Is there a problem for solo players

Srixun

This is an MMO.

massively MULTIPLAYER online game.

Kilion

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Kilion wrote: »

I gave you a clear answer: I know that Intrepid makes mistakes and if you cant even filter that from 13 words, how are we to discuss more complex systems than that?

This was your "clear anwser"

Kilion wrote: »

Just so I understand this right: The entirety of Intrepid, a studio full of veteran MMORPG players themselves with the additional experience of being game designers for years if not decades, ALL overlooked as you said it "way larger problems" in almost all its core systems and you have figured it out despite only having joined something like 2 months ago? With all due respect despite the fact that Intrepid obviously is not perfect and on point with each of its decisions, that sounds to me like you are just quite full of yourself even though nothing indicates that you are either knowledgeable about the project or game development.

First of all there are 113 words there not 13. Second of all the first 65 words are you making a reductio ad absurdum argument in direct reference to me asking you "Do you think the devs can make a mistake". That tells me you don't think the devs can make mistakes.

The next 35 words of that paragraph are you saying "Intrepid obviously is not perfect" which isn't what I asked about. I asked specifically "Do you think the devs can make a mistake?" If you think that was a "clear answer" then you are very wrong. You said "Intrepid" at no point did I refer to the entire studio

If you wanted to give a clear answer it should look something like this; "Yes I agree that the devs can make a mistake." Then after that say whatever else you want. Use the same language because it's possible for intrepid to not be perfect, and the devs to not make a mistake.

So you ARE able to discern the answer, you just arbitrarily choose not to. That tells me all I need to know. Have fun looking for a solo experience in an group based MMO

Noaani

@AirborneBerserker

You asked me for a list of MMORPG's I was talking about in relation to not seeing masses of solo players.

I provided you with that list.

Please explain to me either where I am not seeing those solo players, or where you were very incorrect with your assertion that 50%+ of MMORPG players play solo.

The thing with making up obvious lies like this is that even if you fool some of us posters (you didn't), MMORPG developers and producers have actual hard data. They know how many people are grouping up, how many are running a given type of content, how many are in guilds etc. In some cases, they publish that data for their players to look over - this data that some developers have published in the past is how I know that you basically added an extra 0 to your claim of solo player percentage.

Depraved

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

TL:DR
Ashes encounters are designed for an 8-person group with one of each Primary Archetype.
Additionally, Stevens dream is to have massive battles of 250 v 250 PvP or 500 v 500 PvP. Even higher if they can keep the Realms stable.

That being said, players don't have to mechanically accept an invite to a Group in order to participate in Caravan PvP, Node Sieges or Node Wars. Nor to participate in World Boss battles or Dungeons.

What is stopping a Solo player from griefing a Group?
I'm going to be equally annoyed at a Solo player who repeatedly disrupts my playtime with unwanted PvP as I would be a Group who does so. Doesn't matter if my Group can kill the Solo griefer more quickly than we can kill a Group of griefers.

You didn't read the post, because if you had you would know that a solo player will have worse gear, and be lower level, and even if they do some how get gear AND are higher level the corruption system will probably weaken them enough to make sure the last person kills them. And even if they can't kill him and they all die, that's not griefing that's getting ganked, and the amount of corruption will likely force them to leave. Groups will not have that problem.

I disagree that a 100% solo player will have worse gear. you might not be able to farm the gear yourself, but you can always farm something else and buy the gear, even if it takes a little while. gear isn't bound here.

AirborneBerserker

Kilion wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Kilion wrote: »

I gave you a clear answer: I know that Intrepid makes mistakes and if you cant even filter that from 13 words, how are we to discuss more complex systems than that?

This was your "clear anwser"

Kilion wrote: »

Just so I understand this right: The entirety of Intrepid, a studio full of veteran MMORPG players themselves with the additional experience of being game designers for years if not decades, ALL overlooked as you said it "way larger problems" in almost all its core systems and you have figured it out despite only having joined something like 2 months ago? With all due respect despite the fact that Intrepid obviously is not perfect and on point with each of its decisions, that sounds to me like you are just quite full of yourself even though nothing indicates that you are either knowledgeable about the project or game development.

First of all there are 113 words there not 13. Second of all the first 65 words are you making a reductio ad absurdum argument in direct reference to me asking you "Do you think the devs can make a mistake". That tells me you don't think the devs can make mistakes.

The next 35 words of that paragraph are you saying "Intrepid obviously is not perfect" which isn't what I asked about. I asked specifically "Do you think the devs can make a mistake?" If you think that was a "clear answer" then you are very wrong. You said "Intrepid" at no point did I refer to the entire studio

If you wanted to give a clear answer it should look something like this; "Yes I agree that the devs can make a mistake." Then after that say whatever else you want. Use the same language because it's possible for intrepid to not be perfect, and the devs to not make a mistake.

So you ARE able to discern the answer, you just arbitrarily choose not to. That tells me all I need to know. Have fun looking for a solo experience in an group based MMO

No I wasn't able to till AFTER you said I gave you a clear anwser

Noaani wrote: »

@AirborneBerserker

You asked me for a list of MMORPG's I was talking about in relation to not seeing masses of solo players.

I provided you with that list.

Please explain to me either where I am not seeing those solo players, or where you were very incorrect with your assertion that 50%+ of MMORPG players play solo.

The thing with making up obvious lies like this is that even if you fool some of us posters (you didn't), MMORPG developers and producers have actual hard data. They know how many people are grouping up, how many are running a given type of content, how many are in guilds etc. In some cases, they publish that data for their players to look over - this data that some developers have published in the past is how I know that you basically added an extra 0 to your claim of solo player percentage.

I also asked you another question which you ignored, because you know it would prove you wrong.

iccer

I just want to point out that someone can be in a guild, and still be a solo player.

Plenty of people are in a guild, but are mostly playing solo when they are logged in.

Maybe my definition of solo is different, idk.

