ill give this a watch after this video and also save my take till after the video cause your opening makes me feel like you *probably* know how ashes plans to tackle this and i would assume like many understand exactly why this will probably reduce open world pvp's occurance to mostly just being around large guild conflicts over node locations or caravans or again, guild conflicts over castle locations as guilds are getting established in newly risen nodes.
8:50 i agree and i also actually like how it encourages people to engage with pvp for a reduction in their resource and glint losses on death AND to encourage people to fight back in awesome open world pvp especially since most people should and will be running in groups as all combat in the game is designed around the concept of the holy trinity being front and center INCLUDING pvp meaning no matter what your doing, running in a group will be the standard and everythings time investment will mean that people will be more likely to be properly prepared when they go out to hunt monsters or run a dungeon or gather materials because it takes time to get the group together and to get to the place as well as make it back to the city safely so with so much importance placed on each outing, if your not perparing or taking big risks like going solo, your basically begging to die even just to random pve mobs....
12:00 well i feel his take doesnt consider the point i mentioned as ryve in many ways to me seems like he still doesnt really understand ashes of creations intended design like not really getting how open world solo content especially just flat out wont exist with top level artisans all not just needing guilds money to support their crafts but also manpower to move raw and processed resoures to and from nodes and freeholds as well as to help establish who they can and cant take commisions for with mind you, this is another thing. due to how much need for good and strong social connections between players there will be because of things like each player having very few crafting professions they can even max out let alone the time it takes to max one out AND get a lot of the good recipies to call yourself a good crafter, processor, or gatherer means that people who do pk especially without good enough reason will be blacklisted by the bigger merchant guilds meaning they will need to HOPE they can find either smaller guild crafters who will probably still scalp them on the prices if they realize how desperate they are or find solos in need of work at all as they get crowded out by the guild artisans with the money and connections to become amazing artisans who are well known for their avaible servieces. sure nothing can be known for certain and of course its all a question of how well they actually make good on those planned out designs BUT if they do pan out, theres no need to worry at all.
13:30 simpler, yes... better.... no..... ashes by its design is a pvp mmo with of course, EXCELLENT pve options and of course, guilds can build around who wants to pvp and who wants to pve and that will be part of the inter guild relations as one pvp guild gets hired often to protect this pve guilds gatherers and caravans and so on. basically ashes is a live or die on its pvp or succumb to the fate we all have seen many other kickstarter mmos fall to......
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, never underestimate the power of a greifer. You could permanently mark a player, have them KoS in town by players and all NPCs and they would either make and relevel alts or even alt accounts or just find ways to deal with the punishments to continue greifing.
Prisons are filled with people who derive joy from the terror and grief of others. Always-on PvP is like catnip to normal-appearing people whose social skills are sufficient to understand giving these impulses free rein is bad, and keep them mostly in check. In an online world where negative consequences disappear when you log off, that check gets removed. 🤷♂️
I think the big difference here is...they cant PVP. The way the system works it punishes so severely that the corrupt player is essentially useless in pvp. It does, of course, open up for abuse by utilizing 3rd parties or alts...etc., though, and the instance Ryze mentioned in the tweet of attacking but not killing. Going to need to see how they adjust in practice and see what Ashes decides they want to do with it. Griefing will be a deterrent for a large portion of the playerbase...as seen by the last 20+ years of MMOs.
There are a few ways to control this kind of behavior that have not really been used well in the past. Maybe the best way to deal with it would be to lock out ALTs based on the level of corruption on the account. Once a certain level of corruption is reached on a toon the other toons on the account can not be used until the corruption is cleared for example OR making corruption account wide. If Ashes takes this kind of path then PvP will be mostly confined to legit wars/conflicts or one off rage kills. If this is combined with real XP and loot drop penalties, an active bounty system and guilds needing to police the levels of banditry in their domains to encourage growth then i think Greifing will not be a huge problem in Ashes.
Punishment systems are at a best a Signpost on the road saying "Plz no kill" Griefers generally aren't concerned about in-game consequences. If they accomplish what they wanted to do and kill that level 5, then the post-kill stat penalty or whatever is moot.
Awesome video Flynn! I personally am hoping the corruption system is extremely punishing. Numbers and determining how punishing said corruption is will be determined in alpha 2 testing, but I’d rather see corruption be TOO punishing and have to be dialed back than see it be easy to work off its negatives then later made intense. See you in alpha 2 (will protect you from pk’ers for the right amount of gold) 😉
We are hoping which means we DO NOT KNOW and speculate. Understanding main systems and how they work should be done. This is his attempt to implement a fix for the darkfall unholy wars political issues and it did not work then so lets hope he has it nailed down already. I am hopeful for his project and dropping slices seems to keep the money flowing and the hype train moving which he needs.
I played Shadowbane for years, I had quite a few accounts and characters. I multibox farmed and was farming on Oblivion, a group of 10 Dragonscale was on track so I summoned out my looter and let the rest die. They stayed at my farming spot and one of them got a godly dex , as one of my characters was still dead on the floor, I could see which one looted it. I logged in my druid (Druidya),priest (Mufin Man) and thief (RobuBlind). I ran my druid out to oblivion and summoned my thief close to the group, i then ran into the group with the druid and he died but the summons had already gone through. I then summoned my thief using my priest who was in a safe zone, The thief appeared in the middle of the group, I peaked the guy, stole the godly dex and got instantly summon back out by the priest as the timings were perfect. It took 30 minutes to get the guy to look in his inventory to see that I had stole it because he didnt believe me or my son. Reason he didnt believe me was they only saw the druid on track due to my thief in and out in seconds. I would love to chat to the leader of Dragonscale as even he said it was awesome what I did.
PvP is a hard "no" for me, I don't even play opt-in PvP. I'm not telling AoC to change, however I am saying I'm not interested in playing if it has always on PvP
I think generally the more any mmo aims to be a pvp oriented game the harder it will get to entice pve based players into it. It is totally fine if Ashes aims to be a pvp based game but I do think that choiche will come with some downsides as far as the popularity of the game is concerned. There is a good reason why there are so few permaloot games around for example. I also dont think that the subscription based nature does it any favours since this tends to limit the amount of players willing to try it.
