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
PvP.
Ashes isn't designed around the end game in the normal way, that doesn't mean there isn't content locked behind the level cap.
We've had this discussion before.
It really isn't. Just castles themselves will be the major focus of the game for thousands of players. Freeholds (if designed well) could be the major focus of the game for tens of thousands of players.
These are both huge content pieces.
They also collectively represent a massive jump in player character progression.
Also, the notion that there won't be PvE content for level 50 players on top of the above is absurd. Since rested experience also increases the speed at which experience debt is worked off, this upgrade will remain relevant for the life of the game.
Long term players will likely find that they eventually accumulate more experience debt (total, not at one time) than the total amount of experience needed to level to the level cap. It may take a while to get to this point, but the if the game has a long enough life, this point has to be reached eventually.
Just because someone is talking to Steven about the game, doesn't mean they know the game well.
Which have no level requirement and it's been stated that lower level players and/or players who don't have the best gear will be useful.
In any case, as long as the limit is expected to be 250v250, it's gonna be 250 potentially best players (higher level / better gear / more experienced) from both sides. It doesn't matter how long leveling takes, those would still be pretty much the same players in both scenarios.
Freeholds which have the level requirements for purchasing them, but not using them. Once again, it doesn't matter as new nodes will be reaching lvl 3 over time + other nodes will rise and fall, so it's a negligible
2 out of many. Half of the player base, if not more, won't have access to sieges/purchasing freeholds anyway, so it's not really relevant.
Sieges don't. Freeholds kind of do, but you don't need to own or even have access to freeholds themselves in order to get access to the items produced there.
Yeah, who made that notion though? Nobody. You keep using the strawman fallacy and argue with the point that nobody made. Apparently, some people just never learn.
Speaking of "PvE content for level 50" - there is PvE content, raids and dungeons for all level brackets. The fact that somewhere out there in the world, there is a level 50 mob that you can't kill while being level 22 is not a justification of fast leveling.
Theoretically relevant at best. Nobody cares about XP debt when they are level 50 in a game with no deleveling.
Huh? What?
Who made that point? Absolutely nobody. Have I even said a word about the interviewer? Fking hell...
The only thing that is useful is to compare the impact of that content to other players in Ashes. You are talking about castle sieges. I am not.
I have said this to you before - you do not know this game half as well as you think you do. If you come across something you think you disagree with someone on, then instead of refuting what they are talking about, you should be asking questions.
Rather than sieges, I am talking about the PvE raid that is necessary to clear castles out in the first place - before any siege on them by players can be considered. When talking about the games initial leveling, how is this a useful point?
As you and I are leveling up, it isn't as if we can just go and use someone elses freehold to do out level 30 processing - because we will be at the tip of that spear, there will be no one higher level than us with a freehold we can use. This is why linear progression is so important. You have said a number of times that there will be little content locked behind the level cap.
If you agree that there will be level 50 PvE content that we have no yet seen, how can you claim that there will be little content locked behind the level cap?
What happened is that you saw someone else say this, and you wanted it to be true. Thus you adopted it as the truth in your mind, regardless of the objective truth of the statement, and also regardless of whether or not we know enough about the game to make the statement.
You do this often - someone says a thing you want to be true, so you assume it to be true regardless of whether it is or not. We'll see another of these situations further down this post.
As I said a few points above, you don't know this game as well as you think you do.
Experience debt isn't just owing the game experience - rather, it is the current name of the penalty one gets when they die. This penalty requires the gaining of expereince to work off, as you would expect based on the name. However, experience debt as a penalty lowers the characters stats and gear proficiency - with a current cap being that you can lose up to 20% of your over all efficacy with enough experience debt.
Experience debt also lowers mob drop rates.
So yeah, people will care about experience debt at the level cap.
A lot. Experience debt is set to about 4% of the current level.
