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.
Comments
What aspects of the event system are important to you?
- Rewards
- Time (are there long events and short ones)
- Diversity (will it all be the same type of events and creatures? boo.. or will we see a mix up of different event types and creatures eg; wave trial, time trial, random boss's or boss, defender trail or attack trail etc)
- Pretty lights/UI when you get rewarded xd all the little sounds and lights brings joy (https://www.southparkstudios.com/video-clips/yhcmib/south-park-you-two-have-demons)
Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared so far?I think the team has done a wonderful job so far.
Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?
i find events in games are very copy and pasted.
New world - lack of creatures/diversity across the map so everything feels like you've done it before.
guild wars 2 - event system is good due to the fact they are diverse. each area of a map is tailored to the creatures you fight against but still it needs more different types of events.
RuneScape - Random solo events for you're character where you get teleported and you go through trials and get cool rewards at the end. i use to love little random dudes popping up saying something then teleporting you away it was so fun.
Personally i would find it revolutionary if random events happened then a twist happens that makes it exciting. eg; goblins attack something, or are gathering in one area etc. then when engaging with them after a while it might say ""The fighting has attracted another mob, wolfs or a nearby boss etc"" unexpected twists are what make things interesting and not mundane and repetitive!
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
Been great so far!!
zen
For me uncommon or rare dynamic events that crop up over the world in unexpected ways. For me it is important that Verra feels alive, and to feel alive, I feel dynamic events are the most important. Like Steven said about running D&D, the ticking clock for events developing in the world is exciting. I am also excited for more interconnected systems and lore within Verra rather than "real world" events. For example, I think an in game winter festival every in game winter is more important than a Santa themed once a calendar year.
"Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared so far?"
Is there only one way for players to engage with events, or are these areas for more of the "soft friction" Steven sometimes mentions. Are my only options participate or ignore? Can I for instance decide to move a caravan in support of goblins to increase their arms/armor to help destroy a rival node? Otherwise, I think the examples in the video are awesome and really diverse.
"Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?"
For me I think GW2 did a nice job making events exciting and engaging by having NPCs running up to players, or seeing a group of monsters come crashing through the woods. As other players mentioned, these events became a bit less impactful when they were frequent and predictable.
"Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?"
In particular I am excited for Steven's examples of some of the immersive opt in event notifications. I think the idea of seeing a storm or a horded of locusts buzzing through a forest would be an amazing way to learn of an event. I also like the possibility of events spawning based on the players actions or idleness.
Some Concerns:
-As many people have mentioned, events quickly become boring if they are understood, frequent, or predictable. I hope AoC makes events pretty low frequency but high impact.
-Please don't allow for a counterproductive reward meta. For instance, if high level players need to wait for goblins to complete a ritual to spawn a dragon with high tier loot, this could be a very toxic environment for casual players just wanting to kill some goblins. To avoid this, I would either avoid scaling rewards (goblins always a low level event, but the incentive is protecting a node), add quest rewards incentivizing all player levels (whether or not the dragon is summoned, there is a substantial quest reward), or just allow players to participate on both sides of an event (Aiding the ritual and summoning the dragon is an option for players)
That they are random and not repeat often. Would like to see seasons last 3 weeks.
Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared so far?
Would like to see celestial events in the sky. Don't forget humor.
Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?
I think EverQuest2 has the best events of any game in the last 15 years especially holiday events. EQ2 events include activities for quick play, involved questlines, crafting events, public quests, and terrific rewards. They are clever and funny.
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
Please don't do a plague, it was awful in games many years ago. I'm excited for monster coin events and seasonal changes. As far as the example of the sound of trees being felled as a tell for an event, I'm sort of worried that this might be confusing as there are people out cutting trees and people will not be able to tell the difference.
Formerly T-Elf
Like every now and then it skips lvl 2 and starts lvl 3 or 4 and everyone is suprised and like whooo its on lads !
Or rare rotation of odd versions of a stage, once and a while
Would be cool if i was on another continent i would be able to see this and be like oh shit, something is happening over there, wonder what that is? Even if its to far away for me to go there it would still be cool to see it. And ofc the ppl who want to investigate and ride 2 hours to get there they can.
