Like Nikr, I don't really like those lawless zones. It remove the responsibility for one's actions by killing everyone without real repercussions. I really prefer when it's the players' / guilds' actions that lead to the decision to flag instead of having a "rule" that said "Now, it's open pvp without no thinking, do whatever you want".
That being said, I can understand the RP reason for this.
Like Nikr, I don't really like those lawless zones. It remove the responsibility for one's actions by killing everyone without real repercussions. I really prefer when it's the players' / guilds' actions that lead to the decision to flag instead of having a "rule" that said "Now, it's open pvp without no thinking, do whatever you want".
That being said, I can understand the RP reason for this.
there only there for testing purposes atm phase 2 gets rid of the lawless zones there when the nodes can be built there (They might move it to new biomes i guess that dont have the nodes ready yet i guess) but it 24 days ucan play that there lawless since 8 weeks 3 days a week = 24 days assuming the node section in phase 2 happens at start of phase 2
Maybe they want data from the lawless areas to see if they’d want to incorporate it into the game. It will already be on the oceans, so it could be conceptual data to help develop that.
Also, consider thinking of it as negative node progression. We’re used to a node starting out as level 0. What if nodes can have negative levels? Just as resources become more valuable as a node increases in level, as well as the danger, perhaps the same would be true on the negative end of the scale. Think of it as Mordor. Only really bad things live there and it’s a free for all.
Would it also help incentivize groups of players who are locked out from developed nodes to “civilize” the lawless nodes so that those nodes can be developed. And rather than start nodes at 0, should they be somewhat random or influenced by other nodes in the negative sense as much as the positive (at least in terms of their development). And what kind of actions could players take to make a node move more to the negative to unlock features and access to new content? Or could it be what the players don’t do that drives a node to be more negative? I can see purely PVE type behaviors increasing node experience and purely PVP type behaviors decreasing node experience. Maybe they want to experiment with that.
This in itself is anti-productive to a testing environment, as if people know that (for example) farming a given area for coin works as it should, it is of no further use for people to spend time there during alpha. Intrepid should want those players to move on to something else that needs testing, which means players can't have the mindset of progression for alpha, which means Intrepid shouldn't be adding things specific to alpha that are designed around the notion of players wanting to progress.
Progression is literally one of the priorities of the Alpha Phase 1
Maybe they want data from the lawless areas to see if they’d want to incorporate it into the game. It will already be on the oceans, so it could be conceptual data to help develop that.
Also, consider thinking of it as negative node progression. We’re used to a node starting out as level 0. What if nodes can have negative levels? Just as resources become more valuable as a node increases in level, as well as the danger, perhaps the same would be true on the negative end of the scale. Think of it as Mordor. Only really bad things live there and it’s a free for all.
Would it also help incentivize groups of players who are locked out from developed nodes to “civilize” the lawless nodes so that those nodes can be developed. And rather than start nodes at 0, should they be somewhat random or influenced by other nodes in the negative sense as much as the positive (at least in terms of their development). And what kind of actions could players take to make a node move more to the negative to unlock features and access to new content? Or could it be what the players don’t do that drives a node to be more negative? I can see purely PVE type behaviors increasing node experience and purely PVP type behaviors decreasing node experience. Maybe they want to experiment with that.
There already 2 lawless area one is dynamic one is static.
open seas are classes as lawless and so are area around a node that looses the seige and gets destroyed so yeah they do need to test lawless zones.
Also wouldnt surprise me if the north island in the middle of the map is considered lawless being how far away it is from 2 main continents but we shal see what happens there just a possibility
lawless zones are only existing for new biomes basicly until nodes can develop in them and im guessing it many to test pvp along with how ocean works since thats basicly a lawless zone
I wouldn't be opposed to a lawless area or two staying there for the live game, open sea PvP might get stale.
I would be fine with that but only if they are associated with lvl 1 and 2 nodes, where law cannot be enforced (because Steven mentioned the lore).
