Unpopular opinion : Zergs are necessary and Castle sieges should not be fair

Now i’m a player that enjoys playing in small but well organized guilds so i’m not strange to been zerged and the frustration that brings, and I admit that in the current day and age content creators and streamers have a little bit too much power when it comes to creating zergs and running people over. However in a world where battles matter because they change the actual state of the world you can say those who win battles have the power to control the state of the world. I just don’t believe a small group of people should have all the power just because they are good at PvP and so increasing the number of people should be a valid response when you can’t win by skill alone.

In my mind the winner of the battle should be the side with the best combination of 4 things:

Skill (PvP players)
Equipment (PvE players)
Organization (Party leaders and/or shot callers)
Numbers (Guild leaders and politician)

The first 3 are fairly common in most MMOs while the fourth “Numbers”, there is usually not much to do other than recruiting more people for your guild.

In Ashes though, there is Politics too, given the way the nodes system works and the fact that there is no fast travel, most guilds will have a base in one city and do activities around that city which means guilds will be competing for limited resources which in turn lead to frictions and battles, but also alliances when it makes sense. And so Guild leaders will do well by keeping good relationships with other guilds with common interests so in case a zerg comes by you have someone to ask for help.

As i said, i don’t believe a small group of people should have all the power just because they are good at PvP because that usually turns to tyranny real quick. Zergs or the potential for a zerg keeps cocky PvPers in place. For this same reason I don't believe castle or node sieges should be instanced or player capped, since that would remove the political factor (Numbers) out of sieges which doesn’t make any sense to me given that the only reason for sieges is actual politics.

We can have fair guild vs guild matches in a coliseum or something i will be the first to sign up for it, but sieges are not the place to define which guild is better at pvp, it's the place to find out which side is more influential and can convince more people their vision for the world is the best.

Now there is a point in which zergs become a problem, this point in my mind is when the difference in number is so big that the fight doesn’t make sense anymore, specially when their only intention is trolling. I’m not arguing zergs are never a problem what i’m saying i guess is forcing equal numbers in fights is not the solution and recruiting more people/guilds to your side should be a valid strategy.

I would love to hear what if people agree or not with this take and please don’t be too harsh on me this is my first post in this forum and English is not my first language

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Ludullu

abc0815 wrote: »

Can we try to define what a casual is in terms of Ashes of Creation and why they should get access to the most rewarding content? Just throwing bodies at it will not be fun.

I haven't followed the Mag/Lae exchange, so I dunno if they talked about castle or node sieges, but node sieges should definitely be accessible by all citizens of the sieged node. And unless 500 is the upper limit on citizens - some players wouldn't be able to defend their own things.

To them it isn't about "the most rewarding content". It's about defending, potentially, months of hard work, in the form of freehold/apartment/materials/citizenship itself/node benefits.

And this doesn't even include all the other citizens of that node's vassal system. And they ARE auto-registered as defenders. And if the siege is for a metro - there'd be thousands of people registered as defenders, yet only 500 (if Intrepid even succeed at achieving that goal) can defend the node in a siege.

And a metro falling is supposed to be a huge event on the server and impact a ton of people, so, once again, if majority of allies can do nothing about their metro falling - imo that's a pretty bad thing.

Laetitian

abc0815 wrote: »

Can we try to define what a casual is in terms of Ashes of Creation and why they should get access to the most rewarding content? Just throwing bodies at it will not be fun.

why they should get access to the most rewarding content?
Because content =/= reward; content is just ... the game. The rewards of owning and controlling the castle and nodes can be 100% left to the biggest hardcore guilds for all I care. But they shouldn't own the gameplay.

What are casuals?
It's a spectrum of people who would be more or less affected by these game design/balance choices.

There would be players who spend a few hours a week on the game and just wouldn't have access to fuck-all, regardless of how they perform at the PvP and PvE they engage in.
There would be players who would join guilds ruled by hardcore leadership, but still be sitting on the bench 8 times out of 10, because they "don't contribute enough" to qualify for sieges. They'd be good enough to keep around as resource farmers, but not quite to include them in the important stuff.
And there would be skilled players who invest 10-30 hours a week into the game butdon't join major guild networks and avoid superfluously tryhard PvE, who would also (in the current system and especially the extended one Mag7 is advocating for) only get to participate in the important stuff when the hardcore guilds happen to need a helping hand badly enough. (Yes, that's about where I'd envision myself)

In my opinion, all of these players should be important enough to join sieges for the major battles in the territories surrounding their home node. Gameplay shouldn't be a privilege, it should be what the game is about.
Give 100% of the rewards of said gameplay to the tryhards, I don't give a fuck. But don't exclude players from participating in the fight because they're not tryharding and farming enough to earn the right to PvP with a purpose; that's dumb as hell.

