Okay, sorry, I can't bother. You just don't seem to be willing to comprehend the concept of competitive gameplay, I don't know how to help you. Good luck out there.
Again, it's no competion if one side attacks a player that doesnt want to pvp. It's a PvX game and there is a state called non-combatant where no pvp fights are active. You are unwilling to change your perspective and think outside your box, that's all.
"Non-combatant" means "hasn't taken part in an attack yet." That doesn't mean they can't be attacked. I feel like these misinterpretations of terminology are seriously screwing with your understanding of the game.
Yes, there are protections for non-combatants to prevent griefing. But the reason those protections have to exist is that it is fully intentional for non-combatants to be attackable in the first place, as a core part of the game's design. These are directly linked logical dependencies.
And absolutely nothing could be deeper inside the box than carebear PvP protections. You can't be serious with that accusation. I'm not willing to "change my perspective", because you're trying to rid the game of a fundamental design pillar; you're the one inside the mainstream box.
Your strenght is only proved by fighting in equally ballanced fights, not in fights where a 10h+ top-geared combatant attacks a fishing green non-combatant. It's wet dreams of teenagers and elitist community behaviur that will lead to toxic gameplay. Nothing more.
[...]
You are very very fixed only on one side of the coin, and that's the attacker-perspective.
Listen. I don't harass, I don't gank. I prefer fighting people of my own character level, in numbers of players that match or slightly outnumber my own.
I am very rarely "the attacker" in general, and when I am, it's only in large objective contestation.
I also rarely have the best gear, because I care more about my guild's and realm's strength than my individual character, so I pass opportunities for getting the best stuff on to more ambitious allies that I can enable with my support.
But I like playing games where **people** are able to enforce engagements that contribute to their own power increase. And games where weaker players can *choose* to attempt to contest valuable resources.
Because competing over, and controlling, and defending territory and contested resources is the most fun, engaging, and rewarding part of MMO PvP.
And a necessary part of that possibility is the other side: That stronger players have to have the ability to kill weaker players. They won't always do it, weaker players can reduce the risk for themselves by avoiding conflict, and there should (at least in a game like Ashes) be effective mechanics to discourage stronger players from abusively harassing weaker players.
If you can prevent other players from denying your access to contested territory (at the cost of Corruption!) by just not flagging up yourself, this competition cedes to exist.
If you want the best stuff, compete at the level of the people who get the best stuff.
Otherwise, learn to accept that they'll have better stuff, and find your role in that dynamic.
If you can't do that, sorry, why are you here? Isn't there a new dungeon in ESO or FFXIV for you to run 50 times a month?
For whom? The one attacking harmless greens during their quests? Well, what to say.
Literally for everyone. For the greens trying take stuff in contested territory, for the people protecting the territory they want to control, for the players defending the lower-levelled players, for the bounty-hunters who get to cash in on the Corruption.
The only reason you're not having fun there is that you can't handle trying something and failing because someone else gets to stop you. If Ashes can't teach you to overcome that constraint, sorry, you're in the wrong place.
Yes, harassment is a somewhat unfortunate side effect of this policy. But
1) it's disincentivised by Corruption and bounty hunting,
2) the Corrupted-versus-bounty hunter dynamic itself is fun, and
3) any self-respecting green should be able to find some fun in not being able to go wherever they please and do whatever they want without consequences, too. That just means you have a motivation to get stronger and find people to do the things you want to do with!
"Mustn't" = "Isn't allowed to."/"Shouldn't." =/= "Doesn't have to."
I didn't say it was good because it's in. I said why I think it's good and that it happens to be a part of the game now, and an essential part of the cohesion of the community coordination and power growth element of the game.
By removing it, you'd have to replace it with something else to make the game interesting, and you'd make the game no longer be Ashes.
Off-topic: Absolutely no hate, but if you learn the differences in the use of adverbs and adjectives in English, you'll reduce your syntax errors by like 60% in one go. Just saying.
I'll stop commenting on your English now, promise. It's fine, just caught my eye in this one, I guess because the conversation is a little more heated.
The only one who can validate you for all the posts you didn't write is you.
"Non-combatant" means "hasn't taken part in an attack yet." That doesn't mean they can't be attacked. I feel like these misinterpretations of terminology are seriously screwing with your understanding of the game.
That thinking comes from pvp-toggle/server design, because under those designs you are either a perma-untouchable-pver or a perma-pvper. And you cannot just change your state at your whim.
While Ashes (and L2) gives you a choice at every interaction, which is much freer. I hope Chaliux gets to experience it to understand it better, but I doubt they'll like it, considering this entire discussion.
While Ashes (and L2) gives you a choice at every interaction, which is much freer. I hope Chaliux gets to experience it to understand it better, but I doubt they'll like it, considering this entire discussion.
My prediction is that people will literally lose their mind during Alpha 2, because there will be a lot of PvP and PKs, including absolutely random PKs. Why? Because it's Alpha with wipes and people dgaf about the consequences.
Low IQ carebears will immediately start screaming that system is bad/broken/trash without realizing that this is Alpha, and also that we need to have those interactions during Alpha as well.
High IQ carebears will understand the reason why Alpha 2 may be a mess and will use that time to understand how to counter it. Basically, if they survive Alpha 2, it means they will survive official launch, because the amount of chaos post-launch will be significantly lower (as people will actually care about the consequences of such behavior)
My prediction is that people will literally lose their mind during Alpha 2, because there will be a lot of PvP and PKs, including absolutely random PKs. Why? Because it's Alpha with wipes and people dgaf about the consequences.
Yeah, I definitely foresee Intrepid disabling flagging and PKing real fast. I was kinda surprised it was even planned for Phase 1. Really thought it'd be something that we test way later on, cause there's a ton of other things to test and pvp/pk will stand in the way of that.
Yeah, I definitely foresee Intrepid disabling flagging and PKing real fast. I was kinda surprised it was even planned for Phase 1. Really thought it'd be something that we test way later on, cause there's a ton of other things to test and pvp/pk will stand in the way of that.