Or outside of any ZoI, so no nodes to level up there, and in that case, NPC level and rewards should have same quality as the ones in metro ZoI, without overlapping the rewards. Each should provide their unique necessary materials, so PvPers to have to trade or to farm in both zone types.
If the idea is to test the PvP system working differently in different areas, why use caravans and high level content as a carrot on a stick to get people in? Just create the area, and then one say just say "we want to test this out, can you guys all go to that area and fight?".
I mean, Intrepid adding high level content to this area and increased caravan rewards for it suggests that they (that Steven, specifically) think people will be playing the alpha like they would a live game, where they are wanting to progress and earn and such.
This in itself is anti-productive to a testing environment, as if people know that (for example) farming a given area for coin works as it should, it is of no further use for people to spend time there during alpha. Intrepid should want those players to move on to something else that needs testing, which means players can't have the mindset of progression for alpha, which means Intrepid shouldn't be adding things specific to alpha that are designed around the notion of players wanting to progress.
It just makes no sense.
The funny thing is, if it is a high level area and they want to properly test it, they are going to have to provide players with an automated means of leveling up to that level anyway in order to test it.
its likely meant for phase 3 testing despite it being available in phase 1.
That being said, Steven more or less stated the main testing purpose of "Lawless Zones" is to test the PvP Content Loop of Open Seas correlating with high reward monsters and the highest reward turn ins for caravans. Top tier loot explains itself, but the caravans makes sense in the way that crossing open sea to get to the opposite continent for a highest yield caravan turn in will be the same as turning one in at the lawless areas in the testing. There are corruptionless PvP zones, so that gameplay in general should be tested.
There's likely also a 'fun' aspect they are putting in here, but it is probably going to be tested mostly later in the alpha realistically.
They also said this is where players should go for dueling since that isn't implemented yet so there's also that.
I feel like this feature is blowing up more than it needs to. Its content. And content needs tested.
I wouldn't be opposed to a lawless area or two staying there for the live game, open sea PvP might get stale.
I would be fine with that but only if they are associated with lvl 1 and 2 nodes, where law cannot be enforced (because Steven mentioned the lore).
Or outside of any ZoI, so no nodes to level up there, and in that case, NPC level and rewards should have same quality as the ones in metro ZoI, without overlapping the rewards. Each should provide their unique necessary materials, so PvPers to have to trade or to farm in both zone types.
I think you are going to see large areas, specifically the oceans, that are lawless.
They've talked about this before. Think Eve and it's Nul Sec zones.
I wouldn't be opposed to a lawless area or two staying there for the live game, open sea PvP might get stale.
I would be fine with that but only if they are associated with lvl 1 and 2 nodes, where law cannot be enforced (because Steven mentioned the lore).
Or outside of any ZoI, so no nodes to level up there, and in that case, NPC level and rewards should have same quality as the ones in metro ZoI, without overlapping the rewards. Each should provide their unique necessary materials, so PvPers to have to trade or to farm in both zone types.
I think you are going to see large areas, specifically the oceans, that are lawless.
They've talked about this before. Think Eve and it's Nul Sec zones.
The ocean is naval combat. I assume the combat will happen differently than on land.
I don't mind PvP on land too.
What I mind is the game design balance. Nodes are not supposed to exist in lawless areas.
Eve was ok too but there is no citizenship there, no node leveling, taxes.... The law was maintained by the corporation. Here in AoC, players in a node would just attack each-other and would not be able to cooperate to rise their node level.
So if Steven moves nodes out of those lawless areas, then in my opinion can stay.
But PvE players need to have their places too and have equal chance to get good items through PvE skill, with PvP possibility as flagging and corruption allows. So the best resources should not come only from the lawless areas.
I like the risk vs reward concept, but I wonder how this free form environment is going to affect the usual player zerg mentality, which usually makes for poor experience. Whatever from pvp balance perspective or just the game client and server performance.
