The Large Guild Problem in Ashes of Creation

Hey everyone!
The latest pirate software video has been a long discussed issue in the Ashes of Creation space...how impactful large scale guilds will be and what Ashes is trying to do to make sure the game isn't just a "zerg game".
No disrespect to Pirate Software whose content I really enjoy, he just brought the discussion to the forefront again and it's a conversation worth having.
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[@CypherV0]

300 active players in a guild is already too big. But luckily the way Intrepid set this up is the larger you grow your guild, the fewer guild buffs you can take.

[@kfarbarata]

Yeah. I hope they tune down this to less than 100 and make it hard to get the max amount of ppl possible. This will prevent 1k+guilds of making 3 guild extentions (that is easier to maintanance). If u tune down the max amount, normal ppl will eventually get bored of being in the 15th guild extention and only being a personal bot for the guild in a server ... would be harder to not hit guild extentions members (even if they are allies). I wouldn't put a alliance system at all (alliances should only be theorical, in therms should be an agreement, friendly fire is a thing in war)...

[@andylarkin5779]

300 too big 😂 I'm glad you people aren't devs.

[@DejvidR6]

its not tho.. what is 300 player of maybe 10k-15k.. ye there is cap of 10k online players but every1 know its usually extra 20%-50% players soo maybe 12k-15k.. u need 250 ppl for castle battle which will be controlled by guilds would be kinda weird if u as a guild want cotrol over a castle but u need 2 other guild to help u fight for it in my in my opinion 400 would be perfect number for guild and im sure theres gonna be some kind of cap how many ppl can own a home per node

[@levonschaftin3676]

@@DejvidR6 why would that be weird? they allow for guild alliances specifically for this reason

[@DejvidR6]

@@levonschaftin3676 castles which will be controled by guilds need 250 players to attack what would be logic here to have 100ppl guild control point that u need 250ppl to get.. and whole point here is that if u want to have max effcency at crafting and stuff u need to be in a small guild where they sacrafice player numbers for other buffs how would that work in guild of 100? u would have max players of 100 what about those guild that want buffs insted of numbers? u gonna cap their guild at 5 players? and explain to me what would u achive by having 100ppl guild? big comunitys will crate 5 and play togehter u wont ever stop that.. i just thing for a scale of the game 300 is good and 400 would be even better in my opinion if u watched actual dev updates u would understand there wont be much beneffits to run around as a huge group and why 300ppl guilds are needed.. idk what u expect this game to be but u prob have wrong ideas if u think 300ppl can control whole server..

[@VyrilGaming]

I think the best choice is not to help facilitate extra large guilds. They should do their best to promote guilds, but don't let them dominate the realm without real effort.

[@isth3reno1else]

@@VyrilGaming exactly. Let skill prevail, not numbers. Numbers have an already built in advantage, they don't need more than that imo

[@nordy259]

If 12k players actually cooperate there's little intrepid can do. My prediction though is these guilds won't last. Too many players will feel neglected that they're not getting their share from the guild......I'll still avoid their server if I can though. I don't feel like dealing with them for the month or so they last.

[@kfarbarata]

300 ppl is already too much. Make it less than 100 (and only on max lv of the guild or only in Military Node based guilds).

[@bminturn]

@@kfarbarata I think that 100 is about right. There is a glaring concern if you let people have 300+ in a guild though - the entire server will be dominated by a few mega-guilds. Which means that a handful of individuals will largely determine outcomes. No thanks.

[@oldsenpai4337]

You ever played an MMO long term? at the start, there many different guilds competing but once the dust settles down, you start seeing guilds working together and controlling majority of the server. if anything, it will be two massive guilds fighting each other, with many smaller guilds supporting them as 2nd, 3rd guilds. has happen on most servers I have played.

[@AlbertoMartinez765]

So Stay away from any server this guy is on...got it

[@TheExtended]

I hope Intrepid actively discourages large scale guilds. It may be fun for the guild leaders but it would kill the game for everyone else. A guild of the size PirateSoftware is suggesting would put too much control of a servers player base in one players hands. A game like this needs chaos to be interesting long term.

[@JohnAPrescott]

Not really a fan of big guilds either. I made a pact with myself when this does launch, I'm not going to rush it...I want to enjoy the journey to max level and let the lore seep in as I traverse Vera. I could care less about 1st anything these day, but those that do I hope they have a ton of fun doing just that. Come on Alpha2!!!!!!!!

[@isth3reno1else]

Well said!

[@bminturn]

A 300 guild is quite small? I hope that Intrepid listens to voices like this, and then does the opposite of what voices like this suggest.

[@Acarinn]

Why?

[@bobbythorton7693]

300 isn't small or big, if anything kind of on the smaller side esp for a game like this. Don't get me wrong anything over 1000 is stupid. 600 seems ideal for this game

[@isth3reno1else]

@@bminturn I think he thinks 300 is small for a megaserver, which I'd agree but ashes isn't currently a megaserver game

[@bminturn]

@@isth3reno1else I don't know. Maybe he does misunderstand that there will be different servers, but 300 is huge regardless. I think that it would make the game better if they went the smaller guild route, anyway. If your guild caps at 100, for instance, you're going to have to make alliances to take and hold territory. Instead of having THE GUILD and a bunch of boot-licker guilds in THE GUILD's orbit. Then 1 guild leader can't wield as much influence across the entire server.

