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From excited to disappointed
First of all keep in mind that I am a PvP player by nature.
I've been playing on the russian servers and being ganked its just too common, not that there is anything wrong with being attacked while questing or what ever you where doing, but when you have no chance to fight back... that is just wrong.
The game concept runs around having an open world where you can do things(such as trade runs, treasure hunting, etc) but there is always a risk to encounter PvP.
However ArcheAge is so item centric it ruins it self. The developers(and fans) try to tell you that you can do what ever you want before you reach max level and that you can avoid PvP... well that cake is a lie!
Once you hit around lvl 30 you are pretty much forced into going to contested areas, that fact alone doesn't bother me since I like PvP, however players of all levels roam these areas which means you're the fresh meat on the block and because of the item dependency of the game you have no chance to fight back.
This item dependency is not an exaggeration, you get buffs for using a specific type of gear, you get buffs for using a specific rarity of gear, you get buffs by using potions, you get buffs by using food and drinks... the scale in which items influence this game is like nothing I've ever experience... it's an Asian game.
Even trying to engage a lvl 50 with a level 45-49 means death unless its a bot, so you are forced to get to 50 and get decent gear do start to have a fighting chance so you can do other things and not be steam rolled.
Fact is when a game is 80% items 20% skill... open world where pvp reins free doesn't work and that's the main focus of ArcheAge.
To add more wood to the fire, everything in the game(harvesting, crafting, trading, fishing, etc...) is heavily dependent on Labor points which is very limited for free players(specially in the Russian version). This not only forces free players into piracy(because you cant do anything but PvP without labor Points), it also makes it that much harder to get items to be competitive even as a PvP player.
In the end I find my self struggling not to label this game as Pay-2-Win.
Comments
The game is a subscription game that is not pay 2 win, or a f2p game that is p2w. choose your poison. I personally would call it a subscription game with a limited free model.
As for you being a pvper, I'm not saying you arn't, but I personally love open world pvp. I don't care if im ganked a bunch on my way to max level, all level based MMO's have this power inbalance while leveling. In these types of games you must get to max level to compete in the open world. This is the same model pvp wise as WoW, that has been hugely successful. I think with that in mind you need to retract the statement "when a game is 80% items 20% skill... open world where pvp reins free doesn't work" as that is a statement that is proven false by wow's example. Sure fights arn't balanced. This allows worse players to win over better players. Later the better players will have more gear and defeat the worse players. If everything was fair the worse players would just always lose and the game would suck for them.
I'm all for skill in MMO's but you have to remember that there needs to be a reason for bad players to keep trying or they will quit making the average players the new bad players and the cycle continues until just the very best players exist. These populations are unsustainable then the game dies.
I am going to just tell you the two examples I saw that directly dispute this concept of gear.
I watched a youtube of a 50 that was attacked over a spawn spot and he had a fishing pole for a weapon. He still won the fight even though he didn't even have a helpful weapon in hand and got jumped. He was just good with his class and knew when to use skills.
I was also watching a streaming player on twitch live for a while and he was in enemy farm area sneaking up invis and killing enemies for practice. This went on for a good 20 minutes and then.......out of the blue comes an invis guy naked with swords and a bucket on his head and totally owned this guy. It was quite comical.
Basically in both these instances the player skill was more important than gear.
I am not saying that gear is not important. All things being equal, gear and potions and foods and pet choices and glider choices and mount choices and ship choices and submarine choices along with knowing your class skills and the best combinations to use in certain situations. It's all tied together quite well.
I do a little bit of everything. Every contested area has peace time. I avoid PVP when I don't want to PVP or don't have a small group to roam with. I disagree with your statement that you can't "avoid" PVP. The question is, knowing what Archeage is about, why would you want to avoid PVP completely?
Secondly, it's a tab target dice roll game. There is no action combat, so yes you need to gear up to a certain extent. However crafted gear (that you don't have to pvp or dungeon crawl for) gives you the best gear in the game when compared to other gear of equivalent rarity. I think PVP still has some kinks to work out (state side) for balance as well but if you know your rotations and skills you can beat people some people who are a couple levels higher.