That means that if you die 1250 times in Ashes, with an even spread across all level ranges, you spend as much experience gain working off experience debt as you do gaining new levels. Since the time to gain each level is exponential, this means that people playing at the level cap will before long have found that they spent more experience gain on clearing expereince debt than they spent on getting to the level cap. This is the second of the situations I talked about above - the one I said we will see another of.
The person in that video made a comment that isn't true, but you wanted to be true. As such, you just assumed it to be true.
I was simply pointing out that people that are in videos are not automatically true - you shouldn't just believe what they say.
Now, it's possible that you just had no idea how experience debt works at all, and so thought what was said made some sense. However, all that does is prove that you were wrong in the same way that person was wrong.
If you are not talking about castle sieges, then how... on earth... is this... even relevant? Are there any level requirements for... apparently everything else castle-related that is not a castle siege? No? Then what are you even talking about?
According to whom? You? Your logic on the forum would make me double check even if you say that 2+2=4
Oh, look at this... I just can't. I'm sorry, that comes from... whom again? Famous Noaani who had 0 knowledge about Lineage 2, but when I provided statistics and info about Lineage 2 - I don't recall you asking questions. No no no no. You very very VERY confident and stubborn while talking about a game you know nothing about and you were doing so, until a few other people came, confirmed that what I said was true and finally made you shut up for a bit.
Is there a forum clown leaderboard that I'm not aware of? Cuz it's seems that you and Zehlan are fighting hard to take first place, I swear.
So you know, YOU KNOW, that you need to ask questions if there is a topic you are not familiar with. But somehow you didn't care to do that. God, I never thought it could get this hilarious.
How does it even matter? It's gonna be top 250 players under any circumstances anyway. How is that so difficult to comprehend? It doesn't matter how long it takes, 200, 500 or 10000 hours, it is still gonna be top 250 players. How? How can it be so difficult for a grown up homo sapiens to comprehend that? It's not nuclear physics.
Then you either wait till someone reaches level 50 or join a guild or ask a high level friend or pay someone to join the family or use other option that I haven't mentioned. If you can't find a way to get access to a freehold - that's on you, there are plenty of potential ways.
Because PvE content exists on EVERY level since level 1. And even if level 45 dungeon didn't have a level requirement and you could start it while being level 17 - any idea what's the outcome would be? Ughh...
Come talk to me 1v1, face-to-face. If all you've wrote above is true, it shouldn't be that difficult of a debate for you, huh?
Yeah, great logic. If I get XP debt on level 50, I'd rather go and kill some mobs - gonna be much faster anyway that running to the tavern that may not even exist nearby and then running back to kill the mobs with that 20-30% bonus or whatever that would be. Makes a lot sense, yeah. Especially, if I'm in a group - pretty sure 7 people would gladly wait for me.
If you don't realize that the primary usage for rested XP is a bonus to the speed of gaining XP by players of level 1-49 and use a super niche case "when a level 50 got XP debt, there is a tavern nearby that he knows about, and he is not too lazy to actually go there" - if THAT is your argument, I'm sorry, but you are an incredible unintelligent individual. That's all I can say
If we assume that leveling still takes ~250 hours, then dying 1250 times would mean you die 5 times per hour. Or once even 12 minutes. If that's what happens - I suppose you have a bigger problems.
Nobody would really care about those 4% on low and mid levels - killing mobs would simply be faster. Additionally, obtaining a rested XP buff will help to achieve 2 goals: get rid of the XP debt faster AND get a bonus XP after the debt is gone. While in the scenario you mentioned above - one of those reasons doesn't exist which significantly reduces the chance that a level 50 player would bother with that.
I have no idea what you are referring to. If Vlhadus said something - I don't remember from top of my head. Which clearly means I never said anything about whatever comments he made. I only referred to Steven't reply.
Yeah, of course, another bs. Of course throughout years of following the game, I've never heard about wiki, I've never visited that page and I've never used references to get a better understanding of the subject. Good job dude. Nobel Prize in logic is guaranteed to you in 2025
Be better than this. Again, this is you not understanding things.
