will lead to cirtical issues for intrepid and their future.
I'm talking about several scenarios where playing together, although without grouping, will happen. This will be the case, it's not avoidable. Depeding on the player style and behaviour, they will support each other to reach the goal or they will pvp each other without reaching the real gaol in the end (that's their choice, but it's not the only choice and will not always be done like this). If the design supports it, and there will be a lot of feedback during the upcoming test phases from a lot of players, believe me, than it will happen as in a lot of / nearly all MMOs before, also in pvp focused ones.
I was not aware that this game, one of the minor MMOs I've never played, is on the market that long. My fault, I usually don't watch Asian MMOs due to their approach of systems.
So every day, for months and years, those 8 people are online and playing a MMO together. I just had to lough out load a bit ;-)
And if not?
Than the all just stay logged out and can't play this MMO, because there is no meaningful content and nothing to do? Fantastic game design, true.
Why should they? Maybe they are already in a guild. We are talking about the concrete scenario happening ingame. 3-4 players are in discord an online and start a nice MMO evening. That's it. Perhaps there are 40 other guild members online but already started a raid. So those 4 players play together and are running around in the open world, facing a pve boss encouter. This scenario is happening often, it's not unsual.
You assume that alle those millions of players always are grouped with 8 or more other players the entire life and playing time? This will never ever happen, that's unrealistic and all other MMOs and my 20y+ experience shows me, that that's not gonna happen. There will be plenty of players running around solo, random and in small groups because for the situation/moment there is no raid/guild scaled group online or playing.
Should not only be due to charity, but because of social aspects of playing a MMO together and reaching the same goald beyond the own group restrictions/units.
In an open world a boss is not meant to be for a XY group, because the game cannot control how many players are in this area, especially not, if it is not instanced. And AoC is only instanced very limited. What you are talking about is only valid for instanced groups/raids, and it's just untrue for open world content, accessible for everyone. The correct game design here is: The boss will scale due to more players fighting against him. As it is in the other MMOs out there, at least the good ones. That's no zerg, that's unavoidable. You must scale the boss, because you always have to consider that there are not only 8 players around, but maybe 20 players.
Which must not be a good design, because as mentioned several times, that means punishment and limitation for random or solo players, that play together but are just not grouped at this moment. That's nothing more than an artificial barrier and therefore shouldn't be called "design".
? You don't have to argue around the status quo everybody knows, it's about adapting loot mechanics and propose different options and choices for the players, which support playing together instead of punsish players that have no group in this certain situation. If players invest their time and actions, they should participate on rewards for progression. Your option is: If they have no group, they should not play and log out. And this is bad game design, becaue it excludes instead of providing choice.
That's all about. Loot should not be limited. That's a punishment and disrespectful for all million players out there, that want play, want contribute, want fight, but a due to different aspects not in a group (or at this certain moment not grouped). And you simple answer is: It is like it is, whereas me (and others -> wait for the testing phases) try to explain: Change it as long as it is possible to change this. Risk and reward. But if there is no reward..?
Not if the system would work different - which is the main core of the discussion. We are not talking about the status quo (why we would need a discussion then?), but about, how to consider and respect the time of the players in a fair way.
No, it's just pushing frequent players, that play hour by hour every day, in front of players, that perform equally well but with less time investment. As you state: Grouping is the choice of the player. Also no grouping is choice of the player, well as I've repeated all the time, somethimes this is not the case, because there will be hundrets of examples, where players are not in a position to group up fully or in general, but have to lonewolf some content.
