Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
there is it.. the last sentance... maybe you should be gated from running content... lol
then add that fact to an already dwiddiling segregated market.
deflation is invenitable.
caravans arent just " a good way to move goods". they, right now, are the economic backbone. and you openly admit that, that system should only be for a few people.
ok than have fun ruining your game...
There’s this old saying “When you have the facts argue the facts, when you have the law argue the law, when you don’t have facts or the law then pound the table.”
I didn’t say the system should only be for a few people, I said you need to be able to hold your own against the players that will attack the caravan. That isn’t a gate, you CAN run a caravan at level 10 at 3am ST and probably be ok. That’s an alternate way of participating. When mules are introduced, you can run goods that way. There are like a dozen different things you can do to help connect goods to nodes without padding all the sharp corners in the house.
If the game fails it fails, but I’d rather play a game that allows players to take initiative and use creative alternatives to overcome a challenge than become yet another easy lane with padded edges to make everyone feel like they are “winning.”
That is not gate keeping. Anyone can level to 25 and kill level 25 mobs. Not anyone can run a caravan.
A more apt comparison would be if the mule system behaved exactly like caravans did but smaller. But anyone in a guild was unable to use it and people that dropped guild to do it then rejoined the guild were banned. That's gate keeping.
Putting restrictions in place is one thing, when those restrictions are based on playstyle and preference that's gate keeping.
That being said there is nothing wrong with the Caravan system, it's group content, get a group and do them.
The biggest issue is right now there is no other way for solo/small groups to make any kind of income. There's no need to compromise the Caravan system just create a smaller system.
Rephrasing something in different terms dosen't change the meaning.
Expecting people to sacrafice sleep to be able to participate in a system is not only gate keeping it's toxic for the player base.
There is nothing wrong with gate keeping. We gate keep all kinds of things in society. Brain surgery, among other things.
The question is what purpose does the gate keeping serve, and what problems does it create.
In this case the purpose is to maintain the verisimilitude of the world being dangerous, the problem it creates is people that can't make enough money any other way. Which means even buying basic things is difficult due to inflation.
Which can be solved by adding a system, which is planned. So no change is needed at this point.
Caravans are the method of moving goods en masse. It doesn't matter who is running it; That always needs to come with some threat of being attacked.
Move goods on horseback so that corruption is in effect. Utilize mules when they get added. The OP is making an unreasonable ask and calling it 'gate keeping' is mostly just funny
Ill quote my self here.
Again it is gate keeping and there is nothing wrong with how it is being applied here.
Gate keeping isn't inherently bad. They gate keep at banks, and don't let other people take my money.
It does when those terms signify something different. For instance...
Any player CAN run a caravan in the current state. There are just different ways to do it successfully if you're lower v. higher level. Taking alternate paths to overcome a designed challenge (caravans are roving pvp areas) isn't 'toxic' (talk about a word overused into oblivion), it's problem solving. I ran a caravan at level 7 from Winstead to Halcyon. It took an hour and was boring AF, but I did it.
Maybe - the point could also be that raiding / protecting caravans is fun. Agree on the dangerous part (verisimilitude is my favorite word btw) - I don't necessarily agree on players 'can't make enough money any other way' - there are ways to do this between trading, vendors, and market stalls - but on the whole we want a diverse economy including caravans, so I'm half in. I think mules will REALLY help this gap.
Agreed.
Those are not the same proposition. Alpha has issues but caravans are obviously being adjusted as we speak. I wouldn't mind some temporary changes for alpha but then people will get used to that and complain when they go away in a later stage. So you have to be careful there.
Because when people say not anyone, they mean if you take the average player that plays at average times they wont be able to just run a Caravan. Which is what is being talked about. This is not the time to lawyer this and say well anyone can because technically if they do it at 3 am on this route with this class while balancing a red bull on their head. Anyone can't do it. Anyone can do it if they get a group of 10+ people depending on the area. There is nothing bad about being upfront and honest about some content being out of reach for solo players.
