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.
Econ-Friday Ranting (a Reference Post)
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Phase 2 is approaching (insert multiple Game of Thrones memes, whichever ones you like)
That means it's time for my group and I to do Econ Testing and give feedback. For this, I need some context on intent, but I don't hang out on Discord and even if I did, it'd be way faster for anyone on the team to read through my many assumptions in one place.
I basically need to know if the Ashes economy is supposed to feel like New World(EVE sorta), or like FF11/Throne and Liberty, to inform our testing approach.
FFXI/Throne and Liberty Method
Henceforth referred to as the 10K form (yes I will goldbold it every time, go gold, go bold).
"New World" Method
Henceforth referred to as the UBI form (this color isn't too biased, right? If people prefer I'll change this from 'UBI' to 'AllTree')
These two things are tested differently, for the sake of any discussion that might happen I'll try to explain why.
The reason I don't play EVE is that I knew for a long time that the Devs were basically just controlling the economy in a way that let them decide winners and losers very directly. Whether they did this or not was not important. They could. So I can't take EVE seriously, it markets itself as an Econ game, a simulator, but the 'stories' are controlled by the devs. Ashes is unclear about this. They have this option, but one might assume that in a game about player built Nodes and structures, they would not want to.
If Ashes uses the UBI form, the goal in testing would always be to 'win the Dev-set econ challenge minigame' and then use the winnings to get more permanent power as quickly as possible.
The reason I enjoy TL is that currently, niches exist and the Devs don't seem to interfere too much except in very global ways (we're seeing a bit of the Amazon Games style creeping in, but the underlying 10K basis mitigates some of this, leading to mostly grumbles rather than hoarding). So you know that basically anything that takes around an hour to get sells on the AH for 10 Lucent. If supply is too high, don't gather that thing, or push it through a different value pipeline (not all of these exist yet, for example Blue Armor Extracts from common farming grounds that should be going through some other pipeline like Furnishings since their 'Dissolve' option isn't at the 'correct' value and can't be set to that value without a UBI style intervention - which would almost certainly be bad for many reasons, I digress).
If Ashes uses the 10K form, the goal in testing would always be to 'find the appropriate activity niche' and then look toward others to build the interconnective relationships, seeking equilibrium and deprioritizing permanent power.
This is because 10K creates a form of economic 'drag' on anyone rushing to do anything not in their niche just because they can.
Since Econ testing is not a priority in Phase I, and the thing I assume Intrepid is testing is their data collection and visualization, this hasn't come up before, but as we move into Phase 2, I/we need to know how to approach it, especially if we're supposed to test the FTUE more than once, and definitely if the iterations don't wipe the server.
An Alpha always acts at least somewhat like UBI if one is trying to 'compete' or even just 'progress well'. I can definitely get my group to not focus on that, but if the game's intended style is UBI, then that would be the entirely incorrect method for testing for what my group is. Basically if we keep trying to play Ashes as if it is a 10K game and ignoring the signs of UBI approach 'because it's an Alpha', but the UBI style is the intended style, a lot of time is being wasted.
idk, maybe it's silly/overstepping/asking too much to be specifically given this answer, or even 'given this answer relative to any specific stand-up of the servers, but I know that IS does take their testing very seriously, so even just a shorthand somewhere (even just for PTR) of one vs the other would really help. We don't care if they change it every test/wipe/reroll request, as long as they give the data somewhere.
I hope that somehow this was clear enough to explain why this is important to us. If not, please help me by poking at it so that I can clarify it. I'm already in 'crossed fingers' mode because I can't just ask NCSoft/Amazon about their intent for TL atm, and I really want to help my group give the feedback we hope Intrepid wants so they're not doubled down on that particular irritation.
There's obviously more to this (there's always more), but it's all minutiae like droprates and player satisfaction feelings which have nothing in particular to do with the underlying 'way we test', so I'll leave it there.
