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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.
PvP arena in cities (like a colosseum)
isti
Member
Having public arenas in cities, that anyone can spectate.
I don't know if this has been discussed already, if it has im sorry.
Since pvp will be a core part of the game, adding a social pert to it would benefit the game it could be an interesting thing if you could make a name for yourself with it. Since in most mmo-s arena style pvp is always just instanced, and you can only do basic duels out in the world.
With a public arena (maybe like wows brawler's guild) thats in a core part of the node, people would always be around to watch.(I'm not saying this should be the only form of arena pvp, just an addition.)
Just as you will have a mayor in the node, you could have champions(maybe even some ai enemies) that you could challenge in the city arena.
Making events around it could make it even better. (slap on the option to make bets in some form and its a win)
Though its important to mention that since this would be in a public place in the world (and not instanced) only 1 match could be played at a time in 1 arena (you could have multiple ofc) so maybe some form of restrictions should be made for them, like events, or who can challenge who, but thats the design part that im not good at.
I hope something like this could get into the game, for me this was always missing from pvp (though i will probably not be good enough to get into these arenas)
I don't know if this has been discussed already, if it has im sorry.
Since pvp will be a core part of the game, adding a social pert to it would benefit the game it could be an interesting thing if you could make a name for yourself with it. Since in most mmo-s arena style pvp is always just instanced, and you can only do basic duels out in the world.
With a public arena (maybe like wows brawler's guild) thats in a core part of the node, people would always be around to watch.(I'm not saying this should be the only form of arena pvp, just an addition.)
Just as you will have a mayor in the node, you could have champions(maybe even some ai enemies) that you could challenge in the city arena.
Making events around it could make it even better. (slap on the option to make bets in some form and its a win)
Though its important to mention that since this would be in a public place in the world (and not instanced) only 1 match could be played at a time in 1 arena (you could have multiple ofc) so maybe some form of restrictions should be made for them, like events, or who can challenge who, but thats the design part that im not good at.
I hope something like this could get into the game, for me this was always missing from pvp (though i will probably not be good enough to get into these arenas)
9
Comments
We know that Military nodes will have an Arena where it will be decided who will be de mayor, the military node has this nice option which gives a chance to a solo player to be mayor, since he needs no votes or gold
For sure Military nodes deserve this and maybe the other nodes could have a small arena or a fight pit, would be cool if you could walk around the city and around the colosseum while listenning the crowd and listenning trumpets (brass instruments)
To me, players should be stimulated into fighting since level 1 and they could do in arenas like that
I see as important people dying in pvp since the beginning, this will create a community with less whining, less snowflaking and less carebearing, this is the kind of thing that makes carebear toxicity go away
Carebears can ruin any game with their endless whining until the companies start pandering them, later on they complain the game is not fun anymore
Fixing people in the arena builds a better community
Alternatively, because cross realm arenas being viewable would be a real feat to execute, limit the viewed arenas to matches between players who are both on the same server. The number of matches would be fewer, but the fans are more likely to be familiar with the combatants.
I COMPLETELY CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT THIS, THIS IS BAD:
BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD
Yes, for a change I would love to walk on the streets around the arena and hear the crowd, just like Romans would at Rome
Hopefully AoC won't have instanced areas, unless in the future there's ranked matches and live events being streamer that require very low ping
BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD
I REGRET EVER SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT HAVING OPEN WORLD AREAS
It seems to me that not every node will want to place an arena in their city if it does not bring money (for example, from ticket sales) or resources. The only option in which your proposal, in my opinion, is relevant is the presence of "useless" cells for construction in the nodes, which can be filled with entertaining buildings (taverns, arenas, etc.).
As for the default placement of the arena in the city, this is also far from the best idea, given the large number of nodes on the map. 4-5 arenas in the world will look much more epic, where duel lovers come to participate in PvP or look at it.
You are exactly right. If every node had the option to build one, most would not since there will be more essential buildings needed in its place. So that means you would need a dedicated space for Arenas and other large buildings in order for them to have at least some presence in the world and even then it's not guaranteed. Either way this is not the best way to go about it, as Arenas could also become so common that players are spread out across the world leaving them with only a few people dueling and the rest of the place empty. That's not the goal.
The point is to make it a unique and epic experience walking into an arena, with masses of players there and npcs cheering. The only way to achieve this is by limiting or having a set amount of Arenas located throughout the world that way, players from other places would have to go there to experience it. The best way is to make Arenas a Point of Interest like a harbor, which becomes part of a node and grows/levels along side it. Then there would be no decision needed to build one or not. People from all over the world would be traveling to these locations to participate and arenas would be much more populated.
