Steven, Please Rethink “Not for Everyone”

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It's the old deal from the time of EQ2 and WoW though. The only new thing is nodes (in a way) and even that remains to be seen how truly new it'll be.

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I really hope for Intrepid's sake that all the people who are interested in this gameplay type actually really want to play a Fantasy MMORPG and not just the sci-fi ones they are playing already.

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As Azherae implied, pretty much all of that stuff has already been done in other games (mostly space ones), but even outside of the space stuff:

• Caravans were in AA and in Silk Road (afaik)
• Sieges were in L2
• Nodes, as I said, we got no damn clue how exactly they'll end up being design by release
• I guess player-led cities might be somewhat unique in fantasy, but I coulda sworn I've heard about something very similar before.
• Node-lvl-related changes remain to be seen too. I hope it's as deep and intricate as was promised before

A somewhat rudimentary combo of those 2 last points was in L2 with the Manor system. Castle owners could add different items to mob loot tables in their region, which was both a political tool that attracted players (somewhat akin to node buildings in Ashes) and was related to the state of the region, cause if the castle was unowned - that loot would not be present and gameplay related to it would not exist in that region.

L2 also had a religious system that opened up dungeons based on player activity, so, in a way, that is another similar system.

And that's just examples from almost a single 20y.o. game. I'm sure I'm missing several fantasy mmos that had either very similar systems or literally the same ones. And, as was said above, space games literally have the exact same systems.

Ludullu wrote: »

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As Azherae implied, pretty much all of that stuff has already been done in other games (mostly space ones), but even outside of the space stuff:

• Caravans were in AA and in Silk Road (afaik)
• Sieges were in L2
• Nodes, as I said, we got no damn clue how exactly they'll end up being design by release
• I guess player-led cities might be somewhat unique in fantasy, but I coulda sworn I've heard about something very similar before.
• Node-lvl-related changes remain to be seen too. I hope it's as deep and intricate as was promised before

A somewhat rudimentary combo of those 2 last points was in L2 with the Manor system. Castle owners could add different items to mob loot tables in their region, which was both a political tool that attracted players (somewhat akin to node buildings in Ashes) and was related to the state of the region, cause if the castle was unowned - that loot would not be present and gameplay related to it would not exist in that region.

L2 also had a religious system that opened up dungeons based on player activity, so, in a way, that is another similar system.

And that's just examples from almost a single 20y.o. game. I'm sure I'm missing several fantasy mmos that had either very similar systems or literally the same ones. And, as was said above, space games literally have the exact same systems.

You are thinking of Albion online player cities I think. The mayorship system itself is unique as far as I know, but player built cities are still a thing even in other fantasy mmo's. I think this gets to the heart of Ashes current predicament. You can go on and on about how the game isn't for everyone, but Ashes has kind of always talked about itself as a 'special' and 'unique' thing that made that 'not for everyone' really mean something. Being an exclusive niche focused thing has no value unless that niche is offering something actually unique that you cannot find elsewhere.

In reality to me this game is just a spiritual successor to Dark Ages of Camelot, maybe L2 if they manage to shape things up further. That's not a bad thing, but this game is so people centric that it needs people. It is a social game with systems that only make sense at a certain player count. It needs to recapture that feeling of 'specialness' going forward and play to its strengths. All I see right now is a game that has under invested in everything that would make it great and over invested in all of the things that would make it 'not for everyone'. It is a real shame too because I keep seeing mmo's that are starting to deliver on the promises AoC made 6-8 years ago. Clearly the market wanted some of the stuff AoC was preaching and I definitely credit them at least in small part for the mmo renaissance of the past few years.

Yes AoC is not for everyone. But if it doesn't do something better or distinct from the games from which the audience comes from that AoC is meant to cater to, it isn't going to have an audience. They are going to keep playing on private servers or some of these new high quality mmos.

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

But the point is moreso that Intrepid is in a bad spot when it comes to that aspect. Small, 'less experienced' studio without the ability to pull on the resources of a big MMORPG producer. Most MMOs have a similar enough basis that if you wanted to add all this stuff Ashes talks about, it would be easy.

New games don't 'not add' things Ashes is offering 'because they can't'. They don't add them because they don't think people are going to want them/they think it isn't worth it.

If Amazon Games thought those things would work in , they'd have added them to New World instead of 'taking them away'. Which also means that if Intrepid 'proves' that people want to play a game with variable Nodes, we'll see more modern MMOs adding them.

This is why people end up focused on all the things that 'make Ashes unpleasant', because they 'know' they only have to wait a bit longer (possibly less long than even for AoC) for a game that does the same things but less unpleasant.

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Hm, ok, I see that (I fell into the trap of thinking 'I'm always ranting about that, surely no one wants to hear it more', but there's always the 'first time reader').