Laetitian

NiKr wrote: »

abc0815 wrote: »

Can we try to define what a casual is in terms of Ashes of Creation and why they should get access to the most rewarding content? Just throwing bodies at it will not be fun.

And unless 500 is the upper limit on citizens - some players wouldn't be able to defend their own things.

Even if the upper limit on citizens was like 500, and the siege would be 1000v1000, many citizens might still be denied their ability to defend, because the defending node leadership could decide to hire other combatants over their citizens.

Edit: I initially mixed up those numbers for that thought experiment. It looks out of scale now, but at least there can be no misunderstandings about my point.

Aszkalon

Laetitian wrote: »

Even if the upper limit on citizens was 1000, and the siege would be 500v500, many citizens might be denied their ability to defend, because the defending node leadership could decide to hire other combatants to hire over their citizens.

I don't get it.

Seriously. Nodes are in the Open World, are they not ? How exactly would you try to deny Node Citizens who "run around there", to unleash Hell on Attackers who attack their Node ?

Is the Siege instanced ? Because not gonna lie, that sounds hella lame.

You run around in your Node - and suddenly " BOOOOM !! " your Node vanishes and is probably destroyed or levelled down. It's just phasing out/away and get replaced by either an Encampment or a Node-Level below your just-vanished Node-Stage.

Then You get an ingame Message.

" SIIIKE !!
Your Node was attacked by +250 People in an instanced (different Phasing?) Version of the World and your +250 fellow Node Citizens failed to fend them off. You will now lose EVERYTHING you worked for without an Opportunity or Chance to defend it all - because the System always wants equal Numbers of Attackers and Defenders no matter how many more People are affected.

With Love, your Intrepid Team. "

Hahahahahahahahahahah.

Ludullu

Aszkalon wrote: »

Is the Siege instanced ? Because not gonna lie, that sounds hella lame.

Castle sieges are most likely instanced. Node sieges has had no mention of their instanced nature, but Mag believes that they will be.

Dripyula

Mag7spy wrote: »

Literarily you already stated your point is you want to zerg try hard guilds because they play more than you. Without realizing those try hard guilds will be the ones that zerg you.

Who gives a sh°° as long as it is epic? And also... I dunno why people state the obvious?
It is a given that in any kind of content, mechanics, updates, patches, meta's and all kinds of aspects in a videogame which try to create a sort of balance, the NOLIFERS will still come out at the front of any kind of race and competition.
Nothing will ever stop that and nothing can be done against this.

From another pov though it states that even the most sweaty of hardcore guilds cannot survive without having to be FRIENDLY and respectful to other guilds, aka be diplomatic and reasonable, to be able to enlist even more defenders in any kind of scenario.

Cause as Aszkalon said - who shares a lot of views with me - there is nothing more boring, lame and also disgusting than a company shielding their "whales" and sweatlords unnecessarily, by protecting them from the much higher amount of casuals, if those would try to band together against them...

... in a videogame MMO world that is obviously a numbers game.
Intrepit is always mentioning it that they do not intend to make this an MMO in which people will be able to even come around effectively, by going solo.
And not even with friends.
But by joining ever expanding groups of people ("Guilds"), until the maximum amount of players is reached that a single guild allows. Which in itself is limiting the realism I think and not a good idea.

For example if an entire servers playerpopulation would decide they wanna try to unite in a single guild, so that everybody can be "a winner" in terms of... I dunno... buffs that only affects single guild for holding a certain node, or having slayed a certain worldboss... then by all means they should be allowed to do so.

And even if only 200 people hold a node, or have slayed a worldboss... and the guild itself are +50.000 players.
Sounds kinda boring? Sounds like there will be only Elite squads within it?
And the rest is kinda leeching off?
SO?! <- if people want to do this why not let them?
Kinda reminds me of the soulsgame community who just cannot accept that different people enjoy different playstiles without regard of "peerpressure".

Eldenring. Using spirit ashes. Using magic. Using any kind of elements. Using no bleed weapons.
Using no poison. Not using certain weapons. Playing without leveling up a single level or upgrading any weapon to make it EVEN harder.
Letting only your feet roll around the keyboard while being waterboarded.

Lets be honest it can always be HARDER AND EVEN MORE EXTREME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As long as the netcode allows... I would like to see the craziest battles that put LotR the battle for Minas Tirith to shame. Something which I think only the most modern of technology has any chance to achieve.
Or at least something of this likeness.

