I don't believe there should be anything in Ashes in a Safe Zone that has any economic impact. I don't perceive that to be a solution either, because you will get the other side, where optimizers abuse that fiat protection from PvP.
Okay I think you might have misunderstood, I don't mean for these seperate experiences to interact with each other in any way that can spill over and affect a larger system, because that defeats the purpose of the larger more emergent system existing if your efforts can be subverted through a more simplistic system.
If there was a ton of instanced fishing competitions/content for example, I don't think you should be able to go into the open world and sell your fish or anything like that. I think there could be fun instanced fishing content, and its just that, its own experience using the design philosophies of Ashes, with rewards only relevant to that particular system (even if it takes place visibly within the open world within some in-game structure or something). Wheras, fisherman in the open world, would choose to participate in the open world for the added layers and complexity that it provides, and can sell fish in the open world because they earned those fish in the open world. Two separate experience options for different types of players, that is more the reasoning behind what I was saying. Maaaaybe allow for fish earned in the open world to be used in the instanced content, or better yet another "mode" where your open world rewards are relevant in that instanced content. You can see how scope creep could start to become a problem, though the conflict bwtween the different types of players within the playerbase could also be appeased to a higher degree, on the other hand.
I don't believe there should be anything in Ashes in a Safe Zone that has any economic impact. I don't perceive that to be a solution either, because you will get the other side, where optimizers abuse that fiat protection from PvP.
Okay I think you might have misunderstood, I don't mean for these seperate experiences to interact with each other in any way that can spill over and affect a larger system, because that defeats the purpose of the larger more emergent system existing if your efforts can be subverted through a more simplistic system.
If there was a ton of instanced fishing competitions/content for example, I don't think you should be able to go into the open world and sell your fish or anything like that. I think there could be fun instanced fishing content, and its just that, its own experience using the design philosophies of Ashes, with rewards only relevant to that particular system. Wheras, fishers in the open world, would choose to participate in the open world for the added layers and complexity that it provides, and can sell fish in the open world because they earned those fish in the open world. Two separate experience options for different types of players, that is more the reasoning behind what I was saying. Maaaaybe allow for fish earned in the open world to be used in the instanced content, or better yet another "mode" where your open world rewards are relevant in that instanced content. You can see how scope creep could start to become a problem, though the conflict bwtween the different types of players within the playerbase could also be appeased to a higher degree, on the other hand.
In Elite Dangerous, a player has the option to, at any time, log into a solo instance, a 'group instance' that can be just one's own guild, or play in 'Open'.
But my more important thought in response to 'themepark ride' style content such as 'instanced fishing contests with no capacity to level up your fishing or make any money from the fish' would be 'wouldn't it just be better to play a different game at that point, or just have an observer account in Ashes?'
Obviously the option to swap between 'Solo Play' and 'Open' is important sometimes for many reasons, though, so I get it. If Intrepid eventually decides to go with more instanced, 'meaningless to open world and Node system' content, though, I fear that the result would be similar to Elite.
But my more important thought in response to 'themepark ride' style content such as 'instanced fishing contests with no capacity to level up your fishing or make any money from the fish' would be 'wouldn't it just be better to play a different game at that point, or just have an observer account in Ashes?'
The main value would be through the properties unique to Ashes, being the execution on design pillars, as well as the potential content that might not be feasible with a small indie company providing a similar experience. Also, the social aspects of being able to talk to other mmo players about systems that you are all experiencing, regardless of whether it occurs as instanced or open world. It could also be something more abstract like the ratios of skill-checks that particular system demands on the player and how that compares to other titles with the same type of system, or the pacing of the gameplay, it could even be the implementation of pvp which may not be present for another similar type of system from another game, etc.
I mean, theres plenty of games I could play that mimic some kind of specific system I might engage with in Ashes, but its still appealing to me to have the idea of strategy, skill, risk/reward, other players to interact with, etc., at the forefront of said system and the decision-making process of the dev team behind that system's components. Probably some other aspects as well, hard to put tangible thoughts words on this idea at the moment but basically "why do we choose to play any game over another alternative similar game".
Obviously the option to swap between 'Solo Play' and 'Open' is important sometimes for many reasons, though, so I get it. If Intrepid eventually decides to go with more instanced, 'meaningless to open world and Node system' content, though, I fear that the result would be similar to Elite.
I interpret this as you saying "players will impose their preferred instanced content playstyle on the open world server"?
But my more important thought in response to 'themepark ride' style content such as 'instanced fishing contests with no capacity to level up your fishing or make any money from the fish' would be 'wouldn't it just be better to play a different game at that point, or just have an observer account in Ashes?'
The main value would be through the properties unique to Ashes, being the execution on design pillars, as well as the potential content that might not be feasible with a small indie company providing a similar experience. Also, the social aspects of being able to talk to other mmo players about systems that you are all experiencing, regardless of whether it occurs as instanced or open world. It could also be something more abstract like the ratios of skill-checks that particular system demands on the player and how that compares to other titles with the same type of system, or the pacing of the gameplay. I mean, theres plenty of games I could play that mimic some kind of specific system I might engage with in Ashes, but its still appealing to me to have the idea of strategy, skill, risk/reward, other players to interact with, etc., at the forefront of said system and the decision-making process of the dev team behind that system's components. Probably some other aspects as well, hard to put tangible thoughts words on this idea at the moment but basically "why do we choose to play any game over another alternative similar game".
Obviously the option to swap between 'Solo Play' and 'Open' is important sometimes for many reasons, though, so I get it. If Intrepid eventually decides to go with more instanced, 'meaningless to open world and Node system' content, though, I fear that the result would be similar to Elite.
I interpret this as you saying "players will impose their preferred instanced content playstyle on the open world server"?
Ah, no, I meant that we'd end up with something similar to 'two separate games' where there are a bunch of people who are trying to get through Ashes without ever having to seriously engage with non-themepark-ride content.
Also, I don't know if you're as aware but, depending on your level of abstraction, nearly nothing whatsoever in Ashes is original as an experience except maybe the 'Nodes look different from each other'. This was barely even true in 2016.
What has generally happened, is that a lot of people who are very into MMOs and disregarded certain trends and options in gaming, or were fans of very specific MMOs that Steven played (and therefore come across Ashes through word of mouth or similar) have less experience about what is 'out there'. Ashes is, at best 'not-broken ArcheAge'.
Which brings us to the last bit that the 'PvE-enjoyer' of the modern day is thinking. Why play Ashes when we have new upcoming games that can deliver all the same things without the parts I don't like? The appeal, to those people, would be 'the intensity of the world', because Ashes is not 'winning' on any other metric that anyone has actually seen, anymore.
I believe your post above is acknowledging that the specific combination of factors that Ashes provides, might be a good reason to play it, but that is a strange perception to me personally. Game design is highly convergent, to me, and MMOs are among the most convergent designs possible.
Basically, 'all MMOs with the same goals will turn out the same because there's only probably one way to do it correctly'.
That is actually the core, underlying premise of this thread. If you want your game to have micro-competition and macro-competition side by side and both be meaningful, your methods for getting this are pretty limited.
If you don't want that, and instead want to focus on macro-competition and 'Risk vs Reward', you have an original idea, that excludes a certain playerset. Which is ok because Ashes is not for everyone.
Why play Ashes when we have new upcoming games that can deliver all the same things without the parts I don't like? The appeal, to those people, would be 'the intensity of the world', because Ashes is not 'winning' on any other metric that anyone has actually seen, anymore.
Ah, no, I meant that we'd end up with something similar to 'two separate games' where there are a bunch of people who are trying to get through Ashes without ever having to seriously engage with non-themepark-ride content.
Oh, gotchya. You think that more instanced content would be the cause of this? To me, it would have the opposite effect, more instanced content would provide those players with that fix, so they arent looking for it in the open world, so the open world will draw the players who are interested in its natural appeal. I might be missing an obvious point you are trying to make on this though.
Also, I don't know if you're as aware but, depending on your level of abstraction, nearly nothing whatsoever in Ashes is original as an experience except maybe the 'Nodes look different from each other'. This was barely even true in 2016.
What has generally happened, is that a lot of people who are very into MMOs and disregarded certain trends and options in gaming, or were fans of very specific MMOs that Steven played (and therefore come across Ashes through word of mouth or similar) have less experience about what is 'out there
No im not aware. As im sure you know "in all your data" as you like to say, a general idea of what I like to play. Haven't really found anything super appealing. But like you said, the specific combination of Ashes is appealing to me, but you are also talking to someone who never actually seriously played an mmo and I have no development experience. I determine my preferences/opinions through analysis/extrapolation, so I actually have no idea what the actual "combination" will feel like in Ashes, even if I Iike its individual components. Some of my favorite gameplay was from single player games that I wish had pvp, because the combat systems were more fun to me than what I see on the market for a lot of fighting games/mobas. I also like the idea of being able to dabble in some of the other systems I haven't really experienced yet as well, though, like economy, naval, etc. and the idea of having them all in one place is convenient. I doubt I would actually like those playstyles as much though, I enjoy the faster paced, high mobility isometric competitive gameplay the most. So, im not really aware of many alternative options that are out there that would provide the gameplay feel/depth/pvp/etc. elements for each of those individual systems.
Basically, 'all MMOs with the same goals will turn out the same because there's only probably one way to do it correctly'.
That is actually the core, underlying premise of this thread. If you want your game to have micro-competition and macro-competition side by side and both be meaningful, your methods for getting this are pretty limited.
If you don't want that, and instead want to focus on macro-competition and 'Risk vs Reward', you have an original idea, that excludes a certain playerset. Which is ok because Ashes is not for everyone.
Yea I agree. I think the whole "basically just make separate games each with varying layers/degrees of depth in the macro-competition to cater to different types of players, smash them all together through things like instanced content, and call it Ashes", was basically my take on this, unless its not feasible, in which case I am on your side of sticking with the more hardcore pvx/emergent side of things and saying its not for everyone.
Why play Ashes when we have new upcoming games that can deliver all the same things without the parts I don't like? The appeal, to those people, would be 'the intensity of the world', because Ashes is not 'winning' on any other metric that anyone has actually seen, anymore.
Which games did you have your eye on?
Ah, sorry, I think you misread the 'I' in that sentence for meaning me, when, in context, it meant 'A person who enjoys open worlds and change factors, but does not enjoy the restricted micro-competition'.
So let's be clear, I personally want Ashes to soar like the blazing Phoenix it is, beyond Throne and Liberty (which seems to be taking the approach I expect of releasing a minimum product and iterating), beyond ArcheAge 2 (which is dialing back the harder structures), beyond Pax Dei (which is wobbling along trying to figure out how to be slightly better MineCraft), beyond Reign of Guilds (just look it up), beyond even the Riot MMO (good luck to them with that, though).
Hence my supercritical prickly attitude (despite which, I want to encourage and defend Ashes Devs at all times).
But just note that for a person with less faith and investment than me, Ashes is mostly words, and maybe some pain-point implementations. Looking at the same Riot MMO, a person might go 'That will probably never release, it'll be cardboard when it does, Riot only knows how to make lowest common denominator games'. But that's the same type of judgement that Ashes can get from a lot of people.
(I feel like I kinda-answered your 'question' even if it wasn't actually about me, lmk if I didn't)
Fishing can bring people together.
But maybe works only for PvP players because PvE players are greedy selfish jerks.
Also doubling down on this.
You label it as the PvE players, but you can use any label for any other-group you like. The point is, there are players who come to competitive games that have economies and are 'greedy selfish jerks' like me.
I don't care about your 'fair fights'. I don't care about what Corruption is 'supposed to do'. I want money and if you are in the way of my money and the game implies that killing you is the optimal answer to that, then I'm going to kill you because I didn't log into this game to lose.
True. I apologize. We are all selfish, willing to get the game we want.
2. A PvP-enjoyer (let's say me, a 'fishing rights enforcer') enters the game with the idea of getting good at controlling an economic space. That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space. But there's one catch to consider. In this case, the PvP-enjoyer has a vastly diminished incentive to cooperate compared to even a Survival game (but let's look at games where some attempt at simulating a world is happening, instead).
I do not understand this sentence: "That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space."
