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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
What is in place to balance the game and guilds?
so I have watched/listened to the devs talk about and i understand that this game is going to be true player driven which I love and adore.
my one looming question is the player base.
What will be in place to stop guild x on server y completely owning that server as in terms of having the largest guild, therefore they would be able to dedicate the progression of the world.
i.e guild x is the best guild with the best players on server y, player a is a new player that wants to do content in x, whats to stop player b and x guild from saying no you cant do this if you try and do this we are going to kill your character and destroy the node or caravan etc.
Essentially what my questions is, what is in place to stop a player or players developing a monopoly in the world of AoC.
my one looming question is the player base.
What will be in place to stop guild x on server y completely owning that server as in terms of having the largest guild, therefore they would be able to dedicate the progression of the world.
i.e guild x is the best guild with the best players on server y, player a is a new player that wants to do content in x, whats to stop player b and x guild from saying no you cant do this if you try and do this we are going to kill your character and destroy the node or caravan etc.
Essentially what my questions is, what is in place to stop a player or players developing a monopoly in the world of AoC.
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I've come to the conclusion that the more land you control the bigger the financial/logistical burden. Holding a level three village node will be less in-depth than managing a metropolis. But will yield higher profit.
Owning Nodes and Castles will require resources to maintain, plus to defend from sieges, which could happen weekly/monthly if a guild controls enough territory. These nodes will likely generate income, but this appears to be disruptable. A smaller guild can raid a larger guild's caravans, ect.
In my experience, these large guilds inevitably will piss people off, who in turn plot against them. I have literally been a number of smaller guilds band together to take down a mega guild and take their castle in Archeage. Three times.
The system is set up to around risk vs reward. The huge guilds take a risk owning something that can be taken. The balance comes from the player driven content. There will be intrigue, war and I'm really really hoping alot of back stabbing.
But again, purely my speculation based on the little info I've gleaned. The "balance" comes from the need to risk in order to profit in this game.
A large incentive in other games is the for-profit motive that running such groups entails. Remove that and mega guilds tend to collapse in on themselves due to the normal internal politics/drama that ensues. It is already confirmed that node mayors/kings will NOT be able to raid the node treasury of taxes, and that funds can only be spent on node improvments and defense. Totally expect to see the same mechanics in place for guilds. The calls for a certain percentage of gold being automatically transferred to guild coffers becomes a non-issue when those in charge can't loot the fund for profit. The absence of EVE Plex or WOW token systems of RMT for in-game currency removes yet another level of incentive. Running a mmo guild is like herding cats at the best of times, most people tire of the constant drama easily when there is no profit motive behind it.
(Placeholder Truth, might change)
2. The competitive spirit of others. No one likes being under someone else so other Guilds will rise to battle.
3. Guilds are 300 people, server population they are aiming for is 10 000.
I doubt 300 people would be able to control everyone :P
4. Nothing is there to stop them. player A would have to gather and recruit people to help player A do that task and content, as well as defend against attackers.
Pacifists will not have a good time in this game :P
5. The only thing stopping ppl from having a monopoly is other players. If everyone lets that person have monopoly then that's that. If they do not, then those players have competition.
I dont hope it will be like, if you cant beat them join them mentality.
Eve Online Devs have recently changed their sovereignity structure to combat the problem from which you stated.
They came out with the "Entosis" feature. This allows any player from and alliance to equip an entosis module to start the process of change ownership of certain infrastructures, beginning the lengthly change of valueable property. These player owned structures only exists in complete no penalty PvP zones, in which they can be flipped from any character in any alliance. That means if said bloated dominating alliance owns a massive excessive amount of land from which they cannot constantly cover. ANY entity, small or large can challenge and begin the process of change. You run into these mega alliances with many allies not being able to cover every corner and backwoods systems from which these smaller groups wish to claim.
Second half of the picture, they also deployed the jump fatique feature. Eveonline being a space ship game. And yes space ships travel fast by "Jumping," so they applied fatique which is in short a penalty for these jumps. Jumping allowed ships to rapidly jump massive distances without penalty. You had two timers one short timer and a multiplier timer, that if you waited out your first short timer, your second reactivation timer to jump would multiply, and if you jumped too often in a certain amount of time without letting your second timer cool down, you would be left with days of jump fatique. notbing able to jump at all.
The TL:DR
If massive ruling alliance with overreaching control tries to take over the continent. They cannot possibly cover the whole map. Leaving holes for smaller alliances to take over.
And making travel not instant like teleportation waypoints, so that massive forces cannot be deployed rapidly over the map.
too lazy to proofread, hope this makes sense.
In the most recent stream, Steve tried to give an idea of the area, referring to Skyrim, but had to stop because they couldn't get on an agreement on Skyrim's size. Steve thought it was 10x10km, the guy on the right thought it was larger. I looked it up, far as I could see it is 37.1 sqkm.