I too played Planetside 2 with Aszkalon together as the Vanu and I will never forget the first time ever when we lost Indar. Cause all sides were pretty much equal in numbers.
And when the system released that only one side can hold the continent, dunno why but it was us the Vanu who got Indar first as "conquered".

And how did we lose it? HOW DID WE LOSE IT?

By the blue bois CUCKING ALL OVER THE PLACE and becoming the NTR'D bitchboy losers

of the red bois faction, they all BANDED TOGETHER against us and camped our last owned hex for several hours until we finally lost the grip on it.
To the red bois.
The blues let the red sack their territory without resistance.
And then helped the reds to get ours, the "purple bois" territorys.
In a united effort of finally, at least once in their pitiful incompetent lifes, to see the Vanu lose their dominance.

Maaaan I was disgusted. I was so disgusted.
Lorewise this didn't make any sense and I mocked the blue guys forever for that until I stopped playing.

But in hindsight, this was something that should be 100% possible.
Otherwise some people never see any kind of victory.
They were not adequate enough after all.

Did I already mentioned that they were such LOSE- ...

But it is really good if such stuff can happen. There is nothing more boring, immersion breaking and annoying as well when there is a single guild of smug snobs who think they are the hot shit and then swag around like the eternal upper class, let everyone else know, make people 20 times the size of their guild despise them and there is not a single scenario in which those players can get back at those losers.

No one should be safe from the consequences of acting like a bastard.
And diplomacy should also become a part of the game, since it is already valuing "society structures" so much and does not stop praising it.

Aszkalon

NiKr wrote: »

Castle sieges are most likely instanced. Node sieges has had no mention of their instanced nature, but Mag believes that they will be.

Ahoi Nikr, thanks for tuning in.

Hopefully this doesn't get seen as aggressive -> i hope Mag7 is wrong with this.
No, seriously - i hope he is wrong.

Castle Sieges instanced ? Okay - i can live with that ... ...

... ... ... but NODES ??

It is funny because i think Mag7spy argued for the Sake of the System NOT annoying and angering People to the Point of them quitting the Game because it pisses them off.

But what would be MORE annoying ?

The Fact that your Enemy can sometimes outnumber and entirely dominate You ? " OR " when Freedom is taken away and You have no Control what'so'ever whetever You can defend your Node or not,

or PARTICIPATE into Attacking an Enemy Node - when You clearly have the higher Numbers and should be able to make said targeted Node your Vassal or so ?!

Dripyula and i talk outside writing in the Forum over this,

do People here " KNOW " - what killed Planetside-Two ?? To most Parts and Degree ?

-> Taking. Freedom. away.

The MOMENT Lattice* was forced over the Players -> the Game was doomed. The Game was expanded with Vehicles, Weapons, a few more Mechanics -> and it STILL slowly died.
Not even NEW CONTINENTS could save it.

Because People got whiney and touchy and wanted to leave AFTER BEING FORCED into thin Lanes in which the Meatgrind and Frame-Lag was real.

Long Story short,
TAKING the Masses' Freedom to defend or Attack at their own Possibility and Opportunity away to fight or attack as they see fit ? As they think it is fair as in everyone involved has the Chance and Possibility to contribute to either Defence or Attack ?

Even if i try to be positive about "secured, closed Mechanics" - i can see more negatives to this than positives. I just saw it happen too often in the VideoGame World that Games started to die after the Freedom of the Playerbase inside was getting restricted and People suddenly had no Fun anymore.

KingDDD

All you need is anti zerg mechanics built into both castle sieges and combat.

Objectives and reasons to spread numbers works wonders in making zergs feel less punishing. As for combat, make abilities have some scale based on number of targets. A lot of people hated the aoe mes in DAoC but it did punish the zergs. I hope something like that is available in Ashes with appropriate counters to alleviate the perceived issues with it.

Mag7spy

Laetitian wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote:

This is the most important step else everything else doesn't matter because zerging wins.

Massive hyperbole. Zerging would just *have an impact.*
If one side has 300 supporters and the other has 250, that will *have an impact.* It *won't decide who wins.* If the 250 side has the advantage in gear, siege or defence funds, or fighting skill, the 250 side will probably still win. If the side that has all the advantages also happens to have the zerg advantage, that side will win. Which is fine, because clearly no one's strong enough to justify winning in the smaller side, then.

Mag7spy wrote:

You re clearly trying to ignore a fact, anyone can dec, if you don't want to sit on the bench and that goes for any guilds / groups they should dec so they can do the war. You just want to ignore a clear solution because you again expect handouts for casual which is very sus.

