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For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
PvP Content for Small Groups/Guilds
Hasil
Member, Settler, Kickstarter
I have been following Ashes for a long time and watching the updates, but I would not consider myself an expert on all that has been said and all of the design principles and goals. That having been said, it seems like the Castle siege content is aimed solely toward larger guilds. Is there PvP content geared toward smaller guilds? Has there been thought put into how to prevent massive zergs from dominating PvP and allowing for smaller groups to skirmish? What instanced content is planned, and has there been discussion of gear-based / skill-based / class-based matchmaking, role queues, etc.?
Thanks in advance!
Thanks in advance!
1
Comments
You could become a pirate or a bandit.
As a pirate you could man a ship and play in PK free seas and steal mats, as a bandit you could raid caravans and steal mats or castle tax transport and steal gold from big guilds.
With your small group you could try to snatch a freehold and defend it during node sieges.
Castles are for zerg guilds.
My advice is to provide feedback to convey the message that large guilds need to have less tools to be manageble.
This will make zerg guilds less common and more real guilds with 80-100 people will appear. Proud independes guilds, that form true alliances.
Then your small group could find a place in such a guild with like minded people.
If you are looking for content tailored to small groups that excludes large numbers of people you are being unrealistic.
Again, there wont be emphasis on BGs.
Castle sieges only for big guilds:
Not true. First, the direct siege of the castle only takes place once a month, the three weeks before sieges at the castle nodes will take place where the node itself will be defended but also Caravan events will take place, which allows even smaller guilds to have massive impact. Next, we already know that sieges always allow for third parties to join. So for sufficient payment a small guild may join a siege on either side and probably the spoils of war will be distributed according to the contribution, similar to how it works with world bosses. And lastly the zerg argument doesn't really hit anymore in general, Intrepid has told us and it has been brought up multiple times that guilds that don't level member numbers will have much more guild member buff effects they can get than big guilds, making small guilds basically elite squats that big guilds can't do without. If waiting for the exact design of that system is unacceptable... well... what are you even doing here? XD
Small guild content
All group content is also content for small guilds - POIs, world events, world bosses, Caravans, dungeons, raids, exploration, sieges. Again, the zerg argument implies that Intrepid has never played an MMO and is unaware that player numbers alone can prove to be a huge advantage. However: The studio consists of players who have played all these games, they are aware of the issues and have announced systems to make sure that the power is not only in numbers.
Instanced dungeons
As far as I am aware it is primarily planned for story events and will at most be 20% of the dungeons. With that being said the constant anxiety about open world dungeons is something I don't understand at all. Just because a dungeon is open to multiple groups doesn't spell anywhere that everything is at any time accessible to everyone in that dungeon. Boss rooms might close off at some point in the fight and players might be able to intentionally block the way behind them that they took because they as much as the developer know that competition is a thing in this game. Also just because dungeons are open to multiple groups doesn't mean that there will always be multiple groups eager to slaughter each other - after all on sided PvP has much more down sides than upsides
Name one
Be sure to check out the wiki, where you can learn much about the many systems of Ashes of Creation!
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/
1) A class that gives a very large speed boost to a group - if not all groups have said class then they cant keep up with the small group.
2) a speed buff for a group that gets smaller and smaller the more people in your group.
3) An item that gives speed buffs that most people in a zerg would not go out of their way to get etc..
A raid of more than 8 people should receive a speed reduction.
An army moves slower than an elite unit.
I am in agreement and perhaps I will make another thread about compating big guilds.
Less tools for guild management, speed debuffs for raids (ships as well), FH access capped at family instead of guild members.
Ppppppllllllllleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaassssssssseeeeeeeeeee!
1) worked very well in Daoc there were never enough max level bards, minstrels, or Skalds to have a zerg move at max speed. Even after they introduced AOE songs that let everyone in the area get the buff people were dropping from the zerg all the time because the buff did not hit for a few moments etc. Generally the larger the group of people the slower they move just because of organizational issues.
That said, Speed is what will allow a small group to pvp effectively in open terrain without being over run with enemy zergs. Another way to help small groups vs large numbers is to have good crowd control, this does create some frustration for players however in large numbers when most of them are standing around not being able to help fight.
No.
Less tools? What? You are hating on big guilds too much
Speed debuff? In AoC people won't be teleporting all the time, you will just make people feel misereable if they travel slowly at all times
Debuffs for big groups should be on healing and buffs... let the big guilds come with all their people, all their damage and speed, but they should not be able to overtank their party with buffs and healing. Let them come, fight and die
Welcome back home.
The game is primarily designed around open world content with "flagging" and participant decisions such as attacker/defender.
The zerg guild then simply proceeds to win by sheer numbers. We can do better than this. We can have real guilds with real members to the size of 80-100 people that know each other by name, play together all the time, instead of only fillint tank dps healther roles when the leader barks out ultimatums.
We can have real alliances of 1000 people made out of independed, real guilds.
And the way is by implementing suggestions.
If any debuff comes by, should be on tank stuff and heals... since there is no friendly fire on their attack and cast spams, they should at least be paper thin if they get attacked
As for sieges (just my opinion) I find them boring and less demanding of a players skill. Over all I do enjoy smaller PvP engagements because your skill is more important to the outcome than a giant brawl of people. When I think about the most fun I have had in PvP over the years of games, the common thread is smaller fights with friends or guild mates. Running with zergs have never been fun for me, fighting zergs can be fun if you have the possibility of escaping other wise it is almost pointless to even try.
They are about diplomacy and strategy, when to rush when to split objectives, when to faint pressure and when to make your enemy feel safe.
Plus, after the first few months of an mmo with castle control, sieges arent an individual occasion. The big guilds are involved in every castle siege at the same time.
So I'd rather not get sieges involved in this conversation.
The are other areas of the game that involved mass pvp.
Raids wars grindspots quest spots.
yeah. Diplomacy through pvp
I will make thread about it