- micro-competition with the PvP skill
- micro-competition with the organizational ability
- micro-competition with the zerg factor?
Also "macro competition" is new to me.
I know a PvP player who likes fishing and he was sharing the fishing spot with another player in our guild.
Then he noticed a fisher being attacked by a creature. The player was from an enemy guild. We would kill each-other always on sight. Yet in that moment he rushed to save him. Just because in all the chaos of a full loot PvP world they shared the passion for fishing.
Fishing can bring people together.
But maybe works only for PvP players because PvE players are greedy selfish jerks.
I'll simplify.
I have 8 people in my group.
You don't get to fish by yourself in my area without one of them killing you. Ever.
What competition are we having?
This is not a risk vs reward setup.
If I can see your people and I have fewer in my group then is not a matter of risk. Not even a competition.
If you kill me even when I do not fight back, you become red and depending how valuable the fish is, you can do it once or a few more times. Then you have no choice but to let me fish.
But maybe you can solve that by pulling some NPCs to do the killing blow, which is a valid strategy.
Then I have no other option but to wait until there is nobody around.
That is when the risk happens. Maybe your people hide in water. Or maybe I stay too long and eventually I'll have no way to escape when you surround me. But if my reward was the fishing activity (not the fish) I could try giving it to you and you would get it 100% instead of just a fraction when I flag up.
Or maybe I will not give it to you if you are unfriendly. And I will try to escape somehow, maybe swimming if I have a water mount and then you can chase me. And that will be fun too
But such scenarios where you cannot progress because other players do something I seen even if you do not flag for PvP. For example in New World a quest would require a drop from a special alpha bear or wolf and players were camping that because not each could loot. Or resources were constantly mined by bots or very dedicated players. What kind of competition is that?
The only solution is to make every player be able to loot the resource from resource nodes or NPCs.
And PvE content to exist in instances, as many as needed. Then what kind of competition is that?
Players competing with themselves to see if they can progress a bit more against a preprogrammed AI?
Anyway, AoC will not go on this path.
It must be balanced to offer risk.
Your setup was not quite ok to deliver on this game pillar.
Why play Ashes when we have new upcoming games that can deliver all the same things without the parts I don't like? The appeal, to those people, would be 'the intensity of the world', because Ashes is not 'winning' on any other metric that anyone has actually seen, anymore.
Which games did you have your eye on?
Ah, sorry, I think you misread the 'I' in that sentence for meaning me, when, in context, it meant 'A person who enjoys open worlds and change factors, but does not enjoy the restricted micro-competition'.
So let's be clear, I personally want Ashes to soar like the blazing Phoenix it is, beyond Throne and Liberty (which seems to be taking the approach I expect of releasing a minimum product and iterating), beyond ArcheAge 2 (which is dialing back the harder structures), beyond Pax Dei (which is wobbling along trying to figure out how to be slightly better MineCraft), beyond Reign of Guilds (just look it up), beyond even the Riot MMO (good luck to them with that, though).
Hence my supercritical prickly attitude (despite which, I want to encourage and defend Ashes Devs at all times).
But just note that for a person with less faith and investment than me, Ashes is mostly words, and maybe some pain-point implementations. Looking at the same Riot MMO, a person might go 'That will probably never release, it'll be cardboard when it does, Riot only knows how to make lowest common denominator games'. But that's the same type of judgement that Ashes can get from a lot of people.
(I feel like I kinda-answered your 'question' even if it wasn't actually about me, lmk if I didn't)
You did indeed. Reassuring tbh as I tend to go all-in on one game at a time, and don't usually have time to keep an eye on all the competition. I get the impression there aren't any obvious challengers on the horizon.
Related: I wonder what the market is like generally for an MMO these days. Obviously at the heights of WoW (the game I know best) there was a lot of younger interest, whereas it seems the community has aged together and we're all 35+ year olds with wives & kids (generalisation alert).
All the PvP / PvE playstyle differences aside; is the market lively enough to give Ashes the launch & life it hopefully deserves?
Fishing can bring people together.
But maybe works only for PvP players because PvE players are greedy selfish jerks.
Also doubling down on this.
You label it as the PvE players, but you can use any label for any other-group you like. The point is, there are players who come to competitive games that have economies and are 'greedy selfish jerks' like me.
I don't care about your 'fair fights'. I don't care about what Corruption is 'supposed to do'. I want money and if you are in the way of my money and the game implies that killing you is the optimal answer to that, then I'm going to kill you because I didn't log into this game to lose.
True. I apologize. We are all selfish, willing to get the game we want.
2. A PvP-enjoyer (let's say me, a 'fishing rights enforcer') enters the game with the idea of getting good at controlling an economic space. That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space. But there's one catch to consider. In this case, the PvP-enjoyer has a vastly diminished incentive to cooperate compared to even a Survival game (but let's look at games where some attempt at simulating a world is happening, instead).
I do not understand this sentence: "That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space."
- micro-competition with the PvP skill
- micro-competition with the organizational ability
- micro-competition with the zerg factor?
Also "macro competition" is new to me.
I know a PvP player who likes fishing and he was sharing the fishing spot with another player in our guild.
Then he noticed a fisher being attacked by a creature. The player was from an enemy guild. We would kill each-other always on sight. Yet in that moment he rushed to save him. Just because in all the chaos of a full loot PvP world they shared the passion for fishing.
Fishing can bring people together.
But maybe works only for PvP players because PvE players are greedy selfish jerks.
I'll simplify.
I have 8 people in my group.
You don't get to fish by yourself in my area without one of them killing you. Ever.
What competition are we having?
This is not a risk vs reward setup.
If I can see your people and I have fewer in my group then is not a matter of risk. Not even a competition.
If you kill me even when I do not fight back, you become red and depending how valuable the fish is, you can do it once or a few more times. Then you have no choice but to let me fish.
But maybe you can solve that by pulling some NPCs to do the killing blow, which is a valid strategy.
Then I have no other option but to wait until there is nobody around.
That is when the risk happens. Maybe your people hide in water. Or maybe I stay too long and eventually I'll have no way to escape when you surround me. But if my reward was the fishing activity (not the fish) I could try giving it to you and you would get it 100% instead of just a fraction when I flag up.
Or maybe I will not give it to you if you are unfriendly. And I will try to escape somehow, maybe swimming if I have a water mount and then you can chase me. And that will be fun too
But such scenarios where you cannot progress because other players do something I seen even if you do not flag for PvP. For example in New World a quest would require a drop from a special alpha bear or wolf and players were camping that because not each could loot. Or resources were constantly mined by bots or very dedicated players. What kind of competition is that?
The only solution is to make every player be able to loot the resource from resource nodes or NPCs.
And PvE content to exist in instances, as many as needed. Then what kind of competition is that?
Players competing with themselves to see if they can progress a bit more against a preprogrammed AI?
Anyway, AoC will not go on this path.
It must be balanced to offer risk.
Your setup was not quite ok to deliver on this game pillar.
I feel like what happened here is that you slightly projected your frustrations with bad games, onto my potential mindset for Ashes. So if you don't mind, let's step back a moment.
Disregarding the fact that only the person who lands the killing blow gets any Corruption in Ashes at this time, I am talking about a person who wants to fish, to improve at fishing or support their economic needs in game, becoming unable to fish due to my willingness to kill them.
This player could absolutely, as you say, just hand over the fish. But it's not the fish necessarily that is the target. What if I want my bard to level up their Fishing and you fishing at all at the spot, is therefore a problem?
I agree with you that bots, gatekeeping players from quest mobs, etc, is bad and also not competition. That's the core problem I'm taling about.
We are immortal, we are locusts, we do not tire, we do not eat, we do not sleep. We are all Daywalker Vampires who just can't kill magical town guards or shopkeepers.
As for my setup that does not deliver on the game pillar, can you describe it to me? I don't feel like I offered a 'setup' to try to deliver anything, so I'd appreciate that clarified.
Why play Ashes when we have new upcoming games that can deliver all the same things without the parts I don't like? The appeal, to those people, would be 'the intensity of the world', because Ashes is not 'winning' on any other metric that anyone has actually seen, anymore.
Which games did you have your eye on?
Ah, sorry, I think you misread the 'I' in that sentence for meaning me, when, in context, it meant 'A person who enjoys open worlds and change factors, but does not enjoy the restricted micro-competition'.
So let's be clear, I personally want Ashes to soar like the blazing Phoenix it is, beyond Throne and Liberty (which seems to be taking the approach I expect of releasing a minimum product and iterating), beyond ArcheAge 2 (which is dialing back the harder structures), beyond Pax Dei (which is wobbling along trying to figure out how to be slightly better MineCraft), beyond Reign of Guilds (just look it up), beyond even the Riot MMO (good luck to them with that, though).
Hence my supercritical prickly attitude (despite which, I want to encourage and defend Ashes Devs at all times).
But just note that for a person with less faith and investment than me, Ashes is mostly words, and maybe some pain-point implementations. Looking at the same Riot MMO, a person might go 'That will probably never release, it'll be cardboard when it does, Riot only knows how to make lowest common denominator games'. But that's the same type of judgement that Ashes can get from a lot of people.
(I feel like I kinda-answered your 'question' even if it wasn't actually about me, lmk if I didn't)
You did indeed. Reassuring tbh as I tend to go all-in on one game at a time, and don't usually have time to keep an eye on all the competition. I get the impression there aren't any obvious challengers on the horizon.
Related: I wonder what the market is like generally for an MMO these days. Obviously at the heights of WoW (the game I know best) there was a lot of younger interest, whereas it seems the community has aged together and we're all 35+ year olds with wives & kids (generalisation alert).
All the PvP / PvE playstyle differences aside; is the market lively enough to give Ashes the launch & life it hopefully deserves?
Obviously I can't answer that with any definitive, I can only give you a specific lens to look at it with.
Ashes of Creation has ingame Weather and things about the game that change based on that weather (but they're not all implemented yet)
FFXI has ingame weather and things about the game that change based on that weather.
BDO has ingame weather and a few things that change based on that weather, including your farm plots
FFXIV has ingame weather and some things that change based on that weather.
Throne and Liberty has ingame weather and many things that change, including dungeon openings and paths.
ArcheAge 2 can be expected to have at least as much weather as ArcheAge 1.
The purpose of that preamble is not to say 'Ashes of Creation needs to have better weather' or 'Ashes of Creation is not doing well because not all of the parts of the weather are implemented'. It's specifically to say:
"If Ashes of Creation attempts to use the ingame weather as a large part of its marketing strategy, it will not impress the current market of MMO players much."
I feel like it's hard to know the current market for a deep MMO like Ashes at the moment because every time someone hitches their MMO idea to the Unreal 5 hype train, we all have to carefully check if they even know how to make a good HQ MMO.
And just this last week we learned that Riot (harshly paraphrasing here) didn't. By their own admission, and good on them, they realized 'oh wait this is just normal old stuff, we need to do better'.
Ashes is in the same position as Riot. So, the market kind of isn't even defined, at the moment? I hope that made some tiny amount of sense, despite all the abstractions.
I wouldn't say there is a flaw here, it's more that this isn't a fishing sim. In Ashes, when you fish, you aren't in a fishing tournament competing with other fishers, you are pulling resources out of the world. Player conflict is something ashes wants to encourage and one of the ways they do that is by limiting resources and giving the ability to fight over them.
Yea, if someone wants to play a fishing simulator and loads up ashes, they might not have the best time but that doesn't mean people won't enjoy it.
Also, If fishing tournaments become a thing the devs want to support, they could find ways to prevent pvp from interrupting them.
I only speak of flaws relative to 'combining the concept of a living world with similar social rules/appeal to cooperative players' and 'owPvP'.
As Dygz would say, 'people who don't perceive this as an issue will very likely enjoy Ashes, these are likely to be people who enjoyed L2, EVE, and ArcheAge'.
Now from my own perspective I can add this for any devs.
"Your world of Nodes is not appealing enough to me while it contains this flaw."
I don't necessarily think you (the devs) CARE about that, but this is still mostly a thread about 'why PvE players/worldsim enjoyers/microcompetition fans' might have opinions about Ashes that should get a little more respect than they sometimes do.
