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
Blackrock Guard
Guild Forum Post
It's always funny (ridiculous) that there's is always that guy on each thread to say "the game is not for you" each time someone is criticizing a mechanic.
If you knew that AoC had a lot progression paths and it's pvx which is designed to make the game fluid so content will be ever changing and will take players way beyond your 2 month threshold to quote get bored and leave why did you make this thread to begin with?
What is a Level supposed to represent? IRL we tend to either refer to abstract terms like Rookie/Novice/Apprentice, Experienced/Adept/Journeyman, and Expert/Master, or it’s time based. Even the former are somewhat or even explicitly time based.
I’d rather have a system track time doing something compared to the time available (doing+not doing) to put it into perspective.
How much in game world time is one hour? They have stated each season will take 1 to 2 weeks to cycle through, translating to 1 in game year taking 4 to 8 weeks.
So what if a Level in something represents one year’s worth of active work (roughly 2000 game world hours = 38 hours real world at the 1 season per week or 76 hours real world at the 1 season per 2 weeks rate). And limit to one Level advancement in that 1 or 2 month period representing one year.
This is the scale of life in our world translated to Verra. Another way to look at it is 1 year in our world is 13 or 6 years in Verra. But AoC doesn’t have aging, so take that into account.
Point 2 - We are playing a game with limited IRL time, so you have to take a factor of that time into account. That said, is 38 hours of game play in one month unrealistic game time? That’s looking more like casual territory of less than 8 hours per week. However that’s advancement in one particular area of the game such as Combat or Crafting or Resource gathering, etc. So your rate of advancement is related to how much you are trying to do (which should be a water is wet statement since players will focus on level grinding to get to the top level sooner and some will enjoy the ride and do everything).
Will a level grinder be disappointed in a game that limits the number of levels they can obtain over that period of time mentioned (4 or 8 weeks)? I think so. And since my definition of Level in this example represents number of in game years, what could Intrepid do to reward the more hardcore players without throwing that off? Or are the hardcore players the measuring stick for rate of progression?
Let’s suppose Intrepid defines a hard core player as one who plays a minimum of 20 hours per week. Then sets the experience gained rate to 80 hours per 4 weeks (in game year) to achieve one level advancement provided you are playing at the appropriate level. For the 8 hour per week player (the Casual) it will take 10 weeks to gain that same level, in around 2.5 game years. Making the rate of advancement from Hardcore to Casual 2.5 to 1. That sounds fair to me.
Now for those who play more than 20 hours a week there may be diminishing returns because the game should also track non-playing time, which translates to rest time. While you could train 24 hours a day for several weeks out of the year in the real world, the quality or benefit of that experience diminishes. Rather than having mandatory rest periods in game, you simply reflect the conditions in terms of experience gained at a lesser rate. Although you can still clear content and obtain the loot, you just don’t receive as much experience.
And if Levels are based on in game years worth of play, why bother having a level cap at all? There could be other rewards tied to these higher levels beyond power/ability increases, at which after “max level” you stop gaining anyway.
The "ever-changing content" obviously sounds good on paper, but Steven himself said that they "expect players to reach level cap before 25% of nodes reach Stage 3" which makes me wonder whether node development will actually be a significant factor when it comes to leveling. It might be faster with developed nodes, that goes without saying, but even based on that quote alone, I feel pretty skeptical at this point.
This comment has been taken out of context.
The number of level 3 nodes on a server has no relation to how many nodes are level 4, 5 or 6. A metropolis node can only support a total of 9 other nodes in it's vassal system. Since the assumption is that players on most servers are going to work towards leveing one or two metropolis nodes to start, that would mean that only 20 or so nodes will be in the combined cluster of the two metropolis nodes.
That is under 25% of the nodes on the server.
You seem to be assuming node leveling will happen more randomly, where it will instead be more focused.
According to Wiki:
Reaching level 5 takes "few weeks"
Reaching level 6 takes "many weeks"
A hardcore player (me, for example) could have 250 hours of playtime in 2-3 weeks (which is "few weeks"). I could have it in 2 weeks like 100%, as that's how I played New World on launch and, basically, any L2 server on launch.
