The way you're describing the Nodes to me here sounds like they just as well be NPC cities. You're essentially suggesting that they are simply paths of travel for farming/gathering.
While cities will of course be crucial landmarks, as well as points of travel, they will also have a few other functionalities that I know of.
So a quote from Margaret Krohn (Community Marketing Lead) starts off with this about nodes:
"As a Node advances, it influences the types of content within itself and the surrounding areas. Players do not create Nodes, but if they are a part of the government for a specific Node, they have the ability to influence diplomacy, and modify building types/construction and services within that Node."
If a node is advanced to the metropolis stage it can gain its "superpower" with the type being dependent on the type of node (Ex: Science node = Teleportation superpower)
Node advancement can also correlate with new quests, new NPCs, new dungeon and raids, new or advanced mob types, new or different resources, and possible events. It will also be a central place for safer item storage as well as additional housing. And of course, as you know, the many various facilities that can be used and developed within a city.
So they would indeed be more than hotspots to travel between, but they are indeed more NPC operated than it may appear at first glance. If it makes it easier, think of it like a normal NPC city, but the players can determine a small portion of how the city will be built and many players will call certain cities their home due to where they gather their resources, own a house, or just enjoy the aesthetic of.
While I on the other hand am suggesting that they will be used in addition to and in my opinion more importantly to advance characters through crafting, skill advancement, item availability etc etc. Essentially what i'm saying is that Nodes will be valuable assets to guilds for members advancing their skills and items. Controlling (not owning) a node could provide advantages over other guilds/nodes in the game. Essentially I find they will be more valuable to guilds than not otherwise the siege mechanic in the game wouldn't make much sense as a whole outside of creating additional questing areas/farming.
While you are correct that nodes will be essential in players character advancement in crafting, item availability, etc. I don't necessarily see how that is involved with guild behaviors. I think I need more clarity or a specific example on how you think this would benefit a guild that "controls" a node? I can't think of anything that fit in with your example, but I could easily be missing something. However, if the example is a guild controls Node A, they'd gain an advantage in crafting or item availability over other guilds, that's not really correct. The resources and facilities would be able to be used by anyone and everyone that visits the town and it would actually hinder the towns growth and development if the sites had limited availability to players, so it's in the "controlling" guilds best interest to allow players access to the node and focus their time on other developments.
If nodes within a cluster can not siege eachother as you point out. This seems like a potential flaw in the "cluster" system you describe above. For example let's say one guild within a cluster controls one of the smaller nodes (through all their members holding housing) - then this guild just PKs all other players within their cluster. Yes it's likely they would become corrupt (again if no one fights back or is tagged as combatant within the cluster). Not being able to remove this node/guild from their own cluster through siege seems a bit odd to me.
I think the term cluster might've been a bit confusing. The idea around this is vassal nodes + parent nodes. This image shows the influence between the two a little bit better than just the word "cluster":
Also some information from the wiki:
"Vassals are subject to the government, alliances, wars, taxes, and trade of their parent node, and are able to receive federal aid from them."
"Vassal nodes cannot declare war on their parent node or any of their vassals."
"Citizens of vassals are bound by the diplomatic states of the parent node."
Basically, civil war won't be a thing. However, a player can denounce their citizenship to a node and move to a different node or assist in a war against a node if they aren't happy with how things are operating. Citizenship is basically like pledging your life and loyalty to your nation.
This is also a place where thinking guild influence on a node is more than it could be. The politics of guilds is outside the realm of the politics of nodes. If guild A doesn't like guild B they can simply declare war on them and fight a good ol GvG without nodes coming into play. If guild politics were intertwined with node politics it would almost force guild members to all claim citizenship in a singular node, which as described, wouldn't be as beneficial to a guild as having them slightly spread out.
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I think of high level nodes as NPC cities that are influenced by the actions of players. Imagine if Stormwind in WoW got bigger or smaller, changed its architectural style, or changed services available based on quests that are being done around it.
I'm not as experienced as a lot of these guys, but I'll help clear up some of the misunderstandings, but forgive me if I'm wrong.
Considering how long you've been on these forums, that is a reasonably accurate an understanding of the node system - based on the info we have at hand.
I don't necessarily see how that is involved with guild behaviors. I think I need more clarity or a specific example on how you think this would benefit a guild that "controls" a node? I can't think of anything that fit in with your example, but I could easily be missing something. However, if the example is a guild controls Node A, they'd gain an advantage in crafting or item availability over other guilds, that's not really correct. The resources and facilities would be able to be used by anyone and everyone that visits the town and it would actually hinder the towns growth and development if the sites had limited availability to players, so it's in the "controlling" guilds best interest to allow players access to the node and focus their time on other developments.
If nodes within a cluster can not siege eachother as you point out. This seems like a potential flaw in the "cluster" system you describe above. For example let's say one guild within a cluster controls one of the smaller nodes (through all their members holding housing) - then this guild just PKs all other players within their cluster. Yes it's likely they would become corrupt (again if no one fights back or is tagged as combatant within the cluster). Not being able to remove this node/guild from their own cluster through siege seems a bit odd to me.
Also some information from the wiki:
"Vassals are subject to the government, alliances, wars, taxes, and trade of their parent node, and are able to receive federal aid from them."
"Vassal nodes cannot declare war on their parent node or any of their vassals."
"Citizens of vassals are bound by the diplomatic states of the parent node."
Basically, civil war won't be a thing. However, a player can denounce their citizenship to a node and move to a different node or assist in a war against a node if they aren't happy with how things are operating. Citizenship is basically like pledging your life and loyalty to your nation.
This is also a place where thinking guild influence on a node is more than it could be. The politics of guilds is outside the realm of the politics of nodes. If guild A doesn't like guild B they can simply declare war on them and fight a good ol GvG without nodes coming into play. If guild politics were intertwined with node politics it would almost force guild members to all claim citizenship in a singular node, which as described, wouldn't be as beneficial to a guild as having them slightly spread out.
Great post very well explained. Hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July from here in the states.
Here are my follow up questions to the points you raised above that I need clarification on if you or anyone else can chime in here.
Regarding the "civil war" aspect of the Vassals/neighboring Nodes.
"You could be more precision oriented in the decision to attack a city. Let's say it's a rival node that's trying to reach you know a node stage five or something and you want to disable their ability for the religious system to progress so you target the temple during the attack, or you want to disable their scholars academy from reaching a higher level so that your nodes can; or you want to disable multiple buildings that allow for experience and quests to be undertaken by its citizenship, which prevents them from keeping up in pace of experience gained with your node. These can be more precision oriented and don't have to effectualize an actual takeover of the node.[80] – Steven Sharif"
What exactly makes a Node a rival regarding your own Node's advancement if not a node from within the same node system as your parent? Would this not essentially be Civil War per described above? That explanation of trying to prevent a node's advancement sounds a lot like it is specifically designed so that Nodes within a parent node can fight for advancement. From where I'm sitting it seems like this action would also then be guild oriented more than a bunch of random guild(s) that can freely travel between the Nodes. Even in an event this is some neighboring Node "cluster", what would be the point in a siege if you can simply just stroll over and use their facilities, or travel where ever is required to utilize the specific node needed for your benefits?
In regards to city guards is it a foregone conclusion that guards are automatically provided by the city as NPCs or do they require some form of activation/payment from the mayor/inner council to actually exist in a Node? If they are not free, or a guild/mayor can choose to have them or not it would open up the prospects of PVP within a node at limited exposure outside of corruption.
In regards to guild advantages - my idea here was more specifically related to potential dungeons, resource or other items by proximity that might be rare or more valuable for some reason. In addition to early game advantages of being the first Node with a blacksmith or other crafting abilities that they can gear up their players for quicker leveling, farming, questing etc. Possibly at later levels a specific node correlates with a rare dungeon system, quest line or other that provides legendary items, controlling this and limiting outside access (however possible, IF possible) seems like a huge advantage.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
What exactly makes a Node a rival regarding your own Node's advancement if not a node from within the same node system as your parent?