I don't know where this "massive MMO they want to be" came from. Actually it's the exact opposite, AoC is a specific MMO game that fits in a specific niche, as said by Steven multiple upon multiple times: "this game will not be for everyone and that's okay". This game is being done, in basically, the prior of what type of game Steven wants to play and what AoC is to be, it will never be the most popular MMO ever and it never aimed to be that.
Most likely came from its popularity explosion due to content creator hype and the excitement around the ue5 move. But on the other side would you say it's a niche mmo?
@@Redbeardflynn definitely a niche MMO. A minority of players are winners and the majority are losers, see the feature set and organizational structure of a server; at any given time there will be something like half a dozen flying mounts for a server of 10 thousand+ people, for the guild leader that has castles and the mayor of the highest level nodes. In general there's no feat accomplishment in this game that isn't a risk×reward action and that's actual risk with xp penalty, item drop, etc, doing the hard things where your victory is far from guaranteed. I suspect a bunch of people when they start this game will be hit in the face when they realize they are not the main character and will never be in the game.
Risk versus Reward is part of the fabric of MMOs and has been since the beginning, it's gotten off balance in the last decade or so but even FFXIV is recognizing that the reward has gotten too easy. XP penalties...etc shouldn't make it niche. Limiting rewards to the social-political structure of guilds and nodes is going to be...interesting, though. That I can see making it much more niche as games that have tried that have struggled to find a balance from Shadowbane to ESO (emperor) to New World with town ownership and many more. That I could definitely see making it niche and making a large group of players bounce off. It's one of the biggest things that killed some shadowbane servers as small groups of players dominated servers. @@Iangamebr
My worry is PK groups that wont need to worry about corruption for the most part. Get 8-12 people together. Kill anyone and loot their resources. Green players drop twice as much, so if they dont fight back bonus. Once done, the team of PKers can go do some PvE content while they wait for their corruption to just tick away. I love PvP but this Liniage flagging system only partly worked in that game. But I am willing to try it. I would rather contested and non-contested areas.
I believe the idea is that the lower your "aggression" in corruption, as in non-combatant basically you'd drop less. I have concerns about players finding ways to grief that work around the corruption system, though because well...humanity. Hopefully they can come up with creative solutions as testing expands in Alpha 2 because this will be a core issue for player retention. I'd rather contested and non-contested areas too tbh, with some kind of incentive for the contested areas.
I think a lot of us old school MMO players are hoping so much that Ashes of Creation succeeds but over the years we have been disappointed so many times. It’s so disheartening. Please succeed AoC - We need you.
@@Redbeardflynn But the old formula still works, which explains the longevity. I don’t see AoC being THE game, but perhaps some ideas get incorporated into the next AAA successor in the genre? I suspect the next big MMO is going to be another Final Fantasy or WoW/Starcraft or LOTR iteration. It’s just so difficult in today’s world to create a highly successful MMORPG that’s not subscription based and PVE focussed. Successful MMORPGs these days have an older player base. We want what is comfortable, and we are willing to pay for it, and we can afford to. It’s similar to the NIL deals in college sports in the US: the colleges that partner with bigger sponsors will end up with better recruits over the next few years.
The problem with pvp is always the 2 or 3 high level a-holes who just gank newbies. I used to play on a PVP MUD where I had a clan of thieves and we would always RP robbing people. We would sometimes get into fights, but we would almost never try to kill people. We would rob people appropriately to their level. We'd only ask a few gold from new players. Most everyone on the server loved us because we brought tension without ruining everyone's time.
I think this is where the severity becomes so important. If its not severe enough, especially when there's a big level disparity, the system lacks teeth and becomes useless as a deterrent to griefing.
100% agree with this assessment. I think "always on PvP" can work if the objectives involve make the players work toward the objectives rather than just ganking squads. The caravans showcase showed a objective. Also your right PvP is only really fun when its a fair challenge. The "Get Good" mentality is one that is lacking understanding. Most people I would venture to say don't want to spend that kind of time "getting good". I for one just want to play the game at my own pace. Not having to rush to max level just to survive or have fun with the content. They really need to think about throttling levels per months for servers. Have Slow/Normal/Fast leveling servers. Block the slow to max level 20 Slow 4 months Max 20/Normal 2 Months Max 20/ Fast No Cap. After the first throttle raise the cap another 20 levels. It makes getting to the "End Game" content more enjoyable when you can take all the content in as you go as fast or as slow as you want. Coming back to a level 5 quest when your level 100 is a time sink with no challenge. There are people who will say "That's not fair! We shouldn't have to wait." Then you will have players like me who say "No, I just don't have that much time to sink into a game every week but in a month I can get the same progress you get in a week." Players should get to choose how they want to play and who they play with. Blocking a PvP player who has killed you three times in a row should be an option. Even if its just 24hours Ideas right Ideas.
One of the many reasons Wow was so popular was they had PvE and PvP servers catering to both types of players. The vast majority of modern MMO players are from the PvE camp. The players that love to grief will not care in the slightest about a corruption system. The issue with comparing this game to Ultima Online, PvP Wow servers, etc is this is the age of the content creator. What's going to happen when Bob the super popular streamer and his army of followers take over a server? They will dominate everything. Zerg zones, trade routes, politics, resources, money, world bosses, open dungeons, etc. Want to earn a freehold? Sorry, they already own them all. Solo players and even guilds will never be able to keep up with them financially. Lose all your gear from the corruption system? Who cares, go get a new set from your thirty crafters. Lesser stats? Who cares, stay in the back row of the zerg or just load one of your alts. I've seen nobody talking about this and it could in fact be impossible to stop. I myself enjoy open world PvP, but this is a different monster all together.
