After 6 Years you finally made me post (freeholds/etc... feedback).

I was debating whether I should make this post because I was hoping to wait for Alpha Two so I can give feedback on design flaws or exploits during the testing period. However, with the new update to the freeholds system and the drama surrounding it. I think this topic cannot wait.

To begin, I do not think that many people can see the problems that will follow when a bad design is implemented and the long-lasting impact it will have on a game. Past games also believed that their players would socialize and work together but every single time it has been proven wrong because developers just don’t understand human nature.

With that said.

For those of you who don’t want to read any further the current update to the freehold system in my own opinion is a complete failure and when you are asking people to pay $15 a month for a game where the most sought-after endgame artisan skills (farming/animal husbandry) are tie to limited amount of players in a fantasy MMORPG, it is the most insane thing I have ever heard.

Let’s start off with “freeholds are a privilege not a right” which in my opinion are a poor choice of wording. The words should only be used in legal status and not in video game development.

We already have things that are considered privileges such as castles, flying mounts, and legendary items. If you really wanted to add privileges to freeholds, then it should be done through the blueprint system. The blueprints should be a 1% drop rate and also be acquired through endgame raid bosses for the higher-end stations. You simply can’t keep putting exclusivity on everything in the game.

You also can’t keep saying the game is not for everyone because eventually the game will be for no one. With this redesign you have ensured that there will be a massive player drop off and guarantee that there will be no player growth after the first few months, new players will learn the importance of limited freeholds and simply choose not to play. Those who are currently playing that lose their freeholds will just quit. They will not try to win them back, which am assuming you think players would do.

Let’s look at ArcheAge housing system for a moment. If people couldn’t get land to place anything above an 8x8 farm or if they lost their land during server mergers, they would just quit the game. The main problem with ArcheAge housing is that they had different size plots for different types of housing/farms, and they allowed the players to place it anywhere in the area that allowed housing which led to players placing their houses and farms to take up as much space as they can.

During 2017-2020 most people assume that maybe 80% of a server population would be able to get a freehold and the other 20% would have in-node housing and join a family to gain access to the freehold system. Then people assumed that everyone could get a freehold, but you might not get it in the spot that you wanted. Also, you had a grace period to save your freehold or that it wouldn’t be hard to get a new spot for your freehold.

If you think that having large number of freeholds which are right next to each other, breaks game immersion then that ship sailed long ago with the teddy bear mount and other cosmetics. If the problem is really that you don’t want to have those player towns, then I suggest you look at some fortified villages that were built to protect them from raiders and design the free hold plots to fit into the world.

My thoughts on current changes to the freeholds

Why was the size increased? I see a lot of wasted space in the game with large distances between locations on the freehold. If you already playing to make guild freeholds than make them the 1.5 or 2 acres Why did you make freeholds extremely limited when you know from other games that this is a determining factor if people play your game? Why are you making it more focused on the family system when there are other systems that can fit that need? I think you assume too much on how people will act in gaming and ignore basic human nature. In my opinion, the new freehold system will kill off the player base. Just like all of the other games that have similar player housing designs. At least ArcheAge gave you an 8x8 to start off with. Then the game devs went back to help solve this issue by creating two whole new zones just for player housing and an 8x8 tower house.

I would like to remind Intrepid studios about some of their comments on other games.

You did not like the fact that in other games had game mechanics that would destroy a player’s personal progression.

But you are ok with it now.

You did not like the fact that in New World that guilds(company) who own territory got the gold when players used the crafting stations in that town.

But you are ok with it now.

I do not think that these changes to the freehold system should have been made without a Lead Game Designer.

My Feedback on freeholds
1. Decrease the size back down to .5 acres.
2. Remove the bidding system.
3. Remove the parcel system.
4. Put designated plots in the world where players can buy them with gold.
5. Allow 3 or 4 stations beside the house.
6. Make the area where players buy freeholds look like fortified villages in real life, if immersion is that important.
7. Remove Inn and apartment housing (they are not real player housing anyway if you can’t craft).
8. Remove in-node housing and replace it with in-node freeholds (these should be the privilege and limited freeholds).
9. Make the blueprints for the higher tier crafting stations hard to get such as 1% drop rates and raid bosses.