In the case you quoted, it could well be that he is talking about two nodes competing for level 5 in the absence of a parent node - thus the first node to reach that level will make the rival node their vassal.
As it stands right now though, you are unable to siege your parent node, or any vassals of that parent node.
There is rivalry as long as there is advancement to be had, but once one node makes another a vassal, that rivalry ceases.
In regards to city guards is it a foregone conclusion that guards are automatically provided by the city as NPCs or do they require some form of activation/payment from the mayor/inner council to actually exist in a Node?
From what I can tell, city guards are a given, but there is potential for a mayor to add more. Nodes will want more guards though, as they will assist in sieges - and it would be safe to assume that a node with fewer guards will make for an easier target in a siege.
Also, since most node services are suspending during the declaration period of a node siege (the time between when someone declares a siege and when the siege actually happens), it is safe to say that a mayor will be unable to purchase additional guards in this time. As such, you would want to have them in place all the time.
In regards to guild advantages - my idea here was more specifically related to potential dungeons, resource or other items by proximity that might be rare or more valuable for some reason. In addition to early game advantages of being the first Node with a blacksmith or other crafting abilities that they can gear up their players for quicker leveling, farming, questing etc. Possibly at later levels a specific node correlates with a rare dungeon system, quest line or other that provides legendary items, controlling this and limiting outside access (however possible, IF possible) seems like a huge advantage.
If a guild wants to level quickly, the most important thing they can do (more important than building a blacksmith, I would argue), is to make sure they have access to appropriate level content.
Since content level is tied to node level, this means they need to level a node up at the same pace they level themselves up.
This is only possible with many, many players. One or two thousand players will be involved on leveling up the first metropolis on each server.
The real advantage of being the first node in a region to build a blacksmith is not about the gear, it is that it will attract other players to that node to use the blacksmith, thus generate more experience for your node.
As soon as you start turning away those players - whether by force or by not providing the amenities and services they want when someone else will - your node stops it's progress, and potentially starts falling to atrophy.
Again, the key to a successful node is essentially player count. Start restricting players and you are actually restricting your node level.
As it stands right now though, you are unable to siege your parent node, or any vassals of that parent node.
There is rivalry as long as there is advancement to be had, but once one node makes another a vassal, that rivalry ceases.
From what I can tell, city guards are a given, but there is potential for a mayor to add more. Nodes will want more guards though, as they will assist in sieges - and it would be safe to assume that a node with fewer guards will make for an easier target in a siege.
Also, since most node services are suspending during the declaration period of a node siege (the time between when someone declares a siege and when the siege actually happens), it is safe to say that a mayor will be unable to purchase additional guards in this time. As such, you would want to have them in place all the time.
Since content level is tied to node level, this means they need to level a node up at the same pace they level themselves up.
This is only possible with many, many players. One or two thousand players will be involved on leveling up the first metropolis on each server.
Do they specifically say "any vassals of the parent node" or are they referring to Vassals nodes directly under your node?
City guards, where do you see they are a given? Also since these guards are going to be involved in sieges they will not be the typical NPC guards that can just insta kill people. Unless the siege mechanic changes their stats. This would mean that a guild could simply camp the guards/respawn to control the city for pvp.
Obviously at low levels this would be unlikely but since the guard level/skill should mirror the node stage. In my best guess I would think that guards will become available at node stage 3 and would equal level 30 NPC. Each node level from there would likely increase the guard level by 10 i.e. Lvl 4 node = lvl 40 NPC guards etc.
From what I can read the mayors can hire mercenary NPCs for sieges, this could mean offensive and/or defensive NPCs it doesn't specify defensive only and since the attacking side may also have a Mayor it could potentially add them also.
I have to imagine that the game is going to have more political aspects to the node systems than just simply during advancement mode. Rivalry could mean caravan assaults from neighboring guilds/node citizens that causes one node to the verge of war. Considering the costs of a siege it seems unlikely that being able to siege a competing node prior to a parent node existing would be the only applicable time period. (to me).
While I understand the more players available the faster a node levels. Since node leveling will mostly be capped by it's current citizens verus players passing through I believe that again this is going to be more guild driven than not. For example- if 10,000 players get dumped into a server at launch and they start spreading out across the world again per the simple math we're talking roughly 80x/each node development. Yes there would be player migration to larger cities for advancement however at early game levels guilds with 300+ members would have a substantial advantage for leveling specific nodes/clusters hence drawing more potential randoms to their Node(s) for advancement. They could very easily control most/all of the citizenship at some of their larger node(s) and as people continue to level at the lower ones they would then flow into the larger one and help advance it (plus the additional bonus from the vassal nodes feeding their primary node EXP).
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
They could very easily control most/all of the citizenship at some of their larger node
You are still looking at the "could they" rather than the "why would they?"
In terms of "could they" own a node, Steven has specifically said that guilds do not control nodes. During development, stated intention has a lot more weight than stated systems and mechanics. This means that if the intent is that guild do not control nodes, then if there is a gap in the system that allows for this, it will be closed.
In terms of "why would they?", I still don't have an answer.
Guilds want to progress fast and early, and will want a node that facilitates this.
The thing is, that is what almost all players want, which means that is what almost all nodes will do.
A guild - any guild - is best served by assisting a node rather than by trying to lead it. This is because if people see a guild attempting to run a node, they are very likely to just go to a different (potentially rival) node. On the other hand, if the guild is working with the node to level it faster, everyone wins.
At no point does the guild gain anything from attempting to control the node. The buildings that are built will be the same whether the guild is controlling it or not.
In order to maintain leadership of a node, a guild needs to do one of the following, depending on node type
Invest a LOT of time in religious quests.
Invest a LOT of coin every month.
Win a FFA PvP contest.
Win an election.
The first three of those things will see the guild spend a lot of time and/or resources, but they still don't stand to gain anything as a guild from it. Even if they win, the node still needs to retain the bulk of it's population, which means building the services that the bulk of the population want - which probably happen to be the buildings the guild wants anyway, which would have been built if the guild didn't invest that time/resources in to securing temporary leadership of the node.
So again, I am simply not seeing the point.
Of the above 4, winning an election seems to be the easiest, but it isn't, as will be obvious soon.
Yes there would be player migration to larger cities for advancement however at early game levels guilds with 300+ members would have a substantial advantage for leveling specific nodes/clusters hence drawing more potential randoms to their Node(s) for advancement.
300 member guilds won't exist while leveling.
300 member guilds will be rare once leveled as well, as players of large guilds are less effective in combat as members of smaller guilds. Guild size starts somewhere around 50, and guild progression is traded for an increase in guild size, but this progression can be used to gain augments and passive abilities instead of an increase in guild size.
Larger guilds that come to Ashes are likely to want to spread their members out over several small guilds - and in my experience of this kind of thing, these guilds tend to only remain affiliated for a short period of time in relation to teh life of an MMORPG.
However, even with 300 coordernated players all working together, you've not addressed the fact that these people will all want different things from a node in terms of social organizations and religious buildings. As such, it is reasonable to assume that it is in players best interest (and thus the guilds best interest) to go to the node that best suits their character, not that best suits the guild.
So those larger guilds will likely find their population spread over 3 or 4 nodes - indeed so will smaller guilds. This is why winning an election is not as simple as it may look. Your guild may have 300 members, but there are probably no more than 150 of those members in any one node. Since there are likely to be 1000+ citizens in a metropolis, that 150 players is obviously not enough to guarantee perpetual leadership.
Now, you may suggest that the guild can tell it's members to join the node for an election - the problem with this is that there is a 2 week stand down when leaving a node. This means that a player in a node will need to leave that node 2 weeks earlier to join the node with the election. Then after the election they leave that node to go back to the node they want to be in - which has another 2 week stand down. By the time they rejoin the node they want to be in, there is 2 weeks until the next election in the node the guild is trying to control and so they would need to leave their node again.