My answer to that was very clear. That's not an argument because hardcore guilds will have a monopoly on spamming the majority of sieges, by sheer manner of volume. "You get to participate in siege PvP twice a year" is not good enough to deal with the fact that this game design is alienating casual players from an entire portion of the game.

Mag7spy wrote:

If someone really wants to do a siege they will join a guild to do it

Okay, now we're actually getting into the meat of things.

"Joining a guild" won't be good enough for casuals to circumvent this problem. Guilds and alliances will have access to too many willing & able hardcore members and hired blades than to let some filthy casual join their limited 250 man army just because they "joined a guild". As you've said, hardcore guilds will successfully control their armies. Declaring sieges will be expensive, so they won't let any chances get away in ensuring that only the most capable fighters will represent them. The people who will participate in a castle siege (or in your preference even node sieges) won't be the local citizens. It'll only be the most refined PvPers of the declaring guild and its allies, plus hired blades from all around the world. Anyone but the casuals.
THAT is the problem. That is what I mean by monopoly on content.
I'm not of that real-world political persuasion, but it's essentially the hypergamy argument. The same 10% of combatants on a server will serve 90% of the sieges on it.

You just used the argument that casuals can "just join a guild" that they can engage in sieges with, but that's just not an option that will exist. Except maybe once in a blue moon by paying extra for some sad "pay to play" guild that lets casuals break their piggy bank to be allowed to play with the big boys.
So either you're not thinking along, or you just don't care about casuals participating in the game, and you're just saying whatever you can think of to get out of addressing that issue.

Mag7spy wrote:

I won't compromise on zerg gameplay its trash, if wars are meant to have 500v500 or 1000v1000 without running like dog crap (which i doubt) that is fine as long as its even.

What? Okay, that was easy? So then if wars are "meant to" (I assume that means "if wars can typically fill up participation up to that point"?) have 2k players, now you're okay with one side losing if they don't happen to amass their 1k? But with 250 it's immediately unacceptable if one side had more people and used them? What's the difference?
Not to look a gift horse in a mouth, I appreciate that you've essentially shown a willingness to compromise there, but it doesn't seem to be consistent with anything else you've said, so I'm wondering what exactly those hard limits are.

Additional compromise suggestion from my end: What if siege battlegrounds are unlimited, but only the 250v250 or 500v500 conscripted combatants can respawn or be revived in any way? Or any similar way of allowing people to participate in actively defending their allies, while limiting the severity of zerg advantages?

This way the outnumbering side would have an advantage due to its larger number of supporters, but the outnumbered side would have tangible tools to control and mitigate that advantage. Especially if the outnumbered side happens to have the economic superiority. And everyone would get to participate in using their ability to fight in order to support the side they are allied with. Through actual gameplay, not just sending gold like a sad real-world politics simulator.

I like how you try to use 300 and 250, when the reality is going to be more like a 40%+ increase though any amount of increase will be effective is giving a large edge to those that have more numbers. With the 35%+ increase bringing it to the zerg side winning by default.

So how about you use some more realistic numbers like 300 vrs 600 since we are talking about zergs.

Please stop making me repeat myself if a casual guild wants to do a dec like everyone else they can get the resources and make the siege scroll. Stop trying to ask for free hand outs to one of the most important systems to the game. This is what I've already mentioned before people are more prone to destroy things even more so when loot is involved when a city is destroyed. You pretty much want all players to be able to zerg nodes and destroy them. Leading to people only living at zerg nodes.

1. You clearly don't understand guilds
2. You are talking about casuals that hardly play with no motivation to get to a decent point where they could be picked to siege.
3. You again don't realize anti zerg is the first step to allowing more types of players of different tiers in fights

(Not not here to explain 3 because that can be a forum thread in itself but it does not matter once you allow zerging)

In context the problem you are talking about doesn't exist as long as its still understood it is high level pvp and there is still a bar standard you need to reach. Which is important as the effect of node destruction is big. No you don't get a free handout to just destroy the economy of the game. Which is going to be what casuals end up leaving if it happens too much as ive already said but you really don't care about if people quit as you are quick to ignore that point every time.

Its funny how you say i don't care about casuals participating in the game and you are trying to judge siege as the whole game. My sight is on the heath and balance of the game as my points are in relation to that as you try to weaponize what casuals what so you can zerg nodes.

Don't take those numbers as fact, i support whatever fair numbers AoC is going for which could be more or less who knows. If it is more there will be a reason for it most likely wars taking place in a large scape around the node.