I don't have much faith in the corruption system to stop ganking. They'll just end up driving off both types of players--the absolutely-no-PvP crowd (who might otherwise be ok with the organized PvP as they aren't forced into participation) and the gankers (too much effort/time involved in RPing the bad guy). I'm an EVE vet, though. I love this style of gameplay, and it's all about finding a group to gang up with, whether it's going full industrial, roaming PvP, or loftier goals of territorial control. That said, I've already found my guild, I think, but won't be in Alpha 2 (sadge, sorta). Years of experience has taught me to be careful about new MMOs in general, and those initial launches are a rough road to travel. I think they'll be getting my money at some point, but not yet. I may not be from Missouri, but I say "show me."
What if they instituted a PvP buff that's scaleable with player levels. The lower you are, the better the PvP buff. The buff perhaps could just be enough for the player to at least run away and call friends nearby or if they are out too far by themselves then they are screwed. Something like that.
That's kind of what New World has tried...it hasn't really worked. But New World also uses opt-in pvp, as do most MMOs at this stage even when there is world pvp.
People would probably just find out the most optimal level, and gear combination, and make groups of characters using this combination, and then gank anyone vulnerable.
I'm curious what it would be like if there was like a proportion Force provided by some god or goddess so 40 people could jump one dude and that one dude is now able to hold his own for a while good chance he's going to die but also good chance he's going to kill a couple people before he dies. Some sort of ambient pro Carnage force of nature. And then people seeing that one-sided fight happening can feel encouraged to jump into it due to various incentives that make fighting more valuable than the disincentive of dying
I still think Pantheon is going to be what I end up really playing. Ashes of creation looks way better in visuals and probably even mechanics. 64 classes is impossible to balance and people will find ways to grief in more ways than murder. Plus what good is this murder system if no one can realistically kill these people? This game isn't for casual players and I'm 39 years old with 4 kids. Although I can still hold my own and parse legendary in wow and do well in pvp there too I don't have time to keep up on PVP. If PVP is stranglethorn vale death madness and not a fair battle ground I don't want it. If I want to PVP I'll play league of legends or something where I can start on an even playing field. Getting stomped by some kid who has no job doesn't sound fun to me especially when I bet I could beat him on an even playing field. No thanks ashes. Call me a loser, or a noob, but I'll just go slowly level in pantheon while my kids are finally asleep at night.
Pantheon is still my preferred. I like structured PvP whether its small or large scale and its essential to Ashes of Creation with the way their nodes work but the corruption system seems like it could verge on doing very similar things to what a pvp toggle would do: getting rid of non-consensual pvp. It just makes me wonder why that isn't just the route they go...but I'm sure someone more tapped in to Ashes of Creation will have a better answer than I would.
We need a modern version of DAoC from 15 years ago. It's not just nostalgia, the PVP 1vs1vs1 faction with dedicated zones and objectives is just the best. Not 1vs1 or multiple vsGuilds with full pvp. Dedicated classes and not all rounder etc. You don't need 1billion players per server either, local fast and stable is the best. Studios are always trying to oversell their product and do more cuz thats how you get funding :/ A mmo is a bet
Wondering the extent of the corruption system in alpha 2. I would like to test how it works and help them get it right. If they solve this issue it will broaden the scope of players interested.
Ashes of Creation is trying to be too much and to address too many caveats that it feels it’s having an identity crisis. The game looks beautiful and they have an attempt at a new class system and regional “node” system. I don’t expect a good story system here. The story has been the area they have not discussed much, and FF14 showed a solid story can corner a market. I can imagine AoC will have massive release hype, then see a 90-day drop off. I’m pulling for them, but this screams of eventual loot boxes for PVP in order to make money.
Not really lol they keep stating that they’re all in on PvP and that they don’t want people thinking that there will be a big focus on PvE, it’s all these people that want PvE that want the game to change.
@@cmoney163 Yet they keep coming back to limiting PVP and have started trying to promote PVE areas of the game. That’s the point of my comment: they are trying to appease too many folks. I’m guessing their internal marketing stats are showing mostly PVP doesn’t have as large a crowd as they expected, or perhaps the shift toward more PVP has created a reduction in interactions? I haven’t seen if the class system has changed or not, but 6 years ago it was focussed on both vertical and horizontal development with advanced classes. Creating 60+ classes is not a PVP focussed approach. AoC feels like Dark Age of Camelot without a consistent focus.
Steven has effectively said: PK/Griefing will NOT ruin this game I am developing. People will be watching and sliders (corruption penalties) will be adjusted as necessary.
Oh boy, trust me, provoke bards in UO were NOT worthless in pvp. All you gotta do is go into a dungeon, grab a balron or dragon or something and have it chase you towards some noobs, then just peace make once it gets near them or provoke if they are gray or you gonna murder.
Haha I was a fencer bard (I literally had no idea what I was doing)...and you couldn't provoke to attack players when I played. I only learned the strength of peacmaking later in UO. I did get to play before they had skill minimums for provo, though so I was able to go and provo dragons with enough...tenacity (Spamming my hotkey while running for my life)
Thanks for letting me know. Seems to have corrupted at some point during the upload so unfortunately I can't post-fix without re-uploading the whole video.
Sounds like you've never heard of EVE Online at all, which has forced PVP, and nodes in control. Kind of baffling what you're saying yet the most popular full PVP mmo you seemed to know nothing about. Griefing will be 100% in this game, and it will take a lot away from PVE. Same way it does in EVE Online, EVE Online has not been able to balance this enough to make people happy, that's why its so niche. This will make AoC the same way, it will be an MMO but its popularity will fall fast.
Isn't the key difference here that Eve Online is built around PvP and doesn't have a PK system? UO and Shadowbane were my examples which came before Eve Online and had different approaches, no PK system in Shadowbane which made griefing the norm and a weak PK system in Ultima Online until they added Trammel which separated PvP from PvE areas.
@@Redbeardflynn EVE Online has high-security which is supposed to punish players, but players find ways around it. Even if they lose money, the reward of griefing another player and farming their reactions is generally worth the loss. Multiboxers abuse it the most, all i'm saying is every open world pvp game has problems with balance. Casual players wont want to deal with it.