That means it's time for my group and I to do Econ Testing and give feedback. For this, I need some context on intent, but I don't hang out on Discord and even if I did, it'd be way faster for anyone on the team to read through my many assumptions in one place.
I basically need to know if the Ashes economy is supposed to feel like New World(EVE sorta), or like FF11/Throne and Liberty, to inform our testing approach.
FFXI/Throne and Liberty Method
Henceforth referred to as the 10K form (yes I will goldbold it every time, go gold, go bold).
- Everything can be defined in average time units. The economy is given freedom but a control floor of some kind.
- Players trade their 'time' through some medium of currency (or multiple currencies)
- Specialization and complexity focus on personal enjoyment and spreading out the sources of products
- Somehow, somewhere, economic velocity has a cap or a friction point (FF11: AH slots and resources, originally limited per-game-day purchases, TL: basically the same but also a relatively high hard cap on no-lifing it, after a while you burn money)
"New World" Method
Henceforth referred to as the UBI form (this color isn't too biased, right? If people prefer I'll change this from 'UBI' to 'AllTree')
- The currency value of most things is effectively controlled by the Dev Team.
- Players either ignore this or compete to sort of 'win the econ challenge that the Devs have set for this update/season'
- Specialization and 'complexity' focus on hoarding and knowledge (and speculation on the hoards/knowledge of others)
- Economic velocity is capped only by resource sinks and number of participants (for example New World's original low server CCU was part of this)
These two things are tested differently, for the sake of any discussion that might happen I'll try to explain why.
The reason I don't play EVE is that I knew for a long time that the Devs were basically just controlling the economy in a way that let them decide winners and losers very directly. Whether they did this or not was not important. They could. So I can't take EVE seriously, it markets itself as an Econ game, a simulator, but the 'stories' are controlled by the devs. Ashes is unclear about this. They have this option, but one might assume that in a game about player built Nodes and structures, they would not want to.
If Ashes uses the UBI form, the goal in testing would always be to 'win the Dev-set econ challenge minigame' and then use the winnings to get more permanent power as quickly as possible.
The reason I enjoy TL is that currently, niches exist and the Devs don't seem to interfere too much except in very global ways (we're seeing a bit of the Amazon Games style creeping in, but the underlying 10K basis mitigates some of this, leading to mostly grumbles rather than hoarding). So you know that basically anything that takes around an hour to get sells on the AH for 10 Lucent. If supply is too high, don't gather that thing, or push it through a different value pipeline (not all of these exist yet, for example Blue Armor Extracts from common farming grounds that should be going through some other pipeline like Furnishings since their 'Dissolve' option isn't at the 'correct' value and can't be set to that value without a UBI style intervention - which would almost certainly be bad for many reasons, I digress).
If Ashes uses the 10K form, the goal in testing would always be to 'find the appropriate activity niche' and then look toward others to build the interconnective relationships, seeking equilibrium and deprioritizing permanent power.
This is because 10K creates a form of economic 'drag' on anyone rushing to do anything not in their niche just because they can.
Since Econ testing is not a priority in Phase I, and the thing I assume Intrepid is testing is their data collection and visualization, this hasn't come up before, but as we move into Phase 2, I/we need to know how to approach it, especially if we're supposed to test the FTUE more than once, and definitely if the iterations don't wipe the server.
An Alpha always acts at least somewhat like UBI if one is trying to 'compete' or even just 'progress well'. I can definitely get my group to not focus on that, but if the game's intended style is UBI, then that would be the entirely incorrect method for testing for what my group is. Basically if we keep trying to play Ashes as if it is a 10K game and ignoring the signs of UBI approach 'because it's an Alpha', but the UBI style is the intended style, a lot of time is being wasted.
idk, maybe it's silly/overstepping/asking too much to be specifically given this answer, or even 'given this answer relative to any specific stand-up of the servers, but I know that IS does take their testing very seriously, so even just a shorthand somewhere (even just for PTR) of one vs the other would really help. We don't care if they change it every test/wipe/reroll request, as long as they give the data somewhere.
