Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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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
This is false dichotomy, neither of those are true though. The made a certain number of locations that are different, not just copy-pasted. Naturally, people would want to farm those which are the best in their opinion. Even though sometimes it made more sense to go to another location that might not be as good, but nobody would bother you and you farm more over time without having to waste time on fighting.
Because otherwise it would end up being another PvE-casual-carebear-friendly-modern-mmo-player-orieted game (we have plenty of those already) and the main reason: because Steven said so during one of the livestreams.
Your whole point is based on assumption that "we need to eliminate it". We don't, there just has to be a proper balance of Risk vs Reward that can be easily achieved by changing one tiny thing that, apparently, bothers you so much that you ready to change the game's core pillars and Steven's vision.
It isn't twisting words.
People spent a lot of time in L2 (Source; NiKr) at those farming spots. If they were a "happy accident" and the develoeprs didn't intend for that to be the focus of the gameplay, then what did they expect the focus to be?
Like, in y our opinion, since you are the one seemingly saying that it wasn't the developers intention for those spots to be farming spots, what did the L2 developers intend players to do, to fight over?
I'm agreeing with NiKr in saying it was those spots, you are disagreeing with me, so what is it you think the developers intended?
No it wouldn't.
There are games that have PvP somewhat similar to Ashes that don't have this issue.
Who said anything about changing any core pillars?
I think you've made an assumption here that isn't true.
Again.
Regional economy. Did you play New World? I guess it took only about 3-6 month and the not linked auction houses were gone - perhaps I cant remember correctly. Players just walked (a lot!) to prevent being scammed. It is only a time sink not providing the information desired.
A global or trade chat will provide transparency, therefore it will not be possible, or not quite easy, to push item prices to crazy amounts, so to take advantage from lack of knowledge of other players. That's scam as I understand it, if somebody takes advantages over another player because of his lack of knowledge. Global information will provide this knowledge and ensure that scamming will not be possible or only few times.
Sure it has. Just went into a different fate as WoW, as we all know.
And gained insane amounts of people although it's long lasting product cycle.
That's true, Blizzard did an amazing job in the entire Warcraft universe and was also quite popular because of Diablo. I mean, if you know the lore of Warcraft (I do, from games and all books) and you just think about Arthas (one of the best protagonists in the entire warcraft universe) and compare it with the "lore" of King Atrax from Ashes than that puts a smile on my face. Maybe that's some kind of respect from intrepid for Blizzard because there are several parallels / copied aspects if you compare both of them.
Oh, WoW is not ruined at all. That's the difference in the history and result/fact nowadays. By contrast, they just started a new entire trilogy and the first part of it already got released recently.
You cant play a MMO seriously on a mobile, that's why there are no efforts to implement or adapting it, it just makes no sense and the target audience is different and will not play WoW on a mobile phone. Blizzard learned that from Diablo Immortal, an ARPG and no MMO, but still it was really awkward but still is a financial success, as quite everything (MS / Activision) Blizzard does.
But, that's way offtopic again from health point bars.
As long as you can gather global information and are allowed to travel, you can search for the cheapest price of the item and you are able to get that information. Some players just want to take advantage of the lack of knowledge from other players, and that's nothing more than a scam. Having monopoly is something different, but as long as the item is available on different spots/regions/auction houses and you are allowed to travel to all those locations, you can avoid that overpriced items - and why should you than, with this knowledge of the current market price, buy it if it is just too expensive from that player hoping for a small scam?
I think in New World it took only a few months that the auction house systems and therefore the economy situation changed. Perhaps I remember that wrong, not sure. And the workaround until that point was: Running, running and again: Running. This is no fun at all and a consequence of regionalized economies. As Ashes will not have fast travel (at least not as pleasant and comfortable as we know from other MMOs) you will search for possibilites to get your item at a regular/normal market price to avoid the "regional scammers", because for sure that will happen and if the information is available, players will try to get the cheapest price. They will only pay a much higher price if there is absolutely no possibility to get to a location where the same item is much cheaper, so, if artificial limitations are implemented or bad time sinks are there because travel time or other issues are not worth it to get to the location with the cheaper price.
In New World it happend like this: If there was a crafting cooking station with high level in this particular town, all the raw materials in that auction house were very expensive, because crafters/cooks tried to push their cooking level and thus they bought those raw materials. For the crafted buff food it's the other way round: Of course the smart cook was not selling his buff food in this (with buff food overloaded) auction house of that town, but he travelled (walked...) to other towns and sold his buff food there to achieve higher prices. Firstly that sounds good (for the seller, not the buyer), but it's just no fun at all and is just a huge time sink in the game which brings no real advantage for the buyer or the overall fun and quality of the game. New World changed that later on after release, and the linked auction houses increased the quality of life aspect in the game. Scams and overpricing ended, real supply and demand worked fine - without time sinks and barriers that are not needed.