Great vid, but coming from DayZ (horrible game, don't buy it) as my main for years... I personally do not see what the problem is. Haven't played any MMO's with PK (which is why I ask the following), putting the corruption mechanic & grief banning aside, does community policing and the players personal reputation not matter for anything in MMO's? Word of mouth isn't a thing? Like, if people on the server are being a-holes, doesn't that just lead to a bad personal irl reputation and the majority of the server not wanting to engage with them (read: trade, sell to, work with)? And what is the real loss in getting PK'd? A bit of loot? Gotta run back and get more mats (and if the process/thought of having to collect more mats is boring/annoying to you, why are you even playing an MMO)? The world being dangerous, the risk of loss, and being challenged is, to me, what make doing well so great in games. Kinda like how here on the west coast it's so beautiful and lushly green because it rains all the time and when it is sunny it is glorious. There is no beauty without pain.
0:49 I remember playing on PVP on EQ2 and trying to betray from Freeport to Qeynos at like lvl 10... Probably one of the worst experiences I've ever had lol. Needing to log in extremely early in the morning because otherwise I would get spawn camped trying to gain faction. I've had good experiences in PVP, like I found how new world did it mostly acceptable (though that game had a miriade of other problems), and how battlegrounds was super fun in EQ2 (before they got rid of it for some reason?).. but I'm always cautious about always on PVP stuff.
It's not griefing if you crack jokes with the person afterwards. Don't be butthurt if you lose, don't be an asshole when you win. From EVE Online I learnt that people who call it "griefing" are people who would stomp you the moment they outnumber you 3 to 1 and you are at half HP. Also, Toggled On/Off PVP means way more toxicity than you think. In WoW, people on your faction will steal your mining ore right in front of you as you fight 2 mobs, and they do it cause there is no retaliation on your part. That's toxicity, that's griefing. The open world PVP solves that issue, DRASTICALLY. Someone steals your ore? Delete them. There you go on your merry way, carrying the ore they stole from you, problem solved. It also means all bots are running Toggled Off, so you see a bot, you kill a bot. That's how botting is solved. Corruption only punishes the persistent PK. And let's be honest, people who are at war with your faction / city / guild will just kill you just for fun, and those guys will do it repeatedly, they do not get punished over it with Corruption.
I come from Lineage 2, where no anti-griefing system is in place, in an always enabled pvp world. I haven't experienced such griefing that people talk about in videos of Ashes. The only time I met a stupid guy pk me was at lower levels. But you do get a buff that protects you from players 10 levels higher. They hit you but cannot damage you. Always on pvp is not that bad, and other than the above experience, players are behaved. That's from my ~14 years of MMO. If you kill too many players in Lineage you start dropping your gear.
Most of the people that complain about getting killed by another player are those that insist on playing solo. I dont get why so many people want to run solo in an MMO, defeats the whole purpose of the game. Sometimes you cant help it due to player counts but in large grouping wins over. Games like EQ where PKing a constant item farmer would be ideal... Games like DAoC where it was designated PvP (RvR) areas was fantastic. One area to level, one area to PvP.
@@Redbeardflynn no. What you're calling a problem is not a problem for any of the early supporters or for the devs and if it's changed, this game will be the next New World because that's exactly what happened to that game
Open world PVP is hard=NO to me I played UO and still remember being killed day on in town center logged out uninstalled and learned to never play or support a Open world PVP. This is going to be a griefing and ganking game. I enjoy the support PVE games and will continue to spend money on them been supporting DDO and STO since there beta days always purchasing there Expansions to support there playstyles. What made WOW great was the separation of PVE and PVP gameplay. These developers will never learn that always on PVP will not attract the majority of PVE players. EVE has same issue trying to get more PVE players but refuse to balance or separate the players and that's fine they can continue with 2100 players and never attract new players. Ganking and PKing will eventually run all the PVE players out of a game this has been proven over and over again. I wish them great success but this is failure from start you have to decide whether its PVE or PVP but you will never have both in open world.
I have a feeling that when not if, major problems and loopholes are discovered in the corruption system, that Steven will just blame the victim, and say that the problem doesn't exist.
*Can Ashes Of Creation solve it's biggest problem?* *Yes. If you understand the difference between meaningful pvp, and ganking - then you know the Corruption system, and Bounty Hunter system solve this problem other games have.*
Sorry, but Ashes biggest problem isn't griefers, thats up there. But, nothing comes close to macro-exploration or player-created stories. Modern questing is so boring, and exploration is literally non-existent.
Thats why I like what I've seen with the story arch system. Less impressed with commissions but we'll see. Always been a fan of non-quest centric MMOs myself because then you're less likely to "hub"
@@Redbeardflynn I'll have to look back into this "story arch system", it sounds familiar. Though from what I've seen lately, it looks like the gameplay loop for questing will consist of: accept "quest"->slap the objective on the screen->tell the player on the map where to go.
On the PVE side of Ashes, this feature might be the most exciting to me: th-cam.com/video/9XF9tmDF4Rc/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Redbeardflynn
ill give this a watch after this video and also save my take till after the video cause your opening makes me feel like you *probably* know how ashes plans to tackle this and i would assume like many understand exactly why this will probably reduce open world pvp's occurance to mostly just being around large guild conflicts over node locations or caravans or again, guild conflicts over castle locations as guilds are getting established in newly risen nodes.
1:ooook so yea you seem to get it... ill let ya continue than good sir!
8:50 i agree and i also actually like how it encourages people to engage with pvp for a reduction in their resource and glint losses on death AND to encourage people to fight back in awesome open world pvp especially since most people should and will be running in groups as all combat in the game is designed around the concept of the holy trinity being front and center INCLUDING pvp meaning no matter what your doing, running in a group will be the standard and everythings time investment will mean that people will be more likely to be properly prepared when they go out to hunt monsters or run a dungeon or gather materials because it takes time to get the group together and to get to the place as well as make it back to the city safely so with so much importance placed on each outing, if your not perparing or taking big risks like going solo, your basically begging to die even just to random pve mobs....
