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
1. I am familiar with the way it is now and the fact grinding mobs is much more efficient than, say, gathering, for example.
2. Interesting assumption, but I doubt it
3. You say that based on what exactly?
4. Again, based on what exactly?
Calm down there
Edit: Yeah sure it's not a self-plug. Sure aren't trying to bloat the viewcount here.
you cant have it both ways ... ...
you never addressed anything i said ... you just deflected ... you never even tried to clarify what i did get wrong ... so i have to assume ...
and my understanding of the "words you are responsible" for is ... that your whole discussion makes no sense since your premise is invalid .... the foundation you have set this discussion up makes no sense ... and you admitted it ... in my opinion that is a literal strawman ... bc you make a statement you know makes no sense just for the sake of getting attention to your channel .... at least thats what i see here lol
You said 6 hours a week would be the low end of what a casual MMO player spends in the game - I pointed out that I know top end raiders that spend about that much time in their game.
You then - presumably not believing me - asked me which games. I told you which games, and you then changed tack and said something about exception/rule. Since all I had said what that I knew top end raiders that had spent as long in their games as you consider the low end for a casual MMORPG player, I had no idea at all what you are talking about at that point - I still don't.
For the record, 6 hours a month is probably the low end for what a casual player spends in an MMORPG. 6 hours a week is probably closer to the point where someone no longer considers themselves casual - assuming that is a consistent 6 hours a week.
Ugh, my dear conspiracy theorists. Surely, spending a couple of hours on this thread while replying to all of you and properly editing the comments in exchange for 5 extra views is a great deal. If you really think that's the case, well, it makes even less sense than some of the arguments you make.
P.S. Now I need to take a break as there were gunshots and a loud boom outside my house and I'm curious what happened there. Peace, boys
Based on your inability to accurately describe the game design.
Your OP starts on the extremely incorrect premise that a month and a half of daily 6hr game sessions isn't enough of a time requirement to hit max level.
That's stupid, flat out. Everything based on that false premise is likewise illogical and baseless.
Based on your eyeball observation of the Moon and stars.
You would be Lamarck, rather than Darwin.
Maybe I misinterpreted what you said here but this sounds to me like serious doubt in Intrepids ability to get even the basics of game design right.
Suit yourself.
That is exactly what I am saying: Intrepid should cater to neither extremely "obsessive" nor to extremely casual players. 6 hours a day/42 hours per week is an outlier, 30 min per day /6 hours per week also is. The majority of players will spend 12-30 hours a week ingame if we believe the survey data of DePaul University.
Well, the Wiki tells me that these "fallacies" of mine are the fallacies of Intrepid. Guess you have to sass that one out with Intrepid then. Maybe invite them onto your channel to clarify and discuss the issues you see.
Yeah, comparing this to flat earth theory didn't really serve you well. Just makes you look like a cvnt.
But welcome to the cult then!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but apparently you imply that leveling taking this long is fine. But that's an assumption as well, you don't know it for a fact and you can't know it for a fact. The only argument I can imagine is "Because Intrepid said so" which is... okay, we can count that a reasonable argument. Is there anything else or that's it?
Because my argument comes from the observation of people playing the same on servers with different rates and even though it might sound counterintuitive, it ended up being an objective fact: people on low-rate servers played for a significantly longer period of time compared to high-rate servers. I would be curious to see if this trend is similar in other MMOs with similar concept to Ashes and to Lineage, so if someone has data to share, that would be great.
So we both have our assumptions and we both have arguments to support it. How do you define which one is right and which one is wrong? Simply because one is yours and other isn't?
Games with shorter leveling times historically do better than games with longer ones.
If you have basically all of your players at the level cap, then develoeprs only need to focus on that level cap for post launch content. This is far better than having the developers need to focus on multiple level ranges, and thus spend time workong on/fixing content that players will only participate in for a short amount of time - if at all (most games have more content for a given level range than is needed to level up through that range).