The fact you think think its hard to mass numbers is kind of silly and why it is showing you don't understand the effect of zergs and how powerful they are. Its not easy tog et those numbers, I recruit like 200 fresh people in New world in a few days.....AoC has way more people interested in it and larger servers. Zerging is not hard.

Again i told you i don't compromise and zergs, this idea o we brought 1000 extra people to this area to fight but they can't respawn so you should be fine ;o. No casual player is going to want to see a 1000 extra people and want to keep playing the game when they loss their progress from the last 3 months because of a zerg making them automatically lose.

Mag7spy

Aszkalon wrote: »

Node with +250 Citizens versus Node with +500 to +750 Citizens = * struggling to just survive/exist *

Enemy Node with +500 to +750 Citizens only like =
* ambushing the Ressource Gatherers, murdering the NPC's like Blacksmith/Merchants inside targeted Node * ,
* participate in Monster Coin Sieges/Attacks en Masse, ambush all the "economical" Node Caravans * ,

can Ashes of Creation have a System that will forcefully shrink Attackers of an official Node Siege in a Node-War onto the Size of the Defenders ? Sure ? Why not ? Could be possible ?

Should Ashes of Creation simulate the Illusion of " Fairness ",
OUTSIDE these official Node Siegs ? N~O !! It shouldn't.

The only convo around zergs is official node/castle siege anything else doesn't matter.

Mag7spy

abc0815 wrote: »

Can we try to define what a casual is in terms of Ashes of Creation and why they should get access to the most rewarding content? Just throwing bodies at it will not be fun.

Ya they are trying to weaponize "casuals" and say it needs to be zergs because of them. Yet half their points are really no lifers play more and are stronger so i want a way to beat them by using numbers. Ignoring the fact the "no lifers" will use that strategy and not "casuals"

Dripyula

One way or the other just because of the overall vibes the discussion here has, I expect Intrepit at first to put a system in place that the majority of players dislike which will then result in storms & storms of complains on all kinds of social media platforms, followed by maybe a depressed and apathetic nosedive of subscriptions.

Whatever the system will be, two aspects should be considered.
1.) The ability to evacuate "your stuff" when your node is lost, cause players do not like the feeling of losing things, especially on a regular basis because they might be casuals and
2.) If players feel in general that there are only two paths from which one is being a massive sweatlord and being successful or being everything and being a loser, this too will not bode well for the future of Ashes.

As someone who played

since year 1, I have only one thing to say to a PvP system that clearly favours no-lifers and bigger ships, aka the biggest (hardcore) crew of players.

And that is... that no matter how clever or sneaky Rare tried to lure people into playing content which exposes them to a very high, if not unavoidable encounter with PvP, that this content has always FLOPPED MASSIVELY in its execution, compared to all the content which doesn't do it.

Naturally it is an undefeatable truth that it doesn't matter what the developers or service providers want, the customer is always King & right and if the service providers do not act after the customers wishes, they will see the consequences of their actions being reflected in the popularity of their business.
Oh my, I do not mean to pressure Intrepit with this, do I?
Far from it.

This is just my own percieved experience after playing SoThieves for what feels like forever already and who does not enjoy their occassional PvP?
But why occassional and not constantly? Because I am a Slooper. And not too social.
Neither do I want to switch to a bigger ship nor is there any social capacity in me to even want that.
And the Sloop is the most bullied and inferior ship of the sea's and no stupid excuses from cope'rs or secret gloaters will ever change that.

Also I am quite old now (I believe) and do not like the idea anymore to play 8 hours straight or for minimum, every single day.
So I doubt I will be a "hardcore player" in Ashes of Creation.

I too have always made a big curveball around content in Sea of Thieves which just made me feel like I am risking too much unavoidable exposure, I am risking too much for little in return, so that some Thieves can try and jump on me.
Have I stopped playing because of this? No.
It is the Sea of THIEVES after all and I know what I have to expect in the game even if the Sloopers are kinda treated like garbage.

However: I always saw the usual loyal streamers of the game, like Pace22, Phuzzybond, Captain Falcore or HitboTC mention it that PvP is wonky in the game, if not unpopular.
That is if you exclude the still relatively new "hourglass mode" and even that is mostly only populated by sweats and the bitter, super toxic casuals.

Sometimes you find PvP on the open sea's - where it belongs if you ask me - but most often you have to look for HOURS ON END to find another crew even that has something of value on their ship. And why is that?

Cuz the most casuals know how to make missions & content in a way that is time efficient and they either log out before they are even found by another PvP thirsty ship, or they have already sold the majority of their loot at an outpost before.
Even so they never approach the PvP first. Visible to how "PvP streamers" too are almost never approached with hostile intentions first and always on the prowl to find it.
No matter how many " We stole all their loot " uploads you find on social media, which might suggest otherwise and actually give a totally wrong expectation to the game.

