It's pretty funny watching you explain all of that again when all I did was link the quote you said he didn't say. I understand that Intrepid wants to make Ashes compelling. It's difficult to interpret that quote differently. But, you can go and explain it a third time if you wish.
And, whether or not the game would become more or less compelling is subjective, because I would find the game more compelling if it had esports and equalized arenas, and it sounds like you would find it less. The difference is, I don't feel as if my experience is lessened because someone else's experience improves. People have different preferences, giving people the freedom to play how they want instead of railroading them into playing 'all content' for the sake of it is limiting. Intrepid can do what they want with Ashes, it's their game. I'm looking forward to it regardless of what direction they take. However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing and whether or not the players interested in arenas, only play arenas, matters naught. Either way, more players means more money whether they're PvEing, PvPing (both open world and/or arenas), or any combination of the three.
You are literally not getting it. You clearly understand nothing at all about this game as it stands right now.
Your suggestion would see people logged in to the game, on servers, taking up server resources. These servers have player caps.
If 1k people are on my server in the arena, then that is literally 1k less people that are able to be on my server out in the open world.
That has a direct, measurable impact on the gameplay of everyone else on the server. It isnt a case of my experience being lessened because yours is improved, it is a case you your suggestion literally taking players away from the open world.
Even if it brings players to the game, the way the arena is those players will still have to log on to game servers and will thus still take up a spot in the server population cap.
There is no viable way around this.
As to a successful esport scene being great for marketing, not really. It's great for marketing games that are based around matches (RTS, FPS etc), it is not great for games with persistent world and persistent characters.
It has never been successful as a marketing tool in such games.
No, you are not getting it.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You also have a terrible mindset. "No viable way around this" "Never been successful (before)" There is always a way to do things better. But you choose to look at what isn't possible instead of what is, you're just going to limit the potential of yourself and those around you in the long run. More power to you though if that's how you want to conduct yourself when presented with a problem to solve. Situations are rarely so cut and dry that one way is the only way forward. Solutions can be found that benefit multiple perspectives, and you're too shortsighted to be open to them in the first place.
How does it actually benefit the game when the games goal isn't to make money, but to be an amazing MMORPG? Making the game less of a dynamic world to suit other playstyles isn't in line with this goal, and Steven has even said that the game won't be for everyone, due to the fact that it's designs wont be what others want.
And before you go on about money always being a goal, yes they want it to succeed and be profitable, but the main goal is to make Steven's dream MMORPG come true, and he even said he would see it completed using his own income if there wasnt enough funding. Money isn't the main goal here.
Because a game can make money and be an amazing MMORPG at the same time. Why is that even a question? Read the first and last two sentences in the post you quoted because they apply to you as well.
If I am an arena player, PvE players don't take anything away from arenas or my enjoyment of the game. You and a few others are looking at arena PvPers like they're some type of parasite for Ashes as if we don't also bring our communities, spend money, and contribute to the content, viewership, and population for the games we play.
With the suggested methodology for achieving it though, you actually do NOT.
The communities do not often blend much more than they might have even if you were playing separate GAMES.
The money spent then has to be assigned to the person whose job it is to sit and pore over the balance spreadsheet for months.
The content contribution is mostly only viewership of a game mode that doesn't affect the ingame much other than to throw more people in whose only goal is to be boosted to the 'competitive' level.
You've already said explicitly that in terms of the 'Persistent MMO population' part, you intend to add basically nothing personally.
It's certainly not impossible, but as I understand the points made so FAR, Dolyem's suggestion would do a BETTER job of all the things you said, than reducing the barriers to entry for Ashes' Arenas.
I'm going to use an example from League as RIOT has an exceptional track record at marketing.
Arcane was created from the desire to tap into the storytelling potential of League of Legends in ways that the MOBA could not. The goal of creating an excellent story resulted in an increase of over 55 million players in a single month, a 42% rise from the month before.
Even if all 55 million of those players only played ARAM instead of the standard gamemode, the game has benefitted and continues to benefit massively. Even if half of them never played League again after that first month, the game has benefitted and will continue to benefit from the players that stayed.
It's pretty funny watching you explain all of that again when all I did was link the quote you said he didn't say. I understand that Intrepid wants to make Ashes compelling. It's difficult to interpret that quote differently. But, you can go and explain it a third time if you wish.
And, whether or not the game would become more or less compelling is subjective, because I would find the game more compelling if it had esports and equalized arenas, and it sounds like you would find it less. The difference is, I don't feel as if my experience is lessened because someone else's experience improves. People have different preferences, giving people the freedom to play how they want instead of railroading them into playing 'all content' for the sake of it is limiting. Intrepid can do what they want with Ashes, it's their game. I'm looking forward to it regardless of what direction they take. However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing and whether or not the players interested in arenas, only play arenas, matters naught. Either way, more players means more money whether they're PvEing, PvPing (both open world and/or arenas), or any combination of the three.
You are literally not getting it. You clearly understand nothing at all about this game as it stands right now.
Your suggestion would see people logged in to the game, on servers, taking up server resources. These servers have player caps.
If 1k people are on my server in the arena, then that is literally 1k less people that are able to be on my server out in the open world.
That has a direct, measurable impact on the gameplay of everyone else on the server. It isnt a case of my experience being lessened because yours is improved, it is a case you your suggestion literally taking players away from the open world.
Even if it brings players to the game, the way the arena is those players will still have to log on to game servers and will thus still take up a spot in the server population cap.
There is no viable way around this.
As to a successful esport scene being great for marketing, not really. It's great for marketing games that are based around matches (RTS, FPS etc), it is not great for games with persistent world and persistent characters.
It has never been successful as a marketing tool in such games.
No, you are not getting it.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You also have a terrible mindset. "No viable way around this" "Never been successful (before)" There is always a way to do things better. But you choose to look at what isn't possible instead of what is, you're just going to limit the potential of yourself and those around you in the long run. More power to you though if that's how you want to conduct yourself when presented with a problem to solve. Situations are rarely so cut and dry that one way is the only way forward. Solutions can be found that benefit multiple perspectives, and you're too shortsighted to be open to them in the first place.
How does it actually benefit the game when the games goal isn't to make money, but to be an amazing MMORPG? Making the game less of a dynamic world to suit other playstyles isn't in line with this goal, and Steven has even said that the game won't be for everyone, due to the fact that it's designs wont be what others want.
And before you go on about money always being a goal, yes they want it to succeed and be profitable, but the main goal is to make Steven's dream MMORPG come true, and he even said he would see it completed using his own income if there wasnt enough funding. Money isn't the main goal here.
Because a game can make money and be an amazing MMORPG at the same time. Why is that even a question? Read the first and last two sentences in the post you quoted because they apply to you as well.
If I am an arena player, PvE players don't take anything away from arenas or my enjoyment of the game. You and a few others are looking at arena PvPers like they're some type of parasite for Ashes as if we don't also bring our communities, spend money, and contribute to the content, viewership, and population for the games we play.
With the suggested methodology for achieving it though, you actually do NOT.
The communities do not often blend much more than they might have even if you were playing separate GAMES.
The money spent then has to be assigned to the person whose job it is to sit and pore over the balance spreadsheet for months.
The content contribution is mostly only viewership of a game mode that doesn't affect the ingame much other than to throw more people in whose only goal is to be boosted to the 'competitive' level.
You've already said explicitly that in terms of the 'Persistent MMO population' part, you intend to add basically nothing personally.
It's certainly not impossible, but as I understand the points made so FAR, Dolyem's suggestion would do a BETTER job of all the things you said, than reducing the barriers to entry for Ashes' Arenas.
I'm going to use an example from League as RIOT has an exceptional track record at marketing.
Arcane was created from the desire to tap into the storytelling potential of League of Legends in ways that the MOBA could not. The goal of creating an excellent story resulted in an increase of over 55 million players in a single month, a 42% rise from the month before.
Even if all 55 million of those players only played ARAM instead of the standard gamemode, the game has benefitted and continues to benefit massively. Even if half of them never played League again after that first month, the game has benefitted and will continue to benefit from the players that stayed.
I fail to see the relevance, that works that way because of what League IS.
Ashes does not benefit that much from a situation like that.
It's pretty funny watching you explain all of that again when all I did was link the quote you said he didn't say. I understand that Intrepid wants to make Ashes compelling. It's difficult to interpret that quote differently. But, you can go and explain it a third time if you wish.
And, whether or not the game would become more or less compelling is subjective, because I would find the game more compelling if it had esports and equalized arenas, and it sounds like you would find it less. The difference is, I don't feel as if my experience is lessened because someone else's experience improves. People have different preferences, giving people the freedom to play how they want instead of railroading them into playing 'all content' for the sake of it is limiting. Intrepid can do what they want with Ashes, it's their game. I'm looking forward to it regardless of what direction they take. However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing and whether or not the players interested in arenas, only play arenas, matters naught. Either way, more players means more money whether they're PvEing, PvPing (both open world and/or arenas), or any combination of the three.
You are literally not getting it. You clearly understand nothing at all about this game as it stands right now.
Your suggestion would see people logged in to the game, on servers, taking up server resources. These servers have player caps.
If 1k people are on my server in the arena, then that is literally 1k less people that are able to be on my server out in the open world.
That has a direct, measurable impact on the gameplay of everyone else on the server. It isnt a case of my experience being lessened because yours is improved, it is a case you your suggestion literally taking players away from the open world.
Even if it brings players to the game, the way the arena is those players will still have to log on to game servers and will thus still take up a spot in the server population cap.
There is no viable way around this.
As to a successful esport scene being great for marketing, not really. It's great for marketing games that are based around matches (RTS, FPS etc), it is not great for games with persistent world and persistent characters.
It has never been successful as a marketing tool in such games.
No, you are not getting it.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You also have a terrible mindset. "No viable way around this" "Never been successful (before)" There is always a way to do things better. But you choose to look at what isn't possible instead of what is, you're just going to limit the potential of yourself and those around you in the long run. More power to you though if that's how you want to conduct yourself when presented with a problem to solve. Situations are rarely so cut and dry that one way is the only way forward. Solutions can be found that benefit multiple perspectives, and you're too shortsighted to be open to them in the first place.
How does it actually benefit the game when the games goal isn't to make money, but to be an amazing MMORPG? Making the game less of a dynamic world to suit other playstyles isn't in line with this goal, and Steven has even said that the game won't be for everyone, due to the fact that it's designs wont be what others want.
And before you go on about money always being a goal, yes they want it to succeed and be profitable, but the main goal is to make Steven's dream MMORPG come true, and he even said he would see it completed using his own income if there wasnt enough funding. Money isn't the main goal here.
