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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
If yo ucan't see the health of a player, you will only notice a fraction of the times you go past players that could use your help. In most games I have played, this was quite literally a daily occurance.
It wasn't in early EQ2, but that is because the game locked players and mobs in combat so that this wasn't possible. They removed that lock on all but open world raid mobs specifically so this interaction could happen, and it happened frequently from then on.
In Archeage, it happened many times on any given day. This is only true if you subscribe to the notion that not showing player health is the only possible remedy for this situation.
If you are a logical human being and realize there is always more than one solution to a problem like this, it makes nothing but sense to explore those other solutions first.
To me, all that filtering of this kind of situation is literally the same as the amount of abusers of the system we're proposing. Except the impact of our issue applies to the perceived gameplay of the game, cause being PKed will 100% be seen as a way worse situation as "oh shit, I got too many mobs on me and there wasn't a friend around to help me out".
So you're suggesting to change an entire player behavior structure (gaining PK counts for touching greens will 100% do that) just to MAYBE have a fraction of a % more interactions of "oh, I'm a healer and I came across a dude in trouble and I'm a good enough person to help this random person in a highly competitive owpvp game
To me, that makes no god damn sense. Especially when the dude in trouble can just ask for help. To me this is the same kind of deal as Chaliux was talking about. Solo players getting stuff just because they're poor little solo players who don't want to socialize with others. If a person who got themselves into trouble is not willing to ask for help from a stranger - that's a them problem, not a system-based one.
Why? Because his suggestion is better than mine.
Is it possible that someone can offer even a better one?
Absolutely.
So far I consider his suggestion the best. If a better alternative appears, I would gladly support it.
But I would like to ask you the question I asked in the end of my last comment again:
Let's imagine this actually is the only remedy for this situation. Would that be net positive or net negative?
As a DPS caster in both EQ2 and Archeage, I used to often assist people (in EQ2, only after encounter locking was removed) my nuking mobs when someone had pulled too much. On tank alts in EQ2, I would often taunt mobs off people in trouble.
Take note, I've been saying this whole time to address that issue via other means.
Unless you are trying to say that removing health information is the only way to lower the occurance of this activity (which is proven to not be the case), then this point here makes no sense.
Deal with the issue via other means, leave health information in place, then players can better assist each other.
As to your comment about people just asking for help, that really doesn't work - for a number of reasons.
First, most players I know turn local chat off, and many turn all in game chat off other than guild and group/raid (some even turn that off). That shit is full of so much rubbish that many people I know just don't want to.
Second, asking for help takes time. When you are losing - especially the part of that where you still think you have a chance - you aren't going to take that time to ask for help, because that is taking away from other actions you could and should be doing.
Third, when you are losing, you are quite likely not looking around to even see if there is someone that could help.
Again, since the only reason to remove this information is that one thing that happened in that one game that didn't show any information anyway, a different game can do what other games have done since then to not have that behavior, which means they can still show health information, giving people the informatin they need to assist players in need.
The whole argument for not showing it is dependent on assuming there are no other ways to deal with that one issue, which again has been proven many times to be incorrect.
I'm happy to just outright state that you are lying if you actually believe this to be the case.
You have absolutely no idea how many times you ran past someone that needed help - you can't know, because that information was not made available to you.
It may not have affected the few times you claim to have assisted (which I am unconvinced of), but it absolutely did affect the times you didn't even know someone could have used your help.
The notion that a better solution will come from people that don't have game design degrees (or doctrates) is absurd. It is Intrepid that will find the solution to this - and likely they already have.
That solution is likely at least in part content based, but likely also makes use of other systems in the game. Like anything in an MMORPG, there isn't going to be a "do this one thing" type solution, because MMORPG's and the people that play them are both far more complex than single point solutions.
That is the real issue I have with those of you arguing this - you make it out to be a silver bullet, despite knowing it is of limited effect, and also knowing that other games have achieved the results just fine without this - yet you still maintain that the game has to do it 'or else'.
Meanwhile...
You keep repeating the same thing, despite the fact that it is not true.
Will we see the answer to this eventually? It's a simple question that only requires to pick one out of two options.