Totally agree, I'd keep PvP/PK off for Phase 1. It's only 2 months of weekend testing, so not a big deal at all.
My prediction is that people will literally lose their mind during Alpha 2, because there will be a lot of PvP and PKs, including absolutely random PKs. Why? Because it's Alpha with wipes and people dgaf about the consequences.
Yeah, I definitely foresee Intrepid disabling flagging and PKing real fast. I was kinda surprised it was even planned for Phase 1. Really thought it'd be something that we test way later on, cause there's a ton of other things to test and pvp/pk will stand in the way of that.
Naa this needs to be tested right away as its part of the core pillars, it being disabled with their systems in place is more of a indication PvErs are right.
IT needs to be in and tweaked until the amount of pvp they expect of corruption wise balances out. The moment it feels like a chore you won't see people recklessly doing it as they would only be wasting their own time.
Naa this needs to be tested right away as its part of the core pillars, it being disabled with their systems in place is more of a indication PvErs are right.
IT needs to be in and tweaked until the amount of pvp they expect of corruption wise balances out. The moment it feels like a chore you won't see people recklessly doing it as they would only be wasting their own time.
Neither of those 2 first lists seem like something that would require pvp/pk testing to me. I guess economy testing could relate, for the exact reason Azherae pointed out, but even then "economy testing" is a very nebulous thing. Is it market/trading/caravan functionality or is it the full cycle of "loot a mob, put the loot up for sale, use the money to buy something at a node, buy something from a person to combine with the thing you bought at a node, sell the combination at a different node at a higher price after transferring the item in a caravan" or some shit like that.
Balancing minute details of PKing and preventing other players for testing core functionality by pvping them seems kinda counterproductive at that stage of testing.
My prediction is that people will literally lose their mind during Alpha 2, because there will be a lot of PvP and PKs, including absolutely random PKs. Why? Because it's Alpha with wipes and people dgaf about the consequences.
Yeah, I definitely foresee Intrepid disabling flagging and PKing real fast. I was kinda surprised it was even planned for Phase 1. Really thought it'd be something that we test way later on, cause there's a ton of other things to test and pvp/pk will stand in the way of that.
Naa this needs to be tested right away as its part of the core pillars, it being disabled with their systems in place is more of a indication PvErs are right.
IT needs to be in and tweaked until the amount of pvp they expect of corruption wise balances out. The moment it feels like a chore you won't see people recklessly doing it as they would only be wasting their own time.
Intrepid might refuse to spend a lot of effort tweaking Corruption early on anyway, claiming that it's an advanced player reward mechanic that's intended to be fine-tuned when the rest of the game is closer to content-complete state. This might be a worthwhile suggestion/warning to bring up early in alpha feedback.
If PKing remains enabled, that is.
The only one who can validate you for all the posts you didn't write is you.
Naa this needs to be tested right away as its part of the core pillars, it being disabled with their systems in place is more of a indication PvErs are right.
IT needs to be in and tweaked until the amount of pvp they expect of corruption wise balances out. The moment it feels like a chore you won't see people recklessly doing it as they would only be wasting their own time.
Neither of those 2 first lists seem like something that would require pvp/pk testing to me. I guess economy testing could relate, for the exact reason Azherae pointed out, but even then "economy testing" is a very nebulous thing. Is it market/trading/caravan functionality or is it the full cycle of "loot a mob, put the loot up for sale, use the money to buy something at a node, buy something from a person to combine with the thing you bought at a node, sell the combination at a different node at a higher price after transferring the item in a caravan" or some shit like that.
Balancing minute details of PKing and preventing other players for testing core functionality by pvping them seems kinda counterproductive at that stage of testing.
Not really its pvx PvP is a core connected to all elements of the game, connected to all systems and elements of general gameplay.
The basic rules for corruption should be there then its just adjusting those elements which isn't really difficult. Doesn't mean things need to be precise, and id expect corruption to be on the higher side of scaling to start out anyway.
Do to it being easy to tweak this really shouldnt be a big deal, where as turning flagging off would be much more of a big deal, in a game that calls itself pvx.
akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited September 14
AI gave the following response:
The debate around having health bars visible over players in PvP is part of the broader discussion about balancing gameplay mechanics for skill, strategy, and immersion. Here’s an analysis of the pros and cons of this feature and possible solutions:
Pros of Having Health Bars Over Players in PvP:
1. Tactical Awareness: Health bars allow players to make quick, informed decisions in the heat of battle. You can target weakened opponents or know when to retreat if your enemy is at full health.
2. Team Coordination: In group PvP, seeing health bars helps coordinate focus fire. Teams can quickly agree to target enemies with lower health, making it easier to communicate and strategize.
3. Accessibility: New players and those not experienced with visual combat cues benefit from health bars. It reduces the learning curve by making it clear when they should push forward or retreat.
4. Game Balance: With health bars, PvP becomes more transparent. Players can accurately gauge how much damage they are dealing, and developers can balance PvP encounters based on this feedback.
Cons of Having Health Bars Over Players in PvP:
A. Reduced Immersion: Visible health bars can break immersion in a fantasy world, making the game feel more like a numbers game. This detracts from the atmosphere of large-scale battles or duels.
B. Less Skill-Based Play: Health bars remove an element of unpredictability. Without them, players have to rely on combat awareness and visual cues, which reward skilled, experienced players. Showing health bars can make PvP feel more formulaic, reducing the need for strategic positioning or timing.
C. Focus Fire Problems: Health bars may encourage "zerg" tactics, where players swarm and focus on the lowest health target. This can lead to less nuanced combat, with fights being determined by which team can coordinate their focus fire better rather than individual skill or strategy.
D. Information Overload: In large-scale PvP, too many health bars cluttering the screen can make it harder to read the battlefield. This can overwhelm players, particularly in massive battles, where hundreds of health bars could be displayed simultaneously.
Possible Solutions and Best Approaches:
1. Conditional Health Bar Visibility: Health bars could be visible only when players are actively engaged in combat, within a certain range, or if they’ve been directly targeted. This would limit information to what’s immediately necessary, preserving immersion while offering tactical feedback during active combat.