This question is also very interesting from the point of view that the arena physically located in the city (or several cities) should somehow coexist with the matchmaking arena.
That is, if it provides only fun and no rating rewards, then the demand for it will be quite low compared to the same open world pvp or ship pvp, even if there are only a few arenas on the map.
In my opinion, the ideal option would be to implement local matchmaking. If I'm not mistaken, the game will not have an in-game auction shared with the server, so the same could be done with the arenas.
Let's assume that there are 3 arenas on the map, which, like the harbors, are predisposed in the node by default. Those who wish to compete come to one of the arenas and submit their application. As the matches begin, one of them will take place directly in the arena, and the rest (if there are a large number of people who want to fight) - in conditional "mirror" arenas without spectators.
At the same time, an interesting feature can be implemented in a queue for a real arena (let's say that a person wants to fight right here so that the audience can see his fight) by simply checking the "Only local arena" checkbox.
In any case, this implies the development of an additional system, which, perhaps, will not be fully launched at the start of the game, but will leave similar features and little things for one of the major updates of the first seasons of the game.
In addition, obviously, arena nodes can be more attractive to players, which casts doubt on the possibility of preinstalling them in the default node due to imbalance. A much more real feature is the ability to build arenas only for nodes with the maximum level, but in this case, everything again depends on the expediency of the arena from a military-political point of view, i.e. whether the guilds want to build it instead of a more useful building.
Matchmade Arenas have the advantage of being in a unique scenario every time without traveling there. One match takes you to a snowy mountain top, the next a desert, and after that a dense forest. Each time it could have a different game mode or team sizes. Another benefit is having shorter wait times/queues since they will likely have global matchmaking or possibly cross server.
Node based Arenas would be more structured. Team sizes and game modes would have to be restricted based on the size and layout of the arena. Naturally the best game modes suited for confined spaces are deathmatch and Team deathmatch. The focus would be on main event tournaments, player created/hosted events and duels. Players could duel freely while tournaments are not taking place. Sign ups would be done in person outside the arena entrance, there would also be an event calendar and local leaderboard.
Remember, there will be a variety of nodes for players to choose from, each having their own unique benefits. Although having an arena attached to a node might be tempting to players, It would not be crucial to have. Besides, I do not see that being a problem if it did have some influence over node development as there are many other factors involved that have even greater importance.
WARNNING:
WARNNING:
WARNNING:
One good reason about instanced colesseums is that it's easier finding fights!
I don't like instanced colesseums, but at least the waiting time will be much smaller if it's instanced and shared among all nodes!
Yes, I would love walking around open world colesseums, but there's a chance you won't find people to fight when you want and this big colesseum will be a dead space in the node!!
It would be a disaster having open world colesseums everywhere in every node because you won't find fights and it will just occupy big spaces and have nothing going on in it
artwork from
from a 1x1 to 8x8
if big enough maybe even for guilds 20x20
Yes i agree, it could be the military node being the massive gladiatorial arena (colosseum) where even guilds could do 20x20, while the rest of the nodes could have smaller fighting pits for a 1x1 to maybe even 8x8; it would make more sense like this (actually its already stated military node - arenas)
However, I am not against using AoC technology to transmit the fights to multiple arenas. This way, people could queue up from any node and fight in the instance, while their 'ghosts would be broadcasted to all nodes
I'm smort as fuck
Probably every Node of X size should have one, but the military Nodes should have the grandest of areas. The Roman colosseum scale or bigger.
I don't know how many people will be able to spectate in open world. A few hundred for sure I think, it'd awesome if it was a 1000 or more! But for fights like for the military Node mayor that should probably be instanced and people should be able to join in to spectate with different camera angles to view from, we wouldn't want people crashing the fight by flooding the zone/mesh.
As for why - it's to prove that all the "pvpers" whining about lawless zones going away simply want to gank people, rather than wanting real pvp. Oh, and for those who DO want to just pvp - arenas would be there for them.
Because its immersive!
Throughout history, martial prowess and combat skills have always been valued in society, though its forms might differ. Depending on culture and age, it might have been more popular among the higher or lower classes of society; but in most societies controlled (or uncontrolled) violence have almost always been part of human culture(s).
We also know for a fact that combat prowess is a desirable trait in Verra; we have nodes built upon showing off combat skills (military nodes), and the survival of a node hangs on tactical combat prowess (sieges). Same goes for the survival of each individual character; as we are an adventurer in the eyes of Verra.
A world full of (returning) adventurers battling for survival would surely benefit greatly from local, organized forms of violence. Mayors wanting to display the superiority of their node's fighters while making a coin on people paying to watch or perhaps make bets, local lords and ladies scouting for skilled muscles for hire, locals wanting to battle their way up the social ranks and passing adventurers just looking to kill some time showing off what they (usually) do best; fight.