As this will not be a pve-focussed game I doubt that playing as a group will be really difficult. Mythic Raids in WoW are difficuelt PvE bosses, but not open dungeons or Firebrand that we saw (that's low to medium pve content, very easy). And when it comes to pvp it's all about class balancing and group size. If a guild runs around with 100 members the will terminate several other players and groups on their path, witouth being good players or well coordinatet. The main effort is, that you have a guild with a lot of 10h+ players (teenagers, students, half-time jobs, whatsoever). This should not be an indicator for a good and meaningful game design. The majority of the playerbase out there is known from the market, and there are no frequent players and no elitist players, this only works for a really small percentage of the entire player base. AoC will focus on them? Well ok, I wish all the best and forecast at maximum half a year to one year solid player base until it will decrease heavily due to frustration and game design that punishes instead of respects and rewards. Lineage 2 is not working anymore, that's why it is.. not working any more. A copy of the same (with some different approaches) will not change this, otherwise those small playerbase still would play Lineage 2, which is only a shadow of itself, whereas games like WoW, GW2 and ESO are still on the market, getting out Addon after Addon and so are still successful, not to talk about the big FF14.
Why "should" he? Who is saying this? What if the guild already started something and 5-6 members are coming online later so they run around in the world and facing a random enounter somewhere? Why shouldn't they play this encounter with other groups? Why should the entire guild stop what they are doing to go there, which perhaps need minutes of traveltime until the fight is already over? Why should those 5-6 members join the guild activity if that event (perhaps raid) is at 80% already and the group of 40 players is already full?
Your view on how to play in a MMO in every day meaning sounds really really strange to me. Played 20y+, as I've said, but never had such an experience or discussion.
Ok, so they are all online every time and you always have 50 members free to support ad hoc whatever happens. Okaayyy ;-)
We will see, whether this will work out. My forecast is: It will not. Things must be adapted to reach a better player base, especially in a pvp game, otherwise you will have some realm/server dominations and small guilds, groups, solo-players ALL will leave in weeks or month after the release. We've seen that in so many other MMOs before, maybe you don't have this experience as your only main experience is Linage 2? Why is Lineage 2 kind of "dead"? What do you think?
In real life and business, in entertainment and computer games that's of course different. It's a game providing fun, it's no serious real thing. Punishment and exclusion is never better than rewarding and inclusion. That's valid for real life and for gaming.
If alle the patters and feelings of the frequent and elitis players of the fallen down Lineage2 (or similar MMOs) want THIS again, well what to say more. It will face the same fate.
They are not existing, they are activly participating but excluded and punished only for one game design reason and design.
In most guilds you have to "apply" (like in real life) to get into that group. It's simple as this. Then due to relationships (my friend wants to join our guild, is it possible). That's it. It's always the social part in front of everything else.
Before, by getting the "job". In no MMO you are joining a guild "during the fight you are doing". What you do during playing in MMOs is to play together with guild members (if available), in large or small groups (depends on online availability) and alone (depends on time and online availabliltiy).
I never applied to guild, for instance. And would never do that (it's no job). I joined guilds due to how their reputation and social part was and is or due to recommondations of players I know that said this guild seems to be fine. But, I've also, like millions of others, played solo or random, if there was no other option available in that certain moment. And every solid MMO has answers to that instead of says "unlucky, log off or play something else". If that's the way, "niche MMO" is even exaggerated, it will be less than.
I had hundrets of situations like this, and this is just a natural thing. It's nothing unusal.
Which prime time?
It's not siphoning, it's supporting. And there are groups and players out there that understand this, it's your personal setting and bias to mistrust and to exclude other players and mark them as "siphoning randoms". It's a question of attitude and behaviour.
No, it's easy to do an algorithm by the game, not players (back to core discussion), that the game can decide which player contributed with which amount of time and performance, regardless of guild or group or whatever limitations or barriers. If an encounter is free for all and open, it can be played and supported. The time of a player in a group is not more worth than the time of a player doing the same without haveing a group in that moment. The example with the loot table above explains it. The support of more players leads to the success against the encounter. So, also the supporters, even if they are outside "the one and only group" should get reward, because they supported. If the players decide to pvp against each other all the time (and thus perhaps never kill that encounter) that's another story, because than the real goal is not reached due to player decision of that particular group in this particular situation. But there are other servers, also in pvp focussed games (I've played on pvp and pve servers, I know both sides). If the main goal is to get the encounter down, your enemy will get your friend, temporarily. If loot mechanics work good, it's shared, nobody will steal loot (and thus time) from other players. This is frustrating, this is an game design with frustration and exclusion.