In regards to labor points the RU approach is harsh and one could say it is P2W as it stands. I think F2P players should get 2 labor points online/offline (to prevent people sitting on the server), per 5 minutes.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think you need to learn what P2W means.
Archeage is a subscription based mmo with a unlimited trial options with heavy restrictions.
The faster people say its a free to play mmo the better as you are severely gimped.
Its not pay to win either as you cannot buy gear from the shop you cant craft yourself or is in any way or shape OP or whatever.
Its a mmo with open world pvp and this mmo says very early on group up or die alone.
I love every minute of this style as i last decade we have soon so many lobby games where you queue up for pvp or cross server pvp with people you never see before and will never see again.
Archeage on the other hand doesnt have that lobby crap and friends and enemy's you make trough the game will be KOS or added as friends
Up to level 30 its safe, then the game has war states trough many zones, so you can still level "safe" in peacetime if you dont like to be part of pvp.
But then again this mmo is a pvp centric one so i dont get why people even start playing it :P
Join a guild / build a farm / roam the oceans / craft / build ships, everything in this mmo gives you expirience !!!
Archeage is made to be played with friends and almost forces you to be part of a guild and go out and do stuff together !!!
If you plan to play this mmo for free tough then you will be gimped to oblivion as almost everything depends on your labor point regen.
Without labor points its kinda shit to get anything done outside of pvp.
Thats why i said its a subscription based mmo
Forget free to play !
Actually your example could prove his point even more. Was the fishing pole guy wearing armour? If so it was probably level 50 armour. Did you see the level of the player who attacked? If the player was not level 50 like the fishing pole player this could be used to show how important gear is.
Then for the second PVP instance? What level was the guy doing the PVPing then the Buckethead guy that killed him? Again if the player you were watching was a lower level than the buckethead guy this again could show how important items are if the Buckethead player was say 45-50 with lvl 45-50 swords and then the other player you were watching was only around 40.
i dont get people why they call archeahe open world pvp.. or even a pvp game..
AA dont offer any pvp system in place in the world
Everything resolves around crafting and trading packs in this game..
The north contitent is not even developed yet..except for a couple of zones.
the pvp during questing is nothing more then timed zoned pvp.. so if you dont wanne pvp simple wait till the deck has swtiched to peace..
I was very dissapointed aswell in AA it lacks pvp systems.. i enjoyed the combat tho... owell maybe in the future this game will be better concerning pvp
Here is the fishing pole PvP video for you to watch for yourself. It is quite good and shows that knowing your class combos, synergy, tactics against various other builds and techniques will be more important to a degree. They are both 50th.
Link here
Unfortunately I don't have the video of the naked bucket head PvP but I will say the guy I was watching was 50th and killing everyone in a town when another 50th naked with only a bucket on his head and swords kills him fast.
OP - Why do I have the feeling you simply got ganked a couple of times and then ran here to complain. I have engaged in a lot of PvP both before 50 and after. I can tell without question that knowing how to play your class makes a huge difference. I play a class called a warpriest (which i haven't seen anyone else play so far, although im sure someone out there does) and I was killing level 50 players at 43. They were not 'bots' as you put it. Yes if you try to fight a level 50 and you're 30 you will most likely lose. That would happen in any level based game. Any level based game will never be 100% skill because level based gear is involved. However, to say it is 80/20 is absolutely wrong.
Because this is a PvP game - you better accept the fact that you're going to run into people who will kill you for absolutely no reason. There are ways to avoid it, but it puts the inconvenience on you. My advice to you is to either:
1. Find a friend to level with - more likely to survive in a group.
2. Learn your class well - pvp as much as possible - and accept that you're going to die. Sometimes to a level 50 sometimes to people who are just simply better than you. Either way I hope you stay and enjoy the game. GL!
OP- Your description makes me want to play ArcheAge a little more than I did before. Thanks.
