Intrepid - Please Limit Testers Game Knowledge

Full disclosure, I am an Alpha one tester. I wanted to start this discussion though because I have seen a lot of forum posts about people being worried about certain players using their game knowledge and enforcing a certain "meta" for those who participate in end-game content.

There has been a lot of arguments against this being an issue in the game because of the way it is being designed, but for the sake of this discussion, I would like to assume that this will not be the case, or that at the very best, the games design decisions will just slow this down.

When I played Classic World of Warcraft, I had quite a bit of fun in the initial release of the game, but didn't when I really started to get into end game. I wanted to participate in end-game, and was willing to conform to the meta where needed to do so, most of the time. Sometimes though, I wanted to do silly thinks like try to get into unreleased parts of the map, or hold social events. Many players were not willing to do such things though because they saw no point in doing something that would take time away from their need to prepare for raids or do battlegrounds. No one wanted to try out silly alternate specs like Warlock tanking for instance.

I am worried about a similar atmosphere being present in this game with how much time testers will have access to it, but also the open nature of the testing once the visual NDA lifts. At some point (probably during the Beta) they will have to raise the size of the world, and we'll have plenty of time to theorize about game mechanics and builds. This is a good problem to have, but one that still needs solving.

Would it be possible to at least limit the world size during the Beta and Alpha tests? Or, if you need to make sure quests and terrain are tested across the whole game world, could you split each zone into it's own test? What about classes, gear, and dungeons/raids? Could bosses be switched around into different places than they will be on launch? Perhaps the same can be done for Nodes? At the very least, I think it would be helpful to at least switch around names of the Nodes.

Basically, I think it is most important to prioritize the testers ability to make sure the game is in a condition that is ready to be launched, but as much as possible, this needs to be balanced against obscuring our knowledge of Verra so we can't "game the system."

What do other think? Are you worried about meta gaming? What other ways could Intrepid balance this so that the fresh experience a launch is supposed to be is protected?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Grihm

Me personally, i am kind of worried to generally be missing out, just because i don´t have the money to spend to make sure i can get into the testing.

There is nothing worse coming into an MMO ( for an mmo gameplay POV ), and the massive amount of information and stats and what not is overwhelming to say the least. Feeling of being lost can be a very quick one to sink it´s claws into you, and once you are gripped, catching up can be hard.

I was quite disappointed to see the testing being behind a paywall. I would venture a guess that having a bigger amount of testers would be beneficial to ensure the best outcome of the game to , but that´s just my personal POV.

Jerec Tharen

Grihm wrote: »

Me personally, i am kind of worried to generally be missing out, just because i don´t have the money to spend to make sure i can get into the testing.

With the visual NDA dropped in about a month, does that make you feel like your limit on game knowledge as a non-tester is reduced at all? Do you think that a large portion of non-testers can theory craft away any of the fun? I think this consideration bears thinking in addition to thinking directly about the testers themselves.

Grihm wrote: »

I was quite disappointed to see the testing being behind a paywall. I would venture a guess that having a bigger amount of testers would be beneficial to ensure the best outcome of the game to , but that´s just my personal POV.

In my experience so far in the Alpha, (although I have only participated in 1 test) there appears to be no lack of players. You can even watch the castle siege video and see the many people there and that was supposedly a take with a smaller group than the test before it.

Asgerr

Grihm wrote: »

I was quite disappointed to see the testing being behind a paywall. I would venture a guess that having a bigger amount of testers would be beneficial to ensure the best outcome of the game to , but that´s just my personal POV.

They would have just gotten more people complaining that the game was shit because of all the bugs and rubberbanding, because they didn't fully grasp what an actual Alpha is. A lot of people use alpha as a marketing tool to show a game, rather than testing one.

They really spared themselves a headache and having to chase people messing with their tests (even with having paid 500 credits, people were still non consensually PvPing at the risk of being banned forever).

I don't particularly think there will be any metas developing prior to the game, nor will information be too prevalent.

Most of the content in the world will be responding to how players play in their servers. So that entire aspect is a non factor.

Most of the character specific elements are so numerous, that there is no way they'll have tested everything with enough depth, to form a meta. If anything, we'll get advice and an idea of what augments do what to what classes.
Considering that you can't change classes and that changing your secondary archetype is supposed to be difficult and a bit of a chore, it's a good thing to have ahead of time. You avoid playing for months and then feel like you wasted all that time on something that is unplayable or makes no sense.

Grihm

Seeing the gameplay sessions and what not is sure... it helps, but it´s not doing it yourself or getting a feel for how the systems work.

I am sure there are a lot of testers doing a very good job. However, being a tester yourself is always a different story, and me personally, i do feel it´s hard to keep up when left with just reading and seeing things from others perspective.

There are many aspects i would love to try out myself, but for now, that is not the case.