Because a game can make money and be an amazing MMORPG at the same time. Why is that even a question? Read the first and last two sentences in the post you quoted because they apply to you as well.
If I am an arena player, PvE players don't take anything away from arenas or my enjoyment of the game. You and a few others are looking at arena PvPers like they're some type of parasite for Ashes as if we don't also bring our communities, spend money, and contribute to the content, viewership, and population for the games we play.
With the suggested methodology for achieving it though, you actually do NOT.
The communities do not often blend much more than they might have even if you were playing separate GAMES.
The money spent then has to be assigned to the person whose job it is to sit and pore over the balance spreadsheet for months.
The content contribution is mostly only viewership of a game mode that doesn't affect the ingame much other than to throw more people in whose only goal is to be boosted to the 'competitive' level.
You've already said explicitly that in terms of the 'Persistent MMO population' part, you intend to add basically nothing personally.
It's certainly not impossible, but as I understand the points made so FAR, Dolyem's suggestion would do a BETTER job of all the things you said, than reducing the barriers to entry for Ashes' Arenas.
I'm going to use an example from League as RIOT has an exceptional track record at marketing.
Arcane was created from the desire to tap into the storytelling potential of League of Legends in ways that the MOBA could not. The goal of creating an excellent story resulted in an increase of over 55 million players in a single month, a 42% rise from the month before.
Even if all 55 million of those players only played ARAM instead of the standard gamemode, the game has benefitted and continues to benefit massively. Even if half of them never played League again after that first month, the game has benefitted and will continue to benefit from the players that stayed.
I fail to see the relevance, that works that way because of what League IS.
Ashes does not benefit that much from a situation like that.
The relevance is two part:
The goal to make an amazing story in Arcane has also resulted in money being made for League. Similarly, the goal to make an amazing MMORPG can also result in money being made for Ashes.
New players coming in from Arcane in League playing ARAM instead of the normal gamemode still benefit and continue to benefit the game as a whole. Similarly, players in arenas for Ashes instead of open world PvP, would still benefit and continue to benefit the game as a whole.
The flipside is that the players just play a different game entirely, and that's fine if the game isn't what they're looking for, but that doesn't help Ashes at all.
It's pretty funny watching you explain all of that again when all I did was link the quote you said he didn't say. I understand that Intrepid wants to make Ashes compelling. It's difficult to interpret that quote differently. But, you can go and explain it a third time if you wish.
And, whether or not the game would become more or less compelling is subjective, because I would find the game more compelling if it had esports and equalized arenas, and it sounds like you would find it less. The difference is, I don't feel as if my experience is lessened because someone else's experience improves. People have different preferences, giving people the freedom to play how they want instead of railroading them into playing 'all content' for the sake of it is limiting. Intrepid can do what they want with Ashes, it's their game. I'm looking forward to it regardless of what direction they take. However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing and whether or not the players interested in arenas, only play arenas, matters naught. Either way, more players means more money whether they're PvEing, PvPing (both open world and/or arenas), or any combination of the three.
You are literally not getting it. You clearly understand nothing at all about this game as it stands right now.
Your suggestion would see people logged in to the game, on servers, taking up server resources. These servers have player caps.
If 1k people are on my server in the arena, then that is literally 1k less people that are able to be on my server out in the open world.
That has a direct, measurable impact on the gameplay of everyone else on the server. It isnt a case of my experience being lessened because yours is improved, it is a case you your suggestion literally taking players away from the open world.
Even if it brings players to the game, the way the arena is those players will still have to log on to game servers and will thus still take up a spot in the server population cap.
There is no viable way around this.
As to a successful esport scene being great for marketing, not really. It's great for marketing games that are based around matches (RTS, FPS etc), it is not great for games with persistent world and persistent characters.
It has never been successful as a marketing tool in such games.
No, you are not getting it.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You also have a terrible mindset. "No viable way around this" "Never been successful (before)" There is always a way to do things better. But you choose to look at what isn't possible instead of what is, you're just going to limit the potential of yourself and those around you in the long run. More power to you though if that's how you want to conduct yourself when presented with a problem to solve. Situations are rarely so cut and dry that one way is the only way forward. Solutions can be found that benefit multiple perspectives, and you're too shortsighted to be open to them in the first place.
How does it actually benefit the game when the games goal isn't to make money, but to be an amazing MMORPG? Making the game less of a dynamic world to suit other playstyles isn't in line with this goal, and Steven has even said that the game won't be for everyone, due to the fact that it's designs wont be what others want.
And before you go on about money always being a goal, yes they want it to succeed and be profitable, but the main goal is to make Steven's dream MMORPG come true, and he even said he would see it completed using his own income if there wasnt enough funding. Money isn't the main goal here.
Because a game can make money and be an amazing MMORPG at the same time. Why is that even a question? Read the first and last two sentences in the post you quoted because they apply to you as well.
If I am an arena player, PvE players don't take anything away from arenas or my enjoyment of the game. You and a few others are looking at arena PvPers like they're some type of parasite for Ashes as if we don't also bring our communities, spend money, and contribute to the content, viewership, and population for the games we play.
With the suggested methodology for achieving it though, you actually do NOT.
The communities do not often blend much more than they might have even if you were playing separate GAMES.
The money spent then has to be assigned to the person whose job it is to sit and pore over the balance spreadsheet for months.
The content contribution is mostly only viewership of a game mode that doesn't affect the ingame much other than to throw more people in whose only goal is to be boosted to the 'competitive' level.
You've already said explicitly that in terms of the 'Persistent MMO population' part, you intend to add basically nothing personally.
It's certainly not impossible, but as I understand the points made so FAR, Dolyem's suggestion would do a BETTER job of all the things you said, than reducing the barriers to entry for Ashes' Arenas.
I'm going to use an example from League as RIOT has an exceptional track record at marketing.
Arcane was created from the desire to tap into the storytelling potential of League of Legends in ways that the MOBA could not. The goal of creating an excellent story resulted in an increase of over 55 million players in a single month, a 42% rise from the month before.
Even if all 55 million of those players only played ARAM instead of the standard gamemode, the game has benefitted and continues to benefit massively. Even if half of them never played League again after that first month, the game has benefitted and will continue to benefit from the players that stayed.
I fail to see the relevance, that works that way because of what League IS.
Ashes does not benefit that much from a situation like that.
The relevance is two part:
The goal to make an amazing story in Arcane has also resulted in money being made for League. Similarly, the goal to make an amazing MMORPG can also result in money being made for Ashes.
New players coming in from Arcane in League playing ARAM instead of the normal gamemode still benefit and continue to benefit the game as a whole. Similarly, players in arenas for Ashes instead of open world PvP, would still benefit and continue to benefit the game as a whole.
The flipside is that the players just play a different game entirely, and that's fine if the game isn't what they're looking for, but that doesn't help Ashes at all.
I have so many many disagreements with your stance and perception here that I feel it would be futile to even engage.
But you are, from my data, a serious Twitch Streamer (unless you are somehow unrelated to the streamer of the same name) which means you have probably done at least as much study on how this works and the marketing side of it as myself and my team have, so I doubt either of us will change their conclusions based on a forum conversation.
I can only offer to Intrepid, if they are tracking/parsing this thread:
I am one of your other 'eSports' players. I don't agree with the reasonings given here for the following reasons which I am not going to bother backing up:
1. The success of a game as an eSport is related more to team-based play and strong matchmaking that is core to the main game experience, than it is to the quality of the game in question, be it fun or competitive nature.
2. The success of a game's streaming is almost entirely personality based rather than gameplay based for games that do not have a very low skill ceiling.
3. The prize pools of games come primarily from sponsorships, often from the company that runs the game, itself, because it is a good use of their marketing/advertising budget.
4. Ashes does not benefit from influx of players with certain goals as a generality, while it might be interesting once or twice, the WAY it is likely to destabilize Verra and its economies would probably frustrate more longstanding players, or the incoming, in ways that would lead to negative attention.
5. The Arena mode taking a large space in the 'ranking' aspect of Ashes due to eSports has the potential to introduce incentive structures within the game that Intrepid does not control themselves in ANY WAY, leading to conflicts if any metrics-driven game design is used, or, if not, it will necessitate discarding the metrics themselves.
6. Assuming that the goal is consistent subs and players, not just 'more money', lowering the barriers of entry to the Arena mode, even with excellent MMR, would require a large increase in metrics and balance related staff over what is LIKELY currently planned/available (I am basing this on my understanding of the progress of combat, basically if you had the numbers of staff I'm thinking of for doing this, combat would be done, so I must assume you don't)
You are literally not getting it. You clearly understand nothing at all about this game as it stands right now.
Your suggestion would see people logged in to the game, on servers, taking up server resources. These servers have player caps.
If 1k people are on my server in the arena, then that is literally 1k less people that are able to be on my server out in the open world.
That has a direct, measurable impact on the gameplay of everyone else on the server. It isnt a case of my experience being lessened because yours is improved, it is a case you your suggestion literally taking players away from the open world.
Even if it brings players to the game, the way the arena is those players will still have to log on to game servers and will thus still take up a spot in the server population cap.
There is no viable way around this.
As an example of this from L2, during the arena (olympiad) period in the last few days of each month (5h every evening) most high lvl locations would be half empty because most players that could farm those locations would be grinding the arena in hopes of getting more points than their enemies.
And with L2's arena everyone still had to farm mobs and bosses to have the gear required to succeed in arena pvp. If they could just go fight in the arena w/o playing the game - all those locations would always be empty. Hell, I know that for sure because I've played on private servers that provided this exact setup. Players would get the gear for free and would not play the game itself. And the whole server was worse for it.
It's pretty funny watching you explain all of that again when all I did was link the quote you said he didn't say. I understand that Intrepid wants to make Ashes compelling. It's difficult to interpret that quote differently. But, you can go and explain it a third time if you wish.
And, whether or not the game would become more or less compelling is subjective, because I would find the game more compelling if it had esports and equalized arenas, and it sounds like you would find it less. The difference is, I don't feel as if my experience is lessened because someone else's experience improves. People have different preferences, giving people the freedom to play how they want instead of railroading them into playing 'all content' for the sake of it is limiting. Intrepid can do what they want with Ashes, it's their game. I'm looking forward to it regardless of what direction they take. However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing and whether or not the players interested in arenas, only play arenas, matters naught. Either way, more players means more money whether they're PvEing, PvPing (both open world and/or arenas), or any combination of the three.
You are literally not getting it. You clearly understand nothing at all about this game as it stands right now.
Your suggestion would see people logged in to the game, on servers, taking up server resources. These servers have player caps.
If 1k people are on my server in the arena, then that is literally 1k less people that are able to be on my server out in the open world.