[@BaxxyNut]

​@bobbythorton7693 300 is a sizeable chunk of an online population. PS misunderstood how servers will work, he is under the impression there will be one server with every player in NA inside it.

[@cizmar1972]

I hope they do not budge that much on guild sizes. It is set at 300 for guilds and then 4 guilds can have an alliance.

[@sawmanUK]

We need to talk about Large Guilds in Ashes of Creation 🙀

[@blktauna]

numbers will win

[@Erodice]

I played eve online for over 10 years. It's very subjective. Inhave seen some of the largest guilds fall due to spies, propaganda, and cunning on the part of a smaller group. Size is not everything but it is a factor.

[@wildejagd]

Oh, my God, Becky, look at that guild!?! It is so big, it looks like one of those eso guy’s guilds, anyway But, ya know, who understands those eso guys? I mean, that guild, is just so big I can't believe it's just so round, it's like out there

[@BRADLIKESPVP]

As someone who loves playing in a smaller guild, these passives sound like an amazing system to (at least slightly) balance larger zergs against smaller formations. I'm worried though that it'll just become a Meta where big guilds simply split up into multiple smaller guilds to benefit from the passives and then create an alliance with very little downsides. Hopefully they get that system right.

[@Strangingness]

My answer CPU controlled Mercenaries/Guilds How does it work? If You don’t have a full Guild or group in all game modes in both PVP or PVE You can access them. Of course Elite maxed out players will always be preferred over these bots but it will help make things more fair. Further more, perhaps You can have NPC non playable race “Guild” that are tribal and nomadic You can’t join that operate on their own and are totally OP and start coming out of nowhere once 3 or less Guilds take over the majority of the map. For example a Guild of Ogres or Wolf Men or Centaurs. Or even just tribal Humans. that go after the top Guilds constantly and ally with the weaker Guilds who are not in the top three map dominance

[@hellstocker7707]

His video has POPPED OFF. The talk of the town😂

[@isth3reno1else]

@@hellstocker7707 he's a good content creator!

[@cannedtuna55]

One way to reward guilds for having good players would be to provide buffs or some other reward for pve world firsts, winning small scale PVP events, or having top ranked arena teams. I think having guild vs guild instanced PVP events would be awesome.

[@isth3reno1else]

That would make firsts pretty cutthroat and fun. Make them expire after a few months and recycle them and I like it

[@YullishPelor]

I find it funny that he said he was the bad guy in eve, and became the bad guy of the ashes community before alpha release. I also wonder because I've heard everyone say the same "Noooo guild too big". What do you think the limit is on intrepid increasing guild sizes?

[@isth3reno1else]

I don't think they will increase guild sizes as it stands rn. 4 guilds allied with maxed out populations is a huge chunk of the server. Idk for sure though ofc, it just seems like a misunderstanding

[@YullishPelor]

​@@isth3reno1elseyeah sorry about this comment, was pretty irritable yesterday and was venting. Was annoyed most of the AoC content creators were taking the 2 sentences out of the video, and made a narc esq click bait and ended up ranting about guild sizes. I appreciate the video focusing on being informative, especially since he thought it would be a mega server. This made me wonder if they would be able to increase server sizes. I doubt they would since they have been making the game balanced around 50k total people per server, last I heard at least.

[@isth3reno1else]

@@YullishPelor hey man i totally get it. I obviously clickbaited a little but I'm not trying to take his words out of context. I just wanted to bring up a big fear in the space about the game and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. As far as increase server sizes go, I think they potentially could on paper. They have roughly 30x the map size of new world with about 3x the population. I don't think(on paper) increasing the server size to like 30k would change the game much...but that's on paper. I won't know for sure until i get in and actually test

[@synapsesboom]

I log into play a game to not deal with irl shit. I don't want to log in and just manage or be managed exactly like work irl and where like 5 or 6 ppl completely decide the direction of a lot of my gameplay. keep them small.

[@TheJamation]

One of the things I always worry about with streamer dominated servers is the short-lived nature of most streamer's core focus. Sure, there are plenty of streamers that have a main game or focus primarily on one thing, but too often they'll swap focus if the views or entertainment vanish. Normally this would just mean a server would lose a vast majority of its population over a short span, but wouldn't necessarily impact the ability to play the game. But for a game like ashes were a server's life is co-dependent on it's player population, it becomes scary to think about how easy it could be to run an entire server to ruin with a mass exodus. In relation to that, I think mass guilds like Thor talked about, isn't beneficial. Sure you might have 12k people, and you could coordinate them through discord, but when you force them into smaller groups, like the 300 - you're forcing smaller communities to form. If you have one guild with all 12k in it and that one guild leaves or disbands from bad leadership, it'd be horrible for server health, but splitting it up (even if they all somehow manage to coordinate well enough to work together) you're less likely to suffer that same impact if even a handful of the 300 member guilds broke up. Not only that but you're causing natural competition, even between alliance guilds over mayorships, castles, or POI! If everyone is in the same guild where's the competition? Where's the fun? I genuinely don't get why people want huge massive guilds like that. Other than wanting to feel like a god, I don't see how they can look at it from an objective POV and say it would help/be beneficial for anything other than their ego. Long post, but I feel pretty passionate because there have been too many games were a big name/influencer comes onto the scene starts sending their hordes of followers to pressure the game for a change that ultimately hurts the game, but it's something they decided they want, and then they inevitably abandon the game after the popularity spike starts tanking, leaving long time players kicking rocks. I know everyone can have their own opinion. I just fear those that have the ability to "weaponize" their followers to parrot and puppet their personal opinion to make it seem like it's representative of the majority. Also this wasn't an attack on Thor, love his stuff and think he's a swell dude, just don't agree that there should be enormous guilds.