It is just logical that a game with a shorter leveling time allows developers to spend more time on content for the level cap, meaning better content at that level cap, which is where the bulk of people spend their time in game, because the leveling speed is fast.
Again, basic, unsophisticated, unobfuscated logic.
I'm calling actual bullshit.
I am of the opinion that you are outright lying here.
If you are not in fact lying, your observations are in direct opposition to what an entire industry has seen. You are the only person in the world that has claimed this to be true, and are offering nothing to support it other than the nebulous claim that it is "your observation".
You haven't even told us under what circumstances those observations were made - I assume because it is all bullshit.
Intrepid did a wonderful job when it comes to basics. Wonderful to a degree that it captivated me, and I'm very picky when it comes to choosing MMO to play (a setup for a joke like "oh, you are so picky, but player L2 ahaha omg lol lmao xDDDD!!!!)
I would be glad if Ashes captivates me for years and not gonna become a game that I play for a few months and forget about it. Therefore, I don't want them to make a mistake that I saw other games doing. That's it. This is much more important for me, than getting those precious 3 views on YouTube that you are desperately trying to accuse me in.
Hope I made this part clear I agree. However, we need to be careful when it comes to interpreting statistics properly. Numbers never lie only when treated properly. The data in this table won't be sufficient to conduct a proper analysis. I assume we could make a conclusion, if we look at the median and weighted mean, but definitely not arithmetic mean. But we don't have enough data for that analysis, so the only thing we can do is estimation. Which is not that simple. No, mate. They applied to your specific comment. I didn't mean to offend you or to make you look stupid. I pointed it out, so that you could probably provide an argument without logical fallacies that we could discuss. Apparently, you guys decided that I compared you to flat earthers. I didn't mean that. It was an abstract example. There is no need in calling names. We might disagree on certain things, but I assume it is not necessary and serves no purpose.
How is WoW low and mid level content? Oh sorry, I forgot it doesn't really exist
Same question about New World? Oh, never mind, the game starts on level cap only. Very interesting how you say "that players will only participate in for a short period of time" while writing this in your first comment: Not sure if you forgot that, but there is no classic "endgame" in Ashes of Creation. A lot of the things you would do on Max Level, you can already start on lower levels. Ok, so we agreed that it makes sense. So how it is a bad thing then? It's an observation of a situation that witnessed not once, not twice, but multiple times. Like "hey, an apple fell down from the tree". How come an observation "has no logic"? It's funny how you jump on my comments and focus specifically on subjects you have no idea about, especially while talking about Lineage 2, which apparently you never played. "I haven't seen it, which it means it never happened" - brilliant, mate! I'm probably the only one who mentioned this on this forum. It doesn't mean that I'm the only person who can confirm this. If you are shocked by this, so be it I'd be glad to provide one of them. On Asterios L2 private servers (that exists for 15+ years already) where I played starting around 2009-2010, they launched servers with various rates. The time of the server launches are always the same: one in the end of August or beginning of September, another one around February/March.
x1 and x3 servers maintained a higher number of CCU and stayed more active for a significantly longer period of time compared to x7 (which was basically x14 with premium account). I emphasize once again, it's not cherry picking as I witnessed it multiple times throughout all these years. And I've seen the same thing on other servers.
You surely are going to prove where I made such an accusation, right? If I remember correctly I did not say anything that accused you of having a malicious intention. I accused you of not accounting for things that Intrepid have said.
And now back to my point in the acutal question I asked: Yes this somewhat explained it.
The weighted average hours per week would be around 20,5 (setting 40hours+ to 40 hours flat). Meaning if one sole focuses on vertical progression of ones character it takes on average 11 weeks to reach max level. But I went back to the source, looked at what Steven said exactly and this referes to the adventuring level ONLY.
