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[Dev Journal] Albion Online: Primarily Focused on PvP & GvG
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Albion Online is going to be a game that PvPers will really enjoy with its focus on PvP and GvG. We have teamed up with the Albion Online team to bring our readers and exclusive look at how that will work. Read on before heading to the comments.
As we want Albion Online to be focused primarily on Player versus Player and Guild versus Guild fighting, we’ve striven to make these aspects of the game as fair and exciting as possible!
In Albion Online guilds can claim or conquer areas for their own, which are then known as their territories.
Guilds can own as many territories as they can capture and hold onto, and these territories provide shelter and resources to their battle-weary warriors.
Read more Albion Online: Primarily Focused on PvP & GvG.
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Games Played: Anarchy Online,Star Wars Galaxies,WOW,Eve,Darkfall,Vanguard, Fallen Earth,SWTOR,GW2,Tera,ESO,Wildstar, Black Desert, Archeage & Albion Online
Now playing: Conan Exiles & Rocket League
Games looking forward to: Diablo 4! & Star Citizen?
Really? Dark Age of Camelot, the second most popular MMO of its day wants to have words with you.
Eve Online, the second most subscribed to MMO in the world RIGHT NOW wants to have words with you.
I'm not actually too thrilled on this idea. This seems to cut down on player freedom and will make battles REALLY small scale.
Will there be any objectives for larger clans? It's nice for smaller clans to be able to compete, but having more members must have SOME kind of benefit? Or at least, will there be unrestricted amounts of fighting in the open world?
Yea but lineage has more robots playing than players.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
So the fate of the territory of a 100+ person strong guild, and all the work those people have put into it, is going to be determined by a 5v5 match?
Letting guilds decide when they will be vulnerable to attack? Absolutely brilliant. I lost far too much in Shadowbane to 'midnight sieges' to really get excited in any PvP game about owning contestable property, yet this fixes the problem.
Hiring mercs? Another fine move. Gives people who don't much care for PvP a way to meaningfully protect themselves, or directly contribute to the overall 'war effort' in ways other than providing raw materials and / or crafted goods.
Having the fate of a territory, one possibly developed by dozens, if not a hundred or more, people be determined by a 5v5 match? Bloody stupid. I understand the desire, even the need, to limit or eliminate the use of 'zerg tactics', I really do. But you can't just have everything determined by a battle the size of which barely even qualifies as a skirmish, much less a territory 'siege'.
I'll keep tabs on things & reserve being too negative about it until it's found out exactly what goes on in those battles, but taken at face value this design decision is incredibly stupid, and so far out of line with all the other (good) design decisions made with this game that I can't help but wonder if it was made by a completely different team.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
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Hi Tibernicuspa,
I work for Sandbox Interactive as community manager, and just wanted to add a few things on top of what's written the article.
So in Albion Online you will have these fights which are 5x5, but only when you are fighting GvG over territory. These fights are just one part of Albion Online's PvP/GvG system. We're also going to let PvPers run amok in our massive world, offering unlimited PvP with no restrictions on numbers, and we'll also have areas in which whole guilds can fight each other. For example, some regions of the map will have a castle in the centre which will offer its rulers rewards in the form of resources and silver, and which can be fought over by the region's resident guilds. Here there's no restrictions on numbers! So we will be having a system of 5v5 guild fights over territory, but this is the only kind of number-restricted fighting, and outside of this you'll be able to participate in massive battles with scores of players!
Regarding benefits for larger guilds, having many guild members will ultimately lead to more and better resources, more silver, better weapons and armour, as you'll simply have more manpower to gather, craft, raid dungeons etc. but we wanted to make sure that these advantages wouldn't completely rule out smaller guilds being successful in the game!
I hope that clears things up a bit
That does clear it up, thanks for taking the time to answer. That does sound fantastic. With all the other systems in place this sounds like it'll fit in nicely, a good compromise. Call me excited!
This might be the first fantasy game ever that does FFA PvP, mercenaries, territory control and bounties right.
Too bad they seem to have little content outside of PvP and PvP related crafting, but maybe they will add RP and PvE elements after the core GvG part is up and running.
It makes perfect sense to me...
Larger guilds will have to choose their best 5 to defend their territory which I believe is divided into sections ... the larger guilds will have many sections that make up the whole. (I could be wrong)
Hey tom_gore,
I'm the community manager here at Sandbox Interactive. So Albion Online is predominantly a PvP game, however we're actually in the middle of testing some PvE and solo-player mechanics, which we think will give those not focused on PvP a good scope for enjoying the world of Albion. We'll release more information on that in the future, so do stay tuned!