Well were supposed to be testing the game, so I would assume temp changes that have an impact on the economy would not be advised.
Just wondering where that was announced or indicated to players? Cause I didn't know until I watched some high level just beating the crap out of noobs in the starting areas cause someone drove a cart through there....
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Caravans
Your answer is a tricky one.
Steven and his team call us "testers" not players.
We are supposed to know what we get into when we pay for this game.
But many players had no time to read. They jump into the game because they see others playing it. Big streamers too.
So is normal to not know all the details and planned future game mechanics.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Caravans
And if you're talking about Alpha. No, Alpha does not have first-time-player systems, because it's not interested in first-time-players who got no damn clue about what they're supposed to do in this test. This was one of the main reasons for the high cost of testing - it would weed out the people unprepared for the test.
It's Alpha. That horse is still a foal.
So I should have go to a wiki (that seems fairly obtuse every time I've looked at it) read it in detail before deciding that it's something I should invest time/money in and all the other data sources that show interesting crafting, a fairly expansive level of character customization and what is shaping up to be a large world (including the Website) which has all been thrown to the forefront of the attention grabbing 'marketing' should be secondary or even ignored? I would have figured that some of this info would be more prominent on the website itself as opposed to buried in a Game Design Document that no one outside of Auditors and Insomniacs is typically going to read
Also fair point about Alpha level..... and given that the the PVP is taking up not-trivial portions of Alpha development resources that's another indicator that it needs to be much more "up front" in designation.... This is a PVP Game with Crafting and Character Design Flexibility in an Expansive World more than it's an RPG/MMO in design.....
And if you're a richboi who doesn't care about the money - then don't complain when you learn that you've invested in something that holds no interest for you or is different from what you thought it would be.
And if you fall prey to the shiny dangling keys in front of your face, then I'm sure there are some bridge sellers who'd love to sell you a shiny bridge. There's been no real "marketing". There's only been Steven discussing his plans for what the game will be and then showing some of that on streams, all while saying TIME AND TIME AND TIME AND TIME AGAIN that "this is an Alpha, it's not a game, nothing is finished, all is work in progress, please don't buy if you want to play instead of test, etc etc etc".
Ah, the suffering of trying to make an MMORPG (honestly, open development or not) in the Information Era.
In the end, there are over 1250 'hours-worth' of data on AoC, no one is expecting you to know/read it all.
And there have been many reasonable arguments about the 'way Steven sells the game'.
But even then, there's little that Steven can do about it. If he says anything to anyone, some Content Creator will roll with it, add their own spin, talk about how fun they think it will be, and give an impression of the game's goals... whether they line up with reality or not.
So I think yeah you're kinda required to read the wiki a little for this project.
Just caravans are not the hill to die on. People are always more toxic when there is no Rep to worry about. Every character won't exist at launch. Losing gear does not even matter. You gonna lose it anyways.
Casual adjustment would do better with level gaps for exp and gear drop needs adjustment. Teams are hard to come by, by the nature of the type of game it is. Making that even more inconvenient is not enjoyable
Lower end gear needs to be easier to get. (green, blues) High end gear should still be hard. Pocket dungeons, dungeons and raids should also drops crafting supplies we can craft with or can trade with crafters for gear as well. Keeps you playing and supporting crafters first. Gear drops should be the secondary reason you kill mobs.
Travel times on low end mounts needs a boost. When you play 1-2hrs tops as a casuel, 30+ min travel times are hard to eat when you need to run to 1-3 teams before you get one that works when you are puging.
P2W
Yeah but that's the thing that I don't get. The people shriking the loudest about how the game needs to be difficult are the same people that are joining guilds and bypassing most of the difficulty in the game.
They get lower time to level (by about 100 hours)
Easy access to crafting benches
Easier content (PvE is easier)
Safer content (Less likely to get ganked)
What insane risk are these people taking to get all these rewards? Joining a guild, which is no more risk then becoming the citizen of a node.
Steven giveth and the Seven taketh away.