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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.
FUN vs. Chore?
woooot
Member, Alpha Two
Maybe I misunderstood something?
But the new Crate system - that is mainly a way to earn gold right?
And the task is - make crate - transport it slowly in danger, and deliver and get reward - right?
Well that sounds boring and a time consuming chore to make gold.
Some will say, its fun because of risk of PVP? Like boring caravans..
Then why not just give more rewards for the fun parts? of the game.
PVP, PVE, Combat, Exploring.
Reward PVP - forget hauling crates - expand the PVP zones, and reward people for the "heads they take".
Of course varied reward depending on level difference and if the kill is new or the 10'th time you kill the same.
Why not STEAL something that is very popular in other games. - Extraction PVP game - in MMO form.
Announce an Extraxtion PVP event in a zone. All who sign up get to an instancea arena dungeon/area.
The arena has "crates" they can loot. Die in the arena, and you drop the loot from the arena and you are out.
Make different versions. Solo only 5-10 and 20 man all vs all. Groups only 3 man, 5 man, 8 man - and 3-5-7 groups vs each other. - Forget boring crate transports - this is fun pvp!
Reward the things that are fun, instead of having us doing boring time consuming chores and jumping through hoops.
For Fun PVE - make something to earn gold, for those who dont like PVP.
A - Large scale of the already good local events. - But instead of just a small area of Grems going amok, have event in larger scale.
Like 100 1* grems attack a node village. - Make guards vulnerable, so players have to help. If not enough players help, the grems kill all the npc's and then leave. All NPC and guards that die, will respawn in 1-2 hours. So players must defend the town. Maybe stations go out of order for a period if Grems win.
- Now replace Grems with other monster variants and highwaymen.
FUN! And reward all who help with glint or gold. - So earning rewards come through FUN gameplay, and not fkin running with crates.
B - Have random of the outdoor "dungeons" like HH or Oak announce an event 10 min before it happens.
Boost the spawn amount by 3-4 times the normal. Groups in the areas have to work as raids to survive.
It will naturally boost the earnings there, if you can make it. After 20 minutes, all spwn go back to normal.
- FUN!
Sure some will like the crate system.. But I think it sounds boring. And if the goal is to make risks, to earn rewards?
Well its not hard to imagine something more fun than building a crate and transporting it from A to B.
And also better ways to encourage to PVP or PVE events.
But the new Crate system - that is mainly a way to earn gold right?
And the task is - make crate - transport it slowly in danger, and deliver and get reward - right?
Well that sounds boring and a time consuming chore to make gold.
Some will say, its fun because of risk of PVP? Like boring caravans..
Then why not just give more rewards for the fun parts? of the game.
PVP, PVE, Combat, Exploring.
Reward PVP - forget hauling crates - expand the PVP zones, and reward people for the "heads they take".
Of course varied reward depending on level difference and if the kill is new or the 10'th time you kill the same.
Why not STEAL something that is very popular in other games. - Extraction PVP game - in MMO form.
Announce an Extraxtion PVP event in a zone. All who sign up get to an instancea arena dungeon/area.
The arena has "crates" they can loot. Die in the arena, and you drop the loot from the arena and you are out.
Make different versions. Solo only 5-10 and 20 man all vs all. Groups only 3 man, 5 man, 8 man - and 3-5-7 groups vs each other. - Forget boring crate transports - this is fun pvp!
Reward the things that are fun, instead of having us doing boring time consuming chores and jumping through hoops.
For Fun PVE - make something to earn gold, for those who dont like PVP.
A - Large scale of the already good local events. - But instead of just a small area of Grems going amok, have event in larger scale.
Like 100 1* grems attack a node village. - Make guards vulnerable, so players have to help. If not enough players help, the grems kill all the npc's and then leave. All NPC and guards that die, will respawn in 1-2 hours. So players must defend the town. Maybe stations go out of order for a period if Grems win.
- Now replace Grems with other monster variants and highwaymen.
FUN! And reward all who help with glint or gold. - So earning rewards come through FUN gameplay, and not fkin running with crates.
B - Have random of the outdoor "dungeons" like HH or Oak announce an event 10 min before it happens.
Boost the spawn amount by 3-4 times the normal. Groups in the areas have to work as raids to survive.
It will naturally boost the earnings there, if you can make it. After 20 minutes, all spwn go back to normal.
- FUN!