Other Feedback

Hire a psychology consultant like other video game studios, to get a better understanding of how people will socialize with your game designs to see if they would work or not. Also, let’s do some quick math about the income that Ashes will need to generate to keep afloat. Ashes of Creation would need 1 million players for the first 3 months, which would equate to 45,000,000.00 to break even on the development of the game and only if the cost hasn’t surpassed that number. I would have to say that after the first 6 months of release of Ashes and this is the freehold update that makes it to live, I would argue that there would be around 150,000 players left and by the 1-year mark I would say it will drop down between 25,000 -50,000 across both NA/EU which will then hinder the continuous development for Ashes of Creation. If the data from the other PvX games that are similar to Ashes of Creation are to go by then it shows us that the main reasons why the player base quits is due to the destruction of a player progression of the game and limited player housing. Why does anyone think that Ashes of Creation won’t face these same problems that other PvX games had is beyond me.

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Comments

Dygz

It's not just visuals. And I'd say what has changed is more than flavor.
The way games are made has changed significantly, but I don't think that was Noaani's point.
Again, some design patterns have changed significantly; some have stayed the same.
Some genres have stayed the same; some have changed significantly.

We don't merely have the same elements. It's like saying a PC built in 1990 is the same as a PC built in 2020.
It's like saying the process for creating and applying Klingon prosthetics in 2020 is the same as it was in 1990.
Much of that is the same - and there are also significant differences.

It's not at all like saying chemistry has changed because it's not really that chemistry "changes" - it's not a human creation - rather, our understanding of chemistry and how we can use it changes.

This miscommunication with Noaani feels to me like the miscommunication you had with me over Node mechanics.
You aren't completely wrong... But what you are talking about does not seem to me to be what Noanni is talking about.

Depraved

Dygz wrote: »

It's not just visuals. And I'd say what has changed is more than flavor.
The way games are made has changed significantly, but I don't think that was Noaani's point.
Again, some design patterns have changed significantly; some have stayed the same.
Some genres have stayed the same; some have changed significantly.

We don't merely have the same elements. It's like saying a PC built in 1990 is the same as a PC built in 2020.
It's like saying the process for creating and applying Klingon prosthetics in 2020 is the same as it was in 1990.
Much of that is the same - and there are also significant differences.

It's not at all like saying chemistry has changed because it's not really that chemistry "changes" - it's not a human creation - rather, our understanding of chemistry and how we can use it changes.

hardware has changed more than software in the last 70 years, which is strange because software should be changing (or be easier to change) than hardware xDDD

what design patterns have changed?

what genres have changed? other than adding elements of other genres. which was what I was talking about. just the rearrangement of elements has changed, but the elements themselves haven't

Depraved

example of shooters. how do shooters allow you to shoot? well you have projectiles, ray casting (the uneducated only knows it as hitscan) and hybrid. this changed 30 years ago when doom or wolfenstein (forgot which one was it, but pretty sure it was doom) started to use ray casting for bullets. this hasnt changed after that. the flavor of weapons has, the visuals, etc, which is my point, but not the very core of what a shooter is, a game where you shoot bullets (or aprojectile or something).

the cameras in fps hasnt changed...you know, tis still first person... just throwing that out there. you have 1st 2nd and 3rd person cameras, top down and isometric (which is top down at an angle). a radar is just a top down camera that sits above you and uses different sprites to render thing on the screen on the radar area. etc etc etc

until somebody comes up with a way to shoot bullets that isnt a projectile, raycasting or hybrid, to shoot things at other things, the way shooters are made hasnt changed.

waiting for someone to invent the 4th, 5th and 6th person cameras.

sure you can add a wall that follows the player and kills them or hurts them (which is an element of other game genres) and put players who will be shooting at each other in an island, and boom you got a battle royale. doesnt mean the way you made shooters has changed. you are just adding elements from other games. sure your idea might be original, but the way that idea came to life and the process and elements behind it, wasnt,(design, add art, vfx, sfx, implement, tools, patterns etc etc), therefore the way you design and implement sofwtare hasnt really changed.

and we can go deeper than that. sequence, selection and iteration. period. that hasnt changed in 50 years? but we are talking about design here so maybe lets not go that deep.

Dygz

Depraved wrote: »

what design patterns have changed?

There was a time when website designs did not include video and sound.
There was a time when website design did not include space for cookies and ads.

Depraved wrote: »

what genres have changed? other than adding elements of other genres. which was what I was talking about. just the rearrangement of elements has changed, but the elements themselves haven't

So... you're saying that UE5 adds no significant changes to, say, character creation?
And character creation is designed, today, exactly like it was in 1997. In 1997, we could create exactly the same kinds of characters we can today?
And... in 1997 we had all the exact same genres of games that we do in 2023?
Nothing has changed. Everything is designed exactly the same.
If I play Ashes of Creation, when I see a mountain off in the distance, I'll still have to bump into a variety of invisible walls that will cause me to have to wait 30 seconds for the next area to buffer...??
There's no difference.