That has a direct, measurable impact on the gameplay of everyone else on the server. It isnt a case of my experience being lessened because yours is improved, it is a case you your suggestion literally taking players away from the open world.
Even if it brings players to the game, the way the arena is those players will still have to log on to game servers and will thus still take up a spot in the server population cap.
There is no viable way around this.
As to a successful esport scene being great for marketing, not really. It's great for marketing games that are based around matches (RTS, FPS etc), it is not great for games with persistent world and persistent characters.
It has never been successful as a marketing tool in such games.
No, you are not getting it.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You also have a terrible mindset. "No viable way around this" "Never been successful (before)" There is always a way to do things better. But you choose to look at what isn't possible instead of what is, you're just going to limit the potential of yourself and those around you in the long run. More power to you though if that's how you want to conduct yourself when presented with a problem to solve. Situations are rarely so cut and dry that one way is the only way forward. Solutions can be found that benefit multiple perspectives, and you're too shortsighted to be open to them in the first place.
How does it actually benefit the game when the games goal isn't to make money, but to be an amazing MMORPG? Making the game less of a dynamic world to suit other playstyles isn't in line with this goal, and Steven has even said that the game won't be for everyone, due to the fact that it's designs wont be what others want.
And before you go on about money always being a goal, yes they want it to succeed and be profitable, but the main goal is to make Steven's dream MMORPG come true, and he even said he would see it completed using his own income if there wasnt enough funding. Money isn't the main goal here.
Because a game can make money and be an amazing MMORPG at the same time. Why is that even a question? Read the second two and last two sentences in the post you quoted because they apply to you as well.
If I am an arena player, PvE players don't take anything away from arenas or my enjoyment of the game. You and a few others are looking at arena PvPers like they're some type of parasite for Ashes as if we don't also bring our communities, spend money, and contribute to the content, viewership, and population for the games we play.
It can indeed make money while being an amazing MMORPG, but if you change its core design, being a PVX dynamic world, you are interfering with the intended designs goal. You are asking for a separate game within the game that has no relation or in game benefit to the world of Verra, why not ask for a separate game entirely?
And in this case, the PvPers you are referring to aren't parasites, they are just taking up space that PVX players could use to instead fill up open worlds on the servers. You take away from the dynamic worlds in game community, impacting thise systems. Instead you'd have players who live in matchmaking queues who have no requirement to contribute to the dynamic world. Your problem is that you keep viewing players in this game as PvP or PvE exclusively, when there is only PVX players. No need to sacrifice the games core design to appease 1 group of players.
It's pretty funny watching you explain all of that again when all I did was link the quote you said he didn't say. I understand that Intrepid wants to make Ashes compelling. It's difficult to interpret that quote differently. But, you can go and explain it a third time if you wish.
And, whether or not the game would become more or less compelling is subjective, because I would find the game more compelling if it had esports and equalized arenas, and it sounds like you would find it less. The difference is, I don't feel as if my experience is lessened because someone else's experience improves. People have different preferences, giving people the freedom to play how they want instead of railroading them into playing 'all content' for the sake of it is limiting. Intrepid can do what they want with Ashes, it's their game. I'm looking forward to it regardless of what direction they take. However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing and whether or not the players interested in arenas, only play arenas, matters naught. Either way, more players means more money whether they're PvEing, PvPing (both open world and/or arenas), or any combination of the three.
You are literally not getting it. You clearly understand nothing at all about this game as it stands right now.
Your suggestion would see people logged in to the game, on servers, taking up server resources. These servers have player caps.
If 1k people are on my server in the arena, then that is literally 1k less people that are able to be on my server out in the open world.
That has a direct, measurable impact on the gameplay of everyone else on the server. It isnt a case of my experience being lessened because yours is improved, it is a case you your suggestion literally taking players away from the open world.
Even if it brings players to the game, the way the arena is those players will still have to log on to game servers and will thus still take up a spot in the server population cap.
There is no viable way around this.
As to a successful esport scene being great for marketing, not really. It's great for marketing games that are based around matches (RTS, FPS etc), it is not great for games with persistent world and persistent characters.
It has never been successful as a marketing tool in such games.
No, you are not getting it.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You also have a terrible mindset. "No viable way around this" "Never been successful (before)" There is always a way to do things better. But you choose to look at what isn't possible instead of what is, you're just going to limit the potential of yourself and those around you in the long run. More power to you though if that's how you want to conduct yourself when presented with a problem to solve. Situations are rarely so cut and dry that one way is the only way forward. Solutions can be found that benefit multiple perspectives, and you're too shortsighted to be open to them in the first place.
How does it actually benefit the game when the games goal isn't to make money, but to be an amazing MMORPG? Making the game less of a dynamic world to suit other playstyles isn't in line with this goal, and Steven has even said that the game won't be for everyone, due to the fact that it's designs wont be what others want.
And before you go on about money always being a goal, yes they want it to succeed and be profitable, but the main goal is to make Steven's dream MMORPG come true, and he even said he would see it completed using his own income if there wasnt enough funding. Money isn't the main goal here.
Because a game can make money and be an amazing MMORPG at the same time. Why is that even a question? Read the second two and last two sentences in the post you quoted because they apply to you as well.
If I am an arena player, PvE players don't take anything away from arenas or my enjoyment of the game. You and a few others are looking at arena PvPers like they're some type of parasite for Ashes as if we don't also bring our communities, spend money, and contribute to the content, viewership, and population for the games we play.
It can indeed make money while being an amazing MMORPG, but if you change its core design, being a PVX dynamic world, you are interfering with the intended designs goal. You are asking for a separate game within the game that has no relation or in game benefit to the world of Verra, why not ask for a separate game entirely?
And in this case, the PvPers you are referring to aren't parasites, they are just taking up space that PVX players could use to instead fill up open worlds on the servers. You take away from the dynamic worlds in game community, impacting thise systems. Instead you'd have players who live in matchmaking queues who have no requirement to contribute to the dynamic world. Your problem is that you keep viewing players in this game as PvP or PvE exclusively, when there is only PVX players. No need to sacrifice the games core design to appease 1 group of players.
The progression systems in MMOs are interesting and I like the persistent world. Sitting in a lobby, doing nothing, while waiting for a que to pop is not a very engaging way to spend one's time. I want to be able to run around and do things while I wait to PvP, hence why I enjoy MMOs with good, equalized PvP so much.
I don't a separate gamemode that's effectively a que simulator. I like being part of the actual game. Plus, while I may want to spend 99% of my time in PvP, I do venture out with friends or when I want to take a break. The option to be able to do that is nice to have.
I also do enjoy certain types of PvE and open world PvP content, but I haven't seen a game do all of them right by my personal tastes.
It's pretty funny watching you explain all of that again when all I did was link the quote you said he didn't say. I understand that Intrepid wants to make Ashes compelling. It's difficult to interpret that quote differently. But, you can go and explain it a third time if you wish.
And, whether or not the game would become more or less compelling is subjective, because I would find the game more compelling if it had esports and equalized arenas, and it sounds like you would find it less. The difference is, I don't feel as if my experience is lessened because someone else's experience improves. People have different preferences, giving people the freedom to play how they want instead of railroading them into playing 'all content' for the sake of it is limiting. Intrepid can do what they want with Ashes, it's their game. I'm looking forward to it regardless of what direction they take. However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing and whether or not the players interested in arenas, only play arenas, matters naught. Either way, more players means more money whether they're PvEing, PvPing (both open world and/or arenas), or any combination of the three.
You are literally not getting it. You clearly understand nothing at all about this game as it stands right now.
Your suggestion would see people logged in to the game, on servers, taking up server resources. These servers have player caps.
If 1k people are on my server in the arena, then that is literally 1k less people that are able to be on my server out in the open world.
That has a direct, measurable impact on the gameplay of everyone else on the server. It isnt a case of my experience being lessened because yours is improved, it is a case you your suggestion literally taking players away from the open world.
Even if it brings players to the game, the way the arena is those players will still have to log on to game servers and will thus still take up a spot in the server population cap.
There is no viable way around this.
As to a successful esport scene being great for marketing, not really. It's great for marketing games that are based around matches (RTS, FPS etc), it is not great for games with persistent world and persistent characters.
It has never been successful as a marketing tool in such games.
No, you are not getting it.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You also have a terrible mindset. "No viable way around this" "Never been successful (before)" There is always a way to do things better. But you choose to look at what isn't possible instead of what is, you're just going to limit the potential of yourself and those around you in the long run. More power to you though if that's how you want to conduct yourself when presented with a problem to solve. Situations are rarely so cut and dry that one way is the only way forward. Solutions can be found that benefit multiple perspectives, and you're too shortsighted to be open to them in the first place.
How does it actually benefit the game when the games goal isn't to make money, but to be an amazing MMORPG? Making the game less of a dynamic world to suit other playstyles isn't in line with this goal, and Steven has even said that the game won't be for everyone, due to the fact that it's designs wont be what others want.
And before you go on about money always being a goal, yes they want it to succeed and be profitable, but the main goal is to make Steven's dream MMORPG come true, and he even said he would see it completed using his own income if there wasnt enough funding. Money isn't the main goal here.
Because a game can make money and be an amazing MMORPG at the same time. Why is that even a question? Read the second two and last two sentences in the post you quoted because they apply to you as well.
If I am an arena player, PvE players don't take anything away from arenas or my enjoyment of the game. You and a few others are looking at arena PvPers like they're some type of parasite for Ashes as if we don't also bring our communities, spend money, and contribute to the content, viewership, and population for the games we play.
It can indeed make money while being an amazing MMORPG, but if you change its core design, being a PVX dynamic world, you are interfering with the intended designs goal. You are asking for a separate game within the game that has no relation or in game benefit to the world of Verra, why not ask for a separate game entirely?
And in this case, the PvPers you are referring to aren't parasites, they are just taking up space that PVX players could use to instead fill up open worlds on the servers. You take away from the dynamic worlds in game community, impacting thise systems. Instead you'd have players who live in matchmaking queues who have no requirement to contribute to the dynamic world. Your problem is that you keep viewing players in this game as PvP or PvE exclusively, when there is only PVX players. No need to sacrifice the games core design to appease 1 group of players.
The progression systems in MMOs are interesting and I like the persistent world. Sitting in a lobby, doing nothing, while waiting for a que to pop is not a very engaging way to spend one's time. I want to be able to run around and do things while I wait to PvP, hence why I enjoy MMOs with good, equalized PvP so much.
I don't a separate gamemode that's effectively a que simulator. I like being part of the actual game. Plus, while I may want to spend 99% of my time in PvP, I do venture out with friends or when I want to take a break. The option to be able to do that is nice to have.
I also do enjoy certain types of PvE and open world PvP content, but I haven't seen a game do all of them right by my personal tastes.
