Things we DON'T like about AoC.

While it is important to voice to the developers the things we enjoy about the game, and to encourage the game's creation, it's also equally important to voice our thoughts and opinions on things we don't like about the game and are concerned about.
What are some things you've seen that have you little concerned about or that you simply don't like?

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Okeydoke

NiKr wrote: »

Only CCs that were directly tied to damage dealing abilities. So mainly Stuns. Pretty much no other CC worked.

lol. Oh yeah we already had this conversation haha. It's coming back to me now.

Well stuns seem like the worst of all CC's to still allow if you're worried about people CC griefing in order to cause other people to die to mobs.

But damage dealing CC's still working seems sane. Completely nullifying all of a character's CC because they killed 1 person seems not sane. But it's gonna be whatever Steven wants it to be.

Edit: Not going to reply to your longer reply to me @NiKr because I legit forgot about our convo on this a couple months ago. You just reminded me of it all, so I'll just wait and see what implementation Steven goes with.

Ludullu

Neurath wrote: »

Are you going to be a bounty hunter? NiKr

Yep, planning on it.

Strevi wrote: »

That's what I was asking some pages ago.
If 50% of BH succeed to kill the PK and bring back the resources, then the green will always have reason to flee (also helped by no CC) to keep all the resources.
If 75% of BH succeed, then clearly no benefit to fight. Every undecided green will flee.
This would work against the corruption mechanic which tries to encourage the combat, by reducing the quantity of resources lost.
If the BH success rate is lower than 50%, then is the proposed mechanic of giving the lost resources back impactful enough?

I was thinking of a rate of ~60-70%. With it getting higher with the PK counter growing. If it was your first PK, you'd barely get any corruption and would cleanse it before any BH would even find you (unless you were in the middle of low lvl mobs that give you no XP). If it's your 10th kill - you'll probably have to grind mobs of your lvl for 30-40 minutes, which is way more than enough for any BH on the whole server to get to you. Obviously those are somewhat arbitrary numbers, but that's roughly what I was imagining.

And as I said before, if the green is a fighter - they wouldn't be affected either way, because they'd just fight. But if it's a lowbie green or a pacifist one - the chance of them flagging up is really low, no matter the system. And I personally think that these people should be helped. Obviously Neurath thinks that they shouldn't even be playing Ashes.

There'll obviously be some shrewd players that would hang corruption onto their attacker just to try and punish them harsher, but this exact action would be counterbalanced by the lower corruption gain (depending on the count of course). So I'd imagine that soon enough those shrewd players will realize that usually they just lose more resources for no reason and will just fight back.

And again, my suggestion is in the context of very high prices on PK count removal, so any uberPKer will still get punished harshly if they decide to go too far. But a casual PKer, who just kills when he really needs to, would have a buffer of PKs where they'd get the loot and not get killed in the process. Well, that is if no one else was around, but at that point it's on the attacker to weigh their chances.

Songcaller

I think they should be playing ashes which is pvx, I don't think they shouldn't play but they make their own decisions.

I think loss is an acceptable risk. Giving resources back offers no risk for them and diminished reward for bounty hunters.

Strevi

NiKr wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

Are you going to be a bounty hunter? NiKr

Yep, planning on it.

Strevi wrote: »

That's what I was asking some pages ago.
If 50% of BH succeed to kill the PK and bring back the resources, then the green will always have reason to flee (also helped by no CC) to keep all the resources.
If 75% of BH succeed, then clearly no benefit to fight. Every undecided green will flee.
This would work against the corruption mechanic which tries to encourage the combat, by reducing the quantity of resources lost.
If the BH success rate is lower than 50%, then is the proposed mechanic of giving the lost resources back impactful enough?

I was thinking of a rate of ~60-70%. With it getting higher with the PK counter growing. If it was your first PK, you'd barely get any corruption and would cleanse it before any BH would even find you (unless you were in the middle of low lvl mobs that give you no XP). If it's your 10th kill - you'll probably have to grind mobs of your lvl for 30-40 minutes, which is way more than enough for any BH on the whole server to get to you. Obviously those are somewhat arbitrary numbers, but that's roughly what I was imagining.

And as I said before, if the green is a fighter - they wouldn't be affected either way, because they'd just fight. But if it's a lowbie green or a pacifist one - the chance of them flagging up is really low, no matter the system. And I personally think that these people should be helped. Obviously Neurath thinks that they shouldn't even be playing Ashes.