As for the gaming perspective? I think Settite nailed it with their comment:
It starts to be very clear you are not a pvper, otherwise you wouldnt even say such a thing; arenas and lawless zones are not the same and lawless zones should exist...
Oh no, we're at 'Ludullu isn't a PvPer'.
It only goes downhill from here.
I did enjoy arenas for their pure pvpness, because it let my guilds train newbies in pvp w/o losing a shitton of xp. And I also loved the ranked 1v1 arena in L2.
But none of that has anything to do with the sheer shittiness and laziness of lawless zones that will 100% ruin the game for an even bigger majority of people than what other systems in the game will.
Also, this
We're literally 10 steps closer to being a purely pvp game. Proper risk and investment for the stronger party, so that they can't just bully everyone on the server? Fuuuuck thaaaaat. We're giving those fuckers THE BIGGEST SNOWBALL POSSIBLE!
Here's live footage of a zerg megaguild rolling over everyone in one of them lawless zones with a boss that has BiS mats for crafting
Surely nothing bad will happen to the game after this design is implemented
couldnt disagree more, i think you are the one doing a storm in a cup; i mean by what i have seen from alpha, people at the start were afraid it would be a massive gank box and yet not at all, there is hardly any major pvp happening whatsoever (hence why game looks already so dead), the 'big' streamer that had a huge megaguild/Community nowhere to be seen... now if they would do lawless zones on a rotation instead of static zones, then you wouldnt needed to be afraid of not getting that precious loot, just saying
And I'm doing a storm in a cup, because I'm worried about the consequences of these kinds of actions. We all knew that Steven was already way more lenient towards pvpers, but now he's getting deeper and deeper into an echo chamber full of those pvpers who're yelling at him about their preferred design, rather than something that would create a pvx game and not a pvp one.
I gave this example before, but I know from personal experience what happens when a game that's supposed to have the pvp systems that were promised for Ashes suddenly gets a lawless zone. None of those other systems get interacted with, while the only ones interacting with the lawless stuff are the strongest/biggest players on the server. This then inevitably leads to complete drain of the playerbase, because those big players become even bigger, due to getting literal BiS loot from a pvp zone that they dominate, while everyone else on the server can't do shit.
Afaik TL players have been complaining about zergs dominating pvp zones since release of the game. @Azherae , correct me if I'm wrong in remembering that. And TL has those exact "rotating lawless zones".
Imo Steven is killing any meaningful, complex and deep pvp in Ashes by going down the lawless zone route. Remember this tweet when only the big guilds remain on the server, while everyone else has either left or is simply passively playing a tiny part of the game (this is usually a super minority of people).
But yes, I have a growing pile of examples of outcomes and even the measures NCSoft/Amazon were forced to take. The important thing though is, none of those measures actually reduced the amount of PvP except the Bosses one (and that was an almost binary change that caused a lot of people like me to lose access to the type of PvX Ashes claims it will go for).
But my post was about the fact that once we get to the point where you are hearing that from people consistently, the separation is near-complete.
i've tried tl too people who want to avoid pvp can easily do it, because time gated or instanced.
And here i feel he is actually leaning more toward the pvers, since pvp is pretty much none existent so far.
As you are not an actual pvper you cant understand what us pvpers want which is simply consistent pvp.
what separation care to explain? is it between a pver and pvper? well its as clear as water when mixed with oil you cant compare both when one lacks the mental competitive capacity the other has
I think you explained it pretty clearly, yeah.
I want as much pvp in Ashes as I did in L2, but I do not want it in the form of the dumbest, laziest, most simplistic system possible. I want risk for both the victim and the attacker. I want people to plan around content rather than just come to a spot, genocide everyone there and never leave. I want pvp to be truly meaningful.
Lawless zones are not that. They simply enable gankers to have 0 risk, while they kill the weakest players in the location, and they enable zergs to reign free w/o literally a single drop of risk involved in the process.
I want Ashes to be filled with PvXers. People who'll do ALL content in the game, which means pve, pvp and artisanry. I don't want just pvpers who'll gank the weaklings and then leave the game once those victims are gone due to the abuse. I don't want just pvers with their safe little instances, getting all the reward for none the risk (just as the pvpers will get with these lawless zones). And I don't want just the gatherers, because I know that majority of them won't survive in the game and will complain about being killed a few too many times, which will only shed negative light on the game.
But with time it's become more and more obvious that Steven is more than fine having zerg control everything and everyone, while no one can even put up a fight. And I'll keep voicing my disdain for these kinds of changes up until Betas start, just for my own sake of knowing that I did all that I could to try and create a middle ground in this design.