Simple as tabbing out into ashes in between playing the other game. No reason to take up queue space in Ashes to spend half the time in a game mode that has zero impact on the main world. Now if that game mode is directly impacted by the dynamic world and vice versa, then it will be desirable for the goals of the games design.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You would need to quantify why it is better that those people play the game at all, because I do not agree.
Sure, they would be paying Intrepid money, but that 1k players playing in the arena on a given server makes it so the remaining 9k players have an objectively worse gaming experience.
The more people that come to Ashes due to any hypothetical arena based esport, the worse the game is for those that want to play the MMO.
So I don't really see how you could say that it is objectively better that those people play the game than don't play the game. The only gain is money for Intrepid, when the potential loss is other subscribers (aka, more money).
If we assume that it is better that these people play the game than don't play the game, then the end result is obviously that the esport aspect of the game becomes so popular that people playing the arena outnumber those playing the MMO. This will actually quite literally kill the MMO aspect of the game. At this point, Intrepid are literally just making an arena based esport title, rather than an MMO.
This isn't really about what I want or don't want. It is about what is best for the game. You are the one blindly arguing for what you want without thought to the consequences to the game as a whole.
You also have a terrible mindset. "No viable way around this" "Never been successful (before)" There is always a way to do things better. But you choose to look at what isn't possible instead of what is, you're just going to limit the potential of yourself and those around you in the long run. More power to you though if that's how you want to conduct yourself when presented with a problem to solve. Situations are rarely so cut and dry that one way is the only way forward. Solutions can be found that benefit multiple perspectives, and you're too shortsighted to be open to them in the first place.
You are the one that said "However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing" as a blanket statement. You are the one representing esport as a guaranteed win for Ashes, and for Intrepid.
You seem to be totally forgetting that esport success with games that require a subscription isn't really much of a thing. You are also forgetting that esport success when said esport is only using >1% of the game in question.
You are the one that is literally just ignoring these aspects. I am simply the one pointing out to you that everything that has happened in other games with an esport scene doesn't necessarily translate to Ashes, because there is no game that has had a successful esport scene that has the same parameters that Ashes has.
You are literally just assuming esports in Ashes would be successful despite the total lack of any body of proof that it would be successful in a game with the above parameters, and when the closest example we have (GW2) was an abject failure due to the esport league requiring changes to the game that would have made the MMO less enjoyable to play.
You are the one that is being blatantly blind here. You are the one ignoring reality.
I have been glad to read all your inputs on this. All interesting takes. It does seem that the future is unclear about this atm.
Yes the game itself will be PvX in the sense that PvE and PvP are integrated together, but how will the champion system work into this? It seems to be a really good balance. I can still hardly believe most of you are 1000% against this idea.
I have been glad to read all your inputs on this. All interesting takes. It does seem that the future is unclear about this atm.
Yes the game itself will be PvX in the sense that PvE and PvP are integrated together, but how will the champion system work into this? It seems to be a really good balance. I can still hardly believe most of you are 1000% against this idea.
To be clear, just in case, I am not 1000% against this idea.
I believe Intrepid intends for us to only be able to equip certain gear after reaching a certain level. So let's SAY for level 40 I could only wear level 38 gear, and I can't get new gear until level 43.
Then I'd want them to try to balance MOST of the level 40-ish gear to be similar (or rather, to just have a good balance equation for it all).
Then I would want them to have a 'level 40 bracket' for Arenas.
My point is that I don't think they would have to equalize anything extra gear-wise for this.
If you're only talking about level 50, that's a different matter, I have multiple opinions on gear balance for 'endgame', but they'd probably be even less popular than yours because they would somewhat apply to the whole game.
I think this might lead to a MORE interesting situation, where there are some players that have 'Alts for the level 40 bracket'. In fact, if I had to try to arrange a tournament scene in Ashes, this would be the first place I'd start. So really, I just have even more draconian solutions to the problem than even you are suggesting.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You would need to quantify why it is better that those people play the game at all, because I do not agree.
Sure, they would be paying Intrepid money, but that 1k players playing in the arena on a given server makes it so the remaining 9k players have an objectively worse gaming experience.
The more people that come to Ashes due to any hypothetical arena based esport, the worse the game is for those that want to play the MMO.
So I don't really see how you could say that it is objectively better that those people play the game than don't play the game. The only gain is money for Intrepid, when the potential loss is other subscribers (aka, more money).
If we assume that it is better that these people play the game than don't play the game, then the end result is obviously that the esport aspect of the game becomes so popular that people playing the arena outnumber those playing the MMO. This will actually quite literally kill the MMO aspect of the game. At this point, Intrepid are literally just making an arena based esport title, rather than an MMO.
This isn't really about what I want or don't want. It is about what is best for the game. You are the one blindly arguing for what you want without thought to the consequences to the game as a whole.
If arenas were as bad for the game as you make it out to seem, why do you think Intrepid is planning to have an arena system in the first place? According to your logic, anyone playing in the arena causes everyone else on the server to have an "objectively worse gaming experience." Clearly, you are adamant that the arena system as a whole will be detrimental to everyone else. You would prefer if Intrepid remove the arenas and any hypothetical esport that could result from it in their entirety?
By your definition, any game that has multiple gamemodes are actively harming every one of them by splitting their playerbase and that they should only have a single gamemode for all of their players to pool in.
Your line of thinking is so one-dimensional that you can't seem to comprehend how different communities can co-exist under one umbrella.
If I'm playing a game and I decide to PvP in it, I don't look at the PvErs and tell them they're making PvP objectively worse because they're not playing in it. That's some twisted logic you have there.
You are the one that said "However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing" as a blanket statement. You are the one representing esport as a guaranteed win for Ashes, and for Intrepid.
You seem to be totally forgetting that esport success with games that require a subscription isn't really much of a thing. You are also forgetting that esport success when said esport is only using >1% of the game in question.
You are the one that is literally just ignoring these aspects. I am simply the one pointing out to you that everything that has happened in other games with an esport scene doesn't necessarily translate to Ashes, because there is no game that has had a successful esport scene that has the same parameters that Ashes has.
You are literally just assuming esports in Ashes would be successful despite the total lack of any body of proof that it would be successful in a game with the above parameters, and when the closest example we have (GW2) was an abject failure due to the esport league requiring changes to the game that would have made the MMO less enjoyable to play.
You are the one that is being blatantly blind here. You are the one ignoring reality.
You have a very pessimistic way of thinking. Again, you concentrate on what isn't possible rather than what is. You're stuck in the past. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be done in the future.
Also, after looking into it, World of Warcraft has an existing esports scene. Their arenas in particular have a prize pool of $700,000 USD. They are the largest MMO in the world and have a subscription based model. So, clearly it can be done. Oh, wait, but WoW has PvE and open world PvP too, does that mean the players playing in arenas are causing the players there to have an "objectively worse gaming experience?" Nah.
Research shows that there is a strong correlation between player retention and financial success of a game. And, that players are more likely to continue playing a game and find it fun if they are offered many different choices in how they want to play the game vs. only a few choices.
It's pretty telling how selfish your line of thinking is that you believe a game would be better off having less people playing it just because those players would want to play a particular gamemode.
If arenas were as bad for the game as you make it out to seem, why do you think Intrepid is planning to have an arena system in the first place? According to your logic, anyone playing in the arena causes everyone else on the server to have an "objectively worse gaming experience." Clearly, you are adamant that the arena system as a whole will be detrimental to everyone else. You would prefer if Intrepid remove the arenas and any hypothetical esport that could result from it in their entirety?
I think the main point here is that those arenas still require you to play the game if you want to be anywhere near successful in them. You have to participate in the open world activities for a long time before spending a bit of time in the arena. And if you stop spending time in the open world - the ones who still do will outpace you.
Equalized gear that's just given out to people would completely remove that interaction.
Also, after looking into it, World of Warcraft has an existing esports scene. Their arenas in particular have a prize pool of $700,000 USD. They are the largest MMO in the world and have a subscription based model. So, clearly it can be done. Oh, wait, but WoW has PvE and open world PvP too, does that mean the players playing in arenas are causing the players there to have an "objectively worse gaming experience?" Nah.
WoW's pve is completely instanced (at least the one that matters) as is its pvp. So neither of them influence each other in any way, which is why it works somewhat fine there. WoW also has a full separation of pvp and pve gear, so two completely different paths of acquiring your gear is also fine. Ashes will mostly have open world content and its gear won't be separated, which is why so many people here are vehemently against the suggestion of pretty much copying WoW's (or GW2's) design.
As has been said multiple times, this suggestion just doesn't work with what Steven is trying to create.
I have been glad to read all your inputs on this. All interesting takes. It does seem that the future is unclear about this atm.
Yes the game itself will be PvX in the sense that PvE and PvP are integrated together, but how will the champion system work into this? It seems to be a really good balance. I can still hardly believe most of you are 1000% against this idea.
As far as ashes design goals go, I'm just against providing a mode that completely separates players from the actual MMORPG game. I'm completely fine with Intrepid making a spinoff game with its own servers specifically for what is proposed, all arena PVP matchmaking. But to lessen the dynamic world building that is ashes design core by taking of server slots, just seems like shooting oneself in the foot. You are proposing making a separate game that requires no effort in ashes of creations world building, within ashes of creation itself. No need for it.
And in regards to the champion system as far as I understand it. You gear and progress your champion by acquiring gear for it, and the main purpose of these champions is to compete for mayorship of a military node, so that system checks out with PVX design. Feel free to correct me if I am getting this one wrong.
If arenas were as bad for the game as you make it out to seem, why do you think Intrepid is planning to have an arena system in the first place?
I didn't say arenas as a whole were bad, I said arenas as an esport is bad.
They are in the game as a sideshow, nothing more.
Additionally, the way the game is now, players need to participate in the open world to have any chance at all in the arena. As such, the arena is an active supporter of the game as a whole - people that want to do well in the arena as their main activity in the game (people are welcome to do this, imo), they still NEED to participate in the game as a whole, contributing to everyone elses experience in the game.
By your definition, any game that has multiple gamemodes are actively harming every one of them by splitting their playerbase
Not, according to me, any game that creates a game that is 100% reliant on players participating, and that then generates a second aspect of the game that is literally designed to prevent players from participating in that first aspect is actively harming itself.
Again, you concentrate on what isn't possible rather than what is.
Again, you are the one saying what WILL happen if Ashes has an esport scene, yet you are not providing any reasoning behind it.
I'm saying it isn't possible, because it has been tried by people smarter than you or I, and it has not worked.
Can you even point to a single game that has had a successful esport scene, yet also required a subscription to access the game at all?