2. Enemy Health Only on Targeting: Displaying health bars only for targeted enemies adds a layer of skill to PvP. You would need to actively choose your targets and not simply rely on the game to provide that information for all visible enemies.
3. Gradual Health Bar Visibility: Instead of showing exact health percentages, the health bar could be segmented or color-coded. For example, red could represent critical health levels, yellow for moderate, and green for near-full health. This would preserve some mystery and strategy without being too detailed.
4. Limit to Grouped/Allied Players: Showing health bars only for group members or party allies allows players to better coordinate with their team but limits the amount of information available about enemies, preserving some of the challenge in enemy targeting.
Customization Options: Allowing players to toggle health bar visibility on or off would provide flexibility. Competitive PvPers could choose to play without them for added difficulty, while others might prefer the convenience and accessibility.
Conclusion:
The best solution would likely be a combination of conditional visibility, enemy targeting mechanics, and optional customization. This would balance strategic depth with accessibility, giving players control over their experience while maintaining the challenge and immersion intended for large-scale PvP battles in Ashes of Creation
My prediction is that people will literally lose their mind during Alpha 2, because there will be a lot of PvP and PKs, including absolutely random PKs. Why? Because it's Alpha with wipes and people dgaf about the consequences.
Yeah, I definitely foresee Intrepid disabling flagging and PKing real fast. I was kinda surprised it was even planned for Phase 1. Really thought it'd be something that we test way later on, cause there's a ton of other things to test and pvp/pk will stand in the way of that.
I do not believe Intrepid can risk having PvP/PK and corruption disabled for Phase I because Phase I is also when the NDA officially drops.
The murmur will become a roar one way or the other, but unless they intend to ignore the feedback and opinions of anyone who is not actually playing in the Alpha at that time, they need the concepts to be as clear as possible.
Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
4
akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
In my view, I've always preferred having less data cluttering the screen in games, especially when it comes to things like numbers flying off players or health bars gradually depleting. These overlays, along with name tags , tend to break immersion for me. Once you've taken down a few mobs, do you really need to see their name tags anymore? Players though, you kind of do need to see their tags.
I think it would be far more engaging to rely on visual cues—like a character's movement slowing as they take damage or showing physical wear on their armor and body. These types of indicators would immerse players more in the world and make combat feel less like managing a series of numbers.
Reflecting on my time playing Lineage 2, one thing I appreciated was how distinct class attire made it easy to identify who to engage or avoid in PvP. You could tell what a player was capable of just by looking at them, which made targeting and decision-making much easier. In Ashes of Creation, however, this doesn’t seem to be as prominent. You might have to wait until a player attacks before you know their capabilities, which could make combat feel more chaotic.
Given that, I think the time-to-kill (TTK) in Ashes of Creation will need to be longer to allow for more strategic depth. If you can’t immediately tell who you’re up against, longer fights would give players time to assess the situation and adapt their tactics accordingly.
The murmur will become a roar one way or the other, but unless they intend to ignore the feedback and opinions of anyone who is not actually playing in the Alpha at that time, they need the concepts to be as clear as possible.
Seeing Asmon get PKed over and over and over will definitely be a glorious moment Hell, I might even try to get onto the same server and catch him myself.
The murmur will become a roar one way or the other, but unless they intend to ignore the feedback and opinions of anyone who is not actually playing in the Alpha at that time, they need the concepts to be as clear as possible.
Seeing Asmon get PKed over and over and over will definitely be a glorious moment Hell, I might even try to get onto the same server and catch him myself.
I don't think that is going to be possible unless you bring a zerg, he has tons of body guards ready at any point.
The murmur will become a roar one way or the other, but unless they intend to ignore the feedback and opinions of anyone who is not actually playing in the Alpha at that time, they need the concepts to be as clear as possible.
Seeing Asmon get PKed over and over and over will definitely be a glorious moment Hell, I might even try to get onto the same server and catch him myself.
I don't think that is going to be possible unless you bring a zerg, he has tons of body guards ready at any point.
His server is the one id avoid if anything lmfao.
Personally I'm gonna be tracking which servers the streamers go to and avoid them at all cost. They unbalance the game experience horribly and dealing with the mobs of fanboys is headache inducing whether it's socially or in combat
The murmur will become a roar one way or the other, but unless they intend to ignore the feedback and opinions of anyone who is not actually playing in the Alpha at that time, they need the concepts to be as clear as possible.
Seeing Asmon get PKed over and over and over will definitely be a glorious moment Hell, I might even try to get onto the same server and catch him myself.
I don't think that is going to be possible unless you bring a zerg, he has tons of body guards ready at any point.
His server is the one id avoid if anything lmfao.
Personally I'm gonna be tracking which servers the streamers go to and avoid them at all cost. They unbalance the game experience horribly and dealing with the mobs of fanboys is headache inducing whether it's socially or in combat
Ya some of them make it kind of boring, its more so interesting when its a streamer server with a bunch of them entertainment wise for watching.
Personally I'm gonna be tracking which servers the streamers go to and avoid them at all cost. They unbalance the game experience horribly and dealing with the mobs of fanboys is headache inducing whether it's socially or in combat
Oh, 100% doing that on release, but testing is testing. Nothing matters there.
@Noaani would you equate trade pack runs to caravans or more to mule runs in Ashes?
Both.
Mule runs will probably be equal to solo trade runs to an extent (In Archeage, conveniently you would do them on a mule, at least for the start, until you get a trade cart).
As a solo player, you could make different types of vehicles, that would hold several trade packs.
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Also at the same time, they're more equal to caravans, when you consider you also have merchant ships, which can carry 18-20 packs, and are usually transported by a group of players.
You'd often see guilds run several merchants at the same time, and you bet it's important to have knowledge of that if you are an enemy.
Catching an enemy merchant out in the sea, and successfully raiding it is only half of the battle. The other half is now successfully summoning your merchant, transporting the packs you stole, and turning them in. At any point, the enemy could come back, or even worse, another group.