They are not the same, that's obviously right, but you are wrong, I've not "played GW2", I've played quite every fantasy MMO (not the sci-fi ones) from DAoC until New World, beside two: Lineage and ArchAge. So, my experience is scattered around 10-15 (ie DAoC, WoW, Warhammer, Rift, Aion, GW1 and GW2, Neverwinter, Tera, Wildstar, LotR Online, BDO, ESO, FF14, New World, others? Can't remmber for the moment) MMOs in pvp and pve content with different approaches, styles, game designs and cultural backgrounds (because Asia MMOs are different to western MMOs in some aspects). My main experience is WoW, than GW2, than Elder Scrolls Online. Games like Neverwinter, Warhammer, Tera, Wildstar, Aion, BDO I only played for some months. LotR Online, Rift, FF14 and New World I've played bit more.
In WoW I've played both contents intensivley, progressing from vanilla WoW until WotLK in pve/raids and progressing until Gladiator (highes rank in PvP in Arenas, so instances PvP battles in small groups) and high ranks (but not Gladitaor) in rated Battlegrounds (so instances PvP with large scaled battles, sieges and so on).
If AoC stays a Lineage 2 copy, so will be Lineage 3 whatsoever, and this by full intention (and for whatever reason, because Lineage 2 failed over the years, but WoW, GW2 and ESO not) than I'm fine with that and it's ok, that players like you will play a real, I mean real, niche MMO with small playerbases where only a few named guilds will survive and the entire day will be fighting and doing the same "content".
Testphase and feedback will show, if it will survive in that form until the time of release.
Thanks for the discussion. altough we are don't have the same opinion how playing a modern MMO, with old-school aspects, in a high fantasy setting, should look like that it is working for a lot of players, and that is what a MMO needs: A lot of players, not only a small hardcore playerbase, especially, because it's monthly sub, so they need players, players and more players.
And it's interesting that the latest gameplay we got to see was: PvE. Dungeons and a world boss encounter, firebrand, because what you want to tell is: There will be 4 guilds around firebrand doing pvp and not pve, and for the developer this showcase easily would have been done like this: Splitting those 40 players in 2 or 3 groups and showing pvp during the encounter fight. Or getting 20 more testers to support this showcase, the one you are talking about the whole time.
I've to state that, for an Alpha, the game looks quite nice, really. I've to state that the pve gameplay was low to middle, it was simple mob-pulling and holy trinity to get the mobs down one after the other. Firebrand was cool, that's true, but nothing we didnt see in several other MMOs pve-wise, mechanic-wise or graphic-wise.
So, if that pvp behaviour is the one, we are looking forward to see a lot of upcoming alpha material to proof that, to see what happens, if large scaled groups just terminate all other players be mass and nothing more so that soloplayers and random players and smaller groups will have no progress but all frustration all over. But, I remember, Steven said, the game should be fun. Well, we will see. I'll give it a try, but if player target audience is like you / players like to and the game will punish and limit instead of reward and entertain, than I will skip it easily (not because I will not play in a guild or group, but I will also play solo depending on the availability and online time, but if there is no meaningful activity beside group-content, it's limiting my entertainment too much), but as (nearly) all other MMOs out there, I'll try, if that could be a meaningful new home base, because New World was a fail, unfortunately, because it had a lot of potential.
Gear durability and any food/res item costs should be accounted for.
And I don't think anyone would be butthurt, I think they would generally be sensible and not go.
