Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III 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.
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For character leveling, unlocking abilities and skill points should be enough motivation, and for vertical power scaling, gear progression itself should be enough.
Those requirements are part of the already-thin veil of 'defense' the game has against people who get boosted via who they know and the resultant RMT.
I really wish Ashes had gone with the full loot concept. That solves so many problems. But oh well.
I get your point about open trade and lack of full loot. That definitely does reduce friction for potential RMT.
But I’d argue that level gated gear is a fragile band aid against those problems. It doesn’t stop boosting or RMT. it just slows it down.
But I don't have a solution for RMT either. I only know that such vertical power scaling in particular will damage the game just as much as RMT. RMT will always be RMT, with or without obstacles. Even with such requirements.
What should not be forgotten: If you have strong vertical power scaling overall, then it is also a strong incentive for many to engage in RMT i think.
Yeah, including the need to have servers capable of holding more than 500 players concurrently.
Intrepid has indicated that they will have an incredibly strong stance against any form of RMT.
Note that I am NOT claiming that I understand how, have faith in this, or anything like that. To me, the game is full of RMT holes.
But the idea is that they have at least 'promised' (maybe that's too strong a word) to handle it.
You dont like full loot?
Albion is very successful in this regard and has a well-functioning economic system (but I was never the economic player in it).
I think players in AoC should drop gold and pve materials just like if you were killing critters/mobs from the same level as the deceased
full loot means you will respawn naked
Which means that the items simply shift hands and rmt can happen as easily as if that was a direct trade of them. Hence my confusion, in this context.
Most people don't like full loot.
Albion and EVE between them basically have the market covered in regards to people that are willing to accept a persistent world MMORPG with full loot.
There isn't space in the market for a game of the scope Ashes is trying to be.
Tarkov proves that systems such as full loot encourage players to RMT and other forms of cheating, not discourage it.
If you are at risk of losing what you have on you when you die, you pay enough money to be strong enough to not die.
Full-loot is normally combined with many other aspects, but it is not about preventing RMT in the context that I brought it up.
I was referring to the idea that games clamp the best gear a character can wear to prevent level 1 characters from being given exceedingly powerful gear 'for their level' (this also applies to newbies ofc).
In a full-loot game, this practice of 'letting people give a level 1 character a full Heroic Set' is better resolved. An inexperienced player will lose that Heroic Set faster than an experienced player, and therefore wouldn't be as likely to benefit from any RMT to get such gear.
I'm still not saying that's a solution in any way, there are layers and layers that need to be put 'on top of that' for anything resembling 'fun gameplay'. Ashes is not enough like EVE to be using that, and it is built for long leveling.
I can hand off/help Day-1 Level 20s Purple Gear in TL (via guild), and they can wear it, but they also aren't going to be 'less than max level' for the next 500+ hours, and because of how it works that's only the start of the gearing process and they can't trade it, etc.
People are still selling guilds in TL world chat for related reasons.
In a full loot game, gear is just like consumables. Acquiring and equipping a new gear set takes a few minutes to a few hours at most. This is how it works in Albion and Mortal Online 2, and it's the only way full loot can work for a broader audience. However, vertical progression is linked to a character-based skill system.
And the only way Full Loot can encourage RMT is if there are safe zones where you can make progress or if the vertical power scaling is too strong.
You drop your gear and your entire inventory. Any other player can then loot you. There is then a trash rate for item sink upon death. Full loot open world PvP games dramatically reduce RMT and bots, as you spend money to eventually lose it. And a bot that is recognized as a bot by players and killed loses not only its gear but also its entire inventory contents.
But it doesn't matter. Steven has chosen the Korean way.
In the current Ashes system, I would still think that increasing base stats and unlocking better gear every 10 levels should be completely removed. At least the base stats.
In any case, power scaling needs to become much more horizontal. Otherwise, I don't see how most players can be encouraged to continue for 225 hours (according to Steven, to level 50) without being able to participate in PvP battles to any reasonable extent. “It gets better in the endgame” is not a motivator.
Of course there'll be hardcore players who push past all of this, but they will also not be pvping lowbies, cause that's an utter waste of their time.
You misunderstood me or the translation was not good.
Yes, you will always be able to participate in PvP no matter what level, but if low level players want to participate proactively, they would be one shot by higher level players without any chance.
You description would still be correct if everyone started at the same time. But that will not be the case. New players who join a few months after release or returnees will be far behind. The long level phase and rare and hard-to-obtain gear will therefore only be a reasonably balanced experience for those who start at release. Everyone who comes after that is fucked and has to go through a long leveling phase before they can proactively participate in pvp battles without being one shotted.
I want to be able to participate proactively in PvP battles, no matter what level, no matter what gear and at least not get one shots. Anything else would simply be bad PvP Experience.
It's this response type that lost me my comfortable Mana Frenzy PvP in TL, I bet.