When you say solo player mechanics, do you mean monsters and the like that a solo player can fight, and some quests? Or are you talking about solo instance type stuff? I hope the former, personally!
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/PerfArt
Hey Solar_Prophet,
We understand concerns of frustration and disappointment in the loss of a territory, and we actually designed this aspect of the game for this exact reason; to ensure that guild territories couldn’t be lost to a 100-player zerg, which we think would be far more irritating.
We really want Albion Online to be inclusive and not leave small guilds without a chance at claiming territories, so larger guilds will not have any unfair advantage purely because of their numbers. We think a lot of games disadvantage small guilds, and we don’t want to be one of them. Realistically, however, larger guilds are still ultimately likely to have a better chance at winning these battles, as each team will have its own weapon and armour supplies for the battle, and if you have more players collecting better resources to craft more powerful items, your supply chest is going to be fuller and your soldiers better able to reequip themselves after death.
The decision to have 5x5 territory battles was actually one of the first decisions made as a team on the game, and we’re confident it was the right choice. We’ve spent a lot of time designing and perfecting the mechanics of the battle to make it intense, fast-paced and exciting, and we’ve had a lot of great feedback on it from players in our previous tests, saying they enjoyed it and were happy with the mechanics. And it’s only in the territory fights that our GvG fighting is limited in numbers – we have a massive open world of unlimited PvP and massive GvG battles which might prove to be equally as profitable as owning lots of territories.
Obviously certain aspects of the game will need to prove themselves to the gaming community, and we think that’s great, and enjoy the challenge - so do stay tuned!
Hey Drowelf,
Ultimately this is possible; Albion Online is an open PvP game and is intended to be challenging for players. However, we will have enough safe zones so that beginners don't feel overwhelmed and can move through the game at their own pace. You won't be safe forever though. So if you see a large group of high-level players and you're not prepared to fight them, my advice would be - run away!
There won’t be any quests in Albion Online, but we do have things like monsters for PvE, an extensive item crafting system as well as a system whereby you can complete missions in order to gain bonuses to your character. So there’s lots for solo-players to experience already, but we’re still testing the rest and will have to tell you more later!
Hey PerfArt,
Guilds will be able to create alliances with other guilds, and players of a certain rank within the guild will be able to invite players from other guilds as well as solo players into their alliance in order to allow them use of their resources and buildings, as well as entry to their safe territory. Otherwise, it will be the guilds who decide exactly how they build and expand their territories.
Good to hear! I love good PvP every now and then, but if the game offers nothing else I tend to get bored quickly. I played several years on UO Europa shard at the time of Renaissance and beyond. Was an active member of the roleplaying community and had a ton of fun PvPing between the RP guilds. I understand that in Albion Online the PvP will be a bit more HC than the "friendly matches" in UO RP, but I don't mind that.
I'm also happy to see there will be plenty of time when you are safe in your guild territory, giving opportunity to socialize, roleplay, go PvE hunting, etc. These were the things that made Ultima Online so great. There was so much to do and you could pretty freely choose what to focus on and when to do it.
I'm also hoping you will eventually add more roleplaying tools, such as the ability to build taverns and/or other meeting places for the players, chairs to sit on, books to read and write, chat bubbles (with an option to disable them) and all those things that make the game feel more like a world.
If you do that, I can guarantee your game will have a lifespan far beyond what "PvP Deathmatch" games such as Shadowbane, Mortal Online and Darkfall will ever have.
Hey PerfArt,
Guilds will be able to create alliances with other guilds, and players of a certain rank within the guild will be able to invite players from other guilds as well as solo players into their alliance in order to allow them use of their resources and buildings, as well as entry to their safe territory. Otherwise, it will be the guilds who decide exactly how they build and expand their territories.
Thanks so much for the responsehttp://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/PerfArt
I seems that instead of the problems with zerg guilds owning everything and holding the 'little' guilds out of content. You have set up a 5v5 Arena game that controls the territories for all the other players in the guild. Now only the Best 5 from the guild will ever have a chance to play in any of this elitest content. Also a 5 man guild can totally take the work and effort of a 100 man guild in one fight. As Solar pointed out, seems like the 'F' team made up this part of the game mechanics.