And when it disappears i will think that this ppl over there has been succesfully in "solving" the problem.
It just gives a nice immersion ^^
I had some fun ideas of events thats can happen sometimes a year in the open world, or when we trigger a event to start by doing stuff in the world. I will write them here ^^
*Event - Mysterious Spiders
You are riding down a road and notice something strange abit futher away, its seems like a black line crossing the road. You go and investigate only to notice there is spiders the size of ur hand walking in a line.. and the line doesnt seem to stop anywhere.
You decide to follow the spiders by foot to see what is going on. After following the spider line for 15 min you notice that the spiders are walking to this dense forest, and to ur horror you see that this once beautiful forest you have been in a few days ago is covered with spider webs. This webs are on the ground, and hanging from the trees. You decide to continuing investigate alone.
The moment you step inside the forest you wont be able to see more then 2 meters infront you because of the dense fog, and the light that once entered the forest is now reduced and it looks dark.. You hear creepy noises around you..
You look down on the ground because you want to continue following the spiders but notice that they are not anywhere to be seen.... You continue walking without the spiders to investigate what is going on in this dense fog. Suddenly Spiders big as you start to glide down from the trees and some comes at you on the ground and you do not want to stay and fight because you will die so you turn around and run out off the forest.
What you do here as a player is up to you
What happens if you players dont do anything about it? will this web or fog continue to spread and make it difficult to see infront of you when you are questing? Or will spiders attack ur node? Or maby the ground that you once walked on are now covered in web that makes you walk/run/ride slower and even caravans are reduced in speed. (Reduced speed debuff).
This problem will only disappear if players are willing to investigate the root of the problem. And the problem that cause all this is inside the dense forest with fog.
Inside this dense forest with fog you wont be able to see much... so when you walk inside it with a group of ppl you might bump into another group of players you are not familiar with ( "the enemy" ). What do you do now? fight eachother or help eachother? Since this problem effects mabye other nodes and overal players in the same "area" it might be a good idea to help eachother.
To suceccfully win over this event ppl need to find the huge boss spider that is located somewhere in this dense forest. Mabye it is on the ground? or hanging above in a big web between 2 trees?
It will be hard to find this boss because you cant see more then 2 meters infront of you and the forest is kinda big so you might walk in circles.
I do not know how the sound will be in Ashes but if it is as good as in New world (you can hear what way the sound is kinda coming from) you can talk to this other group of players you meet and tell eachother to (i just make up something now) to shoot a firework at the location you found the boss so other groups will run towards the sound. OR ppl can make firecamps or torches (last 30 min when placed) to place on the ground to mark where they have been. This fire can be seen faintly through the fog but only like 7 meters infront of you.
This fire will help ppl to continue searching where they have not been yet and most likely find the spider boss and kill it.
So ppl need to be prepared on this adventure by maybe walking back to town and buy whatever is needed or a specific crafter can craft light torches by gathering wood and something else around the location and give them to ppl that are joining. ( light tortches maybe can be a thing a specific crafter can craft on the go)
How hard will it be to defeat this spider boss and its companions its up to the devs, will it be a easy event? Or will it be hard and that need alot of ppl?
* Complete dark area - you cant see
This is just an idea..The event can be in a open world dungeon or instanced or just an area somewhere in the open world.
In this event you wont be able to see anything without a light source of some kind or maybe a specific lightsource that you will need to find before you and ur teamates can progress in this complete dark area?
Inside this darkness you will get attacked randomly by "shadows" that are almost invisible. You cant even target this shadows.
You need a player to hold this special light source (lantern) and channel a light on the shadows so ur teamates can kill them. The player holding this lantern cant do other actions except channeling the lanterns power in a cone infront of him/her. This will make the shadows targetable for a few seconds and dazed. If you dont kill them in time you will lose ur target and the shadows will continue attacking you while you and ur teamates have to wait for the lanterns cooldown and try to stay alive by healing eachother.. beware that in time ur "healer" will go out of mana.. so everybody need to try placing as many shadows in a group as possible and channel the lantern on them and kill them fast. So maybe group up? but this shadows deal cone damage aswell so... split abit up or group up is up to you and ur team.