And finally
As long as you claim, that the current suggestion "is not good enough" and "there is always a chance to find a better solution" - what is your "better solution"? Got one? Ahaha "LYING" - dude, you are making a wrong assumption for the 4372nd time with a straight face, as if it was a proven fact. If your chicken brain can't comprehend that I don't need to see someone's HP bar to understand that they are in trouble - IN A GAME THAT YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT - it is your problem, not mine. Me > have absolutely no idea
Random representative of forum fauna with 0 knowledge about the subject > I KNOW BETTER!!!! "Mommy, Flanker is bad, I can't outsmart him on the forum where I have 15000 pointless comments, so I need to make up random stuff. Please bring me a cup of a hot milk"
P.S. Accusing someone in doing what you do, that's hypocrisy and manipulation trick used by propaganda
But you know what I experienced quite often when I did that? The other player would complain that I stole his mobs. Because L2 is a competitive game. Mobs give loot there, so if someone takes your mobs - they've taken your loot.
We'll obviously have to see if Ashes mobs will be nearly as valuable as that, but if they're not, then I really still got no damn clue what the gameplay loop is supposed to be in this game.
We'll just have to see how quickly people will start complaining during testing when we prove that visible hp is a problem. And then how quickly Intrepid will call what we do "harassment".
And then I'll be ultimately right, because this is exactly what I've been predicting in relation to this design for months now. People will complain because the design allows this. Then Intrepid will overcorrect as a response (as they've already proven to do with the A2 key bundles). And then we'll get a way harsher corruption system balancing than what it already is (i.e. way harsher than what L2 had).
Iccer said that AA didn't have the kind of value on mobs that L2 had (the last part here is my comparative addition to what iccer said), so of course there'd be literally no reason for people to use the kind of tactics we're talking about.
In Ashes, people will be dropping loot on death. They'll drop more if they die to mobs. And it remains to be seen if the mobs themselves are valuable. But even w/o value on mobs - people will 100% do their best to kill people through mobs to get some nice free loot from them. And then the victim will either have to flag up (which would simply mean a free pvp for the attacker) or they'll suffer the penalties and will complain about those as well.
Azherae told me to try and decrase my comparisons to L2, cause it's not anywhere near the same game, but I feel like comparison to AA would be even worse, cause it's not the same game even more in this context. The level of day-to-day competitiveness (i.e. not only bosses or risky trade runs) in AA seems to have been abysmally low as compared to L2's. And Azherae herself said that there's already more reasons to kill a person in Ashes, which will only increase day-to-day competitiveness.
I personally don't want the corruption system to get drastically changed. But I do believe that it will be, if the green health remains visible. Testing will show how right or wrong I am.
P.S. Don't scroll down right away to the conclusion, try to go through this experiment yourself. I will hide the answer in the spoiler.
___________________________
The boy's expression grew more intense. "This is a game based on a famous experiment called the 2-4-6 task, and this is how it works. I have a rule - known to me, but not to you - which fits some triplets of three numbers, but not others. 2-4-6 is one example of a triplet which fits the rule. In fact... let me write down the rule, just so you know it's a fixed rule, and fold it up and give it to you. Please don't look, since I infer from earlier that you can read upside-down."
The boy said "paper" and "mechanical pencil" to his pouch, and she shut her eyes tightly while he wrote.
"There," said the boy, and he was holding a tightly folded piece of paper. "Put this in your pocket," and she did.
"Now the way this game works," said the boy, "is that you give me a triplet of three numbers, and I'll tell you 'Yes' if the three numbers are an instance of the rule, and 'No' if they're not. I am Nature, the rule is one of my laws, and you are investigating me. You already know that 2-4-6 gets a 'Yes'. When you've performed all the further experimental tests you want - asked me as many triplets as you feel necessary - you stop and guess the rule, and then you can unfold the sheet of paper and see how you did. Do you understand the game?"
"Of course I do," said Hermione.
"Go."
"4-6-8" said Hermione.
"Yes," said the boy.
"10-12-14", said Hermione.
"Yes," said the boy.
