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3 Little Known, Big Issues From Lineage 2 That Could Make There Way Into Ashes
Rennoc Ladner
Member
On a recent Asmongold youtube interview, Steven Sharif said that he's drawing some inspiration from Lineage 2, a wildly successful SE Asian MMO. Only a brave few were able to play Lineage 2 back in the hayday of MMO's circa 2005-2010, and that's because Lineage had an extraordinarily high barrier to entry for the regular 10-17yo western kid. Long story short there was tons of god-tier Korean level grind, lots of cool but very complex systems, high risk vs. reward, and more popular games like WoW shadowed Lineage hugely, especially when it came to just getting started, meeting people, having fun, and getting good.
None the less, Lineage 2 was still a very engaging and esoteric game, especially when played on an NA private server that increased rates to eliminate that grind. There were a few systems in there that made the game compelling and different, and I have a feeling that Steve is going to attempt bring them over to Ashes in an appealing way.
Those systems from Lineage 2 are:
Sieges
Sieges were a major part the end game pvp content of Lineage, consisting of huge guild vs. guild (100+ players) lagging their way through each other and attempting to conquer each others strongholds through the systems available in the game. They took place in an open world, they were cool for about 5 seconds, and then they turned into a total cluster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2iOwhQ8rwk
The biggest issue with high cap pvp like castle sieges and guild wars is that you can't see the reward of your actions at a glance. You can't tell if you're winning or losing, you lose control of the character that you've been in control of every time you play the game as an individual. It's a boring zerggy mess revealing a shallow numbers game, not a skill based, organizational effort.
A great way to fix this in Ashes is not to just have guild masters flying over the zerg so that they can direct the chaos, but to have the chaos direct itself. There should be 1v1s, 3v3s, 5v5s, 8v8s, encapsulated in the siege that happen dynamically like would happen in some more realistic situation. There should be some separation of all other players in the siege when some number of players have a showdown, activated by having the system understand when a showdown is happening amongst a group. Fog of war made from clashing swords should meld around you as you get locked in combat in an arena style situation within a siege, creating compelling, measurable experiences with between your allys and opponents while still on the context of a large war effort.
Maybe this showdown mechanic is only available at certain stages of the siege to keep pace and actually allow for zerg mechanics to determine stronger force, but one things for sure is that giant battles are comprised of smaller individual showdowns between players and blasting some poor nerds down in a 100v50 battle for hours doesn't allow for any feeling of individuality or reward on either side. In a game, shouldn't there a be a chance for those 50 underdogs to compete by virtue of individual micro skill instead of organization of macro chaos? Just makes sense to me.
Buffing
In Lineage 2, if you went into pve or pvp combat without buffs you were totally combat ineffective. Buff effects from players and other mechanics were so incredible powerful it felt like you were hitting a GMs with godmode on if you were pvping without buffs. This created 2 things: 1. powerful economic sinks into NPCs or player buffer class characters before venturing out of town, and 2. Another zero-skill combat skill mechanic that effected combat.
The approach to buffing should be examined as a compromise between Lineage 2 and Classic WoW's buffing mechanics. If you didn't have dedicate people playing exclusively buffer specced classes in the guild in Lineage you were totally sunk, and if you don't bring a certain buff in Classic WoW you don't really even think about it and keep cruising.
I think Ashes should look into striking this buff balance through both buff effectiveness and access to buffs across NPC buffers, profession effects like potions, individual class buffs, especially since they're balancing for 8v8 pvp situations. One thing's for certain is that there cannot be a dedicated buffer class without at least making this person a competitive healer or tactile controller of some kind. Buffing is so mundane an activity in Lineage that the buffer is almost always off on an alt as they get harangued to help some guildies minmax by providing buffs every 15 minutes or when someone dies.
Enchanting
Enchanting in Lineage 2 was crazy compared to western MMO's. Enchanters would make scrolls that you could imbune on your gear, and the more enchant scrolls you tried to apply to a weapon to get it to +1 +2 +3 etc. the more likely it was that your weapon would break and be deleted from your inventory. And good weapons were very expensive and hard to obtain. Think BIS crafting or raiding in WoW but with about 5x more grind.