12:00 well i feel his take doesnt consider the point i mentioned as ryve in many ways to me seems like he still doesnt really understand ashes of creations intended design like not really getting how open world solo content especially just flat out wont exist with top level artisans all not just needing guilds money to support their crafts but also manpower to move raw and processed resoures to and from nodes and freeholds as well as to help establish who they can and cant take commisions for with mind you, this is another thing. due to how much need for good and strong social connections between players there will be because of things like each player having very few crafting professions they can even max out let alone the time it takes to max one out AND get a lot of the good recipies to call yourself a good crafter, processor, or gatherer means that people who do pk especially without good enough reason will be blacklisted by the bigger merchant guilds meaning they will need to HOPE they can find either smaller guild crafters who will probably still scalp them on the prices if they realize how desperate they are or find solos in need of work at all as they get crowded out by the guild artisans with the money and connections to become amazing artisans who are well known for their avaible servieces. sure nothing can be known for certain and of course its all a question of how well they actually make good on those planned out designs BUT if they do pan out, theres no need to worry at all.
13:30 simpler, yes... better.... no..... ashes by its design is a pvp mmo with of course, EXCELLENT pve options and of course, guilds can build around who wants to pvp and who wants to pve and that will be part of the inter guild relations as one pvp guild gets hired often to protect this pve guilds gatherers and caravans and so on. basically ashes is a live or die on its pvp or succumb to the fate we all have seen many other kickstarter mmos fall to......
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, never underestimate the power of a greifer. You could permanently mark a player, have them KoS in town by players and all NPCs and they would either make and relevel alts or even alt accounts or just find ways to deal with the punishments to continue greifing.
Prisons are filled with people who derive joy from the terror and grief of others.
Always-on PvP is like catnip to normal-appearing people whose social skills are sufficient to understand giving these impulses free rein is bad, and keep them mostly in check. In an online world where negative consequences disappear when you log off, that check gets removed. 🤷♂️
I think the big difference here is...they cant PVP. The way the system works it punishes so severely that the corrupt player is essentially useless in pvp. It does, of course, open up for abuse by utilizing 3rd parties or alts...etc., though, and the instance Ryze mentioned in the tweet of attacking but not killing.
Going to need to see how they adjust in practice and see what Ashes decides they want to do with it. Griefing will be a deterrent for a large portion of the playerbase...as seen by the last 20+ years of MMOs.
But that was the case in UO too, I was there, in 1998. If you give players the option to grief other players they WILL do so.
@@Redbeardflynn
@@scotthubbard9657 Yep. There's always a way to exploit a coded system and grief people. And people will definitely find it and (ab)use it.
There are a few ways to control this kind of behavior that have not really been used well in the past. Maybe the best way to deal with it would be to lock out ALTs based on the level of corruption on the account. Once a certain level of corruption is reached on a toon the other toons on the account can not be used until the corruption is cleared for example OR making corruption account wide. If Ashes takes this kind of path then PvP will be mostly confined to legit wars/conflicts or one off rage kills. If this is combined with real XP and loot drop penalties, an active bounty system and guilds needing to police the levels of banditry in their domains to encourage growth then i think Greifing will not be a huge problem in Ashes.
Punishment systems are at a best a Signpost on the road saying "Plz no kill"
Griefers generally aren't concerned about in-game consequences. If they accomplish what they wanted to do and kill that level 5, then the post-kill stat penalty or whatever is moot.
Awesome video Flynn! I personally am hoping the corruption system is extremely punishing. Numbers and determining how punishing said corruption is will be determined in alpha 2 testing, but I’d rather see corruption be TOO punishing and have to be dialed back than see it be easy to work off its negatives then later made intense. See you in alpha 2
(will protect you from pk’ers for the right amount of gold) 😉
I'm going to be broke in this game paying for protection, aren't I?
@@Redbeardflynn not if those caravan runs are successful 😉
We are hoping which means we DO NOT KNOW and speculate. Understanding main systems and how they work should be done. This is his attempt to implement a fix for the darkfall unholy wars political issues and it did not work then so lets hope he has it nailed down already. I am hopeful for his project and dropping slices seems to keep the money flowing and the hype train moving which he needs.
Just create a kingdom system like PENANCE did and it solves this problem in a blink. @@Nyce-Gaming
They haven’t done alpha 2 yet? It’s been 7-8 years since they started development. Are the non-crowdfunding investors actually hanging around?
I played Shadowbane for years, I had quite a few accounts and characters.
I multibox farmed and was farming on Oblivion, a group of 10 Dragonscale
was on track so I summoned out my looter and let the rest die.
They stayed at my farming spot and one of them got a godly dex , as one
of my characters was still dead on the floor, I could see which one looted
it. I logged in my druid (Druidya),priest (Mufin Man) and thief (RobuBlind).
I ran my druid out to oblivion and summoned my thief close to the group, i
then ran into the group with the druid and he died but the summons had already
gone through. I then summoned my thief using my priest who was in a safe
zone, The thief appeared in the middle of the group, I peaked the guy,
stole the godly dex and got instantly summon back out by the priest
as the timings were perfect.
It took 30 minutes to get the guy to look in his inventory to see that
I had stole it because he didnt believe me or my son.
Reason he didnt believe me was they only saw the druid on track due to
my thief in and out in seconds. I would love to chat to the leader of
Dragonscale as even he said it was awesome what I did.
PvP is a hard "no" for me, I don't even play opt-in PvP. I'm not telling AoC to change, however I am saying I'm not interested in playing if it has always on PvP
I think generally the more any mmo aims to be a pvp oriented game the harder it will get to entice pve based players into it. It is totally fine if Ashes aims to be a pvp based game but I do think that choiche will come with some downsides as far as the popularity of the game is concerned. There is a good reason why there are so few permaloot games around for example. I also dont think that the subscription based nature does it any favours since this tends to limit the amount of players willing to try it.
Woot! Go Shadowbane!
I'll name drop shadowbane whenever I can
Loved SB. Best rubber banding ever at time though!
I don't know where this "massive MMO they want to be" came from.
Actually it's the exact opposite, AoC is a specific MMO game that fits in a specific niche, as said by Steven multiple upon multiple times: "this game will not be for everyone and that's okay".
This game is being done, in basically, the prior of what type of game Steven wants to play and what AoC is to be, it will never be the most popular MMO ever and it never aimed to be that.