I feel like you are starting to play Dygz's semantics game of taking what they have said and deciding it's meaning to fit your purposes. The game can do both, giving you reasons to cooperate with and fight against players. Those aren't mutually exclusive things.
I don't think it's right to say they don't care, it's more people who have low to no tolerance for pvp aren't the target audience for Ashes. As the Helldivers devs said, "A game for everyone is a game for no one." Maybe future intrepid games will be designed to appeal to those players.
You can feel whatever you like, it's why I don't talk to you.
We can go back to that. I engaged for clarification, if you don't wanna accept it because of your feelings, don't.
How would you prefer me to express my interpretation of what you said?
It sounded like you were making an argument based off semantics. They have called the game a living world, you decided to define what a living world is and claim what they are making is not one. Yes, I could have given my own definition or made some death is part of life argument but at the end of the day, living world doesn't seem like a phrase that should be taken too seriously, and arguing about it seems pedantic.
I don't care how you express it. The fact that your mind goes in that direction at all is the reason I don't interact with you. That's why the best course of action here is for me to not do that.
What's wrong with the direction my mind went?
I didn't say anything was wrong with the direction your mind went.
I used the word 'living world' to describe a thing, I could've used any word because the complexity of the thing is so high that the label probably barely matters.
If 'living world' means something else to you, great. I'm saying that I know from past experience that there's no way for you and I have to have a reasonable conversation once you get to the point of perceiving that my definitions are wrong in some way.
My other option is to define 'living' or 'changing' world in Ashes as 'some buildings go up and then they go down'... or something. I don't even know. I barely want to know. If their definition of 'living world' is enough for you, and therefore the design is not flawed, fine. I, at least, am trying to discuss how PvE players should not be expected to be positive at all toward a world with no micro-competition aspects that can't be reduced to PvP.
In my bias, within that context, it's fair to say that owPvP, by its nature in most implementations particularly the one Ashes currently is presenting to us, is in conflict with the design, and since I believe that 'Nodes and Economy' is the important part of Ashes (as it is practically the only sorta-original part), I see interference as a 'flaw'.
If you would like to define owPvP as the important part of Ashes (design pillar: Meaningful Conflict) and 'unnecessary living-world aspects' as a flaw that interferes with the owPvP, that's ok too. A discussion for a possible thread in the bleak future where we are struggling to get PvP players to care about Ashes, instead.
Fishing can bring people together.
But maybe works only for PvP players because PvE players are greedy selfish jerks.
Also doubling down on this.
You label it as the PvE players, but you can use any label for any other-group you like. The point is, there are players who come to competitive games that have economies and are 'greedy selfish jerks' like me.
I don't care about your 'fair fights'. I don't care about what Corruption is 'supposed to do'. I want money and if you are in the way of my money and the game implies that killing you is the optimal answer to that, then I'm going to kill you because I didn't log into this game to lose.
True. I apologize. We are all selfish, willing to get the game we want.
2. A PvP-enjoyer (let's say me, a 'fishing rights enforcer') enters the game with the idea of getting good at controlling an economic space. That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space. But there's one catch to consider. In this case, the PvP-enjoyer has a vastly diminished incentive to cooperate compared to even a Survival game (but let's look at games where some attempt at simulating a world is happening, instead).
I do not understand this sentence: "That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space."
- micro-competition with the PvP skill
- micro-competition with the organizational ability
- micro-competition with the zerg factor?
Also "macro competition" is new to me.
I know a PvP player who likes fishing and he was sharing the fishing spot with another player in our guild.
Then he noticed a fisher being attacked by a creature. The player was from an enemy guild. We would kill each-other always on sight. Yet in that moment he rushed to save him. Just because in all the chaos of a full loot PvP world they shared the passion for fishing.
Fishing can bring people together.
But maybe works only for PvP players because PvE players are greedy selfish jerks.
I'll simplify.
I have 8 people in my group.
You don't get to fish by yourself in my area without one of them killing you. Ever.
What competition are we having?
This is not a risk vs reward setup.
If I can see your people and I have fewer in my group then is not a matter of risk. Not even a competition.
If you kill me even when I do not fight back, you become red and depending how valuable the fish is, you can do it once or a few more times. Then you have no choice but to let me fish.
But maybe you can solve that by pulling some NPCs to do the killing blow, which is a valid strategy.
Then I have no other option but to wait until there is nobody around.
That is when the risk happens. Maybe your people hide in water. Or maybe I stay too long and eventually I'll have no way to escape when you surround me. But if my reward was the fishing activity (not the fish) I could try giving it to you and you would get it 100% instead of just a fraction when I flag up.
Or maybe I will not give it to you if you are unfriendly. And I will try to escape somehow, maybe swimming if I have a water mount and then you can chase me. And that will be fun too
But such scenarios where you cannot progress because other players do something I seen even if you do not flag for PvP. For example in New World a quest would require a drop from a special alpha bear or wolf and players were camping that because not each could loot. Or resources were constantly mined by bots or very dedicated players. What kind of competition is that?
The only solution is to make every player be able to loot the resource from resource nodes or NPCs.
And PvE content to exist in instances, as many as needed. Then what kind of competition is that?
Players competing with themselves to see if they can progress a bit more against a preprogrammed AI?
Anyway, AoC will not go on this path.
It must be balanced to offer risk.
Your setup was not quite ok to deliver on this game pillar.
I feel like what happened here is that you slightly projected your frustrations with bad games, onto my potential mindset for Ashes. So if you don't mind, let's step back a moment.
Disregarding the fact that only the person who lands the killing blow gets any Corruption in Ashes at this time, I am talking about a person who wants to fish, to improve at fishing or support their economic needs in game, becoming unable to fish due to my willingness to kill them.
This player could absolutely, as you say, just hand over the fish. But it's not the fish necessarily that is the target. What if I want my bard to level up their Fishing and you fishing at all at the spot, is therefore a problem?
I agree with you that bots, gatekeeping players from quest mobs, etc, is bad and also not competition. That's the core problem I'm taling about.
We are immortal, we are locusts, we do not tire, we do not eat, we do not sleep. We are all Daywalker Vampires who just can't kill magical town guards or shopkeepers.
As for my setup that does not deliver on the game pillar, can you describe it to me? I don't feel like I offered a 'setup' to try to deliver anything, so I'd appreciate that clarified.
I had the feeling you want to continue the discussion about risk vs reward but in a different thread.
But you also used the Micro-Competition and Macro-Competition expressions which I had no time to reverse engineer yet from other posts. This thread exploded with comments fast.
You gave me an example which was supposed to explain them but I still didn't understood.
And is important because you said in the OP that there is a misunderstanding:
People misunderstand forced-PvP-averse vs owPvP-enjoyer in MMORPGs because of some stuff.
For a game to be enjoyable for most PvE-focused players, something must enforce the micro-competition within their skillsets. Otherwise, the only micro-competition they can be assured of getting to experience is PvP. This was the original failpoint of New World.
Fishing can bring people together.
But maybe works only for PvP players because PvE players are greedy selfish jerks.
Also doubling down on this.
You label it as the PvE players, but you can use any label for any other-group you like. The point is, there are players who come to competitive games that have economies and are 'greedy selfish jerks' like me.
I don't care about your 'fair fights'. I don't care about what Corruption is 'supposed to do'. I want money and if you are in the way of my money and the game implies that killing you is the optimal answer to that, then I'm going to kill you because I didn't log into this game to lose.
True. I apologize. We are all selfish, willing to get the game we want.
2. A PvP-enjoyer (let's say me, a 'fishing rights enforcer') enters the game with the idea of getting good at controlling an economic space. That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space. But there's one catch to consider. In this case, the PvP-enjoyer has a vastly diminished incentive to cooperate compared to even a Survival game (but let's look at games where some attempt at simulating a world is happening, instead).
I do not understand this sentence: "That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space."
- micro-competition with the PvP skill
- micro-competition with the organizational ability
- micro-competition with the zerg factor?
Also "macro competition" is new to me.
I know a PvP player who likes fishing and he was sharing the fishing spot with another player in our guild.
Then he noticed a fisher being attacked by a creature. The player was from an enemy guild. We would kill each-other always on sight. Yet in that moment he rushed to save him. Just because in all the chaos of a full loot PvP world they shared the passion for fishing.
Fishing can bring people together.
But maybe works only for PvP players because PvE players are greedy selfish jerks.
I'll simplify.
I have 8 people in my group.
You don't get to fish by yourself in my area without one of them killing you. Ever.
What competition are we having?
This is not a risk vs reward setup.
If I can see your people and I have fewer in my group then is not a matter of risk. Not even a competition.
If you kill me even when I do not fight back, you become red and depending how valuable the fish is, you can do it once or a few more times. Then you have no choice but to let me fish.
But maybe you can solve that by pulling some NPCs to do the killing blow, which is a valid strategy.
Then I have no other option but to wait until there is nobody around.
That is when the risk happens. Maybe your people hide in water. Or maybe I stay too long and eventually I'll have no way to escape when you surround me. But if my reward was the fishing activity (not the fish) I could try giving it to you and you would get it 100% instead of just a fraction when I flag up.
Or maybe I will not give it to you if you are unfriendly. And I will try to escape somehow, maybe swimming if I have a water mount and then you can chase me. And that will be fun too
But such scenarios where you cannot progress because other players do something I seen even if you do not flag for PvP. For example in New World a quest would require a drop from a special alpha bear or wolf and players were camping that because not each could loot. Or resources were constantly mined by bots or very dedicated players. What kind of competition is that?
The only solution is to make every player be able to loot the resource from resource nodes or NPCs.
And PvE content to exist in instances, as many as needed. Then what kind of competition is that?
Players competing with themselves to see if they can progress a bit more against a preprogrammed AI?
Anyway, AoC will not go on this path.
It must be balanced to offer risk.
Your setup was not quite ok to deliver on this game pillar.
I feel like what happened here is that you slightly projected your frustrations with bad games, onto my potential mindset for Ashes. So if you don't mind, let's step back a moment.
Disregarding the fact that only the person who lands the killing blow gets any Corruption in Ashes at this time, I am talking about a person who wants to fish, to improve at fishing or support their economic needs in game, becoming unable to fish due to my willingness to kill them.
This player could absolutely, as you say, just hand over the fish. But it's not the fish necessarily that is the target. What if I want my bard to level up their Fishing and you fishing at all at the spot, is therefore a problem?
I agree with you that bots, gatekeeping players from quest mobs, etc, is bad and also not competition. That's the core problem I'm taling about.
We are immortal, we are locusts, we do not tire, we do not eat, we do not sleep. We are all Daywalker Vampires who just can't kill magical town guards or shopkeepers.
As for my setup that does not deliver on the game pillar, can you describe it to me? I don't feel like I offered a 'setup' to try to deliver anything, so I'd appreciate that clarified.
I had the feeling you want to continue the discussion about risk vs reward but in a different thread.
But you also used the Micro-Competition and Macro-Competition expressions which I had no time to reverse engineer yet from other posts. This thread exploded with comments fast.
You gave me an example which was supposed to explain them but I still didn't understood.
And is important because you said in the OP that there is a misunderstanding:
People misunderstand forced-PvP-averse vs owPvP-enjoyer in MMORPGs because of some stuff.
For a game to be enjoyable for most PvE-focused players, something must enforce the micro-competition within their skillsets. Otherwise, the only micro-competition they can be assured of getting to experience is PvP. This was the original failpoint of New World.
Thanks, I'm with you now.
Now, Macro-competition, a thing that I didn't really get to directly in the thread yet, somehow.
When a big guild is trying to get ahead of other guilds, depending on the design of the game, this is where Macro-competition appears. This is where a lot of people have fun in owPvP games, but it can happen in PvE-only games too. Using economic tactics, playing at specific times, knowing spawn timings of bosses, and ofc PvE griefing (so many ways). These Macro-competition PvE tactics are usually also not very fun for most players, actually. Zerging objectives, botting activities, Mob Player Killing via training mobs onto other groups, etc.
For many PvE-focused (not necessarily even PvP-averse) players, the ideal game is one where the following is true:
"If I am in an area with no other person who has the same skills, there is no competition."