There'll obviously be some shrewd players that would hang corruption onto their attacker just to try and punish them harsher, but this exact action would be counterbalanced by the lower corruption gain (depending on the count of course). So I'd imagine that soon enough those shrewd players will realize that usually they just lose more resources for no reason and will just fight back.

And again, my suggestion is in the context of very high prices on PK count removal, so any uberPKer will still get punished harshly if they decide to go too far. But a casual PKer, who just kills when he really needs to, would have a buffer of PKs where they'd get the loot and not get killed in the process. Well, that is if no one else was around, but at that point it's on the attacker to weigh their chances.

I think the real pacifist greens would prefer a 80% chance to get their resources back, based on the Pareto principle

And the PK would also be satisfied with a 20% success rate on his side (if there would be no gear loss)
The problem is that even in such a case, I do not like that the pacifist greens would be encouraged to run or stay passively to be killed. The game probably can statistically detect them and they should be encouraged to fight back.

Ludullu

Neurath wrote: »

I think they should be playing ashes which is pvx, I don't think they shouldn't play but they make their own decisions.

I think loss is an acceptable risk. Giving resources back offers no risk for them and diminished reward for bounty hunters.

The BH still takes the risk of going after a Pker who might've PKed some random lowbie who had nothing on him. And I think you said that you do want to go after PKers who kill lowbies, so in theory your only reward would be the system-based one (cause the PKer himself would probably only have trash on him).

And at that point, how is my suggestion any different from you serving justice to those PKers? And if the corruption gain/removal values remain as they currently seem to be, like I said before, I'm pretty sure the only PKers in the game will be the ones I described above. So there'd probably be no BHs that would take the job for purely selfish reasons of trying to get the green's loot.

Also, as I've explained before, the green will lose time and gear mats (cause decay is stronger on a normal death), so unless his resources were so precious that a portion of them could've covered those expenses - the green would be at a loss even if the resources are returned. And if those resources were in fact that valuable, I'd hope most people would just flag up to minimize their losses or, of course, just try to flee. So, again, my resource returnal system would most likely only impact the weakest of the greens, so if you're a tough top lvl BH ya ain't earning shit with their loot.

Solvryn

Neurath wrote: »

I think they should be playing ashes which is pvx, I don't think they shouldn't play but they make their own decisions.

I think loss is an acceptable risk. Giving resources back offers no risk for them and diminished reward for bounty hunters.

If a Corrupted player kills 10 people and has a shit ton of material and theres a small 10% that goes back to the Greens. BH is still going to be worth it.

Especially if that corrupted player is a level 50 in decent armor, the BH will get their moneys worth.

Ludullu

Strevi wrote: »

The problem is that even in such a case, I do not like that the pacifist greens would be encouraged to run or stay passively to be killed. The game probably can statistically detect them and they should be encouraged to fight back.

I'm not sure that a random pacifist green would be forethinking enough to calculate on the fly the chances of him getting his mats back. He'll either value them highly enough to fight back or just try to run away because he doesn't want to pvp.

It's not like people would somehow know for sure the precise success rate of the BH system. The risk/reward calculation remains, it just gets a new part for the consideration of the player. "Do I risk dying here, losing time, gaining gear decay - all in hopes of a BH (and not a random passerby) getting my resources back to me? Or do I just fucking run like hell? Oh, his attack did a ton of damage to me, I might not make it if I run, should I just flag up and lose less stuff?" All of this remains.

Strevi

NiKr wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

The problem is that even in such a case, I do not like that the pacifist greens would be encouraged to run or stay passively to be killed. The game probably can statistically detect them and they should be encouraged to fight back.

I'm not sure that a random pacifist green would be forethinking enough to calculate on the fly the chances of him getting his mats back. He'll either value them highly enough to fight back or just try to run away because he doesn't want to pvp.

It's not like people would somehow know for sure the precise success rate of the BH system. The risk/reward calculation remains, it just gets a new part for the consideration of the player. "Do I risk dying here, losing time, gaining gear decay - all in hopes of a BH (and not a random passerby) getting my resources back to me? Or do I just fucking run like hell? Oh, his attack did a ton of damage to me, I might not make it if I run, should I just flag up and lose less stuff?" All of this remains.

How often we expect a pacifist green to be killed in a 30 day play time?

Ludullu

Strevi wrote: »

How often we expect a pacifist green to be killed in a 30 day play time?

