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.
[Feedback Request] Event System Discussed in April Livestream
Hello glorious community,
We’d like your feedback on the event system discussed during the April 2022 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters:
Please don’t feel limited by the thought starters above. Feel free to share anything you’d like about the event system for Ashes of Creation.
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, May 13, 2022, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share regarding the event system!
Edit:
We posted an article going over the Event System and what was talked about during the April livestream! You can find the article here: https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2022-05-04-types-of-events-on-verra
We’d like your feedback on the event system discussed during the April 2022 Development Update Livestream.
To help guide this conversation, here are a few thought starters:
- What aspects of the event system are important to you?
- Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared 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?
- Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
Please don’t feel limited by the thought starters above. Feel free to share anything you’d like about the event system for Ashes of Creation.
We’ll be compiling a report for the design team on Friday, May 13, 2022, so please try to get your feedback into this thread by then!
Everyone here at Intrepid Studios looks forward to reading all the feedback you have to share regarding the event system!
Edit:
We posted an article going over the Event System and what was talked about during the April livestream! You can find the article here: https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2022-05-04-types-of-events-on-verra
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Comments
I also hope there are high level events early on when there's enough players in a region to take it on. It would be cool to see legends form of the first high levels having to defend towns and the lowbies from an undead horde or even a dragon.
I think the types of events that have stood out to me in other games are ones that change the game in some way, especially when the change is gameplay/game mechanics. It's fun when the event forces you to consider things that you don't normally have to and changes your approach to the game.
The ability of spontaneous events to have things to be pulled towards from your daily gameplay. I really like the part about using the actual environment to pull players in using sound cues or otherwise.
Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared so far?
Game Master Involvement. Would be fun to play alongside or against GM's every once in awhile. Maybe even Steven or others could pop in for special events that spur along a storyline or perhaps play as a rampaging npc chieftan or dragon.
Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?
I feel it's kind of nominally boring across the board. Having a mmo that works more like a DnD board sounds way more exciting. Risk and chance.
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
Monster coins and not being able to tell who is the monster from the npc monsters. Unless i guess they are suppose to be like a end-game boss rampaging around, might be easier to tell then..
Do I have to try and schedule my IRL time around certain windows to play the game, or is it just a "hey, I need to log in at some point this week to fight off some goblin waves"?
Other than that, it sounds great. Something that other games have tried and been lackluster with... I think ashes has the stems to pull it off.
You'd end up alienating too many players.
On another note the event system is something I would like to see updated constantly outside of a major patch cycle. Many mmos fall into a trap of only updating their game when they have a ton of stuff done in one lump sum and it removes a lot of that mysticism from the game. Something like rotating out old events and modifying them slightly at a later date to re-release would do wonders for keeping the system fresh.
Edit: Adding more thoughts. I think events do not even need a formal reward. Extra mobs spawning and getting their drops should be the reward players expect imo. You do not need a pop up saying you got bonus gold and loot after killing a pack of event goblins. Just put the reward on the mobs themselves. The reward of killing that ice dragon is ending winter weather and the loot from the dragon. If you want events to reward bonus exp just put that exp on the mobs the event spawns maybe with a cap for an individual so they cannot exploit it.
Most of the other games I play have these functions. Many of them work exactly as described or 'better', they're part of core gameplay, just rarer. Giving specifics about how each works, doesn't matter because these things only feel right if they are tweaked to fit the world in a way that's hard to specify.
This is probably a 'wait and see' for me.
Besieged in FFXI, different weather based triggers in multiple games, 'basically the entire BGS of Elite Dangerous', a few dynamic things in Black Desert... little point in explaining them though because they're all so integrated with the world space, the flows of 'what players normally do with their time vs not' are all parts of this.
So far, I'm not particularly excited by anything as of the information I currently have.
I hope to see season changes done seamlessly and smoothly like the day and night cycles. I imagine a minute or two for the transitions. Will the wheat get a countdown/decay timer before it disappears?
I think another Event concept would be for gatherers, population booms or busts in wildlife for Skinners and Herbalists, when there are too many Prey Animals, population control might be needed to prevent a reduction in Herb spawns, but might also lead to increases in Predator populations which can lead to Prey scarcity that then leads to Herb Booms and maybe even more vibrant greenery across the zone (the "notification" of Booms or Busts could include changes to the local environment by either over-grazed fields, or overgrown ones, and maybe increased noise from the Wildlife).