P.S. cause this is almost always relevant in these discussions: CHANGE THE GOD DAMN PVP EVENT DEATH PENALTIES BACK TO JUST GEAR DECAY, STEVEEEEEEEEN! Entice people to pvp more by losing less!
This way the victim has to gamble whether they really want to lose more of their stuff (and time) by dying to someone who might be on their first kill and that kill will go completely unpunished, or the victim should just fight back and not only lose less but also have a chance of winning the fight. This was also Steven's initial plan, which is exactly why flagged people are meant to lose less stuff on death.
But none of that works in the context of a lawless zone, because the victim always knows that their attacker will go unpunished, because the kill is always free. All while the attacker has barely any risk, for not only their loot on potential death is lessened, but they're also sure in their pvp abilities, which simply means that they're way more likely to win a fight of their choosing.
This is pretty much the same issue that caravans have. The attackers suffer no real penalty, they have pretty much 0 risk, yet they not only reap the reward of spoiling someone else's gameplay, but they also get the loot from it.
This then ties into my P.S. of wanting only gear decay for sanctioned pvp, because this way more people would be willing to/intersted in participating in it. Intrepid immediately experienced the issue with the current system of wars when "pvpers" would simply wardec people in nodes, immediately gank them and loot their bodies, right by the storage vendor.
And that issue then led to several overcorrections in design, that in themselves took weeks to implement (with several bad implementations). None of this would've happened if we only had decay as a penalty (AS WAS PREVIOUSLY PLANNED, STEVEEEEEEEN!).
In other words, gankers would still exist just fine, but they'd simply have a higher risk floor, which helps the game to have more than just ganker-pvpers as its audience.
This then also requires corrupted players to only be visible on the BH map, rather than on everyone's. Which requires BHs to even exist (and right now I'm fairly sure that system will be gone too). And the cat/mouse chase between BHs and PKers would be its own good source of proper high stakes pvp for the gankers.
And I'd fully support (and have suggested several times) a system where the PKer would only drop items if they were killed by a BH, so that the cat/mouse chase happens purely between those types of players, rather than "a whole village with pitchforks are hunting a local monster" type of deal.
All of this would result in an overall pvx setup of
I've also suggested a system that would return the victim's mats to them if the PKer got caught by the BH, but that's a whole separate thing.
To me, all of that stuff above is much more fun and interesting than "duuuhhhh, I can murder whoever I want in this zone w/o a single shred of punishment. And I also most likely play a Rogue, so I can escape anyone who tries to chase me too, so I have even less risk".
Which is exactly why I said I want PvXers in a PvX game. I played a PvX game for 12 years and it had more open world pvp than majority (if not all) other mmos I've heard about. And that game had this exact corruption system (but with better balancing) and relied on wars rather than on lawless zones.
Addressed this above.
Also, when I suggested those "pvpers" go to the tropic islands that are still lawless (afaik) - they said "it's not about thaaat! We want to gank people over mobs rather than just pvp". And the same was said in the context of arenas as well. I'm sure there's gonna be some people that do just want to properly fight each other, but I'm not sure if they're the majority, in this particular context.
Do we even have zergs in Alpha right now? I think Pirates were the biggest ones, but Lyneth' culture wasn't really about that iirc.
And in P1 Vyra was all about deathballs running around ganking each other. Though, what a surprise, they didn't even need lawless zones for that.
Which mostly goes back to my point of "pvpers", who're asking for lawless zones, not being real pvpers and instead just being gankers who wanna murder people w/o punishment.
First 6 years of this game's development it was presented as "murderhoboing is not a thing in this game". And yet here we are... And yeah, I know, "everything is subject to change". Which is exactly why I'll keep telling Intrepid that this is a shitty-ass subject to have changed.
i like the idea that military nodes have arenas but maybe all node stage3 and above should have one arena.
my idea would be that military nodes have three arenas. one where only 2 can enter to duel, the second with lets say 6 for 3v3s or 2v4s testing stuff and the biggest one being for 16 players at a time for 8v8s 6v12s etc.
that doesnt mean that i dont want dueling/grp dueling in general in the game.
the arenas are immersive. can be good for tournaments etc.
afaik there will be some instanced arena content at some point (wiki). i liked the idea to be able to specate matches there. for the open world arenas you could do it similar to bdos open world arenas. have seats at the side and when u sit u can go into spectator mode and move your camera freely. also you can lower the performance needed for spectating people as long as they are in that mode they dont need other stuff to be preloaded.
the 3v3 arenas in bdo also have nice design btw.
have a nice day everyone