Pretty sure that content unlocked by level 4 or 5 node would be enough to grind to 50, it would just take more time compared to Node Stage 6 content
Intrepid have said that they expect it to take a player 45 days at 4 - 6 hours a day to get to the level cap. They have not said they expect all of this time to be spent on character leveling - some of it is likely going to need to be spent on node leveling.
The 225 hour thing (which is often stated as 250 hours) is a player notion, not something Intrepid have said.
Yes, it may - but you won't be able to level without leveling the nodes.
The thing is, that 225ish hours that people are throwing around, that is still 10 times longer (or more) than Ashes contemporaries. Even if it took only 20% of that time to actually level, Ashes will have less of the issues than any other game.
As such, it is still a non-issue.
If you watch the video you linked he says it is probably up to 25% to 50% of the nodes have reached stage 3. That's up to half of Verra is not even really unlocked so there is a lot of content not even in play yet! Not everyone is going to rush to max level. If I like A2 I will probably at official launch put in 240ish hours the first two weeks 16 days to be exact and I am betting I won't be 50 by the 2 month mark!
I think this discussion comes down simply to two things, are we talking about a person who has to be entertained or a person who entertains themselves. The former is going to eat through the content as fast as possible to get that high and when that content is finished so are they. Nothing wrong with that f2p games and private servers have been thriving off these type of players for decades. The player in the latter is the one who simply got a bucket of lego as a kid made a town and cars to play cop and robbers and that bucket of lego there children are probably playing with now or grandchildren
AoC is about players interacting with the world the more content Intrepid throws down the bigger the multiplier is for player influence on that content. Steven is picking what lego he tosses on the board but it will be the players who decide what we build from it. AoC isn't so much about u being entertained it is more about you entertaining yourself and in that endevor you will entertain others and vice versa. Level 50 isn't the end it is just the beginning!
FFXI did it best. It took like 8-12 months to play 4-6 hours a day in order to level to max level. Having it so that when you die you lose exp and have the possibility of De-leveling back to a lower level was a HUGE element to the game.
It also gives ZERO value to individual levels if you can level quickly. In FFXI you had to really earn each level you got, and as a result, it gave sooooo much value to specific spells/abil you would get at certain levels. Like being able to teleport people for WHM, or Warping other players for BLM.
These spells had a huge impact on combat strat, but also social impacts as well when outside of combat.
Being able to level up quickly takes 100% of the value out of leveling and the spells/abilities you get along the way. It also ruins the sense of accomplishment you get while leveling.
Before having a cap-level character used to be a bragging right, but now its like....ok who cares, I have 10 cap-level toons on 5 different servers.
This all changed because the focus changed to accommodate "Casual" players. Instead of making it fun for casual players to still enjoy the game while leveling, it turned into, "let's just get them to cap-level so they can join everyone else who aren't casual players so they don't feel left out".
I guess my main point boiled down into a simple concept is:
I hope Ashes of Creation moves away from the model of gear/equipment being the only thing of true value in the game.
Hopefully, they can bring back the ideology of having real value/sense of accomplishment, in gaining levels, unlocking new spells & new abilities, and crafting.
They seem to be showing that the nodes have that sense of value, hope they bring it to other elements as well
QQ
Flawless logic, my friend
I'd expect such comment literally from anyone else, but not from you
A group of friends of mine were among the fastest people to get to the level cap, they did it in (from memory) 9 weeks. It was people from EQ that had static groups for leveling, knew to not be too concerned with gear and just kind of ignored Gil until they hit the level cap.
It took some people longer because they were new to MMORPG's (the game attracted a number of people to the genre). However, people that understood the genre, didn't always try to have the best gear every level and just went for it - they were usually sitting at around 3 months. The game also kind of fostered a kind of "slow-life" ethos, where people weren't rushed to the level cap, and where other players generally didn't rush you to the level cap.
It is worth noting that the popularity of this game pales in comparison to FFXIV, that had much faster leveling. The reason I point this out is because it is directly counter to what the OP is trying to suggest - that being long leveling time is essentially for an MMORPG's population.
It just isn't a factual statement. A more factual statement would be that the OP personally prefers a longer leveling time.