Maybe also ur lanter power will in a few channeling run out of special fuel? So you and ur teammates need to find ur way through this dark place to the next fuel place before your lantern runs out of fuel?
If you and your group are suceccful in staying alive and find ur way through this darkness you will eventually find the source of what is causing this darkness. Maybe it is a demon who is doing some ritual? You will have to kill the boss demon and after it is dead you notice the darkness havnt gone away.
If you and your teamates investigate the place the demon was in, you will notice runes on the ground the demon used to summon the darkness.
You have to look around the place the demon was killed and find clues in how to destroy this ritual. The solving of this puzzle can be that there is 6 different rune looking sigils. and 6 ppl have to stand in this rune circles in the right order to destroy the ritual. You will find the right order by looking around the place to solve the combination puzzle that is needed to be able to stand in the right order.
If players dont solve this event, it will effect the area or maybe the whole world will have night time permanent untill the ritual is destroyed.
Inspired by this Solo scenario in Lost Ark - Start at 5:22 until 7:28
Frankly the more the better, but dont give us millions of calendars and event notifications and stuff to harass us telling us that they are there, let it be unknown. that way those who love stargazing cang et celestial rewards and benefits, and those who love taming can get exclisive taming rights to an endangered species, cool things like that, too many MMO's have flooded users with content and events and when you log in at lvl 1 you have 2 or 3 UI's worth of icons beeping at you screaming at you to tell you that you'rte missing out on stuff you dont even understand let alone want.
now for my list.
Time based events (early mornign late night midday based on time of day, you are going to fins nocturnal animals at night for example so if you want a specific drop from them or to tame them ya gotta brave the dark),
celestial based events (events tracked entirely based on looking up at the stars and moon, maybe some comets and comets)
Tidal events ( maybe a shift in the moons orbit will cause tides to go out unveiling a cavern that you couldnt explore before due to not having enough air, or maybe the tides come in and flood a currently available dungeon that will seal it off or bring in new treasures when the tides reverse?
Seasonal events (i could go on for hours with this one but you can have spring or winter events, different mobs mating seasons events, maybe passive tamable mobs will no longer be friendly and become agressive, maybe even fighting eachother for the keen eyes player to take advantage of, maybe some elk species will have some passively dropped horns on the floor, maybe differing fish, or herbs, maybe even extinction of herbs or plants and players coudl get quests to replant some and help cultivate the land, and based on what is planted players could change the whole ecosystem, some animals may die off or leave, new ones might start arriving!
Player based events (like above, players could change the world and landscape, planting herbs or fungus or crops within a jungle, might become an invasive speces that will change the jungle to be a horrid overpowered mess to tame, or a gentle place to bring a date and pet some goats. that line of thinking could be applied to almost everything but also you could hold votes in a metropolis or town, maybe a mayor and mayor alone has the choice to burn down a nearby forest? making it more important to choose your mayors wisely, want to protect the rainforest then Mr Chip Loggerman is probably not the best choice for mayor.
Realistic events (all these mounts and pets have feces and damage a towns roads, have events to help clean up areas with visible repercussions (i'm not saying cover the roads in poop, just more make them dirty looking), also maybe if a breeder of mounts and pets has no more storage left they can go release them intot he wild, if back in native habitat great! population growth, if somewhere else that animal might be able to wreak havoc on native wildlife, or opposingly, be torn to shreds before your eyes. (you arent going to release a kitten into a wolf den... are you? YOU MONSTER!)
Political events (based on a town or nodes actions and decisions you're going to have the world change right? what about a well established node having npc's or indigenous wildlife, suddenly found dead in a river or a fountain, everyone in the node gets a notification of a quest (optional of course) to find who did it, and that can learn to a publix execution (you made gallows...) or banishment from the town, and you could find that npc elsewhere in the wilderness, either dead from wildlife or alive and begging for help to prove their name innocent!... or they were guilty and they will start up a bandit camp nearby and raid nearby caravans, whose to say npc's cant raid caravans too?
Destructive events ( you can have a forest fire break our, or a meteor come down and crash into the land, leveling a small mountain, covering it in fire and maybe even some new, unknown creatures to wreak havoc on the local polulace, or maybe your mission is to save these forests or new aliens before they die out in this unsustainable world.
