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.
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.
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.
Combat meters give players enough information to determine what spec/build/class are able to excel under very specific conditions. That's another discussion for a different topic.
"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. Eve was brought up as an example of this mindset and a game with integrated systems supporting it. If EVE is or isn't pay 2 win is irrelevant to the discussion.
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.
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’.
You let other players know that the scummy lootmaster was scummy and now that player will have a much harder time getting new parties/guildies, which will inevitably lead to him not getting new loot.
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.
The only ones who're "fighting" for it are the people that only want their own rewards instead of group rewards. They don't see themselves as part of the group, so unless THEY get their reward - nothing else counts. Everyone else simply sees that the group is progressing because they are succeeding. And group progress means personal progress as well, because group progress leads directly to player success.
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.
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.
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.
That's cause I like grind, not cause I like interpersonal drama. And Ashes is somehow supposed to be w/o grind, though I will not even come close to believing that until I see it.
Interpersonal drama makes games more fun, because it doesn't depend on devs pumping out content faster than people can consume it. Hell, it's usually the opposite. The slower the content output - the more the drama, cause everyone's fighting over loot.
To me that is very fun, because I find mobs on themselves boring.
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.
Also, while I do love drama, I do agree that we've gotten to much forced pvp at this point. And the general design direction is only pointing towards even more of it.
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.
Material drops translate into what exactly? Unless you mean entirely cosmetic rewards, everything you have suggested at the end of the day equates to stat increases which essentially is gear.
We disagree on what constitutes an "abusive" (your word) loot system. Meters convey very specific information, giving players optimal ways to tackle scripted encounters. This is bad for the game as it makes players look at the game purely through scripted encounters. The "toxic" behavior here isn't the players linking meters pretending they are the bestest player ever, its the fact that encounters, class design, and the game world itself are now designed around players having easy access to this information.
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.
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.
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.
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.
How is you making a decision to leave a guild passive? How is you joining a rival at war guild of the guild you just left passive? Id think the game holding your hand is more passive, but maybe we have different definitions for active and passive.
Members have the ability to swipe items from guild banks. It's not an instantaneous process, but I've seen many would be members become officers to specifically to screw a guild for a past transgression.
Conflict, both in guild and out of guild, is the point of the game. In fact inter guild conflict is the most important friction point the game can have. Hating a former friend or uniting with a bitter enemy to contest a greater threat is the most emotional kind of conflict. I've seen it in pve games and pvp games, nothing is more satisfying or bitter than crushing or losing to a former friend. The emotion here sustains people playing.
Again for there to be heroes there must be villains.
Edit: also here's a wonderful video illustrating someone being disproportionately upset about loot and creating thousands of hours of content because of it. https://youtu.be/An17PqAoAzU?si=hgTy3W6S5Nc1f3Al
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.
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.
You also said grind games are fun, so your sense of game enjoyment is very much not the norm. (Flopfield)
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.
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.
The only one who can validate you for all the posts you didn't write is you.
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.
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.
Again, shitty GLs that only favor their friends get dumped by the rest of their guild. This has been a thing for 20 damn years even just in L2, and I'm sure it was the case in other mmos before it.
And yes, even just a single item that goes to someone in your guild that is not you can boost your guild's strength, which is also your strength because you're part of the guild.
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.
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.
I’m sure he has ideas, but the design is not panning out how he claims it’s meant to.
PvX has little motivation to engage with it when (at best), there’s a 90% chance you walk away with nothing. ‘Communal loot’ doesn’t exist if it’s equipped per-person.
Zerging isn’t supposed to be effective, but current design setup is geared toward ‘biggest group wins’ for both PvE and PvP.
Nodes should be sieged so yours can progress, but the 21-day siege lockout means a node will nearly be a metro before a siege can even be initialized.
‘Gatherers will be key for getting the most from a boss’ > ‘Hunters have no interaction with world bosses’ backpedal
PvE content will be difficult but there won’t be tools to figure out specifics of where your group went wrong or right in a fight.
He wants 10k players per server but also wants a niche game.
The mechanics are nostalgic for older players but the time requirements are indicative of a teenage/young adult target audience.
There are so many contradictions of what the intent is claimed to be and what the game design actually facilitates. Is the game going to respect players’ time like it was claimed? It doesn’t look like it will so far, and so many people crying out ‘carebear’ and ‘handholding’ and ‘entitlement’ when literally all that’s being asked for is that the game (the only objective entity in an MMO) handle loot allocation and reward crafting materials for all the contributing victors.
Respect the players’ time and willingness to fight each other with rewards when they succeed, and bring back the interconnected PvX/crafting like was advertised.
There are so many contradictions of what the intent is claimed to be and what the game design actually facilitates.
Welcome to this realization You've been on the forums since 2019, but have only now realized this (or at least expressed a concern related to this realization).
We've all been discussing these contradictions for years now. And we all have different opinions on them, because we all come from different games with different preferences. And until the game comes out - we will not know what that game will truly be.
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.
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.
The moment they log off that power is gone, because it is individual power.
I realize you think you were a great GM and think you never left people out. I can most certainly guarantee not all the people under you agreed, whether they complained openly about it or not.
Being part of a guild means you’re willing to spend your time and resources to aide the guild. It doesn’t mean putting up with getting nothing for your time for the vast majority of encounters.
If you do not reward players for their time and effort when they succeed clearing difficult content in some way, most players won’t keep bothering with that content.
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.
The current design for raiding is currently over 90% of the time a net loss for the player, because they’ll always incur gear degradation and likely exp debt if there’s active PvP around the bosses, but they’ll very rarely get anything from the boss even if they win the dps race for loot rights.
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.
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.