PvP is unpopular and people tend to like doing PvE more.
Because
1.) People do not like PvP that much in general and even more so
2.) When it punishes them TOO MUCH in the scenario of a loss

So when I hear stuff like nodes will be a thing for hardcore'lers only and Intrepit will hold their shielding hand over those hardcore'lers by not allowing zergs, I immediately get exactly these vibes.
" Screw the casuals and live only for the game or just head back home right away. "

The only reason SoThieves still lives is because players have enough alternatives to play and have fun that does not involve PvP at all. Or the general scenario of regularly losing all your loot to someone just because they are better in PvP.
No one accepts that

if they feel like they are losing out too much.
And in SoThieves you can lose 100% of all your progress that you made in the last 2 hours of playtime, if you are just that inexperienced and unlucky enough.
All just for the dopamine of the guys who stole it?
Or the laughs of the people watching this on a stream or upload on twitch or youtube?

Rare could even be much more unforgiving.
They could make it so that all ships on the server are constantly visible on the map everywhere, for no reason. Or show even how much loot they have.
They could try to force PvP like crazy, cause it definitely is not coming as much to be as it would fit a pirategame that is called the Sea of Thieves.
But they don't.
Even if with the ever present PvP luring attempts, but they never try to force it upon everyone.
For good reason. Games that give too much to winners and take too much from losers create toxic elitism communitys and also, unreliable playercounts.
I remember games like these only staying afloat and alive if there is no subscription at all.

In that case I should hope for as much PvP forcing and punishment as possible.
So that I can safe money. So that Ashes too screws the subscription plans and trys to only stay afloat by purchases which are exclusive in an itemshop that only accepts reallife currency or a currency which is mostly available by reallife currency.
Otherwise I would have quit SoThieves years ago as well.

WoW too became ever more casualfriendy over the years. And as much as I hate to say it, that seemed to have been the right move for its longevity. That and the absence of a real rival MMO of course.

Whatever Ashes does, I hope it stays based in its worldbuilding and reject all forms of wokeness.
And that it will not be too punishing for its casual playerbase and not too rewarding for its hardcore nolifers.
If these steps are followed, the longevity of the game will be secured.

Mag7spy

@Dripyula sieges are like end game pvp so its going to naturally attract more skilled players. In your example with Sea of thieves and hardcore players having bigger boats, if siege is uncapped you should view it as hardcore players now have the ability to have a infinitely bigger boat. To the point they can just one tap you without a struggle. All their skills and motivation to grow will take full advantage of being able to zerg it is the strongest tool to use and they would master their craft in using it.

Without it it becomes a tool they can't use it to get a guaranteed in against a node and destroy it as nothing can protect your storages it is all lost (atm). If you force fights to be even that means even if you are a smaller node you might still be struggling to get the right team to fight them but it would stay at that over trying to have the right team and fight a zerg.

More so with fights being even you can add more rule sets for sieges so hardcore guilds in top metros and such can't just easily war every smaller node. Allowing for smaller nodes to have their own wars and fights between each other. Allowing them to be competitive and fun without worry about they out number us 1-2 or 1-3. As most casuals players are not going to want to be eager on fighting a losing battle and dying over and over again without accomplishing anything.

People can say they are different but the reality is most people if their experience in a war is they got 2 kills and died 30 times and than lost all their stuff would not exactly be positive. Even more so if they felt there was nothing they could do.

We have try hard guilds with discords with well over 1000 people.

StewBad

Liniker wrote: »

Nerror wrote: »

The limit on players in a castle siege mostly has to do with technical limits. First and foremost, the castle siege experience has to be decent from a lag/latency/fps perspective, or no one involved will be having any fun. 250v250 is their confirmed minimum amount of players, but they want to try to increase it to 500v500. If one side can only muster 100 players, the siege will still happen even if they are outnumbered by a lot.

I'm strongly against 500v500 for castle sieges :x I think node sieges should hold these extremely massive no cap battles with thousand players or more (if they can achieve it like TL did) since node sieges everyone can participate and have very high stakes,

but castle sieges I hope they make it as the top end game Guild content in a controled enviroment, 250v250 almost too much since most guilds wont be able to get those numbers online, but 500v500 is just no longer guild content and it becomes alliance vs alliance, which I really dislike

The assumptions are real with this one. I'm interested to understand how you can be so against something (500v500 castle sieges) when you haven't experienced it the way Ashes plans to deliver it.