Enchanting in Lineage described the ethos of the whole game. Risky, hard, grindy, ridiculous, repetitive, and consequential, but if you were successful you were tremendously successful, and had coveted status and effectiveness in combat. You also got a unique glow on your weapon that symbolized power, and there was really no way to get around the risk of enchanting. You could mitigate weapon break risk with higher tier scrolls, but the risk was always there and in high amounts.
And what's more, a +5 weapons was like a nerfgun compared to a +11. Higher than low double digits and you'd be mad to continue enchanting, unless of course it worked. This slot-machine crafting mechanic that was enchanting in Lineage must exist in the game in some capacity. End game crafting professions simply cannot remain interesting unless there is constant demand for the crafts via the balanced removal of supply.
Simply having gear be able to break down in a real way through durability or enchanting creates a self-sustaining craft economy through the lifespan of a game. And the trade off is being able to take risks and reap the rewards of those risks through gear, which creates a more engaging experience.
Thanks for reading.I listened to that Asmongold interview a few days ago and my mind just started churning when I heard that Steve he had some inspiration from Lineage 2. Wishing Steve and the Intrepid team the best of luck with Ashes of Creation.
None the less, Lineage 2 was still a very engaging and esoteric game, especially when played on an NA private server that increased rates to eliminate that grind. There were a few systems in there that made the game compelling and different, and I have a feeling that Steve is going to attempt bring them over to Ashes in an appealing way.
Those systems from Lineage 2 are:
- Sieges
- Buffing
- Enchanting
Sieges
Sieges were a major part the end game pvp content of Lineage, consisting of huge guild vs. guild (100+ players) lagging their way through each other and attempting to conquer each others strongholds through the systems available in the game. They took place in an open world, they were cool for about 5 seconds, and then they turned into a total cluster:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2iOwhQ8rwkThe biggest issue with high cap pvp like castle sieges and guild wars is that you can't see the reward of your actions at a glance. You can't tell if you're winning or losing, you lose control of the character that you've been in control of every time you play the game as an individual. It's a boring zerggy mess revealing a shallow numbers game, not a skill based, organizational effort.
A great way to fix this in Ashes is not to just have guild masters flying over the zerg so that they can direct the chaos, but to have the chaos direct itself. There should be 1v1s, 3v3s, 5v5s, 8v8s, encapsulated in the siege that happen dynamically like would happen in some more realistic situation. There should be some separation of all other players in the siege when some number of players have a showdown, activated by having the system understand when a showdown is happening amongst a group. Fog of war made from clashing swords should meld around you as you get locked in combat in an arena style situation within a siege, creating compelling, measurable experiences with between your allys and opponents while still on the context of a large war effort.
Maybe this showdown mechanic is only available at certain stages of the siege to keep pace and actually allow for zerg mechanics to determine stronger force, but one things for sure is that giant battles are comprised of smaller individual showdowns between players and blasting some poor nerds down in a 100v50 battle for hours doesn't allow for any feeling of individuality or reward on either side. In a game, shouldn't there a be a chance for those 50 underdogs to compete by virtue of individual micro skill instead of organization of macro chaos? Just makes sense to me.
Buffing
In Lineage 2, if you went into pve or pvp combat without buffs you were totally combat ineffective. Buff effects from players and other mechanics were so incredible powerful it felt like you were hitting a GMs with godmode on if you were pvping without buffs. This created 2 things: 1. powerful economic sinks into NPCs or player buffer class characters before venturing out of town, and 2. Another zero-skill combat skill mechanic that effected combat.
The approach to buffing should be examined as a compromise between Lineage 2 and Classic WoW's buffing mechanics. If you didn't have dedicate people playing exclusively buffer specced classes in the guild in Lineage you were totally sunk, and if you don't bring a certain buff in Classic WoW you don't really even think about it and keep cruising.
I think Ashes should look into striking this buff balance through both buff effectiveness and access to buffs across NPC buffers, profession effects like potions, individual class buffs, especially since they're balancing for 8v8 pvp situations. One thing's for certain is that there cannot be a dedicated buffer class without at least making this person a competitive healer or tactile controller of some kind. Buffing is so mundane an activity in Lineage that the buffer is almost always off on an alt as they get harangued to help some guildies minmax by providing buffs every 15 minutes or when someone dies.
