Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
There will be resource veins in some remote regions and these areas should not have Guards. There is no risk/reward for the gatherers and a huge stack of risk with less reward for the attackers.
The games I referred to before meant people would just stand by guards until the attacker got bored and left. I don't see how that is good gameplay. I'm not aware players can develop the zones, only the nodes. Guards will be with caravans and gatherers have the option to run caravans with guards. I don't see the need to have Guards at every level of resource transferral.
My personal take one this :
Each artisan (gathering,processing,crafting) could have a Unique skill to it's tree that evolves as you evolve in your class.
For example,for gatherers a secret pouch that you can put only gatherable resources that can't be dropped upon death.This is mitigated by weight and item scarcity (common,rare,epic etc).As you evolve your profession the weight and the rarity of the items that you can put in are increased.
Processing: your weight limit of processed materials is increased and there is a chance while u process a material to gain % more of the final product.
Crafting:you gain back a percent of the used materials and as you master your class this is also applied to more rare materials.
As you master your artisan class for gatherers for example now you have reached the point where you can gather rare materials.You gain more weight limit but in order to be able to put the rare material to your secret pouch u must do a quest.This can be entering a group dungeon and killing the last boss.The more u lvl ur artisan class the hardest the quest is.Maybe to become a Master gatherer, so u can stash in your secret pouch legendary gatherables, u need to defeat a legendary boss.
This can be applied to the other two artisan classes.As gatherers need to travel and be adventurers the legendary boss lies in the depths of the vast sea.For processors it's a world boss depending where their freehold is.For crafters is a boss deep in the underground world .
This way in my opinion the artisan classes become alive and in order to become a legend u need to participate in Legendary achievements.Its not only a matter of gathering,processing,crafting a zillion things just to gain the necessary exp.
I think it is also a viable solution to the drop upon death gatherable materials.
I can see areas of the world where it makes sense and doesnt, so I doubt they're going to utilize a suggestion to have guards all over the place.
I shall encourage the Fishers with hunger, starvation, and death.
Inform the Council
MMORPGs can survive without gathers/crafters. Because you can simply make a game that doesn't have it, then call it whatever you want.
If the game is fun people will play it.
But what's important here is that to lack organic risk for gatherers, processors, crafters, and traders is to undermine much of the premises and work of Ashes of Creation.
It undermines the entire game.
I'd say half of the most successful games have PvP. It's an important part of those games usually too. Many games are purely PvP, such as Fighting games (including Smash Bros which might seem like very fun, light hearted PvP to you). Including Mario Kart. Many 'light-hearted' games have PvP.
If you want to gather resources then grouping, PvP, and 'windowed' gathering will be a large part of that.
The biggest problem will be people, perhaps like you, that will refuse to push back against singular or a few 'gangs'
when someone rushes to try and get a group together to defend an area rather than get picked off 1 by 1, or AFK in Node [log] LMAO
With XP on Use (in PvP or PvE) then people can even progress while they fight for resources.
Territory control is already built into the game and part of the premise. Work together and collect together or get picked off.
Will you Fight like a Man, or Die like a Dog?
Then make Hunger a thing. Starvation. Death. They can get bodyguards at that point because everyone wants Food.
You can just level fishing solely on the alt. Feshrault, The Fisher Alt. I don't see your point. The only issue is if max fish skill is level-locked similar to WoW and whatever other MMO.
If anyone enjoys fishing they should fish in real life; where you actually get to catch something. If they bite down try hooking it by yanking the pole up. Use a good lure/ bait.
From what I 'gather', it's a matter of timing.
You have to work with others. You will likely be traversing into other's territory and get killed then complain lmao
I’m not wrong nor did you provide anything to prove I was. No one wants bots, especially Steven. Some people like monotony and repetitive tasks. The pvper your describing is the exact one that everyone hates to meet. They’re too lazy nor want to complete things they deem boring so that grief, attack, and harass those that have what they want.
Which literally goes to show gathers have nothing to gain and everything to lose in these scenarios. At best they win and get whatever mid tier gear the pvper is was wearing because they want rewarded not risk, they’re not going wear legendary gear or something they had to grind for to PVP in. And the PVPers gets rare materials they most likely don’t even have the stats/skills to earn themselves. It’s the most toxic scenario in gaming. Rewarding bullies and trolls without fail safes or incentives for victims is the easiest way to kill a game.
Fair enough, I’ve already felt the only way to mitigate or deter PVPers in the current setup is have the fathers agree to stick together for each other or have guild mates stand look out.
It'll likely have mayoral initiative behind it as well. Or the best organizer and resource & citizen defender will get voted in, which will ensure mayoral initiative.
A hero could spawn bunch of mining nodes in a castle zone. When mined your would get resources and resource packs. You would have to fill carts and bring the packs back to turn in. We would do them as a guild/faction and spit the resources at the end. We had our pvp mains for protection and alts mining.