Haven't really read much for the past few pages, but my opinion is that this game looks to heavily favor groups, which is kind of fine. But it also seems to heavily punish solo players, based on what we've seen so far (which is a key point). Maybe we just haven't seen enough of the game yet to judge it, but on what we've seen so far, it's all group content that cannot be dole solo. This is why it appears that solo players will have NOTHING meaningful to do in this game, which not only puts them behind groups, but also heavily punishes them for their choice.


If I get to have meaningful group content, that I might do once or twice a day, whether it's caravans, world bosses, dungeons, events, while still being able to do my own thing in between, whether it's just farming mobs, farming crops on my plot of land (that I won't have since, well.. freeholds are very limited), gathering, exploring, etc. - I'm going to be happy, as long it feels like I'm progressing, rather than doing something just for the sake of it.



As always I'm going to compare Ashes to my favorite MMO, Archeage.

- Freeholds are going to probably be limited to groups, guild leaders, or other more rich and powerful people, not really to solo players. (In Archeage you could get land as a solo player relatively easily. Ofc if you wanted many plots, it would be more difficult, but very possible).
- Farming mobs, we know there are going to be solo hunting grounds so that's something at least. (In Archeage, you could realistically do it in PvP areas, you'd get ganked sometimes, if not often, but it's not big of a deal, you can respawn and go agane)
- Trade runs/caravans, realistically the way they work and how "slow" they are to spawn and to move, I don't think solo players will be realistically able to complete any, without getting ganked by groups. (In Archeage, solo is doable in risky areas, and there were also safe zones where you could also do trade runs - they would take 20-30min with a farm cart, rewards are ok - but if you want better rewards, there's more risk by going out to the sea...risk vs reward, you know). In Ashes, this seems to heavily lean into risk, as there's a high chance for no reward.
- Gathering, could potentially be contested, depending on rarity of materials you are trying to gather. (In Archeage, it's mostly done on your plot of land, other than mining which was at different spots on the map, sometimes in the PvP zones, not much risk)

The rest of the stuff is group content, which will be the key part of the game, something that will make you more powerful, etc. which is how it should be. The above content I mentioned, should be more open to solo players, because you need to do something during that "downtime" when you are not in a group, competing vs other groups.
- Caravans' risk/reward should be there, we should be able to choose how risky we want something to be, and therefore be rewarded accordingly. At the moment, it just looks like high risk, without any options to choose lower risk (well the option is, you make a group every time you want to transport something, but it will only draw more attention, so it ends up being the same).
- Gathering, more rare materials, more risk, regular materials, low risk.
- Farming mobs, those that drop better xp, and loot, more risk, regular farming spots, low risk.
- Freeholds, in reality you cannot really put the risk & reward here, unless we are talking about where you place your freehold, meaning how dangerous the area is, depending on player activity. In reality, solo players should have some housing options, where they can have a plot of land to farm stuff on it. Maybe that plot will be a lot smaller, meaning you can farm less stuff on it, which is fine, you need to work for a bigger plot.

Overall at the moment, based on what we know, this game feels like risk vs reward, but there's only high risk. In most areas of the game, this means solo players are at a very high risk to get no reward.
On top of that, there are several systems that are going to be limited to select few people, or rather to most rich/powerful people/groups on the server, further leaving "solo" or just regular players with not that much.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Noaani

@AirborneBerserker

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

I also asked you another question which you ignored, because you know it would prove you wrong.

Cool I must have missed it. Feel free to point me to it like I pointed you to the question you didn't answer.

Unlike you though, if you point me to the question you think I didn't answer, I'll answer it for you instead of dodging it.

AirborneBerserker

@Noaani

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

But for the sake of argument let's assume that 100% of people will be in guilds at launch. And lets assume that 5 million people (which would be a wildly high number) buy the game on or before launch. And lets assume the game runs for 10 years which means for 9.5 years people will be joining the game after the majority of people are max level. What percentage of players do you think that 9.5 years of growth amount to?

In other words do you think in 9.5 years you would get another 5 million people playing the game and if so that would be 50% of the player base being solo players for most if not all of their leveling experience.

Noaani

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Noaani

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

But for the sake of argument let's assume that 100% of people will be in guilds at launch. And lets assume that 5 million people (which would be a wildly high number) buy the game on or before launch. And lets assume the game runs for 10 years which means for 9.5 years people will be joining the game after the majority of people are max level. What percentage of players do you think that 9.5 years of growth amount to?

In other words do you think in 9.5 years you would get another 5 million people playing the game and if so that would be 50% of the player base being solo players for most if not all of their leveling experience.

When you basically type "assumption, assumption, assumption, question", you kind of can't expect the question to be taken seriously.

My actual answer to your question is that I do not expect Ashes to be live for 10 years, so your question isn't something that I can answer. If you rephrase it in a way where you aren't making layered assumptions leading in to a question, I could attempt to answer it. However, in the above form, it is not a question that can be answered.

I will also point out that your rephrasing of the question in your post above is actually a different question. In that post, you are only talking about people playing during their leveling up process. MMORPG's that have published play time statistics all have around 90% of all online time in their game being on characters at the current level cap, so the leveling process only makes up 10% of total play time - meaning even if 50% of players leveling up were unguilded, that only makes on 5% of total play time for the game as a whole.

Now it's your turn to tell me the games you were talking about where 50%+ players play the game unguilded.

Not start the game unguilded, where 50%+ are unguilded.

AirborneBerserker

Noaani wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Noaani

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

But for the sake of argument let's assume that 100% of people will be in guilds at launch. And lets assume that 5 million people (which would be a wildly high number) buy the game on or before launch. And lets assume the game runs for 10 years which means for 9.5 years people will be joining the game after the majority of people are max level. What percentage of players do you think that 9.5 years of growth amount to?

In other words do you think in 9.5 years you would get another 5 million people playing the game and if so that would be 50% of the player base being solo players for most if not all of their leveling experience.

When you basically type "assumption, assumption, assumption, question", you kind of can't expect the question to be taken seriously.

My actual answer to your question is that I do not expect Ashes to be live for 10 years, so your question isn't something that I can answer. If you rephrase it in a way where you aren't making layered assumptions leading in to a question, I could attempt to answer it. However, in the above form, it is not a question that can be answered.