[@isth3reno1else]

Yep I don't disagree as I've seen it myself in a lot of different games. Having that big following can be really impactful on a game, for better or for worse. Big streamer eyes on a game can be a good thing for the game, so hopefully intrepid makes the best product they can where people just want to hop on

[@barnakatlantica3027]

I don't understand how having fixed amount of loot on a world boss will fix zerg. It doesnt matter if the loot is split among more people if your zerg can always dominate every boss itmeans smaller group never get any of those loot. It is a system that already exist in many other game and zerg still get all the loots.

[@isth3reno1else]

@@barnakatlantica3027 in the example I gave it would take a group 5x the effort to do the same as a small group. The population density is 1/10th that of new world, meaning a lot of the areas will be unexplored. If this is the case there should be plenty of areas for small groups to succeed, and incentivize people to spread out

[@RmX.]

With 5 people you need to farm the boss 5 times to get the loot for everyone in the group with 10 people you have to kill the boss 10 times until everyone is satisfied Why it's so hard to understand?

[@barnakatlantica3027]

@@RmX. okay lemme explain to you , you got a 10 man raid to go kill a world boss, you start the fight . then the zerg shows up and steamrolls your group in pvp and kill the boss for themself. so in other words , it doesnt matter if loot is fixed if the zerg will steamroll you everytime the boss spawns, yes itll take them longer to get their stuff , but itll be better than just getting steamrolled in pvp by a zerg and literally never get any drops untill that drops becomes irrelevent due to new content. And if you think that once the zerg has all the items they need they will stop , you are wrong, they will try to control drops for sell or just will pvp (steamroll you) just to cuck any opposing groups. this is why its hard to understand their logic. All it will do is , it will take longer to get their shit done. and as they get kills their group will become more powerful every boss kill while the small group will eat the dirt xd. The mecanic of fixed loot for world boss is not something AOC invented its a common thing in many pvp mmo like archeage for example and lemme tell you that usually those loot usually goes to the same faction/alliance/guild for a very long period of time if not for the entire life of a server

[@isth3reno1else]

My point is that the population density in Ashes on paper is very light. New World even in fully pop locked servers felt dead a lot because people focused around cities and not so much in the world. Ashes has 1/10th the density. Now, if they make all of the bosses easy to travel to, and only make certain bosses extremely valuable so that it funnels big groups into a few areas, then yes I agree with you completely that they will just be zerg fest and optimization will not matter. If they accomplish what they are trying to do, by making different resources valuable for different reasons...and they spread out the bosses so people can't run a loop on a timer easily, then there will be opportunities for smaller groups to succeed more often. Due to the layout and what they're trying to do, I think they have a shot at accomplishing this because they're actively working towards it, unlike a lot of games ive played that frankly just threw shit at a wall and hoped it stuck.

[@ZybakTV]

Great video!

[@isth3reno1else]

Thanks!

[@joshlashley6493]

300 is more than enough, that streamer is on a pipe dream. Control a server with your minions if you want but I honestly would feel bad for anyone playing on that server who didn't know that streamer was going to be on it. I plan on avoiding streamer servers as I always do.

[@TheToledoTrumpton]

Well, I've answered this on a number of these videos about Zerg guilds, but there are a number of mechanics to limit guilds: 1. Guilds don't own nodes, the citizens do. 2. The optimum population of a node won't be "As many as possible:". If you have too many, the node will not grow resources, become deforested etc., and start destructive story arcs. Getting your node configuration/composition right, I think is going to be more difficult than people might think. 3. Neighboring nodes are vassal nodes of the regent node and limited in growth, so if you had a big empire, the vassal node guildies are going to be hampered by the guild in the regent node, far more than they gain from it. 4. The larger the guild, the fewer guild augments members of the guild get. I think guilds will end up being of little use as a unifying power. I think they will be mostly company sized military node sub-groups for PvP, raid sub-groups for PvE, or more rarely commercial merchant groups trading between nodes.

[@chonkiboii]

IMO just check where biggest streamers join and then chose different server. Problem solved. The guy doesn't understand that this is not EVE system based, grid instanced game. 12k people in a single city, area will be absolutely unplayable.

[@Yung-Custard]

thing is though 10 people farming is faster because they would just funnel the meterials to one person to craft or whatever + you can just sweep the entire area clean of all mobs rinse and repeat.

[@isth3reno1else]

@@Yung-Custard I'm discussing individual gold here. With a capped reward structure it provides incentive for players that can get by with less to do so with less.

[@Yung-Custard]

@@isth3reno1else I see your point, idk. I guess im just used to being in guilds that sort of did this anyway.

[@gigamaxextra]

I think the last section of the guild buffs will be the deciding factor. If a core raid group has a 20% advantage over a large guild there can be a place for both.