Most likely came from its popularity explosion due to content creator hype and the excitement around the ue5 move. But on the other side would you say it's a niche mmo?
@@Redbeardflynn definitely a niche MMO.
A minority of players are winners and the majority are losers, see the feature set and organizational structure of a server; at any given time there will be something like half a dozen flying mounts for a server of 10 thousand+ people, for the guild leader that has castles and the mayor of the highest level nodes.
In general there's no feat accomplishment in this game that isn't a risk×reward action and that's actual risk with xp penalty, item drop, etc, doing the hard things where your victory is far from guaranteed.
I suspect a bunch of people when they start this game will be hit in the face when they realize they are not the main character and will never be in the game.
Risk versus Reward is part of the fabric of MMOs and has been since the beginning, it's gotten off balance in the last decade or so but even FFXIV is recognizing that the reward has gotten too easy. XP penalties...etc shouldn't make it niche.
Limiting rewards to the social-political structure of guilds and nodes is going to be...interesting, though. That I can see making it much more niche as games that have tried that have struggled to find a balance from Shadowbane to ESO (emperor) to New World with town ownership and many more.
That I could definitely see making it niche and making a large group of players bounce off. It's one of the biggest things that killed some shadowbane servers as small groups of players dominated servers.
@@Iangamebr
My worry is PK groups that wont need to worry about corruption for the most part. Get 8-12 people together. Kill anyone and loot their resources. Green players drop twice as much, so if they dont fight back bonus. Once done, the team of PKers can go do some PvE content while they wait for their corruption to just tick away. I love PvP but this Liniage flagging system only partly worked in that game. But I am willing to try it. I would rather contested and non-contested areas.
I believe the idea is that the lower your "aggression" in corruption, as in non-combatant basically you'd drop less. I have concerns about players finding ways to grief that work around the corruption system, though because well...humanity. Hopefully they can come up with creative solutions as testing expands in Alpha 2 because this will be a core issue for player retention.
I'd rather contested and non-contested areas too tbh, with some kind of incentive for the contested areas.
I think a lot of us old school MMO players are hoping so much that Ashes of Creation succeeds but over the years we have been disappointed so many times. It’s so disheartening. Please succeed AoC - We need you.
There's a need for new MMOs in the space as many in the top 5 or top 10 are a decade old or older at this point.
@@Redbeardflynn But the old formula still works, which explains the longevity. I don’t see AoC being THE game, but perhaps some ideas get incorporated into the next AAA successor in the genre?
I suspect the next big MMO is going to be another Final Fantasy or WoW/Starcraft or LOTR iteration. It’s just so difficult in today’s world to create a highly successful MMORPG that’s not subscription based and PVE focussed.
Successful MMORPGs these days have an older player base. We want what is comfortable, and we are willing to pay for it, and we can afford to. It’s similar to the NIL deals in college sports in the US: the colleges that partner with bigger sponsors will end up with better recruits over the next few years.
The problem with pvp is always the 2 or 3 high level a-holes who just gank newbies.
I used to play on a PVP MUD where I had a clan of thieves and we would always RP robbing people. We would sometimes get into fights, but we would almost never try to kill people. We would rob people appropriately to their level. We'd only ask a few gold from new players. Most everyone on the server loved us because we brought tension without ruining everyone's time.
I think this is where the severity becomes so important. If its not severe enough, especially when there's a big level disparity, the system lacks teeth and becomes useless as a deterrent to griefing.
Still interested in the game. Still worried about the PKs.
100% agree with this assessment. I think "always on PvP" can work if the objectives involve make the players work toward the objectives rather than just ganking squads. The caravans showcase showed a objective. Also your right PvP is only really fun when its a fair challenge. The "Get Good" mentality is one that is lacking understanding. Most people I would venture to say don't want to spend that kind of time "getting good". I for one just want to play the game at my own pace. Not having to rush to max level just to survive or have fun with the content. They really need to think about throttling levels per months for servers. Have Slow/Normal/Fast leveling servers. Block the slow to max level 20 Slow 4 months Max 20/Normal 2 Months Max 20/ Fast No Cap. After the first throttle raise the cap another 20 levels. It makes getting to the "End Game" content more enjoyable when you can take all the content in as you go as fast or as slow as you want. Coming back to a level 5 quest when your level 100 is a time sink with no challenge. There are people who will say "That's not fair! We shouldn't have to wait." Then you will have players like me who say "No, I just don't have that much time to sink into a game every week but in a month I can get the same progress you get in a week." Players should get to choose how they want to play and who they play with. Blocking a PvP player who has killed you three times in a row should be an option. Even if its just 24hours Ideas right Ideas.
One of the many reasons Wow was so popular was they had PvE and PvP servers catering to both types of players. The vast majority of modern MMO players are from the PvE camp. The players that love to grief will not care in the slightest about a corruption system. The issue with comparing this game to Ultima Online, PvP Wow servers, etc is this is the age of the content creator.
What's going to happen when Bob the super popular streamer and his army of followers take over a server? They will dominate everything. Zerg zones, trade routes, politics, resources, money, world bosses, open dungeons, etc. Want to earn a freehold? Sorry, they already own them all. Solo players and even guilds will never be able to keep up with them financially.
Lose all your gear from the corruption system? Who cares, go get a new set from your thirty crafters. Lesser stats? Who cares, stay in the back row of the zerg or just load one of your alts.
I've seen nobody talking about this and it could in fact be impossible to stop.
I myself enjoy open world PvP, but this is a different monster all together.
I don't have much faith in the corruption system to stop ganking. They'll just end up driving off both types of players--the absolutely-no-PvP crowd (who might otherwise be ok with the organized PvP as they aren't forced into participation) and the gankers (too much effort/time involved in RPing the bad guy). I'm an EVE vet, though. I love this style of gameplay, and it's all about finding a group to gang up with, whether it's going full industrial, roaming PvP, or loftier goals of territorial control.