Enchanting
Enchanting in Lineage 2 was crazy compared to western MMO's. Enchanters would make scrolls that you could imbune on your gear, and the more enchant scrolls you tried to apply to a weapon to get it to +1 +2 +3 etc. the more likely it was that your weapon would break and be deleted from your inventory. And good weapons were very expensive and hard to obtain. Think BIS crafting or raiding in WoW but with about 5x more grind.
Enchanting in Lineage described the ethos of the whole game. Risky, hard, grindy, ridiculous, repetitive, and consequential, but if you were successful you were tremendously successful, and had coveted status and effectiveness in combat. You also got a unique glow on your weapon that symbolized power, and there was really no way to get around the risk of enchanting. You could mitigate weapon break risk with higher tier scrolls, but the risk was always there and in high amounts.
And what's more, a +5 weapons was like a nerfgun compared to a +11. Higher than low double digits and you'd be mad to continue enchanting, unless of course it worked. This slot-machine crafting mechanic that was enchanting in Lineage must exist in the game in some capacity. End game crafting professions simply cannot remain interesting unless there is constant demand for the crafts via the balanced removal of supply.
Simply having gear be able to break down in a real way through durability or enchanting creates a self-sustaining craft economy through the lifespan of a game. And the trade off is being able to take risks and reap the rewards of those risks through gear, which creates a more engaging experience.
Thanks for reading.I listened to that Asmongold interview a few days ago and my mind just started churning when I heard that Steve he had some inspiration from Lineage 2. Wishing Steve and the Intrepid team the best of luck with Ashes of Creation.
8
Comments
But sieges were great
Now, about buffs. Lineage 2 has NPCs like "Newbie Guide" that would give you free buffs and the amount of buffs depended on your level. I agree that buffers were useless leechers in PvE. They couldn't do ANYTHING by themselves.
Now let's all hope that since Steven was a big fan of Lineage 2, he knows what was good and what was bad about those mechanics and will find a good way of having them all without ruining the balance of the game.
I can honestly say I think the 1st time I ever heard of Lineage 2 was in these forums or in a video out about this game basing something on it.
Just don't bring the insane grind of l2 to AOC, I don't miss leveling for an entire weekends to gain 1-3%.
I agree on all three points that they should avoid them.
Item decay or other methods to facilitate a constant influx and outflux of top tear gear will be critical. I know some people want "I did all this work to get top tier gear, I want to be DONE" while I like the idea that top tier gear is disposable and I expect to constantly be repairing/replacing my gear. The idea of permanent gear doesn't sit well with me, and by having it decay and have it require replacement regularly will support demand for high quality gear. We don't need some RNG slot machine to ruin peoples day.
RNG is bad, Black Desert has spent the last several years introducing one new feature after the next to help mitigate the RNG pain. Why not just start off right and do no RNG?
How would you like it if every time you leveled up it was RNG on how much your stats increased? Oh and sometimes they decrease!!!! You can fix it by more grinding, but hey risk vs reward leveling up, am I right? Character equipment plays the same role in character progression and power, don't make it RNG.
I found it fun because before I quit lineage 1 I over enchant all my gears on purpose to see how far I can go, didn't go far.
Few years later I read an article about an Korean player who is pissed at the game and over enchanting his weapon on purpose because he is quitting but ended up with record high + weapon, and he decided to stay because it worth tons of adena (lineage currency) or money if he decide to RMT.
I would love to have enchanting installed into the game but tune down failure rate, like make it 30% success 40% fizzle (nothing happen) and 30% breaks. and make the scrolls craft only so it encourage people to trade or hunt for the mats.
Not all PvP content is good content.
I like open dungeons, but imo PvE content should be seperate from PvP, or alteast have seperate PvP areas within the PvE areas.
Having contested dungeons will only lead to big guild controlling all the areas in it.
Theres no fun trying to kill something in there, only to get killed over and over by zerg guilds.
Players will just go "F this" and leave. theres no "memorable" moments in that.
No game that have had that kind of content has been long lived.
DaoC open dungeons like Darkness Falls is a way better way to do it.