Castles are just unusable parts of the game until they are cleared of the mobs that inhabit them. This is a level 50 raid.
This means all castle content - everything to do with them - is locked behind level 50.
Once they are unlocked, players lower than level 50 can participate in sieges and such, but that is only possible because level 50 players unlocked the castles. Do you know how rested experience will work? Because I don't.
I'm not willing to make the assumption that Intrepid would implement it in a horrible, unusable way. I would assume rather that they would implement it in a useable, worthwhile way.
The simple fact is, players at the level cap will gain experience debt and will want to clear it as fast as they can. Taverns will assist with this - there is nothing to add here. I mean, we could assume this, but only if we wanted to show the world we can't think critically.
I have spent more than 8,000 hours on one character in EQ2. Those 1250 deaths now only need to happen once every 6 hours 24 minutes of gameplay. I'm not sure why you just stopped factoring things in once someone got to the level cap.
> Either you are trying to provoke me by calling me "Russian" after I said when I am Ukrainian, which is a very questionable thing to say in light of the ongoing events.
> Or you clealy missed your geography classes at school.
> Or you use a stereotype that all Eastern European are agressive etc.
None of those are a sign of your intelligence, quite the opposite. None of those are relevant and/or true and you clearly know what I mean. Dygz did that because he had balls to do that. You don't.
Source? I heard Steven saying that NPCs there will be level 50+. Does it mean that you need to be level 50 to initiate the siege or participate in it? I don't recall Steven saying that. And it doesn't really matter, because...
> Taverns offer rested experience (rested XP) for those who rent rooms or spend time as patrons of the tavern.
> Rested experience allows players to gain experience at a faster rate for a period of time.
> There are no current plans to replace rested experience with another bonus for max-level players.
> Rested experience increases the rate that experience debt is paid back.
Omg... if you plan to do die 1250 times - go for it. It's your own problem, not everyone's. Git gud, stop making things up
No Endgame means that there is always new stuff to do - either because it's a dynamic game that continues to change and iintroduce new content or because by the time the average players hit max Level Adventurer, the devs drop an Seasonal Update/Yearly Expansion with new content - or in the case of the Ashes design - both.
Endgame is what you get when gamers race through the content faster than the devs can implement new content.
And, yes, Asheron's Call was 1999, back when MMORPG devs were hoping tha long Leveling speeds would give them many, many months to design and implement an Expansion by the time the players completed all the Quests with a couple of different characters.
Endgame was created by devs several years later, when devs realized that players could race to max Level and the end of Questing/Story in 1-3 months and then would nothing to do but grind individual mobs for at least a year until devs could drop an Expansion with new content.
So, yes, it should take a long time to reach Endgame - because Endgame should not exist.
There should always be fun stuff to do - even after reachingmax Level Adventurer.
But the fun stuff is not created by arbitrarily systemically prolonging the intervals between Levels.
Just provide a bunch of other stuff for players to do - and can continue to do after Level 50 Adventurer - that is not only repeatedly grinding Dungeons and Raids.
L2 people say that long Leveling was fun in that game, but they never really say what the fun was supposed to be. They just all seem to be OK with grinding individual mobs ad nauseum - as long as there is also PvP.
Hell Levels are the antithesis fun.
I dunno what the point would be for players to invest in the resources for a Siege when they know their Levels are too low to win against the Level 50 NPCs who reside there.
Hypothetically, after the Level 50 NPCs are removed, a Guild of Level 30 players could occupy a Castle.
But, it's most likely that it will be Level 50 Guilds who have had the prowess to defeat those Level 50 NPCs.
A person of any Level can participate in the Siege - but it is unlikely they will have much impact if not somehow working alongside many Level 50 players.
I don't know why XP Debt matters after reaching Level cap, but I also don't Dungeon/Raid BiS during Endgame.
Those who do Dungeon/Raid at Endgame can easily die thousands of times as Groups/Raids learn the mechanics of each Dungeon/Raid on at each Level of difficulty (Heroic/Mythic/Legendary) and teach tactics to new players.