Npc based events (this sounds super generic but when i say npc i dont mean npc's in a town, maybe a doe has an injured fawn and has brought it to the roadsite in the hopes a selfless adventurer might help, possibly rewarding in a new mount or pet, or in some choice cuts of meat as baby deer is so hard to find for those of us who are... okay i'm going to say it, heartless.
Creativity based events (instead of submitting fanart in discord you could buy canvas ingame and paint with paint colours that you gathered and made yourselfes!, but put a minimum amount of time or effort or colours etc needed for the picture or you'll get alot of trolls painting netherregions, and if a talented artist wants to draw that well... i guess there'll be some form of moderation for that.
Community building events (or really rewards, if you report gold sellers or something and say 100 of them are verified as gold selles and banned the one, or hundred people reporting those get a nice reward, not something crazy but something to promote reporting them instead fo blocking them personally), you could also have players in a node go around watering players plants in others freeholds to keep it looking pretty and vibrant, maybe a reward box funded by players.
Races ( How can you have so many mounts and an animal husbandry system without having races and maybe even race tracks built? but maybe make it so if you come first you cannot participate in the hourly/daily/weekly races for a week or something, to prevent the same few people getting ALL the rewards, they just get their name added to the plaque of winners, maybe have hourly races and winners of that can participate in daily tournys and then wweekly and monthly for a big reward, kind of like a month long tournament. water mounts too!
I could easily keep going on but i've been typing this for 10 minutes now and i am hungry.
Will add more once watched it
Those events that correspond with IRL festivities I'm happy to have, and have them on their IRL time. Although perhaps it would not necessarily be combat content, but rather either fluff or leisure, with some funny quest associated, for flair rewards.
However if players have failed certain events in that area, maybe the festivity event gets disrupted for them. Could works as an incentive to deal with events, when perhaps they are otherwise deemed not worthy of the effort.
I think it could also be interesting and immersive if some areas had specific reoccurring issues.
Let's say I'm in the area of a node in the mountains. Maybe every so often goblins/kobolds/etc mount an invasion on the node and players must defend it. This could happen frequently or more sporadically, but it would be something the town would be known for.
This could also escalate into possible retaliations against them, creating a permanent or temporary open world dungeon where we go into the monsters' lair and kill their King/Queen.
The area would then maybe open up a new node, or spot for ressource gathering etc. And those who participated in the retaliation, could obtain a specific title to show their history in that area.
The way the event prompted was a cryptic message across the screen. Not once playing Valheim did this break immersion. In fact it always caused a feeling of urgency.
You can see the events location on your mini map.
When the event was over you'd get another on screen cryptic message.
It was clean, simple and got the job done in an immersive way that caused exhilaration mixed with urgency and panic.
Medium events will be spread by cryptic NPC rumors.
Major events will have regional or global messages similar to the "Drythorne has advanced to Stage 3." messages in Alpha One.
-- 1. PVE events :
1) Killing bosses, mobs or rare mobs (elites) . for example, so that people in this location can participate in the murder of a random territorial boss, (it is very desirable that the bosses are NOT WEAK)
2) Killing ordinary mobs, for example, who will kill 100 mobs faster in this territory gets a reward (you can make 3 prizes)
3) At a location in a very large radius, rare mobs appear, (elite) which also need to be killed in the allotted time, who found them faster and killed as many as possible, he takes the reward, you can also make 3 prizes
/ How many prizes will be up to you to decide \
-- 2. Craft events:
1) everything is about the same as with PVE events. Who will catch more fish, who will cut down trees faster in the allotted time, or collect ore, grass.
2) Hunting - you can also hunt rare animals that appear in a very large radius (it is important that these animals can be killed with a special CRAFT hunting weapon) since these are events for CRAFT lovers, you can even do 2 types of hunting, riding on a mount for fast-running animals, and the usual hunting that I described earlier. Well, according to the classics, awards and prizes so that people are motivated to participate in these events.
