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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
That post wasn't me changing the argument, it was me refuting someone that was trying to misrepresent the argument.
To your point about that rare herb - that rare herb isn't going to be the only means to level up herbalism. Sure, you may well lock me out of being able to make some specific rare thing - but you aren't preventing me from progressing.
As such, the thing you are talking about is perfectly fine, acceptable and a part of the game. Go out and block people from rare herbs my dude.
but the point of progressing is to do something with that progression, or to you Is it just to fill a bar or check a box?
if you can progress to t5 farming t3, then the whole freehold blocking argument is dead, because as you said, you could just process t3 to progress to t5. if you really need t5 to progress in t5, then you are also not progressing your gathering since you will never touch the rare spawns, and you might not even be able to craft any t5, or you know, you could just buy the mats then craft t5 like everyone will do, killing the argument again....maybe there wont be stations since majors decide some crafting skills are worthless.
edit: if we talk about time, then just come back later and get a fh
Progression in a path like this should never have this kind of block, but this kind of block is perfectly acceptable once you are trying to do something with that progression.
Same as leveling up as an adventurer. There should be no specific block to it. You shouldn't need my permission to level up past 30. However, when you get to the level cap, if you want to raid (something you are doing with your progression to the level cap), it is perfectly reasonable that you need an invitation to a raid in order to do that.
If it turns out that you need to gather level 30 materials to make level 30 processed components in order to make level 50 gear that you can then make better by getting level 50 materials to make level 50 processed materials to make that level 50 gear you made with level 30 gathered materials made in to level 30 processed components, then the base issue of the block to progression still exists - we just now have the additional issue of a completely fucked up crafting system.
Taking one stupid thing and putting it inside a second stupid thing just means you have two stupid things, not no stupid things.
- Caravans, guild wars, node wars, open seas and the new lawless areas all benefit the higher level participants.
- Freeholds are desired by a lot of players, limiting them and locking them to max level is another push to level as fast as possible. This is multiplied x100 if you want to be/support a refiner.
- Rare resources will be in high level areas/dungeons/raids, gathers will make more gold if they can harvest these items before others.
Has anyone seen any reason why they wouldn't be disadvantaged by going slow?Not all freeholds are unlocked at the start of the game. They come onlilne as nodes level up. The 10% of sweaty players that get to 50 first won't be able to monopolize all the freeholds right off the bat. As other towns, cities and metros come online more freeholds become available for those that hit 50 a little later.
Just so we're on the same page about what expected outcome exactly you're calling "poor design."
To kickstart the response, my assumption is 60-80% of crafters processors who care enough to keep trying and actively play the game will get sufficient Freehold access for this purpose one way or another, and become proficient crafters processors within 9 months. Because there are only so many players competing for the available Freeholds on a server, a substantial portion of the access will be gained through sharing, and crafters processors will be among the more driven subset of the Freehold competition. And that sounds like perfectly great game design to me. Where competition matters, and progression requires effort and offers a challenge.
And the remaining 20-40% can either shift their priorities, or keep saving up the money they're not spending on Freeholds, and catch up later. Or both, really.
we need progression to get something out of it or do something with it; but you can get that thing without the progression.
i could be a level 10 player (or even 30 without the min gear) and you can still invite me to the raid just to carry me. i can still get the materials produced at a fh without owning one or receiving a player's permission. i could even get the crafted item or craft the item without a fh. i can skip the progression and get the result right away.
games do things like that. complaining about only one of the many things that are this way is just arbitrary
Lets be clear - it's only Processors that need access to freeholds to use Master and Grandmaster stations. Crafters have access to Master and Grandmaster stations in node buildings that have specc'd to them. Freehold buildings only go to Journeyman for Crafters.
I know that it's colloquial to lump all artisan skills into 'crafting' - but for this discussion the distinction actually matters.
Correct. Crafters don't need freeholds. Only processors and a handful of specific gatherers do (Farming, for example) as well as those wanting to run a 'service building' such as a tavern.
What we CAN be sure of is that you need the Station AND the Skill to create tier 5 processed materials.
What Noaani and Caeryl have done is to REVERSE the known dependency and created a COMPLETLY FICTIONAL dependency in their minds that processing at a sation of a certain tier is the only way to get skills of their tier.
Why are we even having a discussion over these two railing against their own (illogical) imaginations?
And what they propose IS highly illogical. We have been constrasting with gathering where instead of stations their are simply the gatherable objects in the world. We have no evidence that you need to gather tier 5 gatherables to get your gathering skill to tier 5. Indeed that would be illogical because then tier 5 gathering skill would be pointless if your already gathering those tier 5's. The only logical path is that gathering tier 4 gatherables raises your skill untill you obtain tier 5 gathering skill and THEN that skill makes you able to actually SEE and gether the tier 5 gatherables. So we should expect a tier of processing skill to OPEN being able to USE a station.
You will likely need a Master station to progress to grandmaster. Master processing stations only exist on freeholds. Node processing stations only go to Journeyman.