If too many people showed up it wouldn't really be worth it and/or we would pvp over the nodes.
Mayors could pop an event or they could be found in the wild I guess..
One thing I would like to see is loot distributed between players handled by the game for things like mining events and bosses. In Archeage, we typically auctioned off boss drops and split gold for people that attended.
Also, not many people mention here is its probably not a good idea to rob your liege or vassals. I do think crafters should have the ability to blacklist and offer discounts to guilds and players in their shops.
There needs to be ways to deal with people who cause problems and are citizens of a node/vassal chain.
I think durability loss, item loss and xp loss may be too much.
For me its mainly XP loss, if you get die or get ganked it shouldn't take excessive amounts of time to work of the XP debt. I do think items should break eventually and have to be replaced.
The game is going to be pretty chaotic the first few months before everything settles down a bit, hopefully people too many people dont get frustrated and quit. At the end of the day, its a game and Intrepid has to make money.
Gatherers' Eye
Your time spent gathering has trained your eyes to recognize boon and bane. 1/3
Strength in Numbers
For every party member within 200m that has Gatherers' Eye, gain 2/4/6% Atk and Def, and lowers material loss at death.
(Or instead of Atk and Def, it could boost mat drops. I initially chose Atk and Def to encourage the Gatherers to fight back.)
This requires two things from the gatherer: they have to spend points on Gatherers' Eye, and they have to have a party.
So it rewards those whom specialize in their skill and it encourages community and teamwork.
I'm going to suggest a separate bag, magically enchanted(at a cost), that the PKer is required to break the enchantment to open(also at a cost).
PKer gets the usual set of materials from killing said gatherer, but the materials placed inside the enchanted bag are excluded.
If enchanted bag is opened, you get what's inside, but there's a surprise.
Boobie traps inside enchanted bag that trigger when opened.
Consider: when gathering, your gear or weapons or class or whatever have disproportionately balanced skills that can be used to give you a shot at escaping or returning to safety. Imagine a pickaxe only skilled gatherers can wield that has terrible offensive combat stats but instead has a counterattack spell that can land massive damage to an attacker and make them think twice. Or woodcutting gloves with a huge armor boost that procs when initiated on. Just some ideas that I could see making the playing field level and fun and allow the gather to have a chance to disengage.
Or, maybe you're a gatherer that likes to fight. Maybe there should be ways to spec so that you can be an offensive gatherer. Maybe you've got some tricks up your sleeve.
I don't like the idea of "false" mechanics like "you only drop 30% on death" or "resources are kept permanently after a cooldown". Keep the game "real". Make PvP players pay for being annoying, and well just make the engagements fun for both sides. Gathering shouldn't make you too much of a sitting duck and there should be real consequences in the in-game economy that make you think twice before trying to kill and loot someone just mining an inventory of iron.
In short a hesitant but also firm No. Can I imagine the possibility for certain systems rewarding resources that could be fun, sure, however I don't think there are any the wouldn't simply be rubbing dirt in your gathering artisans faces
Good to hear. I don't think there is anything that really needs to change. Especially given how you don't need to display your artisan gear unless someone is watching you gather stumbling across someone shouldn't make them anymore a target than any other green. Perhaps to prevent this you could give certain gathers skills such as a proximity alert where you can set "sound traps" where if a non party player walks near the trap or enters their vicinity they get a simple alert such as "you sense the presence of another" or in the case of the trap they get a temp map ping that indicates the direction/location of where it was sprung. Giving them enough time to find cover or move on.
Granting gathers situational awareness, seems like a fair tradeoff especially if there will be counter play where perhaps rogues and rangers are better at detecting and evading certain traps or alerts. eg. a skilled ranger can detect and avoid low level lumberjack alerts.
The Wolves of Verra
are recruiting: https://discord.gg/Rt8G3sNYac
I haven't played Alpha 1, and I haven't played Archeage or New World, but I have played Runescape. In Runescape, resource nodes are fixed to the map and award resources to one player, replenishing after a set amount of time. Your gathering gear and level dictate the speed at which you gather resources, and gathering spots go dormant for all players once they are tapped out. Resources in this game are generous at low levels, but at the endgame level, resources like Runite ore take minutes to gather and even longer to replenish. Because they are fixed in location and respawn at a fixed rate, players (or more notably bots) would hop worlds to monopolize a single Runite rock on multiple servers. All they have to do is stand in one location and have a good sense of timeliness, and they can gather the rarest ore to their heart's content, shutting everyone else out for as long as they please.