That said, I've already found my guild, I think, but won't be in Alpha 2 (sadge, sorta). Years of experience has taught me to be careful about new MMOs in general, and those initial launches are a rough road to travel. I think they'll be getting my money at some point, but not yet. I may not be from Missouri, but I say "show me."
I love games with open worlds and pvp but I can't stand always on pvp. They need a flag system.
What if they instituted a PvP buff that's scaleable with player levels. The lower you are, the better the PvP buff. The buff perhaps could just be enough for the player to at least run away and call friends nearby or if they are out too far by themselves then they are screwed. Something like that.
That's kind of what New World has tried...it hasn't really worked. But New World also uses opt-in pvp, as do most MMOs at this stage even when there is world pvp.
People would probably just find out the most optimal level, and gear combination, and make groups of characters using this combination, and then gank anyone vulnerable.
I usually don't like to brag, but back in college I was the Men's Freestyle Fleeing Champion.
Two years running.
Rallos Zek PvP was terrifying. But I still remember reaching max level on a bard and never being killed because of Selo’s 😂
I'm curious what it would be like if there was like a proportion Force provided by some god or goddess so 40 people could jump one dude and that one dude is now able to hold his own for a while good chance he's going to die but also good chance he's going to kill a couple people before he dies. Some sort of ambient pro Carnage force of nature. And then people seeing that one-sided fight happening can feel encouraged to jump into it due to various incentives that make fighting more valuable than the disincentive of dying
I still think Pantheon is going to be what I end up really playing. Ashes of creation looks way better in visuals and probably even mechanics. 64 classes is impossible to balance and people will find ways to grief in more ways than murder. Plus what good is this murder system if no one can realistically kill these people? This game isn't for casual players and I'm 39 years old with 4 kids. Although I can still hold my own and parse legendary in wow and do well in pvp there too I don't have time to keep up on PVP. If PVP is stranglethorn vale death madness and not a fair battle ground I don't want it. If I want to PVP I'll play league of legends or something where I can start on an even playing field. Getting stomped by some kid who has no job doesn't sound fun to me especially when I bet I could beat him on an even playing field. No thanks ashes. Call me a loser, or a noob, but I'll just go slowly level in pantheon while my kids are finally asleep at night.
Pantheon is still my preferred. I like structured PvP whether its small or large scale and its essential to Ashes of Creation with the way their nodes work but the corruption system seems like it could verge on doing very similar things to what a pvp toggle would do: getting rid of non-consensual pvp. It just makes me wonder why that isn't just the route they go...but I'm sure someone more tapped in to Ashes of Creation will have a better answer than I would.
I will be testing both.
We need a modern version of DAoC from 15 years ago. It's not just nostalgia, the PVP 1vs1vs1 faction with dedicated zones and objectives is just the best. Not 1vs1 or multiple vsGuilds with full pvp. Dedicated classes and not all rounder etc. You don't need 1billion players per server either, local fast and stable is the best. Studios are always trying to oversell their product and do more cuz thats how you get funding :/ A mmo is a bet
Wondering the extent of the corruption system in alpha 2. I would like to test how it works and help them get it right. If they solve this issue it will broaden the scope of players interested.
They need to test out the corruption system. Tune it to a sweet spot where griefing opens you up to bounties and losing your gear or valuables
Ashes of Creation is trying to be too much and to address too many caveats that it feels it’s having an identity crisis. The game looks beautiful and they have an attempt at a new class system and regional “node” system. I don’t expect a good story system here. The story has been the area they have not discussed much, and FF14 showed a solid story can corner a market.
I can imagine AoC will have massive release hype, then see a 90-day drop off. I’m pulling for them, but this screams of eventual loot boxes for PVP in order to make money.
Not really lol they keep stating that they’re all in on PvP and that they don’t want people thinking that there will be a big focus on PvE, it’s all these people that want PvE that want the game to change.
@@cmoney163 Yet they keep coming back to limiting PVP and have started trying to promote PVE areas of the game. That’s the point of my comment: they are trying to appease too many folks.
I’m guessing their internal marketing stats are showing mostly PVP doesn’t have as large a crowd as they expected, or perhaps the shift toward more PVP has created a reduction in interactions?
I haven’t seen if the class system has changed or not, but 6 years ago it was focussed on both vertical and horizontal development with advanced classes. Creating 60+ classes is not a PVP focussed approach.
AoC feels like Dark Age of Camelot without a consistent focus.
Seems like a great system so far, we’ll have to see how it goes.
Steven has effectively said: PK/Griefing will NOT ruin this game I am developing. People will be watching and sliders (corruption penalties) will be adjusted as necessary.
I don't believe that he knows what he is talking about. He has said insane and stupid things before, so I don't think he deserves trust.
Oh boy, trust me, provoke bards in UO were NOT worthless in pvp. All you gotta do is go into a dungeon, grab a balron or dragon or something and have it chase you towards some noobs, then just peace make once it gets near them or provoke if they are gray or you gonna murder.
Haha I was a fencer bard (I literally had no idea what I was doing)...and you couldn't provoke to attack players when I played. I only learned the strength of peacmaking later in UO. I did get to play before they had skill minimums for provo, though so I was able to go and provo dragons with enough...tenacity (Spamming my hotkey while running for my life)
Your audio cut out for a sec around 13:00
Thanks for letting me know. Seems to have corrupted at some point during the upload so unfortunately I can't post-fix without re-uploading the whole video.
@@Redbeardflynn I re-upload sometimes. I hate having to.
The biggest AoC's problem is being "they never gonna release this fantasy Star Citizen" MMO. I doubt this problem will be solved.
I think the biggest issue with mmo pvp is that it’s heavily based on gear, at that point it’s basically all about who no-life’s the game the most lol
Your general mmo player hate pvp. Ashes will never be a big success because the pvp player base is too small.
If people played archeage it would answer alot of questions how they want the game to play
Sounds like you've never heard of EVE Online at all, which has forced PVP, and nodes in control. Kind of baffling what you're saying yet the most popular full PVP mmo you seemed to know nothing about. Griefing will be 100% in this game, and it will take a lot away from PVE. Same way it does in EVE Online, EVE Online has not been able to balance this enough to make people happy, that's why its so niche. This will make AoC the same way, it will be an MMO but its popularity will fall fast.
