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Huge map+lack of fast travel are the key things that in theory should help a lot, as you mentioned.

Love it! Thanks for explaining what dark convergence was, I’ve heard you mention it before, but didn’t understand the context.

Scaling boss mechanics based on group size. I hope this aspect is good

I must admit, the one game mechanic in AoC that gives me pause is the concept of experience debt upon death. I've always thought overcoming a challenging boss or mob was thrilling, even if it required multiple attempts. However, the idea of facing an experience penalty makes me inclined to play more cautiously or at least differently than I usually would.

The tech they've talked about where the boss scales based on how many, and how skilled the players in the area are, seems like the best solution to the problem. But, that was a one off mentioned like 2 years ago, and not a peep about it has been uttered since. But yes, bosses being turned into loot pinatas by massive numbers of players is a potential huge problem. Good vid Nyce

Nice Ideas :) thank you

DAoC was a game that had a perfect PVE/PVP setup of any MMO that's ever been. Man if they made a new version of that game it would crush it! I'm cheering for AoC hoping its all they say it will be!

New sub. Good stuff man

I hope these countermeasures work. Zerging pretty much killed my enjoyment of New World open world pvp. At launch you could flag for PvP and have fun, intense encounters randomly in the woods with other flagged players, but it wasn't too long before the only flagged players were in groups of 15+.

lol @ 9:25 did he turn his camera to avoid showing the npc (or player) lag running in place. 😂

The Zerg problem is that streamers think they should win a 1 v 10 by infinitely kiting with their "run away builds"....... and anytime they get stunned, or blown up by high DPS they go cry in forums to have things nerfed.....

Any mmo ever tried turning on friednly fire. Seems like that and some sort of trip mechanic for stacking people in a single spot would help to limit zergs alot.

Huge map and Lack of fast travel was tested out in New World. It was hated and was a primary reason people left. Fast travel could have a debuff associated with it, lasting double the time running there would take. This would allow both decisions to be viable while rewarding intended play.

They mentioned how guilds will have to make a choice to level up their allowable members or get a guild buff that might up the attack, gathering or crafting skills. The idea is that a choice will need to be made and could ultimately lead to larger guilds not being able to get certain bonuses. And I agree with your assessment, of having longer travel times makes it hard for flash zergs or for reflexive groupings. I’m incredibly interested in the death punishments. I wonder how the community will handle it truthfully.

For PVE, I think Eso had a good idea going with Boss loot drops. Only the top DPS actually get loot to drop, so if you have 30+ people attacking a single boss, not everyone gets loot. I remember in ESO when oakensoul came out there was 40+ people farming the mudcrab boss for hours because not everyone could get the loot to drop due to the sheer numbers. Ashes should implement that same thing but also factor in people's roles like being a tank/healer and then the top DPS. So that way if people are zerging a boss, they're not guaranteed to get loot and it encourages people to not try to zerg down a boss.

I think there will be only a certain amount of loot dropped, from worldbosses, which then needs to be split between party members. Since not every one is getting their own loot, zerging down a world boss will not be efficient. edit: where zerging might become a problem is in pvp, especially castle and node sieges

I honestly don’t mind Zerg’s, not after becoming an Albion online veteran, I’ll never forget how we fought 70 vs 400 and almost won. Tho Albion is made to be played as a Zerg or well trained group. If you design your game well enought zergs won’t be too much of a problem, after the game has established itself, game launch will be horrible tho. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/a62Coslms7K2d2w.htmlsi=8pQLziE2-ERuv5j9 This a compilation of our best performances in that season, where we as a solo guild got under the top 5.

It's insane how good NW looks compared to other MMO's even un released MMO's in this case.

Anti zerg mechanics sounds very interesting and great video as always! ❤

Maybe they should only allow 4-6 man groups. That so they don’t abuse the communication system. So that not everyone is in communication with one and other. And more division and other play styles might be more considered. Hey maybe even if a group attacks another group first that they can only apply damage to that group. So like first come first serve type of idea. Almost like how eso did group healing and not public healing before.

Death penalty definitely willnlead to zerging. My biggest concern honestly about AoC, is due my minor nerve damage from carpo tunnel, I need gamepad/controller support. And I go a feeling, AoC won't have it. At least not for a while, so my digit dexterity for key stoke will severely hamper my gameplay. Here's hoping it'll have controller support or some player will make a workable load out for it thru steam

I think AoC could become the best MMO, but that's honestly not saying much. Similar to how saying classic WoW is the best MMO ever isn't saying much. I think MMOs are just too challenging to create. Each necessary aspect for an MMO: social, gameplay, story, RPG mechanics - is outdone by competition from standalone options. We already have great elements in different games and social media.