Assuming Ashes keeps this system of fixed gathering nodes with set respawn times, a growing level of scarcity can be created the more players gather at certain spots. This may remain the case even if multiple resources can be acquired by multiple players from a single gathering node. A competitive player may see this fact and choose to attack another player in a bid to secure more resources for themself. This was never an option in Runescape unless you specifically went to a global PVP world. The most people could do was ask politely (or rudely) for someone to move elsewhere. This was common enough that it'd be shortened to "off plz." In Ashes, it may be a more valid strategy to scare away other gathering players by attacking them until they flee just so you can take over their gathering spot. If resources are scarce enough and gatherers plenty enough, then attacking someone to lay claim to a resource location ensures that the resources come from you, ensuring you get a higher cut for supplying a city. This may be especially true if players from two different cities are in the same spot. Both players would want their city to grow faster than the other, and the best way for them to ensure that would be to secure resource nodes for the sake of their city.
To reiterate, I see it as a valid plan for a player to attack someone else in a competitive attempt at gathering more resources than other people. The victim can choose to fight back, or flee, living to keep their haul and gather once they've regrouped. However, one contingency that sort of irritates me is the fact that a player under attack by a competitive gatherer can choose to do nothing—just stand there and ignore any demand to leave. There is little to say about the impact of xp loss on a player, and dying would lose them the resources they acquired, but doing this could be either a gamble or a parting shot to negatively impact the attacker. The competitive gatherer then has to wonder if continuing to attack is worth the effort if someone does nothing. If the unflagged player dies, the attacking player gains corruption, and the unflagged player can then come back with friends and gank the pvper for even more resources than they originally had. The corrupted player can be attacked by anyone, really. This deters the competitive gatherer from taking the risk haphazardly, but the non-combatant gatherer need only sit there and have a strong ally available to gain some twisted benefit from this scenario. I don't like that a player can choose to do nothing and have it be a valid strategy, but as is, this is something that could be done. If competitive gathering is intended, then I fear sitting still and dying could become a very real (though admittedly niche) strategy to bait people into gaining corruption. Whether or not the victim can come back to kill the newly corrupted player comes down to how quickly another player gets to them first. Either way, if someone's aggro for the sake of gaining the most resources, you could just ruin their day by sitting there.
I don't know what sort of alternative there would be, but I find them welcomed. I'm not good at proposing ideas, but I stand firm in my belief that the properties of resource gathering nodes should be considered carefully, as they can increase or mitigate the amount of predation gatherers enact upon one another.
Being hired as a merc sounds boring. Who wants to pay to play a game where you get to roleplay a rent-a-cop?
It doesn't sound fun, so there's going to be little interest in it. Should be obvious.
Non-solutions don't really solve anything.
XP on Use
PvP enjoyer
Need Mats
Protecting and Serving. Splitting the Profit.
Defending caravans is exactly that kind of job. Some players will take that job, if they are payed.
I also hate when a PvP-er attacks a passive player. In that scenario I hate both of them.
If the gatherer fights back, I would join to help him even if chances are high to die with him.
If the gatherer doesn't fight back, I'll try to figure out if that was a bot.
But I don't want the game to bring safety and reward boring activities and players feel entitled to have that safety and calling themselves hard working people who sustain the MMO.
I've seen those kind of MMOs. No danger at all. Even drops are guaranteed. You see a resource vein, you gather it, it vanishes for you, but the next player gathers it too, then others come and everybody has a piece.
Same with fishing, you see the fishing spot, the game guarantees you get your share of fish according to your fishing skill.
But here in AoC, you might have to fight with another fisherman for the fishing spot. Is he a gatherer or a PvP-er if he attacks first?
How can I know when I pass by, whom to help in the fight?
Of course if any of them is my citizen that gets my help.
And citizens might not be able to gank each-other but I am not 100% sure. Wiki could be more clear about it.
First of all, all of the post are talking about a "solo guy who gather solo on his side"
Well MMORPG dont work like that. its a community game, so if you go solo and get gank, maybe the good solution is to not go back solo? and play with community? you know? in a MMORPG, where there is a tons of players..
Second, Y'all talking as well as "loss time"
what a poor vision..
You never experienced something not that good that at the end was hell of a story who bring you back good memories ? Fun isn't fun if there is only fun. its like JOY or SHADOW, it can't exist if there is no SAD or LIGHT.
You never learned that it's not the destination that matters but the walk?
Are you only a material guy? the only thing you care about is what you gather, really ?
What about the story it create? You prefer playing solo, not get ganked and encounter NO risk at all? Really?
Dont you want to "experience" something a bit more "alive"?
Its really sad to see all your comments saying "well i dont want to lose my stuff"
Man its the game.. and its not "time loss" its playing a game where you will have a real story to tell and to experience.
I sincerely hope some of you understand that.
The real question is whether the corruption system will be tuned right to decently punish such behavior. If I can be sure that the thief risks much with choosing the unlawful way, then I will just move on, and let the corruption system do its job.