I would prefer them being flagged purple the whole time, but i dont think that will happen. But yeah, if this indeed how it will work then i would be fine without lawless zones.
Which is exactly how it works https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Guild_wars Players can kill each other at any time during the war (not only during server prime-time).[3]
If I was a GL, I'd always declare war right after the prime-time, because that would allow me to fuck over my enemies for ~20 damn hours. Completely prevent them from farming any kind of content. Annihilate them anywhere outside of a node, and potentially even inside of nodes. Chase them down to the edge of the continent until they drown themselves in the lawless seas.
Because that is what war is and how it should be. But due to Ashes being a game (a factionless at that), you can freely choose whether you want to keep running or just surrender/quit the guild (or renounce your citizenship).
Lawless zones remove that choice. I dislike that. I'm super glad that the ground ones will be only an Alpha thing, but I still dislike the seas, because they undermine 2 huge systems that are way more interesting than the "you're permaflaged if you want to farm this" bullshit.
I would prefer them being flagged purple the whole time, but i dont think that will happen. But yeah, if this indeed how it will work then i would be fine without lawless zones.
Which is exactly how it works https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Guild_wars Players can kill each other at any time during the war (not only during server prime-time).[3]
If I was a GL, I'd always declare war right after the prime-time, because that would allow me to fuck over my enemies for ~20 damn hours. Completely prevent them from farming any kind of content. Annihilate them anywhere outside of a node, and potentially even inside of nodes. Chase them down to the edge of the continent until they drown themselves in the lawless seas.
Because that is what war is and how it should be. But due to Ashes being a game (a factionless at that), you can freely choose whether you want to keep running or just surrender/quit the guild (or renounce your citizenship).
Lawless zones remove that choice. I dislike that. I'm super glad that the ground ones will be only an Alpha thing, but I still dislike the seas, because they undermine 2 huge systems that are way more interesting than the "you're permaflaged if you want to farm this" bullshit.
Lawless zones are just temporary. Open seas are the only thing planned for actually being lawless. Steven did leave a little "possibly" in his statement regarding whether there may be lawless zones on land as well, but honestly as long as there isnt a massive amount of lawless real estate it wouldnt be as bad as you say due to the fact that by Stevens own lore, nodes prevent these areas from existing. And nodes are where all of what you just stated you want to happen, will happen.
It's a great way to test mass pvp and balance between different compositions. Besides, Steven mentioned that this will most likely not be in the game, its just for alpha 2.
Steven did leave a little "possibly" in his statement regarding whether there may be lawless zones on land as well, but honestly as long as there isnt a massive amount of lawless real estate it wouldnt be as bad as you say due to the fact that by Stevens own lore, nodes prevent these areas from existing. And nodes are where all of what you just stated you want to happen, will happen.
Yeah, except seas will have the highest value content, which is the supposed reason for them being Lawless. So instead of wars determining who and how can fight over that high value content, it'll simply be "whoever's got the better zerg".
This breaks the whole point of having small guild sizes. I'd hope that guild wars have prices relative to the difference between guilds, while also accounting for how many guilds are at war with you (if we can have several at once that is). So a megaguild who's fractured into a dozen sub-guilds would have to spend a ton of resources, if they wanna utilize their entire zerg to kill their enemies.
But they don't need to do that at sea. They simply gather then entire zerg in one location and kill whoever approaches for absolutely free. And unless ships only attack in massive aoes - friendly fire won't even be an issue (while it is on land). Which means that it's EVEN EASIER for zergs to win.
This is why I dislike the open seas. And again, this is not even touching on all the relations the corruption and BH system would have to those guild interactions, cause zerg guilds would 100% think themselves strong enough to PK their enemies, if they don't wanna spend money on the war.
That being said, Steven more or less stated the main testing purpose of "Lawless Zones" is to test the PvP Content Loop of Open Seas correlating with high reward monsters and the highest reward turn ins for caravans.
