Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Zerg abament?
RisingPhoenix
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Like most games, zergs tend to kill off a percentage of the player base. Will we see this happen or will some effort be installed to counter server domination. I know....but give it some thought...
3
Comments
So, if there's a server where it has 1 organized group of 300+ players vs pve players or solo players, server domination is achieved.
Would be nice if you couldn't even make a guild until about mid game in the server. So everyone has time to settle into their place in the world. They can progress from smaller player engagements to larger ones the older the server gets. Then it can naturally be more fair.
Right now a Zerg is literally just going to ravage the map.
U.S. East
Doing something like this is going to be organisationally demanding and it's exactly the kind of large scale player agency that the game is trying to promote.
first sieges will be against a horde of npcs. That will most lilely be max level
Guild that want to have 150/200+ players in a guild should lose out on a lot of stuff. Not just skimpy EXP buffs nobody will care about 3 months into the server, but meaningful buffs that hurt.most during lategame
The higher the player capacity the bigger the drawbacks.
Good point. I really like this idea not able to make a guild till later.
Wait for real? Okay that's good then. Sounds like the first sieges will be a really interesting challenge to solve.
However I think if people want to participate in sieges becoming the largest guild on the server would be a detriment if they keep a maximum player cap allowed inside of the siege zone, as you would likely miss out on certain events due to too many players in the guild wanting to participate.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
node sieges dont have a cap currently
castle is 250
everybody can participate in node sieges
Also anyone can participate in sieges but the limit is a hard limit. No one outside of those 250 on each side is going to be able to do anything. The one limitation is vassal nodes in the later stages of the game. They can't fight their controlling node at all.
U.S. East
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
A guild that LARGE should not only lose the group buffs it should incur negative buffs to keep the size down.
Zergs ruin games, even if group buffs are significant, the numbers alone would be hard to overcome. this can be easily solved with many mechanics like warband size and so on. Diminishing returns for exp and money and whatever honor there is.
I would really like to see this steer more towards tight 8 man groups. With Castle assaults no more than 300 or so for 1 side.
I think guild buffs might be a big mistake, let me tell you why. Imagine Guild levels work in the following way (I tried to make a table using HTML and BBCode but it didn't work, so please bear with me):
Guild Level | Guild Level Reward
Level 1 | +10 members or +1% damage
Level 2 | +20 members or +2% damage
Level 3 | +30 members or +3% damage
Level 4 | +40 members or +4% damage
Level 5 | +50 members or +5% damage
When your guild levels up, you need to choose if you want to increase guild capacity or increase the guild buff for your members.
In theory, zergs will always choose to increase the guild size in order to accommodate all of their players. Smaller guilds don't need to make room for more people, so they'll always choose the buff rewards. However, as you probably know, zergs don't need an in-game guild system to operate, they use third party software to organize themselves, sometimes even in games that have no guild system at all (like Rust, only a party of up to 10 people, but thankfully there's friendly fire).
Therefore I would like to understand why would a zerg make one large guild for their 150 members without any buffs instead of making 10 guilds with 15 members each but with max buffs.
I can only see zergs that choose to do this being hurt in Castle Sieges and Guild Wars, but everywhere else will actually be more advantageous to make multiple guilds instead of a huge one. Open World PvP, Caravans and Node Sieges will actually benefit zergs that opt to divide themselves into smaller guilds. Instead of one huge "Zerg4Life" guild, there will be 10 "Zerg4Life 1~10" guilds.
I would like to say I do not know how to abate zergs, except for player collision (which exists in Ashes) and friendly fire (which is probably not a good idea in an MMORPG). I'm willing to bet zergs actually love this system Intrepid made to empower smaller guilds. Am I missing something which completely refutes my argument, @Jahlon?
One way I am combating zergs personally is putting a cap on my guild size. This size will be determined based on how the game ends up being and whatever number I deem to allow us to have consistently organized events but also to not just consume everything to the point it becomes boring. I'd rather alliance with other guilds and truly build the community of whatever server we land on.
As for Intrepid, I have faith that they possess the brain power to prevent things like this from ruining the game. Everything I can see is showing me that they have a strong capability to deliver quality.
So if you join a server and see people with the same guild name running around everywere.
Just quit and go somewere else.
Its what im planning to do with the big streamers.
If i know a big streamers is on a certain server then i will avoid them like the plague.
guild wars, overall coordination through ingame means and castles would be a huge thing though.
Being able to freely KOS 4 guilds in a Zerg alliance of 20 guilds would be quiet nice.
People join zergs because the think that they profit of being in the zerg. They usually have 0 loyalty to the zerg. Once things go south, the zerg usually falls apart rather quickly.
They can't cross the continent without a boat, they need to rush that.
0dmg 0dmg 0dmg 0dmg 0dmg 100%dmg game over. Immortal tanks can play alone in the PvE game.
PvP immortals not taking dmg.
Ball groups.
And army swarms. Without team play Or brain power..
The zerg-swarm can only be at one place at a time, so when they take 1 thing, the others should try to take 2 or 3 things in conjunction but to counter that in practice.
And convince the masses that they can't be at 2 places at once..
Never mind, the other game is broken.
It's good to hear you don't wanna be part of this kinda gameplay, but I don't think u should keep your guild small. (Unless you just want to have a squad)
But if you make a army, you'll need to devide your forces over certain areas.
Work, resources, attack, defence.
Attack with certain tactics.
Navy forces.
Don't let them be at one place all together.
Some stay and def the homeland/Node
The continent and your rivals. Allies. PvE players and
And across the sea to make a foothold somewhere so you can slowly send in reinforcements.
If they survive the journey across the sea,
Lets hope there be bloodthirsty sea pirates.
Who love to take down military boats.
Issnt there a war system. Where guild declare war to each other.
Where they can go on and kill each other without penalties.
If there daughter guild would sneak up and join the fight, they should declare war first?
Is it gonna be possible to have 10 guild declare war to one guild?
Maybe the one guild can handle a war against multi guilds and wants it.
But maybe after the first declared war,
The guild cannot be challenged again until the war with other guild is over.
Or if they accept the second challenge.
But next to the guild, you also have the nodes, and the guilds don't run the nodes by default. They can be hired by the nodes, for the nodes primary guild active in the nodes. that can be 2 different guilds?
Here is the community-run wiki page for Zergs! Each line has a citation, often livestream quotes from Steven, on the topic! https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Zergs
It can be hell for zergs, but a legit gaming corps will rise to the occasion.
You should put up a sticky that says "have a question? check the wiki."