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.
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.
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
Yet, I'm still pretty sure that leveling will end up being much faster. Especially 1-2-3 months after launch
Honestly, I know top end raiders that only spend 6 hours a week in the game.
That's why I mentioned it.
We have no clue what the trend will be for Ashes - especially because speed of Adventurer progression is gated by Node progression. And, by design, Nodes constantly rise and fall.
I just did this recently in FFXIV and after 200 to 300 hours you are ready for leveling to end. Also as time goes on level caps go up so eventually you will have a 300, 400 or 500 hour leveling hill to climb.
You can obiously build into the game a quality leveling experience and hope people enjoy the ride, but at some point you just want to be at the same position as everyone else. When the hours get into the multiple hundreds, you're mentally at that point.
Don't know. I'm talking about older MMOs. What Ashes is going with is about what old school mmos did a long time ago. And that pace felt like you did something when you got there, but also ended around the time that you were ready for it to end.
What I am saying is max level does not matter in the way you think it does. The level in Ashes - as @Ergophobic thankfully quoted - basically just allows players to partake in more and more gameplay loops that can become available.
Slowing down that leveling makes no sense because that means to unnecessarily lock casual player out of the games full content FOR MONTHS for a minority of people who according to yourself will utilize guides to powerlevel which is what Intrepid should care more about than the bigger percentage of players that play less than 20 hours a week.
But obviously you were already aware of that, you are aware of 99% of all information about this game.
You are ignoring that this is not freaking Lineage 2, that Intrepid is aware of the issues L2 had because they played that and a lot of other MMOs and innovate Ashes with the exact goal to not create an L2 clone. So riding around about some data based on games that had a different build from this one makes no sense.
But again - you know that, thats what you told us. You are aware of all the information.
Meaning you know these are all veteran players and concluded that they are not willing or competent enough to make anythign different.
Why would I watch a video of someone who doubts the BASIC DESIGN SKILLS of the development team, whose product he is talking about? XD
With all due respect, its nice that you are making videos and all but I don't see how they can be constructive when you don't even have trust that Intrepid can get the freaking basics of game design right like "Don't make the games content optional" and with - as much as you claim otherwise - I doubt that you are knowledgable enough about Ashes for me to be interested in your content.
And if you happen to use my comments in any of your future videos, keep my name and picture out of it, please.
What is the point of slow leveling in a game where it's strength is in the node systems?. The node system was specially designed to provide replay-ability in a slow way. I really think the end game is not affected by how fast or slow players can level, and it will be just a questioning wall for a potential user to try out the game after release.
Not to mention, after release, when everything is contested, guilds established, they will have less reasons to buy the subscription due to slow leveling, with a chance to not get anywhere but giving up during leveling.
There are exceptions yes, but the majority will think like this, otherwise all those who haven't tried yet: wow, FF, L2, GW2, BDO, etc, would be there now, but they aren't. AoC chance is only because is a new title, and its success will strongly depend on player retention from the alpha state.
ps. The idea with different server rates is not good, is a method invented by private servers to get money from all ranges, and It will defeat the purpose of a original IP and retail rate. Also, is not a survival game, like ARK or other with different rates.
Just because you played a mmo for the last 15 years, that doesn't mean that those mechanics and concepts from back then will make sense in 2024. Is just an illusion, and most know that, but is hard to admit it.
We all try to find excuses, and ways for how the game should be, to match our needs. In time, some of us will realize that nothing will satisfy us, as we will always search for the unknown/new, something better. Is part of human nature.
ps. excuse my broken english
Last sentence makes absolutely 0 sense and again, it wasn't my point. I do not compare these 2 games in general, I compare the specific aspects that can be easily seen when being pointed out and explained. It is much better and makes a lot of sense to learn from the mistakes that other games made. Intrepid made some decent progress when it comes to improving those systems, but they haven't eliminated all the issues. Maybe because it could save both of us time as long as we participate in this brilliant discussion?
"Basic design skills" - umm.... what? It's interesting how you say they are not constructive while not knowing what you're talking about. Whatever
I have trust in their vision, but vision alone does not make a game perfect. Intrepid knows that and that's the reason why they are constantly asking for feedback.
Yeah, they are asking for feedback but for some reason you are here and clearly stated that you doubt that they are able to make their own game content matter, which strikes as such fundamentally distrustful that I won't just move on to the next point.
Why do you think their current leveling model would allow for players to skip the gaming experience?
