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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.
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I'm just hoping to draw attention to the fact that what is planned for (vertical) progression will lead to massive problems later on. Experience shows that this will be about 6 months after release.
Most of you seem to agree somehow, but you're not assuming this will be drastically changed.
I've been following this project since 2017 and all I heard and saw was that they want to bring back old MMORPG design concepts in a much bigger scaling with modern technologies. But since I've been paying more attention to progression in general the last few months, the more I see the opposite. At its core, this is exactly what has made the genre so bad -> endgame mentality, catch-up mechanics and FOMO. And that's exactly what Ashes will lead to. There's no argument how this combination of systems with such vertical power scaling won't lead to that. I don't understand how you guys can just accept this. You don't want Ashes to end up like so many Korean MMORPG's, do you?
Whatever. This discussion has shown me that nothing will change, only because it is too deeply connected to many other systems and a major change would also mean many changes in other places.
Thanks for the discussion guys. I wish you all the best and lots of fun in Ashes. I might check out the beta again. Until then I'll keep playing Mortal Online 2
Now you know why we just "accept it" (we don't btw).
Always gotta remember that for a nontrivial number of PvP players, punching down is the point, like 'they aren't your audience if the game doesn't let them punch down'.
People who like MMOs like them for progression, and this includes PvP players a lot of the time. A big clamor around here for a while was 'PvP needs to be more rewarding so that I don't have to PvE but can progress through just PvP'.
Just the nature of the flow. Those Korean games are somewhat built for this audience a lot of the time, and they tend to attract western players with similar wishes. So remember that technically, those players don't want full loot either, I should have clarified that when I brought it up.
"X is the solution but only if your audience actually wanted to play that in the first place."
So yeah, sorry for that derail.
" I " like when i have an actual +50 Chance or above, to get for Example ONE Set Piece of Armor for my Class when i do a Raid/Instance once, together in a group.
And when i have to do for example the same Instance/Raid +10 to +15 Times until at least onetime a "Mount" drops which one of us (or me) would like to have -> or at least the Ashes of Creations Ingredients and/or Possibilities to "create" said Mount -> then i have no Problem with that either.
What is absolutely hated by me, is when it is absolutely random regarding if i never know if i will "EVER" be able to get what i want, for an insanely long Amount of time.
I started to "farm" for Example the "ASHES OF A'LAR" - from the Burning Crusade Expansion of World of Warcraft - for a long time since around 2013 -> when the Mists of Pandaria Expansion dropped,
and slowly my own, "casual Self" was getting powerful enough to Solo the Raid Instance with Kael'thas Sunstrider with my humble Skills.
It is a v~EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERY beautiful Mount, wouldn't You all agree ?
Funny. It's a Phönix. And called "Ashes of A'lar".
And i mention it here
Guess when that Mount finally dropped for me, Guys. It was on the 23th of July, this Month.
That was FOUR - DAYS - AGO !!!
Okay,
in the meantime and over the Course of like the last +10 Years -> i levelled up so many Characters that i have like Fourteen now - which can all run the Raid Instance from back then and kill Kael'thas more or less easily,
AAAAANNNND i did a Pause of Worst of Warcraft between Middle of BfA to "End of Shadowlands" for Three Years and at least Eleven Months and so on,
but i lost count how many Times with how many Characters i farmed that accursed, DISGUSTING Raid Instance
I was thinking at times that i will - " NEVER " - see it drop, for the rest of my Life.
That is with no Exaggeration - " T.H.E. - M.O.S.T. - D.I.S.G.U.S.T.I.N.G. " - kind of Content, a Human Being or Group of Human Beings, could possibly program.
RANDOM
NUMBERS
GENERATOR
Dropchance - and on a ridiculously low Level as well. This Month in Worst of Warcraft - the DropChance was heightened for Mount Drops somewhat - and for some Pieces of Weaponry, Armor, etc.
Burning Crusade was the very first Expansion of WoW.
In the meantime -> there is HUNDREDS OF MOUNTS with superior Models and Textures in the Game by now, despite the glowing Phönix of Kael'thas Sunstrider still being very beautiful of Course.
I didn't even feel Joy. I felt ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... just weird.
I guess in a super-tiny, distant part in the back of my Head - i feel a little bit thankful and grateful.