3) Alchemy - everything is not so simple here, special plants should appear for the event that are not available at the usual time, you also need to run around a large area and look for the components of the plant in order to brew a potion, after you collect all the components 4-5 pieces, for example, you cook a potion and when you have brewed this potion, you need to hand it over to a certain The NPC is in the center of this location, and only after that you are credited with winning this event
-- 3. My favorite PVP events:
1) PVP is "every man for himself" - certain territories appear on the map, entering which your nickname lights up red, that is, PVP mode is activated, and so for all incoming, respectively, everyone fights against everyone. IT is important that after death you can resurrect after some time at the place of death and go into battle again, after the expiration of time, the one who made the most kills won (do not forget about the prizes)
2) PVP "king of the mountain", is everything about the same, everyone is for himself, but after death it is no longer possible to rise in this territory, if he died, he dropped out of the event. It is absolutely impossible to allow such that people after rebirth somewhere near the place of the event could enter it, that is, everyone has only one attempt.
3) "Crowd to crowd" - 60 people managed to enter the territory in the allotted time (the preparation time of the event is 5 minutes, It is desirable that there would be no restrictions on participants even if 300 people managed to come in ) during this time, for example, the computer randomly makes two teams of 30 people and the fun started, whose team won receives awards. (awards must be either large, only 5 winners are determined by random, or all members of the winning team receive a small award)
!!! IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WHEN ENTERING THE ZONE OF EACH PVP EVENT, THE GEAR WAS EQUAL FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS !!!
-- There are similar events in the games Guild Wars 2 and Lost Ark --
P.S. I hope the translator coped, go in for sports and lead a healthy lifestyle friends, peace to all)
Example:
- Somewhere in a tavern a dwarf has too much ale , and brags very loudly about a vault with richess and treasure.
- If interacted with set scenario triggers the event. (Start a fight with the dwarf to obtain vault map/pickpocket dwarf while he is intoxicated to obtain map)
- people with certain skills will be needed to advance the event further (Someone that can understand the dwarfen language/scription on map, rogues to find vaults exact location within location. and a certain crafter to break down the vaults door) (social aspect)
- if done a certain way, could this transform in to a large scale event?
Lets say inside the vault there is a couple of items you can obtain. Gold, silver, armor and a dwarf-heirloom. The heirloom is the only item with a event description/warning. (This is the sacred seal of the northern dwarfs, Super valuable and sacred but if you obtain this item there could be consequenses). You take this item. dwarfs find out you stole their dwarfen heirloom within the vault and launch a large scale counterattack on node to reobtain their sacred heirloom,
-If heirloom is not taken, large scale invasion of node never happens. (Risk & reward)
I know my example might be ambitious but i would love to see this in the game
Edit: I would love a hand to hand boxing/brawl like they have in chivalry 2, this is such a comedy show
As a hardcore player myself, enjoying a variety of titles like Rust, The Forest, or Valheim, I do very much enjoy the idea of constant unpredictable events occurring that shape the state of game progression. The only couple issues I see with the concept are, first: as most likely already mentioned in the forums, the events shouldn't be tedious to do and should offer a variety of ways to influence the surrounding environment whether they're completed or not; and two: the game itself is an MMO, with players being open to do a variety of activities in the game itself, so the towns the events are currently occurring in might not even have enough people to do the events, with other players simply doing other things.
The combination of both possible issues in itself is a big concern. I still can't fully wrap my head around the balancing of event difficulty, its effects on environment and the clues given by the game to show players the event is about to happen. Some possible suggestions that I have are to increase the span over which the event is noticed and the time it takes to appear after the initial signal depending on the severity of the threat, so that even adventurers who traveled far from the Metropolis would have a warning that their home is in danger. For an instance, if I'm mining rare ore way out of town and a dragon is going to attack (being considered a severe threat), I would see signs like animals acting in a frantic way or drastic weather changes to let me know that I have a day to get ready to protect my town. Another suggestions for smaller occurring events is have assigned jobs within the Metropolis that pay money to adventurers who help get rid of smaller, possibly more tedious threats. In addition, the amount of people in that position within a town could influence the spawn of smaller events and the population of the creatures that are causing them.
In the end these are just suggestions and my perspective on how Intrepid could drive the game forward from the base info we were given on the current path of game development.