And since we are focusing on that core doubt now: If that is an issue - why is following a guide to skip actual engagement with the game and getting good at is not an issue?
Nono, he is aware of 99% of the information, remember?
why do you say that its a strawman argument... if i say that you assume people will drop out of the game if they reach lvl 50 "unless endgame content updates" ...
its literally what you say and assume ...
just saying you didnt say it doesnt make it go away lol
I've known it to happen in WoW, EQ, EQ2, Rift, Age of Conan, and a few others.
Not every top end raider can do that (nor did I claim that to be the case). However, under the right circumstances, depending on the games specific design, it is perfectly possible for a raider to only log in for raids, and if a top end guild has no new content to go after, 6 hours of raiding a week is plenty (actually, if there are no new targets to go after, 6 hours is too much).
The reasons and TL;DW are in the first post. Tired of repeating them over and over again
It is a natural cause of events that will inevitably happen one way or another. Metaphorically saying, it's like jumping down from the cliff and then blaming the gravity because you broke your leg. It makes no sense as gravity always works the same way. Same as a significant percentage of people who will look for tips and tricks on YouTube. It happened with any other popular MMO and if you think it's not gonna be the case with Ashes, well, think again.
It's not meaningless as there are example of that. Here is one of them for you, my stubborn friend: they took PvP and Corruption system from Lineage 2 and adressed the majority of issues the system had in L2.
I'd make a joke here but I don't think it would be appropriate. You should look up what tribalism and confirmation bias is
Do I need to point out that exceptions do not disprove the rule?
Do I need to point out that most likely, there was a bigger time investment prior to that, so that those players could just log in, do the dungeons quickly and then leave?
Corruption still needs be tested before we can know if the implementation truly addresses the issues.
The same is true for Ashes "Endgame".
We have to test the implemented gameplay before we can meaningfully evaluate whether the systems work as intended.
So far, you aren't particularly convincing. And you mostly seem like you don't understand the design very well.
I said I know some, and I do.
I assume that we might see something similar during the upcoming Alpha 2, because it's Alpha with wipes and people don't really care about death penalties, losing gear because of going corrupt etc.
Yet, post-launch, the situation will change drastically for obvious reasons. Point out what is that exactly that I don't understand
maybe reframe what you try to say if people get it wrong ...
There are exceptions in rules, trends, patterns, whatever you prefer to call it. Yet they do not represent the whole sampling.
Here, found this for you.
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data that may contradict that position.
It has to be functional before the Betas.
You don't understand how XP is distributed among the various progression paths.
Nor do you understand the relationships of the various progression paths.
Nor do you understand the plans for introducing updates.
Nor do you understand the relationships between the rise and fall of Nodes and the availability or scarcity of new content.
It has NOTHING to with the conversation that you think that Intrepid is so bad at game designing that the leveling pace will make the majority of the content skipable? In a conversation about meaningful content?
Could you explain why the presumed inability to make meaningful content does not matter in a conversation where you worry about content being meaningful (by being not skippable)?
Never doubted that, my point from the very beginning has been that there is just no reason to cater to people who - metaphorically - jump down cliffs. Therefore these people are entirely irrelevant when talking about whether leveling pace should be changed.
Did you find the box with the buzzwords? A joke would have been more fun.
But I get that this might not seem all that civil anymore, sorry about that.
Do you at least get - not necessarily share - where Dygz and I are coming from?
That we see very clear signs that leveling speed is not a dial that shows any necessity for adjustment and the points why we don't agree?
It's not about the classes. It's about how MMOs work. You get stuff by killing things which makes you more powerful. There's no reset like other games, which means the people at the top stay at the top. It's a major problem that OWPvP games have. An issue this game doesn't really do anything to curtail.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the lack of options in MMORPGs at the time. WoW hadn't come out yet and most games already had long times to level. L2 took this to the extreme which worked because they made leveling more fun.
Because everyone has a breaking point and the higher the number gets the more likely people will break. This doesn't mean they should never change the number just leave it as it is and test it first. Were already at the upper limit of what people can stand normally. Let's see how good the leveling is then go from there.
The fact that people don't listen to you isn't relevant all you can do is give people information it's up to them to use it. If you have told them, there is nothing else you can do, they can listen or not listen. That's their choice.
I mean... you can look for tips and tricks for static games.
That won't be particulalry helpful in a dynamic game like Ashes.
Especially when different servers/Realms will have different content.
The stuff you have concerns about fit other MMORPGs that do not conform to the Ashes game design.