Please
Do not twist my words
I never said anything about game's population and that longer leveling will contribute to that
Not a single time
Do not twist my words, be it intentional or intentional
I was talking about player RETENTION, not POPULATION
And RETENTION is crucial when it comes to subscription-based games. Retention is far less important for games like New World, where studio/devs don't really care whether you play for a week or a year, because you already bought the game anyway. Yeah, you might bring them some money by buying skins. but in any case, they are good anyway because you paid for the game.
And longer leveling contributes to RETENTION, not to POPULATION
Quite literally.
@Zehlan , I see you liked that comment, ew... brother... you also think that retention and population are the same thing?xD
This can include, but is not limited to, new player acquisition, player engagement, player enjoyment, player retention, and a number of other things.
It is a more broad statement that includes every aspect of player retention, as well as other things.
I shouldn't need to explain these things to you, I am not being paid to be your English teacher.
I am curious you are arguing that retention is crucial for a subscription based game yet by your own admission you played on free to play private server not even a live f2p server and are comparing that f2p data to argue about sub based modelling? Yet from your own posts you have shown no experience that i see to make such claims! As for your comment on retention for sub based games people who play them plan to commit to them and the ones that don't stay leave long before they reach cap because they don't like the game. Lets look at the granddaddy of MMOs Ultima Online I played this one btw it launched in (had to look this up been a minute) 1998 october by march 1999 it had over 120,000 by june 3 months later they had over 200,000 with subs peaking 2003 at 250,000 players before it started to slow down. Sub cost was 9.95 close to 20 today. So 3 years before it slowed.
Now I understand what your saying about retention but making a long grind only turns people off, people level at the speed they level and I bet someone hit cap 3 weeks in AoC some will take a year. The retention population thing well retention is one side of the coin increasing player subs is the other the population is the coin itself. So they are technically the same. I appreciate your passion Flanker , while I think your premise is wrong your heart is in the right place.
Those terms are connected, but they are not the same. Your generalization distorted the point that I was trying to make and you know that very well. And at this point, I'm pretty sure you did that intentionally
You are not my English teacher because you need to understand the definitions of words
Yes, I do have that experience. Even if we imagine that I didn't for a moment, the statistics from the official servers prove the points I made.
This is a general statement and it can be actually applied to... pretty much any MMO?
Alright, so what is the point that you are trying to make here?
See, it's a problem when there is content locked behind the max level and when this grind is monotonous. It doesn't seem that it's gonna be that way in Ashes. At least, that's the assumption I would make based on everything we know about the game.
You are absolutely right here. In the meantime, Steven said multiple times that Ashes is "not for everyone", so why try to make it "for everyone" instead of focusing on the core audience and those who want to play this "not for everyone" game because they are tired of games that are "for everyone"?
Well, you can just say that "Even though they are connected and interdependent factors and I called them "different sides of the coin", those are still two different terms with different meanings and definitions". Because they just are and I don't think you are as stubborn as Noaani to acknowledge and admit that.
I would love it to be wrong, honestly. But at least I can do my best to warn Intrepid about the potential consequences of certain choices, here and in my YouTube video.
> If they don't see it - well, at least I tried
> If they see it but decide to keep it as it is - I would hope they made the right decision and I was wrong. Ending up in a situation where I could rightfully say "Told you" would give me no satisfaction.
> If they see it and actually change it - I would be glad they made a decision that I consider to be right one, even though some players or probably many players would hate me for that. A medicine can taste bad but it makes you feel better after all
One encompases the other.
Think of a ladder and it's individual rungs. If you are talking about a specific rung and I talk about the ladder, I am talking about that same rung as you, but also all of the other rungs, as well as the side rails.
You say "slow level gaining is good for player retention", and I am saying "actually, not overly slow leveling is good for new player acquisition, player engagement, player enjoyment, player retention and a number of other things" - I just shortened what I said (note, what I said, not what you said) to "actually, not overly slow leveling is good for MMORPG populations", because it's easier to read and reasonable people understand what that means.
Anyway
Anyway #2: Not really interested in your demagogy and doublespeaking at the moment