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
I’m confused but my understanding is green players are non-combatants which can’t be affected by certain status effects, AOE or CC. Technically a military node would be purple as the purple can kill red but suffer no penalty but if they attack green they become red which is corrupted I believe.
I’m really interested to see how this whole colour thing is going to work out especially in lawless zones. What colour will you as well as your party be and will you see other parties as just red?
They're not 'cowards' any more than the red was for killing someone who didn't fight back.
The red killing a non-combatant are something else, not cowards. You can better call them evil, or corrupted...
Dygz calls them monsters.
Revenge is just the consequence. Being a coward before is the cause leading to this effect. Just dont kill someone green if you dont like getting the consequence for it. No victim blaming.
Greens are players that haven't recently attacked a player, or healed/buffed a player in active combat. Once they attack another green or a purple (or heal/buff *a purple or red specifically), they're also flagged purple. You don't gain Corruption until you kill a green, attacking them is fine.
The color system is, in actually, behavior based, not flag based, as in you can't flick the PvP switch on (go purple) without actually taking part in PvP like you can in some games, and you can't go red on accident.
For the other part of your post:
Lawless zones everyone is purple by default and the Corruption system doesn't apply, similar to Node Sieges, Caravans, etc.
In Military nodes people aren't purple by default, but penalties for going corrupted are reduced, while those nodes also host the Bounty Hunter bases. Essentially Military nodes are intended as PvP hotspots where you're less discouraged from going red, so the Bounty Hunters have a place to progress in that aspect.
Players are always encouraged to be purple while fighting, as it halves your usual death penalties. Someone not fighting back can hint to a few things:
1) They have nothing they deem valuable enough to protect compared to inflicting a penalty on the PKer
2) They have people around who can get you back for the PK quickly
3) They're afk lol
In any case, it's usually best to leave them be. They seem to think you won't get your money's worth in killing them, so you should be extra certain you and your group can handle the consequences of having someone or a few someones go red before you kill the person not fighting back.
The term fits as much for them as it does for greens attacking a red player. You risk more penalties dying as a green, so they also have to consider if they're willing to risk those additional penalties before they go aggressive on a red.
They can be affected by AoE if the attacker wants to.
There is a setting or additional key to make the AoE work against greens and that is to protect the attackers to not become flagged by mistake if they do PvE only. Or to not become red if they want to attack only flagged players.
There is a picture on the wiki describing the transitions
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Corruption
Still the green going out to hunt for revenge a red are not anymore non-combatants.
They are acting and competing with (or helping) a bounty hunter.
Firstly, green is not a player type, it's a player state. Player state is unchanged by fighting Monsters, which is what you've made yourself into mechanically when you go corrupted.
Second, you accepted these consequences as balance to your gains when you killed that non-combatant.
Third, this assumes you are a solo PKer with no group to cover your back while you work off corruption.
Why are you going red solo but sticking around at the scene of the crime? If you're staying there because you're gaining something, why is that value not enough payout for having to watch your surroundings for a while because you chose to PK?
Why would you go red solo, having seen groups in the area?
If you're in a group and I'm in a group and we're contesting an area, how in the world does anyone avoid going purple and thus negating someone going red at all? You'll flag by healing a combatant or a red, hitting a purple or another green. Again it's not possible to go red on accident, because you specifically have to choose to hit non-combatants.
Most likely how it goes is some solo PKer kills some solo Gatherer of some kind, that players says in local chat, 'hey some asshole just killed me for no reason at <location>' and players come kill the solo PKer. That's an extremely fair scenario for the corrupted player to have to deal with, and they decided upon killing the non-combatant that they were willing to deal with the consequences.
I can see a lot of baiting happening with that like oh someone killed me here, and then people go to look or find the solo Red but turns out it’s a whole group of gankers. This is why I think responding all the time won’t be that easy unless you’re in a group or near to a settlement or something.