"If I enter an area where PvP skills are known to be required, there will probably be a PvP competition, and I can choose an appropriate area."
"My ability to engage in Macro-competition (economics, guild support, etc) depends on whatever my main skills are, probably via cooperation with others who have different skills."
Ashes is already almost perfect here, especially if Corruption is strong.
For many PvP-focused players, I would guess that the ideal game is one where the following are somewhat true if not very true:
"If I am in an area with a person with different skills, I would like to cooperate with that person if it helps me in Macro-competition."
"If I try to do something where non-PvP skills are known to be required, there will be a competition, and I can choose an appropriate area."
"My ability to engage in Macro-competition (economics, guild support, etc) depends on whatever my main skills are, probably via cooperation with others who have different skills."
Again, almost perfect, with one huge problem.
In a system based around 'Corruption', the PvP focused player has much less power. The PvE focused player doesn't need to cooperate with them. Their only actual option is to 'use their PvP skills to set back the PvE focused player', and that's assuming that PvE focused player doesn't have greater PvP skills than them.
And then they get punished for this, too (but have lots of ways to avoid it).
And finally we have the fact that not every PvP focused player cares about this one:
"If I try to do something where non-PvP skills are known to be required, there will be a competition, and I can choose an appropriate area."
Some PvP focused players are quite happy to change every competition into PvP. Especially if the game incentivizes this for Macro-competition. This is the type of game that Ashes of Creation currently is.
(I cut out a lot of the examples and preamble from this one since it was quite long, lmk if you need it, it's no effort to paste it)
Anyways @Otr, the reason I keep bringing up the 'Immortal' thing, is simpler.
Macro-competition gets really easy or sometimes disappears entirely, in MMOs, because they don't require as many macro-competition skills as 'RL' or 'Survival games'.
In most MMOs, a guild doesn't need three fisherpeople, two cooks, a weaponsmith, a security detail, and 2 procurement merchants to keep dragging down a different guild or control an area.
It's like, 'every guild can just be a bandit guild'. And that means they can focus much more heavily on PvP and basically not suffer or seriously slow down much if they don't want to help or give their 'PvE people' anything. They just need money.
Take that down one level, let's not look straight at 'actually successful guilds', they would probably have those things. Let's just look at 'griefer' guilds. Guilds who just like to run around dragging down other people's activities. They need some money.
Most MMORPGs that allow any form of owPvP, don't actually reward those people much for all the dragging-down and killing. They can't support themselves without some 'PvE skills' or financial support. Because they don't get resources or items to sell, so they lose really badly at macro-competition until they make some effort to get good at some skills.
Ashes can reward players for running around and dragging-down others, though. They might be able to sustain themselves in overall macro-competition this way, by using the fact that they 'can't die' and 'don't need to find a safe place to sleep' and 'don't care about food'.
Survival games make players care about all those things, and then on top of that, add 'if you do actually die, your macro-competition status falls' (but this isn't consistent so even these games have SOME issues).
PvE-focused players don't like having to deal with these 'Immortal Predators'.
Just like PvP-focused players don't like having to deal with 'Immortal/Invincible Hoarding Locusts'. Each group invalidates the skills of the player type that hates it.
In a system based around 'Corruption', the PvP focused player has much less power. The PvE focused player doesn't need to cooperate with them. Their only actual option is to 'use their PvP skills to set back the PvE focused player', and that's assuming that PvE focused player doesn't have greater PvP skills than them.
This is indeed what I see as weakness too when Steven said that:
"The land management system takes into account how players are interacting with the environment: how many of the resources they're withdrawing from the world; and that decreases the spawn rate within certain localities as those things go too high. So there can be a degree of economic warfare by sending players out into zones where you want to mitigate collection of resources. You send your players out there to take all those resources and then that diminishes the land management score of that particular zone.[5] – Steven Sharif"
There is no clear way to defend except using NPCs against those players.
I am not yet concerned but Alpha 2 will reveal the problem fast or will show us something we don't yet know.
We might see changes.
Oh, gotchya. You think that more instanced content would be the cause of this? To me, it would have the opposite effect, more instanced content would provide those players with that fix, so they arent looking for it in the open world, so the open world will draw the players who are interested in its natural appeal. I might be missing an obvious point you are trying to make on this though.
While I can see that having the effect of 'more total players, playing Ashes', what happens on the Elite side, is that people who might be okay with playing in 'Open' get pulled into Private Groups to be with their friends who are less okay with it.
This probably wouldn't be as big an issue in Ashes, but I feel like anything that risks segregation of the playerbase is ... suboptimal. Personal sense, though.
No im not aware. As im sure you know "in all your data" as you like to say, a general idea of what I like to play. Haven't really found anything super appealing. But like you said, the specific combination of Ashes is appealing to me, but you are also talking to someone who never actually seriously played an mmo and I have no development experience. I determine my preferences/opinions through analysis/extrapolation, so I actually have no idea what the actual "combination" will feel like in Ashes, even if I Iike its individual components. Some of my favorite gameplay was from single player games that I wish had pvp, because the combat systems were more fun to me than what I see on the market for a lot of fighting games/mobas. I also like the idea of being able to dabble in some of the other systems I haven't really experienced yet as well, though, like economy, naval, etc. and the idea of having them all in one place is convenient. I doubt I would actually like those playstyles as much though, I enjoy the faster paced, high mobility isometric competitive gameplay the most. So, im not really aware of many alternative options that are out there that would provide the gameplay feel/depth/pvp/etc. elements for each of those individual systems.
Well, subtracting the PvP aspect for the moment, despite how obviously important it is, most of what Ashes offers is some combination of Elite Dangerous and FF11.
Freeholds and Node Reliquaries are good, if you can experience anything related to them, so definitely a plus there. And ofc, FF11 is old, and Elite Dangerous isn't a fantasy game. BDO has some bits too, ofc, but it's just 'bits'.
Throne and Liberty doesn't have any housing yet (but you can see that the design allows for it). I don't know if it is fair to say overall, but I think that unless Ashes goes beyond what I can even begin to imagine, I've mostly had the experiences it intends to offer already. As I always say to Intrepid Team though...
"If y'all can manage to put those into the same game with L2 or better tier PvP, you have automatically won."
Which sounds a lot like I'm saying 'build the game I want' but technically it's largely the game they say they're going to build and I'm just waiting for them to do it properly (my only point here is that if they don't knock it out of the park, they won't surpass the upcoming mentioned below)
Yea I agree. I think the whole "basically just make separate games each with varying layers/degrees of depth in the macro-competition to cater to different types of players, smash them all together through things like instanced content, and call it Ashes", was basically my take on this, unless its not feasible, in which case I am on your side of sticking with the more hardcore pvx/emergent side of things and saying its not for everyone.
The problem with this, I think, is that ArcheAge 2 is likely to be this 'mashup', and TL is likely to be 'slightly more than this' if they ever start taking their Economy and Territory control aspects more seriously. So it comes down to 'how much do I really want to see a different node in this spot?' (larger content changes are apparently not a thing that technically appeal to a very large number of players? But I definitely care about it).
The thing about that, is while Ashes could 'change Instanced Content based on what Nodes were built up', it might hit, as you say, 'scope creep', so anytime we see anything suspicious in development that seems like something might get 'cut' or 'trimmed down', it's worrisome.
I did not think my 'we Riot' reference would go in this direction, now that I think about it...
I don't believe there should be anything in Ashes in a Safe Zone that has any economic impact. I don't perceive that to be a solution either, because you will get the other side, where optimizers abuse that fiat protection from PvP.
I agree mostly, I do think Darkfall Unholy Wars almost struck a good balance with safe zones. There were low tier items around so they could at least get some foundational gear, practice fighting easier mobs, dueling friends, etc. And if they wanted any meaningful money or progression they had to leave the safe zone and venture out in the rest of the world.
I.e., I think some minimal economic profitability is good, and a safe place for players to learn the game and practice mechanics. But it should take like 100x more work to get rich in a safe zone as compared to somewhere else.
While I can see that having the effect of 'more total players, playing Ashes', what happens on the Elite side, is that people who might be okay with playing in 'Open' get pulled into Private Groups to be with their friends who are less okay with it.
This probably wouldn't be as big an issue in Ashes, but I feel like anything that risks segregation of the playerbase is ... suboptimal. Personal sense, though.
Ah, I didn't really think about that. My first reaction though is whether or not the firends could be pulled the opposite direction if that instwnced content didn't exist. If not, then they would just play something else anyway so it eould be better for the game to offer something for the whole group, even if some of the particpants would rather do something else.
Well, subtracting the PvP aspect for the moment, despite how obviously important it is, most of what Ashes offers is some combination of Elite Dangerous and FF11.
Freeholds and Node Reliquaries are good, if you can experience anything related to them, so definitely a plus there. And ofc, FF11 is old, and Elite Dangerous isn't a fantasy game. BDO has some bits too, ofc, but it's just 'bits'.
Throne and Liberty doesn't have any housing yet (but you can see that the design allows for it). I don't know if it is fair to say overall, but I think that unless Ashes goes beyond what I can even begin to imagine, I've mostly had the experiences it intends to offer already. As I always say to Intrepid Team though...
"If y'all can manage to put those into the same game with L2 or better tier PvP, you have automatically won."
Which sounds a lot like I'm saying 'build the game I want' but technically it's largely the game they say they're going to build and I'm just waiting for them to do it properly (my only point here is that if they don't knock it out of the park, they won't surpass the upcoming mentioned below)
Remember that I haven't played any mmos to really have a frame of reference when you say "like lineage 2 or better tier pvp" or that kind if thing. I'm curious what this market differentiator is that you are saying Ashes should utilize. It sounds like it might be something the expands on the idea of:
"So it comes down to 'how much do I really want to see a different node in this spot?' (larger content changes are apparently not a thing that technically appeal to a very large number of players? But I definitely care about it)."
But if thats what you are referring to then what aren't they doing now in this regard?
And what you are referring to by this exactly: "I don't know if it is fair to say overall, but I think that unless Ashes goes beyond what I can even begin to imagine, I've mostly had the experiences it intends to offer already."?
Because by the sound of what you are saying if they took it in that direction it would end up more like an "Archage 2 or Throne and Liberty mash up".
Regarding my perspective of differentiators, combat is the main one for me. I can extrapolate a good idea of what the combat might look like between Ashes and Throne and Liberty, but depending on how things go that might be a big draw for Ashes if it manages to differentiate itself in that regard. I have my doubts, but its hard to say for sure either way at this point regarding that, so we will have to wait and see. (At least for Ashes, since I believe the revamped combat of Throne and liberty has already been played by some people)
I don't actually think Ashes has another market differentiator available to it at all.
Lineage 2 players often perceive Ashes as a return to that game's glory days. I ended up here because it sounded like someone was going to 'make FF11 style gaming great again'.
But, fortunately, I do have examples of playloops.
In Ashes, I would like to see a situation where:
1. Because many more people than usual have visited a node, from outside that node, a small outbreak of a not-terrible disease has occurred (Can happen in Elite, something slightly like it can happen in FFXI)
2. Players are requested or expected to import medicines from another nearby node with good Alchemy facilities, or make them, themselves (obv can happen in both games)
3. Players can vote on or influence a decision from the Node Government about secondary approaches to dealing with the problem (can happen in a particular subsection of FFXI, only partially in Elite Dangerous)
4. Players fulfilling or ignoring the decision and synchronizing with the relief effort can lead to a quicker resolution, or a loss of confidence due to 'incompetence' (can happen in both games)
5. NPC behaviour both in-node and external conditions such as battle and enemy spawns, change because of this shift in activity, such as gathering more herbs for medicine, or bandits taking advantage of imports (definitely happens in Elite, happens slightly in FFXI)
6. Disruption of relief efforts by rival player groups having control of specific territories/areas can affect all of the above (happens in FFXI slightly more than Elite, but not really anymore due to additional fast travel options)
7. Complete failure to respond to the situation results in economic downturn due to weakening of defenses of the Node, etc (happens in both games, in a very roundabout way also happens in BDO)
8. Strong coordinated success in response to the situation results in reputation benefits for involved players (happens in both games, and during BDO events of certain kinds)
9. Changing control of some territory during this, to improve supply lines, can automatically have some positive effect through things such as NPC actions in the open world (happens in both games, and in TL, though TL lacks most of the above currently).