So, this requires players to play alpha as they would a live game. It requires players to care about caravan rewards, and general progression.
This is counterproductive to an alpha test. You don't want people caring at all about progression or earning in game rewards when the idea is to test the content.
This is why it makes no sense.
Puting the area in the game is fine. It is the whole "high-level content" and caravan rewards thst make no sense.
In every other alpha test I have ever been a part of, when they had something like this they wanted to test, they just asked players to spend time there for an hour, or a day, or a week.
People are in an alpha to test, not to progress. If Intrepid feel people in this alpha are here to progress (which is the only viable reason I can think of for them doing this the way they have said) would make me think this game is not going to be tested very well at all.
It is also wise not to introduce the rogue until Phase 2. If the rogue was introduced in Phase 1, it would be rogue balanced against the other classes in PVP, instead of the classes balanced between each other, because in such a situation most of the serious PVPers would pick a rogue to play.
Strangely, while I find PVP with a Rogue in an MMO to be fun, I get more enjoyment from playing a Rogue in PVE. Also, the reported treasure hunting skills the Rogue only makes the Rogue more attractive to me from a PVE standpoint.
Steven did leave a little "possibly" in his statement regarding whether there may be lawless zones on land as well, but honestly as long as there isnt a massive amount of lawless real estate it wouldnt be as bad as you say due to the fact that by Stevens own lore, nodes prevent these areas from existing. And nodes are where all of what you just stated you want to happen, will happen.
Yeah, except seas will have the highest value content, which is the supposed reason for them being Lawless. So instead of wars determining who and how can fight over that high value content, it'll simply be "whoever's got the better zerg".
This breaks the whole point of having small guild sizes. I'd hope that guild wars have prices relative to the difference between guilds, while also accounting for how many guilds are at war with you (if we can have several at once that is). So a megaguild who's fractured into a dozen sub-guilds would have to spend a ton of resources, if they wanna utilize their entire zerg to kill their enemies.
But they don't need to do that at sea. They simply gather then entire zerg in one location and kill whoever approaches for absolutely free. And unless ships only attack in massive aoes - friendly fire won't even be an issue (while it is on land). Which means that it's EVEN EASIER for zergs to win.
This is why I dislike the open seas. And again, this is not even touching on all the relations the corruption and BH system would have to those guild interactions, cause zerg guilds would 100% think themselves strong enough to PK their enemies, if they don't wanna spend money on the war.
I mean...how wont content that isnt in lawless zones not be effected by zergs in the same way? The only difference is the target focus. In corruption zones zergs will hyper focus the PVE content. In lawless zones the zergs will focus other players. Zergs will need managed through other systems regardless of whether or not there is corruption.
That being said, Steven more or less stated the main testing purpose of "Lawless Zones" is to test the PvP Content Loop of Open Seas correlating with high reward monsters and the highest reward turn ins for caravans.
So, this requires players to play alpha as they would a live game. It requires players to care about caravan rewards, and general progression.
This is counterproductive to an alpha test. You don't want people caring at all about progression or earning in game rewards when the idea is to test the content.
This is why it makes no sense.
Puting the area in the game is fine. It is the whole "high-level content" and caravan rewards thst make no sense.
In every other alpha test I have ever been a part of, when they had something like this they wanted to test, they just asked players to spend time there for an hour, or a day, or a week.
People are in an alpha to test, not to progress. If Intrepid feel people in this alpha are here to progress (which is the only viable reason I can think of for them doing this the way they have said) would make me think this game is not going to be tested very well at all.
It may not need a focus of testing straight away, but once the alpha 2 seems stable enough is when I would direct players to focus on testing the lawless area content if I were Intrepid. Just because it isnt necessarily a good idea to test it early during the alpha doesnt mean it shouldnt be there and tested later.