This is something that could potentially be done to take control of a node for a short duration, and guilds may well have a reason to want to do that. However, it is not a suitable means to control a node perpetually.
So again, guilds will want to assist a specific node in leveling up. Guilds will want to base themselves around a specific node. However, guilds don't actually gain anything by being the leaer of a node, and if there is half competent leadership of a node outside of a guild, the guild is better served by putting their time in to other endevors than they would be by attempting to control the node.
I feel like you're so concerned with trying to prove my guild / control aspects wrong that you're missing the bigger discussion at this point. It seems completely plausible to me that a large guild could level several nodes (by control or association) within the same "cluster" in addition to other players. This would give their members the benefit of multiple node types (if needed) and potential control over the area through citizenship especially if they're able to mostly buy in on the larger/quicker advancing nodes early game. This allows them the voting power and the vassal nodes below them to feed their main city EXP while advancing. Maybe they don't lock people out early but the larger guilds will have an advantage and the ability to control early game node advancement.
I'm not sure why you keep arguing this unless it's just to troll me at this point. What if a guild of 1,000 people migrate to this game joint he same server and for the greater good of their own guild work towards advancing nodes in a specifc cluster? Based on this number it seems now likely based on your own numbers that this guild could easily become the parent node no?
Guilds with 50, 100, 300, 1,000 members should easily be in position to not only level up nodes but gain political control and citizenship within them. I will concede that yes not EVERY single node on the map may work this way but if guilds from alpha/beta understand where they want to go at launch they should easily be able to. Maybe things change as the game develokps and people level but I strongly believe that guilds will want to group together in the same general area or "cluster" rather than spread out across the map.
I'm also happy to completely concede my argument on this to not further derail the topic. So you're totally right guilds will not control anything especially on a technical level.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Do they specifically say "any vassals of the parent node" or are they referring to Vassals nodes directly under your node?
City guards, where do you see they are a given? Also since these guards are going to be involved in sieges they will not be the typical NPC guards that can just insta kill people. Unless the siege mechanic changes their stats. This would mean that a guild could simply camp the guards/respawn to control the city for pvp.
Obviously at low levels this would be unlikely but since the guard level/skill should mirror the node stage. In my best guess I would think that guards will become available at node stage 3 and would equal level 30 NPC. Each node level from there would likely increase the guard level by 10 i.e. Lvl 4 node = lvl 40 NPC guards etc.
From what I can read the mayors can hire mercenary NPCs for sieges, this could mean offensive and/or defensive NPCs it doesn't specify defensive only and since the attacking side may also have a Mayor it could potentially add them also.
I have to imagine that the game is going to have more political aspects to the node systems than just simply during advancement mode. Rivalry could mean caravan assaults from neighboring guilds/node citizens that causes one node to the verge of war. Considering the costs of a siege it seems unlikely that being able to siege a competing node prior to a parent node existing would be the only applicable time period. (to me).
While I understand the more players available the faster a node levels. Since node leveling will mostly be capped by it's current citizens verus players passing through I believe that again this is going to be more guild driven than not. For example- if 10,000 players get dumped into a server at launch and they start spreading out across the world again per the simple math we're talking roughly 80x/each node development. Yes there would be player migration to larger cities for advancement however at early game levels guilds with 300+ members would have a substantial advantage for leveling specific nodes/clusters hence drawing more potential randoms to their Node(s) for advancement. They could very easily control most/all of the citizenship at some of their larger node(s) and as people continue to level at the lower ones they would then flow into the larger one and help advance it (plus the additional bonus from the vassal nodes feeding their primary node EXP).
Dude, you reaaaallllyyy need to just do a base reading on the wiki and listen listen to what the developers have said. Like 80% of what you have said so far has just been baseless assumptions, which would be fine; this is a forum on a in development game after all. But you are assuming things that the developers have directly commented on, and then not accepting when people are telling you so.
1. Yes they specifically say "or any of their Vassals"
2. They are a given because the developers have said they are present in node. To what degree a Mayor has control over them we haven't been told, but we know they kill corrupted players. It's doubtful they would be easily camp murdered though.
3. Mayors don't start sieges, individuals do. So i doubt the besiegers will have access to them, or at least, a different form.
4. Node Wars, are not the same as Node Sieges. Sieges are instigated by a single player activating a war dec on the node, while node wars, are a system that flags the citizens of your enemy node as hostile to the citizens of your node, and will have varying victory goals.
5. Even players passing through will pass experience to the node, whether they are citizens or not. if they fight gather discover or do anything that generates exp, the node benefits. Also you can only get citizens at node level 3, village, on a bar that you can't see. So this guild would be hard pressed to lock out every spot once citizenship unlocks. they might get a bunch, but all is unlikely. Each advancement point just makes this harder and harder. Also they will be at their highest point of competition in the early areas surrounding the divine gateways. If someone was going to try this, i think they'd hoof it to an area further away.
Wow. I've done plenty of reading and it's very easy to see how there could be confusion on the matter and that the general assumption being thrown around from yourself and others here regarding which nodes can attack who seems off to me.
1) "Vassal nodes cannot declare war on their parent node or any of their vassals." The key word here for your consideration for reading is 'their' on the 2nd half of the quote. This could easily mean one of two things. The current assumption of their being the parent node's vassals which would encompass all of the nodes in a parent cluster OR their could mean only the nodes directly under each dominant vassal /sub cluster. Per the diagram provided earlier in this thread this would mean each level 5 node and the two other vassals under them only. Not related to the entire parent cluster.
If there is a video other other quote that proves the 2nd option above incorrect please provide it. The 2nd option in my humble opinion is the most likely per the node rivalry comment I quoted as it would allow sub clusters to fight for dominance and citizenship/population within a parent node cluster.
2) Why do you think it's doubtful they could be camped? During a siege the guards will need to be killed right? Again unless the siege mechanic changes base stats for guards I do not see why this concept would be doubtful from the lack of knowledge on them now. Again I even stated it would be unlikely at early levels but it shouldn't be that far of a reach to consider this once people start maxing levels and gear, or again if guards scale per node level it could be possible at all stages of the game. You basically call me dumb by suggesting I haven't read anything but you provide points with no merit, even if mine have no merit unless you can prove them baseless than I'm doing nothing other than what this forum is designated for which is discussion.
3) Mayor powers: Declare war on another node and rally citizens to the cause.[21] - Reading 101.
4) Not following what you're trying to teach me on here.
5) Hoofing it to an area further away seems logical if a guild was trying to do what I suggested. It would limit exposure to random people passing through and if the members of the guild were fairly active I see no reason to think they can't get the citizenship first, especially if it's going to cost money to buy/rent real estate. Again think of pooling resource versus just individuals or random guilds. At this point I don't care if no one here agrees with me on the logic of guilds advancing nodes as groups and controlling them. I've already conceded the point above to avoid this discussion moving forward.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Wow. I've done plenty of reading and it's very easy to see how there could be confusion on the matter and that the general assumption being thrown around from yourself and others here regarding which nodes can attack who seems off to me.
1) "Vassal nodes cannot declare war on their parent node or any of their vassals." The key word here for your consideration for reading is 'their' on the 2nd half of the quote. This could easily mean one of two things. The current assumption of their being the parent node's vassals which would encompass all of the nodes in a parent cluster OR their could mean only the nodes directly under each dominant vassal /sub cluster. Per the diagram provided earlier in this thread this would mean each level 5 node and the two other vassals under them only. Not related to the entire parent cluster.
If there is a video other other quote that proves the 2nd option above incorrect please provide it. The 2nd option in my humble opinion is the most likely per the node rivalry comment I quoted as it would allow sub clusters to fight for dominance and citizenship/population within a parent node cluster.