I will also point out that your rephrasing of the question in your post above is actually a different question. In that post, you are only talking about people playing during their leveling up process. MMORPG's that have published play time statistics all have around 90% of all online time in their game being on characters at the current level cap, so the leveling process only makes up 10% of total play time - meaning even if 50% of players leveling up were unguilded, that only makes on 5% of total play time for the game as a whole.

Now it's your turn to tell me the games you were talking about where 50%+ players play the game unguilded.

Not start the game unguilded, where 50%+ are unguilded.

Why wont the game last that long? EverQuest is still running and its been 25 years since that game launched.

akabear

This looked like an interesting topic from the title.

With a quick skim, it's way too long with too many unrelated details, making it hard to follow the main point. Further posts also seem to diverge from what I expected based on the title.

Is there a problem for solo players or is there some other problem?

Caeryl

akabear wrote: »

This looked like an interesting topic from the title.

With a quick skim, it's way too long with too many unrelated details, making it hard to follow the main point. Further posts also seem to diverge from what I expected based on the title.

Is there a problem for solo players or is there some other problem?

A tldr: Solo players are not the intended audience for Ashes and as such will be disadvantaged in PvE and PvP. True statement.

Then they claimed half of the entire MMO population is solo players and that Ashes would fail due to a lack of solo-rewarding content.

Noaani

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Noaani

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

But for the sake of argument let's assume that 100% of people will be in guilds at launch. And lets assume that 5 million people (which would be a wildly high number) buy the game on or before launch. And lets assume the game runs for 10 years which means for 9.5 years people will be joining the game after the majority of people are max level. What percentage of players do you think that 9.5 years of growth amount to?

In other words do you think in 9.5 years you would get another 5 million people playing the game and if so that would be 50% of the player base being solo players for most if not all of their leveling experience.

When you basically type "assumption, assumption, assumption, question", you kind of can't expect the question to be taken seriously.

My actual answer to your question is that I do not expect Ashes to be live for 10 years, so your question isn't something that I can answer. If you rephrase it in a way where you aren't making layered assumptions leading in to a question, I could attempt to answer it. However, in the above form, it is not a question that can be answered.

I will also point out that your rephrasing of the question in your post above is actually a different question. In that post, you are only talking about people playing during their leveling up process. MMORPG's that have published play time statistics all have around 90% of all online time in their game being on characters at the current level cap, so the leveling process only makes up 10% of total play time - meaning even if 50% of players leveling up were unguilded, that only makes on 5% of total play time for the game as a whole.

Now it's your turn to tell me the games you were talking about where 50%+ players play the game unguilded.

Not start the game unguilded, where 50%+ are unguilded.

Why wont the game last that long? EverQuest is still running and its been 25 years since that game launched.

EQ is, sure. But then, EQ is a PvE focused MMORPG.

PvP focused MMORPG's have a long history of, well, not lasting as long.

If you look at the numbers required to maintain a single server in Ashes with it's current design (as far as we understand it), it would need to be in the top three most popular PvP focused MMORPG's in order to maintain a single server. A game can't maintain that for a prolonged period of time.

Either way, you have a question to rephrase if you want an answer, and an answer to a question to provide.

Dygz

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

But for the sake of argument let's assume that 100% of people will be in guilds at launch. And lets assume that 5 million people (which would be a wildly high number) buy the game on or before launch. And lets assume the game runs for 10 years which means for 9.5 years people will be joining the game after the majority of people are max level. What percentage of players do you think that 9.5 years of growth amount to?

I don't understand what any of that has to do with growing the game, but...
I expect the vast majority of Ashes players will belong to a Guild.
People in Guilds still Adventure Solo, at least sometimes, rather than only Adventuring in a Group.

I'm not expecting Ashes to have better numbers than Albion.
The longer Ashes takes to release, the fewer people will play it. Because there will be plenty of other games to play. Especially for PvEers and Casual-Challenge players and Casual-Time players... and Soloers (people who mostly Adventure without joining a Group).

AirborneBerserker

akabear wrote: »

This looked like an interesting topic from the title.

With a quick skim, it's way too long with too many unrelated details, making it hard to follow the main point. Further posts also seem to diverge from what I expected based on the title.

Is there a problem for solo players or is there some other problem?

Technically no, the OP just points out all the different systems that screw solo players which is basically all of them. Then comes to conclusions about how this game will end up going in the long run. Which is nothing new for Hardcore PvP games.

If you think solo/casual players shouldn't have a (not all, not most, not some, not very little) game play loop to engage with at end game no problem. If you think that is a bad idea then that is a problem.

Otr

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

If you think solo/casual players shouldn't have a (not all, not most, not some, not very little) game play loop to engage with at end game no problem. If you think that is a bad idea then that is a problem.

I am undecided. Is that a problem or not?

AirborneBerserker

Noaani wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Noaani

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

But for the sake of argument let's assume that 100% of people will be in guilds at launch. And lets assume that 5 million people (which would be a wildly high number) buy the game on or before launch. And lets assume the game runs for 10 years which means for 9.5 years people will be joining the game after the majority of people are max level. What percentage of players do you think that 9.5 years of growth amount to?

In other words do you think in 9.5 years you would get another 5 million people playing the game and if so that would be 50% of the player base being solo players for most if not all of their leveling experience.

When you basically type "assumption, assumption, assumption, question", you kind of can't expect the question to be taken seriously.

My actual answer to your question is that I do not expect Ashes to be live for 10 years, so your question isn't something that I can answer. If you rephrase it in a way where you aren't making layered assumptions leading in to a question, I could attempt to answer it. However, in the above form, it is not a question that can be answered.

I will also point out that your rephrasing of the question in your post above is actually a different question. In that post, you are only talking about people playing during their leveling up process. MMORPG's that have published play time statistics all have around 90% of all online time in their game being on characters at the current level cap, so the leveling process only makes up 10% of total play time - meaning even if 50% of players leveling up were unguilded, that only makes on 5% of total play time for the game as a whole.