We posted an article about the Event System which you can read here: https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2022-05-04-types-of-events-on-verra
Feel free to check it out and come on back to continue the conversation! ^_^
So, people should be returning to their home regions and noticing deleterious effects.
We have to return home to help progress our Nodes in any case.
Also, these events will be happening in any region we are adventuring in.
They are initiated as Nodes advance to the next Stage and as new buildings are constructed.
The design already includes minor events which we become aware of via NPC rumors, tasks and quests.
Do they dynamically scale so that everyone in the event is on event foot, or can higher leveled/geared players come in and dominate?
Are they on a time table so that when you arrive at an event, dozens of people are standing there waiting? Again often in other games, a high level player pretty much one shots the boss and the rest of the players do not get credit.
I don't think events are on time tables that players anticpate. Unless it is a Calandar Event, specifically.
But, all we have at the moment is a design.
We have to see how well the devs implement the design.
It should be organic, for the most part, with good scaling and variety in type of events.
Events are what make the world feel alive in most part.
Participation should be Opt-in (or really obvious) for big one, more random and subtle for little ones.
The best feeling is to be in an event without knowing it was an event until the end.
It's important too that different level of contribution (in good or bad) can be possible in most of them, new players and seasoned veterans. Players with opposite objectives can be a strong force et sometimes picking a side can be exciting depending on context.
Prevent griefing and event sabotage. I mean, when the game will be released and poeple will become aware of what type of events reward the best (in loot) or in time for value, poeple can eventually target some particular events for farming or can sabotage some parts to let deliberately a situation escalate to a certain point. Even if it can be fun sometimes, any system should be fair for everyone.
Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared so far?
How do the informations about events are conveyed to the players ? Via Notifications ? Quests Boards ?
Is it instant ? in a realistic approach, for me people on the node should be the first to know that the event is up, then few minutes laters adjacent nodes, then further ones etc etc
I think it give the chance for the poeple directly impacted by the nodes they are in at the moment or invested in to take part "First" before the news travel the lands
Ah and i love the investigation events, searching for clues for what is happening, or even why a murder took place in a farm and who is the culprit, hope there will be some !
Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?
Guild Wars 2 Events are for me the best in genra actually. Indirect narrative is not intrusive, a little up inform of the current situation of the map and what is goin on, in a certain range of the player the event is more clearly details and his ZOI is displayed. Consequences are real with teleport points disabled, more ennemies, no access to certain zones or npc and confort options of the map.
Audio cues, subtles voice over dialogues, NPC asking for help when you are nearby, rumors in towns ...
It's always suggested and never imposed on the player who can take part if he wants and when he wants it.
"Meta events" push even further with epic quest accross maps for sometimes hours of fun with zergs of people participate in it.
And the best in it, you don't need to go back talk to the npc afterward, no interrogation point and useless travel for most "lighweight" events. The story often unveil with the players and the NPC together, so there are here with the players till the end.
"Arouse curiosity" of the player, and the player will oblige if he does not have any other direct objevtive atm.
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
We heard much but didn't see much so it's hard to say. Really excited about natural disasters and the impact on the geography, trading and life in the nodes and ZOI.
I didn't remember about "positive events" even if hardships and challenge are usally good for any adventurers, some good moments and spark of joy from the npc's in consequences of positive action, good season of harvest of some other things could be real cool. Light and cheerfull events can also be fun.
loved the part about the event "growing until someone notice."
There is for my feedback, thanks a lot if you read all that.
PvP Objectives
The Event system will also create a variety of PvP situations in the open world. From small skirmishes that lead into sieges to battles over capture points during a node or castle siege, PvP objectives will play a crucial role in determining the tide of battle.
My input:
One primary thing i'd like to see is Variety. I really hope to see a wide variety of events.
Examples of some additional Events (more on the fun/social side):
- Mount Racing
- Archery Target Competition (bow users) (of course tab target wouldn't work here, so, Action Combat would have to be used)
- Spear/Axe/Dagger Throwing Competition
- Ashes Card Game Tournament
- Bard Instrumental music Competition (mod/GM monitored to prevent toxicity)
- Group/team Demolition Contest (have either two Caravans or small structures that needs to be destroyed )
- Jousting Tournament
- Gathering contest (tree cutting , mining, etc | With obstacle course)
- Fishing Contest
- Sailing Races
- non-combat pet racing
- Costume contest (mod/GM monitored to prevent toxicity)
These ideas are primarily to bring people together and have fun.
