Steven, Please Rethink “Not for Everyone”

And the... counterpoint, I guess?

This game is too competitive, at too many points of its function, to not make sure people understand this.

Building a complicated competitive game almost guarantees that people need to approach it from the 'not for everyone' mindset from the beginning because certain styles of play appeal to vastly different types of people, and an MMO is among the most complex of these.

I still agree that even MMOs should generally design to fit as many as their core vision can reasonably fit in, but there are people out there who seriously say things like 'I had to grind for nearly a whole week to get to max level in this MMO so I quit, not for me', and it helps when those people know beforehand that they shouldn't try to get into your game, if your game is longterm/grindy, and the other side of that exists too.

Ashes can't help but give the impression that it is hardcore, as it is right now. It may never be able to 'escape' from giving that impression.

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I agree with this part a lot, but there's not a lot that one can do when developing a game that is already a 'known quantity', right?

And to be clear, I'm absolutely not saying this is good. The outcome of this in the space of genres I play (Fighting Games, Strategy Games, other MMOs) has been awful . Absolute garbage outcomes except for like, TL (possibly on its way there) and Predecessor (maybe the same, hard to say).

Game has 'flaws', only devs who somehow find those 'flaws' enjoyable or lack the experience to understand why they are problems, join the development (who can blame the others, right?), devs double down and make things worse to the point of studios having to issue public apologies for the quality of certain patches.

BG3 had the benefit of a clear vision and not a lot of exposure to 'people who didn't want to play BG3'. If another studio tried to copy their development style now, I'm not sure they'd make it. Happens all the time in media.

"Unplanned sequels to solid games/shows often suck because the only people willing to put in the work to make a 'replacement' for the well-loved experience, are people who didn't actually like that experience."

MMORPGs often become their own sequels, as their lifespan progresses.

I don't think you're so out of touch with modern players that you honestly believe I'm just talking about people who don't even like MMOs or can be dismissed, and I think you're not really one of those players either.

There are people who cannot seem to have 'fun' unless they're being handed something that makes them feel like they're progressing every FIVE MINUTES .

If we wanna just ignore those people, this conversation obviously can't go anywhere, but they will come, and they will try to play Ashes, and they will influence people who could enjoy Ashes.

I'd genuinely prefer that fewer of them even tried.

In other words, this is just another issue with communication. I do like the phrase itself, because quite often in my discussions with others it's simply the most respectful thing I can tell them.

I do agree that whoever uses this phrase for the feedback around this stuff

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is really wrong in that usage, though tbh I don't think I've seen this particular interaction. I mostly see (and use) the phrase for anyone who's targeting core features with HUGE changes.

As for any changes that might attract someone who's not in the direct target audience - I do believe those are still planned, but not implemented. Though with Steven saying that we'll still have some grind - I do think that the phrase is just too applicable to a lot of people not to use it.

Yes, a ton of people dislike grind, but that's simply the design Steven wants/believes in. And it'll keep the game niche, which almost exactly means that "it's not for everyone".

But at the same time you have to 'draw a line' somewhere when it comes to conflicting aspects.

A simple example of this is the Tank Participation thread they had a while back.

For the most part, Tanks being able to just 'always hold aggro, always see aggro, etc' is one style of game, Tanks having to work hard or let it be a team effort, is another style.

That isn't really the sort of thing you're talking about with the 'top players suppressing others', but it's closely related. If Ashes switches to 'Holding Aggro is now a simple/guaranteed part of Tanking', a nontrivial subset of Tanks will stop tanking, and be replaced by others, possibly more, who are now more able to do it because it's 'easier' in a specific way.

But then the game still isn't for everyone, because it's 'not for' Tanks that don't like holding aggro to be simple/guaranteed.

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Except it worked in L2 and Steven is pretty much remaking L2 with a few more features at this point. Except he even said that Corruption will be harsher tuned than L2's was, which will hopefully cover the difference of player risk, cause in L2 there was no material loss on death.

There are people out there who want this kind of game, and imo there's just enough of them to cover the costs of a studio like Intrepid (given that they'll almost definitely downsize after release).

