Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
The general engagement ranges of a game with the style of AoC makes this completely pointless.
And like I already said, pvp worked just fine in L2 with invisible hp, both small scale and large scale pvp as well.
Sign me up too as apparently, this is the only way to explain some people why visible HP bars are a problem.
We forced people to rage quit in L2 (when it was necessary for in-game reasons), despite the fact that there were no HP bars whatsoever. If I come to a farming spot that I want and there is another player AND I CAN SEE HIS HP BAR... oooouf, sooner or later, but you are going somewhere else, mate
Boys, the moment when a stronger player or a group comes to a spot where you are farming mobs, you will learn very quickly why that's an issue. You will be forcefully kept at 25% HP while PVEing with 0 risk for other side to go PK. Eventually, you die and get death penalty. End of story.
Those Arenas, BGs in WoW etc. - cool story bro, you might be a truly great PvPer. But this has nothing to do with open world PvP. You will still be harassed and eventually dead under these circumstances and there would absolutely nothing you can do, apart from going somewhere else.
P.S. I know that cuz I've done that probably hundreds of times. And such clashes in Lineage 2 could last for many, I repeat MANY hours. Even without visible HP bars. And if they are visible - it becomes much easier
And mobas are also a great example of this. I don't even know how many times I saw people absolutely fumble to take an objective purely because they saw an enemy player at low hp and went chasing after him, instead of hitting the tower or the ancient.
In L2, the binary nature of hp let everyone follow commands, because if the shotcaller said "this guy must die" - that guy would be dead one way or the other, because none of the people that heard the command are distracted from executing the command. Each group is a unit and works as one, instead of being a collection of single players who just throw around their spells at any, seemingly, opportune target.
The game had full health displayed.
Never once saw this kind of thing happen. Never even heard of it happening.
I have no reason to assume it would happen in Ashes if they added in full health display.
Other than a few players that will grief other players by getting PvE to kill them
It’s so backwards
Well, people can explain it to you, but they can't understand it for you.
Saw that a number of times beyond counting in Lineage 2
Health bars were invisible - even that didn't help
Taking into account how similar AoC and L2 in terms of PvP and PK system (basically, AoC took L2's whole system) - I have every reason to assume that with visible health bars, the number of mental breakdowns and booked therapy sessions will skyrocket.
The logic "I haven't seen it happening, so it won't happen" is... you know...
Played on pvp servers, so in the open world at any time, for decades, of course with health bars. That's no question about instanced pvp alone, it's the same for open world pvp. It's more meaningful, precise and professional if you have information about your enemy: Health points, buffs, debuffs. Everything. You need everything, like you have to know their class mechanics, their skills and all the rest. Everything else is just selecting an enemy and pusthing some skills from the own action bar in some random rotation and maybe, or not, because you cannot see the incomimg heal or whatever, your enemy will die. That's quite poor.
If you ever would have played pvp like high rated Arena PvP in WoW or sPvP (same gear for everybody) in GW2 you perhaps would have an idea.
You fear the ganking situation? If you are pvp-flagged, that's your decision. Which social drama? I've played for so many years, like millions of other players, on pvp servers. If you decide that you want to play pvp at this evening, you play on your pvp server. And war will happen at any time. You are a rogue and your enemy got 40% health? You can decide if you want to burst him down or not. That's it. And your enemy knows, in this particular moment, that he can be attacked. It was his decision.
It's not the fault of somebody else. If you are forced to get into pvp and are forced to play pvp, that's a completely different story and even then, health bars are crucial because it just shouldnt "work fine" it should make sense and be serious. It's also a huge topic about being responsive, getting feedback from what you are doing. If there is no feedback, you just randomly do what you feel, you are not reacting precisely, you are not calling targets due to correct decision, but only because someone is calling a random target for a lucky kill try. It's funny, perhaps, but nothing more.
I've played over two decades on pvp and pve servers in plenty of MMOs in instanced an open world pvp. Your "view" and experience is just a percentage of the possibilities out there and available on the market.
"just fine" is poor enough. I've answered that in the posting above. No hp bars is just lucky-trying random pvp. The "ganking" situation is the one and only homemade issue out of forcing non-combatants to pvp. If you are pvp flagged, that's your decision and you risk - there is no need to design a workaround like missing hp bars because of a completely different root cause.
That will be very funny to see during upcoming test phases. Sure, if only the customers that pay for testing will provide feedback like you, the pvp design will end like this. If you ask players with wide experience over all options out there, it will be different. Playing pvp without having hp indication or precise hp information is pointless. It's a very casual way of playing pvp.
I played Lineage 2 that has the same PvP and corruption system and open-world PvP. And that's the game from which Ashes took this system. And I know exactly how this system works and how it can be exploited under these circumstances.
