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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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.
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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.
NO RISK FOR TOXIC PEOPLE (bounty system asap)
lazzphoenx
Member, Alpha Two
this is a current feedback thread from the discord, its not written by me, but i wanted to add this into my toxic peopel thread ... bc it is very fitting
Quote:
**Every member of Polar who took part in the raids of Winstead and Joeva last night need to be banned and IP locked for no less than the remainder of Phase 3. Full stop. **
There is nothing to argue about here. This was abuse of a known exploit at an extraordinary scale.
Settlement/Node Wars are intended to be opt-in PvP events. Players who were in these settlements when the war declarations popped had no chance to opt-in or out. It was forced upon them while they were managing inventories, crafting, buying/selling or grabbing a snack in what is presumed to be a safe location.
It was planned, organized, and executed from the highest levels of their leadership team all the way down the ranks.
This wasn't just an abuse that allowed them to gain advantage over other players. It led to hundreds of players losing countless hours of hard-work with virtually no way to defend themselves. The raiders were then able to loot these ash piles, some containing 40-50 gold worth of materials, and keep the spoils for themselves. This was exploitative griefing at a galactic scale.
Their claims of "testing systems" are laughable at best. The amount of coordination required to prepare the war declaration, position their members at key points within the settlements, and wipe out the vast majority of those players mere moments after the declaration went off is clear evidence that they knew what they were doing. Then they went and did it again in Joeva.
You can't tell me that the guild who's entire member base added "FIX PVP" to their server name was unaware this was a broken mechanic. **They knew, and they did it anyway, because they know nothing is going to happen to them - because nothing ever does.**
Whether favoritism has contributed to past leniency or not is completely irrelevant. There has been leniency. Which frankly, is fine by my standards. It's an alpha, exploits are abundant and you need to find a balance between keeping the population of testers at statistically relevant numbers and meting out punishments.
**But there has to be a line somewhere**, and I ask you this: If this isn't the line, what is? How much more egregious, large-scale and public must the abuse of an exploit be in order to see action taken?
You're losing content creators left and right this morning. The comments section of their farewell videos are absolute dumpster fires - filled with vitriol for both Polar and the development team. How do we ensure the development continues to receive the financial support it requires if every bit of content out there is screaming for new potential players to keep their distance?
Please Intrepid, for the good of the game and it's continued development - **do something.** Put your money where you mouth is.
**EDIT:** Quick explanation of the exploit for those unfamiliar.
Settlement/Node wars are intended to be opt-in events. A war can be declared at any time, but to give the settlement being declared against time to prepare or evacuate, the event will not start until Prime Time. You've likely seen the notifications warning you that a settlement war will begin in X amount of time, and to either leave the area or prepare to engage in open PvP. (something to that effect).
There's been a long standing issue that allows the settlement to declare war instantaneously if they pop it DURING prime time. When they pop the declaration during this time, instead of scheduling the event for the next day, the event begins immediately.
Polar used this to their advantage last night in their war declarations against Winstead and Joeva. They had their members set up throughout these settlements, and once everyone was in position, popped the war declaration and immediately began attacking. Within moments they had racked up 150-200 kills. No one stood a chance.
Unquote
i will add this:
sorry for rambling but im very emotional right now... i invested a lot of time into ashes so far (like 200hours in phase 1 and 100 hours in phase 2, not yet in phase 3 though)
I really enjoy ashes and really like to listen to steven about the game design direction.... and he almost always says the right things ... but those dont transalte into the test enviroment yet sadly ...
We need to introduce RISK for people training mobs into other groups and other toxic behaviour like scaming noobs in trades......other than just open conflict and calling this behaviour out....
the solutions were described by steven multiple times already and needs to be added asap ...
why is this important ? bc i will stop playing now as my whole 100 people guild did already ....
The problem is bigger than ever now:
the time investment to get something done in this phase for casuals so far is even higher compared to before... i grinded the Halls of Judication for 2 hours to get about 50 silver in Glint, i know there are people now saying, get a group/guild that is not much aso, please spare me ...
im a low lvl tank who just pulled one or two mobs at a time .... and before people say that this is not the way to progress fast ,... that is the way i liked to play at the moment bc most of my 100 people guild are not playing at all bc of the state of the test.... i know im not progressing fast, but i progress steady .... and more like casuals would do...
