Throne and Liberty systems similar to AoC & Their twist on them

Azherae wrote: »

Can you tell me why you think that the players who want Always On Open World PvP would 'settle for' this, though?

Like I said, majority of their gameplay would most likely be spent in the "dangerous" areas, so I personally don't think that they'd care about a few newbs running through the hills.

I'm obviously basing this purely on my experience in L2, where the majority of people would just run past the lower lvl parts of a location w/o disturbing the people who were farming them. While there were definitely cases where if someone saw a flagged player there they'd immediately attack them, in my experience those were somewhat rare purely because that'd be a loss of resources (hp/mana/cd/pots) or it would just be more dangerous to be flagged when you finally reach your preferred spot.

And like you said, considering that those fields will probably be quite barren, I really don't see why people would care about the weaklings that populate them.

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Fear not! For I am here!

Note, I do not speak Korean, I have a language deconstructor though.

The word used is closer to 'plains' in the standard understanding, for those who care.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Can you tell me why you think that the players who want Always On Open World PvP would 'settle for' this, though?

Like I said, majority of their gameplay would most likely be spent in the "dangerous" areas, so I personally don't think that they'd care about a few newbs running through the hills.

I'm obviously basing this purely on my experience in L2, where the majority of people would just run past the lower lvl parts of a location w/o disturbing the people who were farming them. While there were definitely cases where if someone saw a flagged player there they'd immediately attack them, in my experience those were somewhat rare purely because that'd be a loss of resources (hp/mana/cd/pots) or it would just be more dangerous to be flagged when you finally reach your preferred spot.

And like you said, considering that those fields will probably be quite barren, I really don't see why people would care about the weaklings that populate them.

I would figure they would care about the ability of a target opponent to 'escape into a Safe Zone'.

I always thought this was the thing people cared about in this case. 'Encountering someone they want to fight/kill and not being able to do it because of a game-mechanic restriction' (as opposed to just having a consequence or penalty).

Azherae wrote: »

I would figure they would care about the ability of a target opponent to 'escape into a Safe Zone'.

I always thought this was the thing people cared about in this case. 'Encountering someone they want to fight/kill and not being able to do it because of a game-mechanic restriction' (as opposed to just having a consequence or penalty).

Ah, that's an understandable assumption. But it barely applies to me cause one of the biggest "attractions" in L2 were particular gates of cities (cities were safe zones), where people would spend literal hours just baiting each other into pvp by step in and out of the safe zone while being flagged.

But yeah, I definitely see how that might be an issue, though I think its severity would depend on how far you gotta go from a POI to reach the safe zone. If it's right outside the dungeon entrance or the open world POI is super small then there definitely might be some issues with that.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I would figure they would care about the ability of a target opponent to 'escape into a Safe Zone'.

I always thought this was the thing people cared about in this case. 'Encountering someone they want to fight/kill and not being able to do it because of a game-mechanic restriction' (as opposed to just having a consequence or penalty).

Ah, that's an understandable assumption. But it barely applies to me cause one of the biggest "attractions" in L2 were particular gates of cities (cities were safe zones), where people would spend literal hours just baiting each other into pvp by step in and out of the safe zone while being flagged.

But yeah, I definitely see how that might be an issue, though I think its severity would depend on how far you gotta go from a POI to reach the safe zone. If it's right outside the dungeon entrance or the open world POI is super small then there definitely might be some issues with that.

Well, from the video, they really leaned into the verticality. The dungeon they showed seemed to be at least 7 'full levels' deep. No way you're getting to a fully safe zone from anywhere deeper than level 2 without someone being able to stop you, bird transformation or not.

Also seriously? Hours?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised given my FG opponents though, so nvm...

Azherae wrote: »

Also seriously? Hours?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised given my FG opponents though, so nvm...

Yep, and it'd be all kinds of lvls too. You'd have top lvl dudes coming there to just mess around with the newbies, but also the newbs trying to gang up on the high lvl people and sometimes even running around the entire city wall just to try and attack them from the side (cause you'd usually pay attention only to the gates).

Here's even a stream of nearly 2 hours of pvping there (after 20:00)
https://youtu.be/rRlqrssYTpI?t=1201

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Now this one's interesting, since I would have expected you and NiKr to have SOMEWHAT similar perspectives on the OWPvP game aspect.

And I don't think it can be ArcheAge related... so what's the difference here? You're the one who can explain to me the best, probably 'why it is important that there are no safe zones', assuming that's even what you meant.

(If willing, see above for the discussion between NiKr and myself for framing)

So, having thought about both the 'Class system' and how it compares to Ashes, I feel like they might be a bit more similar than 'expected' IF one specific thing is true.

It definitely looks like the player wears any gear. Which makes sense for this design type. You won't know if a player who grabs Longsword + Staff is 'trying to be a Priest/Mage', 'trying to be a Fighter', or both, and they would choose their non-weapon gear accordingly. There's no indication so far of 'quickswap' or 'gearset' (I'll hope for none).

