Muligan
Trakanon Raider
- 3,213
- 893
That actually comforts me to hear as it would have caused me to purchase a founder pack.
Albion Online
- Thread starter Eidal
- Start date
Spent $30 on it, gave it a few days play and I must say the game is boring as shit. The lack of pathfinding and tooltips(you have no idea what some resources are, for instance birch trees are supposed to give you birch wood but it ends up being rough wood and you won't know til you start cutting it) make the game feel awkward. Combat being simple is an understatement.
I think the game has a long way to go before even being a shadow of ultima online.
Since gear is all created, there's literally no loot or chests in the world, you just kill things for fame and silver over and over.
To bring an entire set of gear (boots, chest, helmet, 2h weapon or 1h+oh) from 3.1 to 8.6, you would need
Without LP:
106.376.215 fame
This corresponds to around 1.900 hours played w/o premium and 1266 with premium
Assuming that you power grind (no break!) for 4 hours per day, including weekends, it will take you 322 days
With LP
You need 3400 LP to get one full set from 3.1 to 8.6
As you get 20 LP per day, the LP would take 170 days to generate
LP would reduce your grind requirements from 1266 hours to 313 hours.
So, if you do pure grind for 2 hours per day, 5 days per week, it would take you 31 weeks, i.e. 217 days, to get one gear set to 8.6
Is that too easy? Judge for yourself
Currently, there are 45 different weapons in the game. With our enchanting rework, all of them will go to tier 8.6
Maxing out all of them, assuming no LP, will take 39 years of grind if you grind for 4 hours per day
With LP, to max out all of them, you would need 76,500 LP. It would take you more than 10 years to get that amount of LP. On top of that, you would have to grind for around 4 hours per day, each day, during those 10 years on top of that
For armors, as there are 9 different ones (which will become truly different after the rework), it would be "just" 8 years of grind without LP and 2 years with LP, provided that you grind for 4 hours per day, each day, during those 2 years
The above assumes that you use 0 LP for gathering, refining and crafting.
It also assumes that there is enough mobs, ranging from power level 4 to power level 12.
Let's say you pick up this game a year from now, you have no chance at doing pvp. You'll be crushed and you'll never make up the gap.
This is a huge problem with the game design that the devs aren't even thinking about. If you can't bring in new players and keep them, the game dies.
I think the game has a long way to go before even being a shadow of ultima online.
Since gear is all created, there's literally no loot or chests in the world, you just kill things for fame and silver over and over.
To bring an entire set of gear (boots, chest, helmet, 2h weapon or 1h+oh) from 3.1 to 8.6, you would need
Without LP:
106.376.215 fame
This corresponds to around 1.900 hours played w/o premium and 1266 with premium
Assuming that you power grind (no break!) for 4 hours per day, including weekends, it will take you 322 days
With LP
You need 3400 LP to get one full set from 3.1 to 8.6
As you get 20 LP per day, the LP would take 170 days to generate
LP would reduce your grind requirements from 1266 hours to 313 hours.
So, if you do pure grind for 2 hours per day, 5 days per week, it would take you 31 weeks, i.e. 217 days, to get one gear set to 8.6
Is that too easy? Judge for yourself
Currently, there are 45 different weapons in the game. With our enchanting rework, all of them will go to tier 8.6
Maxing out all of them, assuming no LP, will take 39 years of grind if you grind for 4 hours per day
With LP, to max out all of them, you would need 76,500 LP. It would take you more than 10 years to get that amount of LP. On top of that, you would have to grind for around 4 hours per day, each day, during those 10 years on top of that
For armors, as there are 9 different ones (which will become truly different after the rework), it would be "just" 8 years of grind without LP and 2 years with LP, provided that you grind for 4 hours per day, each day, during those 2 years
The above assumes that you use 0 LP for gathering, refining and crafting.
It also assumes that there is enough mobs, ranging from power level 4 to power level 12.
Let's say you pick up this game a year from now, you have no chance at doing pvp. You'll be crushed and you'll never make up the gap.
This is a huge problem with the game design that the devs aren't even thinking about. If you can't bring in new players and keep them, the game dies.
Eidal
Molten Core Raider
- 2,001
- 213
That's not exactly what he was saying. It's an important consideration in a PVP-centric game; how will newcomers be competitive against the old guard? I know from personal experience that I couldn't even get half my friends to try Eve out and the primary reason was that "no point since we can never catch up with the old players." Obviously any Eve vet knows this to be technically true SP-wise but that's not how the game works.
I wouldn't enjoy playing a game knowing that anyone not perma-neckbeard status is destined to be fodder.