But, that's way offtopic again from health point bars.
But I am not opposed to having a nameplate become visible for a few seconds when taking damage or a debuff being applied, just to help with visual clutter. Won't mean much in small scale but in larger encounters or when there are lots of flashy or foggy weather effects it can help.
Should only be 3-5s though, and then disappear again until taking more damage. Since if the player wants to run away and hide, the nameplate being visible removes that gameplay option.
We don't need to be funny on the Internet right now. We need a butt big enough to hide the Health Bar of Enemy Players inside it.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
There is a bit to unpack with L2, and perhaps not covered previously. Perhaps this perception of how xp spaces might turn out is why past L2 players anticipate that there is the same potential within AoC.. yet all to be seen.
In Lineage 2, many farming spots developed into optimal grind zones over time, but they were likely not designed with the intention of becoming what they did.
Players often discovered micro zones within larger areas that provided the best XP gain or strategic advantages, leading to fierce competition for these spots. These zones, while part of a wider area with general mob spawns, became critical to leveling due to specific mechanics or advantages tied to their geography, spawn rates, or even monster cycles. The could be as micro as a static position with the range of your fire!
One such highly contested farming area was known for its unique night and day cycle, where the environment changed every two hours. During the night, powerful mobs spawned, offering significantly higher XP returns than day time, making it an ideal place for power leveling. The spot was especially prized by ranged players who could stand in a single optimal position with minimal movement, efficiently killing mobs to maximize their experience rate. To further boost their efficiency, many players would delay picking up loot until the end of their buff cycle, allowing them to focus solely on DPS. This strategy, combined with the increased XP from nighttime mobs, made the area highly competitive.
In context, at the level that this area was a good xp area, I could level 5% an hour vs 2% elsewhere.
The fierce competition wasn't just for the XP, though. The uncollected loot that piled up became an enticing prize for opportunistic players or groups seeking to take over the spot. If the current player farming the spot was killed, others could potentially claim both the XP farm and the accumulated bounty of unclaimed items, leading to frequent skirmishes and PvP battles. It was just easy loot! ...
Players generally picked up anything decent that dropped straight away but left the general loot for up to 20min.
Similar contested farming spots in Lineage 2 include:
Seal of Shilen – This area featured undead mobs that spawned at night, offering high XP for experienced players. Like other spots, it had key positions that allowed ranged or AoE classes to farm efficiently with little movement, leading to heavy competition, particularly during the nighttime mob cycle.
Forest of the Dead – Known for its dangerous mobs, this area had a night/day dynamic where specific undead creatures appeared in high density during the night. Certain spots here became hotspots for ranged classes looking to power-level, as they could stand in one place and clear waves of mobs without much movement, making it a highly contested area for XP farming.
And then there were oae farming spots, where mass mobs were trained into a waiting party for even greater xp returns (power levelling). The mass of mobs coming in made easy pickings for pvp or pk as sometimes you could not see the hits you were receiving for the mobs that were hitting you or just the sea of mobs surrounding you!.
On L2 Classic in a crater near Ivory Tower there were lvl 40 Manashen Gargoyles - the only mob that dropped spellbook for Death Whisper buff. The chance was very low and there wasn't that many mobs there, but that book's price was 13kk adena which was huge. Obviously, many people tried to farm it there and there wasn't enough mobs for everyone. Once again, it wasn't designed that way because on C1 chronicles (the very first patch) that book was supposed to be dropped in a completely different location from different mobs.
If the developers didn't even think this is what players would do - then what did they think players would do? They may well have had something in mind for players to do, but they also may not have. If they didn't have something they expected players to do, I would hope we can all agree that this would make them shit developers.
If they had something in mind and didn't develop it, then shit developers. If they did have something in mind and did develop it, it was obviously not as good as these random spots, so shit developers.
Then we add to that the notion that L2 was a live service game (before the term live service game). This means that either the developers didn't notice what people were doing in their game (shit developers) or did notice and were happy with them not running the content that one of the assumptions above suggests they developed (shit developers).
The above is only true if you assume those spots were random, as opposed to my assumption that they were purposefully designed and built.
There really is no way to look at L2 and assume these areas weren't designed specifically with this type of farming in mind without then having come to the eventual conclusion that the developers of the game must have been shit. The only way to arrive at a point where the assumption is that they are competent (not even good, just competent) is to assume that they developed these areas on purpose.
You gave 4 examples of these spots in your post, all 4 of them are exactly the kind of thing I would expect a developer to produce for a game like L2. They are all purpose made farming spots that have specific unique attributes and points of interest.