[@isth3reno1else]

Yeah, adding a few buffs like that is a huge boon for smaller guilds and naturally spreads people out

[@jacobbranch2744]

Bro said 15k for a guild pop. That's insane..

[@LemonHam5408]

maybe large guild will just create 4 or 5 300 people guilds to form alliance and each guilds can focus one certain traits. it will be interested to see how AoC tried to reduce the effeteness of large scale guilds

[@TheCopiumClinic]

12 k is nuts

[@isth3reno1else]

@@TheCopiumClinic that number surprised me as well. Great that so many people are interested though!

[@contaim7227]

Cant ever have nice things with people in that mob mentality though 😂😂.

[@puddingsimon2626]

its never gonna work, and if then only for a few months untill pocket groups form that will eventually splinter away.

[@TheCopiumClinic]

@@isth3reno1else yeah that’s a good point. This is just another reason why I want castle sieges capped at 250v250.

[@aocbound]

300 max is assuming you sink all mastery points into size, so his thesis makes zero sense off the rip. TPS is an idiot.

[@LordBattleSmurf]

My question is how mich of a skill ceiling in pvp does Ashes of Creation actually have? It's clearly not nearly as high as a hardcore FPS physics based sandbox pvp MMO game like Darkfall Online, but is Ashes combat at least more skillful than WoW? I really prefer playing in quality over quantity pvp guilds and beating lesser skilled groups while out numbered, but you can only do that if the game is hard enough to have a big skill gap beteeen the average player and the best

[@isth3reno1else]

I'll be discussing that in a future video, but without testing in a2 I can't really say confidently how much of a skill ceiling exists. I can say that with their coordination of talent trees for archetypes, augments for these skills for classes(thousands of ways to augment skills), weapon diversity with their own skill tree and the coordination of buff effects from classes that create powerful effects on top, it seems like the game does have a high skill ceiling

[@Shoibyrd]

They also said that pvp is anti zerg. There is limited players in wars. With or without large streamers there will be large guilds. There are massive communities as well. The systems in place shown are already capped. FFXI had lots of anti zerg systems, one of the inspirations. PvP was limited and factions could make temp alliances.

[@michaelaine14]

Its Quantity over Quality, if you played TnL it proves it right.. gvg, ally vs ally will still be numbers game and I can say this, this is why it killed TnL 2-3months on the kr release the game started doing server merges.. its not even mmo anymore -_-

[@isth3reno1else]

Yep, plenty of games have gone down this path. Hopefully intrepid finds a balance

[@Minerva-Shield]

Do you think small-scale, outnumbered fights-such as 1vX or 2vX scenarios-will be feasible in Ashes of Creation? Given my experience with ESO, where self-healing, line of sight, kiting, buff management, and precise timing play crucial roles, I’m concerned that Ashes of Creation may not offer similar opportunities for small-scale combat. From what I’ve seen so far, it seems that with limited access to self heals outnumbered fights might be reliant on a dedicated healer. I'm hoping that the game will still cater to those who enjoy engaging in small-scale skirmishes. Curious on your thoughts as a former ESO player

[@isth3reno1else]

@@Minerva-Shield so I won't know for sure until I get into a2, but a lack of self heals didn't stop me from soloing in new world. As long as there's a high skill gap on builds, skills and abilities outnumbered fights should be able to happen. Now whether that's solo or duo I have no idea but I think so, depending on who you face

[@joelclark97]

Thor stated on stream today that he understands that it’s not a single server per region. That the guild would likely have at maximum 1-2k members online not the total 12-15k

[@isth3reno1else]

@@joelclark97 cool, I didn't watch so I missed it

[@SuperBlackatude]

I dont think these large guilds truly understand that ashes isnt a "we killed the instanced boss so we all get loot or run it back until we all get the loot" type of game. The only thing that can be evenly split will be the glint before or after its turned into gold. Unless they change the model, you can send 300 players at a boss to one shot it but only a few items and materials are going to drop. Goodluck surviving the drama of 40 tanks all wanting that legendary chest armor and 100 players of different classes all wanting a legendary sword from a boss that only spawns every 30 mins if not every hour, every few hours, or once or twice a day

[@CallMeGatchaJoe]

I like this video a lot more then certain others because it dosnt come off in an arrogent Im right your wrong sort of way, good job. A couple of updates though: 1. Asmongold seems to have been the only one confused on the "mega server" thing 2. Thor explained that he wasnt talking about 1 mega server, but how many servers Intrepid would have open for A2 in each region. 3. A server will have 8 - 10k concurrent players and 50k characters created, given this Thor explained that his guild while large in number, will consist of players from several different countries and time zones and only a small fraction will ever be online at the same time. 4. Finally Intrepid has put in many anti zerg mechanics already and will no doubt balance many more things in regard to large guilds in the future.

[@isth3reno1else]

@@CallMeGatchaJoe appreciate it. Not trying to be right(or wrong lol). Just making observations as to what I see and how I think it could work. They said their goal is for it to not just be a zerg based game so I want to help them see that vision through

[@CallMeGatchaJoe]

@@isth3reno1else Sounds good to me, lets all have fun, all the best to you.