He said to reach max charater level will require something roughly amounting to these 225 hours (180-270 hours in fact). That did not include any progression for a guild, for an artisan class or your node. Which by no means will all be activities rewarded with significant amounts of EXP to level.
Which is the point many tried to make here: Focussing on reaching adventuring level like that ignores too many aspects that Intrepid has informed us about that matter separately to it.
You didn't offend me or made me look stupid, no worries.
And I did - the Wiki clearly shows that this flatlining of interesting stuff to do once the highest adventurer level is reached might have been an issue for other MMORPGs, but Intrepid is aware of these issues as they are experienced players (and designers) themselves and they laid out and shared plans with us which provide meaningful game play options for max level characters AND character that are not max level yet.
I'm not "you guys" so there is no need for me to adress something I did not say.
Nothing that happens on a private server is valid discussion in the context of a commercial MMORPG.
This is simply because the both the objectives and target audience of a private server are inherently different to the commercially operated game. I did not write that, because I do not believe it to be true.
Indeed it doesn't really exist.
And this is not a problem.
I have no idea at all why you seem to think that all levels need to be equally represented in content, economy and players. This is a horrible state for an MMORPG to be in.
And I don't mind a conversation that goes this way, instead of arguing with a hivemind.
Which, apparently, won't work because it doesn't make any sense.
1. Objectives in both cases are the same: attract as many players as possible, make them stay for as long as possible and earn as much as possible.
2. Audience is no different. It's the audience of the same server, same patch, same everything apart from rates.
3. You don't want to appeal to the official servers because you'd only prove my point. Classic x1 servers lived for years, despite them being so hardcore that players were only approaching the level cap after 2,5 years while playing ~8-12 hours per day. There was a detailed statistics for those servers back then and anyone could track it.
P.S. You really need to stop talking about Lineage, if you know nothing about it. A friendly advice. Oh yes, you did exactly that. I literally copy-pasted a line from your comment. Are you going to deny another fact? Or run back to edit your original message? Oh, it's not a problem? Great. How new-player-friendly is WoW now? I'm sure it feels amazing for a new player to get a character on day 3 with 30 buttons on his panel. How come it is a horrible state? You described a game with properly functioning in-game systems and economy. If that's somehow not good, you end up having WoW or New World.
100 hours per week means 14 hours per day. That is an absolute outlier that no game can ever account for. With most players being somewher in the 21 hour range, that is what the game design will be oriented at.
But yes, those few players putting in 60 hours a week or more (+8 hours per day), these people are so few that Intrepid cannot make the game for them. If anything they could introduce a "hardcore" mode where they can choose to half their EXP gains or so and get an extra achievement for that. But globally increasing the EXP cap for everyone to reach maximum adventurer level is not the way forward, of that I am 100% sure.
I don't know, if the core systems of Ashes are highly dynamic, I think their will only be a slight decrease. But I do not expect to see a player reach level 50 in 100 hours without neglecting all other progression systems that are equally relevant.
We cannot. While gameplay is meaningful at all levels, the full range of access to all possible systems will only be reached with max level.
Let's say we double the time to get to level 50 - 450 hours to max your adventurer level.
Take one of the most sought after things in Ashes: Freeholds. You cannot motivate a guild of casual players playing 20-30 hours a week by saying that they have to grind for 5 months just to be allowed to participate in the freehold auctions. They will also want to progress their aritsan class levels, help out with their node etc, so it would take them easily more than half a year to get their unless they reduce their gameplay down to grinding EXP. That doesn't sound like much fun.
With the current design, you can reach level 50 in about 3 months, you can progress your artisan skills, help out your node and guild on less EXP oriented tasks etc - and after 4 months of meaningful mixed game play you reach level 50 as a solidly established character in Verra.
Which is why I see no merit in increasing the time necessary to reach Lv 50.