The notion that these areas were happy little accidents is not something I can agree with. I mean, even the day/night population swap, someone coded that in to the game, then someone else populated that area with mobs twice. The notion that this wasn't done with the knowledge that players would farm this area for hours, and fight over it, is just not someething that tracks. It was purposly made, and served the function it was made for.
If you honestly believe that the developers didn't intentionally create these areas with farming in mind, what is it you think they put in that population swap to achieve? Why do you think they made areas where all the mobs were able to be AoE'd en masse?
It simply doesn't track, these areas were built on purpose.
While first one is an objective fact that can be easily observed and the intention behind that is 100% clear (that can be seen from mob stats/resists/weaknesses/skills), the second one is somewhat different. Obviously, I'm not talking about epic bosses that spawned once per 5-12 days depending on the boss.
On each level, from low to high, there was always more than enough locations to farm. Factors that you keep missing are basically human nature and default behavioral patterns of the players, who mostly wanted to farm the best spots.
Fun fact: in many cases it made much more sense to farm spots that were not the best. Why? Because even though it would be less efficient compared to the best spots (let's say 60-80% efficiency rate), you wouldn't spend half of your time trying to occupy the spot or defending it from unwanted guests. I'm not even talking about XP loss for death penalties that was brutal on official and low-rate servers. So overall you could gain more XP and/or farm more stuff in locations that are not the best. But people are people and tunnel vision is a thing.
So again: you make assumptions that might seem to be logical from your perspective (no questions to that), but your assumptions are still based on limited information and no experience. Any Lineage player would understand perfectly what I'm talking about above, but there is no way for you to know about such minor, but important details unless someone tells you that.
We are not some stubborn people who are willing to die defending the honor of the game we played. We just know what we are talking about and share our valid concerns, even though they might not seem to be valid from your perspective
I hope you eventually understand this and readjust your frame of reference based on the new information
On the other hand, if we assume that they put the amount in that they wanted, an amount that sees players still needing to fight each other over them, then we can now assume the developers are competent.
The fact that players were indeed fighting over these locations really does lend itself to this second option being the case.
It isn't just "parts of the world" we are talking about, it is these specifically, purposfully built areas that are designed to be better farming locations that we are talking about. The developers specifically didn't put enough of them in to the game to satisfy every player, specifically so that players would fight over those that did exist.
The reason we know this to be true is because players fought over these areas. That same concept above of developers not putting enough of something in for every player to have enough, that is the case for everything that players fight over in a game. If a game has a single dragon, players will fight over it - if that same game has more dragons than players, players need not fight over them.
This is kind of a basic concept. I do not understand why people that played L2 are arguing this point - other than the fact that it 'sounds bad' saying they purposefully didn't put enough content in to the game, even though that is literally what the game design and basic goals dictate to be the case.
If the developers of a PvP focused game put enough of everything in the game for there to be no need for players to PvP, then those developers would be even more shit than what I talked about in my post above.
Yes, there were times when you would opt out of a fight and settle for a second or third tier location. That is still them not putting enough of those top tier locations in to the game to satisfy player desire - if there were enough of them, you wouldn't have had to settle for a farming spot that wasn't the best.
Basically, I am stating that there weren't enough top tier spots for players to always have one available if they want, and you are arguing that by saying players could chose to settle for a second tier spot if they didn't want to fight.
Thumbs up, dude.
Just why...
Do I have to explain simple things to people who think "they know better"
When it comes to game they never played
The goal is NOT to farm the best spot. The goal is to get the highest expected value per hour.
If top spot is free - then that's where you wanna go. If it's not free, then oftentimes you'd get a higher EV/hour in a different spot with no competition.
If you can't comprehend this simple thing, then guess what? Other players might not be able to comprehend it as well, even though it's pretty obvious.
And if this simple statement lies beyong your ability to comprehend, sorry, it's your problem, not mine.
You should find a better dealer dude, cuz your current one is selling you something bad.
Every time I reply to your comment, I need to keep in mind that I'm replying to someone who thinks that "player population" and "player retention" are the same thing.
I am saying there wasn't enough top tier spots. You are saying that if you have come across someone in a top tier spot, you would often settle for a second tier spot. If there were enough top tier spots, you wouldn't have to settle for a second tier spot, you would just get another top tier spot that was free, because there would have to be at least one free, because if there wasn't one free then my point of there not being enough would be true.
As to you opting to go to a second tier spot instead of fighting for a top tier, that is a player decision, many other players opted to fight for that top spot instead. I know this because that is what NiKr said he would often do. But hey, if you're happy settling for second best, good for you.
All this does is prove you aren't reading.