Plagues were mentioned, but perhaps also infestations of insects creating scarcities of certain kinds of Trees for lumber and quests to take out insect queens (if we're talking termite-esque infestations) or perhaps the cities are afflicted with infestations of mites and vermin which if unchecked could lead to plagues afterwards.
When it comes to holiday events, I'm hoping to see inspiration drawn from older variations of Seasonal Holidays, such as Samhain (Spirit world colliding in some respects with the Natural world) where we might deal with spirits through quests to gather offerings, or to scare off harmful spirits; or Yule, taking inspiration from the roots relating to the Wild Hunt, could be a sick Winter Undead Invasion of frozen undead and spirit wolves hunting across zones, and tearing apart small groups or solo adventurers and leading to quests to rescue travelers and bring them into safe zones.
I will definitely say I'm looking forward to the event system in AoC and I think it'll be a LOT of fun to see what ends up happening.
I still remember the natural fun of helping soldiers progressively take control of camps across a map and fight back against the centaurs, ultimately culminating in a fight against the centaur high sage. Upon successful defeat of the high sage, the centaurs would retreat for a period of time and the map would be a bit easier to traverse. The dynamic growth, of a local event turning into a map wide war was gripping, and a great way to bump into other players and make friends.
One thing I would love to see the dev team keep in mind with events, is that there should be positive ones too! Perhaps the players around a grove have been taking good care of the area, or promptly clearing out enemies, which encourages the spirit protector of the grove to bestow a temporary blessing on the nearby citizens. Maybe it's a certain season and near a certain POI a unicorn appears and bestows a blessing on players that bring it a gift. Maybe a villager's chickens have flown the coop and you must return them/defend them within a time limit.
Not every event should just be combat oriented, or defense oriented. Having some events that are mini-games just positive/reward oriented would add nice diversity. Some events can be shorter/simpler, and it keeps the cadence fresh.
Combat is all well and good, but I could play LoL or some other shit if I can't explore after I've settled somewhere.
I know windows of action open up and there are time considerations, however, I don't know how long it can take for a casual to do a one way trip in an emergency.
I haven't mentioned family summons because i don't believe in the function.
For the concepts though, I love the concepts and the ideas. I'm not convinced of my stance and won't be until I can traverse the whole map and work out required journey lengths etc.
Edit: as for travel times, will we be able to do postal votes for our mayors if we are not able to be in our nodes at election time (every month). Someone might have to ask this in the q and a thread because I hate the q+a thread.
Likes: in the nord area you start in a town with a snowball fight event. But then it builds up with follow up events eventually leading to a "ritual" and an all out war against (listening steven) BEARS! Hundreds of bears. Sounds like you could have created this 😂 but this was all a dynamic experience and even had some nice dialogue preceding to the next chain beginning. This was super enjoyable.
Now onto the dislikes/my concerns which is my main point. They have these huge timed world boss events. These are huge and epic and always will have tons of players come out, it is epic! The first time... but success is basically guaranteed. If i am honest its very much just a zerg and you cannot lose. This definitely isnt the case in their latest expac which is more challenging, but alot of these world events are basically a walk in the park and impossible to lose.
What i would like to see from Intrepids events is actually a higher chance of failure, more risk. I can imagine that if nodes are populated enough that attending to these events might end up becoming trivial, so how do you combat this?
Reduce the response time available for lower level events to allow them a chance to level up.
Combining the above with more impactful travel means people who arent in the immediate vicinity will not be able to react in time.
Reasonable difficulty curve. It won't necessarily be hard at level 1 but i think truthfully we want to see these scenarios play out.
High lv events should reward players with exp, achievement? but the true reward should be NOT having your node destroyed or impacted! It really should initially be a punishment for non response. That way you are making people choose between their current character progression i.e. life skilling, questing, dungeoning, or drop it to protect the node.
I want them to actually have some threat, and for us to feel the impact and in a realistic playthrough have an actual chance on even an active node, to see these events level up! My biggest worry is an active node will respond to all low lv events successfully and it never plays out.