Jerec Tharen

Asgerr wrote: »

I don't particularly think there will be any metas developing prior to the game, nor will information be too prevalent.

Most of the content in the world will be responding to how players play in their servers. So that entire aspect is a non factor.

Most of the character specific elements are so numerous, that there is no way they'll have tested everything with enough depth, to form a meta. If anything, we'll get advice and an idea of what augments do what to what classes.

Yeah, this is definitely not outside the realm of possibility. However, would your opinion change if after Alpha 1, they open up the game a lot more during Alpha 2? Or even spend more time in Beta testing than expected? I'm thinking about if the game releases in 2 years or more, and they continue to have Alpha tests and gradually open up more of the map and we have a chance to explore the base features. What would be a period of time, or a set of circumstances that would make you worry?

Asgerr

Jerec Tharen wrote: »

Asgerr wrote: »

I don't particularly think there will be any metas developing prior to the game, nor will information be too prevalent.

Most of the content in the world will be responding to how players play in their servers. So that entire aspect is a non factor.

Most of the character specific elements are so numerous, that there is no way they'll have tested everything with enough depth, to form a meta. If anything, we'll get advice and an idea of what augments do what to what classes.

Yeah, this is definitely not outside the realm of possibility. However, would your opinion change if after Alpha 1, they open up the game a lot more during Alpha 2? Or even spend more time in Beta testing than expected? I'm thinking about if the game releases in 2 years or more, and they continue to have Alpha tests and gradually open up more of the map and we have a chance to explore the base features. What would be a period of time, or a set of circumstances that would make you worry?

Honestly, none. I'll play the game all the same and enjoy it whatever way I please. If I can go and steal bits of wisdom from others who've gone through the hours and days of trial and error, all the better for me.

Also a reminder that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Perhaps what seemed meta in Beta, suddenly gets wrecked by non tester doing something no one could have predicted. And then: pouf* there goes the meta.

In the end, we'll all start at level 1. Every server will be different, and there will always be people min-maxing in any MMO regardless of what quantity of an edge is gained (sometimes it's negligeable).

FOMO as many people accuse games to prey upon, will ever be the individual's fault, and their warped sense of why they play a certain game.

Azherae

As an idealist, I feel like your worry, while valid, is the opposite of how you should be thinking about it.

The sort of person who has some sort of advantage due to their ability to understand systems, or overall intellect, will figure that sort of thing out, in a modern MMO, so quickly, that it's irrelevant to 90% of the playerbase.

If you were thinking of yourself as one of those people, your concern is very altruistic and commendable, but if not (or even so, honestly) your better bet would be to find any imbalances faster so that you could tell the Devs so that they can tweak or remove them.

This is even more true if you're concerned about 'a poor community developing because of it'. That community type is a symptom of something, not caused by something. The only benefit you'd get would be that the ignorant masses (no disrespect to them, that's the literal definition) have a higher chance to be wrong when they are being 'best only' min-maxers.

In Ashes, that wouldn't even work out properly because 'hey guys this is the optimal node to raise' would be easily stopped by 'a band of people who are annoyed at that, attacking the Node'. Or just an army of 'casual' players who like some other Node better visually or something.

The big worry point would be if the full game lacked content. Not 'that there is no gap between Beta and full', just that full has little content.

So don't worry about testers 'figuring out that you can make tons of money hunting wolves in winter because the respawn on wolves is too high compared to the value of pelts'.

Worry about them NOT finding that, and it getting into main game, and breaking a whole economic system across a region because a single huge guild with a savvy economist realizes it first.

Grihm

Jerec Tharen wrote: »

Yeah, this is definitely not outside the realm of possibility. However, would your opinion change if after Alpha 1, they open up the game a lot more during Alpha 2? Or even spend more time in Beta testing than expected? I'm thinking about if the game releases in 2 years or more, and they continue to have Alpha tests and gradually open up more of the map and we have a chance to explore the base features. What would be a period of time, or a set of circumstances that would make you worry?

Is 2 years + to release still the most accurate estimation?

tautau

People are totally guessing. Some are informed guesses, many are not. Some people think that throwing out pessimistic guesses makes then seem 'wise' somehow.

Of course, I think I have figured out the schedule for Alpha 2, Beta 1 & 2 and live release. But I'm not telling, so later I can claim I was right.

I'm glad that IS is not making promises that they cannot keep.

Jerec Tharen

I liked a lot of what you said, and you could be right about the 10% meta being figured out won't have too much of an impact. However I think I can expand on this point you made:

Azherae wrote: »

So don't worry about testers 'figuring out that you can make tons of money hunting wolves in winter because the respawn on wolves is too high compared to the value of pelts'.

Worry about them NOT finding that, and it getting into main game, and breaking a whole economic system across a region because a single huge guild with a savvy economist realizes it first.