We're considering 'take time to go to boss, with the HOPE of being the best party and getting the good loot, entering the battle, and if not the best party/raid, getting enough to not make it a waste of opportunity cost' (say, Dragon Meat or Dragon Scale, for FireBrand), vs 'assuming that it's a waste of time when you could be farming something else to buy FireBrand drops because you know the big guild has FireBrand locked down and they have no reason to give you anything even if you help them kill it'.
This isn't 'no one will kill FireBrand', it's just 'people won't pay their durability to fight it'. Especially if the Durability calculations are anything near sensible, because it would be better for a group to 'let the Farming guild lose as much of their own durability as possible' rather than 'donating' their own gear durability to that Guild for nothing.
Maybe you would 'compensate a bunch of people who helped you when you didn't ask for it at a World Boss', though.
This is all under the assumption of PvE that is strong or meaningful enough that you wouldn't just 'assume you could kill it if you had opposition'.
If a random soloer shows up and wishes to help, they are 'paying' their time and gear durability toward the success of the fight. Out of their goodwill I guess? And more importantly, I would expect Dragon Meat and Dragon Scales, like most drops, to fall under 'Materials'. So this whole discussion gets into even weirder territory since even if the 'soloer' did get something, the Guild can just instantly murder them for it.
Ashes is a complex system, and I believe in that system, giving more drops to more parties who hit a performance threshold on a boss, is better, but I won't complain either way, for the usual reason. I can only say that most World Bosses are not generally fun enough content to make them worth going to if I am only going to incur cost. This is more true the more people go.
So technically, if a poor loot distribution results in less people going to the boss, I guess it's good for me.
They could be spies for other guilds who'll wait for the opportune moment to remove your party from the boss and end it off quickly, which would let them spend fewer resources on that encounter.
I've experienced this in L2 a lot of times. Guilds would have alts in log-off around important boss respawns, or just send off-guild chars to check on those locations, and if you didn't remove those off-guild characters asap - they'd be relaying information about your progress to the enemy guild.
As I keep saying, owpvp mmos are competitive and in competitions each side does their best to prevent their competitors from winning. So using "seemingly random solos" as spies is just one of the tools that guilds can (and have in the past) use for this.
You can choose not to believe it, just as I choose not to believe that Steven will suddenly do a 180 in his design and try to appeal to the modern preferences of mmo design.
And as I keep saying. Those small groups and solo players are free to do literally any other content but bosses and dungeons, because that content is targeted towards full groups and raids.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Zergs
Bosses will not scale in hp or rewards and will instead have anti-zerg mechanics.
So you just want a yet another change in the game's design. A few more changes and it will stop being Ashes and become "the good modern mmo".
No, my suggestion is "go do literally anything else in this ginormous game, instead of wasting your time on the content that's not meant for you".
If a group of 40 people came to farm soloable mobs - would they be wasting their time or would it be fine? Because it'd be the same situation as solos coming to party content. There's a reason why certain content is meant for certain audiences. It's to create a difference of gameplay styles and a variety of experiences. Being able to get rewards for any activity while playing solo would completely remove that variety.
This is simply not that kind of game. As I keep saying, if Steven wanted to make that kind of game, he would've shifted design direction back in 2017 when he was told this exact thing by, I'm sure, a ton of people.
Or, hell, he could've changeed it literally at any point in the last 7 years, because even from the 4 years that I've been following the game - every other month there's a thread of "this game is DOA if it's not instanced/if owpvp is not disabled/if rewards are not for everyone/etc etc.
Yet Steven hasn't changed his stance on this, because he doesn't want to make a game like that. And if he does change it towards that - it'd be a spit in the face of everyone who's been following the game for the exact design that's been presented so far.
You, and others, are giving your opinion on how the system should be changed. I'm giving my opinion on why it shouldn't be. Because if I wasn't here giving that opinion, Intrepid wouldn't know that there are still people that want the PROMISED design to be implemented.