Also definitely go with sound and visual cues instead of popups!
Calendar Events will probably not be excessively combat-oriented.
What other kinds of non-combat Events would you like to see?
Crafting and...?
Social Org?
Religious?
Ship/Boat races - kinda like The Kentucky Derby?
Crafting might include Cooking Contests/Pie Festivals?
Most were board or table type small games. Poker, a cup board game with pieces and some placement control strategy etc. They had their own spin on a tetris type game. A few others I don't recall well.
It was something fun to do as a change of pace from the main game.
I did enjoy the events in past games where an individuals drops had to combine with other players drops to create something, encouraging communication and cooperative play
Perhaps events that tie into the various existing / proposed elements of the game that affect community on a daily basis with rewards that encourage individuals, clans or nodes to work together for group up to achieve.
Prizes/rewards being
Essentially some events that provide in-game temporarily enhanced advantage and perhaps with a disadvantage..
ie reward of faster travel capability for a week at expense of armor
Thanks, this article is really good to set some context for feedback!
For Node Attack events - could you please give players some agency to influence the risk of these events occurring? (things like: doing patrol missions reduces the risk of Node Attacks, whereas excessive grinding enrages mother nature, maybe even religious quests can influence this threat level too)
Instead of increasing the chance of pop-up events to trigger where more players are gathered, have you considered doing it the other way around? Less pop-up events in crowded areas?
I suggest this because:
Finally, I want to re-iterate that the Node System is Ashes' market differentiator, so really play into it:
Make more events that are about how you can make your node THE BEST NODE IN ALL OF VERRA, especially decisions where players need to weigh a choice between sacrificing in one area to excel in another. (Then give other nodes opportunities to exploit those weaknesses, so you get an interesting equilibrium situation).
I consider all of these things of the utmost importance, and I've just realized that there's a bit of Node data that I don't have a confirmation on, @Vaknar.
Are the values of a Node's status visible to the player? I contrast to Elite Dangerous, and have a current specific example.
My aligned faction in Elite currently has two visible bars for their 'home system', the equivalent of our 'City node', let's say, amidst Vassals. We have pushed the Economy slider all the way to the 'Economic Boom' status multiple times and due to some interactions with 'Vassals', it is now in a state beyond that, 'Investment', which is effectively a '2-3 week Trade Event. Or rather, it's a status that spawns other smaller 'Trade Events'.
The Security slider is at 'Civil Liberty', which is a 1-2 week status that lowers the chances of being attacked by pirate NPCs in the system and raises the response time of the system security NPCs. The important thing is that we know both these statuses are coming, and therefore became on guard for something else.
The Investment status indicates that one is reinvesting in the system, in this case, a specific Commodity becomes more desired to the point of raising its price a lot. RPers such as myself can easily see a connection here (I can't say how well this is actually coded under the hood). The Commodity is something to be used to upgrade the starport, (not in a meaningful 'real' way, but this is about events).
The situation literally 'attracts NPC pirates from other Nodes', but the underlying code for how THEY move is based on a bunch of factors too, so what the result of all these factors interacting becomes is:
1. Civil Liberty prevents weaker pirates from spawning.
2. Investment attracts more pirates altogether, possibly more strong ones, but it could just be interaction with [1]
3. The pirates 'find' the increased trade from the Vassals (where we import the commodities from)
4. Some system checks activity of this type and triggers a Pirate Attack event status in one of them (this has now happened).
So my group is on guard and has expectation that if we push out the Pirates from 'Vassal A', but the two statuses in 'City Node' remain in place, then it will trigger a Pirate Attack in 'Vassal B'. We can look around at the distances, and the Economic and Security statuses of the other systems to at least partially predict and influence this.
This is effectively a 'large scale event' to us, because it also changes the Signal Sources (equivalent of small, opt-in, POI events). We need more Patrols in 'City Node' because the NPCs that spawn in those have gone from being random small pirates to small groups, or powerful pirates. However, having more Patrols will 'push the pirates out faster'.
