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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Like I said, there'll be way more people with way bigger benefits.
Some people want more fairness than Ashes of Creation is designed to provide.
This game has open world bosses, player to player trading, situations where items drop but currency doesn't, and at least three situations that have persistent, recurring bonuses with no true responsibilities.
How are flying mounts even a real problem here? They're there almost specifically for the types of people who need them to compete with other players of similar levels of organization.
The 'oppressive nobles' in the types of story Ashes is close to, need some way to actually be oppressive nobles or you don't have a story. And if this game doesn't even have Node drama, what does it actually have?
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
Thats the problem. Too many things benefit Mega guilds and will have negative effect on smaller guilds.
But the problem with fly mounts is that - even tho the other things are unfair against the smaller groups - you still have the feeling that you are put in fair environment, and just the number of players on the opposite side is the difference that makes the disadvantage.
With fly mounts you are put in unfair environment since small groups will never have those. So this is the response from the community about unfair game mechanic that is exclusive to Large guilds.
But what's unfair about it?
If group A has a flying mount user for scouting to check for people who might attack their caravans, group B would probably have a flying mount user to check for the caravans.
Obviously Ashes is not going to do well if the automatic best gameplay is 'I have flying mount therefore my group just raids all caravans'. You gotta believe in server politics and so on at some point. It works in L2, it works in TL, I can't think of a decent PvP game where it doesn't work at all, even BDO server politics did something for that short period before it became a PvP-fairytale game.
I've also got a long-ass explanation about how actually using flying mounts like this has a real cost, but I don't wanna derail into that one.
EDIT: Realized my first line implied it might not be unfair, that's not my intention, defining how it matters is important because AoC design doesn't care about things simply being unfair, losers are losers.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
cancel that mount may be the best option
Here is the thing that you dont get. In your example both group A and B are some 1k member alliances that own metropolis or castle. And the other thing that you dont get is the mentality of those groups,
Because the sole purpose for people to join zerg guilds is to dominate territory/area/node or ect. Meaning they absolutely will avoid fights with another zerg group since this will break their sole purpose of "Free win".
The things with Pirate Software prove this. Have seen this countless times where the biggest groups ally or make non aggression pact.
And what this leaves us with? Those zerg groups still want some form of "action", even if its in the form of killing small groups and ect. And those groups wont have fly mounts obviously.
You say that there are other unfair things in Ashes, but there arent that many from game perspective.
Relics? - The counter part is intended to be small guild perks that boost small groups
Sea content? - even a solo player can get a ship
I somehow get the feeling that you're going to be really disappointed in a few months.
You might be right, but I don't think it's that I don't get those things, I think it's that you and I aren't talking about the same thing exactly. You're talking about what you think would make a good game, and I'm talking about what Steven wants Ashes of Creation to be about.
So even if/though I agree with you that changing things relative to player incentives and large guilds would make a good game, I don't agree that it's the type of game Steven wants to make through that path. I think Intrepid wants to take on the challenge of finding a way to make the game good despite building it on the more difficult/worse foundation.
And removing 'just' flying mounts isn't going to change that. The whole game is built on Large Scale PvP, Large Guild interactions, Large Group Incentives. If I had to rank the flying mounts thing in terms of how problematic it is (within the concept of why it's bad) it doesn't even rank in the top 5.
This game is for Pirate Software types. The flying mounts are a 'feature, not a flaw', for them, right?
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
Cant disagree with this. And not only for Pirate, this will be insane feature for all streamers that manage to get fly mount since this will increase their subscribers, since they will be showing something unique that no average player will ever have.
But still i strongly disagree that Intrepid should make the game for streamers and large guilds.
And not only "disagreement", I have the feeling that the game wont be as successful if they disregard smaller guilds as it could have been.
Like not that it gonna die if they care only for large guilds or anything, It still will be great game that many players will play, but it can be much more than this.
Now we are talking
1. max number of attackers/defenders in guild wars/ node wars/ siege wars. Like i know that at the moment its 100vs100. But their plans is to change this. And if they make it 500vs500 or 1kvs1k - this wont be something achievable with small guilds, you will include bunch of randomz that you will never be able to organize in a good attack/defense. So for me 100vs100 / 200vs200 for node wars and 300vs300 for castle sieges should the limit.
2. Limit the use of fly mounts or give ways for players to counter them. Fly mounts can be only usable in declared wars as a pvp utility which wont affect the everyday life of average players, or you should give crafting items and stuff to players to fight with fly mounts from the distance.
3. Anti zerg mechanics. This has been discussed a lot in a lot threads, but few simple examples would be:
* Aoe spells that scale with number of players hit. So if you hit 50+ players - you kill them all. Yes i know that this sounds brutal, but this wont make zergs completely vanish. They will just learn to position better, and only those that can be organized will survive
* Players from the same guild, BUT NOT IN SAME raid/party group should not be considered allies. Meaning if a zerg bring 2 groups x 40 players, if both groups are COMBATANTS, then they can hit each other and have "friendly fire"
4. Scaling reduce of exp/items drop/resource drop from mobs/bosses/gatherables with the number of players in the area. Not needed to be in same group. So even if you have 40 groups x 2 players each, the total count would still be 80 and this should reduce everyone's rewards gained BY A LOT.