I followed this game exactly because of what Steven had promised. I advertised this game to my friends for that exact reason. I've started making content around the game for the same reason. And I give feedback to keep Intrepid to their promise for as long as I can, because I don't want Ashes to turn into yet another wow-clone.
The status quo is the exact thing you're suggesting, because majority expects it by this point. And I don't want that status quo.
As I've said before, it's obvious that you're used to cooperative mmos. I've played a competitive one. Steven played the same one and then decided to get inspired by it and make his own game, which is why I keep saying that the design won't change, unless Steven wants to make a completely different game.
Owpvp mmos are about player friction. There's gonna be no friction if everyone gets a reward. And if there's no friction - there's no owpvp, at which point it's no longer Ashes (at least as it has been presented so far).
I feel very sorry that you haven't experienced an mmo where a guild is always ready to help you farm something and/or support you in some activity.
I've been blessed to have played in dozens of guilds of various sizes (from 20 up to alliances of 500) that were always ready to help out and party up for anything.
You ask my why should people play in parties and be in guilds, but then say that the game MUST adapt to others. Why must it? There's enough people out there that want the exact kind of game that Steven has promised. Those people are not in your gaming circles, because it's obvious that we've played in different ones, and I know a ton of people who are very excited for the Ashes that has been promised and not in something else that they can get from other mmos.
Also, you build your entire argument of "solo players will leave" purely on the basis of "if raids don't reward everyone", all while there's countless other sources of content and rewards in the game. Not everyone is interested only in raids and bosses. Not everyone will be present when bosses are around (which will be the tiniest sliver of time btw). Not everyone will be willing to spend their gear durability and any resources their haev on them just in hopes of getting some random material from a boss, as Azherae pointed out.
All of those people can still enjoy the game in a variety of ways. I've known countless solo players in L2, and that game is way more aggressive about its "you gotta be in a party at all times" design than Ashes will be. So no, I don't agree that Ashes will suddenly die purely because bosses don't reward everyone around them with loot.
This is not true. Anyone who "invested" $40 into Concord can't play it now cause the game failed (now it should be mentioned that they got refunded, but not all failed games do that). The same is true about anyone who preorders games that die super quickly, or subs to services that they stop using within hours of subscription, or any other example of where people waste money on entertainment but do not get entertained.
What you're suggesting amount to the same as existing. A zerg of 300 people can come to a boss, all do a few hits on it, kill it within seconds and all get a reward. That barely constitutes as participation even, let alone an active one. But that's exactly what'll be done if Ashes changes its looting rules, because that would be the optimal thing to do (well, unless that reward is a dull piece of glint and nothing else
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Server_prime-time
As I said, if there's more than the predetermined amount of people on the boss - the boss goes into anti-zerg mechanics and becomes harder w/o giving more rewards. At that point it's not helping and instead making it worse.
If there's only a set amount of loot from the boss - your additional group of people being there would be directly siphoning loot from my group, because we'd be splitting it amongst us.
If the loot gets multiplied by the amount of people around the boss - imo that will ruin the economy completely. Unless, again, that multiplication only applies to glint. But then I highly doubt that we'll see all that many people joining random raids.
Ashes only need as many players as it takes to pay the devs and for the servers.
And I believe it'll easily sustain that amount of players, because it'll be cornering a niche that no other mmo on the market is currently cornering (TL notwithstanding cause it has its own set of problems).
I'm not surprised that you dislike AoC's designs, considering that you haven't played L2 and AA, but both L2 and AA died exactly because their devs fucked up and introduced huge changes to what had been fairly successful games. Steven is attempting to recreate that success w/o the fuckups.
If he succeeds in that - the game will have enough people to pay for the development.
Me and quite a few other people have given feedback that we wanna see a proper pvx encounter on one of the showcases. And Intrepid sure as hell have enough of testers right now to do that, but haven't for some reason. And we're now close enough to A2 that it'd be pointless to wait for that kind of showcase.