Ganking situation is the last thing I fear. In fact, it's not even in my personal interest to hide HP bars as I would be among those who directly benefits from that. Yet I would still prefer them removed, because the game's overall health is much more important for me than my personal preferences.
And if you think that PvP with no health bars turns into random chaos, mate, I'm sorry, but you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
So not that high ranked pvp I mentioned you you, no experience from that, because that would change you point of view drastically.
Its the decision of the player that enables pvp / that is pvp-flagged. There is no issue. Really no issue. It's an conscious choice.
You even can't see whether you enemy is (over)healed or not. You have no information about this in a 200v200 fight (example size). So you attack whomever you feel. Lucky casual pvp.
I know that you feel triggered and try to "defend" L2 - but it's pointless, you can save your energy. This game is dead. We can talk about games that work and are still actively played and we can talk about the reasons why this is the case - and ALL of them have visible HP bars where you get precise information of HP, buffs, debuffs and so on. Depending on the game even more (Cooldown times (global and local ones), diminishing returns, just everything. And this information leads to an absolute different level of pvp and as long as you really have no clue about that the entire discussion makes no sense. Believe me when I say: You will not convince me, with no arguement. I will never share your opinion (which is completely fine!), because in pvp you need HP indications or HP bars.
Try out pvp like Arena in WoW or sPvP in GW2 - seriously, you should. You will only understand what I've trying to explain to you if your experience is bit beyond one or two MMOs. Other games like Warhammer, Aion, Rift, Tera, BDO, ESO, New World can help as well.
Don't know what to say. Can't be serious that we talk about professional pvp, lol.
Pingpong zerg event, chaos, lucky-casual pvp. target someone and push your buttons. Eventually he will die, perhaps not. Who knows. No details, no accuracy. And that's called "siege", right? Well... sure
Just ridiculous. Music fits to the quality overall.
I can't describe how bad in all means this is. Both what I see and hear (choice of music, what to say...)
That's running around by mouse-clicks like in an ARPG, right? Amazing.
Clicking skills in the action bar with the mouse is furthermore somewhat awkward.
Championsships. One of the best pvp players on the planet (at this competition and time). You cant' see 95% what happens on this screen due to a lack of experience and high ranked pvp skill, but that's focussed pvp where every single second matters and those players know at every second exactly what they do, their enemies do or can do and react in seconds to countless actions/skills/spells. If you want this level and quality of pvp gameplay you MUST see this information and you need this information. It brings pvp to a better, more professional level. This hp-less lucky random pvp is just annoying.
Just a random drop, not the best one, but delivers the message. Not on same level like wow in terms of production quality, but still far beyond plenty of other MMOs out there in terms of well designed and (quite) good balanced pvp.
I'll read your answer because of courtesy, but I will not circle around pvp gameplay and design with "L2 pvp experienced players" as there are worlds in between us or our experience of how pvp works and looks like, pardon.
Let's see what AoC will bring in the end at release when it comes about HP bars and several other pvp crucial "features" (standards).
Of course it's going to look like a mess when you have music playing, shitty old footage from an old game, and a couple of hundred of players on your screen, and if you haven't played the game, and don't know what's going on, it's just going to be even more confusing.
What you're missing out there however, is all the stuff you cannot hear going on behind the scenes, like your leader calling shots, etc.
Here's just a random video from Archeage that I found:
If that's what it looks like to you, then I'll have to disappoint you, because same thing will happen in Ashes. That's mass scale open-world PvP for you. I'm not sure what you expected really.
None of this is casual, there's a ton of strategy and coordination involved.
Maybe it's also the production quality which is repulsive for me.
That's the same in other (group) open pvp skrimishes in other MMOs or in larged scale battlegrounds.
Even more, if you know (perhaps not) rated battlegrounds in WoW, than you would have same experience like me, because I've played that a lot (and leaded them) and that's, perhaps, the quality I expect.
The "normal" open pvp skirmishes are way beyond that quality of pvp, but they can be funny (within groups/raids), but they are NOT at the same level or quality, believe me. It's a 200v200 "I shoot what I see in front of me" (or is called) and that's it. Its incredibly less skill needed as mass of players works for you. If 50 guys target one enemy and focus him with 1-2 shots that's it. Moreover you pump AoE effects into the screen at your best, this doenst need strategy or tactic, just do it, plenty of enemies will fall. That's the same in every open pvp in all MMOs - that can be fun, sure, no question, but it lacks quality and accuracy without at least some information of hp (that's why for me the hp indication with 25% is fine for larged scale pvp, but not for small scaled pvp and for sure not for solo pvp/pk-ing).
Thanks for the vids, I'll try my best to watch them until the end some time.