It sounds likly your assuming a zeroing out of XP gain for any processing that is more then 1 tier below your current skill level, I would not call that likely at all as most XP systems do not activly nulify skill gains from bottom feeding, they just make the XP thresholds exponential increese and thus the time investment is highly inefficient if your not crafting higher tier products. It might be prohibitivly inefficient and slow but thats a supposition on top of a supposition.
Also I know very well what the station tier limits are in Freeholds and Nodes are.
You are once again either by choice or lack of reading comprehension not understanding to my argument. You've been making one up out of nowhere like Lodrig has, but still refuse to address the actual argument made against arbitrary gatekeeping of a core artisan system.
Every single system you listed would be completely unacceptable if it functioned like Processing, in which players could stop you from interacting with those systems at whim with absolutely nothing for you to do to about it.
Are you really this convinced that if there was a system that made the participation in some dungeons, or caravans restricted to a group of top competing players on a server, the people arguing against you here would change their stance?
As long as there's a core game loop that's rewarding across several gameplay elements, I don't care whether I'm locked out of 20-30% of the endgame loop because 30% of the playerbase happens to be better than me. If anything I'd be motivated to try and join them. Doesn't matter if that's special PvP fights or special dungeons or artisan mechnics.
Really, it's already in the game. I won't be able to participate in most castle defences. I won't be able to participate in all sieges or wars. Because of registration restrictions that will ostensibly largely be dominated by guild policies. These are UI decisions by other players locking me out of PvP gameplay. Go ahead and rationalise that as something completely different if you must, but the point remains, I wouldn't mind competition-based restrictions, as long as there remains an overall rich core game loop.
And I'd invite you to reply to the question I asked Noaani, as well.
If you still can't grasp the words bolded for your ease of locating and reading, then this conversation will continue going nowhere.
So let's make this clear, for the umpteenth time.
I do not believe that players should be barred from interacting with a core artisan feature because a player didn't put them on a list through the UI. This is how every aspect of the game functions aside from Processing.
You do believe players should be barred from interacting with a core artisan feature because someone didn't put them on a list through the UI. This is not how any part of the game functions aside from Processing.
If you genuinely believe players would be content with a group being able to buy 'deeds' to a dungeon and forbidding anyone else from entering unless they got on the list, regardless of often or how easily they can kill that group, then you're off your rocker.
Edit: I'm not getting into whatever Noanni and you are into. I'm not interested in those tangents
I don't think this matters - even as low as your lowest estimate of 20% of the segment of players wanting to progress as a processor having this issue is unacceptable, when we are talking about something completely unnecessary like this. It isn't even as if setting this restriction where it is actually adds anything to the game. If the restriction is shifted from level 30 and moved to only being applicable to rare components, the notion of exclusivity is still in place (and then exists where it should), but the ability to progress through the normal leveling progression path is left in place.
However, I think it will be more than 50%.
This is a pretty weak argument.
No, you aren't being carried as a level 10 on a raid. If the games combat system is worth being called a combat system, you won't survive the first trash mob - even if you remain well out of range. You can be invited, but without that progression you aren't participating, and again if the game is not shit, you aren't getting any benefit from being there, only penalties.
If a game were so badly designed that a level 10 could be invited along on a raid and get any of the rewards, I'd be as vocal complaining about how shit a game thst is as I am here.
Arguing that something else could be shit design really isn't a good argument.
Not all freeholds are unlocked at the start of the game.
However, those thst are unlocked at the start are going to the first to level up.
The thing is, those freeholds that release later on are still more likely going to go to those that were at the level cap first, because they will be in the best position to do what ever is needed in order to get them.
because it is arbitrary...that's the whole pint. instead of processing you could have said "this other X thing". there is also nothing wrong with that. players will block progress from some players in xyz but they might not be able to in ABC and some others will do def or ghi. no one plays every aspect of the game anyways. and there's the time factor too. cant do it now? do it later. too many things to do anyways.
god the raid is just an example. it can be anything. people get carried al the time in dungeons, raids, etc.
you could invite a level 10-15 bard to the level 25 firebrand raid. the bard can still buff 2 melodies as good as a level 25 bard. do you prefer a lvl 25 bard? yes duh, but you can still invite your low level friend. he can help a bit and get carried. if he is good enough he will dodge and not get one shotted, he could stay back and leech exp, etc.
If there are 2000 freeholds, and they can be shared with 9 family members, we're at 18000 people with freehold access.
There will be some overlap among families that will have multiple freeholds, but keep in mind that means that those families will have less wealth to share to spend on buying freeholds, because each member is paying for their own out of a much smaller size pocket than a group of 9 players combining funds for a single freehold.
Plus, we don't know how much guild member access will interfere with these permission limits. I think a realistic expectation for a potential solution we might end up with is having access for 10 players per freehold, distributed by the owner between guild members and family members as they see fit.