Wouldn't a way to prevent zerg rushing be changing how the party system works? I don't really play MMOs that often, but I know some things about it. Like, I know a little about how people party up and have seen some MMO-inspired shows. I don't know if any other games already have this, but this is what I thought of. I think a way to help stop zerg rushing is to change the party system. I was thinking they could make it so defeating monsters with a smaller party gives better rewards. And they could add a commander role for the party leader. This role will be able to use premade commands to tell the other players what to do. For example, there could be a formation command that works by assigning the other party members to a premade formation. Using a formation will give the other players attack or defense bonuses based on the formations. These could work by having you make them beforehand, assigning the spots for the other players to stand, which will be visualized by light for the party members to see and will have their names above where they need to be. It could work like, for example, in a diamond formation, you would assign your tank to the front and DPS to the sides, then you in the middle or back depending on your class. I think adding something like that could add more strategy to the game and encourage smaller groups of players. Like, if you think about it logically, if you stab and blast an animal in real life with 50 swords and 50 flamethrowers, you're not going to get any useful materials from that mangled and charred corpse. So, fewer people would give better results. If an mmo had this implemented into their game, it might be seen as annoying. But if it was there from the start, they would still complain but would need to tolerate it as they just bought the game. Edit: Thinking about it, for the formations, it should be more like a bubble that surrounds and follows the players when a command is given depending on the formation. Like the diamond formation doesn't need to be a perfect diamond; the players just need to stand on the side there name is at and be in a rough diamond shape so their movements aren't restricted as much.

with all these death penalties, im scared of the griefers... whats the answer to that?

I am dealing with the zerg issue right now and its crazy how similar it is to the same issue ESO has. I have fallen in love with Guild Wars 2 but man their open world PvP called World v World is zergy af.

One thing that allows zerging is allowing players to spam abilities. One way to counter this is to create a debuff that scales based on player closeness and quantity and increases time between ability use.

My thoughts are what if there was friendly fire. It would fit the whole PvP environment and anyone can engage in it, but massive zergs are going to cause massive mistakes and they may kill each other off long before it becomes a serious problem and the focus being skill.

Zergs are going to be like a all-you-can-eat buffet for PVP guilds.

I think the open world dungeons/raids are going to be a bigger issue than they think. People have limited time to do group centric things like raiding in MMOs. Now imagine a guild in this game getting together, the only time that week they can do any kind of raid and they're in open competition with anyone and everyone else in the area .... imagine fighting a boss as the tank and suddenly your heals stop because some random jackholes have jumped your healers during the fight or are just harassing them in ways that are preventing them from healing you.

The loot drop reduction for sure will. Plenty of people in EVERY mmo complains about loot drop rates. And for that to get reduced on death? ya no that's going to incentivize hard.

I like idea of death penalties but I can see problems it brings ie. The rage people bring in groups if they die and blame others . I stop playing new world for that fact . Tanking in dungeon trying to hold agro and dps not geared properly, die and raging on tank etc . Love your content .. thnx 🎉

The Spartans were in a clump stacking their damage against the Persian Empire soldiers. So yes, even the Spartans used Zerging tactics.

So is this game coming out?

I'm sure being rez'd by a cleric will greatly readuce the death exp penalty. I will be accepting tips.

There's nothing you can do about it. There will be zergs. You can limit half the systems and make the game 30x worse by trying to prevent zergs from existing and people will still always group with bigger numbers for the easy rewards. Even if you make the rewards 10x worse for the zerg, people will still choose to get something before not getting anything. That's okay, though: 1- Zergs are generally unorganized and for obvious reasons most of their players won't be that good. Smaller but much more organized clans can beat them. 2- The REALLY good PvP players generally hate being part of the zerg. As somebody who has always played PvP MMOs, it just feels like whatever you win means nothing if you just beat 50 people with 150. It's also just boring. A lot of players will walk away from that. I did in the past and I'm sure many will when it inevitably happens again. 3- More people = more egos. People in PvP MMOs argue and change sides constantly. The same guy that was helping the zerg with his party yesterday will be mad at something and helping you beat that same zerg next week. It's all about not being a giant baby and giving up instantly, talking to people, diplomacy here and there and that's it. I played L2 for nearly a decade and zergs never lasted more than 1-2 months max. 4- It's also just fun fighting outnumbered. You have to pick your battles better, since you can't just flag immediately everywhere or you'll go down to level 1 losing so much EXP, but there's literally no better feeling in any MMO than winning a mass PVP/siege/world boss with a smaller guild vs a zerg

have to say I dont think I am with the whole "anyone can enter the dungeon you are in" this only invites chaos and grief tacticians. Wow my first "x" for AoC. Wth Steven. :( thanks for this and I am looking forward to more from you! (:

Wait....it can be Played?