after about 1,5 hours i teamed up with someone and we went inside the halls and pulled more mobs, like 4-6 mobs and it was working very well... so there you go i did what people would suggest anyway and then someone trained a lot of mobs into us and we got killed and looted, he stole some of my glint and part was lost for good ... the player was obviouisly high lvl player ... i know these things can happen, and i was already targeted often in other phases so i should have known better and been on edge more ... so partly my fault people will say... i get it ... ... so the pace of glint was much higher, but the risk obviously much higher too. .... i just lost one hour of progression + xp debt and loosing other drops too .... just because that toxic player knows he gets rewarded for that toxic behaviour without risk ....
i wanted to get a new mount and after i finally found a wolf i wanted to try it and it costs 55 silver for one 50/50 chance ....
so i basicly grinded solo for 1,5 hours with a lot of downtimes and 30 minutes as a duo without downtime .... to get almost there for my first try to get a new mount .... just for that person to make my life harder and lose an hour of solo progress to be able to have that SINGLE TRY to get a new mount .... that is only a 50/50 chance
people like me who play more casual atm have a lot of risk running into toxic behaviour ... but there are no options for lower lvl groups and casual people to oppose those higher players and introduce any risk to them ... they do this kind of stuff practicly risk free ... there are just no white knight guilds or something like that around.... and fighting a player that is 5 or 10 lvls higher than u is even in a group not easy or feasable in most cases .... the difference is just too big ...
the only thing they get is a bad reputation ... but there is not a single system in game that is actually making it possible to fight back with other means... or translate that bad reputation into meaningful penaltys.... or even as little as rewards to fighting back ... so there needs to be at least a bounty system in place that we lower more casual people have means of flagging toxic players and make them a great target for everybody at least, that high lvl players acutally have an incentive to track down toxic players and farm them instead of going to carphin over and over again ... make it profitable to farm toxic players ... introduce risk for toxic behaviour and try to balance it out .... there shouldnt be only one way to oppose them "write in global chat to offer bounty"... .... it should be a bounty system with revealing their location and the bounty should reflect how much they stole + how much annoyance thay caused ....and so on ...
additionally i should be able to pay into that bounty system to make their live harder ... like make them combatant the moment i pay additonal bounty to make it harder for them to get services and stuff ... like prevent them from bringing their stolen goods to the vendor bc i keep them flagged for a longer period with my left over money and such ...
there is a big problem that people dont understand about beeing toxic... >>>short term gain brings longterm pain<<< ....
for that little glint that he got , the community lost a person playing ashes .... that risk to loose players like me is there ... and needs to influence the balancing of the penaltys for that kind of behaviour .,,, .... what will happen if you give people the opportunity to grief without harsh penaltys, even without rewards ... ... we saw it time and time again ,,, they will do it until there is noone to grief anymore .... ... beeing toxic should be possible, dont get me wrong ... but at the moment the risk for toxic people is low and they get even a high reward... intrepid already did dial down the open conflict toxic pvp situation bc they learned it got out of hand really quickly ... but loosing people bc the economy is catering to big organized groups with a lot of time .... that creates problems in itself ... but in turn makes the penaltys for dying even harder for people with less time ...
and dont get me started on dying for unstuck ... lol, that is a slap into a casuals face lol
a lot could be done ... but at the moment ashes is made for people who grind in big organized groups and reward toxic behaviour without risk or very low risk,....
i know this is all planned and stuff but we need it now more than ever bc of the huge time sinc that is crafting and money costs for literally everything ... bc dying hurts much more bc the progression is way slower and getting money is much harder. .. but the loss is still the same as it always was ... so i invest way more time to get less...... so the system now punished dying much harsher relativly and people gain much more by training mobs into people comparativly to before so the incentive is a lot higher to be toxic ...
the problem is .... that short term gain for the toxic people makes people like me quit ... and im not coming back for the sommuner if the test still treats my time like it is now ... no risk for toxic people. ... much higher reward for toxic behaviour ... no means to fight back in any way other than flaming in chat...
this must be addressed or the servers will be dead soon, and noone will test anymore other than the toxic 300 sweat lords.
i obviously will come back eventually ... but not until there is major change ... and im not looking for that in the harbinger update ,,, it will just slap more broken stuff on a cracked foundation sadly , at least it feels like that ...
Quote:
**Every member of Polar who took part in the raids of Winstead and Joeva last night need to be banned and IP locked for no less than the remainder of Phase 3. Full stop. **
There is nothing to argue about here. This was abuse of a known exploit at an extraordinary scale.