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Where exactly did they focus on that though? How is AoC's lategame any different from its early/mid game? You grind mobs, artisanry, commissions, quests all throughout your leveling experience. Sieges will supposedly have activities for the lowbies to do and general owpvp will work across all lvls, and will also defend lowbies from highbie attacks through the corruption system.

The only thing that might be way closer to endgame content is freeholds and guild wars, but FHs were always described as "you'll need to work for them" (which removes casuals from equation completely) and GWs are ultimately the same as NWs, and those will effect people all the way from lvl10 - so even those features are not really about early vs late game and more about just the playstyle of different people.

And we'll supposedly have a deep enough artisan systen and rich enough questing/module design where casuals will have stuff to do in the world. And the world itself will be big enough to let them do that stuff in relative peace.

So I really don't see where the supposed late-game focus is here.

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Those people will RP though, and Ashes is rapidly on the track to be at least 4th in the running for dynamic MMORPG RolePlaying foundation games.

This is one of the few games where the drama and such of top players is explicitly content for lower level, less invested players, because of that.

Azherae wrote: »

This is one of the few games where the drama and such of top players is explicitly content for lower level, less invested players, because of that.

The king was kind to us and changed the castle taxes for this month BY ONE WHOLE PERCENT! Yet some bastards from the east are plotting to overthrow him and have been going to war against our lands. We're dying by the hundreds, because they have better weapons and stronger warriors, but we shall not surrender so easily! Our king is just and shall not fall!

And some such...

Ludullu wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

This is one of the few games where the drama and such of top players is explicitly content for lower level, less invested players, because of that.

The king was kind to us and changed the castle taxes for this month BY ONE WHOLE PERCENT! Yet some bastards from the east are plotting to overthrow him and have been going to war against our lands. We're dying by the hundreds, because they have better weapons and stronger warriors, but we shall not surrender so easily! Our king is just and shall not fall!

And some such...

Come on now, I'm being serious. If the worldstate affects the top guilds (which it should), especially the events, and they're not all salty/butthurt over it and quit (I'd say about 1 in 5 top guilds takes it on the chin instead of ducking out), we could get some good content.

I'm talking 'a volcano erupted and affected crops in the region so the King had to respond' stuff.

Azherae wrote: »

Come on now, I'm being serious.

I'm talking 'a volcano erupted and affected crops in the region so the King had to respond' stuff.

I was being serious as well. It rarely happened in L2, but if one of the castle holders put the taxes not at the max value (which made basic consumables cheaper) - people would support them in the next siege.

But yes, Ashes will have even more kinds of impacts on political drama of the realm. I dearly hope that we can somehow get a fantasy EVE situation here, because I love EVE's political drama stories and I've always wanted to live in a world like that, but, outside of Space Rangers 2, starship gameplay was never really my thing.

Ludullu wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Come on now, I'm being serious.

I'm talking 'a volcano erupted and affected crops in the region so the King had to respond' stuff.

I was being serious as well. It rarely happened in L2, but if one of the castle holders put the taxes not at the max value (which made basic consumables cheaper) - people would support them in the next siege.

But yes, Ashes will have even more kinds of impacts on political drama of the realm. I dearly hope that we can somehow get a fantasy EVE situation here, because I love EVE's political drama stories and I've always wanted to live in a world like that, but, outside of Space Rangers 2, starship gameplay was never really my thing.

I see. While I can't say that this is 'not enough' in general, I suspect it 'won't be enough' in Ashes, which is fine since they have the intent to have proper worldsim events.

Roleplayers don't need much, we'll convert patches, glitches, bugs, 'idiots who refuse to RP but are easy to mock in world chat...

I've attended a whole funeral, IN a graveyard, a whole guild (not mine) event for a character who got their name reported and force-changed, so they were having a funeral for [The old name] as if the character had died.

But I've also got to agree with OP, that if too much of it is based on things like 'someone with power over me did something I don't like for no reason and I can't do anything', it moreso seems to make the RP groups I know just disengage from it all.

In EVE it's better/different, but for now, in AoC, I'll take volcanoes/sandstorms over Politics, at least until I see that the top guilds at least aren't actively disruptive/hostile to the RP crowd (on at least one server).