It is finally over.
And i did not waste all these Hours of my Life for nothing. At least i got the beautiful Mount.
Not that will i ever get my lost and damaged Braincells back, which died through sheer frustration.
What i want to tell You all with this weird Comment of mine, is :
IMAGINE Content which You will never know -> if it will reward You in a few Weeks of strenuously and exhausting doing it,
or if it will maybe take "YEARS" -> even if you keep at it, somewhat regularly or regularly,
or if will reward You even AT ALL - instead of making You into a fool countless times for nothing with the word countless being the DOMINANT word here.
I will enjoy being able to use this beautiful, beaaaauuutiful Phönix, whenever i wish to use it.
But i will never - EEEEEEEEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEER - WANT -> to hear something from/about that Raid Instance again. Nor about anything related to that Mount.
I have no Idea about my Soul. But my Mind is scarred. And not in a good way.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
I am in the guildless Guild so to say, lol. But i won't give up. I will find my fitting Guild "one Day".
One of your complaints is essentially in regards to character progression, the amount of it that exists - lets look at that.
A western MMORPG needs character progression to survive. That is what keeps players logging in, keeps players paying their subscription. As soon as players stop having a means of progression, they play something else until a means of progression is opened up for them.
However, constant character progression in a PvP MMORPG is a bad thing. The greater the disparity between two given characters in regards to progression, the less of a contest any PvP would be between them. This applies to multiple people situations as well.
So, a game like Ashes literally needs character progression, but also can't have character progression. They can't just cut back the vertical progression down, because then everyone will leave the game when they hit that point, they can't just leave it in because then PvP becomes one sided very quickly.
But then you have how this ties in to another of your issues - the grind. Eventually, players are going to hit the progression cap - or at least the cap of where they are happy to progress to. When players hit this, if there is nothing interesting for them to do (there will be interesting things for a handful of guilds to do), they will go and play a different game. So, if there is a long grind to get to that point, more people are more likely to spend more time in the game before they eventually leave for what ever they move on to afterwards.
The reason we "accept" things is because there is no correct way to do this. The games foundation is already in conflict with itself.
Your issue there was with cosmetic items dropping from a raid.
This should never happen.
Edit to add; mounts are essentially cosmetics.
To be precise,
my Issue was -> that i - HONESTLY - wasn't even sure anymore at some Point after Years and Years,
if the Item (Mount) would EVER drop for me.
I am not joking. Promise.
I wasn't sure if i will throw away my Lifetime i will never get back in vain for the rest of how long i will play WoW in my Life,
or if i will even get rewarded for my countless, self-torturous Times i ran through that stupid Instance and countless Times i faced Kael'thas Sunstrider and his four Main Minions.
" I am tired, Boss ... ... "
Please don't think badly of me. But " THAT " Nerve-Damage, was insane.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
I am in the guildless Guild so to say, lol. But i won't give up. I will find my fitting Guild "one Day".
Sure.
The thing is, the point of a raid zone is to get gear so you can take on the next raid zone. If the gear in the zone is no longer an upgrade to you, you should have no reason to run that raid ever again.
You had a reason, because there was a mount you wanted. That is the issue.
I'm not saying it didn't suck for you, I'm saying the issue was with the core design of the specific piece of content in question, not with the notion of RNG.
Nope.
Not sure.
Just Years and Years of hurting brain tissue of mine.
But WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE - an Issue ??
But wasn't the "VERY. LOW. RNG-Dropchance. part of the Issue ?
You know what is the funniest with this particular Issue ?
Some People raid some Instances/Raids for Years and Years - and YEARS - and YEEEAAARS,
and they just don't get the damn Mount and/or Item they want for this insanely brain-scarring/traumatising Amount of time,
and then in some Cases some "other Folks" join the Game in like -> the last Twelve Months or above,
start to make the SAME Raid-Instances like - what ? One or Two or Four Times ?
And "THEN" the Mount/Item in Question drops for them ... ... ...
And the other Guys who do this crap for more than over a GOOD HALF of a Decade or so -> get Wind of that happening and are like ... ... ... ... ... "wtf" ?!?
And some - WILL - sooner or later - forever quit the Game, because of this.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH !!!