Even if it is nearby, who's really going to care enough to come deal with the PKer? Unless they're on a murder spree or you have a rival guild involved, I'd wager most people wouldn't even bother attacking a red unless they come into a town (and there would be Guard NPCs on their side too)
This is a pretty standard flagging and penalty system that encourages fighting back over worthwhile areas while still allowing PK over the frivolous things.
Anyone that uses the term 'carebear' unironically usually proves themselves to be a much bigger one than whatever demographic they're crying foul over. Going red is a choice you have that comes with its own downsides and small perks, same as staying green which has.. well, no perks honestly.
Personally, I don't see how it's not just as much a plus for reds that non-combatants can't flag up on them. Either they wait out the corruption and eat no extra penalties and get no extra gains by not murder hobo'ing, or they can keep killing players that come after them and gain full value off those kills that they'd otherwise only be getting half of.
And each PKer knew exactly what kind of risk they were taking on. In my experience, every player would do a quick mental calculation of "how far am I from a TP spot and how fast can I remove my corruption on these mobs before someone comes" before attacking a player.
In Ashes the calculation would probably be "how many players are in the vicinity and how preoccupied they are right now" (and the corruption removal parts is the same), cause there are no TPs, so you only worry about people right around you.
Though currently corruption removal is supposed to be way slower than L2's was, so we might still be calculating how far away from the nearest node/poi we are, simply cause we'll have a way higher chance of someone from far away running towards us because the removal timing allows for that.
But I do get the logic of wanting greens to turn purple if they attack another player. Just isn’t the way Steven has selected it to work, and my understanding is he likes the way they are implementing it. One of the gems from the various games he’s inspired by.
Other side of the coin are bounty hunters may miss opportunities for a bounty when every green in the neighborhood can poach his kill.
yeah as it stands I dont see bounty hunting, if its only for dealing with reds, to be an actual progression system you can feasibly climb. The green tide (not orks, but combatant non-combatants with a shared greed) will swallow anyone stupid or unfortunate enough to turn red. thats why i was hoping this solution would add a little less incentive for the green tide mentality.
but yeah, cant do that so im not sure what else you can do aside from just leave reds as such a heavy punishment that no one will ever attack each other in the open world. Which I would argue is bad for the game.
If all the Bounty hunting system amounts to is having a tracker to local corrupted players and those reds use the tracker to gank bounty hunters, then I see little people going into the system for how little it gives.
I would hope the system would be expanded to add monetary commissions from other players. AKA green player 1 died and Player 2 got corruption. Player 1 can put up a BH commission to kill player 2 that offers gold or glint on completion/kill. Or something like that...
Hm. Sweet mafia mindset. I like it. I would pay you, I guess. Because I lack time and nowadays I dont want to get my hands dirty
owpvp with complex flagging rules leads to different mindsets, expectations, options and player behavior, because its artificial war (selected by players, not because there is a real war, ie factions or whatever)
Players will act and react different and if adapting to this system (dont forget, perhaps millions are coming from pvp servers snd themepark MMOs) will try to increase advantages and decrease disadvantages.
Thats impossible on permanent pvp servers. You have all the corpse ganking, respawn harassing, revenge (relogging on alts, etc), especially in the first weeks and month.
For Ashes it will be interesting to see the evolution. Because „hunting the PK“ will be absolutely different in the first weeks and month after release and after 3 years, because player behavior adapts and changes. Maybe nobody cares (although a good BH system is in) that PK was done in the neighbour hood.
Why bounty hunters for PK only? There’s an entire market to explore. Same with tax evasion and nonviolent crime within the node. Perhaps they need Hitmen and Bounty Hunters to fill out the sort of criminal/law enforcement element. Bounty Hunters currently sound more like Judge Dredd without the guns. And that’s an entire underworld for rogue characters to explore and exploit. Oh players and guilds will try to fill the role, and I can see a mafia style guild declare a guild war on other guilds. Could that extend to Bounty Hunters or Hitmen via contract. In other words, mercenaries for hire? Or a contract for an individual or smaller group that doesn’t fit the normal guild war mechanics. Nodes would be more inclined to contract Bounty Hunters, although you could set up a criminal node and hire hitmen I guess.