If all you're doing at Endgame is grindng mobs and PvP - it's probably easy enough to not die thousands of times.
For you - yes. Not for everyone though.
Exactly. So the argument saying "there is a high level PvE content/dungeons/mobs" made above makes no sense for this exact reason.
Maybe we should rather talk about something that actually has a chance of happening instead of "hypothetical scenarios" with 0.1% probability rate? Can't imagine a guild of level 50 players winning a castle siege and then just letting a bunch of level 30s capture their castle.
Most likely - yeah. Either max level players or at least lvl 40+ players. In any case, those top 250 players in terms of level would be the pretty much the same, no matter how long leveling takes.
Their impact will most likely be lower, but they can still be useful. Bard buffs don't care about bard's level. That 20% speed bonus, for example, would remain the same, regardless of bard's level. Additionally, manning siege vehicles doesn't have a level requirement, as far as I know. Etc.
Exactly, especially in a game with no deleveling, and especially if we don't take into account super niche scenarios.
If you keep dying - you're doing something wrong. Sometimes it's inevitable, as in example you mentioned. But that's the price you pay for learning. That's the price you pay for experience.
I mean, mobs and PvP are the most common reasons why players die. But in general - yeah, even an average player can learn quickly enough how to minimize the probability of death. And a death penalty is a good motivation for them to learn quickly
At max Level Adventurer, they will die much more often while trying to learn how to complete Dungeons/Raids.
I mean, thst is all you have been doing.
That's three.
However, there is a fourth. I am more than aware of your countries history over the last 15 or so years, its desire to distance itself from Russia and move more towards a generally western kind of mindset (some say EU, some say America) - and I am also aware that the comment in question is, as a generalization, more in line with what your country is trying to leave behind than it is in line with where it wants to be.
So, I guess now there are four possibilities for what I could have meant. See, this is s5ill you not understanding the game, despite literally being told.
Before castles become player owned and thus something that can be sieged, they are a raid. Players need to clear the castles out before anyone can own them, and players need to own a castle before anyone can siege it.
Again, the notion of sieges isn't in this discussion. What I am talking about is unlocking castles so that a month later they can be sieged.
As to your comments about rested experience, what you have posted doesn't answer the questions at hand. How long does a rested experience buff last, and does it apply to experience applied to things other than character leveling?
If it turns out that there is no timer on it, then players will want it on them every day - that way they have it when they die. If it turns out that it applies to all experience gained, that means it applies to experience passed on to your node - meaning you will also always want it.
Point is, we don't know nearly enough to make the kind of assumption about it that you made.
As to dying 1250 times, if the games top end PvE is any good, that many deaths will be a given.
Even just wirh PvP, if you play long enough, you should get there. If you play every day, and die 2 times a day, you get there in less than 2 years. For a game that many want to play for a decade or more, the assumption should be that people *WILL* get to this point.
The only people that won't are those that quit, and those that don't take risks.
First of all, people who play 2h/day are a minority and that's below the average amount of time MMO players spend in the games. Secondly, if those people want to gain significant achievements, they will have many months, if not a year/years of content with that time investment. Thirdly, if they can only play 2 hours a day, but still want to be at the top - there are better alternatives for them out there, as Ashes would not meet their requirements in this scenario.
Great logic. "If you want leveling to take longer" - don't do leveling. Makes as much sense as saying "If you want leveling to take longer - play with one hand".
Apart from all the reasons I mentioned... well, even from them them, there may still be more valid reasons why it should be longer. Period
Yay, we had Brexit experts first, then we had pandemic experts, then we had Ukraine experts, then we had.... I've lost count, those "experts" who've read 3 recent headlines on Twitter keep popping up like mushrooms after a rainy day.
So I literally explained it to Dygz above, but now suddenly I no longer know it. Mhm, great logic
So where does it say that this "raid" has a level requirement? Hello?
Lmao what on earth are you talking about? While also telling me that I have no understanding of the game? Are you okay, dude?