I mean,
they usually will still hang on -> UNTIL they get the desired Item and/or Mount still,
but after that is finally done ... ...
... ... it's OVER, Bro !! That was the final Nail in the Coffin for them.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
I am in the guildless Guild so to say, lol. But i won't give up. I will find my fitting Guild "one Day".
Guess which design paradigm you are caught up in here.
Yeah, but by this time the game would have wasted so much of their time, eaten up so many subscription cycles, that the developers really don't care.
By that stage, they have made their money off you.
Their design intention for the game is to attract people that are at the leading edge, doing the new content. If you are paying a subscription to run older content that they have already made their money off, and after 60 odd months of subscriptions you decide you've had enough, the developer isn't going to be upset by that.
To them, that is a job well done.
The solution is quite obvious tho. And Intrepid already have a system that can work.
To give players things to fight for and to progress, without making it scale to infinity - you give things like the Relic system.
If all players want particular Relic, and just small group can own it - then those that want the relic will fight for it, and those that have it will fight to defend it. If they lose it, Someone else will have it, and all other will again try to get it.
So they can just add more systems where if you want to progress you need to take it form other player. Thats how most sandbox games function anyway.
The relics in Ashes will likely function as a reason to progress - you want to get stronger so that you can get the relic.
They are not the means by which you progress.
That said, if relics are seen as a means of character progression, expect large portions of the playerbase to leave the game for good every time one changes hands.
People do not like losing progression once it has been gained.
that was just an example. Other examples can be Castles.
But really anything that is with limited quantity can work. And they can add other stuff like this too.
These should not be that GAME CHANGING so if you lose it you will feel that you are set behind that much. But in the same time they should be rewarding. And if there are several such systems, even if you lose 1 you own, there is good chance that you are already working on getting different one, which will keep you engaged in the game
And yes - i dont mean these systems to be as a way to progress. This is supposed to be end game vertical progression that you engage with after you get the progression from other content. With reasoning that if you need some kind of progression to keep you engaged with the game, after you get cap progression from other content you will take a break from the game till there is new content. But since AOC has elements from sandbox games, the thing i mentioned can keep players engaged in the game.
They lose not because of "omg, I lost and I dunno what to do", but because the loss usually means that the enemy gets to progress even further, so the gap between your powers widens. And if you already lost once to your enemy - there's now an even higher chance of losing again.
Different people have different mental thresholds for this stuff, but I've seen countless people leave the game even on their first loss.
Well i have seen players leave games for such reasons too. But AOC is filled with risks and rewards. You can lose the materials you gathered by someone killing you or destroying your caravan. Can lose a fight for a Boss. Can get exp debt when you die. Your node can become Vasal node to other that develops faster - meaning your progression is capped and you "Lost" the Node progression competition.
Even if your node gets to metropolis, it can be destroyed and you lose a lot by this.
What i want to say it is that players with the mentality to leave when they lose something wont play AOC at all.
And also those who stay, would most likely love the competitive nature of the game.
Character progression needs to exist, but in the act of characters progressing, you get the situation where the gap between different characters becomes so great that there is no competition between them.
In other words, my point was that a game like Ashes both NEEDS character progression, but also can't have character progression.
If you now agree that the game does in fact need character progression as seems to be the case here, then we are aligned in this notion. If you are also in agreement that character progression in a game like Ashes increases the gap between players and thus makes PvP trivial, then we are also in agreement with that notion.
Games have fun, that are not am important progression. There are stuff you can do in MMOs, that if they make it well, works really well. It basically steals your time, and you have fun, but you dont really progress. It can be gardening, taverns, opening a shop that seels equipment etc. Social aspects of the game. I remember SWG, people would sit and play games, and sell stuff in the cvantinas. Performers would meet up and chat all night etc, just performing. Within a good MMO, you casn spend as whole night, and not really done much. MMOs need that. Because players will eat through content like a hungry rat in a pantry. PvP, sieges, social activities, war, events... All that stuff is meant to spread out your time in the game, and not just eat through that pantry. PvP can be super fun, in the right setting, without costing the devs a lot of time. Its a system that is aleady made, you just play in it, repeatedly.
Yes it needs character progression, No progression scaling to infinity is not a good way to do this.
