PvP Content for Small Groups/Guilds

I have been following Ashes for a long time and watching the updates, but I would not consider myself an expert on all that has been said and all of the design principles and goals. That having been said, it seems like the Castle siege content is aimed solely toward larger guilds. Is there PvP content geared toward smaller guilds? Has there been thought put into how to prevent massive zergs from dominating PvP and allowing for smaller groups to skirmish? What instanced content is planned, and has there been discussion of gear-based / skill-based / class-based matchmaking, role queues, etc.?

Thanks in advance!

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Songcaller

Steven has been generous and given us more information about PvP in the last month or so. The PvP is mostly objective based, scenario based and small scale based even in large scale fights. This means, smaller guilds and groups have as much chance as larger guilds/groups to perform well in given scenarios. It is true you might face higher numbers in open world but you can form alliances to help mitigate the risks.

George_Black

No instanced pvp progress.
You could become a pirate or a bandit.
As a pirate you could man a ship and play in PK free seas and steal mats, as a bandit you could raid caravans and steal mats or castle tax transport and steal gold from big guilds.

With your small group you could try to snatch a freehold and defend it during node sieges.

Castles are for zerg guilds.

My advice is to provide feedback to convey the message that large guilds need to have less tools to be manageble.
This will make zerg guilds less common and more real guilds with 80-100 people will appear. Proud independes guilds, that form true alliances.
Then your small group could find a place in such a guild with like minded people.

If you are looking for content tailored to small groups that excludes large numbers of people you are being unrealistic.

Again, there wont be emphasis on BGs.

Veeshan

i suspect caravans will be huge pvp content for smaller scale pvp this include naval caravan (trade ships)

Pyrolol

Kilion

Hasil wrote: »

I have been following Ashes for a long time and watching the updates, but I would not consider myself an expert on all that has been said and all of the design principles and goals. That having been said, it seems like the Castle siege content is aimed solely toward larger guilds. Is there PvP content geared toward smaller guilds? Has there been thought put into how to prevent massive zergs from dominating PvP and allowing for smaller groups to skirmish? What instanced content is planned, and has there been discussion of gear-based / skill-based / class-based matchmaking, role queues, etc.?

Thanks in advance!

Castle sieges only for big guilds:

Not true. First, the direct siege of the castle only takes place once a month, the three weeks before sieges at the castle nodes will take place where the node itself will be defended but also Caravan events will take place, which allows even smaller guilds to have massive impact. Next, we already know that sieges always allow for third parties to join. So for sufficient payment a small guild may join a siege on either side and probably the spoils of war will be distributed according to the contribution, similar to how it works with world bosses. And lastly the zerg argument doesn't really hit anymore in general, Intrepid has told us and it has been brought up multiple times that guilds that don't level member numbers will have much more guild member buff effects they can get than big guilds, making small guilds basically elite squats that big guilds can't do without. If waiting for the exact design of that system is unacceptable... well... what are you even doing here? XD

Small guild content

All group content is also content for small guilds - POIs, world events, world bosses, Caravans, dungeons, raids, exploration, sieges. Again, the zerg argument implies that Intrepid has never played an MMO and is unaware that player numbers alone can prove to be a huge advantage. However: The studio consists of players who have played all these games, they are aware of the issues and have announced systems to make sure that the power is not only in numbers.

Instanced dungeons

As far as I am aware it is primarily planned for story events and will at most be 20% of the dungeons. With that being said the constant anxiety about open world dungeons is something I don't understand at all. Just because a dungeon is open to multiple groups doesn't spell anywhere that everything is at any time accessible to everyone in that dungeon. Boss rooms might close off at some point in the fight and players might be able to intentionally block the way behind them that they took because they as much as the developer know that competition is a thing in this game. Also just because dungeons are open to multiple groups doesn't mean that there will always be multiple groups eager to slaughter each other - after all on sided PvP has much more down sides than upsides

Enigmatic Sage

It depends what you consider to be a "small" guild.

Blood_Raven

The most important aspect IMO for allowing small groups to have a chance in open world pvp is SPEED. A small group has to move faster then a zerg! A small group has to be able to see the larger group and be able to decide if they want to engage or not. If they do engage they also need speed to run away at the right time or they could get wiped out. There are a lot of mechanics to set this up but It is a needed element for fun open world pvp imo. SPEED always SPEED!

George_Black

Lots of mechanics

Name one

Vaknar

Both small and large guilds will have parts to play in PvP such as node sieges

Be sure to check out the wiki, where you can learn much about the many systems of Ashes of Creation!

