How might Jackals thrive in a World filled with Lions?

Take everything you said, and view it as optimistically as possible.

Then if it isn't, complain.

There's nothing you said, that anyone should really argue is against Ashes' philosophy. Sure, not everyone can be at the top, but if the game's intended positive experience is for you to find a place, then we must rely on them to put strong effort into making that place, and preventing outcomes where not even the place exists for the average player.

So I'd say assume that there is no separation of 'good nodes' and 'useless nodes'. There is no 'Guild that is strong purely by playing more and leveling to the point where it can ignore even the general populace'. There is no situation where your Guild can't find allies to at least do what you want and progress, even if under the shadow of threat of some psychopathic Warlord.

The key is probably to understand that the psychopathic Warlord IS part of the game. It's the 'story', it's the dynamism. If you play RPGs to experience that sort of world, where conflict and despots and troubles are at least looming in your life, then that's what you get.

The point isn't to 'thrive', I don't think, exactly. It's that people already play games where they are 'the underdog', the 'little Jackals' coming up against the Leonic Empires, doing their little bit to turn the tides or keep things from getting too bad.

I'm not sure MMO players are generally looking for this experience, but at the moment, Ashes is one of only maybe 3 games that even tries to provide it, so enjoy it for what it is.

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If this is your main goal, you should look into guilds with the same goal before the release. Even if your start is staggered, I'm sure there'll be someone who leaves that guild before you start and you can then take their place and level up faster because the guild will help you.

If you do not plan on playing a lot, yet that is still your goal - this game might not be for you because there won't be any participation awards, so you'll have to work hard or smart in order to achieve great heights.

But what you can do is just enjoy the game for what it is and the gameplay for what it will be on your lvl of involvement in the game. There'll always be small guilds recruiting and there'll always be nodes to become a citizen of (unless Intrepid screw up completely and make it impossible for everyone to be one).

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Yep, I really hope people get into Steven's idea of "Node above all". Having small tightknit communities within the overall server community will be amazing, if the design works out as planned.

That part is going to be one of the hardest things to deal with, for Intrepid.

Old MMOs could be fairly 'abusive', in the sense that the bigger ones didn't have strong enough competition. They could use frustrating mechanics, time gating, annoying grinds, and unnecessary social conflicts, and people would keep coming back because it was the 'big social game' you could play.

MMOs got 'easier' partially BECAUSE they had to scale back on a lot of that, due to players just not putting up with it for particularly long, having consistently better options. Design got harder.

With FFXIV looming, even aiming to be a niche game, they're hoping to carve a very specific niche out, but it's like walking six tightropes at the same time. My suggestion to you IF even one of the things you say is true is in fact 'don't play'. By the time this game is done, we'll have three more MMOs that will almost certainly be better for inclusivity, which is what most of your points seem to be about.

Azherae wrote: »

With FFXIV looming, even aiming to be a niche game, they're hoping to carve a very specific niche out, but it's like walking six tightropes at the same time. My suggestion to you IF even one of the things you say is true is in fact 'don't play'. By the time this game is done, we'll have three more MMOs that will almost certainly be better for inclusivity, which is what most of your points seem to be about.

And I'd bet money (if I had any) that all of those mmos will just be yet another themepark casual games where you get showered with rewards for just existing.

AoC can fill the void for a not-so-casual mmo with open world pvp and pve that, allegedly, will have no p2w. If anything, Intrepid need to look at what BDO is doing wrong and do that right. Obviously quite a lot of BDO players care about the combat a lot, so I doubt Ashes can win those people over, but I'd assume a lot of other BDO players want to see a competitor to that kind of game, not only to try out smth new but to push BDO forward. That is if Pearl Abyss even care about competitors at this point.