Now it's your turn to tell me the games you were talking about where 50%+ players play the game unguilded.

Not start the game unguilded, where 50%+ are unguilded.

Why wont the game last that long? EverQuest is still running and its been 25 years since that game launched.

EQ is, sure. But then, EQ is a PvE focused MMORPG.

PvP focused MMORPG's have a long history of, well, not lasting as long.

If you look at the numbers required to maintain a single server in Ashes with it's current design (as far as we understand it), it would need to be in the top three most popular PvP focused MMORPG's in order to maintain a single server. A game can't maintain that for a prolonged period of time.

Either way, you have a question to rephrase if you want an answer, and an answer to a question to provide.

Since I have never stated anything like 50+% of players were unguilded in any game there's no reason for me to answer that.

What I have said is Solo players. So if you want to know how many games I have played like that literally all of them with the exception of EQ (the original not PJ 99).

AirborneBerserker

Dygz wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

But for the sake of argument let's assume that 100% of people will be in guilds at launch. And lets assume that 5 million people (which would be a wildly high number) buy the game on or before launch. And lets assume the game runs for 10 years which means for 9.5 years people will be joining the game after the majority of people are max level. What percentage of players do you think that 9.5 years of growth amount to?

I don't understand what any of that has to do with growing the game, but...
I expect the vast majority of Ashes players will belong to a Guild.
People in Guilds still Adventure Solo, at least sometimes, rather than only Adventuring in a Group.

I'm not expecting Ashes to have better numbers than Albion.
The longer Ashes takes to release, the fewer people will play it. Because there will be plenty of other games to play. Especially for PvEers and Casual-Challenge players and Casual-Time players... and Soloers (people who mostly Adventure without joining a Group).

Because the people coming into the game 6+ months after launch will have a much harder time finding a group. Which means they will spend most if not all of their time leveling solo. Which I would define as something that would make them a solo player even if temporarily.

And it's interesting you chose Albion since its a prime example of what I'm talking about. Launch number 1300, 1 year in 233, add a bunch of casual friendly stuff go free to play. The casual players are carrying that game.

AirborneBerserker

Otr wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

If you think solo/casual players shouldn't have a (not all, not most, not some, not very little) game play loop to engage with at end game no problem. If you think that is a bad idea then that is a problem.

I am undecided. Is that a problem or not?

I don't care it's your prerogative.

Dygz

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Because the people coming into the game 6+ months after launch will have a much harder time finding a group. Which means they will spend most if not all of their time leveling solo. Which I would define as something that would make them a solo player even if temporarily.

Nope. It will be eaiser to find a group because there will be open world housing in Metros, Cities, Towns and Villages and on Freeholds.
6 months after launch, players will be able to choose whether the want to Solo or Group.
If they want to Group, they can find players who play at the same time they do in open world housing.
They can form a Guild or join a Guild and participate in the Weekly Castle Village Sieges. They can participate in Caravan defense/attacks (even if they don't mecanically accept an invite to join a Group). They can participate in Node Sieges or Node Wars.
They can jump into Dungeons and fight alongside other players (even if they don't mecanically accept an invite to join a Group).
They can hang around near the Portals and find other people to Adventure with - if they want to Adventure with other players.
They can hang out in Taverns and find other people to Adventure with - if they want to Adventure with other players.
Or... they can Adventure Solo if they want to.

Also... Ashes does not have an Endgame. It is a dynamic game rather than a static game.

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

And it's interesting you chose Albion since its a prime example of what I'm talking about. Launch number 1300, 1 year in 233, add a bunch of casual friendly stuff go free to play. The casual players are carrying that game.

I dunno that Solo inherently equates with Casual.
Most MMORPG players are some form of Casual. Currently, Casual and Solo are not Ashes' target audience.
We will have to see whether Intrepid tweaks their philosophy regarding Risk v Reward and "PvX" years after launch.

Aszkalon

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

No YOU don't want that.

Yes he d~ooees ... ... ...


If you want to play an MMO where You can "SOLO" +90% of the Open World, like in Worst of Warcraft,

then Ashes of Creation might not be the Game for You, Airborne.
You can get jumped and ganked by People " EVERYWHERE " - > by People who probably aim specifically for Lone Wolf-like Players who always run around solo.

Or run around most of their time solo. Do you really wish to be that easy an Target ?

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Because even if people are willing to group and you start forcing people to do things they aren't ready to do they will stop playing the game, and even if they do participate in whatever thing you want to they will be resentful.

I am more than willing than You being resentful at People -> if it means People will be "FORCED" to play a huge and i truly mean, "HUGE" Communities and Teams in this coming Game,

so that it actually " feels* " like we are indeed a mighty Node. A strong Village. An even stronger, ambitious Town. A veeery strong City. Or even a mighty Metropolis who entirely DOMINATES the surrounding Lands for Glory and Greatness.


Don't resent the Player. Resent the Game. (lol)

scottstone7

I played EQ pretty much every day from mid-1999 until the end of 2008. I had max level characters and usually a few alts on 5 different servers including the RP server and a PVP server during that time. I can say without a doubt that solo players were in the extreme minority on all the servers I played on. Were there solo players? Yes, there were a bunch, but they were still way outnumbered by dedicated groups and guilds. Outside of the rare druid/wizard/bard/necromancer and some rangers that really knew their class and how to play solo they were usually crap. Slow to level, slow to get good gear, slow to explore new areas. During my time, on the servers I played on, no solo player ever solo’ed anything close to what was considered current end game content at the time nor were they ever in a list of top tier players. The game simply was not designed for solo players. Solo play was an option, group play was the ideal. Ashes will be the same.

Noaani

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Since I have never stated anything like 50+% of players were unguilded in any game there's no reason for me to answer that.

What I have said is Solo players. So if you want to know how many games I have played like that literally all of them with the exception of EQ (the original not PJ 99).

You specifically said that at best, 50% of people are in guilds.

Here is a refresher for you.