First, I would like to give you my perspective on another MMO I had fun playing with events in it.
When the MMO Rift first launched I was coming from WoW. I have to say that it was the event system that initially made me switch to Rift.
Why?
When I first got in game and it was all new, I quested my way to the first kinda starter town. While I was on my way to this town, I was introduced to my first rift. For those who don't know, this was a tear in the world in which an elemental force was coming through from the elemental plane to attack the area. The rift itself was very fun and different. Even better however, once I got to the first town and had been questing a bit the entire town came under attack from the creatures from the rifts. I didn't know at first, but rifts were opening up across the entire area and each rift was guarded by enemies and had to be essentially closed by a group. Since so many rifts were open during the beginning of the game and everyone was learning, not all the rifts were addressed. This then caused actual enemy patrols that were spawning from the rifts from all over the area, traveling the roads to then come to the town and attack it. This caused complete freakin chaos and the entire town was under attack. Players had to fight these things off. If you didn't fight these off, NPCs would die and you could no longer quest and progress, fast travels were not available, you could not sell or buy equipment, players could potentially be overwhelmed and die and more. This was just awesome and made me want to stay. I don't think I ever seen anything like this at the time. Of course a boss would spawn towards the end of clearing the town. I think one of 2-3 unique bosses would spawn as the final take down as part of the event. I loved this! I also loved how it brought players together in an area to work with each other.
I really look forward to AoC taking this idea maybe and iterating and make it better. It sounded to me like there were many different events with many different ways to trigger them. Please do this!!
What aspects of the event system are important to you?
-In General:
-Making events stay fun and relevant (adding twists or some RNG so they are not repetitive where appropriate)
-System automated events or Player initiated events (like social stuff)
-Risk and reward
-Rewards themselves that make you want to do the content
-Solo events
-Group events (group, guild, area, world)
-Positive or negative impact to gameplay (quests, environment, cities, crafting, travel, etc)
-Variety in triggers
-Variety in outcomes
-Various difficulty
-Various gameplay (some are timed, some you have to kill everything, some you gather resources, etc)
-Event lore
-Variety of events
-Puzzles (would be cool to see puzzles as events)
-Secret zones, areas, caves, rooms etc (you get access to unique quests, rewards, etc)
-PVE
-PVP
-Combination of PVE/PVP at the event
-Crafting
-Sailing
-Social events (a system that a player can setup an event, send invites or have players sign up for, maybe the events are a drink at the tavern, a mount off, whatever it might be to encourage social interaction)
-General contests that players can setup, (Mounted or unmounted racing, swimming races, etc)
-Seasonal (including mini games with this content)
-World bosses
Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared so far?
I'd like to know more about how AoC will make events stay fun and engaging. I would not want to see events get to a point where its like, oh its time to go do that thing and you've done it 100 times and it's lost its spark and becomes something you have to do or no longer want to do. How will AoC make rewards for these sufficient to ensure participation? Also how grindy will some events become? How long will events take? Will they take minutes, hours, days?
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 I covered this with Rift already, but here is point by point of what I thought made it good:
RIFTS:
-Events could be done solo or in a group (mostly groups)
-Brought players together
-Escalation to events (tiers and stages within the tiers)
-Unique bosses at end stages.
-Unique rewards
-Variety in creatures and the elements (fire, water, earth, wind, etc)
Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown for the event system?
Not at this time, I think the discussion makes me excited for what is possible. I love how Steven was excited too. Really makes me confident that this game will be great!
Super keen for events that have consequences!
Could even throw in secret consequences that have really specific conditions to trigger - BUT if you do this, don't make it openly available every time the event triggers otherwise players will optimize on the secret.
Example: The goblin leader drops a "tainted goblin staff" ONLY IF he is killed before other goblins - destroying the staff triggers another event. However, there's only a 20% chance he has the staff when he spawns.
Can I also push the idea that you guys take an "overgrowth" approach to how events escalate? As in, the events that players more regularly participate in become lower priority, whereas events that go ignored escalate with higher payout?
Do you feel anything is missing from the event system we’ve shared so far?