So we have something between 15,000 and 30,000 players with freehold access on a 50,000 player server.
How many people are you expecting to be dedicated processors for that to leave 50%+ of them to be unable to complete their skill progression? Do you really think 50% of the dedicated processors will be in the lower two thirds of players on the server? Accounting for all the casuals? Accounting for all the players who don't give a crap about freeholds and would rather spend their wealth on anything else?
@Noaani You guys are way too active on this forum. Do you see this notification if I add it in my edit?
However, that restriction should be put there, not before there.
If you want to restrict access to a room, restrict access to the room, not the hallway leading to the room.
the hallway leading to the room restricts the access to the room..............................
The question I posed to Noaani isn't a tangent, it's pretty directly addressing the problem of which type of players will actually be affected by these restrictions, and getting to the core concern that a player who wants it enough should be expected to work for it and make it work.
If the system gets changed to only restricting certain rare item processing to freeholds, I'd be just as fine with it. But calling the current system untenable because players get restricted from their processing minigame beyond level 30 if they don't compete for a spot tells me a lot about what kind of game you want this to be, and I'd rather not have Ashes turn into a full-on themepark where everyone does their own thing without having to compete with other players for it.
I'm not sure what you are trying to get at with this analogy.
Sure, carrying is a thing - but it is a thing people do for progression. As an analogy, I can't see how you are trying to make it fit here. I get its an analogy, but I don't see where you are trying to draw the parallels.
And restricts access to the other rooms off the hallway, and the hallway itself.
If all you want to do is restrict access to the room, then just restrict access to the room.
You point doesn't hold up because players do NOT determine your eligibility to take part in a siege. You aren't reliant on a player drafting you in order to defend your node or attack another one, at this point we don't even know for sure if participation will be capped at all.
You're still on this strawman tangent you'd built up for yourself. This issue is not the stuff. It's entirely the premise that a player could be barred from progress not because they lacked the skill, or got beaten in combat, or couldn't devote time or people to contesting something, but because they weren't given a permission slip. With the current design, there is no amount of competing that can be done to access a Master or Grandmaster Processing building if the owner doesn't feel like signing that permission slip.
No matter how good your group is, no matter how many times you could kill them, you have no option to take it by force. In a siege all you can do is destroy it, if you can even initialize one because you have to be a lvl50 citizen to even be able to take part in the auction for a freehold, so its unlikely your guild based there isn't full of citizens and thus barred from participating.
The only thing this current system does is remove a source of competition. It sure isn't adding it.
Edit Also this? I do not even remotely believe you would be ok with that happening. I can guarantee you the majority of the playerbase wouldn't be.
As I've said, I am all for restricting the crafting of top end items. I am not a fan of restricting people being able to level their profession up.
The stupid thing is that there still needs to be the same restrictions in place in regards to crafting items anyway. It would be a mistake to assume there is anything close to an even distribution of freeholds, and/or access to freeholds.
There are said to be low thousands of freeholds per server, some of them will only have a single person accessing them. Some will have many people, but those people may well have access to many freeholds.
Rather than saying there will be 15,000 - 30,000 players with access to a freehold, it would be better to state that there will be about that many access slots available. Some people will have multiple slots over different freeholds, and many slots will remain unfilled.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if it turned out that only 3 or 4 thousand players per server had freehold access - not even a little bit of a surprise. No.
You are aware, I hope, that processing stations on freeholds are a per building queue (not per player).
If you are using my processing stations that means I can't also be using them. You are taking up my queue. That 'permission slip' represents an opportunity cost that hinders my own economic progress - and you can be sure I'll be charging you for the privilege (unless you are a member of my family or guild and are contributing to my benefit through those systems).
If you aren't going to put in what it takes to get your own station then you either need to worth with a family who is willing to build one for you to use OR work with a guild who will have a Guild Hall, as the guild halls also have spots for freehold buildings.
Ashes of Creation isn't a solo game. Being social and working with others is expected.
Duh it's per-building. The 'permission slip' shouldn't be needed to use the feature at all, is the thing. The building is there. If it's not in active use, then anyone should be able to use it. Just like a gathering spot, or a dungeon, your group should be able to defend it.
Hello, again, we've reached the same exact point that there is no alternation option other than relying on players to either sign your permission slip, or hope and pray they let their freehold go bunk (and then that you hav enough money to throw at another bid), because you cannot 'work for one' if they've all already been bought.
You almost certainly can't siege the node to destroy it because your group is based there, had to be a citizen to even get the quest to get the item to be allowed to bid on a freehold space in a barony, and should the above somehow not be true, that node is now level0 and can't support freeholds anyway.
They could wipe out the owner of the freehold and all their linked family as they spawn, and they still would have no option to access the Processing building despite it being not in use.
The building either need to be usable by anyone any time they're not already in active use, or put them in Nodes of certain level and let Freehold buildings specifically be for more efficient Processing, not as literally the only possible source for it whose access can be removed from players at whim.