Discussion: The connection of Open PvP and Economy & A Soft Flag System that makes sense.

To outline all the precise reasons I disagree with you would take an essay twice as long as your own post (I like both the formatting and flow of your post).

lmk if you want any particular thing focused on, or if you just prefer I don't respond at all given how I am.

I read EXTREMELY fast.

But I suppose if we can't even start from that as a trust level, I might already have an answer.

Actually yes, that is the first thing.

Artisan ability and Character level are not explicitly related.

So if I make a lowbie alt to do gathering and gear them up for Lv10 lowbie pvp, I just have to wait for all the others to level out of the range and I have a much larger protection.

Then I can be escorted to higher level areas to grab high level resources safely by guildmates.

It was a whole discussion at some point.

We have not received permission from novercalis to share the quoted post.

So the idea is that priority wise, SoftFlag from Gatherables takes priority first, then 'level', then Adventurers?

Does my character lose their soft flag if I trade the item away? The other character then gets it, right?

Do rare drops/certificates from Adventurers leveling up, count?

This would bring me to my next, very personal complaint. I don't like games where mob drops aren't similar to Gatherables. Similarly, as noted by Depraved, now you've literally 'created a situation where someone can see if to attack another person or not'.

If they have to TEST this, then I think it's worse. They'll just 'follow you around and attempt an attack every time they see you finish gathering'.

I'm not saying this is meaningfully 'worse' than what they have in mind now, but I don't like their current design either. This adds something, it just adds a 'something' that seems to revolve around more people looking for ways to game a system, and oddly, doesn't solve the actual problem I think people have.

"I can't be attacked unless I get something worthwhile attacking me for."

Sure, this lets them run around the game safely, but what exactly is the point of that?

I guess it's hard to precisely make the point, but I agree with many people who think that this game shouldn't be targeted at a certain type of player. And 'the type of player that rejoices when they hear that they can't be attacked unless they get something that is actually valuable and then can be attacked' doesn't seem to me like the target audience. Either because they don't care about the main play loops, or because they won't be happy anyways because they will ask 'how does this help me if I like gathering valuable things'?

I think I can condense it down better, using the same scenario.

I want to walk through a dungeon with my 6 friends to gather an item. They can kill the mobs and can win at PvP against most challengers.

I can't be attacked until I have the item. All I have to do is not die to mobs while they fight them.

This situation was 'bad enough' when the attacker almost certainly was going to go red for stopping me regardless of anything else happening. But now they KNOW that I can get deep in the dungeon or whatever. Instead of 'ok Rogue, kill the lowbie and we'll worry about things after that', we have 'ok everyone has to flag up to fight this group of invaders because we can only HOPE to find a way to kill the lowbie once they are all dead and we have to do it with mobs because they don't have any loot yet'.

We're already going to have enough trouble with SWArmies without having a level restriction on 'who you can stop from invading your territory'. I perceive a huge difference between 'I can kill those three level 20 dwarves who came into this level 38 area with their level 40 friends, but it's going to cost me', and 'I can only kill one of those Dwarves at a time depending on which one randomly gets good loot and I can't really do anything if they just log off here'.

That's the key annoying point btw, the alt that just logs off as soon as they get something good but can't be attacked at any other time.

Situations that lead to the potential counter being ONLY 'waste a potentially infinite amount of time' are not solutions, to me.

We have not received permission from novercalis to share the quoted post.

Most PvP heavy players conclude that I am against open PvP.

Many PvE heavy players conclude that I am for open PvP/griefing. PvX seems to do that.

As for your response, I agree that this adds a layer that could protect a lot of low level players from negative situations. And I also believe that anything whatsoever that does that based on their LEVEL will be abused six ways from Sunday with a bit of thought from someone who has a low level alt.

So I don't HATE this idea. I just disagree with it. I don't have a suggestion to make it better, because you are working within a framework, trying to make that framework function better. I think the whole framework is flawed, AND that your changes make it very slightly worse relative to it's apparent reasoning/function.

tl;dr This works but they might as well just change the whole system at that point because the goals will have changed.

We have not received permission from Arya_Yeshe to share the quoted post.

See @novercalis to some people you are also anti-PvP.

As 'unhinged' as this poster seems sometimes, their point is just an exaggeration in some cases. I think Steven WANTS us to be able to do what they want to do, just at a cost. A potentially terrifying cost that I don't think should be mitigated too much.

But 'rules against doing it at all' lead to a system, and people game systems. Poke their psychology, not their capacity, I guess is my opinion.

We have not received permission from novercalis to share the quoted post.

Agreeable, IF the Weapon and Armor have no real value.

But IF the Weapon and Armor have no real value I'm probably not playing anyway so it's not agreeable from that perspective.

If other people like that better though, it would no longer be my concern I guess?

We have not received permission from novercalis to share the quoted post.

Unfortunately for me, Ashes is still undefined enough to manage to 'become my idea of the perfect game', so I'm stuck here 'huffing the Copium' as they say, until Steven verifies some dealbreaker point.

This will continue for a while since the two parts I care about are the two parts lacking their Senior Staff.

I can tell you though that the sort of thing that can be sold to an NPC for 'enough gold that it's worth even having in your inventory' but DOESN'T flag you, I hope is not a part of Ashes overall.

We have not received permission from novercalis to share the quoted post.

Right, and we just disagree.

I don't generally play games with Trash Drops if I can help it. I'm not saying that's right, or good, or even 'specifically good or bad design'. I just have played games that basically 'don't have Trash drops', and I liked the outcome of that, and I don't like the other outcome as much.

So in my Perfect Ashes, there are none.