We can balance this by destroying the pirates, but taking the news (bounties) to other more vulnerable Vassals, to increase their confidence and Security sliders. If we do this well enough, for long enough, it could push the Pirates into a nearby 'enemy Node'.
Some of this data is hidden too, but the main ones are very visible, so it's easier to do. This isn't a linear relationship, there's some elements of randomness in here, but many of the correlations are known, so I spoke of those as if they were sort of certain.
We must stop the Pirate Attack because it can lead to Civil Unrest which reduces production in the Vassals and makes our influence there vulnerable. If it were in a nearby food-producing 'Node', we would have to reduce it to avoid food shortfalls that might lead to a Blight or Famine status in nearby 'Nodes', with a small chance (but we don't wanna deal with those, they're not profitable and have a bunch of other POI events that are not our style, and we'd have to call on the members of the nearby 'Humanitarian Aid Faction' while they are busy with a larger Community Event elsewhere.
That was a lot, but I shortened it as much as I could. For those who are interested or find that they need more context, here is the wiki page for the Elite Dangerous Background Simulation. (EDIT: Forgot that the Influence Part of the BGS is complex enough to require its own separate page, note that some of the data on the original BGS page is out of date and in flux - mostly nothing relevant to this thread, stuff about durations of statuses)
This time I can boil down my question to one thing. Can we see the equivalent of 'Citizenry contribution', 'Economic activity', 'Gathering Activity', 'Security', etc, and any 'underlying statuses that affect Event chance'?
Will the system even be this detailed, where such variables are affecting the Events, or are the Events separate objects within the code that are ticking their own qualities independent of such statuses? Will such 'statuses' even exist on a level where it would make sense for them to directly influence Events, particularly smaller POI events (I'm considering these equivalent to Elite's Signal Sources)
If none of these are things you can answer yet (or that the team implementing the system hasn't fleshed out yet), I don't actually suggest being as comprehensive as Elite, but I do consider it important that IF there is an 'underlying status', that we can affect, we get at least some visible sliders so we can extrapolate how to influence the world, as we do with the Background Simulation.
Mostly that they're not mandatory for progress. Helpful? Yeah. Rewarding? Absolutely. But if I want to, let's say, make money, level up, get some decent gear before endgame content, get a recipe for a profession, whatever, I'd like that to be obtainable through other means other than events.
Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared so far?
I think it's gonna be a lot similar to Guild Wars 2, and I liked that system there. But again, that game had close to no questing, and leveling for example was mainly dynamic events + "hearts" (pve-wise that is). That played a big part on their importance and how many resources were put into it. Ashes from what was said and seen during the testing, does have quests in a more traditional way. I wouldn't like any of those to make the other seem pointless, because I love both.
Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?
I think the event quests on GW2 are by far the best "dynamic events" I've seen in an MMO. But as I said, they were the main focus of the pve leveling experience, with no questing like many others. There are events that are small and just pop-up because the timer is done and you walked by the place that triggers it, and it may be something small like "hey this spider is a little stronger than usual, so she poses a threat!", you kill it, you get your reward, maybe a chest, and you move on, and also events that are on a big scale that require a lot of effort from many players to beat. I think in both cases they're very good, even if they're not very rewarding (like, at all, but that's also because of how the economy of that game is).
I wouldnt mind a "redo this random quest as an event" like certain MMO does, but those should IMO be at most the 15-20% of the "dynamic events" IF they're by themselves. If in a quest I kill a necromancer because he plays with corpses so that makes him evil (I love necromancers, just incase) and in a dynamic event I start finding graves being dug, corpses all around and I have to inspect them to see what's up, then I find that the necromancer I killed is trying to ress himself and then I get to kill him again (as an example that is) I wouldn't mind that there are dynamic events like that. If I were to pick, I'd prefer the ones of GW2
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
I am both concerned and excited to see how well developed are the events compared to the questing and other aspects of open world pve
Also I don't think "immersion" should be prioritized over gameplay. If an event spawns and it's hard to spot, either the chat will be drowned on questions over which event is up and where, or people will make unofficial communities to find them and track those so they're easier to do