I have no idea how this will help with the overall conversation, especially because it's now 2 pages later, and I just haven't read through it all, but I figured I'd answer your question.
I have no idea how this will help with the overall conversation, especially because it's now 2 pages later, and I just haven't read through it all, but I figured I'd answer your question.
Yeah, it was in the context of trying to compare economic impact of killing players in either game. People will be dropping stuff on death in Ashes, while in AA they only dropped trade packs, so that would be the only direct economic link between the two.
But in Ashes killing a mule would be PKing, while killing a caravan would be just pvp. So in that regard, have you ever come across people raiding trade pack runs of their own faction? Cause that'd be "PKing" in AA, right?
what about changing kill count to "green attack" count?
Imo this would have to be designed in a convoluted as hell way, to account for all the potential interactions, and it would also change the player behavior overall.
As for the convoluted part, there's multiple questions about how exactly the GAC is calculated
is it on each attack?
is it within a time window?
is it based on variating distance between players (i.e. attacker puts a ton of distance between them and the victim, at which point the game's system no longer sees this as a "single interaction" and creates a new count if an attack happens)?
what about dmg done?
what about dots (in case they're not seen as a debuff)?
And those are just the ones that came to my mind right now. I'm sure there's at least a few more to be answered and considered.
You told Flanker that you don't want the 'green hp is invisible, others are visible" cause it's convoluted, but imo this system would be way more convoluted.
To me, it would be as simple as being given a gac the first time you attack a green player, with that green player not being able to cause you to gain another gac until they enter a state of not being engaged in combat.
Nothing about that is convoluted to me, but then I am used to the notion of combat and non-combat states (not every MMORPG has this).
And if your answer to those questions is just "every single hit/ability used gives +1 count" (dots would be a single ability here) - then we come to the change of player behavior I mentioned.
This kind of design would obviously achieve your personal goal of "you only attack a green if you're going to PK them", but this flagging system is designed with a "throw a glove into their face" challenge in mind. Every person is in a "quantum" state of pvp. They can always be killed, but you only learn if they're a pvper once you start attacking, collapsing the function by doing so.
Gaining a corruption multiplier for each hit against a person would mean that you cannot collapse that function w/o making things way worse for you in the long run. This would then require softer balancing on corruption gain per kill and costs of the count reduction methods, cause otherwise you'd be removing the danger of being attacked in the open world.
And even then, if each hit gives you a GAC and the ttk takes several hits (let alone a situation where the victim can heal itself) - the multiplier would need to be something like x1.1 and going up by 1/10s per hit, otherwise you're reducing the amount of PKing ever further.
And any other design brings us back to convolution of the system, as opposed to the simplicity of "you got corrupted from a kill - that's 1 PKC".
Again, keep in mind that Archeage had visible health bars showing perfect information and didn't have the issues you are talking about - so the issues you are talking about are not an inherent result of showing health information. It is possible and proven that you can show perfect health information of rival players and still not have this kind of behavior.
It is worth pointing out that since Archeage was a faction game, you could see the health of people you were able to attack without any penalty at all, and still there wasn't any of this issue.
I feel like you're oversimplifying the design differences here. You said that AA had enough content for people to not really contest it too much, right? This means that reasons to attack even just your enemy faction would already be fewer in number.
Iirc AA's "corruption" system only applied to within-faction attacks, right? So any potential player who COULD PK someone in the way we're discussing here, would need to find a location that was only filled with factionmates, not have enough content in that location for himself, AND not care enough about his rep within his faction (while PKing someone or trying to remove them from a location in L2 didn't really impact your rep with other players, cause it was seen as a normal part of the game). And from what I've understood of AA from your explanations, this kind of situation was well-nigh impossible.
I don't think I'm oversimplified it, I'm simply pointing out that displaying health information is not the only factor.
Ashes will have aspects to it that L2 did not - one of which being content quantity - but another being the fact that the bulk of Ashes population will be an entire different generation to L2's, and will be more used to the social aspects of online gaming.
If you want to (correctly, imo) state that the factions and content amount in Archeage had an effect on people not doing this, then it only follows that so too will other aspects in Ashes that are different to L2.
@Ludullu_(NiKr)@Flanker idk man, the more i read from some people whom never played it, the more i see a future in which said people will get "oppressed" by over 2 decades old possible "techiniques"/"interactions" they haven't tried/experienced and that will make'em cry out loud in reddit, discord and on this forum.
I believe you guys did more than enough tryng to lessen one of said L2-related interactions in this thread, and as i said previously "some people are only able to understand some things by personally experiencing them", let's just hope Steven will quench most of those "possibilities", A2 is most likely long enough for that.
I have no idea how this will help with the overall conversation, especially because it's now 2 pages later, and I just haven't read through it all, but I figured I'd answer your question.
Yeah, it was in the context of trying to compare economic impact of killing players in either game. People will be dropping stuff on death in Ashes, while in AA they only dropped trade packs, so that would be the only direct economic link between the two.
But in Ashes killing a mule would be PKing, while killing a caravan would be just pvp. So in that regard, have you ever come across people raiding trade pack runs of their own faction? Cause that'd be "PKing" in AA, right?
I'm gonna be super arrogant here and point out that Ashes doesn't work like AA either, I can outline this entire thing for you if you want.
You should take it moreso this way:
L2 is lacking even the most basic of the things that would make the OWPvP incentives match up with those of Ashes. The comparison to AA is just the bare minimum. I was trying to say 'stop applying any L2 logic whatsoever to Ashes, L2 has no economy of note that is relevant to the discussion types that would come up'.
I have no idea how this will help with the overall conversation, especially because it's now 2 pages later, and I just haven't read through it all, but I figured I'd answer your question.
Yeah, it was in the context of trying to compare economic impact of killing players in either game. People will be dropping stuff on death in Ashes, while in AA they only dropped trade packs, so that would be the only direct economic link between the two.
But in Ashes killing a mule would be PKing, while killing a caravan would be just pvp. So in that regard, have you ever come across people raiding trade pack runs of their own faction? Cause that'd be "PKing" in AA, right?