I think Steven has to much of nostalgic feeling from Lineage 2 from a zerg guild viewpoint, not remembering that the majority didnt like that kind of content in lineage 2 for the same reasons.
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
Yeah that's what I had heard. Really dislike that sadly.
I do not know what the future holds but I will have a blast for the duration. I've seen MMOs go free to play within 12 months. There will always be options for MMOs but popularity can be fickle.
Western mmorpg players generally dont like eastern mmorpg mechanics.
L2, AA, Aion etc never had that great overall reviews among western players compared to western mmorpgs.
Eastern mmorpgs are very grindy, often have p2w mechanics like mentioned enchanting, zerging, extremly linear leveling, generic questing, and general lack of endgame.
The only thing i like is combat pace and the graphics desginers skill in in making good looking armor (not female armor)
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
Well then, it seems western players dont know what the f they want according to you.
Why is it that mmo players right now complain about the state of the genre?
Why? They have:
Instanced raiding
Instanced pvp
Ez story questing/fast reach lv cap
Housing
Mounts
Why do western players complain?
Mmos need commitment and open world elements to feel fulfilling. And that is what AoC will bring back.
The alternative is more "2 week hype" mmos
the only mmorpg beeing developed nowadays are asian mmorpgs so theres that.
and none are them are long lived.
the rest of the western mmorpgs are old and outdated in mechanics and graphics.
easy leveling has been a thing since wow and nothing that i like.
in the olden days it took over 6 months to get to max lvl
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
So if you like spending 6 months for lv cap that means you enjoy grind. Isnt that conflicting your first position?
What I'd call a grind is if the only thing to do to progress is kill mobs all day because there isn't any level appropriate content.
What's the point of rushing to max level if you skip all of the lower level content? I always find it funny when people rush to max level then complain there isn't enough to do, but they bypassed months worth of lower level content.
Every time I hear that clip I get excited. Lineage 2 is in my top 3 favorite MMOs. I am excited to see the spin intrepid puts on these systems.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I'm that kind of player . I rush to end game , if your focus is pvp it makes sense. The only mmo where I did not have to do this was rift and GW.
Too bad progression through arena probably won't be viable in AoC. hope caravans will be a good substitute. But even for those it would probably behoove me to lvl up first.
Considering Steven's past experience in a wide array of MMO's, I believe will get a nice balance of both styles.
Now in terms of the OP's concerns. Honestly I don't see a big problem with some of them. In terms of sieges, especially later on in the games life, You would literally mostly see just archer/mage front lines poking and killing. Got to the point where the game was min maxed into a mage fest which just took the variety away from the game in class selection. The russian community of L2 is a great example of this. Literally just mage cp's everywhere. L2 was a great game, but it did have a issues like any other.
From what we've seen so far from Ashes in terms of the castle siege system, I don't think we have to worry as much, yet. We just don't have the necessary info, as the castle siege system is still in the works, and the MMORPG will obviously be different from an APOC test. But considering the time to kill structure of the game is longer than L2, I think it will have a nice balanced. Also being WASD and not click to move, will most likely make it a lot better than L2 =P.
In terms of buffing. I agree to you to a certain extent. One, I loved the buffing system in L2. Especially how the buffs were divided up among the other buffer/healer classes in the game. It had an excellent means of forcing people to group for content. The one problem in majority of all MMORPG's now-a-days is the fact that you can just solo most content. Where as my experience in L2, not having a healer, a buffer, a tank, support classes such as BD/SWS, etc. Made the game nearly impossible to play, indeed. But it forced community, constant parties, clans, alliances. It forced people to group up and band together to level and progress. That factor alone forged so many friendships for me over the years from my past L2 days.
Now there was some downsides, such as a prophet literally just being a 20 minute buff peasant, as well as a Root/Sleep and run bot in pvp =P. Would love to see a class that is all support, but with a very active and time critical role in certain support magic in said party. Time will tell how everything breaks down though, but I think Steven will make a nice system already that is a compromise.
