Ashes of Creation

Vinjin said:

Can you expand on this for those of us not in the Alpha? Are you saying the gameplay is more group focused and not solo? And what is it about the game that makes you think folks will need to be in a 'large' guild? Would a guild of 15 not be able to survive for some reason?

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On Lyoneth or w/e - there was already two big major zerg guilds. They wouldnt let you group with them if you wasnt in their guild. You had to pick off scraps to finish quests in those areas if you stayed around, which takes way way more time than it should. I dont think a guild of 15 will necessarily have a problem playing most of the game though. I just dont think you're going to compete with the zerg guilds in owning a profitable city, or owning one at all.

Following that, though - I think territories, guilds and alliances will work themselves out fast enough that a guild of 15 could vassal to a much larger guild and enjoy everything the bigger guild does without being directly in the guild. Or in other words, I wouldnt put any stock in that concern.

Yeah, I think I am in one of those two guilds(HEROES). Hardly even got to play this past weekend mainly due to server/login issues. They were able to vote in the Mayor. Hopefully this coming up weekend fairs better.

Vinjin said:

Can you expand on this for those of us not in the Alpha? Are you saying the gameplay is more group focused and not solo? And what is it about the game that makes you think folks will need to be in a 'large' guild? Would a guild of 15 not be able to survive for some reason?

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Daidraco kind of got at it, and I dont know how much of this will carry over to the real game as things are subject to change (they have very few quests implemented atm and only a couple are worth doing xp/rewards wise) but it seems a pretty consistent situation across all the servers currently

Yes, it is a group focused game. Group size is 8, which has many pluses and some minuses, although I will say it does seem XP curves seem well adjusted at all group size levels. You just get more synergies and require less focus as the group size expands. The map is big, you are 9 times out of 10 better off staying in one spot and grinding even if it's only like 80% optimal rather than searching around for a 100% optimal spot. At least as of right now, levelling is much more old school (you even have Hell Levels at 9, 19, etc) so there is a fairly large difference between, i.e. Lv13 and Lv7 right now. I dont view any of this as a bad thing per se, I prefer encouraging a MMO to actually be MM.

I think in an ideal world, you find a like minded group of people to party with as you are levelling and then as you continue to progress towards end game with them you filter yourself into a like minded guild.

Right now in Ashes, you just kind of hit a wall at lv10ish where you have to make those decisions right away rather than letting them evolve naturally.

I also didnt think the small guilds were doing all that well. I saw them running around with their one group of people (remember, 8 man parties) where you'd have higher levels carrying their lower level stragglers with them looking for a mediocre spot to farm, presumably because they got bullied out of all the good ones. I would expect this to translate in most game scenarios where youre just about always better off playing with 200 than 20, except in maybe some cases like Caravan running where you'd bring all 20 to that and the big guild might only have a smaller portion interested in attacking your small fry guild

If you had a poopsocker 8man group of prealpha players in a small guild would they also have been pumping like the top guild groups were? Yeah probably, but I dont think it's a coincidence theyve all already been absorbed into the big guilds

I dont enjoy this nerd's stream very often, but this one was pretty good. Look forward to fighting through the area.

Watching peon play, was really impressed with the mage gameplay. Felt really impactful, and mobility helps a lot too. Just seemed like there was good oomph to the casts and hits on mobs. It’s crazy how hard that can be to get right so I think it’s a pretty big deal.

Pasteton said:

Watching peon play, was really impressed with the mage gameplay. Felt really impactful, and mobility helps a lot too. Just seemed like there was good oomph to the casts and hits on mobs. It’s crazy how hard that can be to get right so I think it’s a pretty big deal.

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I had Peon's video up while I was making lunch today. He's actually spot on about a lot of things. The questing being complete trash is probably my number one gripe. With the UI being a close second, in that its god awful, too. Hoping that since those items have gotten so much bad press, that they'll go back and work on them a lot more.

Lazy Peon nailed it, basically. Hopefully the data/feedback is finally hitting them in the face to get some effort in certain areas like UI. I wasn't kidding when I said the UI/UX experience was done by 1 retired person...

Yeah, we are not joking when we say this game is 2+ years out from May of 2025 when it actually goes Alpha 2 constant. It has a lot of work.