Absolutely. You'd have the "assholes" that would PK their own faction more than enemies sometimes. In general some guilds would be very self centered, so they would attack anyone that's not them, or their allies.
Usually, you'd know which guilds those were, so you knew to avoid them, or to be on alert for them.
Overall, you'd mostly be in danger from the enemy faction.
Economic impact is "only" in losing trade packs (which cost labor, materials, time to make).
I can see how in Ashes, any kill will have a economic impact, because you drop stuff. And of course, depending on how it works, it could have a negligible impact, or a big impact (and a very negative one at that), where you'd see people PKing all the time in order to get mats from players. On top of that you have a system that's similar to Archeage's, with Caravans, except that here it's just PvP without risk of corruption - so it's going to work like factions basically - you're either an enemy or a friend, nothing in between.
I believe you guys did more than enough tryng to lessen one of said L2-related interactions in this thread, and as i said previously "some people are only able to understand some things by personally experiencing them", let's just hope Steven will quench most of those "possibilities", A2 is most likely long enough for that.
In your opinion, if not showing this information had no impact in L2, why would there be an assumption that not showing this information would have an impact in Ashes?
This is the part no one has been able to answer. Some people keep running the line of "you didn't play L2, you don't know", instead of answering this very basic question.
Why would the same action in Ashes have a different outcome than it had in L2?
If you want to (correctly, imo) state that the factions and content amount in Archeage had an effect on people not doing this, then it only follows that so too will other aspects in Ashes that are different to L2.
Yeah, if there's enough content for majority of people (if not even all) - there'll definitely be less PKing. Potentially more than AA or L2 had, because of the loot factor, cause even if there's enough content - people will still want to avoid doing that content if they can get its reward by killing someone. Especially if mules will work close to how I expected them to work.
that will make'em cry out loud in reddit, discord and on this forum.
People are really not ready. Maybe some oldtimers from vanilla wow pvp servers would be kinda ok, cause afaik it was somewhat close in the amount of attacks on other people, but anyone outside of that group will 100% dislike the entire situation.
L2 is lacking even the most basic of the things that would make the OWPvP incentives match up with those of Ashes. The comparison to AA is just the bare minimum. I was trying to say 'stop applying any L2 logic whatsoever to Ashes, L2 has no economy of note that is relevant to the discussion types that would come up'.
As you pointed out yourself, L2 had player loot on death in early versions (btw, those are the most beloved amongst the players). Except you could literally drop gear that you were wearing when you died to npcs.
And people did exactly the kind of abuse we're talking about. They'd try and get people who were fighting mobs to die to said mobs, either by stunning them or by hitting them in-between mob attacks (trains were obviously another good way of achieving this).
How is that, in this context, any different from Ashes players trying to achieve the same thing to maximize their own benefit from the green dying?
I agree that Ashes is deeper than L2. And it's apparently deeper than AA (which was already deeper than L2). But I haven't played ED, so I wouldn't be able to draw economic parallels between the two. And you were absent for the majority of this entire discussion, so none of us had your input as someone who has experienced an economic system close to that of Ashes.
I can only speak on what I know, which is why I contextualize things in L2's designs. I'd be glad to see your full explanation on the differences of eceonomic impact of PKing in Ashes as compared to other games that we've discussed or that you have experienced.
This is the part no one has been able to answer. Some people keep running the line of "you didn't play L2, you don't know", instead of answering this very basic question.
Why would the same action in Ashes have a different outcome than it had in L2?
It's about the execution of the activity.
If corruption is punishing enough for people to want to avoid it and if the content quantity is not just "enough for everyone" - people will want to avoid becoming corrupted while trying to remove a contestant for content.
In situations where that activity is happening around mobs, people will try keeping someone at low hp to either make that person die to mobs or just not even attempt fighting them (which secures the content). And keeping a player at low hp is waaaay easier when you can literally see what hp they're at.
So that is the assumed impact. And I believe that we will not have enough content for everyone, considering that Steven keeps mentioning player friction as one of his desires for the game. You can't really create player friction if everyone can just sit in their little corner and get their own rewards.
Obviously this doesn't account for everyone who will simply fight back in the situation above, but at that point it's just pvp, so it's a whole different discussion.
In your opinion, if not showing this information had no impact in L2, why would there be an assumption that not showing this information would have an impact in Ashes?
This is the part no one has been able to answer. Some people keep running the line of "you didn't play L2, you don't know", instead of answering this very basic question.
Why would the same action in Ashes have a different outcome than it had in L2?
It wouldn't.
It's extremely simple and has been repeated many times in this thread already but if you desire me to repet it i will,
Not showing a Greens HP increases your chances of PKing said Green when trying to use the: "Keeping their HP low making them unable to pve" and the "Lowing their HP enough during their PvE so their monsters finish them off" strategies making said PK evading strategies less effective and more risky as they were in L2, its by no means a perfect solution just an excelent deterrent of said strategies that does not break the essence of the system.
So that is the assumed impact. And I believe that we will not have enough content for everyone, considering that Steven keeps mentioning player friction as one of his desires for the game. You can't really create player friction if everyone can just sit in their little corner and get their own rewards.
This part isn't true, in fact it's almost the opposite.
Friction is more likely to be created because 'everyone gets something', but the 'something' they get can only be viewed as a 'reward' when compared to the general value of others. It's precisely this fact that makes Glint a troublesome system.
As for the other part, I don't want to derail the thread overall, but the issue is, we've reached the point where the 'main' argument being offered by Flanker is very close to 'it works in L2'.
Also, L2's player loot on death was much smaller, I've researched this extensively precisely because the L2 players have brought it up so much. I can find no evidence that it was ever truly comparable, maybe 20% chance of dropping anything at all in C2, and this is when you are MPKed.
If you want to have the L2 experience 'enough to suggest the removal of dropping items on death', you're willing to sacrifice something that's relatively important to the way Ashes works.