Was just a copy paste from korn. Those are legit numbers from the horses mouth.
Call it bitching if you want but myself and others wanted to know about the game and it went quite a few days with no info so I took it upon myself to do the research and possibly saved some people money.
Call it bitching if you want but myself and others wanted to know about the game and it went quite a few days with no info so I took it upon myself to do the research and possibly saved some people money.
It just sucks because I really wanted to like Albion, the videos and reviews of the game painted a picture of this amazing customizable pvp sandbox with crafting and running your own shop with player towns and instead its lacking in all departments.
I hope they can change it into a game with a more 1v1 aspect instead of roaming gank squads picking on solo players (new players) that haven't gotten established yet.
The other problem I see is unlike other games there isn't really much interaction between the new player and guilds except through global chat spam and them killing your ass.
It needs some work but I'm still hoping... Since I did spend money on this lol.
I hope they can change it into a game with a more 1v1 aspect instead of roaming gank squads picking on solo players (new players) that haven't gotten established yet.
The other problem I see is unlike other games there isn't really much interaction between the new player and guilds except through global chat spam and them killing your ass.
It needs some work but I'm still hoping... Since I did spend money on this lol.
Was about done with the game playing from green zones and not taking part in the territorial/political aspect of the game - each to their own, but for me that's the main selling point of this game. For raw skill-based pvp there are way better options in mmo and non-mmo forms - AO is kind of all about guilds colonizing the wilderness, fighting over territory and exploiting that territory as fully as possible. About the only law being the law of whatever guilds are in control - and all the pockets of lawlessness in between. I mean, that was always what gave UO its edge, minus the organizational/logistical demand in AO.
So I've joined up with a guild called KDS who are based out in red/black on the east continent in order to get back to the part of the game that drew me in originally in alpha. And it's a whole different game, for sure. Everything has much more of an immediate purpose. Again, non-meaningful/persistent MMOs have their place, but they also need to have way better gameplay in order to compensate. On the other hand, Albion Online can potentially get away with having pretty ass gameplay.
Thing is, KDS are part of such a huge alliance, that the red/black territories they're based in are often safer than the yellow zones my last guild moves through. Like, this guild is so over-the-top organized that it has created its own carebear bubble out here. I guess it's something that happened a lot in Eve too, where an alliance could lock down large chunks of 0.0 so effectively that it just felt like empire space. But it's definitely not a good thing.
So yeah, that's I guess my new worry about AO. That cooperation is too easy, and there aren't enough mechanics to drive guilds apart and make them fight. There needs to be some degree of entropy that prevents gigantic alliances being content with holding huge swaths of land. Right now, the fact that this means its members can tier-up insanely fast in safety, and build high tier gear easily, means everyone is happy to just chill and progress their character unabated. Maybe once people are capped there will be more thirst for blood - but then at that point, what are people even fighting over?
So I've joined up with a guild called KDS who are based out in red/black on the east continent in order to get back to the part of the game that drew me in originally in alpha. And it's a whole different game, for sure. Everything has much more of an immediate purpose. Again, non-meaningful/persistent MMOs have their place, but they also need to have way better gameplay in order to compensate. On the other hand, Albion Online can potentially get away with having pretty ass gameplay.
Thing is, KDS are part of such a huge alliance, that the red/black territories they're based in are often safer than the yellow zones my last guild moves through. Like, this guild is so over-the-top organized that it has created its own carebear bubble out here. I guess it's something that happened a lot in Eve too, where an alliance could lock down large chunks of 0.0 so effectively that it just felt like empire space. But it's definitely not a good thing.
So yeah, that's I guess my new worry about AO. That cooperation is too easy, and there aren't enough mechanics to drive guilds apart and make them fight. There needs to be some degree of entropy that prevents gigantic alliances being content with holding huge swaths of land. Right now, the fact that this means its members can tier-up insanely fast in safety, and build high tier gear easily, means everyone is happy to just chill and progress their character unabated. Maybe once people are capped there will be more thirst for blood - but then at that point, what are people even fighting over?
You build regular buildings in your territory, territories are purchased with silver/gold. Upkeep cost is silver/gold as well. You choose 4 different times in a day that your territory is open for attacking, and you've got 3 defense points. If you lose, you lose a defense points. Once your defense points reach 0, you lose the territory.
Resources are static and respawn every couple minutes but other than the wipe at the end of closed beta, no resets.
It wasn't made clear whether you choose one of four times to be attacked or you get attacked four times a day but I'm betting on the first.