And we've once again reached the point of wild hyperbole because players are asking to be rewarded for successfully clearing difficult content.
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.
And even more hyperbole and uncalled for insults of character because players are asking to be rewarded for successfully clearing difficult content.
As if that's not a perfectly reasonable request.
1
bloodprophetMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
There have been plenty of times I have on raids, dungeons or open world stuff to help guildies or friends knowing full well before I started I would get nothing more then a thank you and a repair bill.
You?
Most people never listen. They are just waiting on you to quit making noise so they can.
Comments
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.
Combat meters give players enough information to determine what spec/build/class are able to excel under very specific conditions. That's another discussion for a different topic.
"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. Eve was brought up as an example of this mindset and a game with integrated systems supporting it. If EVE is or isn't pay 2 win is irrelevant to the discussion.
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.
This has been done successfully before.
The only ones who're "fighting" for it are the people that only want their own rewards instead of group rewards. They don't see themselves as part of the group, so unless THEY get their reward - nothing else counts. Everyone else simply sees that the group is progressing because they are succeeding. And group progress means personal progress as well, because group progress leads directly to player success.
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.
Yes, but you enjoyed Starfield.
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.
Interpersonal drama makes games more fun, because it doesn't depend on devs pumping out content faster than people can consume it. Hell, it's usually the opposite. The slower the content output - the more the drama, cause everyone's fighting over loot.
To me that is very fun, because I find mobs on themselves boring.
Material drops translate into what exactly? Unless you mean entirely cosmetic rewards, everything you have suggested at the end of the day equates to stat increases which essentially is gear.
We disagree on what constitutes an "abusive" (your word) loot system. Meters convey very specific information, giving players optimal ways to tackle scripted encounters. This is bad for the game as it makes players look at the game purely through scripted encounters. The "toxic" behavior here isn't the players linking meters pretending they are the bestest player ever, its the fact that encounters, class design, and the game world itself are now designed around players having easy access to this information.
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.
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.
How is you making a decision to leave a guild passive? How is you joining a rival at war guild of the guild you just left passive? Id think the game holding your hand is more passive, but maybe we have different definitions for active and passive.
Members have the ability to swipe items from guild banks. It's not an instantaneous process, but I've seen many would be members become officers to specifically to screw a guild for a past transgression.
Conflict, both in guild and out of guild, is the point of the game. In fact inter guild conflict is the most important friction point the game can have. Hating a former friend or uniting with a bitter enemy to contest a greater threat is the most emotional kind of conflict. I've seen it in pve games and pvp games, nothing is more satisfying or bitter than crushing or losing to a former friend. The emotion here sustains people playing.
Again for there to be heroes there must be villains.
Edit: also here's a wonderful video illustrating someone being disproportionately upset about loot and creating thousands of hours of content because of it.
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.
You also said grind games are fun, so your sense of game enjoyment is very much not the norm. (Flopfield)
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.
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.
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.
Yes, people can in fact have different tastes. I know, it's a huge shocker.
Again, shitty GLs that only favor their friends get dumped by the rest of their guild. This has been a thing for 20 damn years even just in L2, and I'm sure it was the case in other mmos before it.
And yes, even just a single item that goes to someone in your guild that is not you can boost your guild's strength, which is also your strength because you're part of the guild.
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.
I’m sure he has ideas, but the design is not panning out how he claims it’s meant to.
PvX has little motivation to engage with it when (at best), there’s a 90% chance you walk away with nothing. ‘Communal loot’ doesn’t exist if it’s equipped per-person.
Zerging isn’t supposed to be effective, but current design setup is geared toward ‘biggest group wins’ for both PvE and PvP.
Nodes should be sieged so yours can progress, but the 21-day siege lockout means a node will nearly be a metro before a siege can even be initialized.
‘Gatherers will be key for getting the most from a boss’ > ‘Hunters have no interaction with world bosses’ backpedal
PvE content will be difficult but there won’t be tools to figure out specifics of where your group went wrong or right in a fight.
He wants 10k players per server but also wants a niche game.
The mechanics are nostalgic for older players but the time requirements are indicative of a teenage/young adult target audience.
There are so many contradictions of what the intent is claimed to be and what the game design actually facilitates. Is the game going to respect players’ time like it was claimed? It doesn’t look like it will so far, and so many people crying out ‘carebear’ and ‘handholding’ and ‘entitlement’ when literally all that’s being asked for is that the game (the only objective entity in an MMO) handle loot allocation and reward crafting materials for all the contributing victors.
Respect the players’ time and willingness to fight each other with rewards when they succeed, and bring back the interconnected PvX/crafting like was advertised.
We've all been discussing these contradictions for years now. And we all have different opinions on them, because we all come from different games with different preferences. And until the game comes out - we will not know what that game will truly be.
The moment they log off that power is gone, because it is individual power.
I realize you think you were a great GM and think you never left people out. I can most certainly guarantee not all the people under you agreed, whether they complained openly about it or not.
Being part of a guild means you’re willing to spend your time and resources to aide the guild. It doesn’t mean putting up with getting nothing for your time for the vast majority of encounters.
If you do not reward players for their time and effort when they succeed clearing difficult content in some way, most players won’t keep bothering with that content.
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.
The current design for raiding is currently over 90% of the time a net loss for the player, because they’ll always incur gear degradation and likely exp debt if there’s active PvP around the bosses, but they’ll very rarely get anything from the boss even if they win the dps race for loot rights.
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.
And we've once again reached the point of wild hyperbole because players are asking to be rewarded for successfully clearing difficult content.
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.
And even more hyperbole and uncalled for insults of character because players are asking to be rewarded for successfully clearing difficult content.
As if that's not a perfectly reasonable request.
You?