It's pretty telling how selfish your line of thinking is that you believe a game would be better off having less people playing it just because those players would want to play a particular gamemode.
I'm not sure why you are talking about game modes still.
MMO's don't have game modes.
An arena in an MMO is a content type, not a game mode.
In order for it to be a game mode, it needs to be it's own thing, you need to not have to load up the game as a whole, you need to not be a part of a game server.
If you actually understood MMO's at all (you clearly don't), you would know this. You would know that a person taking up a a limited slot on an MMO server yet not being an active part of that server is a bad thing for the remaining players on that server. You would know that the more people that do this, the more that server will seem dead to those playing the game. If you knew MMO's at all, you would know that a game seeming dead to players means those players will go to another game before long.
Thus, if you had been paying attention to what I have said, you would understand that the best way for Intrepid to implement this idea would be for it to be server agnostic, meaning you don't need to log in to an actual game server in order to participate in this form of arena. Additionally, if they want this form of arena to be successful in regards to esport, they would need to have it free to play, rather than be a part of the games subscription.
At this point, what they are doing is creating another game.
That is the way this would have to work. In order for Ashes to have an arena based esport title, it would essentially have to be spun out as a stand alone product.
This would work just fine, as by it;s very definition there would have to be no connection at all between this arena and the rest of the game, so this arena may as well be it's own thing so that Intrepid can balance it for esport rather than open world gameplay (the balance of the two absolutely is different). It also means Intrepid could monetize it as an esport rather than as an MMO - which again is absolutely different.
If arenas were as bad for the game as you make it out to seem, why do you think Intrepid is planning to have an arena system in the first place? According to your logic, anyone playing in the arena causes everyone else on the server to have an "objectively worse gaming experience." Clearly, you are adamant that the arena system as a whole will be detrimental to everyone else. You would prefer if Intrepid remove the arenas and any hypothetical esport that could result from it in their entirety?
I think the main point here is that those arenas still require you to play the game if you want to be anywhere near successful in them. You have to participate in the open world activities for a long time before spending a bit of time in the arena. And if you stop spending time in the open world - the ones who still do will outpace you.
Equalized gear that's just given out to people would completely remove that interaction.
Also, after looking into it, World of Warcraft has an existing esports scene. Their arenas in particular have a prize pool of $700,000 USD. They are the largest MMO in the world and have a subscription based model. So, clearly it can be done. Oh, wait, but WoW has PvE and open world PvP too, does that mean the players playing in arenas are causing the players there to have an "objectively worse gaming experience?" Nah.
WoW's pve is completely instanced (at least the one that matters) as is its pvp. So neither of them influence each other in any way, which is why it works somewhat fine there. WoW also has a full separation of pvp and pve gear, so two completely different paths of acquiring your gear is also fine. Ashes will mostly have open world content and its gear won't be separated, which is why so many people here are vehemently against the suggestion of pretty much copying WoW's (or GW2's) design.
As has been said multiple times, this suggestion just doesn't work with what Steven is trying to create.
I am aware and supportive of whatever direction Ashes ends up taking. I've been following the development of this game since it first launched on Kickstarter back in 2017.
Player skill in arenas would progress infinitely faster if the players did not have to level and gear all of the classes they play. There's just going to be a huge barrier to entry and an artificial dampener on the rate at which players are going to be able to learn PvP if that's the case. It also makes the game less friendly to new players down the road if they have to catch up to the players that have spent months or years grinding their character(s) up. I believed someone mentioned earlier that there may not be tons of overlap between PvPers and PvErs, but esports wants to attract the hardcore PvPers. And, hardcore PvPers are generally less likely to want to engage in long bouts of PvE so that they can get to what they enjoy.
Honestly though, I think as long as there is is a public and private training arena area that players can enter at any time that auto max levels your character, lets you test out different gear and builds inside, and play/against with friends, that's good enough. Then it would be more acceptable to have the actual ranked arenas themselves require leveled and geared characters. But I still believe that fully equalizing the arenas is the way to go if esports in Ashes wants to have any chance of thriving. Plus, if it turns out the combat isn't what they enjoy, they can leave quicker instead of feeling like their time was wasted in the process of figuring out if they would've enjoyed PvP in the first place.
You also have to keep in mind that a lot of the current esports games are battle royales which are essentially open world PvP games that cater towards people with short attention spans. A lot of the younger generation are spending time on TikTok and other apps which reduce this, but they are also one of the demographics with the most time to play. Most of the recent MMOs have struggled to capture the attention of the younger audiences because they're sticking to design principles that are not friendly to the way they think. Why would they want to spend months or years to get to the action in an MMO when they can just boot up Fortnite and get their dopamine fix 10x over in the span of an hour? Intrepid can target whatever audience they choose for Ashes, but I've grown up on MMOs and RPGs and I think it's a shame that the kids nowadays miss out on these experiences.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You would need to quantify why it is better that those people play the game at all, because I do not agree.
Sure, they would be paying Intrepid money, but that 1k players playing in the arena on a given server makes it so the remaining 9k players have an objectively worse gaming experience.
The more people that come to Ashes due to any hypothetical arena based esport, the worse the game is for those that want to play the MMO.
So I don't really see how you could say that it is objectively better that those people play the game than don't play the game. The only gain is money for Intrepid, when the potential loss is other subscribers (aka, more money).
If we assume that it is better that these people play the game than don't play the game, then the end result is obviously that the esport aspect of the game becomes so popular that people playing the arena outnumber those playing the MMO. This will actually quite literally kill the MMO aspect of the game. At this point, Intrepid are literally just making an arena based esport title, rather than an MMO.
This isn't really about what I want or don't want. It is about what is best for the game. You are the one blindly arguing for what you want without thought to the consequences to the game as a whole.
If arenas were as bad for the game as you make it out to seem, why do you think Intrepid is planning to have an arena system in the first place? According to your logic, anyone playing in the arena causes everyone else on the server to have an "objectively worse gaming experience." Clearly, you are adamant that the arena system as a whole will be detrimental to everyone else. You would prefer if Intrepid remove the arenas and any hypothetical esport that could result from it in their entirety?
By your definition, any game that has multiple gamemodes are actively harming every one of them by splitting their playerbase and that they should only have a single gamemode for all of their players to pool in.
Your line of thinking is so one-dimensional that you can't seem to comprehend how different communities can co-exist under one umbrella.
If I'm playing a game and I decide to PvP in it, I don't look at the PvErs and tell them they're making PvP objectively worse because they're not playing in it. That's some twisted logic you have there.
You are the one that said "However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing" as a blanket statement. You are the one representing esport as a guaranteed win for Ashes, and for Intrepid.
You seem to be totally forgetting that esport success with games that require a subscription isn't really much of a thing. You are also forgetting that esport success when said esport is only using >1% of the game in question.
You are the one that is literally just ignoring these aspects. I am simply the one pointing out to you that everything that has happened in other games with an esport scene doesn't necessarily translate to Ashes, because there is no game that has had a successful esport scene that has the same parameters that Ashes has.
You are literally just assuming esports in Ashes would be successful despite the total lack of any body of proof that it would be successful in a game with the above parameters, and when the closest example we have (GW2) was an abject failure due to the esport league requiring changes to the game that would have made the MMO less enjoyable to play.
You are the one that is being blatantly blind here. You are the one ignoring reality.
You have a very pessimistic way of thinking. Again, you concentrate on what isn't possible rather than what is. You're stuck in the past. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be done in the future.
Also, after looking into it, World of Warcraft has an existing esports scene. Their arenas in particular have a prize pool of $700,000 USD. They are the largest MMO in the world and have a subscription based model. So, clearly it can be done. Oh, wait, but WoW has PvE and open world PvP too, does that mean the players playing in arenas are causing the players there to have an "objectively worse gaming experience?" Nah.
Research shows that there is a strong correlation between player retention and financial success of a game. And, that players are more likely to continue playing a game and find it fun if they are offered many different choices in how they want to play the game vs. only a few choices.
It's pretty telling how selfish your line of thinking is that you believe a game would be better off having less people playing it just because those players would want to play a particular gamemode.
Arenas aren't bad for this games design when the arenas are influenced by the dynamic world and vice versa.
Other games designs are fine to analyze, but you need to prove how they can benefit Ashes much different design philosophy.
Ashes itself has several gaming experience types, but they all synergize and play off of eachother to progress and influence the server
Your example of world of warcraft fails to mention server sharding effects, instancing effects(the world's are dead outside of launches), opt-in open world pvp and the majority of the playerbase not utilizing it, the state of the "community" of WoW, and the overall convenience design of WoW compared to Ashes risk vs reward design.
Also with your line of thinking, League of Legends shouldn't be a stand alone game, RIOT should be incorporating their new MMO into that game because it would be so beneficial to have MMORPG players logging into the MMORPG part of the game and ignoring the MOBA while taking up the same servers space.
It's better that those 1,000 people play Ashes arenas then not play the game at all. Either way they won't be in the open world, but at least one of those still benefits the game as a whole. You're so focused on the open world aspect and your own personal enjoyment of it that you are incapable of thinking about what others may want.
You would need to quantify why it is better that those people play the game at all, because I do not agree.
Sure, they would be paying Intrepid money, but that 1k players playing in the arena on a given server makes it so the remaining 9k players have an objectively worse gaming experience.
The more people that come to Ashes due to any hypothetical arena based esport, the worse the game is for those that want to play the MMO.
So I don't really see how you could say that it is objectively better that those people play the game than don't play the game. The only gain is money for Intrepid, when the potential loss is other subscribers (aka, more money).
If we assume that it is better that these people play the game than don't play the game, then the end result is obviously that the esport aspect of the game becomes so popular that people playing the arena outnumber those playing the MMO. This will actually quite literally kill the MMO aspect of the game. At this point, Intrepid are literally just making an arena based esport title, rather than an MMO.
This isn't really about what I want or don't want. It is about what is best for the game. You are the one blindly arguing for what you want without thought to the consequences to the game as a whole.
If arenas were as bad for the game as you make it out to seem, why do you think Intrepid is planning to have an arena system in the first place? According to your logic, anyone playing in the arena causes everyone else on the server to have an "objectively worse gaming experience." Clearly, you are adamant that the arena system as a whole will be detrimental to everyone else. You would prefer if Intrepid remove the arenas and any hypothetical esport that could result from it in their entirety?
By your definition, any game that has multiple gamemodes are actively harming every one of them by splitting their playerbase and that they should only have a single gamemode for all of their players to pool in.
Your line of thinking is so one-dimensional that you can't seem to comprehend how different communities can co-exist under one umbrella.
If I'm playing a game and I decide to PvP in it, I don't look at the PvErs and tell them they're making PvP objectively worse because they're not playing in it. That's some twisted logic you have there.