There is no such thing as "unlocking the castle so that a month later it can be sieged. The first sieges is AGAINST NPCs and whoever succedes - become the castle owner. There is no "ifs" or "buts", it is how it works.
Castles will initially be occupied by an NPC adversary. Guilds have a period of time to level up in order to siege these castles.The attacking guilds need to fight the NPCs and kill a raid boss at the center of the castle. Whichever guild had highest contributing DPS against the raid boss will capture the castle.
Like, hello?
It's literally on the screenshot dude. Everything apart from the duration.
It is still a very niche scenario. If you don't understand what I wrote here (below), nothing will help you
We don't know everything, but we know more than enough to make a simple logical conclusion.
Somehow I don't doubt that it's gonna be the case for you
Unlocking Castles means removing the NPCs so that players can occupy the Castle.
This point makes no sense. I know you like having your own definitions of everything, I don't care, the fact remains the same.
There is no "unlocking". The first sieges is against NPCs, the next sieges are against other players.
The whole "castle" argument makes no sense. If there is a guild that is strong enough to win against level 50+ NPCs and occupy the castle - it doesn't matter whether a guild of level 30 players can or can't declare the war. The outcome will be the same - they won't be able to get that castle. Period. Play semantics as much as you want, but this is pretty obvious.
I really hate that this is the only reality you can see, because it's exactly this mindset that kills games like this.
Leaving me with no choice but to desperately hope you are wrong.
There are some things I make this claim on, but saying you are aware something (or even more than aware), is not the same thing as saying you are an expert.
I find it interesting that you didn't refute the actual points I made (Ukrane is attempting to shift to a more western mindset, and the comment in question was, generally speaking, more aligned with a Russian mindset). Instead of arguing those points, you argued that I claimed to be an expert, when I made ko such claim. You still referred to it as a siege, which tells me you still do not understand.
It is referred to by Steven as a high level raid. If you want to say Steven is wrong, I'm all for that - I do it often myself. The thing is, you need to have something to back that up before you say he is wrong, you can't just say he is wrong because you said so. So, we have a high level raid to clear out castles. In a game that has a level cap of 50, a high level raid would be mobs from level 55 to level 58 - it isn't a high level raid otherwise.
As to your notion of a raid of level 40 players being able to do this, think about the implications of that. If a raid of level 40 players can take on the content, then it means that content would be no challenge at all to a raid of level 50 players - it would be absolutely trivial.
If you want to then say "no, it doesn't have to be that way", then you are saying that the powernincrease from level 40 to level 50 is minimal, meaning the entire concept of risk vs reward that Steven has associated with leveling recently is broken - as that last 40 - 50 hours of leveling to get those last 10 levels aren't providing much in the way of increased power.
So, one of three things needs to be true;
Risk vs reward for leveling is broken, or
PvE content at the level cap is trivial, or
A level 40 raid can not kill content designed for a level 50 raid.
There are no other options. I am talking about this;
As I have said, a high level raid that needs to be cleared, that then essentially unlocks castles as the content piece we all understand them to be.
You really shouldnt be suggesting others dont know what they are talking about - you are in no position to do so. So, one of the advantages of having been in this community for a while, of having been active in watching this game in a while, is that you can an understanding for the timeline of various things.
The comment you have quoted here was from 2018 if I recall correctly (may have been 2019). Since then, it has been clarified that the initial castle occupants will be cleared via a high level raid.
We don't know if Steven originally mis-spoke, or if it had since changed. What we do know is that Intrepid are no longer referring to the initial unlocking of castles as a siege.
I'm willing to give you an understanding pass on not being aware of the timeline, seeing a comment from Steven and so assuming it to still be the current understanding we all have. However, now that I have explained the above to you, I expect you to know better in regards to this going forward. It really isn't.
So, one of the things I asked that you said was on the screenshot was whether it applied to node experience or not. Can you give me a definitive answer to that question based on that screenshot?
Because I can't.