Isn't the key difference here that Eve Online is built around PvP and doesn't have a PK system? UO and Shadowbane were my examples which came before Eve Online and had different approaches, no PK system in Shadowbane which made griefing the norm and a weak PK system in Ultima Online until they added Trammel which separated PvP from PvE areas.
@@Redbeardflynn EVE Online has high-security which is supposed to punish players, but players find ways around it. Even if they lose money, the reward of griefing another player and farming their reactions is generally worth the loss. Multiboxers abuse it the most, all i'm saying is every open world pvp game has problems with balance. Casual players wont want to deal with it.
Great vid, but coming from DayZ (horrible game, don't buy it) as my main for years... I personally do not see what the problem is.
Haven't played any MMO's with PK (which is why I ask the following), putting the corruption mechanic & grief banning aside, does community policing and the players personal reputation not matter for anything in MMO's? Word of mouth isn't a thing? Like, if people on the server are being a-holes, doesn't that just lead to a bad personal irl reputation and the majority of the server not wanting to engage with them (read: trade, sell to, work with)?
And what is the real loss in getting PK'd? A bit of loot? Gotta run back and get more mats (and if the process/thought of having to collect more mats is boring/annoying to you, why are you even playing an MMO)?
The world being dangerous, the risk of loss, and being challenged is, to me, what make doing well so great in games. Kinda like how here on the west coast it's so beautiful and lushly green because it rains all the time and when it is sunny it is glorious.
There is no beauty without pain.
As the philosopher Nietzsche once said, "That which does not kill you, hurts a lot."
0:49 I remember playing on PVP on EQ2 and trying to betray from Freeport to Qeynos at like lvl 10... Probably one of the worst experiences I've ever had lol. Needing to log in extremely early in the morning because otherwise I would get spawn camped trying to gain faction.
I've had good experiences in PVP, like I found how new world did it mostly acceptable (though that game had a miriade of other problems), and how battlegrounds was super fun in EQ2 (before they got rid of it for some reason?).. but I'm always cautious about always on PVP stuff.
It's not griefing if you crack jokes with the person afterwards. Don't be butthurt if you lose, don't be an asshole when you win. From EVE Online I learnt that people who call it "griefing" are people who would stomp you the moment they outnumber you 3 to 1 and you are at half HP.
Also, Toggled On/Off PVP means way more toxicity than you think. In WoW, people on your faction will steal your mining ore right in front of you as you fight 2 mobs, and they do it cause there is no retaliation on your part. That's toxicity, that's griefing. The open world PVP solves that issue, DRASTICALLY. Someone steals your ore? Delete them. There you go on your merry way, carrying the ore they stole from you, problem solved. It also means all bots are running Toggled Off, so you see a bot, you kill a bot. That's how botting is solved.
Corruption only punishes the persistent PK. And let's be honest, people who are at war with your faction / city / guild will just kill you just for fun, and those guys will do it repeatedly, they do not get punished over it with Corruption.
I come from Lineage 2, where no anti-griefing system is in place, in an always enabled pvp world. I haven't experienced such griefing that people talk about in videos of Ashes.
The only time I met a stupid guy pk me was at lower levels. But you do get a buff that protects you from players 10 levels higher. They hit you but cannot damage you.
Always on pvp is not that bad, and other than the above experience, players are behaved. That's from my ~14 years of MMO. If you kill too many players in Lineage you start dropping your gear.
Most of the people that complain about getting killed by another player are those that insist on playing solo. I dont get why so many people want to run solo in an MMO, defeats the whole purpose of the game. Sometimes you cant help it due to player counts but in large grouping wins over. Games like EQ where PKing a constant item farmer would be ideal...
Games like DAoC where it was designated PvP (RvR) areas was fantastic. One area to level, one area to PvP.
sorry to say it but Ashes isn't being made for you
Oh shoot, it's not?
@@Redbeardflynn no. What you're calling a problem is not a problem for any of the early supporters or for the devs and if it's changed, this game will be the next New World because that's exactly what happened to that game
@@returnofthemac416 ganking and griefing is a stated problem from sharif himself though, no?
Open world PVP is hard=NO to me I played UO and still remember being killed day on in town center logged out uninstalled and learned to never play or support a Open world PVP. This is going to be a griefing and ganking game. I enjoy the support PVE games and will continue to spend money on them been supporting DDO and STO since there beta days always purchasing there Expansions to support there playstyles. What made WOW great was the separation of PVE and PVP gameplay. These developers will never learn that always on PVP will not attract the majority of PVE players. EVE has same issue trying to get more PVE players but refuse to balance or separate the players and that's fine they can continue with 2100 players and never attract new players. Ganking and PKing will eventually run all the PVE players out of a game this has been proven over and over again. I wish them great success but this is failure from start you have to decide whether its PVE or PVP but you will never have both in open world.
I have a feeling that when not if, major problems and loopholes are discovered in the corruption system, that Steven will just blame the victim, and say that the problem doesn't exist.
after 14 minutes i realized i got click baited. damn lol
Well damn that sounds like good click bait. How so?
@@Redbeardflynn idk. im insane. dont listen to me.
*Can Ashes Of Creation solve it's biggest problem?*
*Yes. If you understand the difference between meaningful pvp, and ganking - then you know the Corruption system, and Bounty Hunter system solve this problem other games have.*
Sorry, but Ashes biggest problem isn't griefers, thats up there. But, nothing comes close to macro-exploration or player-created stories. Modern questing is so boring, and exploration is literally non-existent.
Thats why I like what I've seen with the story arch system. Less impressed with commissions but we'll see. Always been a fan of non-quest centric MMOs myself because then you're less likely to "hub"
@@Redbeardflynn I'll have to look back into this "story arch system", it sounds familiar. Though from what I've seen lately, it looks like the gameplay loop for questing will consist of: accept "quest"->slap the objective on the screen->tell the player on the map where to go.
BDO karma system with flagging works well.
imagine developing a mmo for so long just to flop in 6 months or so...