[@R_o_o_k_i_n_g_t_o_n]

personally i dont think this is an issue with firstly, i stand by the current 300 per guild and 5 guilds in one alliance (including your own guild) total and think the large guild problem wont be an issue. firstly, i wanna elaborate on why it is that the guild sizes actually went down from past statements of 500 per guild which is because ashes is all about having to work with other players in an unofficial capacity only backed by each others word meaning betrayal is MORE than likely to be a risk which is why no one person can master more than 3 artisan professions and why there is contention around allowing people to master ANY 3 professions rather than ONLY being able to be master gathering, processing, or crafting which is to FORCE a level in of interconnectedness especially when you consider the best gear will be crafted and crafting wont be easy let alone getting to grandmaster in any profession meaning pvp and pve players will have to interact with one another and need the other and given artisan work will need max capacity guilds to have enough manpower to make it profitable and to facilitate their crafters to the best of their ability in regards to getting their processors and maybe crafters as well freeholds in order to ensure they can actually make mastercraft work but also because large guilds and especially max capcaity 300 member guilds loose either almost all or maybe even ALL extra benefits from being in a guild, there is a good likelyhood the harder content will be built with the assumption of having a certain number of players in your guild that may be even lower than the max number of players projected for raids and world bosses of 32 to 64 actually meaning small guilds will not only be the way to go for pve and to some degree, for pvp as well as an equal number of players from small guilds of like 30 to 50 against even a max 1200 man mega guild made up of 5 guilds in an alliance will be able to cream them with the fact that they have supierior power and even 1200 people is only a little bit over 1 tenth of a servers total pop so they can only do so much beyond their zone of influence. now beyond this, i already started getting into it but the main reason that large guilds honestly will be pushovers war wise is because while they will be coordinated, their max capactiy size will mean all members are basically equally to people no in a guild when it comes to the buffs they get meaning small guilds who do have those benefits will be far more valuble for anyone looking to pve or pvp thought i would imagine that its mostly pve where the devs will ensure the small guild buffs will be necessary meaning still that large guilds at most would only be able to get by by trying to zerg shit which mind you, gets punished by the ai actively switching to using aoe attacks that get progressively more powerful, the more people over the reccomended player limit you bring in open world content and in instanced stuff, this still will likely happen but there already is a baseline limit to how many can join and all content will by and large be on a global reset timer as opposed to an instance reset meaning large guilds like savagepirates can try to dominate a server but ignoring their members will be creamed by small guilds who have that bonus guild power and will be widely enough known that if they piss off too many small guilds, their numbers WILL NOT mean anything as their node gets steamrolled and they get forced to server transfer or try to start again with the server already at a baseline disdain for them and the possibility the server doesnt let them get back up again. honestly big guilds i would imagine will only be used by non combat merchant guilds and artisan guilds whose whole objective is to purely use the collective manpower in non combat senarios to mass produce money and gear for the server while also contracting out to smaller pvevp guilds for bodyguard work, assassination, sabotage, warfare, and probably most importantly for artisan guilds, sending their artisans with them occasionally to help them in dungeons repair their gear but also to get the artisans recepies they likely can only get by participating in raids that pure artisan or merchant guilds just wouldnt be able to complete on their own.

[@R_o_o_k_i_n_g_t_o_n]

yup halfway through and i still not only agree but also stand by what i said that because of the previously stated intent of the team to actually make it so the more people in the guild, the less guild skills and passives you get meaning there is EVEN MORE benefit than just the profit of doing anything when it comes to being in smaller guilds even if that means your bonds with players outside your guild is far more tenuous and prone to betrayal.

[@R_o_o_k_i_n_g_t_o_n]

15:50 personally i dont find this to be an issue. i fully support smaller guilds should have exponentially more power on an individual level but that for them to have these benefits first requires a guild castle meaning less people in your guild means less people to be able to be prepared to even try to defend in the even another guild or multiple guilds wish to see your guilds downfall meaning your power is built upon an increasingly shaky premise with the benefit at least that you could make do with a smaller and smaller guild castle that you can also keep hidden as being your guilds castle by making sure to take precautions around spys and scouts. all in all, i think the concept of balancing most pve at least around something like "each person on this 32 man raid needs to be a member of a 20 man guild or smaller to have enough individual power to take on this raid with an average build and skill level" is how it should be as this forces interaction between guilds and trust in the other that could lead to interesting conflict as betrayals over loot occur with it could also create legends of the 64 man raid made of of 4, 16 man guilds or 8, 8 man guilds and how they all worked together and overcame the most difficult dungeon that had been seen yet! most importantly though on a side note, this also ensures zerging is never really that great an idea unless there is a method to your madness or you all collectively wish to challenge yourself on the harder content or give up rewards on the easier content while making sure no large guild can rule through force.

[@davidsumpter4933]

I like the smaller guild design. 300 guild players times 4 alliences is 1200 max. There is nothing preventing multiple guilds from the same organization coming together in an alliance.

[@isth3reno1else]

@@davidsumpter4933 yeah I think he just assumed it would be a 100k+ person megaserver. Scaled down, his 12k players would be the 1200 max alliance. There was a lot of understandable confusion after the server meshing livestream and I'm glad it was cleared up

[@UnfadingSilence]

By the time AOC comes out all these dudes waiting for it will be 40+

[@OneTomato]

How so

[@UnfadingSilence]

@OneTomato games not gonna be out for 5 more years if that and most of these streamers and content creators waiting for this one to drop are mid 30s already

[@hristo_yonkov]

I personally think things with large alliances will be tested in the A0..