Oh, that'd be too hard to calculate. Even with lower corruption penalties, I doubt that people would just go around killing random other players. But in the context of a fully packed server, I'd imagine there'd be at least ~100 players who'd PK a dude or two every other day. But with that being spread across all the greens on the server, even if we assume that half a server is purely pacifist greens (hiiiighly doubt it'd be that), any given green would die maybe a few times a month? Maybe even less, if they're lucky or just don't traverse places that would warrant someone else attacking them?

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

How often we expect a pacifist green to be killed in a 30 day play time?

Oh, that'd be too hard to calculate. Even with lower corruption penalties, I doubt that people would just go around killing random other players. But in the context of a fully packed server, I'd imagine there'd be at least ~100 players who'd PK a dude or two every other day. But with that being spread across all the greens on the server, even if we assume that half a server is purely pacifist greens (hiiiighly doubt it'd be that), any given green would die maybe a few times a month? Maybe even less, if they're lucky or just don't traverse places that would warrant someone else attacking them?

This is in no way the important thing, though.

The problem with PvP heavy games is not 'how often you get killed' it is 'what content you were trying to do when you got killed'.

It's very easy to not get killed in most such games. Don't go near anything interesting.

The statistical distribution of deaths should be viewed relative to engagement, not time.

Strevi

NiKr wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

How often we expect a pacifist green to be killed in a 30 day play time?

Oh, that'd be too hard to calculate. Even with lower corruption penalties, I doubt that people would just go around killing random other players. But in the context of a fully packed server, I'd imagine there'd be at least ~100 players who'd PK a dude or two every other day. But with that being spread across all the greens on the server, even if we assume that half a server is purely pacifist greens (hiiiighly doubt it'd be that), any given green would die maybe a few times a month? Maybe even less, if they're lucky or just don't traverse places that would warrant someone else attacking them?

Good that I asked.

Not sure what @Dygz is talking about. This is clearly a PvE friendly game.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

The statistical distribution of deaths should be viewed relative to engagement, not time.

Yeah, that kinda what I meant by the last line of text. I'm not sure how many truly pacifist greens would randomly go deep into a high lvl dungeon to gather something on their own. I'm sure there'd be a few who'd try, but at that point they gotta realize the risks of doing that and were either ok with those or were just crazy enough to attempt this w/o thinking it through.

And outside of those high value locations, random artisanal actions or even chill mob killing would only fell prey to the more hardcore PKers, who'd go out looking for a weak target. And at that point it's all about luck. How many greens were in the area at the time of the PKer's arrival, how many (if any) BHs were close by and how fast could that PKer go through those greens. I personally doubt that this kind of thing would be a common occurrent on any given server.

Ludullu

Strevi wrote: »

Good that I asked.
Not sure what Dygz is talking about. This is clearly a PvE friendly game.

I wouldn't go quite as far as saying that, but I do think that even laxer corruption penalties wouldn't suddenly make Ashes into a full-on gankbox. But Dygz doesn't care about any of that because he's a rare breed of player with very strong convictions and a very particular ruleset for games, especially when it comes to pvp.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

The statistical distribution of deaths should be viewed relative to engagement, not time.

Yeah, that kinda what I meant by the last line of text. I'm not sure how many truly pacifist greens would randomly go deep into a high lvl dungeon to gather something on their own. I'm sure there'd be a few who'd try, but at that point they gotta realize the risks of doing that and were either ok with those or were just crazy enough to attempt this w/o thinking it through.

And outside of those high value locations, random artisanal actions or even chill mob killing would only fell prey to the more hardcore PKers, who'd go out looking for a weak target. And at that point it's all about luck. How many greens were in the area at the time of the PKer's arrival, how many (if any) BHs were close by and how fast could that PKer go through those greens. I personally doubt that this kind of thing would be a common occurrent on any given server.

You're kinda misunderstanding it MAYBE?

So I'll parallel to TL or 'a hypothetical PvP-enabled FFXI'.

A game contains a certain amount of fun content, a certain amount of rewarding content, and a certain amount of 'filler/learning' content.

Once you've got through the filler/learning, assuming that the game's anti-PK system was strong enough to prevent seal-clubbing in the first place, you now want to do something else. Note that your options are:

"Do something interesting in Ashes, or do something interesting in TL/FFXIPvP."

In that moment, ignore all systems, ignore the 'competition'. The player has all games available. The player does not currently feel like engaging in PvP very much, so they do not seek PvP content.