I hope that somehow this was clear enough to explain why this is important to us. If not, please help me by poking at it so that I can clarify it. I'm already in 'crossed fingers' mode because I can't just ask NCSoft/Amazon about their intent for TL atm, and I really want to help my group give the feedback we hope Intrepid wants so they're not doubled down on that particular irritation.
There's obviously more to this (there's always more), but it's all minutiae like droprates and player satisfaction feelings which have nothing in particular to do with the underlying 'way we test', so I'll leave it there.
♪ One Gummy Fish, two Gummy Fish, Red Gummy Fish, Blue Gummy Fish ♪
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Comments
If the devs are reactively controlling spawn rates to control an economy, when you aren't seeing enough copper nodes its probably a clue to do something else and not continue searching for copper nodes because they might not be around until the existing copper in the economy gets sunk.
If the spawn rates are set in the game and aren't reacting to the players actions to stabilize the economy, when you aren't seeing enough copper nodes you might as well keep going because eventually the spawns will come back and you might get the fresh run.
It's pretty important to know which one we are dealing with or we are wasting a ton of time assuming systems that don't even exist. This is probably also part of the frustration players have when they say "not enough copper nodes". They don't have any idea about how the spawn rates are controlled, whether people are just farming them or whether the spawns or bugged.
In Rust( a game I've played alot) the spawn rates are a function of the active players in the area. The more players, the faster the spawns. This is why people love playing on high population Rust servers, the spawn rates are super fast and you can gear very quickly. Plus there are more people gathering and stuff so it makes PVP more abundant, and players have more loot when you kill them.
No, unfortunately Caravans are their own whole separate concern. They don't even equate to anything similar in the other games that have remotely similar econ models.
Even ArcheAge has Labor, so the gap is relatively large in terms of how to think about it. If possible, I'd exclude Caravans from any aspect of this question/request since the Econ FTUE can be viewed moreso as a race to being able to Caravan.
If you can't win that race, you're probably doomed as a group given how Caravan payoff works right now.
EDIT: Caravans right now are also definitely outside any early-game immersive/RP flow or incentive that would be reasonable to rely on (to keep consistent motivations between tests if that were necessary) so they're even more outside of the scope of this.
And as for incentives and viability, they're waaay too damn easy right now. With slower node progression, I'd imagine every player in a group can get 1g-worth of glint by the time we can run a caravan, and at that point no one would be able to even kill a caravan, considering that I had almost a full party of lvl13-17 people in standard lvl10+ gear hitting my caravan and it took them good 30min to bring me down.
And a full first caravan from New Aela to tropics gives you ~8g/1.5h, with a route that barely ever has any people on it.
And my general point here is that Intrepid seem to want us to use those caravans and then trade among ourselves. Steven even kinda confirmed it by saying "there's enough copper on the map, yall are just not trading". And if I DID understand what you mean by UBI correctly - this kinda fits that.
Yeah, I know, we're on Vyra too (that's a stretch since obv we're not doing much for Phase 1).
But I'm really really focused on testing, and Economy testing is very hard because you need to sort your incentives in order, or 'have everything ready at once'.
Neither is particularly easy to do.
So while I'm absolutely agreeing that Caravans are a huge 'sign' of UBI style gameplay, what if that suddenly changes or gets rebalanced to bring it closer to 10K?
I'm saying that I don't want to make assumptions, and I definitely don't want my group members making assumptions. It took me like 3 weeks just to get them 'through' all the TL ones because of previous experiences.
Without going into detail, the TL economy has changed meaningfully each of the times we touched it.
I think I told you that originally, Lithographs worked entirely differently than they do now. There's still some leftover 'cruft' in that game that we don't know if they're going to remove or rework. Point is, in a dynamic development environment, testing a complex system, assumptions bad.