You are the one that said "However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing" as a blanket statement. You are the one representing esport as a guaranteed win for Ashes, and for Intrepid.
You seem to be totally forgetting that esport success with games that require a subscription isn't really much of a thing. You are also forgetting that esport success when said esport is only using >1% of the game in question.
You are the one that is literally just ignoring these aspects. I am simply the one pointing out to you that everything that has happened in other games with an esport scene doesn't necessarily translate to Ashes, because there is no game that has had a successful esport scene that has the same parameters that Ashes has.
You are literally just assuming esports in Ashes would be successful despite the total lack of any body of proof that it would be successful in a game with the above parameters, and when the closest example we have (GW2) was an abject failure due to the esport league requiring changes to the game that would have made the MMO less enjoyable to play.
You are the one that is being blatantly blind here. You are the one ignoring reality.
You have a very pessimistic way of thinking. Again, you concentrate on what isn't possible rather than what is. You're stuck in the past. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be done in the future.
Also, after looking into it, World of Warcraft has an existing esports scene. Their arenas in particular have a prize pool of $700,000 USD. They are the largest MMO in the world and have a subscription based model. So, clearly it can be done. Oh, wait, but WoW has PvE and open world PvP too, does that mean the players playing in arenas are causing the players there to have an "objectively worse gaming experience?" Nah.
Research shows that there is a strong correlation between player retention and financial success of a game. And, that players are more likely to continue playing a game and find it fun if they are offered many different choices in how they want to play the game vs. only a few choices.
It's pretty telling how selfish your line of thinking is that you believe a game would be better off having less people playing it just because those players would want to play a particular gamemode.
Arenas aren't bad for this games design when the arenas are influenced by the dynamic world and vice versa.
Other games designs are fine to analyze, but you need to prove how they can benefit Ashes much different design philosophy.
Ashes itself has several gaming experience types, but they all synergize and play off of eachother to progress and influence the server
Your example of world of warcraft fails to mention server sharding effects, instancing effects(the world's are dead outside of launches), opt-in open world pvp and the majority of the playerbase not utilizing it, the state of the "community" of WoW, and the overall convenience design of WoW compared to Ashes risk vs reward design.
My post before this explains some of the benefits.
Also with your line of thinking, League of Legends shouldn't be a stand alone game, RIOT should be incorporating their new MMO into that game because it would be so beneficial to have MMORPG players logging into the MMORPG part of the game and ignoring the MOBA while taking up the same servers space.
And that doesn't make any sense. I never said merge multiple different genres of games into one.
League already has different gamemodes like an MMORPG would. There are customs, ARAM, quick play, ranked, etc. All of these individual gamemodes co-exist as part of the game as a whole. Do you think RIOT cares much whether a player plays ARAM vs. ranked? As long as those people are playing the game, potentially spending money on it, and not doing the same for their competitors, I'm sure they're happy. They're definitely not trying to remove the ARAM players from the population because they aren't playing the 'main' gamemode.
League already has different gamemodes like an MMORPG would. There are customs, ARAM, quick play, ranked, etc. All of these individual gamemodes co-exist as part of the game as a whole. Do you think RIOT cares much whether a player plays ARAM vs. ranked? As long as those people are playing the game, potentially spending money on it, and not doing the same for their competitors, I'm sure they're happy. They're definitely not trying to remove the ARAM players from the population because they aren't playing the 'main' gamemode.
These are all actual game modes, and so is fine.
Imagine though, if you will, that if in order to play a ranked match, you first of all had to join a quick play match, and then while still taking up a slot in that match you then started playing in a ranked match. Your character is sectioned off in the quick play match and is unable to interact with anyone at all, you are only able to interact with the ranked match.
That would ruin quick play really quickly, because people are having to play in that game mode, having to take up a slot in that game mode, in order to play the game mode that they want to play.
This is what your suggestion is doing in regards to an MMO, only the numbers of players involved are higher.
Again, if you can select to just play the arena, then you have a different discussion. However, at that point we should be talking about a spinoff game rather than a different game mode.
Esports needing a large population and money to succeed.
That content creation (a.k.a. influencing) contracts are more lucrative.
That operating teams is expensive and they operate them at a loss (hence why an org won't have a team of PvErs funneling gear into a team of PvPers unless they were making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from the game at a minimum)
If the average esport watching enthusiast only produces $5.30 USD in revenue annually, then it becomes even more important to capture a wider audience. Alienating and expelling players with common preferences like the ones that are interested in arena PvP, would only hurt any potential Ashes has of esports. Otherwise, remember what I said? Esports is not likely to succeed.
Also, interestingly enough, games that have a higher population of players that already spend money on the game make it significantly more likely that they support the games' content creators and tournament scenes. This also makes it more enticing for sponsors and advertisers. On the contrary, games that can be completely F2P often have a population of players that are less likely to support. Ashes having a sub model is a good thing in this case.
You also have to keep in mind that a lot of the current esports games are battle royales which are essentially open world PvP games that cater towards people with short attention spans. A lot of the younger generation are spending time on TikTok and other apps which reduce this, but they are also one of the demographics with the most time to play. Most of the recent MMOs have struggled to capture the attention of the younger audiences because they're sticking to design principles that are not friendly to the way they think. Why would they want to spend months or years to get to the action in an MMO when they can just boot up Fortnite and get their dopamine fix 10x over in the span of an hour? Intrepid can target whatever audience they choose for Ashes, but I've grown up on MMOs and RPGs and I think it's a shame that the kids nowadays miss out on these experiences.
And I'm sure that RIOT will try to target exactly those short attention span teens instead of the old guard that Steven's trying to attract. "Make mmos great again" implies that the person who'd want to play an mmo with that slogan knows how the mmos were back in the day, which, by default, removes anyone younger than 20 (if not even 25).
And if Ashes manages to become a good game, all those current teens will grow out of their hyper states and might check out something slower, just as FF14 has dominated the mmo genre in the recent years. But Ashes can only survive that long if it keeps its vision and its core target audience to support it through the hard years. Making a whole different game and then spending resources on a separate balancing development for it doesn't seem like a smart idea right now.
Esports needing a large population and money to succeed.
That content creation (a.k.a. influencing) contracts are more lucrative.
That operating teams is expensive and they operate them at a loss (hence why an org won't have a team of PvErs funneling gear into a team of PvPers unless they were making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from the game at a minimum)
If the average esport watching enthusiast only produces $5.30 USD in revenue annually, then it becomes even more important to capture a wider audience. Alienating and expelling players with common preferences like the ones that are interested in arena PvP, would only hurt any potential Ashes has of esports. Otherwise, remember what I said? Esports is not likely to succeed.
Also, interestingly enough, games that have a higher population of players that already spend money on the game make it significantly more likely that they support the games' content creators and tournament scenes. This also makes it more enticing for sponsors and advertisers. On the contrary, games that can be completely F2P often have a population of players that are less likely to support. Ashes having a sub model is a good thing in this case.
I'm unsure how you came to the above conclusion from that article.
The article was literally saying sponsors are not willing to put money in to esport for anything other than the most popular games.
Ashes is not going to be one of the most popular games, it is going to have an audience of less than a million players after a year.
It is literally the type of game esport sponsors would nope right out off immediately.
If you want to try and convince a game to support esport, either come in with a sponsor ready to put money in to the game in question (or teams in the game in question), or talk to games with guaranteed populations in the tens of millions (Diablo 4, Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6 etc).
Asking a small developer to alter their game, making it a worse example of the game genre it is intended to be, all in the hopes of generating an esport out of nothing in an environment where esport sponsors are shying away from sponsoring is not likely to be received well.
EDIT: @Gui10 - are you also suggesting that players who are 'only' level 47 get boosted to level 50 when competing in the arena modes?
No, not at all. It might not have been clear, but what I have been saying the begining is for max level arenas. I dont think I stated it specifically, except when I mentionned GW1, thats how it worked there. Max levels played vs max levels only. And there was a very small proportion of players who weren't max, who played against other non-max., with their own gear.Gear equalization was for max level only. And access to max level alts was only granted once you reached max level.
EDIT: @Gui10 - are you also suggesting that players who are 'only' level 47 get boosted to level 50 when competing in the arena modes?
No, not at all. It might not have been clear, but what I have been saying the begining is for max level arenas. I dont think I stated it specifically, except when I mentionned GW1, thats how it worked there. Max levels played vs max levels only. And there was a very small proportion of players who weren't max, who played against other non-max., with their own gear.Gear equalization was for max level only. And access to max level alts was only granted once you reached max level.
I see.
Then definitely it would just be about the same in my opinion, and if I wanted to make Arenas in Ashes a thing of this type, I would just set everything to level 40.
This solves three problems.
1. Absolute endgame gear doesn't need to be balanced for the Arena.
2. Very powerful class skills that are obtained near the game's end or through min-maxing can be balanced for that bracket without worrying about the endgame FoTM balance.
3. Players do not need to do what I PERSONALLY expect to be 45% of the leveling, in order to compete.
I don't have an opinion on whether or not 'the level 40 Arena should provide gear or just cap the options'.
If the intention is to give people the feelings you're mentioning, I don't see a reason why they need to reach 'actual max level' to do it.
You also have to keep in mind that a lot of the current esports games are battle royales which are essentially open world PvP games that cater towards people with short attention spans. A lot of the younger generation are spending time on TikTok and other apps which reduce this, but they are also one of the demographics with the most time to play. Most of the recent MMOs have struggled to capture the attention of the younger audiences because they're sticking to design principles that are not friendly to the way they think. Why would they want to spend months or years to get to the action in an MMO when they can just boot up Fortnite and get their dopamine fix 10x over in the span of an hour? Intrepid can target whatever audience they choose for Ashes, but I've grown up on MMOs and RPGs and I think it's a shame that the kids nowadays miss out on these experiences.
And I'm sure that RIOT will try to target exactly those short attention span teens instead of the old guard that Steven's trying to attract. "Make mmos great again" implies that the person who'd want to play an mmo with that slogan knows how the mmos were back in the day, which, by default, removes anyone younger than 20 (if not even 25).
And if Ashes manages to become a good game, all those current teens will grow out of their hyper states and might check out something slower, just as FF14 has dominated the mmo genre in the recent years. But Ashes can only survive that long if it keeps its vision and its core target audience to support it through the hard years. Making a whole different game and then spending resources on a separate balancing development for it doesn't seem like a smart idea right now.
Ok. That is the exact point I made. Ashes is targeting an older audience, which is fine if that's what they want to do. But we're talking about esports and the average age that esports competitors retire is in their mid-twenties.
