Through game design measures in Albion Online

“Several games have attempted to discourage zerging through game design measures, to varying degrees of success. In Albion Online, in an effort to promote and encourage fairer match-ups between smaller groups of opponents, we’re implementing several mechanics to make zerging as ineffective as possible. Please note, though: this does not mean there won’t be large-scale battles happening. It just means we don’t want to see 50 guys killing 3 guys.

Let’s take a moment to clarify slightly, because this is a key cornerstone of our philosophy for albion online gold market and an issue we feel strongly about. Our intent here, as before, is not to stop large-scale battles from happening, but rather to give players the option of choosing the size of their battles, enabling large groups to easily find each other while allowing smaller groups to evade them. We also engineer our design towards, for example, creating scenarios where it is more economical to run around in smaller groups as opposed to a giant zerg.”

Why would they want to “make zerging as inffective as possible” if smaller scale and even fights was not their vision? This blurb is NOT true this test at all, its a zerg-fest. This game is quite LITERALLY designed around small scale pvp and even fights. 5v5 GvGs, Hellgates, Blue dungeons portals…. City fights are 20v20 not 50v10, you get a warning with castle fights that someone is attacking you AND the attackers have the bonus of guards/doors/castle walls to make it more fair for the defender because TYPICALLY they will be outnumbered because they are reacting to their castle getting attacked.

You will not convince me that this game was not designed around even or small scale fights not who brings more.

Fair enough on the last paragraph, but I feel like black zones are a joke when it comes to PVP right now and will be the reason people cann’t leave albion online gold shop. If you’re defending the black zones as they currently are, it is HIGHLY likely you are IN the zerg and not constantly on the receiving end of death by numbers or running away to safety because the opponent has 10-15 more people than you.

My favorite part of the article though is this:

“1. Zerg Algorithm: We are currently working on an algorithm that can detect who belongs to which side in a big battle. This is because one of the first things enterprising zerg-inclined guilds would do to circumvent anti-zerg measures would be to split up into different, seemingly unconnected guilds. We intend to be smart in spotting them, even if they do not belong together on the surface.”

Where did this go and why would they work on something like that if they wanted the game to play like it currently does? Remember, himself said they don’t want to see 50 guys killing three guys, its the “key cornerstone of our philosophy for Albion Online”.

Maybe you guys will like some of these ideas about Albion

1) Melee and Ranged weapon slots on character: There should be the ability to have a ranged as well as melee weapon equipped to your character as well as the ability to switch between them in combat. This would give players the ability to have a few different strategies depending on what situation they find themselves in. NOW I know everyone says well then whats the point everyone would run with both weapons…WELL… heres how you make it work. First off its going to take time and Albion Onlin Gold for people to grind enough into both ranged and melee weapons to master them both so what you can do is when someone REALLY enjoy either ranged or melee and they ONLY equip one or the other EX: Only holding dual daggers, only holding crossbow, only holding claymore INSTEAD of holding both claymore AND bow, the weapon that is equip by itself gets a slight boost to damage that would be meaningful enough to justify it. This lets people show their specialization as well as maximize the benefits from that weapon.

You could also add higher up into the later tiers branching bonuses for solo wielding a weapon instead of having a secondary ranged or melee weapon equipped. Now people who DO want to hold both weapons will not receive any bonus to damage on either but instead be a more jack of all trades where they have utility for the situation they find themselves in BUT are not doing the most amount of damage and getting the most bonuses from the weapons since they are not just holding one.

2) Weapon Enchanting: Add in the ability for crafters to enchant weapons and effectively remove and replace abilities on weapons and armor with learned and discovered abilities. FOR EXAMPLE an enchanter can learn a few different abilities that can replace the crossbow Q ability with and can enchant them onto peoples gear if they so desire with correct reagents and only of course. These enchants CAN ALSO go out into the world and find in the deep dungeons and hell gates NEW AND MORE INTERESTING / POWERFUL abilities that can only be learned when they are found to replace abilities on armor with. This would give MORE incentive and MORE reward for going into these areas besides just crafting materials and silver / fame.

3) Specialized Skill Trees: Add in specializations towards the end of mastering one of the “overarching” skill trees AKA Ranger / Warrior / Mage. Add in two separate paths that people can go down when they are closer to the higher tiers FOR EXAMPLE in the Ranger set of skills towards the end you can go down one branch which lets you learn how to make more Albion Online Silver in the world and use as either pets / mounts OR caravans of sorts. the SECOND branch would instead be more of a scouting / tracking tree that allows people in the Ranger tree to be able to track other players more efficiently by finding footprints in the ground seeing trails that others can’t see ect. Add in these types of specializations per “overarching: skill set.

4) Interactive spells: Like in Guild Wars 2, the best exampleI can think of, let some skills interact with each other. FOR EXAMPLE if a caster puts down a wall of fire and an archer shoots and arrow through it, the arrow then deals fire damage and applies a fire DOT. This would ENCOURAGE more skill based and group coordinated play among players. It would add interesting mix and dynamics to the playing field in BOTH PVE AND PVP.
There are more ideas that I have but these are the most fleshed out that I have come up with. Please provide feedback and help expand on these examples so we can really ad more depth and layers to this game! There is so much potential!