With what i said you get progression that you can lose. So at 1 moment you get relic for example, then you lose it. The progression is in the form that to achieve it you need to take it from someone else. This way even tho you get some infinite cycle where you gain and lose progress so you dont scale to infinity, and in the same time you have reasons to continue playing
a gear upgrade in itself is usually not really noticable, but a few gear upgrades do need to be. Players need to feel that the efforts they are putting in to getting better gear are not just wasted - there needs to be at least a small increase in how strong you percieve your character to be.
Additionally, these upgrades need to basically always exist. The moment a player no longer has a progression path in front of them, they leave the game.
The most blatant and obvious example of this is in WoW. Every major content drop the game fills up with players, who all run as much of the content as they feel they are able to run (ie, gaining as much progression as they can), and then they log out until there is more progression for them to gain.
Now we have the last factor to take in to consideration here - not everyone progresses at the same rate. If I am in a guild that is super organized and you are in a less organized guild, I may be getting these upgrades at 10 times the pace you are getting them. This means it is inevitable that before long, the gap between you and I will be so great that there is no longer any competition.
It's that same situation from the developers perspective, if this isn't in the game, people will leave due to not having any progression in front of them. If it is in the game, people will leave due to PvP being shit.
As to getting progression that you can lose - again unless people have full control over that (ie, by never gaining corruption), this is something that will just see people leave the game even faster than any of the above two. Ashes is already going to see that with people looking at freeholds as progression in terms of crafting/economic play - people absolutely will be leaving the game when they lose a freehold.
Adding that same notion to adventuring is a great way to make sure the game only lasts 3 months.
There is a solution, it would just involve so much stuff, and would cost a ton of resources to implement, where I just don't think it will be worth doing for Intrepid, based on the already big scope for the project.
Let's just say that you absolutely do need to have the right balance between "Feeling an upgrade when going from a rare weapon to an epic weapon" and "Automatically winning every battle now, due to having epic gear vs opponent's rare gear".
I'd say full blue vs full purple gear shouldn't mean that full purple guy has an easy time, and that he is guaranteed a win there. Many different factors should influence the outcome, not just gear rarity/strength, but also build, enchantments, class choice, player skill, etc.
Also, gearing should be a grind, and it should take a while, especially after reaching purple gear, to the point where there won't be a huge gap forming between players any time soon.
You could have a mage build full phys resists, with longer range skills (maybe once we actually find out how the augments work we can talk more about this), who will do a lot better vs Fighters, than another mage going for full magic resist, close range skills, where Fighters have an easier time dealing with them. You know, it's not the gear level that determines the outcome here, but the type of gear, your build, etc.
I could begin to write an essay, but I just don't have the time right now.
TL:DR introduce many different avenues that progress your character, so you feel less bad that there isn't such a huge gap between different gear tiers.
1) Vertical progress shouldn't be just about upgrading your gear to the best rarity, or the biggest +x enchantment level. That's BORING.
You could add gem slots to your gear, something like sigils from GW2:
Or something like what Ashes is trying to do, with their version of Enchanting:
And so on... there are lots of ways to do it.
Introduce more avenues, where you are able to increase your power that isn't tied to your equipment. Something like more permanent increases, ESO's CP system for example - where certain content rewards you with points, that you are able to put into something that suits the way you want to play.
2) Horizontal progression!!!!!!
As much as I dislike GW2 due to its lack of vertical progression, I do think games should look up more to it, and introduce lots of horizontal progression.
Mastery system from GW2, as an example. Permanent increases that do not necessarily increase your power level directly, but ultimately do make you stronger if you utilize those things correctly.
Better mounts, ability to ride better mounts, more and different ways to make money, etc etc.
3) Economy. Lots and lots of ways to make gold, and even more ways to spend it.
Archeage here is THE KING for me, as you had many ways to earn gold, and many ways to spend it, without just focusing on your gear.
You could buy plots of land, better/different houses and farms, utilities, vehicles, or materials to craft these.
Make it so that you have many gold sinks in the game, a lot of which are optional, but some absolutely mandatory (gear repairs, hmmm??).
I could go on more in depth, but I won't this time.