Sure some will like the crate system.. But I think it sounds boring. And if the goal is to make risks, to earn rewards?
Well its not hard to imagine something more fun than building a crate and transporting it from A to B.
And also better ways to encourage to PVP or PVE events.
1
Comments
Some might also tell you that it's because Steven's concepts of 'Risk' and 'Reward' don't match the majority of gamers, but it's his game, so if he continues to consider Caravans to be fun, then you're better off suggesting ways for expanding on the basis of them to be more fun.
What you described is the 'more normal' form of this type of PvP content that you find in other modern games.
Caravans are supposed to be part of the 'Economy fun' not so much the PvP fun.
Changing Ashes' unique appeal to be more like that of New World or Throne and Liberty won't really be that great a benefit. The thing that would make most people I know 'consider switching from TL to Ashes' is not 'Ashes making more TL-style events', so even if they consider that, it probably doesn't need to be the first thing they change/get right.
The system you are talking about is literally stolen from Archeage. It was very popular there, it was considered one of that games top three features by basically everyone that played the game.
The things you are talking about all suffer from the issue of being limited time. The vast majority of activities in an MMORPG need to be things players can do on their time, not when they are told they can do them.
Bro do you just spend every day hating on any feedback ever posted on the forums
Nope.
Only the stuff I happen to come across that has obvious faults.
I'm not saying the OP's idea doesn't have some merit, I am just pointing out the pitfalls with it. If they want to rework it to remove those pitfalls, great. If they don't want to do that, this is also fine.
It really isn't my fault if the bulk of community ideas are unworkable as initially presented.
My gaming life has been building up to this great honor.
Crates, crates, crates, crates. Wonderful craaaaates!
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
Well just imagine you are playing "death stranding", with the "Crates" being the baby.
It this a Meme ?
" Weeeiiights. Weights !! Ohhhh Yes. I love lifting Weeeiiights !! "
spoke the ultra-ripped working-Class Giga Chad.
✓ 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".
To be fair, you only transported 1 trade pack in the early stages of the game, while you only have a donkey. Later on, you'd have actual farm carts, which could transport up to 8 at the same time, + they were a lot faster than just a donkey.
Also, most of these trade runs were done in peace zones, while you used merchant ships for sea (where you have potential PvP). If anything, the whole land based trade run system was focused around peace timers and transporting stuff at peace, not at war. Even with merchant ships, you'd aim to hit zones during peace times, to minimize your chances of getting murdered and your packs getting stolen. Even the strongest guilds did it this way.
Ashes doesn't have this option at all, which is why it's not really comparable.
It might be a very similar system, but the way both of these games work, make it really not the same at all.
Oh, it's still comparable.
What it is, really, is Steven looking at a system from Archeage, wanting to implement it here, but not understanding game said system well enough to get it in to Ashes properly.
Freeholds are another such system, ocean PvP is another one. I fully expect to see timed events become a thing in Ashes at some point - done wrong, of course.
I'm a player who enjoys pvp in most games. But Extraction seems like some FPS games, which really lost is allure for me a decade ago. Years of playing TF, UET, Quake, ect just makes the those quick style repeated matches boring. Could extraction be fun, yes, but I couldn't say what they need to do to make it fun. I don't know what matters in the game yet. Nodes? not to me. Dungeons? there won't be many. Raids? no sign of those yet. Caravans? not really enticing use of time for me right now. Might be later. Guess my point is a lot of the game requires the player to do some 'maintenance' on their character, if the reward isn't worth effort players will avoid it. Which is what your point is too. This is just a different perspective.
I think an extraction style event would be fun. You could actually use crates for it too. If it's team based or numbers restricted it'd need to be instanced. Open world will just favor the larger guilds, could be a killer to the event. Maybe you wouldn't want to announce it if it's Open world. Don't announce anything until the first crate is looted.
The town invasion idea is an awesome idea too. But how do you handle guards killing all the low level mobs? Or only use high level mobs which would nudge the low levels out? Do the mobs destroy any of the structures the players built in that node?
I also think dungeons (open and instanced) are under leveraged. There could be dungeons that "level up". As a groups wipe the dungeon gets stronger and stronger. Until a dungeon actually goes from a Level 10 dungeon to a Level 15 dungeon. Or the dungeon starts to spawn more enemies. This could go until the dungeon over flows and spills out into the open world/map. After it gets out of hand then the mobs start patrols in that area and eventually start to attack the town that's near by. They happens until the dungeon is cleared X number of times.