2) Why do you think it's doubtful they could be camped? During a siege the guards will need to be killed right? Again unless the siege mechanic changes base stats for guards I do not see why this concept would be doubtful from the lack of knowledge on them now. Again I even stated it would be unlikely at early levels but it shouldn't be that far of a reach to consider this once people start maxing levels and gear, or again if guards scale per node level it could be possible at all stages of the game. You basically call me dumb by suggesting I haven't read anything but you provide points with no merit, even if mine have no merit unless you can prove them baseless than I'm doing nothing other than what this forum is designated for which is discussion.
3) Mayor powers: Declare war on another node and rally citizens to the cause.[21] - Reading 101.
4) Not following what you're trying to teach me on here.
5) Hoofing it to an area further away seems logical if a guild was trying to do what I suggested. It would limit exposure to random people passing through and if the members of the guild were fairly active I see no reason to think they can't get the citizenship first, especially if it's going to cost money to buy/rent real estate. Again think of pooling resource versus just individuals or random guilds. At this point I don't care if no one here agrees with me on the logic of guilds advancing nodes as groups and controlling them. I've already conceded the point above to avoid this discussion moving forward.
1. Click the reference on that line and you'll see the quote is cannot declare war on their parent, or any of its vassals. This makes perfect sense since the main point of even having a vassal is to take advantage of their excess exp to advance further or stave of atrophy. Why would you want your minions to screw up that flow. In addition, they are locked to the diplomatic states of their parents, so it wouldn't make much sense to be able to declare war on someone your parent is at peace with.
2. It's doubtful they would be EASILY camped. Without knowledge about their exact stats, or connection to node advancement, we can't know for sure, but they exist to try to keep the peace, kill corrupted and defend against monster attacks, so they're going to have to have some ability to do some damage at least.
3. Yes. Which is not siege another node. These are two systems. a Siege razes a node to the ground leaving nothing behind. A war might have you steal relics, control areas, or meet some victory condition to halt the progress of an enemy. An individual from the aggressor node might indeed throw a flag down to start a siege, but that exists independent of the Node War.
4. Read above. I'm informing you that you are conflating two separate systems.
5. It will cost money, but again, you cannot see when the node will advance, and can't control peoples contribution of exp, or lack thereof. So if your active guild tries to lock down a spot that's node level 2, and people start logging off for the night, then in the middle of what would be the work hours for most of the guild a large group comes through and the node advances, but the first guild only has 4 guys online who work off hours, or live in a different time zone, and that new group rolls in and purchases the housing, your whole plan is shafted. This is just one possible scenario.
6. No one disputes your premise, there totally will be guilds that attempt this. It just won't be worth the investment vs the risks. And with those large guilds being at their heart super pragmatic any advantage they can get types, I don't see the guilds that try this being in the successful category. And whether you pool resources or not, if it's feasible for a individual to buy property within the time limit of village, it doesn't matter how much you've pooled. that person/s can only purchase for themselves. So if they aren't on when the flip happens, or they are, but the guildmates they could possibly give money to make new landowners aren't, you again are out of luck.
Also side note, none of my posts are intended to offend or belittle your experience, I've actually never heard of the MMO you referenced in your OP, or hear someone on here refer to it, so i'm sure you have some unique perspectives that will have pertinence and could give some perspective to future systems, or announcements the devs make. Just want you to know the nitty gritty of the systems that would diverge it from your past experiences with somewhat similar systems, especially in something so interconnected as the node system.
I'm also happy to completely concede my argument on this to not further derail the topic. So you're totally right guilds will not control anything especially on a technical level.
The problem is that we have been addresses the issue you bought up in the OP.
The reason it was such a big deal in the games you have ecperienced is because players lisr basically everything they and their guild had. This is a massive loss.
In Ashes, when you lose a siege it is almost exclusively a personal loss.
Your guild is still function and as powerful as it was, half of the members of your guild likely won't even be effected by it. You still have your freehold that you have invested in (though it may be a blueprint you need to find a new spot for). You still have your progress in your religion and social organization.
The loss from a siege in Ashes is designed to suck, but not crush.
This is *why* the developers are making the game in a way where guilds won't want to claim ownership of a node, but will instead want to spread their members out over many nodes.
1. Click the reference on that line and you'll see the quote is cannot declare war on their parent, or any of its vassals. This makes perfect sense since the main point of even having a vassal is to take advantage of their excess exp to advance further or stave of atrophy. Why would you want your minions to screw up that flow. In addition, they are locked to the diplomatic states of their parents, so it wouldn't make much sense to be able to declare war on someone your parent is at peace with.
I see what is messing me up on some of the concepts here.
The words war and siege mean two completely separate things in the game. I've been suggesting that the smaller nodes can SIEGE nodes within their parent cluster and the quotes coming back on that are related to declaring war on other nodes not siege. So by default it made me assume these were the same mechanism in the game.
Now that i've clarified this does it say anywhere that Nodes can not siege their vassals, parent node or other nodes within their respective parent cluster? If it does please share this because I can't find it anywhere.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
1. Click the reference on that line and you'll see the quote is cannot declare war on their parent, or any of its vassals. This makes perfect sense since the main point of even having a vassal is to take advantage of their excess exp to advance further or stave of atrophy. Why would you want your minions to screw up that flow. In addition, they are locked to the diplomatic states of their parents, so it wouldn't make much sense to be able to declare war on someone your parent is at peace with.
I see what is messing me up on some of the concepts here.
The words war and siege mean two completely separate things in the game. I've been suggesting that the smaller nodes can SIEGE nodes within their parent cluster and the quotes coming back on that are related to declaring war on other nodes not siege. So by default it made me assume these were the same mechanism in the game.
Now that i've clarified this does it say anywhere that Nodes can not siege their vassals, parent node or other nodes within their respective parent cluster? If it does please share this because I can't find it anywhere.
Dude they’ve linked you the wiki and quoted the exact answer multiple times
No a vassal node cannot siege its parent, nor can it siege any of the other nodes in the cluster.
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Please remember that a siege is a type of war (in reality...). This might be a good question to ask at the Livestream.
Quote by @Steven: There is guild affiliation, there's party affiliation, there's a raid affiliation, alliance affiliation, there's a citizenship affiliation, there's society affiliation, there's religious affiliation. All of these things have some hierarchy; and within that hierarchy there's the ability to participate within certain systems. So for example, if you have a node that has fallen under your vassal state and you're a citizen of the parent node, then you could participate in a siege against the vassal node but if you're a citizen of the vassal node you could not participate as an attacker against the parent node; so there's a hierarchy, unless you were to renounce your citizenship.
Now that i've clarified this does it say anywhere that Nodes can not siege their vassals, parent node or other nodes within their respective parent cluster? If it does please share this because I can't find it anywhere.
While it may just be wording, I feel it important to point out to you again that nodes do not declare sieges on nodes - individual players do.
Once a siege is declared, guilds and/or players can then opt to join one side or the other, and presumably the leader of each side (the person that declared the siege and the mayor of the target node) have the ability to accept or reject help.
However, if you are a citizen of a node, and the parent of that node (or the grandparent, for that matter) has a siege declared on it, you are automatically listed as a defender, and so can't participate as an attacker on the node without renouncing your citizenship.
It is probable that a citizen of a parent node won't be able to declare a siege on a vassal, but it may be the case that a citizen of a parent node can join the attacker of a siege on a vassal.
However, it is important to remember here that there are no systems in the game that compel an individual to participate in the attack of a node. If you are a large guild in a metropolis node and you organize a siege on a vassal for what ever reason, there is nothing stopping the remaining citizens of the node your guild is based in to decide to assist in defending the node, rather than helping you defeat it.
Also, any citizens of any other nodes in that same cluster are more likely to join the defense side - as if that node loses the siege, the whole cluster is worse off. Any citizens of a node that is a vassal of the target of the siege will also automatically be listed as defenders as well. And since that node is only blocking the progress of these vassal nodes, there is no one that is a citizen of a node that stands to progress further if this target node loses the siege that is also able to participate in the attack.