Mobs are stuck in objects. Corpses reanimate and fall back down as you get close to them. Corpses will sometimes whip back to their spawn point, and then you get to loot them. The UI is awful, not just passable, but awful. Half the quests are buggy and half-ass honestly. Foraging looks kind of odd when you are chopping all the way through a tree.

That being said, the class design seems pretty solid to this point, and the graphics are gorgeous. Grouping makes a difference. You can solo but groups are easier. It has a Everquest feel to leveling.

Man we straight no-lifed this weekend. Got our toons to 16 and enjoyed almost every minute of it. I could tell there were some mfers in groups I’d run over irl. Rolling on items for friends and pulling extra 3 star mobs at random. That aside still enjoyed the hell out of the time spent. Got my bard up to 16 and felt marginally stronger over time till I was able to heal and support full groups without cler. I wonder how rogue will play when introduced next month.

The rogue's strength will probably be in PvP. I am curious as to how they handle stealth.

So, now that I got to play some, I can state some issues I have.

1. PvE corpse looting. Dying to a mob/NPC causes a person to lose items and have some of those items potentially be looted by players. What is odd is that the money/dust is marked if you loot it as "Stolen". While I understand the purpose in PvP, I think the current idea is stupid. I know a craftable bag is coming that gives you 3 minutes, but really? New players will get very turned off by this system as many already are.

A compromise: When a player dies they remain a corpse for the 5 minute timer. If at any point during that timer, they are resurrected, they get all of their items back. If they release or the timer runs out, then they turn to dust and people can loot them(Turn off the stolen tag, its stupid).

You already incur an XP debt. Why are we compounding the death penalty for PvE?

2. Mounts should move faster on roads.

3. Holy lack of basic mining of copper. Fix this temporarily, until the whole game is in.

4. How the hell are mobs blocking attacks from behind. Dodge yes, block no. If I am behind a mob it should not be able to block an attack. This adds importance to fighting positions.

5. Just put the ability to find armor and weapons on everything until more of the game comes out. The crowd at Highhold was nuts at times. It was kind of fun when people complained. Actually had a group who was not on site killing, complain because we took the area while they were AFK. I told them to activate PvP and kill us for it. There are not enough areas currently.

6. The XP ratio/penalty in grouping is awful. Raise it to 5 levels with no penalty. 3 is too low. They claim this is to prevent powerleveling. This brings me to the issue that will haunt them the most..

7. What will happen when a server matures and new people essentially have to solo because there will not be enough people to group with in the level range? You "can" solo but it is tedious and boring. I am hoping that the quest systems will help to alleviate some of that problem. There actually needs to be a way to level a person up faster or to twink them with great gear, or new people will not even bother playing.( /Wave Lost Ark).

8. Weapon skill should be separate from XP. If I damage a mob, I should get weapon skill.

I enjoyed playing the game. It is fun with full groups and the combat is, so far, in a good place for Rangers. It is very Everquest like over all the other MMO's that have come out.

Asmond got griefed upon logging on, for the first time, and decided it wasn't worth tying to stream the game. So now AoC gets to reap the (bad) publicity:

Burns said:

Asmond got griefed upon logging on, for the first time, and decided it wasn't worth tying to stream the game. So now AoC gets to reap the (bad) publicity:

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It is the largest gripe of the game. The non-consensual PvP system is something that I think will eventually go away. It might take a year of Alpha-2 but if the population truly drops out over this issue, things might change. Asmongold makes two good points. If you have to create such a harsh penalty against it, why have it at all? The only people who like the system are the people that want to negatively effect other player's enjoyment of the game.

Most people want to just play a system verse the computer or an organized system like Keep verse Keep or guild verse guild.

Dark Ages of Camelot is still one of the few games that did PvP right. Have an area designed for PvP(Keep and Towers with Relic powers) that has small rewards towards PvE that acts as a motivator for all players to at least go try it out.

Mahes said:

It is the largest gripe of the game. The non-consensual PvP system is something that I think will eventually go away. It might take a year of Alpha-2 but if the population truly drops out over this issue, things might change. Asmongold makes two good points. If you have to create such a harsh penalty against it, why have it at all? The only people who like the system are the people that want to negatively effect other player's enjoyment of the game.

