Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » which, god I can’t imagine anyone enjoying that if they’ve actually witnessed it There are people that witnessed it, enjoyed it and want it in Ashes
Caeryl wrote: » which, god I can’t imagine anyone enjoying that if they’ve actually witnessed it
Caeryl wrote: » Noaani wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » Noaani wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » There are systems that are meant to cause social conflict, and those that are not. From my perspective, there are no systems that aren't designed to cause conflict. That is just how Ashes is being designed. If assignment of all loot is part of that, then there should also be mechanics to raid your own guild’s vaults. That would make it consistent. This game is in no way consistent though. I've been saying for years that the game contradicts itself often. I'm not saying you're wrongor anything here, it just isn't what Ashes as a game is being designed to be (from my perspective). I’ve started noticing it getting more blatant, which isn’t something that inspires optimism for a healthy game population, or trust in what Intrepid pitched to the community at the start. You can build anywhere, says the website, but only 10% of the player base can reasonably obtain a freehold. Crafting interwoven with PvE and PvX, said Steven years back, but now craft professions have no interconnections to world bosses. We’ll have content so hard that only 1% of players can defeat it, it was said, but performance tracking that would let players know how to adjust isn’t allowed. The thing about nostalgia for ‘the good old days’ is that you end up realizing they were just ‘the old days’, and more and more I’m realizing how many friction points are being implemented, supposedly on purpose, for the sake of interpersonal drama (which, god I can’t imagine anyone enjoying that if they’ve actually witnessed it), and how poorly that’s going to affect the general enjoyment of most players.
Noaani wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » Noaani wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » There are systems that are meant to cause social conflict, and those that are not. From my perspective, there are no systems that aren't designed to cause conflict. That is just how Ashes is being designed. If assignment of all loot is part of that, then there should also be mechanics to raid your own guild’s vaults. That would make it consistent. This game is in no way consistent though. I've been saying for years that the game contradicts itself often. I'm not saying you're wrongor anything here, it just isn't what Ashes as a game is being designed to be (from my perspective).
Caeryl wrote: » Noaani wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » There are systems that are meant to cause social conflict, and those that are not. From my perspective, there are no systems that aren't designed to cause conflict. That is just how Ashes is being designed. If assignment of all loot is part of that, then there should also be mechanics to raid your own guild’s vaults. That would make it consistent.
Noaani wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » There are systems that are meant to cause social conflict, and those that are not. From my perspective, there are no systems that aren't designed to cause conflict. That is just how Ashes is being designed.
Caeryl wrote: » There are systems that are meant to cause social conflict, and those that are not.
Noaani wrote: » Yes, but you enjoyed Starfield.
Noaani wrote: » This is something I have been bringing up on these forums for the past 2 or 3 years. Steven is adding friction points everywhere, rather than just adding in a few select friction points - which is what Intrepid should be doing. Games like L2 had plenty of drama and PvP with a fraction of the friction points Intrepid have in this game. Archeage had probably 20% if the friction points Ashes has, and no one was ever short of PvP or drama. People will very quickly get to the point in Ashes where they just can't be bothered with it any more.
Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with. What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly? So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content. That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’. You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game. Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials. If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone. An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains. You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded. Players need to be rewarded, that’s the point. You need to have something that makes people want to do the content at risk of gear degradation, exp debt due to death in PvX, time spent, etc, and if you don’t have that carrot at the end of the stick, you’re going to end up with a game that’s lacking a population willing to do that content. If the goal is 10k players per server, a very hefty goal for a ‘niche’ game, there has to be something keeping players invested in risking their time and resources for what will amount to most often, no reward. If ‘abuse’ was intended, which I definitely think is a bunch of nonsense, then why aren’t combat meters permitted on the basis of players being abusive with the information? The reward is helping your friends, your guild, and/or your node. It's a we not a me game. The social bond formed (or broken) through risk is the carrot that motivates players. This isn't a niche game, it'll have well over a million people playing come launch and if the performance and content is there, the sky is the limit. AoC is the first 3rd person EVE with a large enough budget to actually make that game a reality. Combat meters are not intended as they disproportionately warp class design and decision into a game of numbers. This ultimately shifts the game into a raid or die model, eliminating what AoC wants to be. Combat meters do nothing but provide information, which is key if we’re actually going to get ‘only 1% can complete this’ PvE encounters like it was claimed. Rewards can’t just be ‘feel good vibes’. That does not translate into progress for 90%+ of the entire population engaging in what is supposed to be very highly contested PvX. I want Ashes to do well, which means it needs a healthy population engaged with content, which means that content needs to be rewarding. You won’t have those ‘millions of players’ for years past launch if the consistent experience is them getting nothing from successful raids. Why would players stick with it? People play EVE and make actual money off it, it’s also a very stark example of P2W. Ashes isn’t going be like that. "Vibes" can and do translate for players. Look at any pvp mmo and that's clearly evident. Good examples of this are EVE, Albion, or Darkfall. The gear score = everything mentality is not what this game hopes to achieve. That doesn't mean there isn't solo content, but for group content the reward is for your group not the individual. People will stick with it because they want to see their group progress. Once again, we’re not talking about handing out gear to everyone. We’re talking about rewarding people for their time via material drops and other crafting integrated items. You’re pulling ‘gear scores’ out of nowhere when all that is being asked for is something that ensures actively taking part in content and fighting over it and winning actually has rewards that match all the effort put into it. You can’t claim abusive loot systems are good for the game, then turn around and also claim players having information of their own fights is bad for the game. I personally am in favor of high player agency and minimizing the abuse potential of game systems that don’t have a clear mechanical system to retaliate against the offending player(s). If a guild contests my castle, I can declare a guild war on top of beating them during the siege. If a castle over taxes a node, citizens can attack the tax caravan. There are systems that are meant to cause social conflict, and those that are not. No one could honestly say that scummy Lootmaster behavior is an intended method of casual conflict, because there is no way for the other party to ‘fight back’. Any system that has you fighting for a scrap of reward within your own allied group is a system that’s not going to last.
KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with. What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly? So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content. That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’. You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game. Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials. If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone. An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains. You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded. Players need to be rewarded, that’s the point. You need to have something that makes people want to do the content at risk of gear degradation, exp debt due to death in PvX, time spent, etc, and if you don’t have that carrot at the end of the stick, you’re going to end up with a game that’s lacking a population willing to do that content. If the goal is 10k players per server, a very hefty goal for a ‘niche’ game, there has to be something keeping players invested in risking their time and resources for what will amount to most often, no reward. If ‘abuse’ was intended, which I definitely think is a bunch of nonsense, then why aren’t combat meters permitted on the basis of players being abusive with the information? The reward is helping your friends, your guild, and/or your node. It's a we not a me game. The social bond formed (or broken) through risk is the carrot that motivates players. This isn't a niche game, it'll have well over a million people playing come launch and if the performance and content is there, the sky is the limit. AoC is the first 3rd person EVE with a large enough budget to actually make that game a reality. Combat meters are not intended as they disproportionately warp class design and decision into a game of numbers. This ultimately shifts the game into a raid or die model, eliminating what AoC wants to be. Combat meters do nothing but provide information, which is key if we’re actually going to get ‘only 1% can complete this’ PvE encounters like it was claimed. Rewards can’t just be ‘feel good vibes’. That does not translate into progress for 90%+ of the entire population engaging in what is supposed to be very highly contested PvX. I want Ashes to do well, which means it needs a healthy population engaged with content, which means that content needs to be rewarding. You won’t have those ‘millions of players’ for years past launch if the consistent experience is them getting nothing from successful raids. Why would players stick with it? People play EVE and make actual money off it, it’s also a very stark example of P2W. Ashes isn’t going be like that. "Vibes" can and do translate for players. Look at any pvp mmo and that's clearly evident. Good examples of this are EVE, Albion, or Darkfall. The gear score = everything mentality is not what this game hopes to achieve. That doesn't mean there isn't solo content, but for group content the reward is for your group not the individual. People will stick with it because they want to see their group progress.
Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with. What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly? So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content. That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’. You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game. Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials. If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone. An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains. You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded. Players need to be rewarded, that’s the point. You need to have something that makes people want to do the content at risk of gear degradation, exp debt due to death in PvX, time spent, etc, and if you don’t have that carrot at the end of the stick, you’re going to end up with a game that’s lacking a population willing to do that content. If the goal is 10k players per server, a very hefty goal for a ‘niche’ game, there has to be something keeping players invested in risking their time and resources for what will amount to most often, no reward. If ‘abuse’ was intended, which I definitely think is a bunch of nonsense, then why aren’t combat meters permitted on the basis of players being abusive with the information? The reward is helping your friends, your guild, and/or your node. It's a we not a me game. The social bond formed (or broken) through risk is the carrot that motivates players. This isn't a niche game, it'll have well over a million people playing come launch and if the performance and content is there, the sky is the limit. AoC is the first 3rd person EVE with a large enough budget to actually make that game a reality. Combat meters are not intended as they disproportionately warp class design and decision into a game of numbers. This ultimately shifts the game into a raid or die model, eliminating what AoC wants to be. Combat meters do nothing but provide information, which is key if we’re actually going to get ‘only 1% can complete this’ PvE encounters like it was claimed. Rewards can’t just be ‘feel good vibes’. That does not translate into progress for 90%+ of the entire population engaging in what is supposed to be very highly contested PvX. I want Ashes to do well, which means it needs a healthy population engaged with content, which means that content needs to be rewarding. You won’t have those ‘millions of players’ for years past launch if the consistent experience is them getting nothing from successful raids. Why would players stick with it? People play EVE and make actual money off it, it’s also a very stark example of P2W. Ashes isn’t going be like that.
KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with. What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly? So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content. That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’. You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game. Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials. If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone. An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains. You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded. Players need to be rewarded, that’s the point. You need to have something that makes people want to do the content at risk of gear degradation, exp debt due to death in PvX, time spent, etc, and if you don’t have that carrot at the end of the stick, you’re going to end up with a game that’s lacking a population willing to do that content. If the goal is 10k players per server, a very hefty goal for a ‘niche’ game, there has to be something keeping players invested in risking their time and resources for what will amount to most often, no reward. If ‘abuse’ was intended, which I definitely think is a bunch of nonsense, then why aren’t combat meters permitted on the basis of players being abusive with the information? The reward is helping your friends, your guild, and/or your node. It's a we not a me game. The social bond formed (or broken) through risk is the carrot that motivates players. This isn't a niche game, it'll have well over a million people playing come launch and if the performance and content is there, the sky is the limit. AoC is the first 3rd person EVE with a large enough budget to actually make that game a reality. Combat meters are not intended as they disproportionately warp class design and decision into a game of numbers. This ultimately shifts the game into a raid or die model, eliminating what AoC wants to be.
Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with. What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly? So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content. That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’. You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game. Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials. If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone. An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains. You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded. Players need to be rewarded, that’s the point. You need to have something that makes people want to do the content at risk of gear degradation, exp debt due to death in PvX, time spent, etc, and if you don’t have that carrot at the end of the stick, you’re going to end up with a game that’s lacking a population willing to do that content. If the goal is 10k players per server, a very hefty goal for a ‘niche’ game, there has to be something keeping players invested in risking their time and resources for what will amount to most often, no reward. If ‘abuse’ was intended, which I definitely think is a bunch of nonsense, then why aren’t combat meters permitted on the basis of players being abusive with the information?
KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with. What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly? So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content. That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’. You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game. Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials. If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone. An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains. You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded.
Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with. What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly? So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content. That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’. You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game. Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials. If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone.
KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with.
KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with. What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly? So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content. That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’. You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game. Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials. If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone. An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains. You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded. Players need to be rewarded, that’s the point. You need to have something that makes people want to do the content at risk of gear degradation, exp debt due to death in PvX, time spent, etc, and if you don’t have that carrot at the end of the stick, you’re going to end up with a game that’s lacking a population willing to do that content. If the goal is 10k players per server, a very hefty goal for a ‘niche’ game, there has to be something keeping players invested in risking their time and resources for what will amount to most often, no reward. If ‘abuse’ was intended, which I definitely think is a bunch of nonsense, then why aren’t combat meters permitted on the basis of players being abusive with the information? The reward is helping your friends, your guild, and/or your node. It's a we not a me game. The social bond formed (or broken) through risk is the carrot that motivates players. This isn't a niche game, it'll have well over a million people playing come launch and if the performance and content is there, the sky is the limit. AoC is the first 3rd person EVE with a large enough budget to actually make that game a reality. Combat meters are not intended as they disproportionately warp class design and decision into a game of numbers. This ultimately shifts the game into a raid or die model, eliminating what AoC wants to be. Combat meters do nothing but provide information, which is key if we’re actually going to get ‘only 1% can complete this’ PvE encounters like it was claimed. Rewards can’t just be ‘feel good vibes’. That does not translate into progress for 90%+ of the entire population engaging in what is supposed to be very highly contested PvX. I want Ashes to do well, which means it needs a healthy population engaged with content, which means that content needs to be rewarding. You won’t have those ‘millions of players’ for years past launch if the consistent experience is them getting nothing from successful raids. Why would players stick with it? People play EVE and make actual money off it, it’s also a very stark example of P2W. Ashes isn’t going be like that. "Vibes" can and do translate for players. Look at any pvp mmo and that's clearly evident. Good examples of this are EVE, Albion, or Darkfall. The gear score = everything mentality is not what this game hopes to achieve. That doesn't mean there isn't solo content, but for group content the reward is for your group not the individual. People will stick with it because they want to see their group progress. Once again, we’re not talking about handing out gear to everyone. We’re talking about rewarding people for their time via material drops and other crafting integrated items. You’re pulling ‘gear scores’ out of nowhere when all that is being asked for is something that ensures actively taking part in content and fighting over it and winning actually has rewards that match all the effort put into it. You can’t claim abusive loot systems are good for the game, then turn around and also claim players having information of their own fights is bad for the game. I personally am in favor of high player agency and minimizing the abuse potential of game systems that don’t have a clear mechanical system to retaliate against the offending player(s). If a guild contests my castle, I can declare a guild war on top of beating them during the siege. If a castle over taxes a node, citizens can attack the tax caravan. There are systems that are meant to cause social conflict, and those that are not. No one could honestly say that scummy Lootmaster behavior is an intended method of casual conflict, because there is no way for the other party to ‘fight back’. Any system that has you fighting for a scrap of reward within your own allied group is a system that’s not going to last. You very much have a retaliation against other players; don't play with them. The person who takes all the loot will find themselves without people to help accomplish their goals. You aren't fighting for scraps, you are communally helping your group get better. Again this individualistic mindset isn't the intention for AoCs large group content.
Caeryl wrote: » Infighting in guilds is not ‘fun’. In no game is it ever ‘fun’ to watch people who used to be friends at each other’s throats about a video game. Guild politics are the least appealing portion of any social game. Conflict in a group game is meant to happen between out-groups, not within the group that’s supposed to be your closest chosen allies.
Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » KingDDD wrote: » All these proposed "solutions" because some people refuse to take initiative, join a guild, and leave said guild if it doesn't fit their standards. I can see why you can't find guilds, you're extremely difficult to work with. What about not wanting easily abused loot systems makes a person hard to work with exactly? So far no one has had an answer as to why the ‘better’ system is one that has easy and wide reaching abuse potential that ultimately will discourage players from wanting to contest open world PvP bosses, as opposed to a system where the game determines loot allocation, where any ‘abuse’ would be minuscule in scale of affect, and ensures meaningful contributors haven’t wasted their time, effort, and gear degradation they sustained to take on difficult, highly competitive content. That is not ‘literally every lvl1 who looked at it gets loot’ for those who are still under the warped impression that the choices are either ‘99% of players get shitall’ (because we include the raids that competed and lost) and ‘I get gold just by standing around’. You have to motivate players to do content and the easiest, fairest way is the have the reward structure handled entirely by the game. Anything more should not be possible to mandate, and should be something the guild comes together organically to do after the fact. Do need-greed in your group chat, bid in discord, let them swap between each other based on their needs. And for the love of everything good, give us what was promised from world bosses years ago and have the Gathering system integrated into harvesting boss materials. If the crafting and PvX systems aren’t interconnected anymore, then that’s a big chunk of my personal appeal to Ashes gone. An "abusive" loot system is part of the game. The relationship between guild members both internal and external is the game. For heroes to exist there must be villains. You are difficult to work with because you refuse to accept the design of the game and insist that those social hooks are thrown away because you need to feel rewarded. Players need to be rewarded, that’s the point. You need to have something that makes people want to do the content at risk of gear degradation, exp debt due to death in PvX, time spent, etc, and if you don’t have that carrot at the end of the stick, you’re going to end up with a game that’s lacking a population willing to do that content. If the goal is 10k players per server, a very hefty goal for a ‘niche’ game, there has to be something keeping players invested in risking their time and resources for what will amount to most often, no reward. If ‘abuse’ was intended, which I definitely think is a bunch of nonsense, then why aren’t combat meters permitted on the basis of players being abusive with the information? The reward is helping your friends, your guild, and/or your node. It's a we not a me game. The social bond formed (or broken) through risk is the carrot that motivates players. This isn't a niche game, it'll have well over a million people playing come launch and if the performance and content is there, the sky is the limit. AoC is the first 3rd person EVE with a large enough budget to actually make that game a reality. Combat meters are not intended as they disproportionately warp class design and decision into a game of numbers. This ultimately shifts the game into a raid or die model, eliminating what AoC wants to be. Combat meters do nothing but provide information, which is key if we’re actually going to get ‘only 1% can complete this’ PvE encounters like it was claimed. Rewards can’t just be ‘feel good vibes’. That does not translate into progress for 90%+ of the entire population engaging in what is supposed to be very highly contested PvX. I want Ashes to do well, which means it needs a healthy population engaged with content, which means that content needs to be rewarding. You won’t have those ‘millions of players’ for years past launch if the consistent experience is them getting nothing from successful raids. Why would players stick with it? People play EVE and make actual money off it, it’s also a very stark example of P2W. Ashes isn’t going be like that. "Vibes" can and do translate for players. Look at any pvp mmo and that's clearly evident. Good examples of this are EVE, Albion, or Darkfall. The gear score = everything mentality is not what this game hopes to achieve. That doesn't mean there isn't solo content, but for group content the reward is for your group not the individual. People will stick with it because they want to see their group progress. Once again, we’re not talking about handing out gear to everyone. We’re talking about rewarding people for their time via material drops and other crafting integrated items. You’re pulling ‘gear scores’ out of nowhere when all that is being asked for is something that ensures actively taking part in content and fighting over it and winning actually has rewards that match all the effort put into it. You can’t claim abusive loot systems are good for the game, then turn around and also claim players having information of their own fights is bad for the game. I personally am in favor of high player agency and minimizing the abuse potential of game systems that don’t have a clear mechanical system to retaliate against the offending player(s). If a guild contests my castle, I can declare a guild war on top of beating them during the siege. If a castle over taxes a node, citizens can attack the tax caravan. There are systems that are meant to cause social conflict, and those that are not. No one could honestly say that scummy Lootmaster behavior is an intended method of casual conflict, because there is no way for the other party to ‘fight back’. Any system that has you fighting for a scrap of reward within your own allied