As for pve - I've been one of the loudest feedbackers that we need waaaay harder pve in the game, so we agree there. I simply want harder pve that supports the pvx nature of the game, but we've yet to see even just normal hardcore pve, so it's hard to say how far Intrepid can go with their encounter design. I still hold hope that they can make a true pvx game.
Well, guess why? That's what MMO players want. Meaningful systems, respecting the time of the player, not designing restrictations and not focussing elitst frequent players and not excluding players out of content, but instead providing meaningful content and systems for them. A game designed around hyper guilds farming all content (and all players) will struggle in the first weeks after release, independent of the nostalgic dreams some players have, because it worked 15 or 20 years in the past. Things change, one must accept that.
Players and markets change. As s company sometimes you need to adapt. Its not clear whether L2 would still live with same popularity if no changes where done. We only know this result.
You think the developers are guilty. Maybe. I think players and markets change.
Mention 3 successful big pvp hardcore MMOs to me that are still running with huge playerbase and are supported fully be the developer (like WoW, GW2 and ESO are).
WoW meanwhile provides both. It adresses old vanilla WoW gameplay (WoW Classic) for fans of time consuming and more group based content and modern WoW gameplay (Retail) with huge QoL features and improvements in solo and small group play to respect player time (same players that are 20y older but still fans). Both is successful, retail even more. Playing with four people (two couples, both mid 40) for 1-2 hours after work from 20-22? No problem, you can play a lot of content with full entertainment (you get your competition in work ;-))
Intrepid not only wants to pay their employees, the are a company and therefore focussed to make profit and maximise it over time. Its naive to feel different. They have a responsibility as employer, thats business, no garage programming.
Thanks for your insights and opinion, we will see, how things will work and what the testers and players will feedback until release - and afterwards. Its good to have a vision, its bad if a huge part of the market doesnt want this vision as reputation and viral communication will cause issues, because frustrated players due to frustrating designs will be loader than everything else - as always. And for MMOs this is crucial.
That scenario is done willingly by players giving up what they earned to better the guild, which is how it should be if the guild has fostered a community environment. Better yet, players in the raid just swap between each other because they know who needs what in there.
And even if someone doesn’t give up what they got, that isn’t ‘stealing’. They earned their drop just like everyone else and the guild isn’t entitled to sucking up the rewards from their players with no input from those players.
Opt-in is always better for loot sharing than mandated.
It all boils down the this: One selfish player in a personal loot system doesn't affect anyone but themselves. One bad GM in a Lootmaster system can ruin the experience for dozens of players at once and leave them empty handed for hours of their time.
I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with.
I've been playing in guilds (also within leadership board/officier for my classes, warrior and rogue) since several years (for instance since early 2000) and in every serious MMO which I played longer, so WoW, GW2 and ESO. (but I've played about 15 all together).
I've also played in small groups (for dungeons or small scaled pvp) and larger groups (for raids or large scale pvp). But, I've also played countless hours solo, because I just had no desire to do group content. And I've played solo but worked with other players together, without being in a group (unit) at this time. So we talk about diversity, not refusal. The group "must have" is an artificial barrier, because you can do content together without having groups setup. You also can pvp against each other without having groups active, because you are just doing a skirmish somewhere out in the world, where 4-5 players get together during farming/questing and start to pvp each other. All this - without having a group. Strange things can happen in MMOs, right? I can tell you some stories after 20y+ experience, just ask me.
This guild-hopping you are mentioning is the badest thing and strange behaviour. Think about joining a guild before and stay there, because choice matters. Hopping betwenn guilds because you are not ready to do compromises is a mirror of the personal social behaviour. I never changed my guild, but, we transfered our guilds from one MMO to the next. Guild-hoppers are known fast and are getting their stamp also that fast. Those guys were alone fast in all MMOs I've played so far, because of their reputation and "popularity" on the realms/servers.