In terms of enchanting, I'm totally fine with a little rng. I'm not a fan of rng, but a small amount is perfectly fine to me. When I look at Lineage 2 and compare it to like BDO for example, it just makes me face palm. But no risk at all is just boring and stale. Risk Vs Reward being a strong point of ashes, I was glad to hear that there will be a rng enchanting system, as long as it doesn't lend the way of BDO, and more towards L2's, I'll be happy. I just hope it's not a destruction of said weapon/armor, but more along the lines of breaking said weapon, and would require a large amount of repair mats compared to your standard repairs.
Although there may even be better ideas, looking forward to see what Steven's take on the enchanting system will be.
L2 player here too. I agree with your opinion, except for the buffing thing.
I'll give a quick context for non-l2 players.
In L2 a party HAD to have a "buffer" class, which was different than bards.
A buffer would have to target each player and do a 30s full rotation, to give them around 10 combat buffs that lasted 20minutes. Unless the bufrer was an orc, which would cast all the buffs AoE for the group.
This process would take 5 minutes, every 20 minutes.
Now, why I don't want an L2 buffing scheme in AoC, and I preffer a proximity buff, bard support class for groups (like BD/SwS for those of L2).
Every 20 minutes the group would rest for 3-5 minutes in order for the buffer (or buffers-alts) to buff the group.
This was GREAT for the social aspect of the gameplay, but it became very bad during PvP and raiding, and here is my ONLY PROBLEM with it.
Once a player died(unless blessed) he was out of the combat. That's it, if u die you can't contribute, even if you get rezed by the healer. Why? Because you lost the 10 combat buffs that everybody else around has, whichs makes SO much weaker.
So yeah, I don;t want L2s buffer classes, because I want classes to be STRONG on they own. Bards buffing the group frequently (as opposed to L2 buffers doing so ONCE every 20mins) is so much better.
PS: My second problem is actually more serious, and I can't belie i forgot it.
The L2 buffing system made multiboxing MANDATORY. I used to do it, (manually) like everybody else, but I was feeling like I was playing a strategy game, instead of my character, switching between windows, buffing and switching back.
Ye, I don't want to play multiple characters again in an mmo, and L2 was forcing me to do this.
Steven has said if you over-enchant too much the item will be destroyed.
@Rennoc Ladner https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Enchanting It looks like Over-enchanting is in for sure. Just keep in mind that the power scale per successful enchant could be less powerful than L2. I honestly loved the system. Nothing like seeing someone with a insane glow to make me want to grind harder.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
Up till c6 interlude most people in end game didn't even have the highest grade of items, S-grade, depending on the server.
And even if they did eventually get those hard to get top tier items from expensive crafting (with 66% chance of success if i recall), most people would only safe enchant them to +3 because even at the first risky enchant there's a solid 33% chance your highly expensive top tier item gets disenchanted into crystals.
Or actually fulldropping them from raids or something like that.
A post higher up said smth about ~30% chance of success but im not sure what that referred to.
Afaik fighter weapons had 66.7% chance of success per enchant up till +15 and from there it decreased.
While caster weapons had 50% chance of success, as enchanting them was more rewarding.
Armours I believe had a lot lower chances, even getting a whole armour set to +6 gave a special set bonus and that was HARD, real hard.
So most people would be using safe enchanted gear, while a few might roll with slightly over enchanted weapons to show off, giving slightly more damage which usually wasn't even noticable.
It was mostly a really cool and fun thing to go for to show off while it does indeed increase your damage somewhat.
It kind of adds something to do and go for in end game, but everyone did definitely not try to go for it in L2 on retail/low or perhaps even mid-rate servers.
Calling it progression... idk
I feel like everyone on the server don't need to have the exact best possible attainable gear guaranteed for them with nothing left to play for.
Most would stop at +6 at B grade gear.
Dualswords had to be +4 for all grades (unsafely, for important reasons), but every other A and S grade item in the game would stay at the safe +3 .
Overenchanting meant bonus atk/defence.
Not worth it. Very high risk, very average returns.
Dude I loved duals in Lineage... I played duelist for a long time on many servers since it was so damn fun in pvp.
Getting those +4 duals for that passive special ability was so damn nice, especially for S-grade duals.
Most weapon types had to craft their special ability on their weapons, but duals?
Oh no we don't do that here, here... we try to blow them up!
Also... the +6 glow on weapons, and especially on dual swords... daaaaamn it was so nice.