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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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.
Gathering Contests and CCable Greens
Ludullu
Member, Alpha Two
This topic has been brought up again by some people in some places, so I wanted to lay out my alternative suggestion in a full thread.
I've suggested it in a few other places now, but I think the issue with "CCable greens to contest gathering" is easily solvable by just having an interrupt mechanic in the active process of gathering. You see someone gathering a rare mat? You can run up to it, start gathering it yourself and you'll have an option to stop the other gatherer's process.
This action
And now the initial gatherer has a choice:
CD on the interrupt ability itself would need to be tested of course, but I think that matching it to the average CD of CCs across all archetypes would be fine, cause that'd be the reality of "CCable greens" approach.
To me, that sounds like a competitive PvX interaction w/o all the bs that would 100% come with a return to CCable greens.
Obviously this doesn't change the PvE mob grind side of contests, but that's a whooooole separate question of "when in the hell are we getting proper PvE in Ashes?".
I've suggested it in a few other places now, but I think the issue with "CCable greens to contest gathering" is easily solvable by just having an interrupt mechanic in the active process of gathering. You see someone gathering a rare mat? You can run up to it, start gathering it yourself and you'll have an option to stop the other gatherer's process.
This action
- flags you up for pvp
- puts a cd on the other gatherer's ability to gather this particular resource vein (could be just a few seconds)
- prevents you from gathering the resource in that same interaction
- you still gotta restart your own gathering process after this
And now the initial gatherer has a choice:
- they can do the same to you and flag up
- they can CC you and initiate full pvp
- they can move on
- they can call for someone to come and remove you through pvp if they see that you plan on interrupting them more
CD on the interrupt ability itself would need to be tested of course, but I think that matching it to the average CD of CCs across all archetypes would be fine, cause that'd be the reality of "CCable greens" approach.
To me, that sounds like a competitive PvX interaction w/o all the bs that would 100% come with a return to CCable greens.
Obviously this doesn't change the PvE mob grind side of contests, but that's a whooooole separate question of "when in the hell are we getting proper PvE in Ashes?".
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I'd prefer a fix that more encouraged people who wouldn't normally flag up for pvp to flag up. There's a reduced material loss if you flag. But you're still hit with exp debt and repair costs. Dying should suck, but dying from pvp should be less dreadful especially if you plan to continue pvp shenanigans.
Counter idea.
If you're flagged for PvP.
1. No exp debt. PK or Mob killed, doesn't matter. (timer to flag, or have to have been flagged for X time. So people don't flag at the last second.).
2. No durability loss if killed by a player. You still eat that if you're killed by a mob.
3. No materials lost to the void if PK'd. What would go to the void now is split between the PK'r and the PK'd. If killed by a mob? sure the mob gobbles half the materials you drop in your ash pit.
Sometimes I want to PvP sometimes I don't. The PvP flag would actually give people a motive to flag for their PvE sessions, right now If I want to PvE there's no reason for me to flag. I just ignore it. Maybe they want it that way? I think you should be able to ignore PvP if you want, not be free from it. But giving an actual incentive to players that want to PvE to actually flag for PvP would help.
Aren't we all sinners?
Unless we go back to super low ttk, or are talking about massive power discrepance between the 2 gatherers - the attacker wouldn't not have enough time to PK their victim before the victim gathers the resource.
The people that want CCable greens want to contest gatherables by CCing their competitors. There'd be no corruption involved there either, because it's not about it.
You're always free to PK someone for their own loot or for the spot itself, but I'm talking about direct contest over currently present gatherables, but w/o returning to CCable greens.
As for your suggestion. I'm all for better pushes towards people flagging up, but removing death penalties on flagged people would simply make zerg the answer. And no matter how much you kill them in pvp - they don't lose power, so they can keep going back. Your suggestion was supposed to be the case in pvp events, which WOULD've pushed people pvp more and get used to it, but Steven HATES FUN and wants losers to "SUFFER". So I don't think this'll happen. Especially in the open world pvp.
The resource doesn’t need to be claimed, anyone can gather from it freely. However, once someone claims it, only claimants can gather from it from that point on, and they can duel over control. Claiming essentially locks the resource, restricting access to claimants only. Losers of a duel will be locked out as well.