This is an uncommon view when it comes to 'live'. Most people don't want to just be able to punch up a little bit, they want to be able to actually win. And basically no long-leveling MMORPG has a real way to offer this experience on the same character you build up over time.
I'm not disagreeing with this perception, I'm just saying that is barely considered a worthwhile goal for this game, as you said, Steven already 'chose a different path for this'.
They'd definitely laugh and go play Throne and Liberty.
Or just not even try because they'd look at that game and laugh because they can say it's P2W.
So, really, they just won't play a PvP MMO at all, or they will wait for a new Season Server in BDO.
My point is only that Ashes doesn't even intend to address this part of the 'problem' as far as anyone knows. It's just part of the game emergent from combining the things you're talking about, and more importantly, not a thing they've ever indicated any real path to changing (because too many other things will fall apart if they do, it's not asif making leveling shorter will remove this problem or I'd still have my Mana Frenzy PvP).
Yes, it’s definitely an uncommon stance. Most players do want to actually be able to win. But my idea is this: Even if I don’t win, the vertical power scaling should be limited to a point where, as a low-level player, I can feel the power difference — but at the same time, I should also feel that with enough skill, I can start to overcome that gap in the near future.
That motivates me to keep leveling up and generally making progress. But if I don't feel like I have a chance, then it's pointless.
And as I have said in many places, I want and like long level phases and I think it is compatible with a more horizontal power scaling.
Long lvling in all aspects (artisanry, questing, explorations, etc) means that casual players can just enjoy a bit of everything on any given day, and not just boost their lvls as quickly as possible. And this then means that they won't be all that high of an adventure lvl, even several months into the game's release.
Outside of that, Ashes will never have the kind of balancing where a veteran player won't be able to kill a lowbie super quickly. Even if it's not one-shot and instead a 3- or 4-shot - that's still barely a few seconds and wouldn't change the situation all that much.
As for participating in pvp events - Steven said there'll be tasks for newbies to do during those, which won't involve going up against high lvl players directly.
Well, I can tell you that you're definitely not so uncommon that your opinion is new to the forums. We've had lots of people come and say very similar things, and if those people were still here, your post would probably get a lot of traction.
But, as with most things that people don't 'see a path to change' from Intrepid, many of those people seem to have stopped following the game for now, either because it isn't far enough along, or because they lost interest. You're stuck with the few regulars who often also share your views but are too jaded to repeat all the discussion on it.
If you plan to become a regular around here, welcome. If you don't, check back in 6 months to see if any of us 'regulars' has managed to convince the Devs to balance the PvP differently, or ofc if they were always going to do that and just didn't have a way to say so clearly, so they just do it instead.
Then new players a few months after release and returning players won't be able to have a meaningful pvp experience until they catch up. And since very few are willing to do so, Ashes will have a problem getting new players after release.
At least those of us starting from the beginning will have a good time. Once the first few don't want to play anymore, there will be very few left and all the problems we have from all the other Korean mmorpgs will come. Catch up mechanics that will devalue all the progress, dailys/weeklys for pittys or even seasonal server. Have fun with this. I've played enough games like this.
One thing I will point out for Intrepid if relevant.
Please do not count kills during these events for any PvP leaderboards if you want a mixed experience.
I can go to Guild PvP events in Throne and Liberty which have PvE objectives and deliveries and such, I can disrupt, evade, sneak, and get players to chase my tail off cliffs and waste time. This is all fun to me. But I often end up being the only person not in a big group there, because it's just playing 'Manhunt'.
And even if I thought I could find good PvP there, what almost always happens is that as soon as the big PvP guilds get even a whiff that there might be literally anyone else to kill they locust-swarm the event. So it goes from being 'Evade these 3 oneshot DPS classes who are here to get their Guild some merit/prestige' to 'There are 2 sets of 2 dozen people here from the same top 2 guild, and half of them are in charge of just guarding the turn-in points'. Sometimes they don't even fight each other!
Because every newbie or 'Manhunt Target' they set their eyes on is one more chance to rise in the Kills Leaderboard for bragging rights (well, more like 'not being mocked or disregarded' rights). There's also a weekly mission for these kills! Yaay.
Plz donot.
You are correct, but It doesn't matter how long it takes.
For a lot of people, thinking of gear like "consumables" is the hard part. Many are attached to it, and many do not want to lose it, after spending their time acquiring it.
I never really got into Albion due to this fact, as any time I ventured out into PvP zones, I was afraid I was going to lose my gear that I spent the previous few hours getting. It would just feel like a massive waste of time.
To that you might say, "you should only carry what you can afford losing", but then I'd have a good set of gear just sitting there doing nothing, while I use a lower lvl set. I'm not as strong with that set, and I just don't think it's a good experience - because I always want to be as strong as possible - if I acquire a new piece of gear, that's stronger, I want to wear it and make full use of it.
Which is why most people that want to play an MMORPG don't like it.