Resources are static and respawn every couple minutes but other than the wipe at the end of closed beta, no resets.
It wasn't made clear whether you choose one of four times to be attacked or you get attacked four times a day but I'm betting on the first.
From what I've seen though, its pretty damn easy to lock down an entire zone with an aoe crew camping the zone ins.
Someone zones in, you blow them up before they even load in.
Like I said, the game needs a bit more work to flesh out all the short sighted designs but it has a great basis for a fun pvp game.
Someone zones in, you blow them up before they even load in.
Like I said, the game needs a bit more work to flesh out all the short sighted designs but it has a great basis for a fun pvp game.
I was a member of Paterno (Still CW) but ended up switching to KDS about a week ago due to them having more members online during US play times. I've been having a ton of fun with the game, and as you mention it is a completely different game once you are in a well organized guild / alliance. I wouldn't exactly call CC a "carebear bubble" but then again it is fairly safe from gankers and such compared to normal red zones. The run from BH to CC is usually good at getting your blood pressure up though if you don't go with other people. The other day I was trying to move 3 sets of T6 armor and 3 5.2 maces to BH and got jumped on the way. Luckily I was travelling with others, who were able to protect my corpse but it was still a pretty intense situation.
The safety of CC and the immediate area around that really at most gets you to T6 though. For grinding up to T7+ you have to move out to areas like Harrowdeep or Hollow Soul where there is always an immediate risk of being ganked or out numbered. As far as needing to push guilds out of their bubble goes, PvP loot does that well. We routinely take small parties over to the other continent, to Nilfgard / H&S / Finstack territory in search of a fight. Often we come back carrying more gear than we left with. On the flip side, other guilds often do raids into CC and the surrounding territories trying to draw out a fight.
Overall, as I mentioned above, I'm having tons of fun with the game but can definitely see how some people may not like the slow grind (I love it).
Muligan
Trakanon Raider
- 3,213
- 893
Rothir, since you are really the first overwhelmingly positive review i've seen would you say that there is any room for the casual player? I really would like to just goof around, tradeskill, and build stuff (not sure how much has been done with housing) but it looks like it "could" be fun but hate to throw money at anything else right now too.
In the current incarnation of the game, you would have an extremely hard time as a casual solo player. Red zones would basically be suicide without certain specialized escape builds (medium hat/light or medium chest/medium boots). Even then, it would be extremely difficult to progress after a point. You will hit a wall around T5 and probably not make it to T6 or 7 gear / resources. There are a couple yellow zones with T5 monsters, but they are often heavily camped so you are fighting over spawns with many others. It might be possible to progress but you would have to be a master at avoiding people who are specced with the intention of chasing solo players down and killing them, and have a way to replace your gear easily. Roaming PvP squads always sweep the "standard" exp and resource grinding locations in every map looking for poor solo players and gatherers.
With that said the developer does want to address this. They have suggested that they are going to add higher tier content to new green/yellow zones and somehow add more incentives for people to push into the red and black zones. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I'm not all that familiar on the crafting side of things, you definitely couldn't get to a point that you were crafting all your own gear after around T4 because of the learning point bottleneck. Using one of the builds I mentioned above you might have some success at collecting resources in higher tier areas if getting ganked frequently didn't bother you.
I tried playing a more solo game, and originally joined a really small guild. I quickly realized that it was going to be a very hard and painful road, which is why I ended up working my way into a larger and more successful guild / alliance.
Muligan
Trakanon Raider
- 3,213
- 893
Thanks for the great info. Honestly it sounds like something people have been clamoring for awhile. I'm not sure just how "community centric" the guilds are but it appears to be forcing people to play together. However, Public Quests did to but you never really spoke or supported each other, you just joined the orgy and left.
I may think on it. It sounds like they've done some things right but other aspects could be frustrating to the new and especially casual player. I'm such a sucker for PvP but don't want to constantly die without a chance either. I have about 3-4 RL friends I run around with on a consistent basis but sounds like ganking goes beyond a casual group.
Any familiar guilds on the game? PRX or anyone like that?
You can be extremely effective with a small consistent group if your main goal is small scale pvp. There is one guy who runs with 1-2 others and just constantly moves his location. He ganks lone travelers and small groups all the time, and is pretty high on the fame rankings because of it. We warn the alliance when we find out he is active, and he was the one who got a 90k fame kill on me when I was moving several expensive gear sets to Boneharbor. I've never seen him with more than 3 people total. Their builds are geared specifically to stopping and bursting down people on horses, and then escaping. Him and his friends are in a larger guild but there obviously is room for small, skilled groups of people who play together often.