I don't know if node experience is considered just a part of experience, or if it is its own thing and needs a specific node experience buff in order to improve. It could well be that "experience" refers to adventure experience only, rather than to all experience.
Same with weapon experience. We have no idea. I am aware that this is the case in most games, and this is why most games don't start their game with rested experience as a mechanic. It is usually added later on to give those starting the game later on a faster leveling experience so they can catch uo to those that started at launch.
However, if it increases node experience gain, since you need experience to maintain your node, it is literally everyone wanting a node to survive that will benefit from having rested experience.
I can't thing of many more things that are specifically not niche in Ashes. No, we don't.
Again, does rested experience apply to node or weapon experience?
You can't make an assumption without knowing the answer.
I would hope so.
People with low death counts in MMORPG's are people playing the game safe. A low death count over all isn't a sign of a good player, it is a sign of a player not taking any risks - a player not playing the game to its fullest.
In situations where death count or ratio matter, I would expect to maintain a low count. However, for the bulk of the game I expect my death count to hit the thousand mark within a year - because I take risks.
If you want to be cautious, go for it. If that is how you want to play the game, don't let me stop you. I won't join you though, because it sounds boring as shit.
Top end encounters in EQ2 were tuned so hard that ahundred or more deaths to them was a given before your first kill. That qas without PvP.
If Ashes adds PvP to the mix and it lowers the number of deaths people have before they kill raid encounters, then I have questions for the developers.
If you are playing it safe, trying to keep your death count low, you will be far away from these top end encounters.
Not quoting this wall of text with you playing semantics. I said what I said and I meant it - if you can't comperehend what you've read, RIP.
Ah, good old squirming and backpedalling. No, what you said precisely is this:
Which is factually wrong and you can't even admit that. Call it a raid or whatever else you want, but players are not "unlocking" anything, it's the way the first siege will go. Players versus NPCs, not Players versus other players.
There was no such information and that's purely your speculation, which doesn't matter because again, for the 3rd time...
Not quoting this yapping as well, the reply is above.
That's exactly what you are doing, generating random assumptions on the spot in order to continue arguing for the sake of arguing. Not interested, sorry
Dude, nobody cares about your personal kinks and fetishes. This is not a "free therapy thread". If you don't have anyone else to talk to, first of all, accept my condolences, and secondly, consider making some friends who will be empathetic enough to care about what you have to say.
It is a form of unlocking.
IO am trying to talk to you in a way that you understand, because you clearly have trouble understanding nuance with English.
The raid for castles is essentially an unlock - it literally functions in the same way, even if that is not what it is called by Intrepid.
Players have to raid the castles, and they then get ownership of them. When this is done - and ONLY when this is done - sieges against that castle by other guilds can start up.
This is an unlock in all but name. Yes, there is no such information. What that means is that we don't know - which is my point.
The fact that we don't know means you can't be as sure as you are implying with regards to taverns and rested experience being niche at the level cap - we literally don't know that to be the case, as you yourself just said.
Again, just to clarify for you - we do not know if rested expereince will affect node or weapon experience, and until we know that we can not make any assumptions as to the effectiveness of rested experience at the level cap. Since we can't make those assumptions, the assumptions you have made in this regard are premature.
This is literally the opposite of what is happening. I am stating that we don't have the information we need to be able to make the assumption that you have made. You made the assumption here, not me - I am saying we can't make any assumptions yet.
How you are twisting that in to it being me that is making the assumption is something I don't quite understand.
To be clear, the assumption made is that you assumed that rested expereince will be of little use at the level cap. The information I am saying we need before we can make that assumption is in regards to whether rested experience affects node and weapon experience. If it does affect them (as is likely the case, but we can't assume this to be true), then rested experience at the level cap will be very useful still. We're here to discuss the game.
You don't get to tell people they can't do that.
If you do not wish to discuss a point that I bring up, don't reply to it from the start. You shouldn't (you can, but shouldn't) start off replying to a point and then decide not to any more after you realise that your point actually isn't very well supported.