And then, what would a Bounty Hunter or Hitman guild look like? John Wick?
But these contracts are indeed the mechanism to engage in these elements for those without the skills or time, but with a few coins (or a lot depending on the target).
Why not extend it to monster hunter? But then everyone is a monster hunter in this game, right. The true monsters are the players. But, what if said monster hunter character is the counter for the monster coin mechanism? What if you pay a monster coin to a bounty hunter, who then has access to the Bat Cave to go after the monster player in the area? Would they have access to special mounts, depending on the monster? What sort of weapons are at their disposal? What sort of armor might they acquire? And at the end of the contract does some of that gear serve as payment? Or can the bounty hunter pocket the monster coin and try to defeat the monster via their own means?
That’s just one of many ways they could expand the idea of bounty hunters, or really players for hire regardless of name. Call them what you will based on the contract. And for a sand park, players ought to have options for the contracts they write.
That freehold over there is an eyesore to my beautiful view of the Riverlands. Take care of that for me.
Just wish they make the BH system little more than a combatant with a tracker to reds.
if the green attacks a red they saying right i accept pvp so should become combatant since at that stage they now opted into pvp which is what the whole flagging system is for.
Also whats the point of bounty hunter system if it now becomes safer to hunt reds as a green since if your bounty hunter you can be killed and not make the corruption worst and as a green player u kleave the red player the option to run away, die or make your curruption worst. You know whats gonna happen is there be 1 bounty hunter using the tracking ability to find red players and they just send green player friend to actually kil the red player while they stay back safely so he can never escape due to always being able to track them.
cant work off the red if green players can just throw themself at you leaving u the option of just dieing, killing them and getting more curruption or forcing them to run away potentialy dieing in the process. its a loose loose situation for the red player and no matter the outcome a win win for the green player since u can just run back and locate them again and go again and now there a bigger reward potential since there deeper in corruption potentialy causing more equipment to drop from them
However if the green kills the red then surely the BH player won’t get any rewards. There is no point sending greens to do it as it won’t contribute to BH progression. Maybe they need a system as well where when you’re doing bounty hunting you can only invite other BH’s to your party as you would all be flagged the same for PvP. I honestly just prefer the lawless zone concept where everyone knows the risks and what they’re getting into.
In Albion Online you can flag for PvP as a red and attack normal players who can respond but it doesn’t also make them flagged hostile for defending themselves. The black zone which is kind of like the lawless zone you know what you’re getting into as it’s a PvP/PvX zone.
What I said the first time was correct about BH being purple as that’s flagged as a combatant but not corrupted. A green can attack a red and incur no change in status it’s exactly like Albion’s flagging system except corrupted are just Reds flagged as hostile for PvP. BH’s outside of the lawless zone would be classed as purple of which if they attack a green they become Red or corrupted. If a green attacks a purple they become a combatant so also Purple. The system is good very balanced however my first assumption of how it works is correct regardless of it’s a status or flagging system it still works the same way. I also don’t see greens as people who want to get into conflict in the first place that’s why they’re green but have the right to defend themselves from Reds or hostile players.
I see BH’s as more of a PvP progression system outside of lawless zones kind of like the PvP Progression or Battle Pass system in New World where you get XP based on PvP contribution. The thing that needs to be looked at is how is the BH system different to a standard PvP progression system assuming they’ll have a separate system for that too.
The system is there to stop reds carelessly attacking greens and griefing them without any consequences. The BH’s counter the hostile reds who would harass the green or average players. Anyways a true PvPer would just do wars, sieges or go to lawless zones there’s no fun in flagging red to bully greens. Again this is separate from the caravan system or PvX events in the open world as you’re initiating those plus know the risks. We don’t need to protect the reds!
Flagging red or becoming corrupted is probably just a good way to practice ganking but comes with consequence, however gankers will group up so it won’t be just one hostile red you’re facing if the game allows it there will be a party of them.