Hermione tried to cast her mind a little further afield, since it seemed like she'd already done all the testing she needed, and yet it couldn't be that easy, could it?
"1-3-5."
"Yes."
"Minus 3, minus 1, plus 1."
"Yes."
Hermione couldn't think of anything else to do. "The rule is that the numbers have to increase by two each time."
"Now suppose I tell you," said the boy, "that this test is harder than it looks, and that only 20% of grownups get it right."
Hermione frowned. What had she missed? Then, suddenly, she thought of a test she still needed to do.
"2-5-8!" she said triumphantly.
"Yes."
"10-20-30!"
"Yes."
"The real answer is that the numbers have to go up by the same amount each time. It doesn't have to be 2."
"Very well," said the boy, "take the paper out and see how you did."
Hermione took the paper out of her pocket and unfolded it...
Hermione's jaw dropped. She had the distinct feeling of something terribly unfair having been done to her, that the boy was a dirty rotten cheating liar, but when she cast her mind back she couldn't think of any wrong responses that he'd given.
"What you've just discovered is called 'positive bias'," said the boy. "You had a rule in your mind, and you kept on thinking of triplets that should make the rule say 'Yes'. But you didn't try to test any triplets that should make the rule say 'No'. In fact you didn't get a single 'No', so 'any three numbers' could have just as easily been the rule. It's sort of like how people imagine experiments that could confirm their hypotheses instead of trying to imagine experiments that could falsify them - that's not quite exactly the same mistake but it's close. You have to learn to look on the negative side of things, stare into the darkness. When this experiment is performed, only 20% of grownups get the answer right. And many of the others invent fantastically complicated hypotheses and put great confidence in their wrong answers since they've done so many experiments and everything came out like they expected."
Indeed.
In some cases, Ashes absolutely is more like L2 than Archeage, but in others it will be more like Archeage.
The PvP system is a little more like L2 than Archeage.
However, content is an area that it will probably be more like Archeage.
Let's analyze this point properly.
1. We take the whole sample of cases when Player A is in trouble and there is a Player B around who can potentially help him. This sample will be called X.
2. From the sample X we need to deduct cases (let's estimate their number as "Y") when Player B sees the situation of Player A and decides not to intervene for whatever reason (be it lack of desire, personal reason or desire to loot whatever remains after Player A upon his death). So at this point, the number of cases where your point may theoretically apply is "X-Y"
3. From the sample segment "X-Y" we need to additionally deduct all the cases when the situation of Player A is obvious to Player B, and he intervenes no matter whether he sees or doesn't see his HP bar (let's estimate this number as "Z")
4. So now, the sampling to which your point may theoretically apply is equal to "X-(Y+Z)", not just "X" as you implied in your comments. Let's call this it "N", so basically N=X-(Y+Z). I'm typing this with a very slow speed to not get you lost.
5. Let's move to the next part. Actually, not yet, there is another variable that we need to deduct from "N": the number of cases where Player B decided to help player A, but failed, and Player A dies anyway. In such cases, it doesn't matter whether Player B sees or doesn't see Player A's HP bar, as the outcome is the same. Let's estimate this number as V. So now N=X-(Y+Z+V).
So eventually, you are talking about the sample "X" when in reality, if you want to be precise (which doesn't look like that), you need to talk about the sample N, which is: N = X-(Y+Z+V)
Next part:
The actions of Player A led to him ending up in tough situation. This is a result of his own actions and in unfortunate for him scenario - he dies. Surely, he might be unhappy because of that, but if his IQ is higher than the room temperature measured in degrees Celsius - he perfectly realizes that it is his own fault.
The psychological consequences of death because of griefing - not all griefing (as I'm not talking about the whole sample of cases when actions may qualify as griefing), but the griefing that became possible and much easier due to visible HP bars, is much more significant for the average modern MMO player. It wasn't Player's A actions that led to this, but it's gonna be him who suffers from helplessness, anxiety, anger and negative emotions. Shortly saying, the chance of Player A rage quitting and/or uninstalling the game is significantly higher compared to situation when he died from mobs because of his own mistake.