If this is true, while I am quite excited for the Ashes 'use any weapon and any gear' option, the result doesn't feel like it will be VERY different if there are no weapon related Active Skills in Ashes. Procs may have some effect, but we don't know yet.

The other aspect of it is the relative quickswap of it.

To me, there's little difference between 'I am a Cleric with Daggers because I like Dagger Procs' and 'I am a Healer that switches to Daggers suddenly because I like Dagger skills too' except that technically there's a higher chance that in the SECOND case I'm having more fun. I still have to make a build/gear loadout that compliments both, I HOPE. And I have to do this in both games.

For those who have expectations of 'Classes' that diverge from 'Weapons', what are those? (I totally get 'wanting more weapon variety' generally, so may not need to address that, TL's glaring lack of Hammer/Mace and Spear is definitely a notable slight on that end).

Basically, if you assume 'Cleric with a Longsword' is going to work in Ashes, any specific reason why you think "Healer Main Longsword User Secondary" won't feel similar in TL?

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Maybe so, but since the thread was primarily about Systems, and even NiKr's latest revival of the thread was again, about 'the concept of comparing or seeing the similarities of the systems', I was hoping that we might be able to look past that toward the implementation.

(I'm not particularly curious about the 'tropes' or similar, so you need not explain anything of that nature, but if we were to imagine that TL did not contain... whatever it is that you're thinking of, and used Battle Pass instead of general heavy P2W, what then?)

I don't really mind if the general response is 'Asian MMO eww' since that, at least, is a clean 'conversation break', so if that's all you have to say, please ignore me.

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If relevant, a different information source lately has informed us that the 'Night' portion of the game where this is considered to be available might actually be a 4:1 ratio, time wise. So probably only from like 10:30 to 4:00 game time. Source .

I doubt this changes your perspective, but figured I should add to that, and ofc, there's other stuff at that link that might be relevant to thread/discussion.

Azherae wrote: »

Source

I doubt this changes your perspective, but figured I should add to that, and ofc, there's other stuff at that link that might be relevant to thread/discussion.

They're also going for 3-5k servers. And their world seemed fairly big too. This makes me really curious whether Intrepid will succeed in both supporting their 10k concurrents and in designing the game in a way where those 10k people always have smth to do w/o the lands feeling barren. I guess freeholds will fill up most of those lands, but still.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Source

I doubt this changes your perspective, but figured I should add to that, and ofc, there's other stuff at that link that might be relevant to thread/discussion.

They're also going for 3-5k servers. And their world seemed fairly big too. This makes me really curious whether Intrepid will succeed in both supporting their 10k concurrents and in designing the game in a way where those 10k people always have smth to do w/o the lands feeling barren. I guess freeholds will fill up most of those lands, but still.

I believe that Intrepid has a MUCH better chance of doing that successfully than TL does, as their architecture is built directly for it and their combat style/speed doesn't require as much optimization (so far).

But TL has things like 15-frame sword dashes and 'CC that you have to hit confirm', so they're probably going to be a little less ambitious.

That's the general thing I see for them. They're just 'less ambitious'. They're like 'what Ashes would be if Steven didn't believe in making things the maximum possible'. All Ashes has to do to blow this out of the water is actually DO all of the things that they want to do.

But from the other side, we as the community sometimes end up considering things like 'If Ashes had to cut something, what should they cut', or 'We haven't seen new Nodes things in so long'. Whereas TL can afford to 'release now with the barebones enjoyable product' and add more things later.

From my analyst's perspective, they're almost suspiciously efficient with how precisely and carefully they've trimmed everything to minimum viable. The number of things they could 'add later in expansions' while keeping exactly the same gameplay loops is borderline surgical. At least they're not making BDO's mistakes.

But Ashes theoretically has them beat on every front except 'release date' if we trust that we will get everything promised.

tl;dr maybe they'll expand the servers and are being conservative now, but I'd bet they're just playing it safe. Nothing worse than 'releasing a laggy frame dropping game' when you've spent 10 years on trying to get it to work.

Azherae wrote: »

tl;dr maybe they'll expand the servers and are being conservative now, but I'd bet they're just playing it safe. Nothing worse than 'releasing a laggy frame dropping game' when you've spent 10 years on trying to get it to work.

And those 10 years will be the interesting difference here. TL has allegedly been in "development" for those 10 years and have cut down their presentation to their mvp in the process. If we assume that Ashes manages to come out within the same 10-year span and with all the promised stuff - I'd call that almost a miracle. And we've obviously seen that the game has already changed some things along the way, though obviously not as massively as TL has (from isometric to full 3d).

And as long as NCsoft doesn't COMPLETELY FUCK IT ALL UP (highly doubtful), they'd have several years of "going up" from their mvp to what Ashes would have on proper release, except in that case it'd have several years of content and reputation built up, at which point it'd be pretty much a direct competitor for AoC. And there's also AA2, though that's probably even more years off than AoC.