However, just as the fight escalates, the griefer's team, who had been out of sight, rushes in. Since the unsuspecting players were flagged by retaliating, they are now vulnerable, and the attacking team takes advantage of this to score PvP kills. The initial "tapping" strategy was a bait to lure the players into flagging themselves, leading to their defeat.
https://youtu.be/M_rqxE8vzQg?si=nr-B8Ssv14mEKwUY&t=753
I am probably in that video somewhere (not on the winning side though)
This is literally the design I've been discussing and promoting on these forums for years now. And it's "a design", because L2 devs knew what they were doing with it.
If literally no one at NCsoft asked in a design meeting "ey bois, what do you think will happen if we only have 3 mobs with this valuable loot? Won't the players fight over that exact spot?" - those devs would've had the worst designers in the industry, cause this shit is the most obvious question to ask. ESPECIALLY considering that the game was a sequel to L1, which was afaik similar in this part of its design, so they would've already had all the social info they needed to create these pvp situations.
So I fully agree with Noaani here.
Also, this video is a perfect illustrator of why the corruption system should be strict to anyone above certain PK count AND why hp should be invisible. Cause people like that will either have to stop doing these bait attacks with weapons (as a dude later in the video did by hitting people just with his hands) or they'll suffer the punishment of being red and hunted. And if they keep repeating this stuff and keep becoming Red - they'll get deeper and deeper into the hole of corruption penalties.
P.S.I think you might miss the psychological and behavioral aspect of players' behavior. Unless all locations in game are literally Ctrl+C - Ctrl+V, people will find certain locations better/more profitable/more convenient for their class compared others, right?
As soon as that location is labeled as "the best", a decent part of players would try to occupy it despite the fact they could farm peacefully in other locations (as I described in my previous message).
Additionally, the popularity of those locations changed over time with new patches. Some locations that were popular initially lost their value in next patches and vice versa.
So I don't get it, what is that exactly that you disagree with?
P.S. I gotta have some sleep now, will reply after I wake up
What you described is a completely expected behavior, so devs designed mobs and locations (including respawn speeds/amounts/movements) with that behavior in mind.
The point that is not true, that comes from someone who never played L2 but obviously "knows better" is that the devs intentionally made a limited numbers of locations, so that people fight for them because "Lineage 2 is a PvP game" which is another wrong statement of "Him-Who-Knows-Better" as Lineage 2 was a PvX game.
I highlight that there was more than enough locations on each level, but as long as players are people and people are animals, our behavior on large samples is very predictable. So naturally people were trying to farm the best spots while engaging in a lot of PvPs instead of peacefully farming in less-known locations.
How do I know that? Well, the official servers had a CCU cap of 5000-6000 players.
I played on a server with 17,000+ players and guess what? If you weren't braindead, you'd easily find an unoccupied farming spot. If you know some secret spots and locations - that get even easier.
So you might be confusing cause and effect.
Do you understand now?
And this is why Noaani said that if devs DIDN'T know how people would react - they'd be insanely dumb.
And you still kind of miss cause and consequence
Let's put it that way, and let me know if there is anything you disagree with here:
Have devs added enough locations on different levels for players to farm? - Yes
Unless all those locations are purely identical, is it the natural outcome that some players will find certain locations better compared to others? - Yes
Is it logical for majority of players, when choosing a farming spot, to check the best farming spots first? - Yes
Do all of them realize that pretty often it makes more sense to farm in less known / less popular spot because the expected value there could be higher? - No
Out of all those who realize that, would all players actually do that, instead of engaging in (often meaningless) PvP that sometimes/often are caused purely by their ego/revenge/competition etc.? - No
Is there anything you disagree with there?
What I said is the developers don't provide enough top tier farming spots - which you are agreeing with.
So, why were you disagreeing with me again?
You disagreed with it being "by design" here L2 devs predicted how people would react to limited valuable content and designed it in that exact way to promote pvp for valuable spots, because that's one of the biggest parts of the game.
Yes, another location might be of equal value when you account for all the pvp that will be preoccupying your time while in the properly valuable spot, but people do not calculate things that way (as you yourself say, which I agree with).
> You say that the designed it intentionally (correct me if I'm wrong)
> I say that they didn't even have to design anything intentionally, because that would happen naturally anyway.
In any case, the topic of this thread is different and shifted from it again, thanks to Mr Spammer and thread killer
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
Whether the devs intended for levelling-spot competition to exist?
Whether players were supposed to aggregate in centralised popular areas of the map? (I think this was was the subject of the simultaneous discussion in the other thread, not particularly relevant for here?)
Was it mostly related to the Indirect-Kill-By-Mob question, or was it about something else?
I've tried looking for it, but the original argument must be hidden somewhere in 3 sentences exchanged 4 pages ago, and never have been directly referred back to in the minutiae since then.