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

First there is no reason to assume most people are in guilds given most MMO players are solo, meaning at best your looking at 50% of people being in guilds.

Now, if st most 50% of players are in guilds, and a game only has two states in terms of guilds (in a guild, not in a guild) that means basic math demands thst you are saying that 50%+ people are not in guilds.

So, you did in fact say it. That is why I am waiting for your answer as to which games you are talking about.

Otr

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

If you think solo/casual players shouldn't have a (not all, not most, not some, not very little) game play loop to engage with at end game no problem. If you think that is a bad idea then that is a problem.

I am undecided. Is that a problem or not?

I don't care it's your prerogative.

Ok, then my statement is that solo / casual players should get a game play loop only in early stage of leveling. Groups should have higher chance of success by working together.
But the game should not favor large guilds.
Basically I agree with the way Steven decided to make the game from his money and t supporters money.
There will be solo content too:

"Social organizations cater for solo players who don't wish to engage in guild-oriented organizations.[7][8]"

We don't know much about them because in the Q&A sessions players don't seem to be interested enough to ask.
But they asked about group finder features which means they expect to be able to group spontaneously with other people. That will happen within the nodes as you will share the citizenship with other people, if you decide to be a citizen.
Citizenship will bring advantages. If you intend to become a citizen that means you join a group of players.
You are not quite solo anymore.

If you don't want to help your fellow citizens who also play outside of guilds, then you are very selfish and if there are many like you, your node will fall.

What we're creating is a PvX game; and what that means is our target audience is the PvX player; and that is our golden cohort. – Steven Sharif

The game is about nodes.
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/node-series-part-one
Nodes are About Community

PvX means PvP.
PvP means advantage to groups, especially those who protect or attack the caravans which move between the nodes.

Do you want to help your citizens or not?

Mag7spy

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

But for the sake of argument let's assume that 100% of people will be in guilds at launch. And lets assume that 5 million people (which would be a wildly high number) buy the game on or before launch. And lets assume the game runs for 10 years which means for 9.5 years people will be joining the game after the majority of people are max level. What percentage of players do you think that 9.5 years of growth amount to?

I don't understand what any of that has to do with growing the game, but...
I expect the vast majority of Ashes players will belong to a Guild.
People in Guilds still Adventure Solo, at least sometimes, rather than only Adventuring in a Group.

I'm not expecting Ashes to have better numbers than Albion.
The longer Ashes takes to release, the fewer people will play it. Because there will be plenty of other games to play. Especially for PvEers and Casual-Challenge players and Casual-Time players... and Soloers (people who mostly Adventure without joining a Group).

Because the people coming into the game 6+ months after launch will have a much harder time finding a group. Which means they will spend most if not all of their time leveling solo. Which I would define as something that would make them a solo player even if temporarily.

And it's interesting you chose Albion since its a prime example of what I'm talking about. Launch number 1300, 1 year in 233, add a bunch of casual friendly stuff go free to play. The casual players are carrying that game.

I'm not that invested in this conversation. I don't play albion but i had a successful branch of my guild that was playing it and it was very group oriented.

https://massivelyop.com/2024/05/14/albion-online-has-broken-its-population-records-again-with-358k-concurrent-players/

brendhan

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Where to begin...ah, yes.

First, we need to look at the psychological effect of being happy or just plain having fun while doing something difficult. There is a direct relationship between how much fun a person is having and how likely they will complete a task. That means the happier people are the more likely they are to finish a task, no matter how distasteful. This means that of all the things that are important having fun is the most important.

Now, let's talk about systems. Systems are important, but some systems are more important then others. For example my circulatory system has a higher priority then the electrical system in my house. We are going to take that same concept and apply it to the game.

Okay, So there are systems in the game one of them is the most important system. That system is the class system, this is because of all the systems in the game this one system is the medium by which all interactions occur between the player and the game. So we want the classes to create the most fun/happiness/enjoyment/satisfaction/all the good emotions.

Let's see...Ah, I don't think I am going out on a limb saying that the AoC community wants this game to be difficult. I agree, It helps with...it helps create a sense of...pride and accomplishment. There is no joy in dunking on kindergarteners, however there is a certain satisfaction when they're assholes.

What conclusions can we draw without even knowing anything specific about the game? Given we want the game to be very difficult, having fun is important, and the Class system is the most interacted with by players. We can then conclude that the best thing to do is make sure the Classes are 100% satisfying or as close to that as humanly possible, and do this as early as possible.

Now what conclusions can we draw from the previous conclusion? Any aspect of the class system that either delays, or removes ANY satisfaction, fun, excitement, role, playstyle or any other positive emotion is a poor design decision choice due to needing as much happiness due to the projected difficulty of the game. Now this does not mean that doing something like that is necessarily wrong, unless we establish that all the other systems are creating pressure , then it would be a huge mistake. Now we look at how people interact and the systems surrounding them. (think of pressure as a obstacle, some avoidable, some unavoidable, and some you choose which is more of an accepted challenge then an obstacle)

So, let's start with the guild system, this obviously relives pressure from players. There's no doubt about that. Not every player, solo and casual players wont receive any benefits from guild perks. On top of that some of the pressure shifts rather then disappearing, the pressure comes from other players, falls squarely on solo and casual players.

"Oh, nay, nay" I hear you say, hold your horses. It mostly comes from the always on PvP, this in and of itself isn't a problem, however when you kill people in the open world they drop stuff, and if they're corrupted they drop gear. Now, we need to do a thought experiment. I want you to imagine you're playing AoC and come to a clearing, there's one person in a guild, a Group of four, and one person not in a guild, you have to kill one, who do you choose? I'm going to assume everyone was intellectually honest and picked the one person not in a guild because it is the lowest risk thing, this is because of a psychological human trait called risk aversion which people have. If your saying "I need more information what level are they blah blah blah", that's called dodging the question, but please post that so I know you aren't intellectually honest.

(I'm breaking here because this is going to be a theme moving forward, almost every system in this game either does nothing, adds pressure, or shifts pressure onto solo and casual players, while doing the opposite for Guilds, and if you think that isn't a problem, Solo and casual players account for 50-70% of MMO players.)