Action Combat in MMORPGs does not exist? Combat still looks and feels, in all MMORPGs, exactly like Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen? Traveling through the air on flying mounts is impossible so that means we still have to run on foot everywhere in all the MMORPGs available in 2023?

Depraved

Dygz wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

what design patterns have changed?

There was a time when website designs did not include video and sound.
There was a time when website design did not include space for cookies and ads.

Depraved wrote: »

what genres have changed? other than adding elements of other genres. which was what I was talking about. just the rearrangement of elements has changed, but the elements themselves haven't

So... you're saying that UE5 adds no significant changes to, say, character creation?
And character creation is designed, today, exactly like it was in 1997. In 1997, we could create exactly the same kinds of characters we can today?
And... in 1997 we had all the exact same genres of games that we do in 2023?
Nothing has changed. Everything is designed exactly the same.
If I play Ashes of Creation, when I see a mountain off in the distance, I'll still have to bump into a variety of invisible walls that will cause me to have to wait 30 seconds for the next area to buffer...??
There's no difference.

Action Combat in MMORPGs does not exist? Combat still looks and feels, in all MMORPGs, exactly like Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen? Traveling through the air on flying mounts is impossible so that means we still have to run on foot everywhere in all the MMORPGs available in 2023?

video and sound on websites isnt a design pattern...................................................
i think we need to define what a design pattern is...

also fyi there were websites back then with videos im sure you remember flash player. also youtube came out in 2005, and there were hosting sites before that.

ue5... that's a tool. tools help you write less code. you know, before ue5 you could have "ue5 features" on your games. you just had to manually code them yourself (or your team). remember that code in u5 was written by someone, and anyone could have written it as custom code as part of their own mini framework. the difference is ue5 now has some features out of the box, meaning you don't need to write them.

Dygz

You have to add video and sound into the website design at some point - in a manner that wasn't possible in the late 90s.
Again... you seem to focus on jargon that is unique your profession, but is not really the same thing that others outside of your profession are actually talking about.

Dygz

Depraved wrote: »

ue5... that's a tool. tools help you write less code. you know, before ue5 you could have "ue5 features" on your games. you just had to manually code them yourself (or your team). remember that code in u5 was written by someone, and anyone could have written it as custom code as part of their own mini framework. the difference is ue5 now has some features out of the box, meaning you don't need to write them.

Also... I gotta call bs that we could have had UE5 features in our games in the 1990s.
Manual coding was not why UE5 features were not implemented in 1990s video games.

Depraved

Dygz wrote: »

You have to add those into the design at some point.
Again... you seem to focus on jargon that is unique your profession, but is not really the same thing thatothers outside of your profession are actually talking about.

adding a video to your site isnt a design pattern (you could say its more related to marketing). adding captions to said video so that users with impaired hearing can understand the video is a design pattern. this is accessibility for example.

making your current link different from the rest of the links is also a design pattern

and you are probably right, most people arent talking about actual design...they are talking about feelings and subjective things that they think its design, then they want to argue about how they are right.

these patterns haven't really changed in 20 years.

the equivalent would be someone trying to argue with a doctor on what treatment they should receive since they get sick a lot. doesnt mean they are right.

Dygz

Jargon.
Again... what you mean when you say node mechanics is not what I mean when I say Node mechanics.
You are having your own pedantic conversation with yourself that really has nothing to do with what Noaani was trying to convey to you.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

You are having your own pedantic conversation with yourself that really has nothing to do with what Noaani was trying to convey to you.

Indeed he is.

My comment was quite general - on purpose.

Him going in to specifics is completely missing the point.

Depraved

Dygz wrote: »

Jargon.
Again... what you mean when you say node mechanics is not what I mean when I say Node mechanics.
You are having your own pedantic conversation with yourself that really has nothing to do with what Noaani was trying to convey to you.

no, he is saying that things have changed.

thing is we have to agree on what we are talking about...everybody here has a different definition of everything...

i mean i could call chairs tables, and tables pencils, and pencils computers then blame people for not understanding me...

Wimplo

So from someone new who hasn't played any of the testing yet, but will be in Alpha 2.

Ive listened to the monthly developer updates and trying to decipher what everything with the new freehold system entails, trying to gather how it was supposed to be before the "redevelopment" of that system, which I wasn't around for.