That all being said, part of the test should definitely be progressing through the game. Itd be terrible if we didnt test the progression of the game and then it turned out to feel terrible. This is simply one of the aspects that should eventually be tested. Its not counter productive as long as its focused on at a proper point during the alpha, just like with any other content that is to be tested.
I mean...how wont content that isnt in lawless zones not be effected by zergs in the same way? The only difference is the target focus. In corruption zones zergs will hyper focus the PVE content. In lawless zones the zergs will focus other players. Zergs will need managed through other systems regardless of whether or not there is corruption.
Corruption punishes the PKers, so it won't be as easy to just PK all the competitors/enemies. And, like I said, I'd hope that wars have proper cost balancing, so it's not as easy to just declare a war on a guild from all your sub-guilds. And, like I also said, there's gonna be friendly fire between guilds that are not in an alliance, so zergs will have to coordinate properly and learn how to use their aoes well.
A Lawless sea completely removes all of that, while still having huge rewards. Which means that a zerg has the smallest risk, but the biggest reward.
There won't be much content in these lawless zones (no POIs, quest, etc), so opening up PvP in them is a way to add content and get more traffic. It may also be designed to spread people out a bit more so L25s aren't overrunning lower level zones and killing low level bosses because there's nothing else to do.
I couldve swore I heard him say there is higher content in the lawless zones
Yes he did.
I keep forgetting that mobs, drops and gatherables qualify as "content", and yes he said that the highest level of mobs will be in those areas (but not only those areas). But it's still not a lot of reason to go there, outside of the PvP. Why grind regular mobs at max level when you're most likely going to be wiped before the level cap raises. I suppose a world boss might be there, but IMO probably not. It's a mostly undeveloped area.
Heck, before the balancing pass in Phase 2 there's really not even a reason to tune a build against harder mobs
I mean...how wont content that isnt in lawless zones not be effected by zergs in the same way? The only difference is the target focus. In corruption zones zergs will hyper focus the PVE content. In lawless zones the zergs will focus other players. Zergs will need managed through other systems regardless of whether or not there is corruption.
Corruption punishes the PKers, so it won't be as easy to just PK all the competitors/enemies. And, like I said, I'd hope that wars have proper cost balancing, so it's not as easy to just declare a war on a guild from all your sub-guilds. And, like I also said, there's gonna be friendly fire between guilds that are not in an alliance, so zergs will have to coordinate properly and learn how to use their aoes well.
A Lawless sea completely removes all of that, while still having huge rewards. Which means that a zerg has the smallest risk, but the biggest reward.
The issue still isnt corruption in the case, its just zergs in general. Even with corruption, zergs are protected just as much as any other group of players. In a corruption zone a zerg can lock down areas and content. More bodies means more damage, faster tagging of mobs, mass resource farming.
The only difference in a lawless area is the zerg can still do all of those things and attack players freely. Either way its the problem of the zerg blocking out content of other players, not the absence of corruption.
Comments
That being said, I can understand the RP reason for this.
there only there for testing purposes atm phase 2 gets rid of the lawless zones there when the nodes can be built there (They might move it to new biomes i guess that dont have the nodes ready yet i guess) but it 24 days ucan play that there lawless since 8 weeks 3 days a week = 24 days assuming the node section in phase 2 happens at start of phase 2
Also, consider thinking of it as negative node progression. We’re used to a node starting out as level 0. What if nodes can have negative levels? Just as resources become more valuable as a node increases in level, as well as the danger, perhaps the same would be true on the negative end of the scale. Think of it as Mordor. Only really bad things live there and it’s a free for all.
Would it also help incentivize groups of players who are locked out from developed nodes to “civilize” the lawless nodes so that those nodes can be developed. And rather than start nodes at 0, should they be somewhat random or influenced by other nodes in the negative sense as much as the positive (at least in terms of their development). And what kind of actions could players take to make a node move more to the negative to unlock features and access to new content? Or could it be what the players don’t do that drives a node to be more negative? I can see purely PVE type behaviors increasing node experience and purely PVP type behaviors decreasing node experience. Maybe they want to experiment with that.