What I am worried about is not that a guild will get a huge advantage out of hunting wolves in winter, in fact, I hope that things like that happen all the time! The situation that does concern me though is one where everyone just hunts wolves during winter because that is known as the best way to make money and I have trouble finding groups to go hunt lizards or that I won't be able to put together a contest of how many level 1 rabbits we can kill. That isn't the perfect example since I doubt hunting wolves would be so beneficial it locks out all other gameplay, but it illustrates my point of what I am worried about.

Jerec Tharen

Grihm wrote: »

Is 2 years + to release still the most accurate estimation?

tautau wrote: »

People are totally guessing. Some are informed guesses, many are not. Some people think that throwing out pessimistic guesses makes then seem 'wise' somehow..

Tautau is completely correct, this is just a guess and I don't mean to become a neigh sayer. I just was trying to pose a hypothetical trying to see if an assumption of a sooner release date than I am expecting was influencing Grihm's opinion and if a longer testing period would cause him to rethink it.

Thanks for helping clear that up Tautau!

Grihm

I am in no rush to get into the game to " play " it, but i am very interested into getting in to test it´s systems that mean a lot for me. If the testing continues for 1...2...3...5 years more, so be it.

The only point i was referring to, was that i feel it´s a bit of bad luck that you are left out of assisting in testing if you don´t have the money to spend, and that´s in a pandemic as well where money is in short supply as it is.

Until i have extra to spare, or perhaps the tests become more open, i am grateful and appreciative of all the people doing the testing now and working towards our common goal of getting the new MMO we all been looking for

Maezriel

I wouldn't worry too much about the game getting "solved."

Your primary example is Classic, which is a game that's very much on rails and raiding/battlegrounds is pretty much the only thing worth pursuing...the fact that the game is ancient and everyone saw the "get to the top of Org" videos back in 2008 and it's no wonder you had trouble finding people to just explore.

The difference w/ AoC is that it's a sandbox that's being built so that the players are the source of content. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter if testers figured out the best way to level or kill a boss b/c the main progression will still be building and defending your Node, the leaders of which should be far harder to overthrow than anything Intrepid can code in.

Dygz

@Jerec Tharen
Ashes doesn't have an end-game.
So... what is the "end-game" content that you think will be problematic??

The world is not static. Bosses will appear and disappear as Nodes move from Stage to Stage and as different races take control of Nodes and as different buildings and services are constructed.

We will not have the exact same configuration of villages, towns, cities, metros, dungeons and raids at Launch as we have during Beta.

Wolf pelts might be highly valued in Winter by Niküa and Py'Rai and Ren'Kai but be much less valued by Empyrean, Dünir, and Tulnar. Wolf pelts might be offensive to Tulnar, for all we know.
Wolf pelts in Winter might be of greater value in Economic and Religious Nodes and if lesser value in Scientific and Military Nodes.
And, should have different values depending on whether it's a Desert region or a Forest region or the Underrealm.
Depending on the Stage of the Node, Wolves could be more prevalent or more scarce.
It's not a static world, so the value Wolves in Winter could very likely be in flux for a variety of reasons.
We should expect the value to be in flux rather than static.

Vhaeyne

The only game I have seen successfully keep everything secret until launch day is FFXIV. They can keep everything locked down until launch day with minimum leaks from data-miners. The game is then solved within days as world first raiders prog savage and ultimate.

With Ashes things, will be different. There is nothing to "Solve". As Dygz said there is no classical "end-game" as you know it. Nothing is static. You might solve an excellent strategy for downing the ice dragon raid boss, but it can be different next time you have to fight it because a different raid might be there fighting you for it.
Open-world raid bosses are PvX content. You will have to fight other raids before, during, and after the raid to secure the loot.

Okeydoke

The devs should limit game knowledge as much as practical. The more the better, but it may end up not being that much. Things need to be tested and there's only so much you can hide.

Beta access will be cheaper and allow people to catch up on knowledge before release. Youtube videos and twitch streams will help people catch up too.

Maezriel

Okeydoke wrote: »

The devs should limit game knowledge as much as practical. The more the better, but it may end up not being that much. Things need to be tested and there's only so much you can hide.

Beta access will be cheaper and allow people to catch up on knowledge before release. Youtube videos and twitch streams will help people catch up too.

But why? Does it really make a difference if they go out of their way to hide game knowledge throughout testing if the whole point of AoC is to be an ever changing world that reacts to the players?

Okeydoke

I don't think they should go out of their way to hide knowledge. If they can keep certain things secret with no ill effect on testing, I think they should. But I don't see it as a huge deal either way.

truelyyy

I mean we are on "alpha" island what more do you want? You can't test the game without playing the game doesn't make sense.

daveywavey

It's one of the benefits of paying to test a game, I suppose. Their reward is slightly more game experience. Our reward is a better game at launch.

Child Item