I like the idea that having items will have a great value. It was a struggle to get them, and you can have pride in your efforts and successes. Games like this force people to run in packs, and I think this is essential for a good MMORPG. You run in packs (parties), you take roles, you make a plan, fight together and die together.
If they are in a pack, too. Then, looks like you have terms for some guild favor or a massive war. I see Darkfall like guild battles over a rare flower in the field, needed for a certain craft. Yum..
Gaming since 1985; Online gaming since 1995; No End in Sight! My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8POVoJ8fdOseuJ4U1ZX-oA
Fiunny thing
This game is pvp based, the pve is great I am the stereo-typical 'carebear' i love earning money in any game, I play a game for the industry, but this game has pvp at its very very core.
If that is a problem then why play this game, surely 5 minutes of reading would tell you thats its a pvp game. But, what is the worst that can happen in this game??
You get killed, you get ressed at the priest where you can pray to get any lost xp back, no biggie, you dont lease gear, dont lose gold, the only time your farm is in trouble is if you dont pay rent
If you are getting griefed by the priestess, then simply HS back to a town, problem solved, you will run in to gangs of the other faction, but no more than they will run into gangs of your faction.
I would have preferred if this game had some form of loss after death in pvp, even if it was gear breaking, but fact is dying has 0 consequence in this game.
This post is all my opinion, but I welcome debate on anything i have put, however, personal slander / name calling belongs in game
where of course you're welcome to call me names im often found lounging about in EvE online.
Use this code for 21days trial in eve online https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?invc=d385aff2-794a-44a4-96f1-3967ccf6d720&action=buddy
Agree about the death penalty; there should be something
Gaming since 1985; Online gaming since 1995; No End in Sight! My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8POVoJ8fdOseuJ4U1ZX-oA
Yeah, I'm a "carebear" as well, I rarely will attack anyone preemptively, preferring to avoid conflict and my build reflects this by having a fast travel buff and stealth which allows me to avoid many (but not all) fights.
For the times I get ganked, I usually just sit down, die, respawn, which in this game you lose no experience for dying in PVP (or falling to death for that matter) only if a NPC kills you.
So while it is annoying to get ganked, on a few occasions when it got too bohersome, a bunch of us who kept respawning at the goddess just grouped up and went after the gankers and completed the nearby quests together.
So yeah, you're gonna die in this game, but I find it adds an extra edge to the PVE questing or mining, trying to pull it off with a minimum of interference.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Such is a life of themeparks...especially the ones with poor, dated designs.
Regarding the PvP with a fishing rod video
I guess the fact that he had 8.2k HP(2.2k hp more than the attacker) and still has able to 3 shot him didn't come from gear...
"SKILL"
This is one of those games where you have a specific rotation usually around 3-5 buttons, specially when you do combos if you use skill "3" after skill "2", you can pretty much macro them if you want and still be relatively effective thats why there are so many bots in this game (yes, real bots farming 24/7).
Movement is almost irrelevant unless you focus on shadowplay (where 2 skills have bonus is you are behind your target) due to the nature of tab targeting, so you can run like a headless chicken or jumping around makes no difference, in fact you might as well enable "auto move to cast range" and just use the skills and let the computer move for you, even if the target is out of range by the time you end casting you will still hit them(really...).
Taking into account the last 2 paragraphs, saying that this game is 20% skill is not a bad assumption, sure it may be 30% but its still a pretty low number.
Death Penalty
About the death penalty, you respawn timer is increased (by 30 sec or so) every time you die, on particular time I had to wait 170-180 sec(3 min) every time a dude 2 shot me... how fun.
Open world
About the open world, contrary to other MMORPGs where the areas up to max level serve no purpose but to level(with the occasional dungeon), in AA there are reasons for high levels to roam around lower level areas(treasure hunting, trade-runs, etc) which means senseless ganking will occur.