Why would one choose to play the game where you are more likely to meet a PvP opponent at the 'fun/rewarding content'? That opponent is not only there to do that content, they're there because they KNOW it's a funnel. Other people are going there. They attack whoever, even just to 'check if they are strong'. Even moreso if they have a chokepoint on the WAY to the content instead of being at it, where they have to worry about other strong players if they go Red.

To the PvP-averse player, 'a different game' is always a better option WHEN they are not in the mood for PvP, because the 'interesting parts' of Ashes will almost always create a higher risk for PvP.

But in Ashes specifically, 'random artisanal actions' or 'mob killing' are economic factors and therefore 'interesting'. Compare this to TL where you know beforehand that a lot of players will be in a 'contest zone' at Timing A, you can go there after, or before. You can structure your dungeon adventures around escaping from these players somewhat, probably. Or a 'PvP FFXI' where despite mob-killing being equally economically viable, you don't have the concept of 'higher reward so higher risk of PvP' spelled out so cleanly (I'm not even referring to Open Seas, it's just a different style of game when it comes to that).

Corruption is just generally a 'weak' system for incentivizing PvP of all forms, it is moreso part of the 'Risk vs Reward' system than the Player Interaction system, because a Pacifist could be GOOD at PvP and still not in the mood for it because they are not hardcore enough a PvP-er.

A game with Corruption as the Anti-PK mechanism does not help that person, what they want is to be able to 'go to interesting content and not have to immediately expect that PvP will happen because the PvP crowd is also looking for PvP content there'.

This is why Karma doesn't work in BDO anymore basically at all, and 'instead' Karma Bombing is a thing. The stubborn will 'pay exp to get the PvP player to move' but if that takes too long, they are better off just going "I'll go play something else".

It is in this way that Ashes is designed for the 'hardcore PvP-er'. The person who goes to an area seeking PvP or PvE content in equal measure at minimum. They don't have an 'intent to enjoy the PvE content', they'll take whichever they get.

Dygz

NiKr wrote: »

I'm not sure that a random pacifist green would be forethinking enough to calculate on the fly the chances of him getting his mats back. He'll either value them highly enough to fight back or just try to run away because he doesn't want to pvp.

More likely to just stand there die and give the PKer Corruption so the encounter ends as quickly as possible.
Also, it's not like it's a guarantee the best resources will be the ones that drop.

NiKr wrote: »

It's not like people would somehow know for sure the precise success rate of the BH system. The risk/reward calculation remains, it just gets a new part for the consideration of the player. "Do I risk dying here, losing time, gaining gear decay - all in hopes of a BH (and not a random passerby) getting my resources back to me? Or do I just fucking run like hell? Oh, his attack did a ton of damage to me, I might not make it if I run, should I just flag up and lose less stuff?" All of this remains.

Doesn't seem like much of a risk v reward calculation.
I dunno that resource return is going to sufficiently ammeliorate the other death penalties.
Either Corruption works sufficiently enough as a deterrent for unwanted PvP or it doesn't.
What happens after the death penalties are applied are mostly irrelevant. Same as death from a mob.
I think the decision is more, "Do I want to halve the death penalties or do I want to give my attacker Corruption?"
I don't need my resources back - just as I don't need my resources back when I die from a mob.
I really just need to minimize the occurences of unwanted PvP - regardless of who wins the encounter.

Dygz

NiKr wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

Good that I asked.
Not sure what Dygz is talking about. This is clearly a PvE friendly game.

I wouldn't go quite as far as saying that, but I do think that even laxer corruption penalties wouldn't suddenly make Ashes into a full-on gankbox. But Dygz doesn't care about any of that because he's a rare breed of player with very strong convictions and a very particular ruleset for games, especially when it comes to pvp.

Considering that PvE-Only servers always have the largest populations in MMORPGs, I can't agree that I'm a rare breed when it comes to PvP convictions. We'd have to get some stats on how often players on PvP-Optional servers flag for PvP to get a decent idea of how rare my PvP-sometimes playstyle is.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

It is in this way that Ashes is designed for the 'hardcore PvP-er'. The person who goes to an area seeking PvP or PvE content in equal measure at minimum. They don't have an 'intent to enjoy the PvE content', they'll take whichever they get.