So, in my approach, it’s much less stressful and dangerous. The consequences are lighter, but there’s still some friendly competition over the resource and a bit of consequences involved.
And if that's the case, then the main problem I see with this is that the second claimant would not be able to be removed from the premises by other people, so they'd be able to bully lowbies easily, while also not flagging up at all.
If you mean "both immediately flag up purple" - that sounds abusable as fuck.
And if it's an "initial claimant gets a duel challenge and can choose whether to accept" (refusal prevents them from gathering), then I could definitely foresee groups of people spamclaiming stuff even though they won't even collect it. And if it's a highbie group in a lowbie zone - that's a complete lockout on resources with no intent on collecting them, which, to me, sounds horrible.
Additionally, maybe people should be able to claim only one resource at a time.
Correct, that's how I envision it, a softer pvp for gatherers and if they can't fight each other under a certain amount of time then they both lose maybe.
Yes, they are tied to that resource and other people should find another resource and go claim other resource. When you are just putting people into purple then they can cover all the resources around them, but if you claim one resource you get tied to that one.
I agree on refusal prevents them from gathering.
If you spam claims but don’t win a fight or successfully gather, your timer runs out and you get locked out of the resource, just as if you had lost a duel for the claim.
So:
As far as the death penalties. I still stand by my suggestion. The zergers will zerg anyways. Chances are if you're not in the zerg you'll be getting mowed down anyways. If nothing is done, the incentive to PvP for me at least now is basically zero. The rewards don't out weight the risks. Is PvP fun?, sure, but it can easily be one step forward and 2 steps back. Basically all PvP doesn't happen on equal terms, it's 5 vs 1 or 20 vs 3 or some shit it's not really fun no which side you're one there. Hardly ever will a group of 5 go after a group 5. This is off topic but PvP > PvE doesn't mean PvX. And the design so far is an open world PvP game with the tiny corruption mechanic, that's a pretty low bar for a PvX design. Couple that with pseudo faction systems is basically just going to run the PvE players away. I don't think this game will survive long without a health PvE focused player base. So getting PvE players to PvP is a method to keep them engaged and playing for longer.
We do need a dual system. But a dual system to challenge a resource node? If I'm the first one to the node and started gathering, why would I accept your dual? I already won. If you want the resource node that bad you'll need to kill me for it. Maybe dual is the wrong word to use for that system, the first player would have to consent to it. Regardless of naming, still the same thing. It's a bandaid on the flawed PvX design.
And the situation itself would reduce competition for gatherables, which Steven wants.
This whole thread was created because you NO LONGER CAN CC greens. That's the point.
There's no corruption involved in contesting gatherables. Well, at least I don't think there should be, because no single gatherable is worth corruption. But I do think there should be proper competition for them.
As for gathering speed, yes, that is definitely another tool for the competition, but that could simply reinforce my suggestion. If you're faster than the opponent's movements and have faster gathering - you'll outpace even their interruption actions and won't need to flag up to contest the resources.
But does it? I'm not so sure. Steven has said corruption is tuned high to keep PKing greens down so people can test. If there does need to be a mechanic on this we really wouldn't know until corruption is tuned.
I wasn't sure about the latest roles, probably worded bad.
I don't think greens should be able to be CC'd unless you are flagged for PvP. A Green casting an aoe cc on a green shouldn't have an affect. That'd just be cheesy. The aggressor is hiding behind the corruption penalty shield. So yes you should be able to CC greens IF you are flagged.
This is going to happen anyways. Passing gear to alts is going to happen. Nothing is BOP/BOE... So tweaking out alts will be a meta.
But even if IT IS justifiable, I already addressed that. Unless ttk is super short - you will literally not be able to PK a person to contest a gatherable. My suggestion creates a way to contest it directly.
You cannot put a debuff on a green player, no matter what color you are. The target's state is what matters.
Yes, it inevitably will, but having a system that I suggested would allow high lvl players to contest gatherables w/o risk of becoming insanely corrupt. And obviously people on alts would not flag up against those high lvl players.
And both newbies and those alts would be pushed to ask for help from guildies or nodemates, in order to remove the highbie from the location. This usually leads to big pvp fights between groups and guilds.
Yes, I was considering in helping out the more PvE inclined people into having some level of PvP, so they can feel the waters first before becomming pvp addicts