In other words, AoC will definitely have issues with holding their target audience if they fail to deliver on their bigger promises. Though both AA2 and TL will most likely fall prey to heavy P2W, so I think in the end Steven's biggest promise of "no p2w" will play the most crucial role in this competition. Especially if we consider that by the time of its release the world of p2w will be even worse than it is rn, so AoC's impact would be that much bigger if they manage to avoid it and deliver at least a decent game.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

tl;dr maybe they'll expand the servers and are being conservative now, but I'd bet they're just playing it safe. Nothing worse than 'releasing a laggy frame dropping game' when you've spent 10 years on trying to get it to work.

And those 10 years will be the interesting difference here. TL has allegedly been in "development" for those 10 years and have cut down their presentation to their mvp in the process. If we assume that Ashes manages to come out within the same 10-year span and with all the promised stuff - I'd call that almost a miracle. And we've obviously seen that the game has already changed some things along the way, though obviously not as massively as TL has (from isometric to full 3d).

And as long as NCsoft doesn't COMPLETELY FUCK IT ALL UP (highly doubtful), they'd have several years of "going up" from their mvp to what Ashes would have on proper release, except in that case it'd have several years of content and reputation built up, at which point it'd be pretty much a direct competitor for AoC. And there's also AA2, though that's probably even more years off than AoC.

In other words, AoC will definitely have issues with holding their target audience if they fail to deliver on their bigger promises. Though both AA2 and TL will most likely fall prey to heavy P2W, so I think in the end Steven's biggest promise of "no p2w" will play the most crucial role in this competition. Especially if we consider that by the time of its release the world of p2w will be even worse than it is rn, so AoC's impact would be that much bigger if they manage to avoid it and deliver at least a decent game.

I don't think it will be true competition at all though.

There's some pretty clear splits in gaming philosophies between the two camps, what I figure we will get is the same sort of schism from the old days where the 'Eastern MMOs' drew one set of players, and WoW/DAoC got the rest.

Different Combat, different world schema, different aesthetics... All Ashes has to do is move a bit more toward WoW and a bit away from L2/AA in terms of those aspects, which it already has. It's pretty ironic in a certain way to me, but I really hope it works out for both sides, and I REALLY hope they keep up this 'mirror image' thing they have going.

Basically what I meant was... by the time TL 'adds everything Ashes promises to have at launch', I bet Ashes would have launched with all that active already. They'd be the ones in trouble then, 'having to find a way to prevent bleeding off players into a new MMO'. Especially if their Console audience wasn't high.

Azherae wrote: »

Basically what I meant was... by the time TL 'adds everything Ashes promises to have at launch', I bet Ashes would have launched with all that active already. They'd be the ones in trouble then, 'having to find a way to prevent bleeding off players into a new MMO'. Especially if their Console audience wasn't high.

Yeah, there's a chance this'll be the case. I guess 2023 will show how big that chance is.

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I believe I didn't understand your point because of two things.

None of the things you mentioned are things I generally consider 'guaranteed' or even 'likely' for 'Eastern MMOs', so the connection seemed tenuous. All of the things you mentioned were either (I assume) hyperbole, or 'things that apply to Ashes too' which Intrepid might then need to move moreso away from, which leads into...

Secondly, Ashes was based quite a lot on two 'Eastern MMOs'.

By contrast (for example), I would expect that ArcheAge 2 will be MUCH stronger competition for Ashes despite being much 'more Eastern' in specific ways, since they will be MUCH more similar, I think. That's also why I found it ironic.

But this is also probably equally my bias, since the 'things that make Western MMOs' to ME are all things that Ashes is specifically seemingly avoiding, and I'll assume that's because I actually don't understand what makes an MMO 'not Asian' for most people.

We don't know ArcheAge 2 systems yet, but I would bet that any equivalent thread would be almost the exact opposite of this one, we just happen to be discussing TL instead of AA2 right now.

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I disagree with this based on the principles that TL seems to be using to achieve their population convergences.

They have a structure based around 'causing people to come together at certain times for specific content', 'funnelling people through verticality in dungeons', and 'riding around on the back of a giant flying whale'. There is no joke or sarcasm in that last one.

Making an MMO world feel alive is actually only about 50% 'players you actually interact with' in my experience, and it's almost better to use other tricks to cause the effect. TL is full of those tricks, Ashes is by definition not planning to use most of them.

It's also likely that their world size is smaller, but honestly, it's not even required due to their traversal options and their choices in terms of things like 'draw distance' and movement 'styles'.

Many 'open world' MMORPGs spent a bit too MUCH time trying to 'open up their vast world' and ended up making it feel empty. I don't think Ashes will suffer this problem, but I do think that they both have approaches that will likely lead to the same feeling.