Yeah, I guess this is the core point here. Because as I see it, if to that green pacifist the most interesting content is happening somewhere dangerous - the pacifist will probably just play another game. I'm probably just generalizing non-pvpers too much, because 99% of my mmo experience has been with pvxers so I got zero real clue how non-pvpers play games. I just imagine a carebear who's enjoying their 1-2h of chill fishing or simpler solo mobs on the plains, rather than some hardcore pver who's deep in a dungeon fighting the strongest mobs in the game.

By the looks of the systems, I'd assume that only green gatherers will be in the most danger of leaving the game, because their preferred content puts them right next to the pvpers. While both other branches of artisanry and RPing can be done quite some ways away from those pvpers. At which point we'd have to come back to our discussion of waterfalls and funnels of players around the gathering profession, but I think we've discussed that enough already so I'll forgo that particular interaction for now.

In the end, it'll come down to the variety of content and variety of locations for said content. Obviously there'll be people who'll leave the game sooner rather than later because their play sessions will get interrupted by pvpers a few too many times, but that'd be inevitable in a game like Ashes.

Ludullu

Dygz wrote: »

I dunno that resource return is going to sufficiently ammeliorate the other death penalties.

Don't tell Neurath, but my initial idea for this suggestion was to give buffs to the victims that would pretty much return their lost time

Dygz wrote: »

I really just need to minimize the occurrences of unwanted PvP - regardless of who wins the encounter.

And I do believe that it would be quite rare even if my suggestion was implemented. But obviously I can't say for sure w/o seeing either system on a proper live server.

Dygz wrote: »

Considering that PvE-Only servers always have the largest populations in MMORPGs, I can't agree that I'm a rare breed when it comes to PvP convictions. We'd have to get some stats on how often players on PvP-Optional servers flag for PvP to get a decent idea of how rare my PvP-sometimes playstyle is.

Perhaps that is the case. Most likely even is.

Dygz

Azherae wrote: »

"Do something interesting in Ashes, or do something interesting in TL/FFXIPvP."

In that moment, ignore all systems, ignore the 'competition'. The player has all games available. The player does not currently feel like engaging in PvP very much, so they do not seek PvP content.

Why would one choose to play the game where you are more likely to meet a PvP opponent at the 'fun/rewarding content'? That opponent is not only there to do that content, they're there because they KNOW it's a funnel. Other people are going there. They attack whoever, even just to 'check if they are strong'. Even moreso if they have a chokepoint on the WAY to the content instead of being at it, where they have to worry about other strong players if they go Red.

To the PvP-averse player, 'a different game' is always a better option WHEN they are not in the mood for PvP, because the 'interesting parts' of Ashes will almost always create a higher risk for PvP.

But in Ashes specifically, 'random artisanal actions' or 'mob killing' are economic factors and therefore 'interesting'. Compare this to TL where you know beforehand that a lot of players will be in a 'contest zone' at Timing A, you can go there after, or before. You can structure your dungeon adventures around escaping from these players somewhat, probably. Or a 'PvP FFXI' where despite mob-killing being equally economically viable, you don't have the concept of 'higher reward so higher risk of PvP' spelled out so cleanly (I'm not even referring to Open Seas, it's just a different style of game when it comes to that).

Yes. And this is actually becoming more of an issue now that Ashes is not releasing "before 2020".
Before 2020, I spent a decade disliking the WoW expansions and the EQ2/Themepark MMORPGs.
By 2013, I was looking for the next generation of MMORPGs. Like EQNext.
Ashes has a lot of the features I liked from EQNext and was scheduled to release fairly soon... so, that seemed to be the frst game that would have systems that would allow us to literally ever quest.

I like PvP sometimes, but typically play on PvE-Only servers - I'm very curious about how you get PvP-adverse players to play on the same servers as hardcore PvPers. If there's pretty much only one next genaration MMORPG available - it might be worth trying to accept no separate PvE servers and always being attackable by other players.
But...

In 2020, the WoW: Shadowbane expansion was fairly decent.
In 2022/23, the WoW: Dragonflight expansion is excellent and doing a fantastic job of allowing max level characters to ever quest.
There's also a few other UE5 MMORPGs on the horizon for a 2023 release that have less focus on hardcore PvP than Ashes.

So, indeed, the question becomes...
Why do I need to settle for Ashes and hardcore PvP when I can have fun in an MMORPG with no PvP (like WoW) or less PvP than Ashes (like TL)?

Songcaller

Risk vs reward. Say it until you love it. It's not a happy hand holding high hope of never being unhappy with an outcome.

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