Give the bosses the Dark Souls mechanic where tanks won't matter with larger group sizes. Everyone has to know boss mechanics because it'll be randomized aggro based on who touched the boss last. While also making the boss a bigger damage sponge with more damage.

This sounds like it will be a cool game, but with always on PvP I will never play it. But I do hope it does well and a lot of people like it and have a lot of fun playing it.

if this game release as a tab target then all you need is a lot of time to grind or fat wallet or join a massive leauge, clan, guild

I don't mind zergs at all, but surely a good way to make it smaller the quantity would put some limitations on how many players can join a guild or a group... Make it smaller, like 20-30 people maximum in a guild

This is what I keep thinking of. No matter how cool the game is or the mechanics a Zerg vs Zerg always turns into a ranged for ranged fight and everyone is just aoe’ing there is no skill or epic battle. Just a ton of lag and framing. Imo smaller scale yields better gameplay.

It really is a problem for all PvX MMOs and could cripple Ashes success. Massive guilds are something that has to be dealt with when it comes to PvP (along with alliances, etc., they are aware but it is tough to limit). And yes, bosses need to scale or something. The true limiter would be friendly fire, but that is impossible to do because of griefing. In PvP, alternatives would be to reverse scale rewards, somehow when you greatly outnumber opponent you don't 'get much' (like mostly stuff in a caravan is 'destroyed' or an area has fewer resources in it if 'a large guild/alliance' shows up to control it, that kind of stuff). Definitely difficult. PvE is less of a problem but like you said, more boring. So much PvE is so boring... I really wish for good AI bosses that have different/random set of mechanics, along with mobs that really swarm if you aren't careful. Alas most players who pve seem to like 'fixed dance or mindless'... bah

Seeing this somehow gives me DaoC-Vibes... And I had good times there.

Zerging and the openes is the reason why I'm not excited about AoC. Ultimately we need to put in the balance the positives and negatives of having a non-instanced/free for all world. The only positives that I can think of is that it's more immersive and it potentially has better player interactions. While the negatives tho are too many in my opinion: -Combat will be less challenging and less interactive than a controlled instance and that's an objective fact. If we have two equally creative and talented dev teams, one making instanced focused combat and one making open world focused combat, the instance one will always be better.(even in this video when talking about the NW event boss, the most fun was when there were fewer people aka like an instanced encounter) -Even tho it gives immersion with one hand it takes with the other. Players will always find ways to do things efficiently and it's almost always in the most immersion breaking way. This is true with instances as well, but at least the "meta" players will do their thing in their own instance and not ruin the fun for everyone. Never ever try to create immersion with player driven content. -It creates punishing mechanics and features to solve the above mentioned problems, pretty much all the things mentioned in this video. I know lots of people will consider all these punishing features as acceptable sacrifices for having their FFA open world itch scratched, but never stop to ask if it's worth it. And from my personal experience I can almost guarantee people will complain about those punishing mechanics when it's actually time to play the game.

I still waiting for a MMO to have a few dungeon masters who can change the rules of the enviroment to add a different flavour to a game so you can expect the unexpected rather than the same battle over and over again. Just think 75 players Organistion build a settlement in a safe area now you get a Dungean master who attacks it and gives it different variety will be more interesting. To many games these days have to many bosses what happens you defeat all bosses now you bring a DM in who suddenly puts two bosses into it or 100 domians in it at the sametime. The only one who has tried something similar is Star citizen.

I love Zerg combat ngl. Games that encourage zerging like New World, Mortal Online 2, and essentially Albion Online have been my most played games. There’s something that just gets my heart pumping when me and 75-100 others are facing a force of 75-100 or more enemies. Arena crap is easy 3v3 and 1v1 isn’t hard. Zerging means you gotta coordinate a ton of people and that communication and that huge battlefield of players is what honestly keeps me playing MMOs 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

Nightblade vicious death suicide bombers. I consider this playstyle so unbelievably toxic and one of the reasons ESO's Imperial City remains a ghost town. Hopefully Ashes developers can figure out a nice balance to deter zerging that does not involve 1 person being able to kill 20+ players without the ability to fight back.

Friendly fire would put a damper on the zerg train.

I think if you Zerg a boss or server stack , the loot should be modified to trash loot instead of you just 4 man such boss . That alone would stop the zergling of the bosses and create a more of a challenge base to the game .

Why do i feel like AoC looks a bit stiff. In comparison to New World.

Game makes me think that the devs played a lot of DAoC back in the day.