10. The overall price of medicine or related items rises or falls due to the situation.
To me, this sounds like what Intrepid is already planning as a standard for their game (most of the above would be handled with the World Manager and a good economy design), and 'the thing that would be driving most of our play loops', since things like Node Sieges would be less frequent than 'node status changes' or 'world status changes'.
Elite's changes are more visible, and less 'abstract'. FFXI requires a bit more 'careful attention' to easily see differences in the world-state, but you often get more benefit out of paying attention. Elite's overall simulation state changes once per day on average, and FFXI has some systems that change 'in real time' and others that go through bigger changes once per week.
Therefore, in terms of 'what Ashes offers to me', I can experience it all already, with the main difference being that the complete destruction of a Node and therefore some absolute loss of related content, is more possible than it is in standard play of Elite Dangerous or FFXI (it is, actually, also possible in both those games as well, but it's just 'a change of control in an area that is considered more important than most others')
I can imagine more specific and granular forms of this, but it's hard to go very far beyond where Elite already is.
"An outbreak in this system has changed the missions in the Passenger Lounge so that rather than seeing sightseers who are going on joyrides, quarantines have led to requests from Medical Officers needing to go to different high tech systems with Pharmaceutical facilities, and long-haul explorers who intend to get out of the area until the situation is resolved."
The above is just 'normal' for that game. That, if anything, is my entire point. I'm not really asking for Intrepid to do much, if anything, beyond 'my normal'. But 'my normal' is relatively complicated with a lot of balance levers and non-obvious pitfalls, and I can't always tell when they are 'choosing to do something differently because they have a different, detailed plan', and when it's that they don't have experience doing a specific thing properly, which leaves me in the unfortunate position of 'having to express that I think they might be messing something up' without knowing the details.
The last thing I want is to be giving useless feedback to a developer with a really clear plan, because I 'think they forgot to consider something'. But the second-last thing I want is to not point out something they overlooked.
I think Ashes can just count on the fact that WoW players are far more numerous and generally less likely to know what is available in other MMOs, and that FF14 is actually also a type of WoW-clone, itself. They just have to do what they say they are going to do, but do it better than all the other upcoming games, many of which will also be made/influenced by people who, like me, are familiar with 'a game that had almost all of this implemented by 2007'.
A good, solid execution of their core goals, using the reference games that already do it, with the correct MMO sociology adaptations to make it all fit Ashes.
If people don't want to engage in the PVP and competition that Ashes has they're welcome to play other games.
why is walking away from this game a bad thing if it's not for them?
Steven knows this isn't going to be a game for everybody it's just upto people this game isn't for to recognize that this isn't their cup of tea and move on on their gaming journey.
I do think that there'll be alot of things in Ashes that will interest alot of people and because of that they may be able to overlook some things that they don't enjoy (which in a way is good as they'll likely be trying some new things) But eventually they'll realize at a fundamental level they don't like the game and will play elsewhere.
All I want is for AoC to expand its player base as much as is reasonable within their own goals. They want crafting and have put a lot of thought to making both the economic side of crafting and the social side of crafting feel right. I think we can all agree that more people feeding Ashes economy will make any server more interesting and fun. So it's important we keep the ones that can actually like the game with some nudges from the game designers in rather than 'elsewhere' yeah?
The last thing I want is to be giving useless feedback to a developer with a really clear plan, because I 'think they forgot to consider something'. But the second-last thing I want is to not point out something they overlooked.
Ah, mine is flipped, thats why my posts probably come acrossed to them as some dork who thinks he's teaching them something they already know, but I do it anyways just in case theres that off chance they havn't thought about it in a certain way.
Therefore, in terms of 'what Ashes offers to me', I can experience it all already, with the main difference being that the complete destruction of a Node and therefore some absolute loss of related content, is more possible than it is in standard play of Elite Dangerous or FFXI (it is, actually, also possible in both those games as well, but it's just 'a change of control in an area that is considered more important than most others')
I can imagine more specific and granular forms of this, but it's hard to go very far beyond where Elite already is.
"An outbreak in this system has changed the missions in the Passenger Lounge so that rather than seeing sightseers who are going on joyrides, quarantines have led to requests from Medical Officers needing to go to different high tech systems with Pharmaceutical facilities, and long-haul explorers who intend to get out of the area until the situation is resolved."
Ah okay I think I understand, basically that the main draw to Ashes is that macro-competition which at this point isn't really any more fleshed out than other similar games.
From my perspective, even though I am interested in the macro-competition, the main draw for me is both how good the individual experiences are that make up the macro-competitions, and how that improves the overall macro-competition experience. I think thats where the differentiation can occur, but I haven't played Elite to know for sure. But, I can't imagine the combat being that similar in a sci-fi themed game (if I remember right its sci-fi fps gameplay I think), so for example, if Ashes were to imrove upon these types of individual systems you don't feel like that would be a meaningful differentiator with the cascading effects that could have in the macro-competition experience and set Ashes apart even if the macro-competitions weren't as granular?
The last thing I want is to be giving useless feedback to a developer with a really clear plan, because I 'think they forgot to consider something'. But the second-last thing I want is to not point out something they overlooked.
Ah, mine is flipped, thats why my posts probably come acrossed to them as some dork who thinks he's teaching them something they already know, but I do it anyways just in case theres that off chance they havn't thought about it in a certain way.
Therefore, in terms of 'what Ashes offers to me', I can experience it all already, with the main difference being that the complete destruction of a Node and therefore some absolute loss of related content, is more possible than it is in standard play of Elite Dangerous or FFXI (it is, actually, also possible in both those games as well, but it's just 'a change of control in an area that is considered more important than most others')
I can imagine more specific and granular forms of this, but it's hard to go very far beyond where Elite already is.
"An outbreak in this system has changed the missions in the Passenger Lounge so that rather than seeing sightseers who are going on joyrides, quarantines have led to requests from Medical Officers needing to go to different high tech systems with Pharmaceutical facilities, and long-haul explorers who intend to get out of the area until the situation is resolved."
Ah okay I think I understand, basically that the main draw to Ashes is that macro-competition which at this point isn't really any more fleshed out than other similar games.
From my perspective, even though I am interested in the macro-competition, the main draw for me is both how good the individual experiences are that make up the macro-competitions, and how that improves the overall macro-competition experience. I think thats where the differentiation can occur, but I haven't played Elite to know for sure. But, I can't imagine the combat being that similar in a sci-fi themed game (if I remember right its sci-fi fps gameplay I think), so for example, if Ashes were to imrove upon these types of individual systems you don't feel like that would be a meaningful differentiator with the cascading effects that could have in the macro-competition experience and set Ashes apart even if the macro-competitions weren't as granular?
I do.
The moment I see that Ashes has meaningfully improved on FFXI's individual systems, I'll consider it 'set apart' due to the PvP aspects (assuming those don't, in turn, become a detriment, and by that, I mean to PvX players who might otherwise stick to TL or AA2).
Hence why I say I just want the first 'FFXI+L2' game to come out (I didn't like ArcheAge 1 much for some reasons). If it's Ashes instead of 'full featured TL', or if they're 'equal' in quality, and Ashes 'wins' by having no Fast Travel and Nodes, great. (Despite liking TL combat better, I don't want TL to 'win' since that would imply Ashes falling short of the proposed vision).
The moment I see that Ashes has meaningfully improved on FFXI's individual systems, I'll consider it 'set apart' due to the PvP aspects (assuming those don't, in turn, become a detriment, and by that, I mean to PvX players who might otherwise stick to TL or AA2).
Hence why I say I just want the first 'FFXI+L2' game to come out (I didn't like ArcheAge 1 much for some reasons). If it's Ashes instead of 'full featured TL', or if they're 'equal' in quality, and Ashes 'wins' by having no Fast Travel and Nodes, great. (Despite liking TL combat better, I don't want TL to 'win' since that would imply Ashes falling short of the proposed vision).
Okay, im assuming the main system of concern is the economy? Other than that, what individual systems are of concern to you that is "not looking good by comparison to similar games", because from my perspective a lot of systems are sounding pretty solid by comparison, (at least in concept.) Which if that is the case then things would be going as you hope, if I understand correctly.
And I haven't seen enough of TLs combat to know if it will be better or not, what have you seen that implies this?
Azherae, what's your party's opinion would be on smth like this setup?
The game tracks account-wide PK Count History (i.e. even if your current count is 0, the game would know that you have 10 PKs overall; and the count itself is not account-wide)
Military nodes have access to the PKCH of players that have PKd people in the vicinity of allied nodes
Other nodes can request the full PKCH list by sending a Mayoral caravan to get it (requires a full back&forth track to do)
PKCH info needs to be retaken every month (could be more often)
Guards in nodes operate according to the available PKCH
Guard power exists on a sliding scale of "can kill a weak mob" to "literally immortal and hits like a truck" (controlled by the mayor choices)
Guards are positioned across the node in predetermined places, with a predetermined patrol route
Guards aggro onto mobs that enter a certain radius and onto PKers who enter x2 of that radius
Guard-killed targets don't drop loot ("killed" here means "Guard did any dmg to the target") and Guards don't aggro onto bosses
After a certain PKCH value Guards aggro onto a flagged player with that value
If there's been a PK, Guards over a certain lvl (let's say 3/5 minimum) will go to that location and stay there for a certain amount of time
Amount of Guards and the duration of their presence in that location is set by the Mayor (debatable)
All of the above don't apply to military nodes themselves
As I see it, this would be a player-controlled TL-like system. There'll be nodes that are very good for pvers, but the system itself doesn't remove the possibility of being killed at least once. The economic macro-competition is still present in the form of mayoral actions (and any influence on them by other players), node wars/sieges (wars could have a goal of "destroy the guard post in the node", which disables it for several days) and caravan attacks to prevent the Guards from knowing the latest info about PKCH.
And this would also enforce pve-based micro-competition on the spots themselves, while not removing a casual PKing as the last resort. In other words, your enforcer might not be able to PK as much as yall might need, but a random person can still use the system for their benefit. Obviously this doesn't prevent your entire party going corrupt one after the other, but this too would only be doable up to a certain extent.
I feel like this system would be a nice way to have a not-as-gamey application of TL's events.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
People misunderstand forced-PvP-averse vs owPvP-enjoyer in MMORPGs because of some stuff. Here's some of that stuff. If you poke me, I'll add more stuff or expand on this stuff.
1. A PvE-enjoyer (let's use a fisher), enters the game with the idea of getting good at fishing, building up knowledge, skill level, understanding of systems (plz donot assume they 'don't care about PvP'). That person is in micro-competition with every other fisher. When another person shows up at their fishing spot in a game with no forced PvP, their 'competition' is in 'who understands the fishing mechanics better and who honed their skills more'. In a game with forced PvP, their 'competition' can instantly become 'who is better at PvP'.
2. A PvP-enjoyer (let's say me, a 'fishing rights enforcer') enters the game with the idea of getting good at controlling an economic space. That person is in micro-competition with the PvP skill or the organizational ability (or zerg factor) of anyone who wants control of that economic space. But there's one catch to consider. In this case, the PvP-enjoyer has a vastly diminished incentive to cooperate compared to even a Survival game (but let's look at games where some attempt at simulating a world is happening, instead).
The 'flaw' in forced-PvP MMOs is contained in those two things above and all the fundamental issues relative to them that these games nearly never address, or cannot address because it would drastically warp gameplay. The result is, that all the 'real world equivalent' outcomes that 'would need to happen in the game, for it to make sense as a proper macro-competition', end up happening in terms of 'players existing in the world'. Basically, characters 'die' when their players leave the game due to the 'flaws', which are really just 'the equivalent of what would happen irl if too many immortal people with low incentives for cooperation entered an area'.
Mmmmn. So... I will say that this does not address my concern with non-consensual PvP.
I am non-competitive, so I would not feel any competition with other fisherman.
I would probably have some goal of gathering xx fish within the time frame allotted for that play session.