Settlement/Node Wars are intended to be opt-in PvP events. Players who were in these settlements when the war declarations popped had no chance to opt-in or out. It was forced upon them while they were managing inventories, crafting, buying/selling or grabbing a snack in what is presumed to be a safe location.
It was planned, organized, and executed from the highest levels of their leadership team all the way down the ranks.
This wasn't just an abuse that allowed them to gain advantage over other players. It led to hundreds of players losing countless hours of hard-work with virtually no way to defend themselves. The raiders were then able to loot these ash piles, some containing 40-50 gold worth of materials, and keep the spoils for themselves. This was exploitative griefing at a galactic scale.
Their claims of "testing systems" are laughable at best. The amount of coordination required to prepare the war declaration, position their members at key points within the settlements, and wipe out the vast majority of those players mere moments after the declaration went off is clear evidence that they knew what they were doing. Then they went and did it again in Joeva.
You can't tell me that the guild who's entire member base added "FIX PVP" to their server name was unaware this was a broken mechanic. **They knew, and they did it anyway, because they know nothing is going to happen to them - because nothing ever does.**
Whether favoritism has contributed to past leniency or not is completely irrelevant. There has been leniency. Which frankly, is fine by my standards. It's an alpha, exploits are abundant and you need to find a balance between keeping the population of testers at statistically relevant numbers and meting out punishments.
**But there has to be a line somewhere**, and I ask you this: If this isn't the line, what is? How much more egregious, large-scale and public must the abuse of an exploit be in order to see action taken?
You're losing content creators left and right this morning. The comments section of their farewell videos are absolute dumpster fires - filled with vitriol for both Polar and the development team. How do we ensure the development continues to receive the financial support it requires if every bit of content out there is screaming for new potential players to keep their distance?
Please Intrepid, for the good of the game and it's continued development - **do something.** Put your money where you mouth is.
**EDIT:** Quick explanation of the exploit for those unfamiliar.
Settlement/Node wars are intended to be opt-in events. A war can be declared at any time, but to give the settlement being declared against time to prepare or evacuate, the event will not start until Prime Time. You've likely seen the notifications warning you that a settlement war will begin in X amount of time, and to either leave the area or prepare to engage in open PvP. (something to that effect).
There's been a long standing issue that allows the settlement to declare war instantaneously if they pop it DURING prime time. When they pop the declaration during this time, instead of scheduling the event for the next day, the event begins immediately.
Polar used this to their advantage last night in their war declarations against Winstead and Joeva. They had their members set up throughout these settlements, and once everyone was in position, popped the war declaration and immediately began attacking. Within moments they had racked up 150-200 kills. No one stood a chance.
Unquote
i will add this:
sorry for rambling but im very emotional right now... i invested a lot of time into ashes so far (like 200hours in phase 1 and 100 hours in phase 2, not yet in phase 3 though)
I really enjoy ashes and really like to listen to steven about the game design direction.... and he almost always says the right things ... but those dont transalte into the test enviroment yet sadly ...
We need to introduce RISK for people training mobs into other groups and other toxic behaviour like scaming noobs in trades......other than just open conflict and calling this behaviour out....
the solutions were described by steven multiple times already and needs to be added asap ...
why is this important ? bc i will stop playing now as my whole 100 people guild did already ....
The problem is bigger than ever now:
the time investment to get something done in this phase for casuals so far is even higher compared to before... i grinded the Halls of Judication for 2 hours to get about 50 silver in Glint, i know there are people now saying, get a group/guild that is not much aso, please spare me ...
im a low lvl tank who just pulled one or two mobs at a time .... and before people say that this is not the way to progress fast ,... that is the way i liked to play at the moment bc most of my 100 people guild are not playing at all bc of the state of the test.... i know im not progressing fast, but i progress steady .... and more like casuals would do...
after about 1,5 hours i teamed up with someone and we went inside the halls and pulled more mobs, like 4-6 mobs and it was working very well... so there you go i did what people would suggest anyway and then someone trained a lot of mobs into us and we got killed and looted, he stole some of my glint and part was lost for good ... the player was obviouisly high lvl player ... i know these things can happen, and i was already targeted often in other phases so i should have known better and been on edge more ... so partly my fault people will say... i get it ... ... so the pace of glint was much higher, but the risk obviously much higher too. .... i just lost one hour of progression + xp debt and loosing other drops too .... just because that toxic player knows he gets rewarded for that toxic behaviour without risk ....
i wanted to get a new mount and after i finally found a wolf i wanted to try it and it costs 55 silver for one 50/50 chance ....