But this isn't particularly related to whether or not health bars should be shown, so I didn't want to bother with it. All I know is that using L2 as the blueprint and saying 'I want it to be designed this way because OTHERWISE an L2 problem will happen' doesn't make sense when you are countered by 'I don't think it needs to be designed that way because AA did it that way and the problem didn't happen'.
If we as a community keep being this way about basic design stuff, communication is going to break down even more, and when the NDA lifts, this place is just going to give Ashes a bad rep. I'm probably 'out of line' in saying it, but y'all L2 players need to stop this, seriously.
All I know is that using L2 as the blueprint and saying 'I want it to be designed this way because OTHERWISE an L2 problem will happen' doesn't make sense when you are countered by 'I don't think it needs to be designed that way because AA did it that way and the problem didn't happen'.
Having the direct knowledge of both games i can tell you that this assumption is wrong, most of the time the majority of the Ashes designs do usually have a distinct edge(even with the overlaping inspirations) as to the design of which game is closer taking in consideration the nuances related to the other designs in both games, when talking Corruption its a no brainer and when talking economy its for sure way more complex.
When talking about whatever Ashes design i can almost always tell if its closer to L2 or AA.
Comments
Yes, there are protections for non-combatants to prevent griefing. But the reason those protections have to exist is that it is fully intentional for non-combatants to be attackable in the first place, as a core part of the game's design. These are directly linked logical dependencies.
And absolutely nothing could be deeper inside the box than carebear PvP protections. You can't be serious with that accusation. I'm not willing to "change my perspective", because you're trying to rid the game of a fundamental design pillar; you're the one inside the mainstream box.
Listen. I don't harass, I don't gank. I prefer fighting people of my own character level, in numbers of players that match or slightly outnumber my own.
I am very rarely "the attacker" in general, and when I am, it's only in large objective contestation.
I also rarely have the best gear, because I care more about my guild's and realm's strength than my individual character, so I pass opportunities for getting the best stuff on to more ambitious allies that I can enable with my support.
But I like playing games where **people** are able to enforce engagements that contribute to their own power increase. And games where weaker players can *choose* to attempt to contest valuable resources.
Because competing over, and controlling, and defending territory and contested resources is the most fun, engaging, and rewarding part of MMO PvP.
And a necessary part of that possibility is the other side: That stronger players have to have the ability to kill weaker players. They won't always do it, weaker players can reduce the risk for themselves by avoiding conflict, and there should (at least in a game like Ashes) be effective mechanics to discourage stronger players from abusively harassing weaker players.
If you can prevent other players from denying your access to contested territory (at the cost of Corruption!) by just not flagging up yourself, this competition cedes to exist.
If you want the best stuff, compete at the level of the people who get the best stuff.
Otherwise, learn to accept that they'll have better stuff, and find your role in that dynamic.
If you can't do that, sorry, why are you here? Isn't there a new dungeon in ESO or FFXIV for you to run 50 times a month?
Because you don't understand Corruption.
Literally for everyone. For the greens trying take stuff in contested territory, for the people protecting the territory they want to control, for the players defending the lower-levelled players, for the bounty-hunters who get to cash in on the Corruption.
The only reason you're not having fun there is that you can't handle trying something and failing because someone else gets to stop you. If Ashes can't teach you to overcome that constraint, sorry, you're in the wrong place.
Yes, harassment is a somewhat unfortunate side effect of this policy. But
1) it's disincentivised by Corruption and bounty hunting,
2) the Corrupted-versus-bounty hunter dynamic itself is fun, and
3) any self-respecting green should be able to find some fun in not being able to go wherever they please and do whatever they want without consequences, too. That just means you have a motivation to get stronger and find people to do the things you want to do with!
"Mustn't" = "Isn't allowed to."/"Shouldn't." =/= "Doesn't have to."
I didn't say it was good because it's in. I said why I think it's good and that it happens to be a part of the game now, and an essential part of the cohesion of the community coordination and power growth element of the game.
By removing it, you'd have to replace it with something else to make the game interesting, and you'd make the game no longer be Ashes.
Off-topic: Absolutely no hate, but if you learn the differences in the use of adverbs and adjectives in English, you'll reduce your syntax errors by like 60% in one go. Just saying.
I'll stop commenting on your English now, promise. It's fine, just caught my eye in this one, I guess because the conversation is a little more heated.
While Ashes (and L2) gives you a choice at every interaction, which is much freer. I hope Chaliux gets to experience it to understand it better, but I doubt they'll like it, considering this entire discussion.
Low IQ carebears will immediately start screaming that system is bad/broken/trash without realizing that this is Alpha, and also that we need to have those interactions during Alpha as well.
High IQ carebears will understand the reason why Alpha 2 may be a mess and will use that time to understand how to counter it. Basically, if they survive Alpha 2, it means they will survive official launch, because the amount of chaos post-launch will be significantly lower (as people will actually care about the consequences of such behavior)
Naa this needs to be tested right away as its part of the core pillars, it being disabled with their systems in place is more of a indication PvErs are right.
IT needs to be in and tweaked until the amount of pvp they expect of corruption wise balances out. The moment it feels like a chore you won't see people recklessly doing it as they would only be wasting their own time.
Neither of those 2 first lists seem like something that would require pvp/pk testing to me. I guess economy testing could relate, for the exact reason Azherae pointed out, but even then "economy testing" is a very nebulous thing. Is it market/trading/caravan functionality or is it the full cycle of "loot a mob, put the loot up for sale, use the money to buy something at a node, buy something from a person to combine with the thing you bought at a node, sell the combination at a different node at a higher price after transferring the item in a caravan" or some shit like that.
Balancing minute details of PKing and preventing other players for testing core functionality by pvping them seems kinda counterproductive at that stage of testing.
If PKing remains enabled, that is.
Not really its pvx PvP is a core connected to all elements of the game, connected to all systems and elements of general gameplay.
The basic rules for corruption should be there then its just adjusting those elements which isn't really difficult. Doesn't mean things need to be precise, and id expect corruption to be on the higher side of scaling to start out anyway.