[@bhaalicr]

bro, the dude never played the game, probably hallucinated that there would be a 1 million players online in one server. I doubt that the node system would allowed to one big guild or alliance could dominated the whole server, but its really simple with one small step: avoid like the plage streamers servers.

[@isth3reno1else]

Yeah most of us haven't played which is ok. I just wanted to clear a misconception and talk about big guilds lol

[@TenSevenTN]

What’s to keep a mega guild from making multiple 300 person guilds (1st legion, 2nd legion, etc) and getting around the cap?

[@mortvald]

the fact that the content is gated per guild, sure you can have multiple guilds, but in a guild war or castle defense, they can't intervene so what is even the point?

[@_.Username.Not.Found._1]

If 10 dragon scales drop per kill, the big guilds will still zerg it over and over regardless if the individual reward is less. You said it would take them 5x longer but that doesnt make sense unless you mean for each person to get a scale; which wont be their ultimate goal. Ive seen guilds farm rares for days/weeks at a time to get 1 piece of loot for 1 person (ie NM's in FFXI). I could see smaller guilds having some drama about this but those mega guilds that are super coordinated, not so much. Heres to hoping though!

[@isth3reno1else]

my point is that there are goals of the guild and personal goals. those don't always align. big guilds can and will steamroll bosses, but with the size of the world and the population on it, as well as the lack of fast travel...i dont think that will be extremely common. Of course this all depends on how they dole out resources. If only one resource is valuable it funnels into large guilds. If lots of different resources are valuable for different reasons, it spreads people out.

[@jbweekly551]

If the max player range is 10k then guilds shouldn’t be more than 200-300 max. Or else there will only be a handful of them.

[@isth3reno1else]

My thoughts as well

[@misterragnar2521]

All I want from Ashes is a good *pirate* mmo. I don’t count sea of thieves as its not really a traditional open world mmo, its a lobby with a set amount of players. I cannot wait to plunder on the seas with a system like archage in a fully supported mmo.

[@isth3reno1else]

One of the systems they have not shown yet that I am most looking forward to as well

[@alexkompare-pavlic3935]

To be fair we dont know the sizes of the servers( only old info), we do not know the guild sizes and also the guild sizes are not really a problem imo because the main battles will be betwren nodes and will affect regular gameplay wery little(at least with my understamdimg) the only real problem i see with big guilds is that the demo democrtic nodes will not be able to chabge leader if the guild is big enoug, but again players just need to leave that node and the node will fall down again. We will see, also they have anti zerg systems in plqce

[@isth3reno1else]

That info was confirmed just last month in July that server sizes rn are 10k

[@Shoibyrd]

​@@isth3reno1elseBetas can change this. I tested alpha/beta for many games. From free to paid. FFXIV expanded their servers massively in 1.0, and again in 2.0. Archeage was the same they ended up doubling server allowance from Beta to Launch. Beta is your population testing branch.

[@mcmarkmarkson7115]

Hm so its going to be another ranged zerg stand off with hundreds of players in a blob on each side throwing ranged spells at each other and instantly killing and stupid melee chars taking a step too far?

[@isth3reno1else]

Not sure yet. Pre a2

[@mcmarkmarkson7115]

@@isth3reno1else well if there is large scale pvp, then range zerg is the only way it can go (and always did in every MMO I ever played where there was larger group pvp) because either melee can survive the dmg from 100+ ranged casters/dps which I doubt Or they are going to limit how many people can participate in a PVP zone

[@kfarbarata]

8:21 their cleric bot on macro lol . How that slip past in their showcase ^^ When I saw that I got worried about this game (they say they have enough testers but need to put a cleric on a bot spamming).

[@vaelicusthepaladin]

This is a non issue 300 players in a guild is just ridiculous. Simply impossible for human cohesion and kills the point in a guild. Make multiple guilds, does pirate knows and plays w everyone? No joining this soulless guilds is a waste oftime

[@nordy259]

300 player guilds I think is just about right. My guild and I will be doing our best to avoid the servers the 12k player guilds join. I say let them enjoy their pve server.

[@tidewatcher9962]

So what Thor wants is a cesspool guild. Weird but okay.

[@OGParzoval]

Don’t play in streamers guilds. You won’t ever do what’s good for the game or you. You’ll do what’s good for the streamer.

[@blackdragon971]

This has probably been mentioned some where before but I do have a question. Lets say I play the game and decide that I don't want to join a guild. Would that mean I'd probably not be able to access a node? Also, would that make it hard for me to play the game if I'm not in a node or city. Would there still be stuff for me to do for nodes like contract work or something along those lines? I've never gone on any mmo and looked for the best guild. I prefer small guilds rather than the larger ones where I just become a number.

[@isth3reno1else]

you dont need to be part of a guild to access a node. node access and citizenship will be different, which i think is good

[@blackdragon971]

@@isth3reno1else Nice. Thank you :)

[@michaeljenkins6707]

The world will only hold 10k to possibly 25k active players per world. I would say server but world.

[@SpyroTheReptar]

10k players per server at 300 limit is only like 33 guilds right?