5. Bosses should be more punishing when you bring a zerg. Just using their AOE spell more often wont be enough to stop zerg.
6. The small guild perks that you can choose that are opposing the guild number perks dont seem that will help much. (and yes i realize that this is early stage of this system and probably everything in it will change, but just putting it here as something that needs work on)
7. Majors should not be Zergable. At the moment all 4 types of node Majors can be zerged (only divine is question mark since it can be made so that zergs wont have advantage for it, but we shall see how they make it). For example - the Military Major should not be FFA tournament where the zerg will get 80% of the arena spots and will work together, But instead its 1v1/2v2/5v5 tournament. And if it is for example 2v2, then in the end you have 1 winning team of 2 players. Thay have final match of 1v1 and 1 of them becomes hte major the other some officer or something like this. For Economy node it can be some solo minigame simulation, where you are put in some fake scenario where you need to manage resources by trading and stuff like this and for example everyone participating have a score after 30 min of playtime and the highest score wins the major.
Science - IDK can even be an IQ test
And i think this should be enough to make the game more fair.
Any kind of player-controlled selection of participants will fuck citizens over even more.
This would also kinda remove the politics part of the game, because if all node-related fights are limited to pretty much just the citizens of the node - there's no real point in looking for outside help, cause they literally won't be able to help you.
This was already talked about in the past
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Flying_mounts#Flying_mount_limitations
I personally plan on holding them to those promises.
I personally dislike this, but we'll have to see what Steven goes for.
Imo that's barely even a zerg, and anything that I would consider a zerg is somewhat less likely to be within a single alliance, if the non-zerg guild bonuses manage to be enticing, so I personally expect friendly fire to already be a thing.
Though, obviously, in wars/sieges (if they're bigger than 100v100) this would still not be a factor.
You kinda want to fuck over anyone who decided to farm a popular spot. This would then reduce the amount of pvp for said spots. And would also be directly abused by the very zerg guilds you want to punish. They'd just send their players to stand around the location and then no one would be able to get good loot there.
Imo this is a bad idea.
Have always agreed with this and proposed similar things.
Yep, agree that non-zerg guild perks should be enticing enough for people to go for them.
I definitely agree with this, but I'm not sure if it's truly achievable, while also being fair enough gameplay-wise, AND being gamefied in the correct thematic way.
Just because you can fill the whole limit of participants with members of your node, doesnt mean that this is the best thing to do. Especially if your node is not focused on pvp. And even if it is focused on pvp, you can always seek aid from some stronger/better players.
Also thematically arent nodes supposed to be able to protect themselves even if they dont seek aid?
But i get your point that this may affect the node to node relations.
Wouldnt it be the opposite? This should increase the PVP in the popular spots since you will want to kill all excess players in the area in order to get full rewards.
For example you have 2 groups x 40 players in 1 farm area. WIth those reduce reward changes the 2 groups will be forced to fight each other and only the better will be left.
And about the zergs - If they want to send 40 members to farm and 200 to stand by around the area doing nothing. Its on them. If they swap the players who farm and those who stand on watch the total exp they get will be less than if some average group just go to another spot to farm
But the bigger problem with this will be the Non Combatants. Since if a group of non combatants go to your spot to farm, you cant kill them because you will become corrupt, but if you leave them there you will get reduced rewards.
So a solution for this will be some kind of Force combat zone mechanic.
For example every Node major can have skill with multiple hours cooldown that can designate area as combat zone. It wont take in effect instantly. After being used it can give countdown of 3 min for example for those who dont wish to fight to flee. (or the guild war mechanic, but this wont work if the enemies dont have guild)
Mobile lawless zones would 100% be a tool of abuse and bullying. You'd create a tool for the very people you wanna nerf with this suggestion.
Even if Intrepid do somehow figure out how to make unzergable mayor voting methods - the statistical chances are that the zerg will still have their member as a mayor. And now they have a direct tool to bully anyone they want.
And then if you decide to add even more limitation onto the custom lawless zoning - you won't have an anti-pver tool
This is why I keep saying that lawless zones are stupid and a bad addition to the game. Flesh out wars, flesh out the corruption system and use those to their maximum extent, rather than making tools that have far worse applications and much more potential for abuse by the people you're trying to stop with those tools.
Guess you got point.
And i disagree that if the majors are not zergable that the zergs will still have better chance to win the election.
I mean yes they will participate with most of the spots i guess, But the average Joe in zergs is much much much worse than any other player in any aspect. Be it pvp / economy or anything else.
The whole reason zergs are formed is because people who cant "win" alone group up to "win" by count.
and most of the best players out there will be happy if they manage to win alone vs 2-3 other players.