@Laetitian
Do to it being easy to tweak this really shouldnt be a big deal, where as turning flagging off would be much more of a big deal, in a game that calls itself pvx.
The debate around having health bars visible over players in PvP is part of the broader discussion about balancing gameplay mechanics for skill, strategy, and immersion. Here’s an analysis of the pros and cons of this feature and possible solutions:
Pros of Having Health Bars Over Players in PvP:
1. Tactical Awareness: Health bars allow players to make quick, informed decisions in the heat of battle. You can target weakened opponents or know when to retreat if your enemy is at full health.
2. Team Coordination: In group PvP, seeing health bars helps coordinate focus fire. Teams can quickly agree to target enemies with lower health, making it easier to communicate and strategize.
3. Accessibility: New players and those not experienced with visual combat cues benefit from health bars. It reduces the learning curve by making it clear when they should push forward or retreat.
4. Game Balance: With health bars, PvP becomes more transparent. Players can accurately gauge how much damage they are dealing, and developers can balance PvP encounters based on this feedback.
Cons of Having Health Bars Over Players in PvP:
A. Reduced Immersion: Visible health bars can break immersion in a fantasy world, making the game feel more like a numbers game. This detracts from the atmosphere of large-scale battles or duels.
B. Less Skill-Based Play: Health bars remove an element of unpredictability. Without them, players have to rely on combat awareness and visual cues, which reward skilled, experienced players. Showing health bars can make PvP feel more formulaic, reducing the need for strategic positioning or timing.
C. Focus Fire Problems: Health bars may encourage "zerg" tactics, where players swarm and focus on the lowest health target. This can lead to less nuanced combat, with fights being determined by which team can coordinate their focus fire better rather than individual skill or strategy.
D. Information Overload: In large-scale PvP, too many health bars cluttering the screen can make it harder to read the battlefield. This can overwhelm players, particularly in massive battles, where hundreds of health bars could be displayed simultaneously.
Possible Solutions and Best Approaches:
1. Conditional Health Bar Visibility: Health bars could be visible only when players are actively engaged in combat, within a certain range, or if they’ve been directly targeted. This would limit information to what’s immediately necessary, preserving immersion while offering tactical feedback during active combat.
2. Enemy Health Only on Targeting: Displaying health bars only for targeted enemies adds a layer of skill to PvP. You would need to actively choose your targets and not simply rely on the game to provide that information for all visible enemies.
3. Gradual Health Bar Visibility: Instead of showing exact health percentages, the health bar could be segmented or color-coded. For example, red could represent critical health levels, yellow for moderate, and green for near-full health. This would preserve some mystery and strategy without being too detailed.
4. Limit to Grouped/Allied Players: Showing health bars only for group members or party allies allows players to better coordinate with their team but limits the amount of information available about enemies, preserving some of the challenge in enemy targeting.
Customization Options: Allowing players to toggle health bar visibility on or off would provide flexibility. Competitive PvPers could choose to play without them for added difficulty, while others might prefer the convenience and accessibility.
Conclusion:
The best solution would likely be a combination of conditional visibility, enemy targeting mechanics, and optional customization. This would balance strategic depth with accessibility, giving players control over their experience while maintaining the challenge and immersion intended for large-scale PvP battles in Ashes of Creation
I do not believe Intrepid can risk having PvP/PK and corruption disabled for Phase I because Phase I is also when the NDA officially drops.
The murmur will become a roar one way or the other, but unless they intend to ignore the feedback and opinions of anyone who is not actually playing in the Alpha at that time, they need the concepts to be as clear as possible.
I think it would be far more engaging to rely on visual cues—like a character's movement slowing as they take damage or showing physical wear on their armor and body. These types of indicators would immerse players more in the world and make combat feel less like managing a series of numbers.
Reflecting on my time playing Lineage 2, one thing I appreciated was how distinct class attire made it easy to identify who to engage or avoid in PvP. You could tell what a player was capable of just by looking at them, which made targeting and decision-making much easier. In Ashes of Creation, however, this doesn’t seem to be as prominent. You might have to wait until a player attacks before you know their capabilities, which could make combat feel more chaotic.
Given that, I think the time-to-kill (TTK) in Ashes of Creation will need to be longer to allow for more strategic depth. If you can’t immediately tell who you’re up against, longer fights would give players time to assess the situation and adapt their tactics accordingly.
I don't think that is going to be possible unless you bring a zerg, he has tons of body guards ready at any point.
His server is the one id avoid if anything lmfao.
Personally I'm gonna be tracking which servers the streamers go to and avoid them at all cost. They unbalance the game experience horribly and dealing with the mobs of fanboys is headache inducing whether it's socially or in combat
Ya some of them make it kind of boring, its more so interesting when its a streamer server with a bunch of them entertainment wise for watching.
Oh, 100% doing that on release, but testing is testing. Nothing matters there.
This one has caught my eye, and I don't think Noaani has responded.
Both.
Mule runs will probably be equal to solo trade runs to an extent (In Archeage, conveniently you would do them on a mule, at least for the start, until you get a trade cart).
As a solo player, you could make different types of vehicles, that would hold several trade packs.
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Also at the same time, they're more equal to caravans, when you consider you also have merchant ships, which can carry 18-20 packs, and are usually transported by a group of players.
You'd often see guilds run several merchants at the same time, and you bet it's important to have knowledge of that if you are an enemy.
Catching an enemy merchant out in the sea, and successfully raiding it is only half of the battle. The other half is now successfully summoning your merchant, transporting the packs you stole, and turning them in. At any point, the enemy could come back, or even worse, another group.
I have no idea how this will help with the overall conversation, especially because it's now 2 pages later, and I just haven't read through it all, but I figured I'd answer your question.
But in Ashes killing a mule would be PKing, while killing a caravan would be just pvp. So in that regard, have you ever come across people raiding trade pack runs of their own faction? Cause that'd be "PKing" in AA, right?
Nothing about that is convoluted to me, but then I am used to the notion of combat and non-combat states (not every MMORPG has this).
I don't think I'm oversimplified it, I'm simply pointing out that displaying health information is not the only factor.