[@isth3reno1else]

That sounds like the right math to me

[@dodoz44]

Intrepid needs to make their videos/feature showcases as if they're talking to 5 year olds. This should hopefully make those streamers a little less confused.

[@levonschaftin3676]

yeah you'd think a game developer would be more likely to understand but clearly not the case

[@trickpa80]

Lineage 2 guilds, same idea

[@kesamek8537]

This looks like footage from Guild Wars 2.

[@isth3reno1else]

I've heard that quite a bit

[@madhatten5123]

I decided to try something different with Ashes because I want to be a sweaty nerd and get to have a chance to play with the best. I joined Enveus and I am looking forward to see how it goes.

[@Demane69]

12,000 is not a guild. It's literally a city in ancient times. You can't organize that. You can't lead that. It will fall apart soon after with some of the worst guild drama ever seen. Humans can't organize like that in a hobby. It will exist to circumvent systems and maximize gains for the leaders first and make the game nearly unplayable for others. I've seen this happen across several mmorpg launches, and it repeats due to human nature. Unless these developers are using AI and countless simulations using predictive modeling of actual predicted human choices, their plans will not work. It didn't work in Darkfall, or Archeage, or in the Asheron's Call monarchy system, etc. etc. If I'm wrong, then these developers have solved a problem nearly nobody has solved before and should have all sociological studies in all universities approach them to learn their modeling. This won't happen likely. Gaming meta = most effective tactics available, and players will always skirt every system and find the easiest way to bypass any planned mechanic. This means exploiting, and it will be widespread sadly.

[@iAmCLPN]

I dont care about guild size im just ready to see you & nyce run for govenor vs each other i need to see the debates then cast my vote 😂

[@johngone1nonly]

Large guilds will ruin this. I almost guarantee it

[@ViccarAbyss]

As someone that enjoys Pirate's community, I am looking forward to such a big community. They are all really nice and it will be cool, if AoC is legit, to be part of something so nice. I am pretty sure big guilds can't easily dominate anyway. We will be fighting others constantly and we might struggle a great deal. But fostering a community might be healthy in the long run. Let's keep our eyes on AoC and if it releases properly and good, let's all have fun together!

[@basse9914]

Yeah I really hope there will be severe consequences for large alliances (mega guilds) or have severe BENEFITS for medium-sized guilds. There's objectively no reason to give large guilds power through numbers over other guilds. It's not good for anyone except the top members of those guilds, which are too small a population to cater to.

[@yunggeist3211]

Yeah that little nerd can not just enjoy the game. He has to figure out ways to grief the game with 15.000 of his stream simps before the game even launched. smh

[@wombocombo7557]

A 300 person guild is too big!

[@trenttucker3254]

quiet the thumbnail you've got there

[@puddingsimon2626]

problem: large zergs dominating smaler ones Solution: 1: Dissarray debuff, the more players you have on field the less dmg, shorter cc duration and less resitances you get. 2: AOE escaltion, every AOE dmg ability gets % dmg buff the more players it hits. We have this in albion online and aslong as the enemy zerg doesnt have like 3 flank squads and 2 off cooldown solo bombers we can take on almost every guild with just 60 man, using Defensive tanks to slow them down, so we can kite them. you will never be able to fight a larger force with just headbuds, and you shouldnt be able too aswell. having a numbers advantage sucks, but its very easy to just recruit 150 crackheads of the street, but its hard to get 60 good players together that all know how to play. thats how we like to play it in albion, outnumberd, its hard but satisfying. it requires alot of skill, and to improve we record out fights, and then Vod review them, to figure out where one could have done better, or what mistakes where made etc. 12k in one guild. would be nothing new for me, Albion had an Alliance called [ARCH], and they used to be the biggest fucking dogs in the game, the worst of the worst, that only with there HUGE numbers could actually be able to hold territory, and i say Hold, because expanding they could not, because they sucked so much ass, the only thing they could do was to Cluster up a Zone, since only 500 players could be present in one map they made sure to completly fill the map and connected ones so no one could get in to capture the territory. but eventually they fell apart, because they were a punching bag for everyone else. I rember fighting like 320 Arch shitters with a zer og 70, and farming them for 500+ kills, sure we died and full wiped at the end but still 500/70 is one hell of a kda.

[@puddingsimon2626]

also never allow guilds to have more then 300 or 400 members, it just doesnt end well, and its a simple balancing move to break up and nerf these huge groups by forcing them to split, forcing them to also split and further complicating logistics.

[@GrindEnjoyerC]

AO player spotted ^^

[@zincmeskalin6400]

I still remember the times when an entire Zerg was taken apart by 8 players. I hope this happens to these enormous grasshoppers too.

[@puddingsimon2626]

@@zincmeskalin6400 thats what we call a Bomb squad, a small party of players that usually are overgeared and act independent of the main zerg, looking for flank angles and throw in lighting fast attacks to suprise the enemys tanks and supports so they fail to throw down defensives and thus killing quite alot. A few seasons ago we played with a Siege bow Bombsquad lead by a rather famous player called "Tamashii", during a 4 way fight (4 different zergs fighting each other) they managed to get an attack off onto one zerg full wipeing them in one rotation, 1sec, 65 people dead, atleast 400mil silver in gear gone, they couldnt loot it tho.

[@SpyroTheReptar]

I wish we had one mega server in one world it would be glorious!