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/

Blood_Raven

George_Black wrote: »

Lots of mechanics

Name one

1) A class that gives a very large speed boost to a group - if not all groups have said class then they cant keep up with the small group.

2) a speed buff for a group that gets smaller and smaller the more people in your group.

3) An item that gives speed buffs that most people in a zerg would not go out of their way to get etc..

George_Black

Only 2 will work.
A raid of more than 8 people should receive a speed reduction.
An army moves slower than an elite unit.
I am in agreement and perhaps I will make another thread about compating big guilds.
Less tools for guild management, speed debuffs for raids (ships as well), FH access capped at family instead of guild members.

WeGbored

Ppppppllllllllleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaassssssssseeeeeeeeeee!

Blood_Raven

George_Black wrote: »

Only 2 will work.

1) worked very well in Daoc there were never enough max level bards, minstrels, or Skalds to have a zerg move at max speed. Even after they introduced AOE songs that let everyone in the area get the buff people were dropping from the zerg all the time because the buff did not hit for a few moments etc. Generally the larger the group of people the slower they move just because of organizational issues.

That said, Speed is what will allow a small group to pvp effectively in open terrain without being over run with enemy zergs. Another way to help small groups vs large numbers is to have good crowd control, this does create some frustration for players however in large numbers when most of them are standing around not being able to help fight.

Arya_Yeshe

George_Black wrote: »

Only 2 will work.
A raid of more than 8 people should receive a speed reduction.
An army moves slower than an elite unit.
I am in agreement and perhaps I will make another thread about compating big guilds.
Less tools for guild management, speed debuffs for raids (ships as well), FH access capped at family instead of guild members.

No.

Less tools? What? You are hating on big guilds too much

Speed debuff? In AoC people won't be teleporting all the time, you will just make people feel misereable if they travel slowly at all times

Debuffs for big groups should be on healing and buffs... let the big guilds come with all their people, all their damage and speed, but they should not be able to overtank their party with buffs and healing. Let them come, fight and die

Mag7spy

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

Only 2 will work.
A raid of more than 8 people should receive a speed reduction.
An army moves slower than an elite unit.
I am in agreement and perhaps I will make another thread about compating big guilds.
Less tools for guild management, speed debuffs for raids (ships as well), FH access capped at family instead of guild members.

No.

Less tools? What? You are hating on big guilds too much

Speed debuff? In AoC people won't be teleporting all the time, you will just make people feel misereable if they travel slowly at all times

Debuffs for big groups should be on healing and buffs... let the big guilds come with all their people, all their damage and speed, but they should not be able to overtank their party with buffs and healing. Let them come, fight and die

Welcome back home.

Enigmatic Sage

The game shouldn't cater to or give handicap advantages to those who don't want to engage in the social dynamic of the game design because they chose to play it in "small groups". Your small group could just join several others and you would get a "larger" group... imagine that.

The game is primarily designed around open world content with "flagging" and participant decisions such as attacker/defender.

George_Black

There is nothing social about sheeple clicking to see what the highest ranked guild is and sent applications starting with No1 all the way to.. whoever takes them. And then all they do in the guild is being called upon to fill tank dps healer roles without any other interaction.

The zerg guild then simply proceeds to win by sheer numbers. We can do better than this. We can have real guilds with real members to the size of 80-100 people that know each other by name, play together all the time, instead of only fillint tank dps healther roles when the leader barks out ultimatums.
We can have real alliances of 1000 people made out of independed, real guilds.

And the way is by implementing suggestions.

Arya_Yeshe

No speed debuff, not on running or attack speed or cast speed

If any debuff comes by, should be on tank stuff and heals... since there is no friendly fire on their attack and cast spams, they should at least be paper thin if they get attacked

George_Black

You just said that.

Blood_Raven

Ultimately if you want a small group or just a group of 8 to be able to fight in an open world pvp where a zerg is operating, the small group has to be able to dictate the moment of engagement. It does not matter how as much as the possible ability to run away from the Zerg when it is spotted and escape. If the group is good enough they could try to fight the zerg but most times no group in any game is good enough to kill an entire zerg.

As for sieges (just my opinion) I find them boring and less demanding of a players skill. Over all I do enjoy smaller PvP engagements because your skill is more important to the outcome than a giant brawl of people. When I think about the most fun I have had in PvP over the years of games, the common thread is smaller fights with friends or guild mates. Running with zergs have never been fun for me, fighting zergs can be fun if you have the possibility of escaping other wise it is almost pointless to even try.

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