Yes, guilds do create pressure for people in the guild, but that is chosen. Plus if you don't like that pressure it is /gquit <--that far away from not being your problem. You can go and join a different guild, maybe a more ambitious one, maybe less ambitious, up to you. There is no option for solo and (most) casual players for that.

What about professions, surely those don't add any pressure. Remember when I said you drop stuff? Well materials and gatherables are both dropped. Okay, but how much? 20-30% so if a person had farmed for an hour you would get between 15-20 mins worth of framing mats for 10 seconds(?) of combat. So yes, especially when you realize that the thought experiment factors into this, people are more likely to target a person they think will have little to no recourse. So even more pressure for solo and casual players.

"No, no, no" I can hear you saying, but yes because professions add another reason why you would want to kill a person that you would otherwise leave alone. They have incentivized hunting other players, and solo and casual players will be the first on the list. This gets worse the higher level you are given the crafting materials will get rarer.

What conclusions can we draw from what we know now? Well, we know people drop things and we know solo players will be targeted more often then not, but what about other mitigating factors like level. Let's start at the beginning move forward, everyone will be level 1, everyone will start with the same knowledge base(for the most part), and there will be not many grievances to consider. Groups get between a 30 and 40% experience boost while grouped based on the number of people in the group (the experience of the killed mob is divided between group members and then multiplied). This means that people that group will level faster, and the people who can group more easily more often will level even faster. Which just so happens to be one of the benefits of being in a guild.

The corruption system has many parts, we are interested in the interaction between groups and solo players, and the removal of corruption. Yes, there are other parts and while they do have some interesting interactions there aren't any that really peak my interest. Especially when we are talking creating pressure and who is affected by that pressure.

Solo and group interactions is first. Namely the fact that a group of people can still grief solo players but the other way around is not possible. This is strait forward and simple all they need to do is swap out people that kill the solo player, if the solo player fights back no corruption is gained and everyone can help if they don't they die and get a debuff making them weaker. Why can they do this? Because they're grouped up and as a result gain more levels which means they are all a higher level, to add to that they almost certainly have higher quality gear due to having access to more forms of content.

Corruption removal can occur in one of two ways either you die, or you grind experience until it falls off. As I understand it griding experience slowly removes the debuff over time. Wait. didn't we just talk about groups getting more experience, so grouping not only gets you more experience, it helps you get rid of corruption faster, ensures you're safer against ganks, and opens up other forms of content.

That brings me to the ownership system.

As we can see the ownership system is not non-existent, rather it is based on the ever popular ancient Greek idea of "the strong do what they can, the weak endure what they must". Just so we're clear ownership whether sanctioned or not, is based on one groups ability to prevent other groups from accessing the thing being possessed. And what is the smallest group? That's right one, so solo players get it again a lot more pressure here given this applies to the entire world even the "solo focused areas", and high level crafting materials which you need to have even decent gear.

In the economic system were going to focus on two things item degradation and auction houses. Yes, there lots of other parts to the system but they are all bog standard things that you would expect for an MMO made in 2024, and have no real impact on the game as a whole beyond exactly what you would expect.

Auction houses are not global. They can be linked but this only helps a little and as I understand it only 3 can be linked at most. this by no means is a huge deal, but it does mean solo players are either forced to pay more or run to a wholly different part of the world to pay less money. And people will do this. Because players will optimize the fun out of games. Guilds on the other hand can send groups of 4 or 8 to pick up what is needed for the guild massively reducing the amount of time they need to travel for this kind of thing and being much safer in the process.

Item degradation in most games saddle you with a simple repair bill which allows you to just press a button, pay gold and be done. It's a gold sink in every sense of the word. Ashes of Creation is instead a materials sink you need to have some of the materials so that you can actually repair the item when it gets damaged. The two ways you incur a repair cost is by either over enchanting an item destroying it, or dying, either from PvE or PvP(with exceptions). This means that you can have top of the line gear. Why can't you repair them well there's a guild farming the nodes where you would get the materials and they horde them for themselves and only trickle a little out at a time to keep them hyper expensive. Why are they hording them? Because they have to since there is no way for them to know when they will get another chance to farm them again, because

Player housing. The thing about player housing is it's stupid. If I wanted to play the sims I would play the sims. It takes up a massive amount of development time and effort, and should never be part of a game, but the game itself. That being said the community seems to be overjoyed that it's happening and it benefits everyone fairly equally so no pressure.

Opt-in objective-based battlegrounds better known as sanctioned PvP events. These are open world battle grounds which include sieges, caravans, guild wars and naval PvP and are guaranteed to be totally balanced in every way and never be totally one sided with sixty people attacking a caravan being guarded by twenty people, and if you didn't pick up on the sarcasm you should get out more. This system as it stands is bad for everyone, It favors uber guilds more then others, but it ultimately guarantees you will almost never have any kind of fifteen versus fifteen balanced team conflict and will likely only ever have waves of people washing over a much smaller group. But let's tackle this in detail.

Naval combat seems fine. The big problem is the lack of set transportation, but as far as I can tell that should be easy to implement and test, so while technically solo players could be prevented from traveling from one continent to the other the fix will be so quick and easy I'm not really worried about it.

Caravans!!! Everyone's favorite system, unfortunately can't be used by solo players at all, even if you're a particularly high functioning adult and think you can wait till 3 am and then send the caravan since caravan events are a thing which prevent you from doing even that, but as far as I can tell it does not directly incentivize people to kill solo players people so that's good. While technically it could benefit solo players it would require you to hang out in the area where the caravans spawn like some jaded wife waiting for lifetime alimony, then shadow it in the hopes that some other larger group shows up. Even then that doesn't guarantee any spoils, or that they wont kill you right after. Uber guilds that can take advantage of the system get a huge pressure release because they can multiply any of their earnings by 5 ensuring their entire guild is stupid rich all the time, and anything they need they can just buy.