[@isth3reno1else]

I'd love a mega server!

[@Iautocorrect]

Its so ironic thay PS is slobbing on AoC, a game not even playable, but disses Star Citizen lol.

[@nephrium]

Game Devs HAVE TO start recognizing that streamers exist. No modern game has yet to do anything about streamer communities besides a heavy sigh and a shrug.

[@isth3reno1else]

@@nephrium oh absolutely. I think intrepid does recognize that there will be large guilds and they're making the game in a way to where running in a large scale group isn't always the best thing to do. When we get into a2 and the betas we will actually be able to put the theories to a test though

[@nephrium]

@@isth3reno1else Oh, absolutely! I completely agree that Intrepid seems to be mindful of the dynamics of large guilds and is designing the game to ensure that running in massive groups isn't always the optimal strategy. It's going to be fascinating to see how these theories hold up when we dive into Alpha 2 and the beta tests. Can't wait to put everything to the test and see how the gameplay balances out in practice!

[@noxygen8264]

Its going to be like new world over again. Mega guilds will ruin the game. People will be transferring to other servers till its the same everywhere. Nothing new.

[@isth3reno1else]

They're doing a lot of things different than new world. We will see how it evolves though

[@nathiirblacktongue1683]

Guilds controlling a map kills the game. Look at New World... it's dead af because 2 companies exist that use exploits and shit to own whatever they want... of course the devs also killed the game but the servers dominated by one faction/company always die first.

[@RobotronOG]

Zerg clans are always full of clowns. Good players roll in small groups if in a group at all.

[@goblinphreak2132]

Server meshing makes no sense for 10k players. WoW has 10k players on a server easy. Are they layered? Absolutely. But thats their choice. You can do distance layering instead of zone layering. WoW is zone layering. Each zone has a max player cap to reduce server load. But, you can do distance latering. Where after X distance, you no longer get data for that player/npc/whatever. Ashes Networking video said they are already doing distance layering. Where if you are 2 zones away from another player, your instance of the game has no idea they exist until they are close enough. They are solving an issue but at the same time creating the ability yo have larger servers. Ashes of Creation should in theory update game design since its still early and make the world larger and have larger servers than 10k. Id prefer a single mega-server over shards of 10k each. Stars Reach will be a single game server. Everyone on a single server run by 100s if not 1000s of physical server hardware. Thats how you run an MMO. Having a game world big enough that everyone in north America "live" on the same server, that's the dream.

[@isth3reno1else]

I think the big difference is ashes big pvp battles they want to do. Their goal is to have node sieges for instance be 500 v 500. That kind of fight can put a huge strain on a server. With that said I'm all for a mega server if they ever incorporated it, it's just not the case right now

[@levonschaftin3676]

"that's how you run an MMO" says who? what game did you even get this idea from? the golden age of MMOs had nothing even close to that amount of players.

[@xDykuma]

Lame big guilds are always a killjoy

[@kfarbarata]

That dude need a private server of his own lol. I dont see the point in mobguilds and also is not funny at all.

[@Kurnhelios]

Never forget guys, with large guilds there are cracks and weaknesses which bring the whole system down. If you’ve ever played Rust, you know how to bring down clans.

[@loicgloaguen9946]

Hahahaha this is how One StarCraft Bud will destroy US server... See you soon in EU servs with your 150pings 🤣🤣🤣

[@michealfutch7819]

Everything pirate software is talking about is boring crap

[@dorak_22]

Just goes to show that these “big streamers” are only “big streamers” because of the algorithm & the back door deals to push them to the front. Most of the time they don’t know shit & just make shit up for content.

[@Anaximanderification]

You guys are just trash at being sociable. EVE has a limit to how big an alliance can be, that does not make Coalitions impossible. There is NOTHING you csn do. You can whine, you can throw a tantrum. If two alliances agree to help each other you cannot actually stop them.

[@isth3reno1else]

👍

[@levonschaftin3676]

ok

[@CourageToGroww]

Some dumb streamer who worked at blizzared in QA is saying 300 person guilds will be to small in a game that hasnt had but a few alpha tests. Total grift this is one of the things that is wrong with gaming today. Everyone will play the alpha until all the content is dried up wait for the next alpha and then do the same thing from beta to beta test eventually once the game comes out people will already have enough of the game and player base will be small.

[@isth3reno1else]

The content won't be dried up. Only 3 of the 8 biomes will be playable for a2, no open seas, leveling only to 30 out of 60 etc.

[@Forsaken66666]

This game is will have moderate success and then die like all the other recent MMOs... Like a Lost Ark clone story...

[@isth3reno1else]

@@Forsaken66666 I don't know enough to comment on the longevity of the game yet. It's still pre a2

[@HankHill-st3jb]

@@isth3reno1else nope it is still nothing And will be delayed for the next year

[@isth3reno1else]

@@HankHill-st3jb 70 years minimum

[@broquietstorm1266]

I don't think so. This is an indie MMO that has the money to make exactly the game they want and is addressing a lot the issues their community has. It's in a position to be successful, if anything. They are not beholden to make profit over game like major studios and the game you mentioned. Folks not taking the time to understand what's really going with Ashes can make all manner of unsubstantiated and superficial comments.

[@zacdudzik]

Awesome video!

[@isth3reno1else]

Thanks!