I have always hated zergs. I came from a long history of ffxi form 2004-2018 and our big fights were 18 people. Then I started New World and things that should be done with groups of 10 people or so are zerged by 100's. It makes it boring and requires little to no skill. I hope AOC makes big battles limited to party only or alliance only etc like old school games. If your group claims aggro its the only one that can damage it or something along those lines. Purchased a 250.00 voyager pack a year or 2 ago and am looking forward to this game. Also thanks for the AOC content.

If they take too long releasing this game the graphics is going to be outdated during the time it gets released for ex. 5 yrs from now. They need to release it unfinished and continue developing it..

As with most elements of gameplay, the level of effectiveness of zergs in AoC remains to be seen. I'm often guilty of referencing the Wiki or statements by SS as established facts, but unfortunately all of these must be considered as "goals" or "expectations". As only current spot testers and the devs have experienced the mechanics and features of the game, I am convinced that gameplay at the start of A2 will not 100% meet the imagined conceptions of the majority of the community. A lot of commonly held beliefs will be proven incorrect, at least to some degree. There will be surprises and disappointments. I fully expect there to be wailing and gnashing of teeth in some sectors of the community.

16 man raids *drool*

zug zug

PvP zerging is for sad people. Quit ESO a while ago, oh wow just realised how long... yeah I think end of 2019, but I still remember the f*ckboy organised ball groups that some of the "PvP" guilds ran. Buffing, over healing, debuff cleansing , so they could just roll in fat ball over the top of anything. It was very sad.

Artillery banned zerging in real life warfare

This video came right after you played eso 😂it’s so bad playing eso in prime time, but that’s also bc the meta/balance in the game is dog. Also the game holds the hand/ carries players. I still find it funny when 30 ppl chase me across the map on my sorc wasting 15 minutes of our lives.

Don't reward zergs. If the game encourages it by rewarding them....then there's gonna be zergs

Myrk ha´s never really been hard for us that know what to midagate been soling mines and myrk even the big portal for years now sure it can take up to 10-20 min to clear a big portal somes times if your´alone ore in 3-5 man grupp. But i barly play new world any more my company left nysa kds yesterday for abaton been in so many companys and shasing content for years now when most that played new world from alpha this 3-5 months is always gonna be low pop and paying 15e every time you shase content ore some true pvp action is not fun. Back to ac serge is one problem but atm they have like 5oo problems do this generation really whant this old way to play and grind no quality of life am 100% sure they don´t.

I have Lost All interest in this game. Once it comes out, if it ever does, then I shall check it out again. Cya. But, if it goes anything like the Best and Original MMORPG EverQuest, it will be a fun fight between Guilds to take mobs and camp them or just over power the other guilds... good times. Hopefully, Elite mobs will be more of a weekly or longer time frame event and not a every 15 mins or 2 hours.. repeat.........forever. Hopefully, the spirit of actually playing a game returns and the challenge is there. Cya in 2025, maybe.

Zerg content and no open pvp is why NW sucks fat ballz. There's no mass PVE content. Every boss in open world dies in 2 seconds. And their "mythic" or "legendary" items are so lmao. How can you call item legendary if it drops from a trash mob (Featherweight)???? Or mob that can be zerged by 50 people? How is that a legendary status? Also lack of PVP allowed bots to go mega lulz on the game. In Lineage 2 if I saw a bot farming in my spot - I'd just kill it and move on with my farm. In NW? You see a bot running an ore route? Welp, there's nothing you can do about it. As for AOC. Whoever played Lineage 2 knows zergs do work, but only if you let them. In any server where there's a zerg they die off. Why? Raid bosses don't drop enough loot to feed the zerg. So other clans form alliances, mess up the zergs. And since zergs are filled with "apes stronk" mentality of people - after not getting loot or getting their asses handed to them they leave for another guild/clan. Alliances break, sides form again, and you're back to normal. New zerg rises, story repeats. THAT'S THE FUN OF OPEN WORLD PVP. Yes, you get ganked once in a while, but that doesn't happen as much as people, who haven't played AOC yet, or any open world PVP to begin with, are already crying in the comments and forums and discord servers. Got killed? Go get a friend, a clan mate, ask some random people to come and help you. This is an MMOrpg, not just an RPG. So similar things will happen in AOC. Why? Because PVP is open everywhere. Is that bad? For me - that's awesome. All new MMOs are soooo "I got killed QQ, remove open world PVP or I'll stop buying cosmetics". Can't wait for AOC. Can't wait to hunt some noobs, fight for farming spots and get my ass kicked when they come back with a party.

Oh god, hope they never listen to your ideas... jeez... you basicly have the book of 101 how to make a Mmo fails 😬... sorry but i reaaaaly don't like your ideas