P.S. Forgot to mention: being able to see the HP bar will also increase the probability and frequency of such griefing, that othewise players would either refrain from or bear the additional risk while doing that.
Edits: typos
And I myself have been in countless situations where I was at super low hp, but I was still doing fine and it was a calculated risk to go that low.
In Ashes there'll be even more vagueness in these kinds of situations, because you'd never know what kind of augments the person has or what kind of build. But the fact of you taking their mobs will always be true.
And this is exactly why I said that if someone's running away from mobs - they're not farming them, which means it's way more ok to take them. Though even then, there's a chance that they're just kiting those mobs to avoid going too low.
Btw, that class I talked about would also curse out a healer that would've healed them, if the healer saw the hp and thought to himself "oh damn, I gotta help out this poor person".
In other words, survival of solo players are their own problem. If they need help - they can ask. If they die - that's their own fault, unless the exact thing that we want to minimize happens.
Imagine explaining that visible HP would give their enemies information how to prevent them from using those abilities.
Imagine explaining all that to someone who confidently makes wrong claims about the game he never played and doesn't even care to listen or learn how things actually worked there.
Also with a bit of reverse engineering people will soon work out what kind of damage range and HP ranges they can expect when attacking specific classes in specific gear etc.
HP bar or not some people will take the "risk" and chip at your HP away as you are fighting mobs, hoping mobs kill you in the process. There is nothing in the current corruption system, which would take into the account situations like when a red destroys 90% of your HP and a mob kills you with a final blow etc.
I feel the same about zerging and under the table alliances. Whatever systems you build into the game, nothing can stop non-aggression agreements and secret alliances outside the game world.
Some of these situations are going to result in some drama, player retention and obviously affect who is going to play the game in the first place.
For the sake of fairness I could see Intrepid introducing a craftable item/talisman which would warn you if a player(s) with history of specific behaviours enters your area, so you have enough time to disengage any PvE and regen before a potential fight. This would however certainly remove some pve risks, but also gameplay possibilities. Also I can already see at least some PKer wannabies crying about it
Blown past falling sands…
I can think of a PK counter - but that won't really work, because PK counter can be reduced by completing a certain quest, so that's not an option.
A player who is currently PK? That would be OP for low-level bounty hunters whose maps are not perfectly accurate as it reduces the need for progression
Can't really think of any other options that are not subjective. And it's also necessary to think, how implementation of such things could be theoretically exploited. But tbh, realistically speaking, the chance of it happening is <1%, so I won't spend time thinking about it. If there are players here who want to be full-time PKers, I highly doubt that they worry about something that most likely will never be implemented.
P.S. Just as I said, what's the point of coming up with potentially complicated solutions that might affect other in-game systems and like 99.9% will never be implemented (which becomes pretty obvious when you listen to Steven talking about this particular topic). There is no need to solve the problem in 10 steps, when it can be solved in 1.
It would be fairly easy also to implement a system which displays a message which basically says "There is an infamous person near by" or "Your spidey senses are tingling" when someone with that status is less than 100 meters away from you in a non-lawless zone. The actual distance is irrelevant at this stage.
Blown past falling sands…
In this case being warned of near by PvP danger when in non-lawless zone would give a player already engaged in PvE some sense of "fairness" as they would have a chance to decide whatever they flee or fight at more equal terms with attackers.
Obviously this system could take into consideration stuff like guilds being at war etc, so you don't remove surprised attacks, economic harassment "tactics" where they genuinely matter.
Blown past falling sands…
Blown past falling sands…
Just curious, as I never gave a f about it whatsoever[/quote]
Absolutely cared about being pk`ed in the early days of the game. (from end of beta through first few years).
This was because of gear drop and the level disparity between those that did the pk`ing.
I wrote earlier how pk`ed and dropped gear on the starter island. I was pk`ed quite a few times waiting for the ferry to leave.
Joining random groups was dangerous in the early days, as there were groups that just invited, took players deep into a dungeon then abandoned them just to let the mobs finish them off so as to pickup their gear and profit!
The early years of L2 were much less forgiving than the later years.
You speak of chronicles and servers I have not heard of, you may have played in a different era.