Further, if a member of your guild is still a citizen of that node, then they will automatically be listed as defenders - thus your siege will be against members of your own guild.
Steven has said in the past that he wants people to consider themselves citizens of their node above being members of their guild, so the notion of a siege with members of a single guild being on both sides perfectly fits in with that.
How does it make sense that an "individual" is going to be launching sieges. If it takes roughly the same resources to develop the siege item as it does to level nodes? I do not understand why you keep saying it like this. If your point is that it requires ONE person to activate it sure, I understand that but it sounds like the questing and resources required for this is going to take a group(s) of players likely then by that theory guilds and/or mayor driven quests for citizens of that specific node who plan to lay siege. So retrospective of this do you not believe it will be guilds and mayors who ultimately siege other towns, even if only one person is capable of activating the siege?
The way you write your responses makes it sound like sieges are going to be so rare it's not worth discussing which I find hard to believe since it appears to be a core aspect of the game.
And WHAT lol. I've never played a game that was guild oriented in the least where members of the guild were like "yo my bank is in this city sorry I can't let you have it". I see no scenario where the same guild ends up fighting each other over node defense. If that is a reality in this game i'll be completely stunned.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
How does it make sense that an "individual" is going to be launching sieges. If it takes roughly the same resources to develop the siege item as it does to level nodes? I do not understand why you keep saying it like this. If your point is that it requires ONE person to activate it sure, I understand that but it sounds like the questing and resources required for this is going to take a group(s) of players likely then by that theory guilds and/or mayor driven quests for citizens of that specific node who plan to lay siege. So retrospective of this do you not believe it will be guilds and mayors who ultimately siege other towns, even if only one person is capable of activating the siege?
The way you write your responses makes it sound like sieges are going to be so rare it's not worth discussing which I find hard to believe since it appears to be a core aspect of the game.
And WHAT lol. I've never played a game that was guild oriented in the least where members of the guild were like "yo my bank is in this city sorry I can't let you have it". I see no scenario where the same guild ends up fighting each other over node defense. If that is a reality in this game i'll be completely stunned.
While a group may well assist in the gathering of whatever materials are needed for the War Dec, it will in the end, be a single person "putting" that declaration down. That's why everyone keeps telling you Sieges are started by the individual. And they are saying that guilds/ mayors may be part of the process, but they are not inherently so. The guild leader or mayor don't have a button on their UI's that says siege this. And once that dec is down, it doesn't say X guild raid. Anyone can come sign on as participants in the attack.
How often sieges occur, especially Metro Sieges, will have to be seen through testing.
And yes, if your guild ends up splitting up between two nodes, and Node A declares war against Node B, your guild will be flagged against itself for as long as they remain citizens of their respective homes. Citizenship is the highest in the hierarchy of affiliations, and supercedes guild connection. And if you are a citizen of a Node you are automatically listed as a defender once it has been targeted by a siege.. So if your guild was mostly made up of people from elsewhere and they showed up for the fight they would be flagged as your enemies. (In practice I'm sure you would renounce your citizenship and leave prior to the war dec if this was the case)
How does it make sense that an "individual" is going to be launching sieges. If it takes roughly the same resources to develop the siege item as it does to level nodes? I do not understand why you keep saying it like this. If your point is that it requires ONE person to activate it sure, I understand that but it sounds like the questing and resources required for this is going to take a group(s) of players likely then by that theory guilds and/or mayor driven quests for citizens of that specific node who plan to lay siege. So retrospective of this do you not believe it will be guilds and mayors who ultimately siege other towns, even if only one person is capable of activating the siege?
The way you write your responses makes it sound like sieges are going to be so rare it's not worth discussing which I find hard to believe since it appears to be a core aspect of the game.
And WHAT lol. I've never played a game that was guild oriented in the least where members of the guild were like "yo my bank is in this city sorry I can't let you have it". I see no scenario where the same guild ends up fighting each other over node defense. If that is a reality in this game i'll be completely stunned.
The point I am making is that siege defense is a node thing, but siege attack isn't.
In my opinion, node sieges are going to be initiated mostly by guilds - the rewards for a successful siege will be tempting for them, but so will the change in PvE content.
I will be shocked to see a node siege ever initiated by a mayor. They have other things to focus their time on.
I have never once said or suggested that sieges will be rare. There is likely to be one somewhere on any given server every few days. Successful sieges on a metropolis will be rare, perhaps one or two a year per server.
As to the last point, if you do end up playing Ashes, you probably should prepare to be shocked. Not just about the fact that there will be sieges with members of the same guild on different sides, but also about many other things you think you understand about the game.
It is unlikely that guilds will be involved in initiating a siege against a node that a member is a citizen of (you would siege a node that is in a different cluster, as all nodes in your cluster are making you stronger), but it would be in any guilds best interests to have a plan in place for when someone else initiates a siege in a node in your cluster, and different members of your guild have reason for it to both succeed and fail.
On the other hand, if a guild were dumb enough to siege nodes in their own cluster - that will result in them eventually sieging a node that a guild member is a citizen of. Such guilds won't keep members very long, as there really is generally no need to siege nodes in your own cluster.
Having that plan in place to deal with conflicting interests like this will serve your guild far better than having a plan to attempt day one "ownership" of a node.
Dude they’ve linked you the wiki and quoted the exact answer multiple times
No a vassal node cannot siege its parent, nor can it siege any of the other nodes in the cluster.
None of the wiki pages i've read specify siege restrictions on who can siege whom. Please share this if you see it specifically. Again as I pointed out above since it keeps being quoted the "Can't attacking Parent node or other nodes" is specific to war not siege.
Furthermore they state that removing a mayor through siege is a mechanism they want in the game- who would be doing this than possibly the members of their own Node Sub nodes or neighboring nodes within the same metro cluster etc.
You all keep acting like i'm an idiot and i'm happy to eat my words as I've done multiple times in this thread if you can show me exactly where it says this for sieges.
Thanks.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Dude they’ve linked you the wiki and quoted the exact answer multiple times
No a vassal node cannot siege its parent, nor can it siege any of the other nodes in the cluster.
None of the wiki pages i've read specify siege restrictions on who can siege whom. Please share this if you see it specifically. Again as I pointed out above since it keeps being quoted the "Can't attacking Parent node or other nodes" is specific to war not siege.
Furthermore they state that removing a mayor through siege is a mechanism they want in the game- who would be doing this than possibly the members of their own Node Sub nodes or neighboring nodes within the same metro cluster etc.
You all keep acting like i'm an idiot and i'm happy to eat my words as I've done multiple times in this thread if you can show me exactly where it says this for sieges.
Thanks.
For node sieges, citizens of the node or provincial nodes being attacked are automatically registered as defenders
Dude they’ve linked you the wiki and quoted the exact answer multiple times
No a vassal node cannot siege its parent, nor can it siege any of the other nodes in the cluster.
None of the wiki pages i've read specify siege restrictions on who can siege whom. Please share this if you see it specifically. Again as I pointed out above since it keeps being quoted the "Can't attacking Parent node or other nodes" is specific to war not siege.
Furthermore they state that removing a mayor through siege is a mechanism they want in the game- who would be doing this than possibly the members of their own Node Sub nodes or neighboring nodes within the same metro cluster etc.
You all keep acting like i'm an idiot and i'm happy to eat my words as I've done multiple times in this thread if you can show me exactly where it says this for sieges.
Thanks.
For node sieges, citizens of the node or provincial nodes being attacked are automatically registered as defenders
If you are a citizen of a vassal node, you will never be able to attack your parent node.
If you’re a citizen of the parent node, you can seige its vassal nodes.
I don't have any skin in this argument, but that specific statement is not on that specific page.