I addressed the aspect of freeholds in the video including all the details due to multiple aspects that many people misunderstand. Basically, owning a freehold is one thing, but having access to freehold - it's another thing and you don't need to be level 50 for that. In fact, you need to be a part of freehold owner's family that has a cap of 9 people. So it's kind of solvable.
I haven't seen anyone here advocate for rushing to max Level.
225 hours is a reasonable amount of time to hit max Adventurer Level via focusing on Adventurer Quests.
It will take longer the more you do other stuff besides focus in Adventurer Quests.
And there are lots of other progression paths for people who want to focus on other stuff besides just Adventurer Level Questing.
Globally increasing the time it takes to reach max Adventurer Level significantly past what is currently in the game design is unnecessary.
Individual players can already choose to play that way if they wish. There will be plenty of other progression paths for them to pursue before they hit max Level Adventurer if they choose not to focus primarily on progressing their Class. Othe players can choose to wait to pursue those other progression paths until after they reach max Adventurer Level.
There's already tons of flexibility for that built into the design.
Players who wish to take more than 225 hours to reach max Adventurer Level by focusing on just Farming mobs and not Questing can do so.
Players who wish to take more than 225 hours to reach max Adventurer Level by focusing on the Carebear Challenge - reaching max Level with 0 Kills - can do so.
WoW is very new-player friendly right now.
What makes you think WoW is not new player freindly right now?
You don't need to have 30 buttons on screen if you don't want 30 buttons on screen.
Grinding is called grinding because it's boring. "Grinding to a halt" is not a good thing.
Grinding for more than 225 hours is inherently boring - especially in an RPG.
And... RPGs are supposed to be about progressing through your Class - typically via Questing.
In an RPG, grinding loot is really more of a design/development failure than a feature.
It's just as bad as "Endgame is the real game".
All your wordy nonsense doesn't change that your base premise is bs. Even your wordy bloat looks like you pulled it out of thin air.
6hr/day is a bigger weekly time commitment that a full time job. Taking a month and a half of that kind of dedicated playtime focused on leveling over progression in any other gameplay system (artisan, social orgs, player markets) is potentially already too long of a leveling timeline to keep players hooked in.
Nothing about any of this is 'because intrepid say so'. Use some common sense. The average player is putting about 21 hours a week (maybe ~30 on the high end), which is 10+ weeks for most to hit the level cap.
The no-lifing 100hours a week players you claim are common (incorrect, regardless) aren't even ones that should be factored into any part of the development process. That's an unhealthy approach to any game and if they want to burn themselves out playing in unintended ways chasing big number as fast as possible, they can go right ahead. The game shouldn't the made worse because of their bad decisions.
Also: Quit trying to plug your stupid video. Thats such a new-age thing to do and no one likes it. Transcript it if you want anyone to bother engaging with your monologue to the camera.
Even Lineage 2 is significantly different from the Ashes game design.
Everyone has some assumptions - especially the Intrepid devs.
So we will test their assumptions in Alpha 2 - and gather the data that will allow us to make meaningful evaluations regarding the implementation of the curren game design.
I'm not sure why it's glossed over, but I've previously pointed out one reason why lengthening the progression to the level cap does matter.
Regardless, for this post, I wanted to address the information you are using to support your reasoning behind lengthening the progression to the level cap.
The numbers and such don't matter, but people can go back through your posts if they want to see them. I can appreciate your objective observation and I understand why you would draw the conclusions that you have, hence creating this thread. However, I have some issues.
Your conclusion ignores some of the reasons why a person would choose to play on an x3 or x7 (or more) server in the first place. What type of person is going to choose to play on those servers? Well, someone who wants to experience the game but be done with it in a shorter amount of time is ONE type of person who would decide to play there. Someone who is "in it for the long haul" would obviously choose to play on an x1 server.
The conclusion, then, that an x1 server proved that a longer time to reach level cap provides longevity for the game is flawed because the people who would decide to play on that type of server are also the people who planned on staying in the game the longest. Anyone who had a predisposition to "grow tired" of the game quickly was automatically weeded out and sent to a different server (obviously through their own choice).