So yeah sure, after all of the esports-age competitors grow out of their esports age, they're sure to give Ashes esports (if it exists) a shot when they're in they're late 20s or older! /s
The average age of Twitch viewers is also late teens to mid-twenties and their ability to attract attention on social media is a large indicator as to whether orgs will come in to sign them as content creators (tournament performance for pro players). The second largest age group is 25-34. Which means that the people that would be streaming or competing in esports wouldn't be in the targeted demographic for Ashes, and the players watching it that have an interest in it are generally past the average age at which esports competitors retire.
Then definitely it would just be about the same in my opinion, and if I wanted to make Arenas in Ashes a thing of this type, I would just set everything to level 40.
This solves three problems.
1. Absolute endgame gear doesn't need to be balanced for the Arena.
2. Very powerful class skills that are obtained near the game's end or through min-maxing can be balanced for that bracket without worrying about the endgame FoTM balance.
3. Players do not need to do what I PERSONALLY expect to be 45% of the leveling, in order to compete.
I don't have an opinion on whether or not 'the level 40 Arena should provide gear or just cap the options'.
If the intention is to give people the feelings you're mentioning, I don't see a reason why they need to reach 'actual max level' to do it.
Yep, I'd be totally fine with this, though I'd definitely prefer if the gear was just capped and not given out for free. I could definitely see a rent/trade mechanic, where you could replace your normal gear for some other set just for a fight. This way people could still experiment with builds w/o just grinding lowbie mobs whom players would outgrow fairly fast.
Comments
I'm going to use an example from League as RIOT has an exceptional track record at marketing.
Arcane was created from the desire to tap into the storytelling potential of League of Legends in ways that the MOBA could not. The goal of creating an excellent story resulted in an increase of over 55 million players in a single month, a 42% rise from the month before.
Even if all 55 million of those players only played ARAM instead of the standard gamemode, the game has benefitted and continues to benefit massively. Even if half of them never played League again after that first month, the game has benefitted and will continue to benefit from the players that stayed.
I fail to see the relevance, that works that way because of what League IS.
Ashes does not benefit that much from a situation like that.
The relevance is two part:
- The goal to make an amazing story in Arcane has also resulted in money being made for League. Similarly, the goal to make an amazing MMORPG can also result in money being made for Ashes.
- New players coming in from Arcane in League playing ARAM instead of the normal gamemode still benefit and continue to benefit the game as a whole. Similarly, players in arenas for Ashes instead of open world PvP, would still benefit and continue to benefit the game as a whole.
The flipside is that the players just play a different game entirely, and that's fine if the game isn't what they're looking for, but that doesn't help Ashes at all.I have so many many disagreements with your stance and perception here that I feel it would be futile to even engage.
But you are, from my data, a serious Twitch Streamer (unless you are somehow unrelated to the streamer of the same name) which means you have probably done at least as much study on how this works and the marketing side of it as myself and my team have, so I doubt either of us will change their conclusions based on a forum conversation.
I can only offer to Intrepid, if they are tracking/parsing this thread:
I am one of your other 'eSports' players. I don't agree with the reasonings given here for the following reasons which I am not going to bother backing up:
1. The success of a game as an eSport is related more to team-based play and strong matchmaking that is core to the main game experience, than it is to the quality of the game in question, be it fun or competitive nature.
2. The success of a game's streaming is almost entirely personality based rather than gameplay based for games that do not have a very low skill ceiling.
3. The prize pools of games come primarily from sponsorships, often from the company that runs the game, itself, because it is a good use of their marketing/advertising budget.
4. Ashes does not benefit from influx of players with certain goals as a generality, while it might be interesting once or twice, the WAY it is likely to destabilize Verra and its economies would probably frustrate more longstanding players, or the incoming, in ways that would lead to negative attention.
5. The Arena mode taking a large space in the 'ranking' aspect of Ashes due to eSports has the potential to introduce incentive structures within the game that Intrepid does not control themselves in ANY WAY, leading to conflicts if any metrics-driven game design is used, or, if not, it will necessitate discarding the metrics themselves.
6. Assuming that the goal is consistent subs and players, not just 'more money', lowering the barriers of entry to the Arena mode, even with excellent MMR, would require a large increase in metrics and balance related staff over what is LIKELY currently planned/available (I am basing this on my understanding of the progress of combat, basically if you had the numbers of staff I'm thinking of for doing this, combat would be done, so I must assume you don't)
And with L2's arena everyone still had to farm mobs and bosses to have the gear required to succeed in arena pvp. If they could just go fight in the arena w/o playing the game - all those locations would always be empty. Hell, I know that for sure because I've played on private servers that provided this exact setup. Players would get the gear for free and would not play the game itself. And the whole server was worse for it.
It can indeed make money while being an amazing MMORPG, but if you change its core design, being a PVX dynamic world, you are interfering with the intended designs goal. You are asking for a separate game within the game that has no relation or in game benefit to the world of Verra, why not ask for a separate game entirely?
And in this case, the PvPers you are referring to aren't parasites, they are just taking up space that PVX players could use to instead fill up open worlds on the servers. You take away from the dynamic worlds in game community, impacting thise systems. Instead you'd have players who live in matchmaking queues who have no requirement to contribute to the dynamic world. Your problem is that you keep viewing players in this game as PvP or PvE exclusively, when there is only PVX players. No need to sacrifice the games core design to appease 1 group of players.
The progression systems in MMOs are interesting and I like the persistent world. Sitting in a lobby, doing nothing, while waiting for a que to pop is not a very engaging way to spend one's time. I want to be able to run around and do things while I wait to PvP, hence why I enjoy MMOs with good, equalized PvP so much.
I don't a separate gamemode that's effectively a que simulator. I like being part of the actual game. Plus, while I may want to spend 99% of my time in PvP, I do venture out with friends or when I want to take a break. The option to be able to do that is nice to have.
I also do enjoy certain types of PvE and open world PvP content, but I haven't seen a game do all of them right by my personal tastes.
Simple as tabbing out into ashes in between playing the other game. No reason to take up queue space in Ashes to spend half the time in a game mode that has zero impact on the main world. Now if that game mode is directly impacted by the dynamic world and vice versa, then it will be desirable for the goals of the games design.
Sure, they would be paying Intrepid money, but that 1k players playing in the arena on a given server makes it so the remaining 9k players have an objectively worse gaming experience.
The more people that come to Ashes due to any hypothetical arena based esport, the worse the game is for those that want to play the MMO.
So I don't really see how you could say that it is objectively better that those people play the game than don't play the game. The only gain is money for Intrepid, when the potential loss is other subscribers (aka, more money).
If we assume that it is better that these people play the game than don't play the game, then the end result is obviously that the esport aspect of the game becomes so popular that people playing the arena outnumber those playing the MMO. This will actually quite literally kill the MMO aspect of the game. At this point, Intrepid are literally just making an arena based esport title, rather than an MMO.
This isn't really about what I want or don't want. It is about what is best for the game. You are the one blindly arguing for what you want without thought to the consequences to the game as a whole. You are the one that said "However, a successful esports scene is excellent for marketing" as a blanket statement. You are the one representing esport as a guaranteed win for Ashes, and for Intrepid.
You seem to be totally forgetting that esport success with games that require a subscription isn't really much of a thing. You are also forgetting that esport success when said esport is only using >1% of the game in question.
You are the one that is literally just ignoring these aspects. I am simply the one pointing out to you that everything that has happened in other games with an esport scene doesn't necessarily translate to Ashes, because there is no game that has had a successful esport scene that has the same parameters that Ashes has.
You are literally just assuming esports in Ashes would be successful despite the total lack of any body of proof that it would be successful in a game with the above parameters, and when the closest example we have (GW2) was an abject failure due to the esport league requiring changes to the game that would have made the MMO less enjoyable to play.
You are the one that is being blatantly blind here. You are the one ignoring reality.
Yes the game itself will be PvX in the sense that PvE and PvP are integrated together, but how will the champion system work into this? It seems to be a really good balance. I can still hardly believe most of you are 1000% against this idea.
To be clear, just in case, I am not 1000% against this idea.
I believe Intrepid intends for us to only be able to equip certain gear after reaching a certain level. So let's SAY for level 40 I could only wear level 38 gear, and I can't get new gear until level 43.
Then I'd want them to try to balance MOST of the level 40-ish gear to be similar (or rather, to just have a good balance equation for it all).
Then I would want them to have a 'level 40 bracket' for Arenas.
My point is that I don't think they would have to equalize anything extra gear-wise for this.
If you're only talking about level 50, that's a different matter, I have multiple opinions on gear balance for 'endgame', but they'd probably be even less popular than yours because they would somewhat apply to the whole game.
I think this might lead to a MORE interesting situation, where there are some players that have 'Alts for the level 40 bracket'. In fact, if I had to try to arrange a tournament scene in Ashes, this would be the first place I'd start. So really, I just have even more draconian solutions to the problem than even you are suggesting.
If arenas were as bad for the game as you make it out to seem, why do you think Intrepid is planning to have an arena system in the first place? According to your logic, anyone playing in the arena causes everyone else on the server to have an "objectively worse gaming experience." Clearly, you are adamant that the arena system as a whole will be detrimental to everyone else. You would prefer if Intrepid remove the arenas and any hypothetical esport that could result from it in their entirety?
By your definition, any game that has multiple gamemodes are actively harming every one of them by splitting their playerbase and that they should only have a single gamemode for all of their players to pool in.
Your line of thinking is so one-dimensional that you can't seem to comprehend how different communities can co-exist under one umbrella.
If I'm playing a game and I decide to PvP in it, I don't look at the PvErs and tell them they're making PvP objectively worse because they're not playing in it. That's some twisted logic you have there.
You have a very pessimistic way of thinking. Again, you concentrate on what isn't possible rather than what is. You're stuck in the past. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be done in the future.
Also, after looking into it, World of Warcraft has an existing esports scene. Their arenas in particular have a prize pool of $700,000 USD. They are the largest MMO in the world and have a subscription based model. So, clearly it can be done. Oh, wait, but WoW has PvE and open world PvP too, does that mean the players playing in arenas are causing the players there to have an "objectively worse gaming experience?" Nah.
Research shows that there is a strong correlation between player retention and financial success of a game. And, that players are more likely to continue playing a game and find it fun if they are offered many different choices in how they want to play the game vs. only a few choices.
It's pretty telling how selfish your line of thinking is that you believe a game would be better off having less people playing it just because those players would want to play a particular gamemode.
Equalized gear that's just given out to people would completely remove that interaction. WoW's pve is completely instanced (at least the one that matters) as is its pvp. So neither of them influence each other in any way, which is why it works somewhat fine there. WoW also has a full separation of pvp and pve gear, so two completely different paths of acquiring your gear is also fine. Ashes will mostly have open world content and its gear won't be separated, which is why so many people here are vehemently against the suggestion of pretty much copying WoW's (or GW2's) design.