If you make a game where high and low levels share content you need to make it so the difference in power isn't that monumentally huge, so it doesn't hinder either of the players ability to enjoy the game. This can be done by (two examples):
Have you even played AA? Like 25 of my levels have come from farming or fishing or crafting so you can avoid pvp all together. I get killed a lot but there is literally no death penalty. Group up with people, 2 lvl 30s can kill a level 50 so I just dont really understand your argument. Honestly you hype gear and buffs way up and say you have never seen that in another game? What MMOs have you played? Complaining about gear sets, food buffs, and potion buffs? Like that is literally in every MMO out there dude.
Sadly it would only work if you have progress in another way.
The thing about a MMO is that you need progress in it, be with skills, gear or something else.
The problem here as in most MMOs is that the gap between noob and vet is too far in between, the right gap is that a noob could beat a vet if the noob plays great and the vet suck. That give you the best PvP while still give you room for progress.
But you must put in both gear, abilities and buffs you gain as you progress which make it pretty hard to get just the right gap.
AA do have some very interesting ideas, but the powergap limits the fun of the PvP unless you have 2 50s against eachother (or more).
I went to the Nuia continent to try and get a Trade pack back to my own continent. I was expecting trouble and I sure did get some.
I glided around the area scouting for "griefers" as everyone labels a player that kills people. There was a level 45 running around killing both enemies and people from his own faction. I wasted his time successfully by gliding around and he gave up and ran somewhere else. He had killed me two times up until that point so I knew what to expect when I saw him.
After a while I made my trade pack, got a little rush of adrenalin in the hope of successfully making it to the closest ress shrine where you are safe. 50 meters away from the place where I crafted my trade pack I got ganked by 2 people both above my level. I rushed back there in hope of getting my trade pack back. I found the two players the ress shrine and they did the obligatory laugh and point emotes.
I went to the bathroom and was semi AFK at the shrine, one of the players had gone away and the other decided to AFK level his donkey in circles at the shrine. I was a little annoyed, but then I thought. There is collision in this game and I managed to bump the enemy player that walked in circles quite quickly out of the safe area. Killed him and got my trade pack back, there was a "Rift" event and enemies constantly ressed at the shrine I was at.
Probably waited half an hour until the event was over. Only a few afk enemies were at the shrine and I decided to try and get to the next shrine. Funnily enough I made it there with one guy trying to kill me the last few hundred meters. Made it back to my own continent and got my rewards that was disappointingly low for the time I put into it. It was fun and thrilling, another experience that you wont get in a theme park game with no PvP. I could of gone here and said I got griefed and how OWPvP sucks. But it comes with the game, it makes it deeper and will always bring different experiences when you play. Thats the beauty of it, but for some players every time you get killed it will feel like a personal attack on them. Hence they come to forums and want PvE servers.
Cant wait till I can learn the language of the other faction and secretly spy on them when Im over there.
I can not agree with anything you said!
There is a timer penalty which increases up to 3 min look at the screen before you can spawn, plus you lose points if it's in war time.
2 players lvl 30 can't always kill a level 50, unless he is a bad player with a non-pvp class/combo. You can just CC one player 1-2shot the other then kill the CC guy.
In other games buffs are gained from classes not the items them selves, here you actually get more buffs from items than your own class skills.
Buffs aren't a problem per say... its when their affect makes such a difference that they became mandatory, that it becomes an issue. Buffs from consumables in AA are better than the class skill buffs, its ridiculous... its clearly an Asian way to force players to grind and subscribe.
Well I said what my opinions are each one is free to have their own and agree or not with mine. I can only advise others to play on Russian server before committing to a pre-order of the NA/EU version.
1...its a sandbox and by nature sandboxes have never ever been solely a pve experience ever
2.) even just sleeping through the quests hitting level 50 doesn't take very long and since you and overachieve every quest leveling comes at a rapid pace
3.) you can avoid contested areas as they are CLEARLY marked on the map and annound via in game messaging
4.) you're given a variety of ways to get buffs to augment your characters viability in pvp as you said through poition, food, crafting items, etc. what exactly is bad about that.
I think what I am getting very tired of is the WOW/COD pvp players that expect things out of archeage that it never proclaimed itself to be.
so say we all