I absolutely agree with you that I wish we had more and better empirical evidence to show trends within MMOs. Everyone draws from their own experiences, and they are going to vary greatly. Without a controlled environment with specific objectives, it's hard to mitigate all the factors involved. But it at least leads to interesting discussions.
It can be fast or slow and that's not going to dictate if a game is 'good' or not. Too much of the discussion is dominated by people assuming that a particular rate that experienced in a game they enjoyed was WHY the game was good.
What is more important is power-disparity between players in a PvP game, it's not about time to reach max level, its about how much combat advantage ramps with player skill gained over time and how much it ramps with mindless 'grinding'. Losing to someone more skilled is fine, loosing to someone who just had a bigger number of hours played is not.
We do not yet have any idea what kind of power disparity will exist between a level 25 player and a level 50, their might be little to none meaning that for all effective purposes the game content is fully open to you by 25 and the remaining leveling is more for prestige and diversity of your class. Without knowing the power curve we can't know what the idea leveling rate is.
In general games like WoW compress leveling because they largely have established players who already did the long grind once and don't have the time in their lives to do it anymore so experiencing other classes is only apealing to them if it's fast, they already know the games mechanics to a T so their is almost nothing to learn.
If leveling a character is not a LEARNING experience then it is a failure. When your mentaly engaged in the learning process of figuring out the use of your kit, or learning a location that you will actually continue to use then leveling is fun. If you ask me leveling could be nothing more then a series of 1v1 mob fights which introduces 1 element of your class kit at a time and just demonstrate mastery of it before you go to the next. Think of this as like testing out of a class in college, the point is to move directly to the level where learning needs to happen and move through each lesson as soon as profficiency is demonstrated.
And that means that as much as possible the leveling process needs to be responsive to players learning rate and avoid padding it with grinding. This is why we all hate the 'kill 10 rats' newb quests, you know how to kill a rat efficiently after the 3rd one and the rest are just grind, though maybe their are some really slow folks who need to practice all 10 rats to ready to go to the next stage, so 'kill 3 rats within 1 minute' is a much better design because it tests mastery not repetition. The total complexity of final gameplay really determines the hours of practice and learning that are needed, the leveling process can't be any faster then that, but it can be a hell of a lot slower if you pad it and that is always bad. Thinking that you can either disguise the padding by telling a story in that time which is on par with BG3 or some other singleplayer RPG is a mistake in my opinion.
I certainly care about how long it takes me to reach Class milestones when I want to acquire specific Class milestones at a resonable pace, rather than it feeling like a tedious grind.
And... I will go play some other game that has a more reasonable Class Leveling pace until that changes for the better.
I don't play RPGs for the PvP. So, yes, maybe gamers, like Lineage 2 fans, who are playing because they want decent Gear for PvP are not going to care about Class Leveling rates.
Power disparity between players is irrelevant to me.
Level compression is a WoW solution for a game that has been running for 20 years. I dunno what that has to do with the current design for Ashes max Adventurer Level.
By design, Ashes is a dynamic game, rather than a static game. Which means we will pretty much always be learning because encounters will rarely be exactly the same. Locations aren't static. Some of our Skills and Gear will be better for some encounters than for others.
In an RPG, ideally, Adventurer Leveling should be about more than just attacking or killing mobs. There should be more to Classes than just combat. But, yes, the pace to get a new element for your Class Kit should be reasonable, rather than a tedious grind.
And transcript - seriously?
The difference between those rates exists but it's not super significant from player's perspective.
Why? Because the amount of fun didn't strictly correlate with server rates.
How do I know that - I know that based on the game's forum, it's recruiting section and the fact that the same ~15 guilds who play almost on every launch. Basically, the majority of players were the same players who play on every new server. This is what allowed me to consider this comparison valid. Oh, absolutely