Unless you are inferring it from this statement: "For node sieges, citizens of the node or provincial nodes being attacked are automatically registered as defenders.[20]"
Or confusing it with this statement which only applies to warring nodes: "Vassal nodes cannot declare a node war on their parent node or any of their vassals.[73]"
I can understand why Tyrantor would want a better citation that that.
It could not be less vague. “If you’re a citizen of the node or the vassal nodes, you are automatically made a defender in the event of a siege.”
If that somehow really wasn’t obvious enough, that means you will never be able to attack your own node or your parent node in a siege
Node sieges are started by individuals and others can enlist to attack and defend, except for citizens of that node or any of its vassals, which are automatically defenders which obviously means they can’t attack their parent bodes in a siege.
Well I guess what you and everyone else seems to think is that you can't do it just because you're a citizen of that node but there are no restrictions on leaving that node in order to siege it (minus 2 week window to become a citizen elsehwhere). The other misconception here is that an "individual" is going to initiate the siege mechanic. While the technicality of it is accurate I highly doubt individuals are just going to quest up the resources required to siege nodes without the political aspects of allegiances behind it. Since it will take week(s) to grind up the siege mechanic these guild(s)/alliances can simply denounce their node by declaring citizenship elsewhere or nowhere as it could be. So in theory you can siege any node in the game, I guess not while you're actively a citizen but I suppose it would make sense if you were going to siege it with intent to win you likely wouldn't want to have a home there that could deposit loot after a successful siege.
Since Nodes appear to be nothing more than slightly player driven NPC cities I see no reason based on the walls of text provided in this thread to the contrary that .anyone is going to develop some keen level of ownership to a node outside of questing and/or if they are one of the 1-3 primary guilds within the node. Therefore it seems more than reasonable that citizens of nodes will siege their own node or rather the node they've made their own for some period of time, possibly for intelligence gathering prior to a siege.
I'll agree from a point of view that it's unlikely the person who has citizenship within the node will be the same person to initiate the siege but I do find it completely likely they will be participating in the node attack. Yes they will be required to disown a node prior to the siege but it doesn't seem that unreasonable based on the preparation phase in addition to the likely inner planning from a group perspective.
[Content that revolves around alliances specifically and progression within the development of that alliance; and the ability to share some common services between guilds that are part of that alliance. I think that additionally allowing alliances to toggle certain relationships with nodes as an interaction is beneficial. That's going to provide an interesting dynamic for players who are either members of the particular node that has the relationship established or members of the Alliance. So I think that obviously building systems is is about creating the channels by which these players can form bonds and the more layers you have around those you know channels of bonding between the different guilds or players, the more sustainable that relationship.[24] – Steven Sharif]
And below seems like a prime example of what I describe above- siege your own node:
[Node politics
There won't be a civil war mechanic within nodes but there will be scope for internal political conflicts; such as undermining the current leadership and disrupting trade.[60]
The only way to remove an elected mayor prior to the end of their term is by destroying the node.[61]
We want consequences to matter and if that person got elected then you need to work within the means of the mechanics to get them unelected.[61] – Steven Sharif] I.E. Siege own node.
I think the reality here is that based on how the node system is set up it's only inevitable that people are going to be involved in a siege of their own nodes frequently, yes they may have to sell real estate or just move on and if we all want to get into technicality sure you won't siege your own node the exact second it happens but if you've been a citizen of that node for a month and you just have to leave an hour before the siege is initiated does it make the node yours more than not?
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Man, you have one really bad understanding of the functions of nodes if all you see in them is NPC cities.
Almost no one is going to be leaving their node to siege it. Why would they? They don’t gain any benefit in destroying all the services they use. They don’t profit from destroying their own freehold. They don’t benefit from their social organization getting destroyed. They don’t benefit from deleveling the nearby content. They don’t get any benefit from disrupting their neighboring trade routes.
There’s no world in which it’ll ever be commonplace to wreck your own home grounds
The only way to remove an elected mayor prior to the end of their term is by destroying the node.[61]
We want consequences to matter and if that person got elected then you need to work within the means of the mechanics to get them unelected.[61] – Steven Sharif] I.E. Siege own node.
Wtf no that’s not what that means, no one with a brain cuts off their nose to spite their face. It means you actually use the governmental system and take steps to get someone better as mayor next time
I don't get why someone would put down all stake they have in a node, destroy said mode (not just delevel it a few times - destroy it), and then go back to that same node once it has leveled back up to node level 3.
I mean, you have already removed all assets you have in the node, all infrastructure the node has, everything is gone. Due to the way nodes work, there is almost no chance that your node will be able to reach the same level again, as well.
If you dislike the leader of your node, and can't get rid of them during an election, you wouldn't leave the node to siege it and rejoin it - you would leave the node to join a different node. You may then siege that first node, you just wouldn't wait around to rejoin it.
The idea that people would do that is just... odd.
Man, you have one really bad understanding of the functions of nodes if all you see in them is NPC cities.
Well I actually put a lot of stock in the nodes when I started this thread but I've been beat into submission for suggesting they would hold that much substantial value. Outside of the supernode powers I'm not sure at this point what value a node would really have to individuals much above a NPC city if they were not part of the node's IC or primary guild(s).
Furthermore the way nodes have been described here people will freely be able to move between them and find Nodes that best suite their interest(s). It's hard to imagine there will only be a single node capable of this especially at any of the non metro nodes - again per the feedback in this thread.
If people can "rent" for citizenship they would have limited financial ties to the node.
If your guild or alliance was going to siege a node why would you stay? If your guild/alliance wins the siege you will lose your citizenship, items from your stash AND then get the boot from your own guild... seems like the cost to stay and defend it would be higher in the event of a razed node.
I don't get why someone would put down all stake they have in a node, destroy said mode (not just delevel it a few times - destroy it), and then go back to that same node once it has leveled back up to node level 3.
I mean, you have already removed all assets you have in the node, all infrastructure the node has, everything is gone. Due to the way nodes work, there is almost no chance that your node will be able to reach the same level again, as well.
If you dislike the leader of your node, and can't get rid of them during an election, you wouldn't leave the node to siege it and rejoin it - you would leave the node to join a different node. You may then siege that first node, you just wouldn't wait around to rejoin it.
The idea that people would do that is just... odd.
Honestly I feel like you you're a true board warrior and i'm not sure if you're responses are more detrimental to me, you or both of us as this continues. I just quoted something Steven said, I didn't make that theory up. However unlikely it is - it does at a minimum prove that you can Siege your own node via individual, guild or alliance if you choose to.
I would venture to guess the concept behind Steven's point is that maybe a rival guild member got elected to the Mayor position and then by virtue is going to add members of his guild to the IC - while it's possible in theory there isn't a TON to be gained by this, I still would like to disagree on the point that having your guild members in control of the node will have more benefits to the guild than not. This could simply just result in the other guild taking that leadership position away by force for spite, greed, jealousy or to prove they are bigger and badder.
Just to add something else to my theory that controlling the nodes will have value to guild members. One of the recent video interviews Steven specifically mentioned that mayors could set "rewards" for specific quests the node needs completed however it was at least noted these rewards would be limited to a sliding scale. However if you consider that a guild could then set specific quests geared around each node they control at prime time of their playerbase so that they can come in and scoop up all those quests and gain financial rewards directly from the Node's gold reserves.
Tyrantor
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Man, you have one really bad understanding of the functions of nodes if all you see in them is NPC cities.
Well I actually put a lot of stock in the nodes when I started this thread but I've been beat into submission for suggesting they would hold that much substantial value. Outside of the supernode powers I'm not sure at this point what value a node would really have to individuals much above a NPC city if they were not part of the node's IC or primary guild(s).
Furthermore the way nodes have been described here people will freely be able to move between them and find Nodes that best suite their interest(s). It's hard to imagine there will only be a single node capable of this especially at any of the non metro nodes - again per the feedback in this thread.
If people can "rent" for citizenship they would have limited financial ties to the node.