Therefore as an example, Ashes of Creation has talked about:

8x8 combinations of Archetypes to make unique classes.
FF11 is 20x20. Throne and Liberty is about to be 9x9 (I'll spare people the combinatorics, just assume that there are two styles of every combination even if they don't distinguish the combinations themselves). TL already contains more Augments than I even expect to see in Ashes, and technically more than Ashes has indicated or promised .

Social Organizations and related perks/relationships
Elite Dangerous is entirely made of this, and Throne and Liberty would implement this faster than Ashes would (a currently stronger base scaffolding), and the form of PvP/PvE separation that many players prefer, while also using the implementations that keep it 'safer' from bad actors. So while it 'doesn't exist now', if somehow something 'proves' that people really want this, it will probably appear.

Nodes
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-trailblazers-update-3-now-live.636973/
or
https://wiki.albiononline.com/wiki/Cities

The amount of work required to make sure that Nodes are fun and not some of the most 'degenerate' gameplay possible in all of gaming will be monumental (and I am here cheering all the way, Intrepid). And Ashes is still not actually poised to be the primary/optimal deliverer of this content type precisely because Albion Online would do it better with minimal relative effort. That's practically guaranteed.

Dynamic World, Weather, Mob Spawns
I don't think most people who follow MMOs think that Ashes is going to revolutionize this aspect, it's old, and fairly common now Therefore any benefit would come from 'how it affects gameplay, either combat or one of the other three above' (let's just count Archetypes and such under Combat actually). But, again, this is already a thing in modern PvP/PvE MMORPGs, and the influences of weather and a dynamic world on PvX isn't 'redefined' by slightly more focus on that PvX-ness. If it rains at Frenzied Queen Bellandir, the experience isn't vastly different than Ashes would provide relative to this aspect . If anything, TL is more 'interesting' because we do have something that is a 'stand-in' for 'social orgs' and that is that the most active person on the server can control the rain once per day.

So, Albion could flesh out Nodes and Weather. Throne and Liberty could flesh out Boonstones to make Node-like relationships similar to the old FF11 ones or an improved version of the BDO ones. Both games already have established combat depth that Ashes is still muddling through.

If this becomes a 'race' to 'the endpoint that Ashes promised', Albion will win, TL will finish right after, and Ashes of Creation will pass the finish line 2 years later imo. We'd be banking on Naval Combat and then it's a race against Archeage 2 even considering that game's pivot.

The main 'unique' thing Ashes 'allows people to do' that other games are almost desperately trying to limit/solve, is zerg.

And a nontrivial chunk of Ashes' original, fairly invested/dedicated audience is opposed to this 'feature'.

I had a whole other answer (see spoiler section below) but realized it was getting rambly and the core was way simpler so here's the core:

MMORPGs aren't convergent in implementation anymore, only the 'memory of MMOs' is. In the end that's what it boiled down to. They stopped trying to be because they thought players would all keep playing even if they left out the weather and the 'fairness' and the crafting, the challenge, the econ stuff, the build/gear variation, all of it.

And for a while, we did, because there wasn't anything like them and we wanted the memory. People wanted to believe those things would come back, that the memories they had of [whatever aspect of the game they enjoyed] weren't going to be relegated to a subgenre where you couldn't interact meaningfully with different people in their different lanes.

And for a while after that we got fed the illusions. Games where you didn't interact meaningfully, but at least you shared the same world. The occasional hiccup of 'oh we remember that you guys like cool bosses, we too played Elden Ring we should add some of those' (BDO, right after Elden Ring, got new boss things, for example). Or the games where the joy of skill was replaced by the fantasy of skill (this is where the PvP games mostly went, but a few PvE ones too).

Ashes was the first 'nah we're going back to the big form where the game has everything in it all tied together properly and we're going to add the stuff from the space games too because why not, we have the technology!'

And everyone was SO DAMN HYPE FOR THIS . All the poor souls that only grew up in the age of relics or the age of illusions got to hear about all the incredibly cool shit that used to be in these games and for the most part said "Sign me up!"

And then somehow along the way Ashes started to show cracks. The Convergent implementation, the 'simple modern copy-form of what people already understood', seemed to get muddled, or to start from a different point than the obvious ones and no one seemed to have any answers as to why (for why that is important, see spoiler section).

These cracks 'belong to Steven' for the most part. Sometimes Steven doesn't like something, and he doesn't really need to justify why that something doesn't get into the game, so it doesn't. Even if that something is required to fix a problem that arises when you combine stuff that isn't normally combined.

This is how an MMO design can cease to be convergent.
"I don't like X." "We need X to prevent Y, based on these years of data/experience." "Well I don't like it, find another way."

My original answer to Margaret's prompt in this thread was the very short version of the above.

Azherae wrote: »

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I think Steven's already 'vetoed' everything that could.

And yes, I realize it's among the heights of arrogance to respond just to say 'nah it can't happen rn' but alas, I am bound to be the voice of a Seven...