Node Upkeep events - ask players to invest time in the continual operation of their Nodes:
- the well runs out of water if the mayor doesn't invest in water facilities
- the sewer becomes infested if players in the metropolis discard too many materials
- the scientific metropolis's portal network breaks down the more it is used
- Nodes that have a higher economic density than average become prone to thieving problems
By consequence, these add risk to neglecting your node, give mayoral duties responsibility, and encourage players to coordinate to keep their nodes in top performance.For newer players, these events can be incentivised by the immediate payout.
For seasoned players, these events can be incentivised by short-term boosted performance of their facilities.
These events could also feed directly into a Node Reputation system.
Are there types of events in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes events in those games good?
I'm really excited for events that have wider consequences,
but if you put in too many levers that can push the pendulum, players will zerg the pendulum out of bounds because there are too many degrees of freedom.
They solved this problem by classifying their levers into 3 categories: Military, Economic, Industrial.
This helped them map out how their systems were interacting.
Given the Node system is the core of Ashes, we could do something similar based on the node types: Divine systems, Economic systems, Combat systems, and Artisan systems. All other in-game systems could be viewed as tools to influence these.
As it stands, the relationships between Economy, Combat and Artisan systems is easy to understand. But I struggle to understand the functional relationship that the Divine system has in interacting with the other three.
For example, if I become proficient in the Economics of Verra - I can use my wealth to purchase artisan/combat services.
Similarly, if I become proficient in the Combat of Verra - I kill for money, and I open access to the materials that artisans need.
If I become proficient in the Artisanry of Verra - I trade my crafts for coin, I offer equipment for military might.
But if I become proficient in the Religion of Verra - what service can I offer for coin? How does my religion muster arms when threatened? What material can I offer to Artisans?
It boils down to: what value does this system add that the others do not?
I'm not sure this system is defined enough.
Thus it makes it more difficult to talk about "event consequences" until the relationships between these systems is fleshed out.
I have an idea that should kick start some conversation here:
Conceptually this is because the common thread of all religion is a discussion about how one should conduct their life.
Should this, shouldn't that.
Ought to this, ought not that.
And this is exactly where the pantheon come in - by aligning with one of the gods, you intend to express their will on Verra.
What does this mean in the game?
Some suggestions:
So then if I become proficient in the Religion of Verra:
- I hold positions of power to direct how money is used
- I fuel war efforts to increase the expansion of my religion, or avoid them by diplomacy
- I open/close the door to relics and other materials that artisans need
*specifically the expansion/growth of the religion, so that if one religion somehow manages to encompass the entire world, it cannot expand further thus becomes stagnant and other religions gain advantage
Despite all the above, I think having 4 core systems is a bit too much, and would be more comfortable if we just stuck to 3.
My advice is sort of limited but very relevant.
Give Summoner Animal Breeders the ability to create Divine Pets and Demonic Pets (variations) only if they are divine node. We have all of the systems planned, you just need to take each concept and consider the practical applications. I wonder if summoned creatures (Procured) should have a Willpower stat, which means at a certain determined time period or point the summoned pets would break free of binds and leave the master.
The suggested system does not apply to Specialised Summons or Procurement base summons. Only market summons.
Cheers,
Neu.
To poke the bear lightly:
What are the important dynamics of an event system to you?
You touched on 'what players normally do with their time vs not'
for example: events that encourage you to venture outside your Node, vs events that have you invest in your local community?
I love all of the systems. I love the old school parameters. What I'm concerned about is all of us hard-core players can family summon, build, March, zerg, raid, craft and experience all facets of events easier and faster than someone who does not have the lifestyle to enable these practices.
In effect, and I don't necessarily disagree, but, if we want more than hard-core players, and, to explore all facets we need to stop the constrictive approach to situational access whilst maintaining risk/reward.
The other issue is, that we have hard-core guilds too.
I get what you mean - we can't throw new players to the side.
But I think it's actually healthy to have some events that they can't fully contribute to, because it helps motivate them to get stronger and it retains the value of the effort people put in to get strong.
Lost Ark's events are mostly menial tasks - which is really accessible to all players no-matter what level, but not very engaging in terms of fun. So there's certainly a balance to strike.
I do not want a cake walk. Hence my aversion to the player icons for armour but I digress.
However, all events are tied to nodes. Casuals pay node taxes or do not have access to some events.
No taxation without representation.