If your guild or alliance was going to siege a node why would you stay? If your guild/alliance wins the siege you will lose your citizenship, items from your stash AND then get the boot from your own guild... seems like the cost to stay and defend it would be higher in the event of a razed node.
I don't get why someone would put down all stake they have in a node, destroy said mode (not just delevel it a few times - destroy it), and then go back to that same node once it has leveled back up to node level 3.
I mean, you have already removed all assets you have in the node, all infrastructure the node has, everything is gone. Due to the way nodes work, there is almost no chance that your node will be able to reach the same level again, as well.
If you dislike the leader of your node, and can't get rid of them during an election, you wouldn't leave the node to siege it and rejoin it - you would leave the node to join a different node. You may then siege that first node, you just wouldn't wait around to rejoin it.
The idea that people would do that is just... odd.
Honestly I feel like you you're a true board warrior and i'm not sure if you're responses are more detrimental to me, you or both of us as this continues. I just quoted something Steven said, I didn't make that theory up. However unlikely it is - it does at a minimum prove that you can Siege your own node via individual, guild or alliance if you choose to.
I would venture to guess the concept behind Steven's point is that maybe a rival guild member got elected to the Mayor position and then by virtue is going to add members of his guild to the IC - while it's possible in theory there isn't a TON to be gained by this, I still would like to disagree on the point that having your guild members in control of the node will have more benefits to the guild than not. This could simply just result in the other guild taking that leadership position away by force for spite, greed, jealousy or to prove they are bigger and badder.
Just to add something else to my theory that controlling the nodes will have value to guild members. One of the recent video interviews Steven specifically mentioned that mayors could set "rewards" for specific quests the node needs completed however it was at least noted these rewards would be limited to a sliding scale. However if you consider that a guild could then set specific quests geared around each node they control at prime time of their playerbase so that they can come in and scoop up all those quests and gain financial rewards directly from the Node's gold reserves.
You weren't beat up about nodes being important, you were beat up because you suggested a guild would find it easy or worthwhile to try being supreme leaders of a node.
Nodes depend on many players participating in the surrounding area, otherwise it atrophies. Obviously no guild can lock people out then expect the node to thrive due to the basic mechanics of node growth.
A guild could try to control the mayorship, but if people who live in that node hate what they do with that leadership, no one is going to vote for them, and you can be sure people would be willing to sink more funds and more fighters in to avoid a bad mayor. People also may just leave the node when the guild doesn't do what the population wants, which leaves you in the same situation as if you locked people out: risk of node atrophy.
"Furthermore the way nodes have been described here people will freely be able to move between them and find Nodes that best suite their interest(s)."
Yeah as in you don't have to be a citizen to make use of most of the amenities. Citizenship matters more than guild membership, that's a basic heirarchy established by the game. Who'd even know if you defended the area you've set up your housing and storage and crafting systems in? It's not like there's a detailed list with every user who participated in a siege.
Anyone who wants to lead a node HAS TO do what's good for the general population, or else people will leave. If your guild tries to overtake an economic node and starts removing a lot of crafting station to replace them with housing for your guildies, people will be unhappy. If your guild tries to take over a military node, then heavily restricts any bounty quests given out to benefit your guild specifically, people will leave.
You cannot as a guild screw over the rest of the node's population and expect your leadership to do anything but make the community dislike you.
Honestly I feel like you you're a true board warrior and i'm not sure if you're responses are more detrimental to me, you or both of us as this continues. I just quoted something Steven said, I didn't make that theory up. However unlikely it is - it does at a minimum prove that you can Siege your own node via individual, guild or alliance if you choose to.
I'm in this thread to make sure there is no outright misinformation left unchallenged - that is my primary reason for posting in this specific thread.
Since I am posting in this thread, a secondary objective here is to attempt to correct you in things you are completely incorrect in, and point out things you are likely incorrect on or things you are making a massive, unfounded assumption on.
For some reason though, you spent a whole lot longer than you should have refusing to believe that you were incorrect in your initial assumptions - and that the fact that those assumptions were incorrect makes the actual question in the OP that you asked essentially obsolete.
By the second time you replied to me in this thread - at the latest - you should have realized how incorrect your assumptions were, and rather than continue to attempt to take developer quotes out of context, you instad should have said something along the lines of...
Ok, so it seems my assumptions about the relationship between guilds and nodes in this game is completely off base, which I put down to my experience in previous MMO's coloring those assumptions.
So, since the premise behind the actual question I asked in the OP is no longer valid, I was wonder, what exactly is it you people that have been following the game for years think in terms of the relationship between nodes and guilds?
With this one basic post, you would have put yourself in a position to actually learn a thing or two about the current general understandign of the game.
Basically, rather than coming here and telling us what you think, you should have come here and asked us what we think.
Most people would have done that from the very start. Of those that didn't, the vast majority would have pivoted after the 10th poster came in here and pointed out that the basic premise of your question wasn't actually correct.
Maybe you'll get around to that at some point, but I'm not holding my breath.
Comments
While cities will of course be crucial landmarks, as well as points of travel, they will also have a few other functionalities that I know of.
So a quote from Margaret Krohn (Community Marketing Lead) starts off with this about nodes:
"As a Node advances, it influences the types of content within itself and the surrounding areas. Players do not create Nodes, but if they are a part of the government for a specific Node, they have the ability to influence diplomacy, and modify building types/construction and services within that Node."
If a node is advanced to the metropolis stage it can gain its "superpower" with the type being dependent on the type of node (Ex: Science node = Teleportation superpower)
Node advancement can also correlate with new quests, new NPCs, new dungeon and raids, new or advanced mob types, new or different resources, and possible events. It will also be a central place for safer item storage as well as additional housing. And of course, as you know, the many various facilities that can be used and developed within a city.
So they would indeed be more than hotspots to travel between, but they are indeed more NPC operated than it may appear at first glance. If it makes it easier, think of it like a normal NPC city, but the players can determine a small portion of how the city will be built and many players will call certain cities their home due to where they gather their resources, own a house, or just enjoy the aesthetic of.
While you are correct that nodes will be essential in players character advancement in crafting, item availability, etc. I don't necessarily see how that is involved with guild behaviors. I think I need more clarity or a specific example on how you think this would benefit a guild that "controls" a node? I can't think of anything that fit in with your example, but I could easily be missing something. However, if the example is a guild controls Node A, they'd gain an advantage in crafting or item availability over other guilds, that's not really correct. The resources and facilities would be able to be used by anyone and everyone that visits the town and it would actually hinder the towns growth and development if the sites had limited availability to players, so it's in the "controlling" guilds best interest to allow players access to the node and focus their time on other developments.
I think the term cluster might've been a bit confusing. The idea around this is vassal nodes + parent nodes. This image shows the influence between the two a little bit better than just the word "cluster":
Also some information from the wiki:
"Vassals are subject to the government, alliances, wars, taxes, and trade of their parent node, and are able to receive federal aid from them."
"Vassal nodes cannot declare war on their parent node or any of their vassals."
"Citizens of vassals are bound by the diplomatic states of the parent node."
Basically, civil war won't be a thing. However, a player can denounce their citizenship to a node and move to a different node or assist in a war against a node if they aren't happy with how things are operating. Citizenship is basically like pledging your life and loyalty to your nation.
This is also a place where thinking guild influence on a node is more than it could be. The politics of guilds is outside the realm of the politics of nodes. If guild A doesn't like guild B they can simply declare war on them and fight a good ol GvG without nodes coming into play. If guild politics were intertwined with node politics it would almost force guild members to all claim citizenship in a singular node, which as described, wouldn't be as beneficial to a guild as having them slightly spread out.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
As it stands right now though, you are unable to siege your parent node, or any vassals of that parent node.
There is rivalry as long as there is advancement to be had, but once one node makes another a vassal, that rivalry ceases.
From what I can tell, city guards are a given, but there is potential for a mayor to add more. Nodes will want more guards though, as they will assist in sieges - and it would be safe to assume that a node with fewer guards will make for an easier target in a siege.