As has been said multiple times, this suggestion just doesn't work with what Steven is trying to create.
As far as ashes design goals go, I'm just against providing a mode that completely separates players from the actual MMORPG game. I'm completely fine with Intrepid making a spinoff game with its own servers specifically for what is proposed, all arena PVP matchmaking. But to lessen the dynamic world building that is ashes design core by taking of server slots, just seems like shooting oneself in the foot. You are proposing making a separate game that requires no effort in ashes of creations world building, within ashes of creation itself. No need for it.
And in regards to the champion system as far as I understand it. You gear and progress your champion by acquiring gear for it, and the main purpose of these champions is to compete for mayorship of a military node, so that system checks out with PVX design. Feel free to correct me if I am getting this one wrong.
yeah, I am talking about end-game max level actually.
Well, for that you probably have to put in 400+ hours anyway.
I can see a reasoning for 'The person with 1000 hours shouldn't beat the person with 400 hours', but still.
EDIT: @Gui10 - are you also suggesting that players who are 'only' level 47 get boosted to level 50 when competing in the arena modes?
They are in the game as a sideshow, nothing more.
Additionally, the way the game is now, players need to participate in the open world to have any chance at all in the arena. As such, the arena is an active supporter of the game as a whole - people that want to do well in the arena as their main activity in the game (people are welcome to do this, imo), they still NEED to participate in the game as a whole, contributing to everyone elses experience in the game.
Not, according to me, any game that creates a game that is 100% reliant on players participating, and that then generates a second aspect of the game that is literally designed to prevent players from participating in that first aspect is actively harming itself.
Again, you are the one saying what WILL happen if Ashes has an esport scene, yet you are not providing any reasoning behind it.
I'm saying it isn't possible, because it has been tried by people smarter than you or I, and it has not worked.
Can you even point to a single game that has had a successful esport scene, yet also required a subscription to access the game at all?
I'm not sure why you are talking about game modes still.
MMO's don't have game modes.
An arena in an MMO is a content type, not a game mode.
In order for it to be a game mode, it needs to be it's own thing, you need to not have to load up the game as a whole, you need to not be a part of a game server.
If you actually understood MMO's at all (you clearly don't), you would know this. You would know that a person taking up a a limited slot on an MMO server yet not being an active part of that server is a bad thing for the remaining players on that server. You would know that the more people that do this, the more that server will seem dead to those playing the game. If you knew MMO's at all, you would know that a game seeming dead to players means those players will go to another game before long.
Thus, if you had been paying attention to what I have said, you would understand that the best way for Intrepid to implement this idea would be for it to be server agnostic, meaning you don't need to log in to an actual game server in order to participate in this form of arena. Additionally, if they want this form of arena to be successful in regards to esport, they would need to have it free to play, rather than be a part of the games subscription.
At this point, what they are doing is creating another game.
That is the way this would have to work. In order for Ashes to have an arena based esport title, it would essentially have to be spun out as a stand alone product.
This would work just fine, as by it;s very definition there would have to be no connection at all between this arena and the rest of the game, so this arena may as well be it's own thing so that Intrepid can balance it for esport rather than open world gameplay (the balance of the two absolutely is different). It also means Intrepid could monetize it as an esport rather than as an MMO - which again is absolutely different.
I am aware and supportive of whatever direction Ashes ends up taking. I've been following the development of this game since it first launched on Kickstarter back in 2017.
Player skill in arenas would progress infinitely faster if the players did not have to level and gear all of the classes they play. There's just going to be a huge barrier to entry and an artificial dampener on the rate at which players are going to be able to learn PvP if that's the case. It also makes the game less friendly to new players down the road if they have to catch up to the players that have spent months or years grinding their character(s) up. I believed someone mentioned earlier that there may not be tons of overlap between PvPers and PvErs, but esports wants to attract the hardcore PvPers. And, hardcore PvPers are generally less likely to want to engage in long bouts of PvE so that they can get to what they enjoy.
Honestly though, I think as long as there is is a public and private training arena area that players can enter at any time that auto max levels your character, lets you test out different gear and builds inside, and play/against with friends, that's good enough. Then it would be more acceptable to have the actual ranked arenas themselves require leveled and geared characters. But I still believe that fully equalizing the arenas is the way to go if esports in Ashes wants to have any chance of thriving. Plus, if it turns out the combat isn't what they enjoy, they can leave quicker instead of feeling like their time was wasted in the process of figuring out if they would've enjoyed PvP in the first place.
You also have to keep in mind that a lot of the current esports games are battle royales which are essentially open world PvP games that cater towards people with short attention spans. A lot of the younger generation are spending time on TikTok and other apps which reduce this, but they are also one of the demographics with the most time to play. Most of the recent MMOs have struggled to capture the attention of the younger audiences because they're sticking to design principles that are not friendly to the way they think. Why would they want to spend months or years to get to the action in an MMO when they can just boot up Fortnite and get their dopamine fix 10x over in the span of an hour? Intrepid can target whatever audience they choose for Ashes, but I've grown up on MMOs and RPGs and I think it's a shame that the kids nowadays miss out on these experiences.
Arenas aren't bad for this games design when the arenas are influenced by the dynamic world and vice versa.
Other games designs are fine to analyze, but you need to prove how they can benefit Ashes much different design philosophy.
Ashes itself has several gaming experience types, but they all synergize and play off of eachother to progress and influence the server
Your example of world of warcraft fails to mention server sharding effects, instancing effects(the world's are dead outside of launches), opt-in open world pvp and the majority of the playerbase not utilizing it, the state of the "community" of WoW, and the overall convenience design of WoW compared to Ashes risk vs reward design.
Also with your line of thinking, League of Legends shouldn't be a stand alone game, RIOT should be incorporating their new MMO into that game because it would be so beneficial to have MMORPG players logging into the MMORPG part of the game and ignoring the MOBA while taking up the same servers space.
And that doesn't make any sense. I never said merge multiple different genres of games into one.
League already has different gamemodes like an MMORPG would. There are customs, ARAM, quick play, ranked, etc. All of these individual gamemodes co-exist as part of the game as a whole. Do you think RIOT cares much whether a player plays ARAM vs. ranked? As long as those people are playing the game, potentially spending money on it, and not doing the same for their competitors, I'm sure they're happy. They're definitely not trying to remove the ARAM players from the population because they aren't playing the 'main' gamemode.
These are all actual game modes, and so is fine.
Imagine though, if you will, that if in order to play a ranked match, you first of all had to join a quick play match, and then while still taking up a slot in that match you then started playing in a ranked match. Your character is sectioned off in the quick play match and is unable to interact with anyone at all, you are only able to interact with the ranked match.
That would ruin quick play really quickly, because people are having to play in that game mode, having to take up a slot in that game mode, in order to play the game mode that they want to play.
This is what your suggestion is doing in regards to an MMO, only the numbers of players involved are higher.
Again, if you can select to just play the arena, then you have a different discussion. However, at that point we should be talking about a spinoff game rather than a different game mode.
The article confirms what I said about:
- Esports needing a large population and money to succeed.
- That content creation (a.k.a. influencing) contracts are more lucrative.
- That operating teams is expensive and they operate them at a loss (hence why an org won't have a team of PvErs funneling gear into a team of PvPers unless they were making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from the game at a minimum)
If the average esport watching enthusiast only produces $5.30 USD in revenue annually, then it becomes even more important to capture a wider audience. Alienating and expelling players with common preferences like the ones that are interested in arena PvP, would only hurt any potential Ashes has of esports. Otherwise, remember what I said? Esports is not likely to succeed.Also, interestingly enough, games that have a higher population of players that already spend money on the game make it significantly more likely that they support the games' content creators and tournament scenes. This also makes it more enticing for sponsors and advertisers. On the contrary, games that can be completely F2P often have a population of players that are less likely to support. Ashes having a sub model is a good thing in this case.
And if Ashes manages to become a good game, all those current teens will grow out of their hyper states and might check out something slower, just as FF14 has dominated the mmo genre in the recent years. But Ashes can only survive that long if it keeps its vision and its core target audience to support it through the hard years. Making a whole different game and then spending resources on a separate balancing development for it doesn't seem like a smart idea right now.
I'm unsure how you came to the above conclusion from that article.
The article was literally saying sponsors are not willing to put money in to esport for anything other than the most popular games.
Ashes is not going to be one of the most popular games, it is going to have an audience of less than a million players after a year.
It is literally the type of game esport sponsors would nope right out off immediately.
If you want to try and convince a game to support esport, either come in with a sponsor ready to put money in to the game in question (or teams in the game in question), or talk to games with guaranteed populations in the tens of millions (Diablo 4, Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6 etc).
Asking a small developer to alter their game, making it a worse example of the game genre it is intended to be, all in the hopes of generating an esport out of nothing in an environment where esport sponsors are shying away from sponsoring is not likely to be received well.
No, not at all. It might not have been clear, but what I have been saying the begining is for max level arenas. I dont think I stated it specifically, except when I mentionned GW1, thats how it worked there. Max levels played vs max levels only. And there was a very small proportion of players who weren't max, who played against other non-max., with their own gear.Gear equalization was for max level only. And access to max level alts was only granted once you reached max level.
I see.
Then definitely it would just be about the same in my opinion, and if I wanted to make Arenas in Ashes a thing of this type, I would just set everything to level 40.
This solves three problems.
1. Absolute endgame gear doesn't need to be balanced for the Arena.
2. Very powerful class skills that are obtained near the game's end or through min-maxing can be balanced for that bracket without worrying about the endgame FoTM balance.
3. Players do not need to do what I PERSONALLY expect to be 45% of the leveling, in order to compete.
I don't have an opinion on whether or not 'the level 40 Arena should provide gear or just cap the options'.
If the intention is to give people the feelings you're mentioning, I don't see a reason why they need to reach 'actual max level' to do it.
Ok. That is the exact point I made. Ashes is targeting an older audience, which is fine if that's what they want to do. But we're talking about esports and the average age that esports competitors retire is in their mid-twenties.
So yeah sure, after all of the esports-age competitors grow out of their esports age, they're sure to give Ashes esports (if it exists) a shot when they're in they're late 20s or older! /s
The average age of Twitch viewers is also late teens to mid-twenties and their ability to attract attention on social media is a large indicator as to whether orgs will come in to sign them as content creators (tournament performance for pro players). The second largest age group is 25-34. Which means that the people that would be streaming or competing in esports wouldn't be in the targeted demographic for Ashes, and the players watching it that have an interest in it are generally past the average age at which esports competitors retire.
Do you see the problems here?