My initial thoughts were a lot of what some people are concerned about, it seems too exclusive, it seems like it will limit the gameplay to only those who have a freehold. etc. etc.

Star Wars Galaxies back in 2003, every player could have a house as far as I remember.. there were cities and houses everywhere. To me it didn't detract from the realism of the world at all, if anything it enhanced it.. it's an MMO.
There aren't multiple worlds in this game but it seems large enough to fit way more than the general feel i'm getting from what's described.

To the point of those who are FOR the main end game of the game to be tied to the most elite players only, from someone who hasn't been in pre testing, and isn't an avid forum scroller, that doesn't sound fun to me.

If that's the way it will be, you leave it to the mechanisms of people to do the right thing. I don't know if you can join a guild or a family to use the freehold as if you owned it, and if that's an option then I don't see a problem with it, provided the player base is large enough to have sufficient guilds and families with freeholds to use.

That being said, I don't see why they need to be so exclusive, if you alienate the average player, your population will shrink and the remaining populace, while maybe avid players, will be one large neck beard, and very toxic I'm sure.

I'm not against the hardcore player, I'm excited for this game and hope it's something special that I can put a lot of time into, but all this super toxic commentary already on a simple opinion thread is lame. This one thread won't change the track of the game, and the back and forth amongst the player base before it's even an actual game is pretty sad.

I hope to see a better side of the community!

Vaknar

Be sure to drop your feedback in the official thread as well! https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/55773/feedback-request-alpha-two-freehold-preview-shown-in-june-livestream/p1

We appreciate all of you sharing your feedback and concerns regarding the Freehold system

Boneshatter

Wimplo wrote: »

So from someone new who hasn't played any of the testing yet, but will be in Alpha 2.

Ive listened to the monthly developer updates and trying to decipher what everything with the new freehold system entails, trying to gather how it was supposed to be before the "redevelopment" of that system, which I wasn't around for.

My initial thoughts were a lot of what some people are concerned about, it seems too exclusive, it seems like it will limit the gameplay to only those who have a freehold. etc. etc.

Star Wars Galaxies back in 2003, every player could have a house as far as I remember.. there were cities and houses everywhere. To me it didn't detract from the realism of the world at all, if anything it enhanced it.. it's an MMO.
There aren't multiple worlds in this game but it seems large enough to fit way more than the general feel i'm getting from what's described.

To the point of those who are FOR the main end game of the game to be tied to the most elite players only, from someone who hasn't been in pre testing, and isn't an avid forum scroller, that doesn't sound fun to me.

If that's the way it will be, you leave it to the mechanisms of people to do the right thing. I don't know if you can join a guild or a family to use the freehold as if you owned it, and if that's an option then I don't see a problem with it, provided the player base is large enough to have sufficient guilds and families with freeholds to use.

That being said, I don't see why they need to be so exclusive, if you alienate the average player, your population will shrink and the remaining populace, while maybe avid players, will be one large neck beard, and very toxic I'm sure.

I'm not against the hardcore player, I'm excited for this game and hope it's something special that I can put a lot of time into, but all this super toxic commentary already on a simple opinion thread is lame. This one thread won't change the track of the game, and the back and forth amongst the player base before it's even an actual game is pretty sad.

I hope to see a better side of the community!

You aren't wrong. People aren't annoyed that the game has some exclusivity, they're annoyed that some of the game's most prominent features will be highly exclusive. Many people would consider things like personal businesses, crafting, and RP centric items to be base features of a game.

Noaani

Depraved wrote: »

thing is we have to agree on what we are talking about...

Go back to my comment.

I said

Noaani wrote: »

trying to recreate a game from 20 years ago but with the playerbase of today isnt necessarily the best fit.

Now, I'm not calling tables chairs here or anything. It is a very basic comment.

I didn't talk about design, you did. I didn't talk about programming, you did. I didn't talk about FPS games, you did. I didn't talk about the process of making games, you did.

All I said was that trying to recreate a game from 20 years ago but with the playerbase of today isn't necessarily the best fit.

Everything else - any other terms - these are all things you have introduced.

Simple question for you. Do you believe that either EQ2 or L2 could be re-released now and gain a population to match WoW, FFXIV or ESO?

If you do not believe this to be realistic, then you agree with the statement that I made.

Mag7spy

20 years ago gameplay is definitely outdated, looking at both these it be clear which i would want to play simply just looking at it. Tab is just outdated, as time passes more people will feel that until it is fully one sided.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8E1pGSK9g4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX1KE7mIRDE

Things are kind of added on over time, and genre's mixing together. So mmorpgs having more action elements towards full action, action games having more rpg qualities, shooters having rpg and light mmorpg qualities.