group is a system that’s not going to last. You very much have a retaliation against other players; don't play with them. The person who takes all the loot will find themselves without people to help accomplish their goals. You aren't fighting for scraps, you are communally helping your group get better. Again this individualistic mindset isn't the intention for AoCs large group content. That is not retaliation. That is not an action you can take to balance the scales. That is passivity. There need to be actual, actionable systems to be engaged with in response to easily abusable loot mechanics, otherwise it’s not an intended source of conflict content because there isn’t any gameplay conflict that can be started in answer. If guild members had a method to swipe items from guild vaults, then sure, that ‘intended’ argument could hold some water. But as is, there is absolutely nothing for players taken advantage to do to recoup their losses for multiple hours (minimum) of their time. Someone is gathering in an area you need something from? You can fight over it. The castle nearby is taxing you ridiculously high? Steal the taxes off the caravan. One guild keeps driving you away from a dungeon? Flag a guild war on them and declare a siege against their primary node. Those are all intended systems meant to cause conflict. They all have answers. Infighting in guilds is not ‘fun’. In no game is it ever ‘fun’ to watch people who used to be friends at each other’s throats about a video game. Guild politics are the least appealing portion of any social game. Conflict in a group game is meant to happen between out-groups, not within the group that’s supposed to be your closest chosen allies.
Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » Infighting in guilds is not ‘fun’. In no game is it ever ‘fun’ to watch people who used to be friends at each other’s throats about a video game. Guild politics are the least appealing portion of any social game. Conflict in a group game is meant to happen between out-groups, not within the group that’s supposed to be your closest chosen allies. You should be saying that they are not fun TO YOU. And then others can agree or disagree with your opinion. Because all those things are quite interesting TO ME, and to others as well. Also, as has been said several times now, there's quite a few people out there that do not see the current loot rules as "abusive". They see them as communal, so when their comune gets a loot - they're happy for it.
Caeryl wrote: » What about guilds falling apart due to infighting and scummy gm’s is fun? If you’re not engaged with the guild then sure, it’s funny to watch a rival fall apart. If you’re actually in the guild, then there’s nothing to enjoy about it.
Caeryl wrote: » You also said grind games are fun, so your sense of game enjoyment is very much not the norm. (Flopfield)
Caeryl wrote: » Communal loot only works when it’s specifically a guild benefit, something plopped in the hall that benefits the entire population of guild members itself. It doesn’t work when ‘communal’ loot is actually individual goodies given out to specific people based not on objective performance contributions (because we’re actively told we won’t be able to have that information), but on the whims of a tiny handful of players who will through human nature be biased and have favorites.
Laetitian wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » Noaani wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » Noaani wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » There are systems that are meant to cause social conflict, and those that are not. From my perspective, there are no systems that aren't designed to cause conflict. That is just how Ashes is being designed. If assignment of all loot is part of that, then there should also be mechanics to raid your own guild’s vaults. That would make it consistent. This game is in no way consistent though. I've been saying for years that the game contradicts itself often. I'm not saying you're wrongor anything here, it just isn't what Ashes as a game is being designed to be (from my perspective). I’ve started noticing it getting more blatant, which isn’t something that inspires optimism for a healthy game population, or trust in what Intrepid pitched to the community at the start. You can build anywhere, says the website, but only 10% of the player base can reasonably obtain a freehold. Crafting interwoven with PvE and PvX, said Steven years back, but now craft professions have no interconnections to world bosses. We’ll have content so hard that only 1% of players can defeat it, it was said, but performance tracking that would let players know how to adjust isn’t allowed. The thing about nostalgia for ‘the good old days’ is that you end up realizing they were just ‘the old days’, and more and more I’m realizing how many friction points are being implemented, supposedly on purpose, for the sake of interpersonal drama (which, god I can’t imagine anyone enjoying that if they’ve actually witnessed it), and how poorly that’s going to affect the general enjoyment of most players. Steven's vision is essentially to design something as challenging and competitive as a full loot survival game (< hyperbole!), but without skimping on the curated content, including "curated sandbox content" (key word sandpark), and without turning away players who want easy fun, want guaranteed rewards, and who dislike unlimited PKing. You can't get that without compromising on the logical consistency of some design decisions. Compromise is essentially Intrepid's sixth design pillar. That's going to look weak and indecisive sometimes, and it's always going to scare off both extreme ends of the niches, but that doesn't make it a bad design pillar, just controversial and difficult to identify the "correct" design decisions in.