Castle and Node sieges are a thing. I don't see a problem with Castle sieges, if toddlers want to spend 3 hours fighting over a sand castle that's their prerogative. Node sieges on the other hand are another story. Mainly because they upend everything anyone was trying to do and force you to deal with that, or leave, rather then do what you want. So your choices are forced content, which solo players are likely to lose, or move to a new area, and learn that area from scratch. This is another system that favors guilds, the bigger they are the better off they are again. This is probably the biggest slap in the face you can do to people. This does not make me feel like a player in a game, it makes me feel like I'm content for someone else's game. And while you can do that in a game you never want it to feel like that is what's happening, and no matter what you do, how fun and engaging you make these systems to participate in you will ultimately still be in a situation where you are the monkey being forced to dance for other peoples entertainment.

Node sieges are not opt in. You have two choices "Flee or Die"(IYKYK), there is no opt out. I know I'm going to get push back on this, but for something to be opt in you need to be able to opt out. Fleeing is not opting out because you never asked to be in the situation in the first place. Your are being forced to choose not being asked if you would like a choice. The other tack some might take is the by entering the game you are opting in, and okay fair enough nodes are ubiquitous so maybe that is a valid argument. Let's list the other sanctioned "battlegrounds" them Guild Wars, Castle Sieges, Naval PvP, Caravans, and Node Wars. The first 4 of those are actually opt in, arguably doubly so, first opt in to the guild system, then opt into the content. Node Wars is a pseudo-opt in system. You technically opt in because you vote for a mayor, problem is people can lie, (insert suitably insulting comment about politicians here). So while there are some that might say that people can opt in, I cannot agree with that. Node Sieges are even further from opt in because there is no way to avoid them unless you bypass the citizenship process all together, and even if you do, you still face the consequences of some one sieging the node you call home.

But what about peoples first interaction with the Node Siege system? Why don't we look at what the first experience of a node siege will be like, and tackle losing a node siege after. The first thing we need to know is when will the first sieges start to occur. How do we figure out that? well we have a number 200 to 300 hours to maximum level. At 28 to 42 hours per week that's 4.5 to 11 weeks as per the wiki. So what level can sieges be initiated? Well we know that 21 days after a node advances to a new stage, a siege can't be declared, and we also know village is the first stage that can be sieged. We know it will take a few days which usually means 3 or more, and many tends to mean 5 to 8 on the lower scale, which means on average it should take 3-4 days to get a node from Wilderness stage to the Village stage. There will be nothing average about the launch of the game so you will probably see Villages on launch day this means that the very first sieges CAN occur on day 22. Okay so we have a minimum point at which to start. Now when will people start doing node sieges, probably around max level given it is end game content.

(If you're wondering why were doing this, it's because the initial experience determines your baseline emotional state while participating in that experience. In other words how likely people will be in a negative emotional state when they engage with the second most important system in the game and constitutes a major source of content, and can't be avoided.)



Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/HOURS-PER-WEEK-SPENT-ON-GAMING-BY-MMORPG-PLAYERS-AND-NON-MMORPG-PLAYERS-IN-PERCENTAGE_tbl1_7802995#:~:text=When asked how many hours,, as expected. ...

Leveling rates according to above numbers:

18 to 27 weeks @ 10 hours per week
9 to 14 weeks @ 20 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 30 hours per week
5 to 7 weeks @ 40 hours per week

I'm not going to show the math you have the numbers I'm using, you can do it yourself. So we know around 3 weeks after the launch of the game people can start launching sieges. and at about 9 weeks about 45% of the population will be max level. now we need to factor in the experience bonus groups get and the fact that being in a guild means that, on average, you will get in a group faster, be able to group for longer, have access to more content, have increased efficiency, and access to more information. There is no real way to accurately predict that right now due to all the variables. So we will only take the 30% increase and leave it at that even though the rate will probably be higher.

Solo players leveling rates:

18 to 27 weeks @ 10 hours per week
9 to 14 weeks @ 20 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 30 hours per week
5 to 7 weeks @ 40 hours per week

Guild Players leveling rates:
12 to 18 weeks @ 10 hours per week
6 to 9 weeks @ 20 hours per week
4 to 6 weeks @ 30 hours per week
3 to 5 weeks @ 40 hours per week

Node Wars are basically the same as Node sieges no recourse for the node having war declared on them, but there are some interesting points that we definitely need to cover. First you know how people say this game is a gank box? This system is why people say that. It effectively turns off the corruption system, and lets anyone from the declaring node kill anyone from the declared with out restriction, and vice versa. So if you want to kill the same person 30 times in a row. Your allowed to do that. If you want to camp the spawn points so people can't even play the game and simply die the moment they respawn, you can do that. There are no limits except maybe only 1 Node War at a time, but they haven't even said that, or given a time limit for that matter.

Now we apply a principle we applied at the very beginning and were going to do so with another thought experiment. Your a guild leader and you have 3 neighboring nodes to attack, one has another guild about the same size as yours plus a number of other citizens, one has a dad guild with about 50 people and another 50 solo players, another has 100 solo players and no guild to speak of. Which do you choose to attack. Now I am again relying on the honor system again, but I believe in you guys, you can do it. Did you pick 100 solo players? I know I would it's a much softer target, guilds will literally have no experience (or very little) sieging nodes, and a quick easy win will give them some confidence. Now that we have all the information there's only one thing left to do.

Time to put it all together. First they will come in groups of 4 and they will focus on killing solo players, this has 3 advantages. It lets them test how resilient the people of the node are, lowers the node-to-node reputation so they can declare war, and makes getting a count on the number of people doing it very very difficult. Then they will declare war on the node. People will flood in from the other node and start killing people, it will be indiscriminate, and they will start to corral people as much as they can, if they can camp spawn points they will. This is because the kind of person that will do this will understand that war is not about killing the other person its about breaking their morale. And even if they don't understand that, they still might be thinking 50 people that leave the node to not deal with this, is 50 less people in the siege. That will last a couple days at most(again no time limit). Then the siege will begin, and for lack of a better word it will be pathetic. It will be very short, and very brutal. And when people realize they couldn't last 10 minutes in what should have been an hour long event, some will quit the game, but others will start to ask questions. And when they get the answers to those questions they will realize they were never meant to win, the game itself was designed to make sure they lost. The same way some one would kill a random mob in the open world.