Most people want to just play a system verse the computer or an organized system like Keep verse Keep or guild verse guild.

Dark Ages of Camelot is still one of the few games that did PvP right. Have an area designed for PvP(Keep and Towers with Relic powers) that has small rewards towards PvE that acts as a motivator for all players to at least go try it out.

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I think we'll end up having servers with different rulesets, tbh. There are just too many people that are craving a new MMO - so if the opportunity presents itself / ie. they make a New World type rulset - then I think they'll come in droves.

With everything I've seen so far.. Im not entirely sure why we have 100% PVP availability, anyways. Am I missing the point that.. like certain resources have a limited respawn? Because I honestly cant think of anything that be locked behind a PVP flagging system outside of resources. If big raid bosses auto flag you for pvp / if caravans auto flag you for pvp a certain distance / sieges need to be scheduled at the very worst, or just auto flagged to do... etc.

If its not for the resources - whats the point in PVP'ing someone that enters your territory? Just pointless PVP at that point? Even then, there are ways that the game could go about flagging you if you're collecting resources. Like, to harvest a Tier 2+ resource, you have to flag first, and then wait 5 minutes before harvesting a node. If its territory management, if you are in a territory that is NOT your own, then when you flag - it could announce your location on the radar/map to everyone in that territory, and also within a certain distance in the neighboring territory.

I mean, Im just spit balling random rules here. But that kind of stuff is a sure-fire way to encourage someone to flag in town, but not have it required.

On the opposite side of that system, though - I think we still, very clearly, need a 100% PVP server to compliment these more carebear friendly servers.

Daidraco said:

I think we'll end up having servers with different rulesets, tbh. There are just too many people that are craving a new MMO - so if the opportunity presents itself / ie. they make a New World type rulset - then I think they'll come in droves.

With everything I've seen so far.. Im not entirely sure why we have 100% PVP availability, anyways. Am I missing the point that.. like certain resources have a limited respawn? Because I honestly cant think of anything that be locked behind a PVP flagging system outside of resources. If big raid bosses auto flag you for pvp / if caravans auto flag you for pvp a certain distance / sieges need to be scheduled at the very worst, or just auto flagged to do... etc.

If its not for the resources - whats the point in PVP'ing someone that enters your territory? Just pointless PVP at that point? Even then, there are ways that the game could go about flagging you if you're collecting resources. Like, to harvest a Tier 2+ resource, you have to flag first, and then wait 5 minutes before harvesting a node. If its territory management, if you are in a territory that is NOT your own, then when you flag - it could announce your location on the radar/map to everyone in that territory, and also within a certain distance in the neighboring territory.

I mean, Im just spit balling random rules here. But that kind of stuff is a sure-fire way to encourage someone to flag in town, but not have it required.

On the opposite side of that system, though - I think we still, very clearly, need a 100% PVP server to compliment these more carebear friendly servers.

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I thought they had a 100% pvp server already. I didnt see any pvp during the weekend on my server outside of 1 guildwar going on. If you flag up yourself are you allowed to attack anyone at will?

Xexx said:

I thought they had a 100% pvp server already. I didnt see any pvp during the weekend on my server outside of 1 guildwar going on. If you flag up yourself are you allowed to attack anyone at will?

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Yea. As it currently sits, you can flag up and kill brand new - just logged into the game, noobies. Thats why the conversation came up. Its very "Dark Fall"-ish as it sits right now, in that you are afforded no mercy at any point. I saw someone doing it when I logged in on the second weekend on a different server and just high tailed it down the hill to the town. But of course attention got drawn to the issue when it happened to Asmongold.

Also, the new world ruleset was a suggestion. Theyre all 100% pvp servers, right now afaik. RP servers, maybe? But definitely all PVP.

Since they are doing a server wipe on Dec. 20th, I wonder how chaotic stuff might get the last few days...

I didnt get to chance to do any gaming the past weekend but the grief with pvp was known from the start. Steven has this "idea" in his head and he thinks an entire game population is going to behave like orderly citizens, while those that do not should be punished. He mentions if its not political, territorial, or resource related than its abuse/harassment use of pvp flagging.

Imagine that.