What you guys, your are not alone, just don't consider, is, that there are online times existing, where you dont't want or you can't group, because your are online too early, or too late, or not enough guild members are online or they are already working on another goal together and the group is full and hundrets of other examples.
And this is happening quite often, not because there is an issue within the guild or the members, but because life is different for all members (expect the fact it is a guild where everybody is unemployed, single and playing 10h a day), and therefore meaningful solo content and meaningful loot mechanics that rewards social and cooperative players is crucial and available in solid and serious MMOs. There is a difference between getting less and nothing, right. And if we talk about 80% being not instanced then it's free for everybody, free to support, free to cooperate, free to get a reward/loot for investing the time, because it's invested with or without a group, it makes no difference. It's an open world, as long as you can run around it that world and invest your time as a player within that world you should have progress for your character in terms of experience, gear, ressources and other rewards whatsoever.
What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly?
So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content.
That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’.
You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game.
Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials.
If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone.
I don't know that there are any "abuse-proof" systems, in the strictest sense. I think the most correct thing that we know to do, currently, is just to punish the people who abuse the systems when it happens to discourage others from doing the same.
For ex, a group that is comprised mostly of guild members but needed a few more randoms to join to fill out the group. They finish some piece of difficult content and then the group leader who is a member of the guild kicks all the non-guild members of the group so they don't get a piece of the loot they rightly earned.
Now, there are mechanics and checks you can put in place to make this type of abuse less likely to happen, but it could fundamentally change how loot is distributed and not necessarily for the better.
For ex, a system whereby loot is allowed to be needed/greeded on, even to people who get kicked from the party as long as they were in the party when the content was finished (boss downed, or w/e).
But this could be abused as well.
For ex, you have 3 party members who did nothing or went afk during the middle of the boss fight or even just before and the party leader is too busy to notice or to do anything about it in the heat of the moment and so they remain in the party until they are finished. Those 3 people arguably should not be privy to the loot since they didn't contribute (and this could be on purpose, mind you) but in the above proposed loot system "fix" it would still give them a roll at the loot even if they were kicked before loot was distributed.
So, either way it can still be abused. I'm not saying it's necessarily impossible to make something that won't or can't be abused, but I don't think I have ever seen it. And just because I can't immediately think of a way to abuse it doesn't mean there isn't a way or that someone else won't find one either. So.. back to my original thought about catching and punishing abusers.
The only determinant factors on getting loot should be:
1) were you in the group that won looting rights at the time the boss died
2) did you contribute to the fight in a meaningful way
3) do you have advancements in the Gathering profession that this boss would
fall under (hunter for a beast, miner for a golem etc)
These are all things the game knows, and regarding point 2, players are actually barred from knowing that information because Steven won’t allow combat metrics logging in any capacity for some reason.
The only way to handle loot in a truly fair way is to have the game allocate it based on specific developer-established criteria, and to have enough non-gear loot in the form of recipes and craft mats drop that it always feels rewarding to be a part of the group that won the dps race.
If it is handled in this way, then hopefully all the items you get are tradable, otherwise you might end up getting something you didn't want or really wanted a friend to get/have and not being able to do anything about it.
An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains.
You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded.
Nothing* in Ashes is intended to be soul bound, so yeah everyone can freely trade afterwards if they want to.
Edit: *very few items might be but we haven’t seen any of them so far so I’m hoping they’ll stick with no BoP
Players need to be rewarded, that’s the point. You need to have something that makes people want to do the content at risk of gear degradation, exp debt due to death in PvX, time spent, etc, and if you don’t have that carrot at the end of the stick, you’re going to end up with a game that’s lacking a population willing to do that content.
If the goal is 10k players per server, a very hefty goal for a ‘niche’ game, there has to be something keeping players invested in risking their time and resources for what will amount to most often, no reward.
If ‘abuse’ was intended, which I definitely think is a bunch of nonsense, then why aren’t combat meters permitted on the basis of players being abusive with the information?