"Some of you may not like the result of [me disliking the thing required when you combine these two aspects of gameplay], but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make." -> "This game is not for everyone."

But we hope because everything is subject to change, too.

Enemies now have level-gap scaling. Hope, like the Phoenix, springs eternal. And so if I had to advise anything, it would be that Steven's excellent staff continue to teach him why some things he doesn't like are still necessary, and when things that impress him are old and therefore already have precedent for how they are done.

Actually I have a really clear answer framing for all that which I often don't give for a borderline silly reason so let's ditch that reason...

Saabynator is absolutely correct, any game made with enough care and dedication and love which takes a serious approach to deciding what it needs and doesn't (from the space of what people enjoy) can be good. And someone will love it. In the MineCraft community, nearly every individual version has its fans, and many many modpacks exist with many different goals (this is the thing I don't bring up).

Yet nearly every MineCraft 'knock-off' failed. Not all, but a large number of them.

So since this lets me keep it short... 'why did these fail?'

A: Player Elasticity
A MineCraft player who changes their preferred style of play or plays with friends in one style on one server but with other friends in another style on another server is still not constantly subject to disruptive gameplay unless they chose this tradeoff. If the potential disruption is part of a requirement of the intended gameplay, the player often knows what this means.

"Why isn't this game toggle-flag PvP?" "Because players need to be able to attack you to drive you out of areas."
"Why isn't this game full-loot PvP?" "Because players need to be able to spend time building up toward challenges."

You can expect players who don't care about the answer to stop playing faster.

By Contrast there's stuff like:
"Why is this character/class unbalanced?" (in either direction) "Because I think that balance is unrealistic so we made a weak character to represent realism."

People don't take this well, in my experience. It stops being a question of 'everyone likes different things' and starts to become 'everyone likes different experiences'. Design is then a negotiation. 'What am I getting out of sometimes giving up this thing I enjoy?'

We have to assume at some point that players who can't find enjoyment in a game stop playing it. So it boils down to the designer's ability to answer the question.

"Why does this game contain this thing I don't enjoy?"
"To provide this other experience we believe you will enjoy."

The answer "Because I felt like it should work that way." only holds up until the player is offered a game where the designer had an answer.

It doesn't even have to be that the decision was made differently. Only that one game offers the tradeoff and the other doesn't. For features with no tradeoff, parity is enough. And then inertia kicks in. If I'm already playing TL, getting me to switch involves 'finding something I am not enjoying about TL, and offering a better answer for why I should come over to Ashes and not enjoy it there' (assuming they're the same). The big issue comes when your ideal is 'retention'.

If Game A lacks a feature a player wants they might still play it even if Game B has that feature, based on mood.
If Game A has a fault most players won't jump to Game B just because it doesn't have that fault if you can explain what the fault 'exists for' (enjoyment of something in the convergence).
If both Game A and B have a fault there is a higher chance of a player simply ceasing to play both games or not factoring for it at all.

I don't think Ashes needs to pull 'in' the PvE players or hardcore PvP players. I believe in the PvX playerbase. If Ashes delivers , I believe they will come, and that Ashes is a viable 'slightly different younger sibling' to Throne and Liberty (or older depending on how you measure outcomes).

But when your 'older sibling' goes 'uh hey everyone's mad that I made it possible to have 280 people in one Alliance, it's stifling competition or something, they say' and you go 'But I like my Alliances big! It'll be fine, I think.' ... now what?

Also yes I realize I didn't directly 'address the questions' but in a way that's all I can do (without writing a book) because of that core concept.

"MMOs are not actually convergent." They leave out stuff, design constraints, developer time, the phenomenal content consumption rate of 12h-a-day players grinds them down and they get stuck in a bleary-eyed loop of trying to figure out how to keep those people even playing....

They rebrand themselves as 'Action RPGs' and hold mini-contests to see how fast people can race to level cap... (it's 35m, 42m if you want the deathless run - New World).

They overcompensate for their lack of difficulty by making a 48-person instance with difficult mechanics in a game where players expect to be able to 'enjoy' all base content...

They shut down development altogether either by 'realizing they aren't any fun' or 'realizing that despite being very fun they would never make enough money' because they don't understand the business of making MMORPGs.

I hate that literal decades of data boils down to (or rather, doesn't?) not being able to 'answer' without only-half-confidently doing the equivalent of 'trying to teach a data analytics course' but so it is.

"Why is string theory wrong?" "Because we're all p-branes."

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

I think you misunderstood my point here, almost entirely.

My point was that if that self-owned CEO makes a game he wants to play, and all of us also want to play it, and the 'suits' realize 'wait these people really wanted weather and dynamic NPCs and build variety and all that?'

Those suits will show up to tell the Devs 'hey! add those things to our game!'

And in many cases the Devs will go 'won't work, we didn't build the base to be able to support those things'.

But what if they did?

Other companies also hold Aces.