Caeryl wrote: » There are so many contradictions of what the intent is claimed to be and what the game design actually facilitates.
Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » What about guilds falling apart due to infighting and scummy gm’s is fun? If you’re not engaged with the guild then sure, it’s funny to watch a rival fall apart. If you’re actually in the guild, then there’s nothing to enjoy about it. As King has already pointed out, there's several situations where internal drama leads to something intersting. I've experienced big guilds falling apart due to drama and then making the whole server more interesting because the parts of that previous guild created their own guilds and went to war against each other, while also rallying more guilds to their sides. I've seen people leave guilds due to drama, join enemies and take revenge, which in turn created way more interesting social content in the game. And this is not even touching upon all the spy-related interactions that inevitably lead to big politic changes on the server and create great content for everyone involved. Caeryl wrote: » You also said grind games are fun, so your sense of game enjoyment is very much not the norm. (Flopfield) Yes, people can in fact have different tastes. I know, it's a huge shocker. Caeryl wrote: » Communal loot only works when it’s specifically a guild benefit, something plopped in the hall that benefits the entire population of guild members itself. It doesn’t work when ‘communal’ loot is actually individual goodies given out to specific people based not on objective performance contributions (because we’re actively told we won’t be able to have that information), but on the whims of a tiny handful of players who will through human nature be biased and have favorites. But it's also obvious that you do not consider yourself part of the guild, if you think that items going to members of the guild do not make the guild overall stronger.
Caeryl wrote: » If there were no drops from mining a rock 90% of the time, almost no one would pick a miner profession. If every rock drops at least one basic craft material, even if the chance for a rarer drop is only 10%, then they have something for their time even if it’s just common loot.
Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: » Caeryl wrote: » If there were no drops from mining a rock 90% of the time, almost no one would pick a miner profession. If every rock drops at least one basic craft material, even if the chance for a rarer drop is only 10%, then they have something for their time even if it’s just common loot. And I personally dislike filling up my inventory with useless common trash that does nothing. And as for not all people in my guild liking me - sure, that was probably the case. But I also know for sure that all my friends and I were completely ok when our party wasn't the first nor even the 5th to recieve loot from repeated boss farms, because we knew that those previous drops went to other groups which made the guild overall stronger. It's a difference in mentality. Yours is obviously egocentric, while ours is community-centric. We were part of something bigger than only mattered when it was whole, while you think that every person should be their own powerful snowflake with their own good reward.
Caeryl wrote: » And we've once again reached the point of wild hyperbole because players are asking to be rewarded for successfully clearing difficult content.
bloodprophet wrote: » Me,me,me,me,me,me...... That's all this thread is? A rising tide lifts all ships. When people on the TEAM become stronger the whole team becomes stronger. Is amazing how self centered some of you are. Someone on my team got something and I didn't Whaaaaaa!! Learn to celebrate your friends and team mates victories. Get it next time or maybe the time after. This is supposed to be a multiplayer game not another single player game pretending to be an MMO.