Progression is literally one of the priorities of the Alpha Phase 1
There already 2 lawless area one is dynamic one is static.
open seas are classes as lawless and so are area around a node that looses the seige and gets destroyed so yeah they do need to test lawless zones.
Also wouldnt surprise me if the north island in the middle of the map is considered lawless being how far away it is from 2 main continents but we shal see what happens there just a possibility
most likely
I would be fine with that but only if they are associated with lvl 1 and 2 nodes, where law cannot be enforced (because Steven mentioned the lore).
Or outside of any ZoI, so no nodes to level up there, and in that case, NPC level and rewards should have same quality as the ones in metro ZoI, without overlapping the rewards. Each should provide their unique necessary materials, so PvPers to have to trade or to farm in both zone types.
its likely meant for phase 3 testing despite it being available in phase 1.
That being said, Steven more or less stated the main testing purpose of "Lawless Zones" is to test the PvP Content Loop of Open Seas correlating with high reward monsters and the highest reward turn ins for caravans. Top tier loot explains itself, but the caravans makes sense in the way that crossing open sea to get to the opposite continent for a highest yield caravan turn in will be the same as turning one in at the lawless areas in the testing. There are corruptionless PvP zones, so that gameplay in general should be tested.
There's likely also a 'fun' aspect they are putting in here, but it is probably going to be tested mostly later in the alpha realistically.
They also said this is where players should go for dueling since that isn't implemented yet so there's also that.
I feel like this feature is blowing up more than it needs to. Its content. And content needs tested.
I think you are going to see large areas, specifically the oceans, that are lawless.
They've talked about this before. Think Eve and it's Nul Sec zones.
The ocean is naval combat. I assume the combat will happen differently than on land.
I don't mind PvP on land too.
What I mind is the game design balance. Nodes are not supposed to exist in lawless areas.
Eve was ok too but there is no citizenship there, no node leveling, taxes.... The law was maintained by the corporation. Here in AoC, players in a node would just attack each-other and would not be able to cooperate to rise their node level.
So if Steven moves nodes out of those lawless areas, then in my opinion can stay.
But PvE players need to have their places too and have equal chance to get good items through PvE skill, with PvP possibility as flagging and corruption allows. So the best resources should not come only from the lawless areas.
Plus the player factions in those zones govern themselves. No reason they can't have nodes as well.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Guild_wars
Players can kill each other at any time during the war (not only during server prime-time).[3]
If I was a GL, I'd always declare war right after the prime-time, because that would allow me to fuck over my enemies for ~20 damn hours. Completely prevent them from farming any kind of content. Annihilate them anywhere outside of a node, and potentially even inside of nodes. Chase them down to the edge of the continent until they drown themselves in the lawless seas.
Because that is what war is and how it should be. But due to Ashes being a game (a factionless at that), you can freely choose whether you want to keep running or just surrender/quit the guild (or renounce your citizenship).
Lawless zones remove that choice. I dislike that. I'm super glad that the ground ones will be only an Alpha thing, but I still dislike the seas, because they undermine 2 huge systems that are way more interesting than the "you're permaflaged if you want to farm this" bullshit.
The greatest Nightmare of PvE-Players has arrived ... ... ... ... ...
( Manga Panel is from "Versus" )
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
But still "lawless", right ? It means no Corruption no matter how savage You go on your fellow Players.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
Lawless zones are just temporary. Open seas are the only thing planned for actually being lawless. Steven did leave a little "possibly" in his statement regarding whether there may be lawless zones on land as well, but honestly as long as there isnt a massive amount of lawless real estate it wouldnt be as bad as you say due to the fact that by Stevens own lore, nodes prevent these areas from existing. And nodes are where all of what you just stated you want to happen, will happen.
Also it's pvp, pvp is always fun guys, cmon!