In this example, let's say I have an hour left in my play session so I should be able to gather 50 fish.
It's possible that another fisherman could appear and we'd have to split the available resources in that spot, but typically that should just mean once there are no more fish in the first spot, I would move to a different spot.
If a PvPer arrives and kills me and it takes me five minutes for me to return and continue fishing for the remaining 55 minutes, I'm OK with that.
If I were confident there would be just one 5 minute battle and then I could continue fishing for the next 55 minutes... I might even choose to flag Purple.
If it means that I'm going to remain flagged purple for 10 minutes - thereby indicating that I'm still in the mood for PvP when I actually just want to fish - I'm not going to flag and will just let my attacker kill me as quickly as possible so I can return to fishing for the next 55 minutes.
It's often said that if I don't want to fight, I could just try to run.
Which is a viable stratgy with mobs since mobs typically have tethers. It's typically easy enough to escape.
In PvP - gamers don't have tethers, so there is no guarantee that the attempt to escape will only last 5 or 10 minutes. Or that the entire encounter will only last 5 or 10 minutes.
It's fairly common that the PvPer who does not ackowledge the concept of non-consensual PvP will attempt some form of corpse camping because it's easier to hunt for prey when you know they are likely to return to the same spot to retrieve their loot drop(s). Or could be a reasonably good guess the victim will want to return that spot or a nearby spot to continue fishing.
How much time is that player "stealing" from my play session goals? Especially if I've dropped some fish.
I may have lost that first 5 minutes worht of fish. Then I'd have to spend another 5 minutes re-gathering that amount of fish. Plus the 5 or 10 minutes it took to resolve the PvP encounter. That's easily a third of my play session that has stolen by some other player.
And I'm going likely to be enraged by that.
And I'm not necessarily going to feel much better if I win the PvP battle, but my attacker returns 2 or 3 times because they love dueling with other players even if they lose a couple times. Again... that could be a quarter to a third of my play session time stolen.
And I'm going to be pissed.
Because I'd rather play an MMORPG where I can't be attacked when I'm not in the mood for PvP and could just conintue to pursue my game session goals - which is, in this case fishing.
And then, when I am in the mood for PvP, I could go sign up for a Siege or a Caravan raid/defense.
I don't play multiplayer RPGs to be competitive. I play multiplayer RPGs to be cooperative with other players.
And, yeah, while I would probably tolerate PvP during Sieges and Caravans (even while mostly ignoring direct PvP combat as much as possible), I'd prefer to be teamed with other players v NPCs and mobs during those encounters. Similar to D&D.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
It's an MMO, a big dynamic world. It's back to the point I tried to make earlier: It's like everyone wants to jump into a massively multiplayer online world... and then play mini-games in instances.
Here you say MMO. I'm not really talking about MMOs in general.
If I want to engage in PvP in an MMO, I would play an MMO FPS.
I've played D&D for 40 years and only encountered PvP once - at the 15 year mark.
I don't play multiplayer RPGs to PvP. I play multiplayer RPGs to team with other players vs NPCs, mobs and the Environment. Because that is the very foundation of RPG gameplay.
Instances really have nothing to do with this topic.
There are plenty of people on all sides here, I just get the impression that the PvEers are mad fussy about it all, whereas it's actually the PvPers who are generally more forced into PvE content than the other way around. IMO.
Who has been mad fussy?
It's a pretty pleasant discussion as far as I've seen.
We're just sharing our different perspectives of how we like to play MMORPGs. And our perspectives of rulesets we don't like to play.
Of course "PvPers" are going to generally be forced to PvE in RPGs because PvE is the very foundation of the RPG genre.
PvEers are not suggesting that PvE be added to Fighting games or FPS games or other genres that are fundamentally PvP. Or to Sports games.
That being said. I think the veterans of these Forums for the most part understand that there are not a lot of MMORPGs that adequately support those who love to PvP in MMORPGs. Again, even the devs of L2, ArcheAge and EvE have chosen to lessen the focus on PvP in the current MMORPGs they're developing compared to their previous games.
So, yeah.. it's great for Ashes to cater to the PvP playstyle. It's just clear that Ashes does not adequately support my playstyle so I will primarily be playing other games that do. I expect to play more Pax Dei than Ashes because Pax Dei has large zones with PvP turned off.
I will likely spend more time helping Fantmx tend his farmstead in Pax Dei than I will on his Freehold in Ashes because I won't need to be concerned about PvP at all while I do that in Pax Dei, though I could be attacked on the Freehold in Ashes.
Comments
Okay I think you might have misunderstood, I don't mean for these seperate experiences to interact with each other in any way that can spill over and affect a larger system, because that defeats the purpose of the larger more emergent system existing if your efforts can be subverted through a more simplistic system.
If there was a ton of instanced fishing competitions/content for example, I don't think you should be able to go into the open world and sell your fish or anything like that. I think there could be fun instanced fishing content, and its just that, its own experience using the design philosophies of Ashes, with rewards only relevant to that particular system (even if it takes place visibly within the open world within some in-game structure or something). Wheras, fisherman in the open world, would choose to participate in the open world for the added layers and complexity that it provides, and can sell fish in the open world because they earned those fish in the open world. Two separate experience options for different types of players, that is more the reasoning behind what I was saying. Maaaaybe allow for fish earned in the open world to be used in the instanced content, or better yet another "mode" where your open world rewards are relevant in that instanced content. You can see how scope creep could start to become a problem, though the conflict bwtween the different types of players within the playerbase could also be appeased to a higher degree, on the other hand.
In Elite Dangerous, a player has the option to, at any time, log into a solo instance, a 'group instance' that can be just one's own guild, or play in 'Open'.
But my more important thought in response to 'themepark ride' style content such as 'instanced fishing contests with no capacity to level up your fishing or make any money from the fish' would be 'wouldn't it just be better to play a different game at that point, or just have an observer account in Ashes?'
Obviously the option to swap between 'Solo Play' and 'Open' is important sometimes for many reasons, though, so I get it. If Intrepid eventually decides to go with more instanced, 'meaningless to open world and Node system' content, though, I fear that the result would be similar to Elite.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/b1qyqr/a_friendly_reminder_about_a_pve_private_group/
The main value would be through the properties unique to Ashes, being the execution on design pillars, as well as the potential content that might not be feasible with a small indie company providing a similar experience. Also, the social aspects of being able to talk to other mmo players about systems that you are all experiencing, regardless of whether it occurs as instanced or open world. It could also be something more abstract like the ratios of skill-checks that particular system demands on the player and how that compares to other titles with the same type of system, or the pacing of the gameplay, it could even be the implementation of pvp which may not be present for another similar type of system from another game, etc.
I mean, theres plenty of games I could play that mimic some kind of specific system I might engage with in Ashes, but its still appealing to me to have the idea of strategy, skill, risk/reward, other players to interact with, etc., at the forefront of said system and the decision-making process of the dev team behind that system's components. Probably some other aspects as well, hard to put tangible thoughts words on this idea at the moment but basically "why do we choose to play any game over another alternative similar game".
I interpret this as you saying "players will impose their preferred instanced content playstyle on the open world server"?
Ah, no, I meant that we'd end up with something similar to 'two separate games' where there are a bunch of people who are trying to get through Ashes without ever having to seriously engage with non-themepark-ride content.
Also, I don't know if you're as aware but, depending on your level of abstraction, nearly nothing whatsoever in Ashes is original as an experience except maybe the 'Nodes look different from each other'. This was barely even true in 2016.
What has generally happened, is that a lot of people who are very into MMOs and disregarded certain trends and options in gaming, or were fans of very specific MMOs that Steven played (and therefore come across Ashes through word of mouth or similar) have less experience about what is 'out there'. Ashes is, at best 'not-broken ArcheAge'.
Which brings us to the last bit that the 'PvE-enjoyer' of the modern day is thinking. Why play Ashes when we have new upcoming games that can deliver all the same things without the parts I don't like? The appeal, to those people, would be 'the intensity of the world', because Ashes is not 'winning' on any other metric that anyone has actually seen, anymore.
I believe your post above is acknowledging that the specific combination of factors that Ashes provides, might be a good reason to play it, but that is a strange perception to me personally. Game design is highly convergent, to me, and MMOs are among the most convergent designs possible.
Basically, 'all MMOs with the same goals will turn out the same because there's only probably one way to do it correctly'.
That is actually the core, underlying premise of this thread. If you want your game to have micro-competition and macro-competition side by side and both be meaningful, your methods for getting this are pretty limited.
If you don't want that, and instead want to focus on macro-competition and 'Risk vs Reward', you have an original idea, that excludes a certain playerset. Which is ok because Ashes is not for everyone.
Which games did you have your eye on?
Oh, gotchya. You think that more instanced content would be the cause of this? To me, it would have the opposite effect, more instanced content would provide those players with that fix, so they arent looking for it in the open world, so the open world will draw the players who are interested in its natural appeal. I might be missing an obvious point you are trying to make on this though.
No im not aware. As im sure you know "in all your data" as you like to say, a general idea of what I like to play. Haven't really found anything super appealing. But like you said, the specific combination of Ashes is appealing to me, but you are also talking to someone who never actually seriously played an mmo and I have no development experience. I determine my preferences/opinions through analysis/extrapolation, so I actually have no idea what the actual "combination" will feel like in Ashes, even if I Iike its individual components. Some of my favorite gameplay was from single player games that I wish had pvp, because the combat systems were more fun to me than what I see on the market for a lot of fighting games/mobas. I also like the idea of being able to dabble in some of the other systems I haven't really experienced yet as well, though, like economy, naval, etc. and the idea of having them all in one place is convenient. I doubt I would actually like those playstyles as much though, I enjoy the faster paced, high mobility isometric competitive gameplay the most. So, im not really aware of many alternative options that are out there that would provide the gameplay feel/depth/pvp/etc. elements for each of those individual systems.
Yea I agree. I think the whole "basically just make separate games each with varying layers/degrees of depth in the macro-competition to cater to different types of players, smash them all together through things like instanced content, and call it Ashes", was basically my take on this, unless its not feasible, in which case I am on your side of sticking with the more hardcore pvx/emergent side of things and saying its not for everyone.
Ah, sorry, I think you misread the 'I' in that sentence for meaning me, when, in context, it meant 'A person who enjoys open worlds and change factors, but does not enjoy the restricted micro-competition'.
So let's be clear, I personally want Ashes to soar like the blazing Phoenix it is, beyond Throne and Liberty (which seems to be taking the approach I expect of releasing a minimum product and iterating), beyond ArcheAge 2 (which is dialing back the harder structures), beyond Pax Dei (which is wobbling along trying to figure out how to be slightly better MineCraft), beyond Reign of Guilds (just look it up), beyond even the Riot MMO (good luck to them with that, though).
Hence my supercritical prickly attitude (despite which, I want to encourage and defend Ashes Devs at all times).
But just note that for a person with less faith and investment than me, Ashes is mostly words, and maybe some pain-point implementations. Looking at the same Riot MMO, a person might go 'That will probably never release, it'll be cardboard when it does, Riot only knows how to make lowest common denominator games'. But that's the same type of judgement that Ashes can get from a lot of people.
(I feel like I kinda-answered your 'question' even if it wasn't actually about me, lmk if I didn't)
True. I apologize. We are all selfish, willing to get the game we want.
This is not a risk vs reward setup.
If I can see your people and I have fewer in my group then is not a matter of risk. Not even a competition.
If you kill me even when I do not fight back, you become red and depending how valuable the fish is, you can do it once or a few more times. Then you have no choice but to let me fish.
But maybe you can solve that by pulling some NPCs to do the killing blow, which is a valid strategy.
Then I have no other option but to wait until there is nobody around.
That is when the risk happens. Maybe your people hide in water. Or maybe I stay too long and eventually I'll have no way to escape when you surround me. But if my reward was the fishing activity (not the fish) I could try giving it to you and you would get it 100% instead of just a fraction when I flag up.
Or maybe I will not give it to you if you are unfriendly. And I will try to escape somehow, maybe swimming if I have a water mount and then you can chase me. And that will be fun too
But such scenarios where you cannot progress because other players do something I seen even if you do not flag for PvP. For example in New World a quest would require a drop from a special alpha bear or wolf and players were camping that because not each could loot. Or resources were constantly mined by bots or very dedicated players. What kind of competition is that?