Imagine the game is released 3 years ago, you are a new player, or you just want to create new character with different class. Those that have been playing for 3 years have constant progression with gear, even if its small its stacked already too much. The new player will think for himself that he need to play at least 2 years to get near the state where the rest of the players are, and during this time the other players would have already played for 5 years. So you will never get a new player in the game.
As to players leaving the game due to losing progression - already explained this above that those that would leave for such reasons wont play AOC at all, since the game is already full with such stuff. So no reason not to add even more of it.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here.
I am telling you that the core design of Ashes is essentially broken, and you are telling me ways in which it is broken.
The game design is what Steven intend it to be. As he said countless times: "The game is not for everyone".
Instead of trying to make it for everyone, the better thing is to focus on making the players that will play the game happier and more satisfied.
Ok, so the game is now for hardcore players that start from day one when the game goes live, and everyone else can go f themselves, because the game is not for them?
This whole "This game is not for everyone" is used way too often as a counterargument to any sort of criticism people have. It's getting boring at this point, and is just used as a cop out.
Why would they purposefully limit themselves to a playerbase that only starts playing when the game launches? Are they not interested in getting new players in 6 months down the line, a year, or two after the release?
Just because Steven intended something to be in a certain way, does not mean it's good. It's not like he was an experienced game dev, and knew all ins and outs about various systems that make up MMORPGs, before he started this project.
The game can be absolutely made to my taste, having all the systems and features I wish for in a game. Just because you then add one system that ruins the whole game, doesn't mean the game "Is not made for me" - it just means that that particular system is not good.
The system itself is not a problem in the short term. You can absolutely have fun for 6 months, a year. But what about the long term? Unless they want to do the WoW cycle, where they completely reset your progression, where you start over with each new expansion, I just don't see how it can work.
Anyways, I also agreed to your previous post, so I don't even know what is the argument you are trying to make.
My post is about how to get new players even after launch, so idk what you talking about.
The statement that the game is not for everyone is used only when it contradicts with the CORE PRINCIPLES OF THE GAME. This includes the Risk vs Reward, The open world pvp that is always enabled, he limitation of what a solo player can do, since the game is based on groups and ect. So if someone writes about how he wants the game to change, but it contradicts to the core pillars of the game - the response would be "the game is not for everyone:, because Steven said countless times that those core principles of the game will never change.
And I agreed with that point. So did Noaani, I think.
He just told you it's the core design of the game that's broken, which is why this result is inevitable, and you came in with, "The game design is what Steven intend it to be" and "The game is not for everyone".
...and that same core game design is exactly what you are arguing against as well (getting new players into the game, a year, or two down the line, after launch). This is the part I guess where I'm confused about what your actual point is.
While I do think it's a part of the core game design, I don't think you will compromise one of the core pillars, by adjusting the progression system. There are ways to do it.
Iccer is absolutely right. Archeage was a perfect example of how you can design horizonal progression and still feel like you're getting better and more useful. OSRS works very similarly.
Also, forms of vertical progression that you can lose, that you have to fight for, is a game design for PvP players that can generate an infinite amount of content.
Vertical progression that cannot be lost should not mean more than ~100% additional direct strength from early game to end game in an MMORPG like Ashes. Anything else would either lead to the slow death of Ashes or as a solution to catch up mechanics, seasonal servers, faster leveling and whatever else there is that we probably all hate.
Increase from the very bottom to the very top is fairly big, but the in-betweens are not quite that different, so people can still participate in pvp w/o being one-shot immediately, even if they're weaker-geared.
Enchanting could take you up 2-3 steps of that ladder, with an increasing cost (definitely rarity-based) per grade.
How easy would it be to get into it as a new player though?
Do you have to start at G1T1?
Let's say most of the active playerbase is at G4T1, and they can progress up to T3.
Do you start at G1T1, having to grind through all the tiers to get to G4T1 (by which point everyone will already be at G4T3), do you start somewhere in G3T1, for example, or is everyone in the same Grade category for that particular period of time/patch?
How would that even work? I'm assuming new grades get unlocked via new patches/updates down the line, so content that provides you with "endgame" gear, only gives you that particular Grade of gear (while those earlier grades are forgotten/not available anymore/outdated)?
I definitely see this as an improvement, over just having a basic one tier system with 6 different rarities.