So the whole game's future mostly depends on the fine tuning of the corruption system. If the risk vs reward system will be proportional, then "beating out" the materials from other players will not be a fruitious tactic. Of course there will surely be various ultra rare materials, that will be well worth the decent amount of corruption from ganking the other player.
I also think that the corruption system cannot be tuned because it depends on players. Sometime they will want to take more risk and get corrupted, on some servers there might be too few or weak bounty-hunters...
So the developers might have realized that players should actually balance that.
Hence they ask in the OP:
would you like to see alternative play loops ... to mitigate the risk of dropping gathered materials?
This is just about how to lower the risk, probably by spending more time doing some quests or getting some temporary buffs, long enough to reach the safety of a node.
Artisan gatherers will be prime targets for combatant players. With that said, would you like to see alternative play loops that provide you with a way to mitigate the risk of dropping gathered materials?
The answer is simple mechanics:
- Attackers have a gank limit (2x) every 12 hours. "Gank" is attacking lower level player first and not being counterattacked. Passed the limit, becomes a wanted bandit and will lose levels when arrested. Yes, it will lose levels. Another penalty is unnecessary.
- Gatherers can make special groups of bodyguards (guest players who love PvP) for a limited time only to do their defense and receive part of the collection.
Ah yeah, the "it's a group game, play with friends" so called solution. There are many reasons to play solo and many of them are not because the person doesn't want to play with others.
- You can only log for a short time (say less than 1 hour) and the time to form a group would eat too much of that short session to have your friends leave what they were doing and everyone to move to the same location (no fast travel in AoC).
- The main event with your guild is done/over and everyone is logging off, but you can stay online for 30-40 minutes.
- You arrive early before the main event and you have time to kill while the rest show up where you're supposed to meet.
- You're moving to a different location to meet people.
- ...
Gathering in these situations is a perfect activity. If gathering solo for a little while is too dangerous or risky, why even bother? Even the few full time soloers contribute to the community when their gathered resources enter the economy. If been seen mining or cutting lumbers attract too many vultures, why bother?
Lack of organic risk..? Even if they didn't drop resources, every gatherers, processors and crafters are under the same risks as everyone playing. They can be killed by mobs and other players, like everyone one else. And it's not like crafting professions where classes or archetypes, everyone can level these professions. They definitely contribute more to their community them the ones not leveling any profession. Killers that take and don't produce anything are parasites.
Gathered materials, processed ones and finish goods is not free money. There are economic risks, maybe all the time you've spent will be lost or see little profit because the market is saturated, no one is interested in what you've made anymore because the server isn't freshly launched, and what not. Leveling a crafting profession cost you more gold than it's generate for a long time.
Lack or organic risk...
pvp needs some sense and to achive it, there has to be some penalty and reward system. Due to my experience from others mmorpgs, I think I know which system can be really good.
Coruptions system is ok. But it will work less when dominando guilds will form. No matter how much corruption player from dominando guild will have, everyone will be afraid to engage that person becouse no one wants problem will dominando guild. So to prevent such folks being literally unstoppable from slauthering every innocent person, ban system should be applied. Maybe chance of droping items should rise with corruption? or After 4th kill in one day, 9th in a week and 29th in a month player should be banned for at least 2 weeks for character not account. Or if ban is too hard penalty he shouldn't be able to engage fight for 1 month but should be able to defend himself.
In matter of loses. As i have mentioned death, pvp or gathering it has not much meaning if isn't applied good reward and risk system. I think only numbers can show well how it work. So let assume that player has 1 main backpack and standard equipment like:
1. some armor
2. some plate legs
3. some helmet or a hat whatever
4. weapon
5. shield
6. boots
7. 2 rings
8. amulet
In my opinion player who has died in pvp or pve should drop certain items at % chance:
100% chance that player will loose his main backpack
10% chance that player will loose some part of his eq.
It can seem very cruel becouse 100% chance for bp. But there should also be applied system which prevents from losing. Blessing system is important. In game should be minimum 5 kind of blessings. Each bought bless dececrase chance of dropping items for 20% at 1 bless to maximum 100% chance for 5 blessings. Blessings shouldn't be easy to obtain, each one should be named, should be expensive and spread across the world. In my opinion they should be very exclusive. Price can depends of lvl. It also provides good money sink in the game what is healthy for economy.
I assume something like gathering container will be in AOC. So maybe gathering container should have 100% to drop instead of main backpack ? The final decision if of course up to Sherif and dev team. I just want to add that the system I just wrote about is the best system i ever seen in pvp mmorpg. Blessings can be also be divided into pve and pvp. I think 5 blessings for pve and 1 for pvp sounds enough for me. The one who has died should also loose exp ? For example 10% of total experience points. Blessings should also decrease the chance of losing exp ? Each one 1-2% ?
I hope u will make it satysfying. Can't wait to play AOC.
Better increase the chance based on tier.
Drop legendary and high tier first