The only solution is to make every player be able to loot the resource from resource nodes or NPCs.
And PvE content to exist in instances, as many as needed. Then what kind of competition is that?
Players competing with themselves to see if they can progress a bit more against a preprogrammed AI?
Anyway, AoC will not go on this path.
It must be balanced to offer risk.
Your setup was not quite ok to deliver on this game pillar.
You did indeed. Reassuring tbh as I tend to go all-in on one game at a time, and don't usually have time to keep an eye on all the competition. I get the impression there aren't any obvious challengers on the horizon.
Related: I wonder what the market is like generally for an MMO these days. Obviously at the heights of WoW (the game I know best) there was a lot of younger interest, whereas it seems the community has aged together and we're all 35+ year olds with wives & kids (generalisation alert).
All the PvP / PvE playstyle differences aside; is the market lively enough to give Ashes the launch & life it hopefully deserves?
I feel like what happened here is that you slightly projected your frustrations with bad games, onto my potential mindset for Ashes. So if you don't mind, let's step back a moment.
Disregarding the fact that only the person who lands the killing blow gets any Corruption in Ashes at this time, I am talking about a person who wants to fish, to improve at fishing or support their economic needs in game, becoming unable to fish due to my willingness to kill them.
This player could absolutely, as you say, just hand over the fish. But it's not the fish necessarily that is the target. What if I want my bard to level up their Fishing and you fishing at all at the spot, is therefore a problem?
I agree with you that bots, gatekeeping players from quest mobs, etc, is bad and also not competition. That's the core problem I'm taling about.
We are immortal, we are locusts, we do not tire, we do not eat, we do not sleep. We are all Daywalker Vampires who just can't kill magical town guards or shopkeepers.
As for my setup that does not deliver on the game pillar, can you describe it to me? I don't feel like I offered a 'setup' to try to deliver anything, so I'd appreciate that clarified.
Obviously I can't answer that with any definitive, I can only give you a specific lens to look at it with.
Ashes of Creation has ingame Weather and things about the game that change based on that weather (but they're not all implemented yet)
FFXI has ingame weather and things about the game that change based on that weather.
BDO has ingame weather and a few things that change based on that weather, including your farm plots
FFXIV has ingame weather and some things that change based on that weather.
Throne and Liberty has ingame weather and many things that change, including dungeon openings and paths.
ArcheAge 2 can be expected to have at least as much weather as ArcheAge 1.
The purpose of that preamble is not to say 'Ashes of Creation needs to have better weather' or 'Ashes of Creation is not doing well because not all of the parts of the weather are implemented'. It's specifically to say:
"If Ashes of Creation attempts to use the ingame weather as a large part of its marketing strategy, it will not impress the current market of MMO players much."
I feel like it's hard to know the current market for a deep MMO like Ashes at the moment because every time someone hitches their MMO idea to the Unreal 5 hype train, we all have to carefully check if they even know how to make a good HQ MMO.
And just this last week we learned that Riot (harshly paraphrasing here) didn't. By their own admission, and good on them, they realized 'oh wait this is just normal old stuff, we need to do better'.
Ashes is in the same position as Riot. So, the market kind of isn't even defined, at the moment? I hope that made some tiny amount of sense, despite all the abstractions.
I didn't say anything was wrong with the direction your mind went.
I used the word 'living world' to describe a thing, I could've used any word because the complexity of the thing is so high that the label probably barely matters.
If 'living world' means something else to you, great. I'm saying that I know from past experience that there's no way for you and I have to have a reasonable conversation once you get to the point of perceiving that my definitions are wrong in some way.
My other option is to define 'living' or 'changing' world in Ashes as 'some buildings go up and then they go down'... or something. I don't even know. I barely want to know. If their definition of 'living world' is enough for you, and therefore the design is not flawed, fine. I, at least, am trying to discuss how PvE players should not be expected to be positive at all toward a world with no micro-competition aspects that can't be reduced to PvP.
In my bias, within that context, it's fair to say that owPvP, by its nature in most implementations particularly the one Ashes currently is presenting to us, is in conflict with the design, and since I believe that 'Nodes and Economy' is the important part of Ashes (as it is practically the only sorta-original part), I see interference as a 'flaw'.
If you would like to define owPvP as the important part of Ashes (design pillar: Meaningful Conflict) and 'unnecessary living-world aspects' as a flaw that interferes with the owPvP, that's ok too. A discussion for a possible thread in the bleak future where we are struggling to get PvP players to care about Ashes, instead.
I had the feeling you want to continue the discussion about risk vs reward but in a different thread.
But you also used the Micro-Competition and Macro-Competition expressions which I had no time to reverse engineer yet from other posts. This thread exploded with comments fast.
You gave me an example which was supposed to explain them but I still didn't understood.
And is important because you said in the OP that there is a misunderstanding:
Thanks, I'm with you now.
Now, Macro-competition, a thing that I didn't really get to directly in the thread yet, somehow.
When a big guild is trying to get ahead of other guilds, depending on the design of the game, this is where Macro-competition appears. This is where a lot of people have fun in owPvP games, but it can happen in PvE-only games too. Using economic tactics, playing at specific times, knowing spawn timings of bosses, and ofc PvE griefing (so many ways). These Macro-competition PvE tactics are usually also not very fun for most players, actually. Zerging objectives, botting activities, Mob Player Killing via training mobs onto other groups, etc.
For many PvE-focused (not necessarily even PvP-averse) players, the ideal game is one where the following is true:
"If I am in an area with no other person who has the same skills, there is no competition."
"If I enter an area where PvP skills are known to be required, there will probably be a PvP competition, and I can choose an appropriate area."
"My ability to engage in Macro-competition (economics, guild support, etc) depends on whatever my main skills are, probably via cooperation with others who have different skills."
Ashes is already almost perfect here, especially if Corruption is strong.
For many PvP-focused players, I would guess that the ideal game is one where the following are somewhat true if not very true:
"If I am in an area with a person with different skills, I would like to cooperate with that person if it helps me in Macro-competition."
"If I try to do something where non-PvP skills are known to be required, there will be a competition, and I can choose an appropriate area."
"My ability to engage in Macro-competition (economics, guild support, etc) depends on whatever my main skills are, probably via cooperation with others who have different skills."
Again, almost perfect, with one huge problem.
In a system based around 'Corruption', the PvP focused player has much less power. The PvE focused player doesn't need to cooperate with them. Their only actual option is to 'use their PvP skills to set back the PvE focused player', and that's assuming that PvE focused player doesn't have greater PvP skills than them.
And then they get punished for this, too (but have lots of ways to avoid it).
And finally we have the fact that not every PvP focused player cares about this one:
"If I try to do something where non-PvP skills are known to be required, there will be a competition, and I can choose an appropriate area."
Some PvP focused players are quite happy to change every competition into PvP. Especially if the game incentivizes this for Macro-competition. This is the type of game that Ashes of Creation currently is.
(I cut out a lot of the examples and preamble from this one since it was quite long, lmk if you need it, it's no effort to paste it)
Macro-competition gets really easy or sometimes disappears entirely, in MMOs, because they don't require as many macro-competition skills as 'RL' or 'Survival games'.
In most MMOs, a guild doesn't need three fisherpeople, two cooks, a weaponsmith, a security detail, and 2 procurement merchants to keep dragging down a different guild or control an area.
It's like, 'every guild can just be a bandit guild'. And that means they can focus much more heavily on PvP and basically not suffer or seriously slow down much if they don't want to help or give their 'PvE people' anything. They just need money.
Take that down one level, let's not look straight at 'actually successful guilds', they would probably have those things. Let's just look at 'griefer' guilds. Guilds who just like to run around dragging down other people's activities. They need some money.
Most MMORPGs that allow any form of owPvP, don't actually reward those people much for all the dragging-down and killing. They can't support themselves without some 'PvE skills' or financial support. Because they don't get resources or items to sell, so they lose really badly at macro-competition until they make some effort to get good at some skills.
Ashes can reward players for running around and dragging-down others, though. They might be able to sustain themselves in overall macro-competition this way, by using the fact that they 'can't die' and 'don't need to find a safe place to sleep' and 'don't care about food'.
Survival games make players care about all those things, and then on top of that, add 'if you do actually die, your macro-competition status falls' (but this isn't consistent so even these games have SOME issues).
PvE-focused players don't like having to deal with these 'Immortal Predators'.
Just like PvP-focused players don't like having to deal with 'Immortal/Invincible Hoarding Locusts'. Each group invalidates the skills of the player type that hates it.
I know you're juggling a few convos atm, but in case you missed my response, im looking forward to hearing your take on that.
Thank you!
I'll bookmark them.
This is indeed what I see as weakness too when Steven said that:
"The land management system takes into account how players are interacting with the environment: how many of the resources they're withdrawing from the world; and that decreases the spawn rate within certain localities as those things go too high. So there can be a degree of economic warfare by sending players out into zones where you want to mitigate collection of resources. You send your players out there to take all those resources and then that diminishes the land management score of that particular zone.[5] – Steven Sharif"
There is no clear way to defend except using NPCs against those players.
I am not yet concerned but Alpha 2 will reveal the problem fast or will show us something we don't yet know.
We might see changes.
While I can see that having the effect of 'more total players, playing Ashes', what happens on the Elite side, is that people who might be okay with playing in 'Open' get pulled into Private Groups to be with their friends who are less okay with it.
This probably wouldn't be as big an issue in Ashes, but I feel like anything that risks segregation of the playerbase is ... suboptimal. Personal sense, though.
Well, subtracting the PvP aspect for the moment, despite how obviously important it is, most of what Ashes offers is some combination of Elite Dangerous and FF11.
Freeholds and Node Reliquaries are good, if you can experience anything related to them, so definitely a plus there. And ofc, FF11 is old, and Elite Dangerous isn't a fantasy game. BDO has some bits too, ofc, but it's just 'bits'.
Throne and Liberty doesn't have any housing yet (but you can see that the design allows for it). I don't know if it is fair to say overall, but I think that unless Ashes goes beyond what I can even begin to imagine, I've mostly had the experiences it intends to offer already. As I always say to Intrepid Team though...
"If y'all can manage to put those into the same game with L2 or better tier PvP, you have automatically won."
Which sounds a lot like I'm saying 'build the game I want' but technically it's largely the game they say they're going to build and I'm just waiting for them to do it properly (my only point here is that if they don't knock it out of the park, they won't surpass the upcoming mentioned below)
The problem with this, I think, is that ArcheAge 2 is likely to be this 'mashup', and TL is likely to be 'slightly more than this' if they ever start taking their Economy and Territory control aspects more seriously. So it comes down to 'how much do I really want to see a different node in this spot?' (larger content changes are apparently not a thing that technically appeal to a very large number of players? But I definitely care about it).
The thing about that, is while Ashes could 'change Instanced Content based on what Nodes were built up', it might hit, as you say, 'scope creep', so anytime we see anything suspicious in development that seems like something might get 'cut' or 'trimmed down', it's worrisome.
I did not think my 'we Riot' reference would go in this direction, now that I think about it...
I agree mostly, I do think Darkfall Unholy Wars almost struck a good balance with safe zones. There were low tier items around so they could at least get some foundational gear, practice fighting easier mobs, dueling friends, etc. And if they wanted any meaningful money or progression they had to leave the safe zone and venture out in the rest of the world.
I.e., I think some minimal economic profitability is good, and a safe place for players to learn the game and practice mechanics. But it should take like 100x more work to get rich in a safe zone as compared to somewhere else.
Ah, I didn't really think about that. My first reaction though is whether or not the firends could be pulled the opposite direction if that instwnced content didn't exist. If not, then they would just play something else anyway so it eould be better for the game to offer something for the whole group, even if some of the particpants would rather do something else.
Remember that I haven't played any mmos to really have a frame of reference when you say "like lineage 2 or better tier pvp" or that kind if thing. I'm curious what this market differentiator is that you are saying Ashes should utilize. It sounds like it might be something the expands on the idea of:
"So it comes down to 'how much do I really want to see a different node in this spot?' (larger content changes are apparently not a thing that technically appeal to a very large number of players? But I definitely care about it)."