So you lost a node siege what's the big deal?

Now I realize that some people are going to give me push back on this. If you plan on saying I made an assumption about X you should probably assume I didn't assume and just cut out two paragraphs of this already horrifically long post. And if you come to the conclusion I did just assume something assume I went with either the average or the best possible outcome. depending oh which was more favorable to the game. So, yes I assumed the max number of people on the server and I did that because it's literally the best case scenario. Now for the people who are going to try and say, "I'm not that mean" or "people aren't going to act like that" I first need to thank you my internet interlocuter for allowing me to quote one of my favorite songs, and respond with this:

"Credulous at best, your desire to believe in
Angels in the hearts of men
Pull your head on out your hippy haze and give a listen
Shouldn't have to say it all again
The universe is hostile, so impersonal
Devour to survive, so it is, so it's always been"
-Tool, Vicarious

What this basically means is don't fucking assume people will be nice just because you are. Assholes exist, they will play this game, they will grief people, they will be merciless, because this is a war simulator, and that's how war gets. Not to mention all the incentives the game has given players to do these things, and since you're more vulnerable while you are attacking someone else because your resources are being spent elsewhere you want to end the war as quickly as possible. This will take 5% of the population and increase it to either 60% or whatever the maximum percentage can do it which ever is less.

The class system this is the final system and I thought this would be where I point out all the problems I have above and make my case for why having as much choice at the start of the game would be the most important. That is no longer the case. I now think that no matter how good they make the class system it still wont prevent 50-70% of people that start playing this game to drop it in the first 6 months. So here is the order I will cover this in, abilities, role diversity then some counter points.

Now according to some people we are going to get 64 unique classes and simply have to pick them, or build them, as time dictates. Why not just make 14 base classes, they apparently already exist and could be slotted in and be done. make 2 or 3 subclasses that are mostly aesthetic with some noticeable differences for each class, and then slot in the rest when time permits. And if you think class identity is important there should be concern with the fact that the base classes only have 35-40 abilities which means best case scenario you're looking at somewhat samey combat with other subclasses.

End game systems for Solo players. There are none. There aren't even plans for them.

There are other problems but I've already been working on this too long.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Solo_players

The final conclusion, this game heavily favors guilds in what I can only describe as the most blatant bias and total disregard I have ever seen in an MMO. There is not a single system that works in favor of solo/single/casual players. In fact any system that is meant to punish people punishes solo players more. Systems that solo players could take advantage of have road blocks put in to prevent them from using them ala the caravan system. Other systems which have inherent advantages in the game are given further advantages like giving groups an experience bonus. The end game systems are geared purely towards guilds and groups giving them many ways to meaningfully interact with the end game. solo players have no way to meaningfully interact with the end game, and there are no plans to create anything for solo players. The fact that design pillars are routinely broken in favor of guilds is symptomatic of the entire game. The worst part is if they do add something at the end game for solo players it will undoubtedly be flooded with people in guilds with the best gear meaning it will end up being a shit show for solo players who are permanently going to be locked out of getting the best gear because they wont be able to access the materials due to guilds hording as much as they can while they can, and dungeons which they will never be able to do. New players after the game launches will be mostly solo players, and they will have to contend with fully geared highly experienced players when they hit max level. They will have to do this with almost no experience because there is no way for them to learn about PvP except by doing open world PvP.

This will ultimately end up being some mutated version of the Stanford prison experiment where the prisoners pay for the privilege, but can leave at any time, and the guards aren't allowed full power directly, but can still achieve total power through work arounds and in built systems.

tldr;

Dygz

Solo players can do stuff in Ashes.
But the focus for Ashes is massive PvP battles.
And a typical encounter is balanced for an 8-person Group with one of each Primary Archetype.

Steven is not intending to cater to Solo players.
That would be the purvue of some other game.

nanfoodle

Seems like a allot of back and forth on what is a major tenant of the game. Steven will not removed the pillars of what makes this game. Everything else he is willing to hear feedback on.

This type of class system, where is designed for group content, will always have a few classes by the role they fill in a team, that will solo better then others. That being said, you will need to be selective as to what you try and solo. It will be a fact. If some solo play is your thing, make sure you pick the right class. Done!

AirborneBerserker

Mag7spy wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

AirborneBerserker wrote: »

But for the sake of argument let's assume that 100% of people will be in guilds at launch. And lets assume that 5 million people (which would be a wildly high number) buy the game on or before launch. And lets assume the game runs for 10 years which means for 9.5 years people will be joining the game after the majority of people are max level. What percentage of players do you think that 9.5 years of growth amount to?

I don't understand what any of that has to do with growing the game, but...
I expect the vast majority of Ashes players will belong to a Guild.
People in Guilds still Adventure Solo, at least sometimes, rather than only Adventuring in a Group.

I'm not expecting Ashes to have better numbers than Albion.
The longer Ashes takes to release, the fewer people will play it. Because there will be plenty of other games to play. Especially for PvEers and Casual-Challenge players and Casual-Time players... and Soloers (people who mostly Adventure without joining a Group).

Because the people coming into the game 6+ months after launch will have a much harder time finding a group. Which means they will spend most if not all of their time leveling solo. Which I would define as something that would make them a solo player even if temporarily.

And it's interesting you chose Albion since its a prime example of what I'm talking about. Launch number 1300, 1 year in 233, add a bunch of casual friendly stuff go free to play. The casual players are carrying that game.

I'm not that invested in this conversation. I don't play albion but i had a successful branch of my guild that was playing it and it was very group oriented.

https://massivelyop.com/2024/05/14/albion-online-has-broken-its-population-records-again-with-358k-concurrent-players/

Yeah, and how casual friendly is Albion online now? Somewhere between very and extremely. Solo dungeons, Blue Zones which prevent any PvP, easily acquired gear for PvP, among other features.