Dripyula

@Mag7spy Hmmmmmmmm, okay that sounds pretty reasonable.
I wonder what will truly "protect" the casual playerbase. Maybe a zerg-allowance or a zerg-restriction.

You say that there will be only "skilled players" during the endgame but are you sure? Ha'h! As far as my own experience goes the endgame is reached by people who are still about 90% to 85% "casuals" and the rest are the people who do not play the game, but might very well live in the game.

And those are the mostly bored, mostly winning dudes. I know what I'm talking about since I too had such a period in my MMO live. Did I grew bored of it? No. But that was 20 years ago.
Today I would like to see different scenarios.
In my experience: When you are always at the peak, the peak starts to elevate you by itself.
The rich get richer the poor get poorer. Or the rift always stays the same. But it never closes. It never does.

It can feel boring to know one is never going to get treatened by anything.
And in my experience the Sweatlords also tend to band together much more instead of risking an actually timeconsuming and exhausting rivalry.
At least as long as something like a broad mass of casuals is concerned, who they wanna eclipse.

And then nothing is able to throw them off their thrones.
But the possibility of being simply outzerged, for whatever reason... could keep everything fresh.
And everyone on their toes.
That is of course only as long as losing a node for example, does allow people to evacuate their stuff.
Which I keep hearing is not the case yet, or not planned yet.
These are always red flags for me popping up. Player hate content that threatens their entire progress or the majority of it. Those games, or at this type of content and such games, never does well.

And it is always when casuals are forced to confront no-life sweats over content that is important and are utterly beatend and robbed naked, that they quit the game over it.
With those who remain - due to their stubbornness and willingness to endure a painful time - becoming the most hostile and toxic part of the communtiy ever.

In Sea of Thieves I have experienced once more about 90% of my worst, most toxic, most hateful and verbally abusive encounters ONLY IN THE HOURGLASS BATTLES of the game, since its release and since I started playing in Year 1.
Maybe I am just getting too old.
But I have no fun being shouted or typed at
" Go ki°° yourself you wh°°°son motherf°°°ing piece of apesh°°. I hope everyone you know and love d°°s. "

And for what? All just so that a few nolifers can have fun "farming irl mobs" with inferior skills or lifetime to put in the game? I always hear that Ashes seem to favour sweatlording.
Hopefully this is just a false interpretation.

Mag7spy

Dripyula wrote: »

@Mag7spy Hmmmmmmmm, okay that sounds pretty reasonable.
I wonder what will truly "protect" the casual playerbase. Maybe a zerg-allowance or a zerg-restriction.

You say that there will be only "skilled players" during the endgame but are you sure? Ha'h! As far as my own experience goes the endgame is reached by people who are still about 90% to 85% "casuals" and the rest are the people who do not play the game, but might very well live in the game.

And those are the mostly bored, mostly winning dudes. I know what I'm talking about since I too had such a period in my MMO live. Did I grew bored of it? No. But that was 20 years ago.
Today I would like to see different scenarios.
In my experience: When you are always at the peak, the peak starts to elevate you by itself.
The rich get richer the poor get poorer. Or the rift always stays the same. But it never closes. It never does.

It can feel boring to know one is never going to get treatened by anything.
And in my experience the Sweatlords also tend to band together much more instead of risking an actually timeconsuming and exhausting rivalry.
At least as long as something like a broad mass of casuals is concerned, who they wanna eclipse.

And then nothing is able to throw them off their thrones.
But the possibility of being simply outzerged, for whatever reason... could keep everything fresh.
And everyone on their toes.
That is of course only as long as losing a node for example, does allow people to evacuate their stuff.
Which I keep hearing is not the case yet, or not planned yet.
These are always red flags for me popping up. Player hate content that threatens their entire progress or the majority of it. Those games, or at this type of content and such games, never does well.

And it is always when casuals are forced to confront no-life sweats over content that is important and are utterly beatend and robbed naked, that they quit the game over it.
With those who remain - due to their stubbornness and willingness to endure a painful time - becoming the most hostile and toxic part of the communtiy ever.

In Sea of Thieves I have experienced once more about 90% of my worst, most toxic, most hateful and verbally abusive encounters ONLY IN THE HOURGLASS BATTLES of the game, since its release and since I started playing in Year 1.
Maybe I am just getting too old.
But I have no fun being shouted or typed at
" Go ki°° yourself you wh°°°son motherf°°°ing piece of apesh°°. I hope everyone you know and love d°°s. "

And for what? All just so that a few nolifers can have fun "farming irl mobs" with inferior skills or lifetime to put in the game? I always hear that Ashes seem to favour sweatlording.
Hopefully this is just a false interpretation.