And hey: Health bars. Looks fine. I now Archeage bit (better then L2, which is that poor for me that out of plenty of other MMOs I had to skip that one) and due to my experience I can see more than you can imagine, because I've never learned and played something different than getting quite a lot information from the UI to be in a position to do correct and precise actions or reactions of what is happening. Without that I just can roll over my keyboard and click with my mouse for movement in the world...
Did you watch that Arena PvP vid from WoW? That's kind of a summit when it comes to structred, professional and fully responsive pvp gameplay on highest level.
You can search for "rated battle ground" by yourself and for sure you will find some good examples, how middle-scale professional pvp (10v10, 15v15, ...) looks like - of course only in pvp-groups, discord and goals within this battlegrounds, so not only deathmatch (like arena is) but with multiple map goals so tons of strategy, coordination and situational tactics are needed, together with huge individual player skill because depeding on your role/class you have sometims to carry your time during a certain phase of the battleground (true for rogues for instances, and I've played rogue as main for a long time).
A crude example bellow, the part with green
So, in a game with invisible health bars, it happened.
In a game without invisible health bars, it didn't happen.
The logic of " we don't want it, so let's do things the same as the game that had it" is lost on me.
At best, the assumption needs to be that it has no impact at all on this. Realistically, evidentially, it appears to have theninverse effect to what is being claimed.
Entirely dependent on the game's playerbase and the ability/willingness of GMs to step in when griefing like that happens.
Games with a high population of griefers find ways to troll others no matter what. It's no reason to make the game less strategic or give less information.
L2's language is russian, but you can just listen to the callouts themselves, cause for you the effect will be the same as me not understanding what the wow players are calling out.
But the videos are the same. Players are making plays, reacting to enemy's plays and calling those out when needed. In both videos players react to different effects/buffs/debuffs on their enemies, which then dictates who they hit. Except in L2 players need to know animations, instead of just seeing all the buffs and effects right on the enemy nameplate.
To me, that requirement of knowledge makes the pvp harder and also creates a higher requirement for teamplay, because if your partymates don't know an animation - they can't call it out, which can then lead to a loss, or at the very least a disadvantageous situation.
The only true difference between the two games is simply the fact that L2 was built for bigger scale pvp even at a party scale, so the debuffs have different designs. WoW seems to be the "debuffs work 100% of the time and counterbalanced by cleanses and CDs" while L2 is "debuffs have a chance-based success rate, which is balanced through buffs and gear".
Games playerbase, sure. The developers stepping in wasn't something that happened at all in Archeage.
To me, the reason Archeage didn't have this is because there were far better ways to upset rival players. There was no real point in doing it.
Ashes also has far better ways to upset rivals, so I really don't see it happening here.
From the sound of it, it was just something toxic players did to harass non-combatants rather than for any tactical purposes.
There's no gain from doing that when you could just kill the player, take their stuff, and call it a day working off the corruption score.
Corruption's entire point is to be dangerous for the player that has it. You'll be hunted by literally anyone in the vicinty, because having corruption means gifting a ton of stuff to the first person who kills you. And BHs will even see you on the map, so there won't be any "just work off corruption" happening.
In L2 working off corruption took a fair bit of time, and Steven said that AoC's corruption will take even longer to be removed, so it's gonna be even harder to just remove it when everyone around you knows that you're red and where you are (because the victim will simply shout about it in chat).
Ow have ya quarter bars
There ya go problem solved /thread
So, circumventing the intended mechanic to avoid consequences of griefing a player that clearly intended to share the space with you.
Yeah, that's an issue that rises from a high amount of toxic players in the open world PvP, not an issue of having information.
I decided to not reply to that uhm... community member. It is wrong on levels beyond counting and seems pointless at this point, forgive my tautology. Funnily enough, he compares arena fight with mass PvP where hundreds of players involved. Yet in L2 Olympiad (which is arena basically), you could also see your opponent's health. Because IT IS ARENA, not OPEN WORLD PVP.
100%. Simple and elegant solution that satisfies all sides.
You are wrong on this, my friend. Where there is scarcity of resources, mobs or best farming spots, there is always a room for in-game conflicts. Nothing about it is "circumvent the intended mechanic" and very often it has nothing to do with griefing.
I've seen that happening and did that more times than I can count in L2, while contesting the best farming spots that are limited. We would do all kind of dirty tricks, PKing, bringing trains of mobs with AoE attacks that kill the whole group, luring the mobs from the location away, anything you can imagine. And there was nothing toxic about it and it was not intended as griefing, because it simply wasn't personal. It didn't matter who came to our spot, you, Queen of Denmark or a construction worker from Minneapolis - we were protecting our spot against any intruders. That's an element of competition, whether you like it or not. And you will see it in Ashes of Creation as well.
Right, so, as usual it comes down to L2 not providing its playerbase with enough content of value.
We shouldn't just assume Intrepid will follow suit.