Yeah, except seas will have the highest value content, which is the supposed reason for them being Lawless. So instead of wars determining who and how can fight over that high value content, it'll simply be "whoever's got the better zerg".
This breaks the whole point of having small guild sizes. I'd hope that guild wars have prices relative to the difference between guilds, while also accounting for how many guilds are at war with you (if we can have several at once that is). So a megaguild who's fractured into a dozen sub-guilds would have to spend a ton of resources, if they wanna utilize their entire zerg to kill their enemies.
But they don't need to do that at sea. They simply gather then entire zerg in one location and kill whoever approaches for absolutely free. And unless ships only attack in massive aoes - friendly fire won't even be an issue (while it is on land). Which means that it's EVEN EASIER for zergs to win.
This is why I dislike the open seas. And again, this is not even touching on all the relations the corruption and BH system would have to those guild interactions, cause zerg guilds would 100% think themselves strong enough to PK their enemies, if they don't wanna spend money on the war.
So, this requires players to play alpha as they would a live game. It requires players to care about caravan rewards, and general progression.
This is counterproductive to an alpha test. You don't want people caring at all about progression or earning in game rewards when the idea is to test the content.
This is why it makes no sense.
Puting the area in the game is fine. It is the whole "high-level content" and caravan rewards thst make no sense.
In every other alpha test I have ever been a part of, when they had something like this they wanted to test, they just asked players to spend time there for an hour, or a day, or a week.
People are in an alpha to test, not to progress. If Intrepid feel people in this alpha are here to progress (which is the only viable reason I can think of for them doing this the way they have said) would make me think this game is not going to be tested very well at all.
I don't think the lawless area will be part of the node system. I don't think that's what it's about.
It is also wise not to introduce the rogue until Phase 2. If the rogue was introduced in Phase 1, it would be rogue balanced against the other classes in PVP, instead of the classes balanced between each other, because in such a situation most of the serious PVPers would pick a rogue to play.
Strangely, while I find PVP with a Rogue in an MMO to be fun, I get more enjoyment from playing a Rogue in PVE. Also, the reported treasure hunting skills the Rogue only makes the Rogue more attractive to me from a PVE standpoint.
I mean...how wont content that isnt in lawless zones not be effected by zergs in the same way? The only difference is the target focus. In corruption zones zergs will hyper focus the PVE content. In lawless zones the zergs will focus other players. Zergs will need managed through other systems regardless of whether or not there is corruption.
It may not need a focus of testing straight away, but once the alpha 2 seems stable enough is when I would direct players to focus on testing the lawless area content if I were Intrepid. Just because it isnt necessarily a good idea to test it early during the alpha doesnt mean it shouldnt be there and tested later.
That all being said, part of the test should definitely be progressing through the game. Itd be terrible if we didnt test the progression of the game and then it turned out to feel terrible. This is simply one of the aspects that should eventually be tested. Its not counter productive as long as its focused on at a proper point during the alpha, just like with any other content that is to be tested.
A Lawless sea completely removes all of that, while still having huge rewards. Which means that a zerg has the smallest risk, but the biggest reward.
I keep forgetting that mobs, drops and gatherables qualify as "content", and yes he said that the highest level of mobs will be in those areas (but not only those areas). But it's still not a lot of reason to go there, outside of the PvP. Why grind regular mobs at max level when you're most likely going to be wiped before the level cap raises. I suppose a world boss might be there, but IMO probably not. It's a mostly undeveloped area.
Heck, before the balancing pass in Phase 2 there's really not even a reason to tune a build against harder mobs
The issue still isnt corruption in the case, its just zergs in general. Even with corruption, zergs are protected just as much as any other group of players. In a corruption zone a zerg can lock down areas and content. More bodies means more damage, faster tagging of mobs, mass resource farming.
The only difference in a lawless area is the zerg can still do all of those things and attack players freely. Either way its the problem of the zerg blocking out content of other players, not the absence of corruption.