so i basicly grinded solo for 1,5 hours with a lot of downtimes and 30 minutes as a duo without downtime .... to get almost there for my first try to get a new mount .... just for that person to make my life harder and lose an hour of solo progress to be able to have that SINGLE TRY to get a new mount .... that is only a 50/50 chance
people like me who play more casual atm have a lot of risk running into toxic behaviour ... but there are no options for lower lvl groups and casual people to oppose those higher players and introduce any risk to them ... they do this kind of stuff practicly risk free ... there are just no white knight guilds or something like that around.... and fighting a player that is 5 or 10 lvls higher than u is even in a group not easy or feasable in most cases .... the difference is just too big ...
the only thing they get is a bad reputation ... but there is not a single system in game that is actually making it possible to fight back with other means... or translate that bad reputation into meaningful penaltys.... or even as little as rewards to fighting back ... so there needs to be at least a bounty system in place that we lower more casual people have means of flagging toxic players and make them a great target for everybody at least, that high lvl players acutally have an incentive to track down toxic players and farm them instead of going to carphin over and over again ... make it profitable to farm toxic players ... introduce risk for toxic behaviour and try to balance it out .... there shouldnt be only one way to oppose them "write in global chat to offer bounty"... .... it should be a bounty system with revealing their location and the bounty should reflect how much they stole + how much annoyance thay caused ....and so on ...
additionally i should be able to pay into that bounty system to make their live harder ... like make them combatant the moment i pay additonal bounty to make it harder for them to get services and stuff ... like prevent them from bringing their stolen goods to the vendor bc i keep them flagged for a longer period with my left over money and such ...
there is a big problem that people dont understand about beeing toxic... >>>short term gain brings longterm pain<<< ....
for that little glint that he got , the community lost a person playing ashes .... that risk to loose players like me is there ... and needs to influence the balancing of the penaltys for that kind of behaviour .,,, .... what will happen if you give people the opportunity to grief without harsh penaltys, even without rewards ... ... we saw it time and time again ,,, they will do it until there is noone to grief anymore .... ... beeing toxic should be possible, dont get me wrong ... but at the moment the risk for toxic people is low and they get even a high reward... intrepid already did dial down the open conflict toxic pvp situation bc they learned it got out of hand really quickly ... but loosing people bc the economy is catering to big organized groups with a lot of time .... that creates problems in itself ... but in turn makes the penaltys for dying even harder for people with less time ...
and dont get me started on dying for unstuck ... lol, that is a slap into a casuals face lol
a lot could be done ... but at the moment ashes is made for people who grind in big organized groups and reward toxic behaviour without risk or very low risk,....
i know this is all planned and stuff but we need it now more than ever bc of the huge time sinc that is crafting and money costs for literally everything ... bc dying hurts much more bc the progression is way slower and getting money is much harder. .. but the loss is still the same as it always was ... so i invest way more time to get less...... so the system now punished dying much harsher relativly and people gain much more by training mobs into people comparativly to before so the incentive is a lot higher to be toxic ...
the problem is .... that short term gain for the toxic people makes people like me quit ... and im not coming back for the sommuner if the test still treats my time like it is now ... no risk for toxic people. ... much higher reward for toxic behaviour ... no means to fight back in any way other than flaming in chat...
this must be addressed or the servers will be dead soon, and noone will test anymore other than the toxic 300 sweat lords.
i obviously will come back eventually ... but not until there is major change ... and im not looking for that in the harbinger update ,,, it will just slap more broken stuff on a cracked foundation sadly , at least it feels like that ...
0
Comments
obviously the guild polar did "test" the node war system or siege system, to wipe multiple towns without prior notice due them using an exploit ... that will most likely bring a lot more people to quit ... hope everyone is happy with those toxic players and their choices ... i am not and im so glad i already did quit before that total city wipe ... i guess i would have never looked back after deleting the game if i had that happen to me
The forum post is a passionate critique of Ashes of Creation's current PvP and exploit systems, highlighting how toxic behavior—especially from high-level players and organized guilds—is rewarded with little to no risk. It centers on a exploit used by the Polar guild to ambush settlements during war declarations, resulting in massive losses for unsuspecting players. The author argues that casual players are disproportionately punished, with no meaningful systems to counter griefing or protect their time investment. They call for urgent implementation of mechanics like a bounty system to introduce consequences for toxic actions and restore balance, warning that without change, the game risks losing its broader player base.