The use of end game or when I'm talking about pvp is mainly the point of the strongest players and down the ladder to whatever set amount. Maybe i could use a better term in relation to that but its a benchmark that is constantly moving up do to pvp and player growth. So the same can exist at lvl 30 and such, but if you have different tiers there would be different positions of that value in a sense (ie a max lvl node would have a higher bench mark compared to a t4 node).

Sieges are going to be competitive and why I'm against zergs in them both for fun(listed off reasons and explained this in detail already about balance and such) and do to the effect and the economy and players general focus on destruction which is elevated when you tell players they get loot for destroying.

There really doesn't need to be any kind of other special anti zerg tools or such castle sieges are 250 vrs 250, node wars can be from 100-1000 vs the even numbers based on the level of the node.

Ya idk where people are talking about pulling all your stuff from a node that doesn't exist so its being made up. Fearing already being generated and we aren't even playing the game yet some people like to ignore my point about casuals not being happy if they lose their stuff, that being elevated if its a instant loss to a zerg.

I also think its silly about throwing a "Sweat lord" off a throne because we would have to look at the exact details on what constitutes their throne.

1. Is it because they are the mayor of the node?
If that is the case on the next turn around when other nodes are destroyed it will take some time but there is always a chance they do the same thing and get mayor again. Do to how much they play and all, its normal to think they have a edge over a casual .

2. Is it because they have power and its harder to beat them?
Where losing a node might effect some element of their power it would more so hurt casuals. Their strength would generally remain in fact and the situation continues.

I don't really see them having a throne exactly Id say they naturally have more influence since they play a lot and are successful. Owning a node isn't just fully dictated by one groups desires do to most of the options needed to be voted on (though if they are a zerg hardcore guild it will be easy to push the direction). But the casuals still have influence on the votes int he nodes they live in.

On top of with ashes of creation its more kingdom scattered around as you can't attack vassal nodes unless you are a parent. Which rather than having so much inward destruction between nodes you get a bit more of a cooperative element since you are all part of the same kingdom. That sweatlord group could be the allies you rely on to fight the other sweat lord group. While you fight people more at your own level (Ie if metro players are restricted on sieging other nodes making it so lower level nodes (ie less experienced pvpers) have a bit more even fight between nodes of their own level and having even fight where they feel they can win.

You are going to get a more healthy game overall, that is why i dislike this whole zerging (nodes) + another thread about being able to attack vassal nodes. IT is 2 things you check off that will do more dmg tot he game than good.

You can have general player base or other zerg guilds still have plenty effect outside of siege, you can have other nodes support another one plenty of ways to for war efforts without zerg bodies and creating interesting politics and such (Ie some artifact support item that can buff siege equipment that was dropped from some raid)

RazThemun

To think there will not be zergs is laughable. There will always be a zerg in any mmorpg you play. The question is what is the organization of said zerg? Is it one guild? Is it 4 guilds? (aka an alliance) etc.

I think the point is more directed at the fact, you do not have to be in a zerg group to experience content and thrive within the game of ashes of creation.

Zergs have always been a thing and will always be a thing. The simple idea of strength in numbers, resonates with so many people so they will form up in larger groups to aquire that strength.

Dygz

Dripyula wrote: »

Because diplomacy, bribery and charisma are also stats and arts that should not be underestimated.
Since Ashes is going in on all that realism stuff, why not truly go all out and make a charismatic and highly manipulative mastermind hold the power they deserve?

Ashes has no Stats for Diplomacy, Bribery or Charisma.

I am a Casual-Challenge/Hardcore-Time player.
And I have no clue what you mean when you say, "even casuals have a chance to move something in the world."

Ashes is designed for Casuals to be able to "move something in the world".
Everything any player character does in the game adds progression to Nodes.

akabear

In L2 days it created quite a commotion when there was a small clan that took over a castle be that a betrayal of alliances at that critical moment or ninja`iing in when all others were focussed elsewhere.

That was what kept it interesting and challenging. Strategy!

Actually, if Ashes does follow a similar castle mechanic as L2 as they appear to be doing, it might just be possible but rare for a small inconsequential guild to ninja in at the right time to take ownership during the siege.

(and then pay the price later)

Ludullu

akabear wrote: »

Actually, if Ashes does follow a similar castle mechanic as L2 as they appear to be doing, it might just be possible but rare for a small inconsequential guild to ninja in at the right time to take ownership during the siege.

That small guild would have to somehow get into the siege though. Which, right now, I don't think they'll be able to do.

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