Exploration is something undervalued too. The treasure maps are a good start. I'd enjoy that more than gathering. But so much more can be done with exploration in this massive world.
Rewards are exp, gold, glint, materials, quest story, achivements, mounts, and maybe gear or gear materals?
If the reward isn't good, than the cost to participate needs to be low. For me PvP is too steep a cost until maxed. Which sucks because PvP as I level is actually fun in most games, but the cost is much lower.
1- any open world pvp with rewards can be abused. just kill your friend's alts.
2- instanced pvp will make it so that there is less ow pvp...unless it opens for a few hours a day. plus it can also be abused.
ill porbably almost never do crates, but lots of people will. i prefer farming mobs to make money (o play the actuion house if im in the mood). the theory has to be tested. maybe the crates will be very successful, maybe not. only play testing will tell.
It could be that as well.
It is comparable, because on paper it's a similar system...except it just plays out differently - and you just don't get the same type of experience.
I guess I'm comparing the actual gameplay experience one can expect to have with that system in Ashes, rather than how it's designed in isolation. Which is why I said it's not comparable.
Crates aren't a worthwhile Econ Slot in Ashes, though, because Ashes has to generate so many growth/progression slots and it doesn't tie any of those slots into Crates in a way that would result in them being used.
That's the most obvious fault here, Ashes is a slow progression game so it needs at least a dozen 'Progression Econ Slots' before we even start talking about Nodes which have their own even if they overlap (and the design of Ashes as we know it works against that too).
Leaving Crates and related activity to take up the same slots as Artisanship and Immersion stuff and hence technically creating a worse outcome than both ArcheAge/EVE and the WoW-clones.
tl;dr this take implies that BDO feels alive, which it does not.
you can do both. there will be times when you wont be able to do gathering (or processing / crafting because of a lack of materials), maybe because of the land management system or other reasons, and then you do crates.
I would rather do (in this order, to make money):
1- kill mobs
2- do crates / caravans
3- do artisan stuff
If i have the option to make money killing mobs and it's as good or almost as good as the other 2, I will kill mobs ;3
Listing the activities is a good idea. Some will be chores and some will be fun depending on the person. At the end of the day it's a game and it's met to be fun. Not all of us have fun in the same way.
1. PvE. Mob grinding.
2. PvE. Questing
3. PvP. Open world ganking for materials, or boss/rare drops.
4. PvE. Dungeoning
5. PvP. Dungeoning
6. Gathering (i'm want to be excited for fishing and hunting, maybe some farming too. but so far it's not fun)
7. Ocean fishing I'm hoping for like AA.
8. Processing
9. Crafting (crafting and processing is just stacking a recipe and coming back later so these aren't really activies to me. hoping for more.
10. Caravans
11. Crates
12. Sea battles?
13. Guild wars
14. Guild Leveling
15. Node Leveling
16. Node wars
17. Farms/plots if you can get one.
18. Castles/Forts if your guild can get one.
19. World bosses, PvE and PvP activities.
20. Raids?. Not sure about these.
21. Treasure hunting, exploring?
I'm probably missing stuff. But still that's a lot of activities! Ambitious.
In most mmos you can avoid things you don't like, such as PvP or Raids. And just enjoy the things you want. I think here it's going to be harder to do that. mostly because the version of PvX the games aiming for.
✓ 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".
You keep mentioning this... did they remove this from the game?
Do you want the values to be higher? What exactly is the reason you keep bringing it up?
Yeah me too, it's not like I, the Processor, am going to be spending a lot of time running around doing Gathering, and I am the type to want to get my group together and haul ingots to wherever.
The question is, 'which ingots and how much are these foreign nodes paying me compared to using them?'
Off. Thanks so much for asking.
I just know that this wasn't the Case in Phase 1 if i remember correctly. I have no Idea if it is the Case now, but i just "assume" it is not.
This is why i hope by keep mentioning this ( like the desperate Begger i am
Fishing,
Mining,
Chopping Wood,
etc.
Not just from senseless Slaughter of Mobs until i think i might pop a Bloodvessel inside my Braincase.
✓ 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".
I don't even feel like it was really small, at low levels it was pretty meaningful and it didn't drop off too much either (at least that's what those in my group who pushed further into their Artisan paths reported to me).
OOFFFFF. My Saviour, (lol) thanks for that Information.
✓ 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".