But if thats what you are referring to then what aren't they doing now in this regard?
And what you are referring to by this exactly: "I don't know if it is fair to say overall, but I think that unless Ashes goes beyond what I can even begin to imagine, I've mostly had the experiences it intends to offer already."?
Because by the sound of what you are saying if they took it in that direction it would end up more like an "Archage 2 or Throne and Liberty mash up".
Regarding my perspective of differentiators, combat is the main one for me. I can extrapolate a good idea of what the combat might look like between Ashes and Throne and Liberty, but depending on how things go that might be a big draw for Ashes if it manages to differentiate itself in that regard. I have my doubts, but its hard to say for sure either way at this point regarding that, so we will have to wait and see. (At least for Ashes, since I believe the revamped combat of Throne and liberty has already been played by some people)
Lineage 2 players often perceive Ashes as a return to that game's glory days. I ended up here because it sounded like someone was going to 'make FF11 style gaming great again'.
But, fortunately, I do have examples of playloops.
In Ashes, I would like to see a situation where:
1. Because many more people than usual have visited a node, from outside that node, a small outbreak of a not-terrible disease has occurred (Can happen in Elite, something slightly like it can happen in FFXI)
2. Players are requested or expected to import medicines from another nearby node with good Alchemy facilities, or make them, themselves (obv can happen in both games)
3. Players can vote on or influence a decision from the Node Government about secondary approaches to dealing with the problem (can happen in a particular subsection of FFXI, only partially in Elite Dangerous)
4. Players fulfilling or ignoring the decision and synchronizing with the relief effort can lead to a quicker resolution, or a loss of confidence due to 'incompetence' (can happen in both games)
5. NPC behaviour both in-node and external conditions such as battle and enemy spawns, change because of this shift in activity, such as gathering more herbs for medicine, or bandits taking advantage of imports (definitely happens in Elite, happens slightly in FFXI)
6. Disruption of relief efforts by rival player groups having control of specific territories/areas can affect all of the above (happens in FFXI slightly more than Elite, but not really anymore due to additional fast travel options)
7. Complete failure to respond to the situation results in economic downturn due to weakening of defenses of the Node, etc (happens in both games, in a very roundabout way also happens in BDO)
8. Strong coordinated success in response to the situation results in reputation benefits for involved players (happens in both games, and during BDO events of certain kinds)
9. Changing control of some territory during this, to improve supply lines, can automatically have some positive effect through things such as NPC actions in the open world (happens in both games, and in TL, though TL lacks most of the above currently).
10. The overall price of medicine or related items rises or falls due to the situation.
To me, this sounds like what Intrepid is already planning as a standard for their game (most of the above would be handled with the World Manager and a good economy design), and 'the thing that would be driving most of our play loops', since things like Node Sieges would be less frequent than 'node status changes' or 'world status changes'.
Elite's changes are more visible, and less 'abstract'. FFXI requires a bit more 'careful attention' to easily see differences in the world-state, but you often get more benefit out of paying attention. Elite's overall simulation state changes once per day on average, and FFXI has some systems that change 'in real time' and others that go through bigger changes once per week.
Therefore, in terms of 'what Ashes offers to me', I can experience it all already, with the main difference being that the complete destruction of a Node and therefore some absolute loss of related content, is more possible than it is in standard play of Elite Dangerous or FFXI (it is, actually, also possible in both those games as well, but it's just 'a change of control in an area that is considered more important than most others')
I can imagine more specific and granular forms of this, but it's hard to go very far beyond where Elite already is.
"An outbreak in this system has changed the missions in the Passenger Lounge so that rather than seeing sightseers who are going on joyrides, quarantines have led to requests from Medical Officers needing to go to different high tech systems with Pharmaceutical facilities, and long-haul explorers who intend to get out of the area until the situation is resolved."
The above is just 'normal' for that game. That, if anything, is my entire point. I'm not really asking for Intrepid to do much, if anything, beyond 'my normal'. But 'my normal' is relatively complicated with a lot of balance levers and non-obvious pitfalls, and I can't always tell when they are 'choosing to do something differently because they have a different, detailed plan', and when it's that they don't have experience doing a specific thing properly, which leaves me in the unfortunate position of 'having to express that I think they might be messing something up' without knowing the details.
The last thing I want is to be giving useless feedback to a developer with a really clear plan, because I 'think they forgot to consider something'. But the second-last thing I want is to not point out something they overlooked.
I think Ashes can just count on the fact that WoW players are far more numerous and generally less likely to know what is available in other MMOs, and that FF14 is actually also a type of WoW-clone, itself. They just have to do what they say they are going to do, but do it better than all the other upcoming games, many of which will also be made/influenced by people who, like me, are familiar with 'a game that had almost all of this implemented by 2007'.
A good, solid execution of their core goals, using the reference games that already do it, with the correct MMO sociology adaptations to make it all fit Ashes.
All I want is for AoC to expand its player base as much as is reasonable within their own goals. They want crafting and have put a lot of thought to making both the economic side of crafting and the social side of crafting feel right. I think we can all agree that more people feeding Ashes economy will make any server more interesting and fun. So it's important we keep the ones that can actually like the game with some nudges from the game designers in rather than 'elsewhere' yeah?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
Ah, mine is flipped, thats why my posts probably come acrossed to them as some dork who thinks he's teaching them something they already know, but I do it anyways just in case theres that off chance they havn't thought about it in a certain way.
Ah okay I think I understand, basically that the main draw to Ashes is that macro-competition which at this point isn't really any more fleshed out than other similar games.
From my perspective, even though I am interested in the macro-competition, the main draw for me is both how good the individual experiences are that make up the macro-competitions, and how that improves the overall macro-competition experience. I think thats where the differentiation can occur, but I haven't played Elite to know for sure. But, I can't imagine the combat being that similar in a sci-fi themed game (if I remember right its sci-fi fps gameplay I think), so for example, if Ashes were to imrove upon these types of individual systems you don't feel like that would be a meaningful differentiator with the cascading effects that could have in the macro-competition experience and set Ashes apart even if the macro-competitions weren't as granular?
I do.
The moment I see that Ashes has meaningfully improved on FFXI's individual systems, I'll consider it 'set apart' due to the PvP aspects (assuming those don't, in turn, become a detriment, and by that, I mean to PvX players who might otherwise stick to TL or AA2).
Hence why I say I just want the first 'FFXI+L2' game to come out (I didn't like ArcheAge 1 much for some reasons). If it's Ashes instead of 'full featured TL', or if they're 'equal' in quality, and Ashes 'wins' by having no Fast Travel and Nodes, great. (Despite liking TL combat better, I don't want TL to 'win' since that would imply Ashes falling short of the proposed vision).
Okay, im assuming the main system of concern is the economy? Other than that, what individual systems are of concern to you that is "not looking good by comparison to similar games", because from my perspective a lot of systems are sounding pretty solid by comparison, (at least in concept.) Which if that is the case then things would be going as you hope, if I understand correctly.
And I haven't seen enough of TLs combat to know if it will be better or not, what have you seen that implies this?
Azherae, what's your party's opinion would be on smth like this setup?
As I see it, this would be a player-controlled TL-like system. There'll be nodes that are very good for pvers, but the system itself doesn't remove the possibility of being killed at least once. The economic macro-competition is still present in the form of mayoral actions (and any influence on them by other players), node wars/sieges (wars could have a goal of "destroy the guard post in the node", which disables it for several days) and caravan attacks to prevent the Guards from knowing the latest info about PKCH.
And this would also enforce pve-based micro-competition on the spots themselves, while not removing a casual PKing as the last resort. In other words, your enforcer might not be able to PK as much as yall might need, but a random person can still use the system for their benefit. Obviously this doesn't prevent your entire party going corrupt one after the other, but this too would only be doable up to a certain extent.
I feel like this system would be a nice way to have a not-as-gamey application of TL's events.
I am non-competitive, so I would not feel any competition with other fisherman.
I would probably have some goal of gathering xx fish within the time frame allotted for that play session.
In this example, let's say I have an hour left in my play session so I should be able to gather 50 fish.
It's possible that another fisherman could appear and we'd have to split the available resources in that spot, but typically that should just mean once there are no more fish in the first spot, I would move to a different spot.
If a PvPer arrives and kills me and it takes me five minutes for me to return and continue fishing for the remaining 55 minutes, I'm OK with that.
If I were confident there would be just one 5 minute battle and then I could continue fishing for the next 55 minutes... I might even choose to flag Purple.
If it means that I'm going to remain flagged purple for 10 minutes - thereby indicating that I'm still in the mood for PvP when I actually just want to fish - I'm not going to flag and will just let my attacker kill me as quickly as possible so I can return to fishing for the next 55 minutes.
It's often said that if I don't want to fight, I could just try to run.
Which is a viable stratgy with mobs since mobs typically have tethers. It's typically easy enough to escape.
In PvP - gamers don't have tethers, so there is no guarantee that the attempt to escape will only last 5 or 10 minutes. Or that the entire encounter will only last 5 or 10 minutes.
It's fairly common that the PvPer who does not ackowledge the concept of non-consensual PvP will attempt some form of corpse camping because it's easier to hunt for prey when you know they are likely to return to the same spot to retrieve their loot drop(s). Or could be a reasonably good guess the victim will want to return that spot or a nearby spot to continue fishing.
How much time is that player "stealing" from my play session goals? Especially if I've dropped some fish.
I may have lost that first 5 minutes worht of fish. Then I'd have to spend another 5 minutes re-gathering that amount of fish. Plus the 5 or 10 minutes it took to resolve the PvP encounter. That's easily a third of my play session that has stolen by some other player.
And I'm going likely to be enraged by that.
And I'm not necessarily going to feel much better if I win the PvP battle, but my attacker returns 2 or 3 times because they love dueling with other players even if they lose a couple times. Again... that could be a quarter to a third of my play session time stolen.
And I'm going to be pissed.
Because I'd rather play an MMORPG where I can't be attacked when I'm not in the mood for PvP and could just conintue to pursue my game session goals - which is, in this case fishing.
And then, when I am in the mood for PvP, I could go sign up for a Siege or a Caravan raid/defense.
I don't play multiplayer RPGs to be competitive. I play multiplayer RPGs to be cooperative with other players.
And, yeah, while I would probably tolerate PvP during Sieges and Caravans (even while mostly ignoring direct PvP combat as much as possible), I'd prefer to be teamed with other players v NPCs and mobs during those encounters. Similar to D&D.
If I want to engage in PvP in an MMO, I would play an MMO FPS.
I've played D&D for 40 years and only encountered PvP once - at the 15 year mark.
I don't play multiplayer RPGs to PvP. I play multiplayer RPGs to team with other players vs NPCs, mobs and the Environment. Because that is the very foundation of RPG gameplay.
Instances really have nothing to do with this topic.
Who has been mad fussy?
It's a pretty pleasant discussion as far as I've seen.
We're just sharing our different perspectives of how we like to play MMORPGs. And our perspectives of rulesets we don't like to play.
Of course "PvPers" are going to generally be forced to PvE in RPGs because PvE is the very foundation of the RPG genre.
PvEers are not suggesting that PvE be added to Fighting games or FPS games or other genres that are fundamentally PvP. Or to Sports games.
That being said. I think the veterans of these Forums for the most part understand that there are not a lot of MMORPGs that adequately support those who love to PvP in MMORPGs. Again, even the devs of L2, ArcheAge and EvE have chosen to lessen the focus on PvP in the current MMORPGs they're developing compared to their previous games.
So, yeah.. it's great for Ashes to cater to the PvP playstyle. It's just clear that Ashes does not adequately support my playstyle so I will primarily be playing other games that do. I expect to play more Pax Dei than Ashes because Pax Dei has large zones with PvP turned off.
I will likely spend more time helping Fantmx tend his farmstead in Pax Dei than I will on his Freehold in Ashes because I won't need to be concerned about PvP at all while I do that in Pax Dei, though I could be attacked on the Freehold in Ashes.