Ashes will have aspects to it that L2 did not - one of which being content quantity - but another being the fact that the bulk of Ashes population will be an entire different generation to L2's, and will be more used to the social aspects of online gaming.
If you want to (correctly, imo) state that the factions and content amount in Archeage had an effect on people not doing this, then it only follows that so too will other aspects in Ashes that are different to L2.
I believe you guys did more than enough tryng to lessen one of said L2-related interactions in this thread, and as i said previously "some people are only able to understand some things by personally experiencing them", let's just hope Steven will quench most of those "possibilities", A2 is most likely long enough for that.
Aren't we all sinners?
I'm gonna be super arrogant here and point out that Ashes doesn't work like AA either, I can outline this entire thing for you if you want.
You should take it moreso this way:
L2 is lacking even the most basic of the things that would make the OWPvP incentives match up with those of Ashes. The comparison to AA is just the bare minimum. I was trying to say 'stop applying any L2 logic whatsoever to Ashes, L2 has no economy of note that is relevant to the discussion types that would come up'.
Absolutely. You'd have the "assholes" that would PK their own faction more than enemies sometimes. In general some guilds would be very self centered, so they would attack anyone that's not them, or their allies.
Usually, you'd know which guilds those were, so you knew to avoid them, or to be on alert for them.
Overall, you'd mostly be in danger from the enemy faction.
Economic impact is "only" in losing trade packs (which cost labor, materials, time to make).
I can see how in Ashes, any kill will have a economic impact, because you drop stuff. And of course, depending on how it works, it could have a negligible impact, or a big impact (and a very negative one at that), where you'd see people PKing all the time in order to get mats from players. On top of that you have a system that's similar to Archeage's, with Caravans, except that here it's just PvP without risk of corruption - so it's going to work like factions basically - you're either an enemy or a friend, nothing in between.
This is the part no one has been able to answer. Some people keep running the line of "you didn't play L2, you don't know", instead of answering this very basic question.
Why would the same action in Ashes have a different outcome than it had in L2?
People are really not ready. Maybe some oldtimers from vanilla wow pvp servers would be kinda ok, cause afaik it was somewhat close in the amount of attacks on other people, but anyone outside of that group will 100% dislike the entire situation.
And people did exactly the kind of abuse we're talking about. They'd try and get people who were fighting mobs to die to said mobs, either by stunning them or by hitting them in-between mob attacks (trains were obviously another good way of achieving this).
How is that, in this context, any different from Ashes players trying to achieve the same thing to maximize their own benefit from the green dying?
I agree that Ashes is deeper than L2. And it's apparently deeper than AA (which was already deeper than L2). But I haven't played ED, so I wouldn't be able to draw economic parallels between the two. And you were absent for the majority of this entire discussion, so none of us had your input as someone who has experienced an economic system close to that of Ashes.
I can only speak on what I know, which is why I contextualize things in L2's designs. I'd be glad to see your full explanation on the differences of eceonomic impact of PKing in Ashes as compared to other games that we've discussed or that you have experienced.
It's about the execution of the activity.
If corruption is punishing enough for people to want to avoid it and if the content quantity is not just "enough for everyone" - people will want to avoid becoming corrupted while trying to remove a contestant for content.
In situations where that activity is happening around mobs, people will try keeping someone at low hp to either make that person die to mobs or just not even attempt fighting them (which secures the content). And keeping a player at low hp is waaaay easier when you can literally see what hp they're at.
So that is the assumed impact. And I believe that we will not have enough content for everyone, considering that Steven keeps mentioning player friction as one of his desires for the game. You can't really create player friction if everyone can just sit in their little corner and get their own rewards.
Obviously this doesn't account for everyone who will simply fight back in the situation above, but at that point it's just pvp, so it's a whole different discussion.
It absolutely did had impact in L2.
It wouldn't.
It's extremely simple and has been repeated many times in this thread already but if you desire me to repet it i will,
Not showing a Greens HP increases your chances of PKing said Green when trying to use the:
"Keeping their HP low making them unable to pve" and the "Lowing their HP enough during their PvE so their monsters finish them off" strategies making said PK evading strategies less effective and more risky as they were in L2, its by no means a perfect solution just an excelent deterrent of said strategies that does not break the essence of the system.
Aren't we all sinners?
This part isn't true, in fact it's almost the opposite.
Friction is more likely to be created because 'everyone gets something', but the 'something' they get can only be viewed as a 'reward' when compared to the general value of others. It's precisely this fact that makes Glint a troublesome system.
As for the other part, I don't want to derail the thread overall, but the issue is, we've reached the point where the 'main' argument being offered by Flanker is very close to 'it works in L2'.
Also, L2's player loot on death was much smaller, I've researched this extensively precisely because the L2 players have brought it up so much. I can find no evidence that it was ever truly comparable, maybe 20% chance of dropping anything at all in C2, and this is when you are MPKed.
If you want to have the L2 experience 'enough to suggest the removal of dropping items on death', you're willing to sacrifice something that's relatively important to the way Ashes works.
But this isn't particularly related to whether or not health bars should be shown, so I didn't want to bother with it. All I know is that using L2 as the blueprint and saying 'I want it to be designed this way because OTHERWISE an L2 problem will happen' doesn't make sense when you are countered by 'I don't think it needs to be designed that way because AA did it that way and the problem didn't happen'.
If we as a community keep being this way about basic design stuff, communication is going to break down even more, and when the NDA lifts, this place is just going to give Ashes a bad rep. I'm probably 'out of line' in saying it, but y'all L2 players need to stop this, seriously.
He he he he he he heh.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
Having the direct knowledge of both games i can tell you that this assumption is wrong, most of the time the majority of the Ashes designs do usually have a distinct edge(even with the overlaping inspirations) as to the design of which game is closer taking in consideration the nuances related to the other designs in both games, when talking Corruption its a no brainer and when talking economy its for sure way more complex.
When talking about whatever Ashes design i can almost always tell if its closer to L2 or AA.
Aren't we all sinners?