Gameplay experiences grow and become more complex but overall the concepts are still the same. Though there are some cases where things are a bit different like with battle royals and extractions shooters.

Depraved

Noaani wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

thing is we have to agree on what we are talking about...

Go back to my comment.

I said

Noaani wrote: »

trying to recreate a game from 20 years ago but with the playerbase of today isnt necessarily the best fit.

Now, I'm not calling tables chairs here or anything. It is a very basic comment.

I didn't talk about design, you did. I didn't talk about programming, you did. I didn't talk about FPS games, you did. I didn't talk about the process of making games, you did.

All I said was that trying to recreate a game from 20 years ago but with the playerbase of today isn't necessarily the best fit.

Everything else - any other terms - these are all things you have introduced.

Simple question for you. Do you believe that either EQ2 or L2 could be re-released now and gain a population to match WoW, FFXIV or ESO?

If you do not believe this to be realistic, then you agree with the statement that I made.

not sure about eq, but yes to l2. l2 has the biggest private server community after wow, aka 2nd biggest private server community.

if you re-release the game as f2p and remove the p2w, all the p. server players will be motivated to play it, as you wont have to worry about servers closing, etc. probably people who play in high rates only wont play it, but people who play in low rate will.

edit: btw aoc is a "re-release" of l2. 80-90% of aoc is l2 with a few tweaks here and there. add updated graphics, naval combat and caravans to l2 and u have aoc

another edit. games are released all the time. starcraft and diablo 2 remastered, dead space remastered, resident evil directors cut. re 1,2, 3,4 etc etc etc and people buy them.

Depraved

Mag7spy wrote: »

20 years ago gameplay is definitely outdated, looking at both these it be clear which i would want to play simply just looking at it. Tab is just outdated, as time passes more people will feel that until it is fully one sided.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8E1pGSK9g4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX1KE7mIRDE

Things are kind of added on over time, and genre's mixing together. So mmorpgs having more action elements towards full action, action games having more rpg qualities, shooters having rpg and light mmorpg qualities.

Gameplay experiences grow and become more complex but overall the concepts are still the same. Though there are some cases where things are a bit different like with battle royals and extractions shooters.

lots of people prefer tab over action T_T

Mag7spy

Depraved wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

20 years ago gameplay is definitely outdated, looking at both these it be clear which i would want to play simply just looking at it. Tab is just outdated, as time passes more people will feel that until it is fully one sided.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8E1pGSK9g4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX1KE7mIRDE

Things are kind of added on over time, and genre's mixing together. So mmorpgs having more action elements towards full action, action games having more rpg qualities, shooters having rpg and light mmorpg qualities.

Gameplay experiences grow and become more complex but overall the concepts are still the same. Though there are some cases where things are a bit different like with battle royals and extractions shooters.

lots of people prefer tab over action T_T

If we take all gamers as a whole on the type of combat they would prefer in this current year, compared to players 20 years ago. There is a huge shift in what players want. It is not saying people won't stick to tab (older generation of mmorpg players) but some of the older generation prefer action over tab)

There is a giant of untapped players that have not got into mmorpgs or had a reason for it that also needs to be taken into account. WoW was able to be main stream and capture the casual audience / non normal mmorpg players. Its a pretty easy take to say they would prefer more action originated gameplay.

Depraved

Mag7spy wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

20 years ago gameplay is definitely outdated, looking at both these it be clear which i would want to play simply just looking at it. Tab is just outdated, as time passes more people will feel that until it is fully one sided.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8E1pGSK9g4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX1KE7mIRDE

Things are kind of added on over time, and genre's mixing together. So mmorpgs having more action elements towards full action, action games having more rpg qualities, shooters having rpg and light mmorpg qualities.

Gameplay experiences grow and become more complex but overall the concepts are still the same. Though there are some cases where things are a bit different like with battle royals and extractions shooters.

lots of people prefer tab over action T_T

If we take all gamers as a whole on the type of combat they would prefer in this current year, compared to players 20 years ago. There is a huge shift in what players want. It is not saying people won't stick to tab (older generation of mmorpg players) but some of the older generation prefer action over tab)

There is a giant of untapped players that have not got into mmorpgs or had a reason for it that also needs to be taken into account. WoW was able to be main stream and capture the casual audience / non normal mmorpg players. Its a pretty easy take to say they would prefer more action originated gameplay.

arent the most popular mmorpg tab targetted?

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