Also, since most node services are suspending during the declaration period of a node siege (the time between when someone declares a siege and when the siege actually happens), it is safe to say that a mayor will be unable to purchase additional guards in this time. As such, you would want to have them in place all the time.
If a guild wants to level quickly, the most important thing they can do (more important than building a blacksmith, I would argue), is to make sure they have access to appropriate level content.
Since content level is tied to node level, this means they need to level a node up at the same pace they level themselves up.
This is only possible with many, many players. One or two thousand players will be involved on leveling up the first metropolis on each server.
The real advantage of being the first node in a region to build a blacksmith is not about the gear, it is that it will attract other players to that node to use the blacksmith, thus generate more experience for your node.
As soon as you start turning away those players - whether by force or by not providing the amenities and services they want when someone else will - your node stops it's progress, and potentially starts falling to atrophy.
Again, the key to a successful node is essentially player count. Start restricting players and you are actually restricting your node level.
Do they specifically say "any vassals of the parent node" or are they referring to Vassals nodes directly under your node?
City guards, where do you see they are a given? Also since these guards are going to be involved in sieges they will not be the typical NPC guards that can just insta kill people. Unless the siege mechanic changes their stats. This would mean that a guild could simply camp the guards/respawn to control the city for pvp.
Obviously at low levels this would be unlikely but since the guard level/skill should mirror the node stage. In my best guess I would think that guards will become available at node stage 3 and would equal level 30 NPC. Each node level from there would likely increase the guard level by 10 i.e. Lvl 4 node = lvl 40 NPC guards etc.
From what I can read the mayors can hire mercenary NPCs for sieges, this could mean offensive and/or defensive NPCs it doesn't specify defensive only and since the attacking side may also have a Mayor it could potentially add them also.
I have to imagine that the game is going to have more political aspects to the node systems than just simply during advancement mode. Rivalry could mean caravan assaults from neighboring guilds/node citizens that causes one node to the verge of war. Considering the costs of a siege it seems unlikely that being able to siege a competing node prior to a parent node existing would be the only applicable time period. (to me).
While I understand the more players available the faster a node levels. Since node leveling will mostly be capped by it's current citizens verus players passing through I believe that again this is going to be more guild driven than not. For example- if 10,000 players get dumped into a server at launch and they start spreading out across the world again per the simple math we're talking roughly 80x/each node development. Yes there would be player migration to larger cities for advancement however at early game levels guilds with 300+ members would have a substantial advantage for leveling specific nodes/clusters hence drawing more potential randoms to their Node(s) for advancement. They could very easily control most/all of the citizenship at some of their larger node(s) and as people continue to level at the lower ones they would then flow into the larger one and help advance it (plus the additional bonus from the vassal nodes feeding their primary node EXP).
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
In terms of "could they" own a node, Steven has specifically said that guilds do not control nodes. During development, stated intention has a lot more weight than stated systems and mechanics. This means that if the intent is that guild do not control nodes, then if there is a gap in the system that allows for this, it will be closed.
In terms of "why would they?", I still don't have an answer.
Guilds want to progress fast and early, and will want a node that facilitates this.
The thing is, that is what almost all players want, which means that is what almost all nodes will do.
A guild - any guild - is best served by assisting a node rather than by trying to lead it. This is because if people see a guild attempting to run a node, they are very likely to just go to a different (potentially rival) node. On the other hand, if the guild is working with the node to level it faster, everyone wins.
At no point does the guild gain anything from attempting to control the node. The buildings that are built will be the same whether the guild is controlling it or not.
In order to maintain leadership of a node, a guild needs to do one of the following, depending on node type
Invest a LOT of time in religious quests.
Invest a LOT of coin every month.
Win a FFA PvP contest.
Win an election.
The first three of those things will see the guild spend a lot of time and/or resources, but they still don't stand to gain anything as a guild from it. Even if they win, the node still needs to retain the bulk of it's population, which means building the services that the bulk of the population want - which probably happen to be the buildings the guild wants anyway, which would have been built if the guild didn't invest that time/resources in to securing temporary leadership of the node.
So again, I am simply not seeing the point.
Of the above 4, winning an election seems to be the easiest, but it isn't, as will be obvious soon.
300 member guilds won't exist while leveling.
300 member guilds will be rare once leveled as well, as players of large guilds are less effective in combat as members of smaller guilds. Guild size starts somewhere around 50, and guild progression is traded for an increase in guild size, but this progression can be used to gain augments and passive abilities instead of an increase in guild size.
Larger guilds that come to Ashes are likely to want to spread their members out over several small guilds - and in my experience of this kind of thing, these guilds tend to only remain affiliated for a short period of time in relation to teh life of an MMORPG.
However, even with 300 coordernated players all working together, you've not addressed the fact that these people will all want different things from a node in terms of social organizations and religious buildings. As such, it is reasonable to assume that it is in players best interest (and thus the guilds best interest) to go to the node that best suits their character, not that best suits the guild.
So those larger guilds will likely find their population spread over 3 or 4 nodes - indeed so will smaller guilds. This is why winning an election is not as simple as it may look. Your guild may have 300 members, but there are probably no more than 150 of those members in any one node. Since there are likely to be 1000+ citizens in a metropolis, that 150 players is obviously not enough to guarantee perpetual leadership.
Now, you may suggest that the guild can tell it's members to join the node for an election - the problem with this is that there is a 2 week stand down when leaving a node. This means that a player in a node will need to leave that node 2 weeks earlier to join the node with the election. Then after the election they leave that node to go back to the node they want to be in - which has another 2 week stand down. By the time they rejoin the node they want to be in, there is 2 weeks until the next election in the node the guild is trying to control and so they would need to leave their node again.
This is something that could potentially be done to take control of a node for a short duration, and guilds may well have a reason to want to do that. However, it is not a suitable means to control a node perpetually.
So again, guilds will want to assist a specific node in leveling up. Guilds will want to base themselves around a specific node. However, guilds don't actually gain anything by being the leaer of a node, and if there is half competent leadership of a node outside of a guild, the guild is better served by putting their time in to other endevors than they would be by attempting to control the node.
I'm not sure why you keep arguing this unless it's just to troll me at this point. What if a guild of 1,000 people migrate to this game joint he same server and for the greater good of their own guild work towards advancing nodes in a specifc cluster? Based on this number it seems now likely based on your own numbers that this guild could easily become the parent node no?
Guilds with 50, 100, 300, 1,000 members should easily be in position to not only level up nodes but gain political control and citizenship within them. I will concede that yes not EVERY single node on the map may work this way but if guilds from alpha/beta understand where they want to go at launch they should easily be able to. Maybe things change as the game develokps and people level but I strongly believe that guilds will want to group together in the same general area or "cluster" rather than spread out across the map.
I'm also happy to completely concede my argument on this to not further derail the topic. So you're totally right guilds will not control anything especially on a technical level.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Dude, you reaaaallllyyy need to just do a base reading on the wiki and listen listen to what the developers have said. Like 80% of what you have said so far has just been baseless assumptions, which would be fine; this is a forum on a in development game after all. But you are assuming things that the developers have directly commented on, and then not accepting when people are telling you so.
1. Yes they specifically say "or any of their Vassals"
2. They are a given because the developers have said they are present in node. To what degree a Mayor has control over them we haven't been told, but we know they kill corrupted players. It's doubtful they would be easily camp murdered though.
3. Mayors don't start sieges, individuals do. So i doubt the besiegers will have access to them, or at least, a different form.
4. Node Wars, are not the same as Node Sieges. Sieges are instigated by a single player activating a war dec on the node, while node wars, are a system that flags the citizens of your enemy node as hostile to the citizens of your node, and will have varying victory goals.
5. Even players passing through will pass experience to the node, whether they are citizens or not. if they fight gather discover or do anything that generates exp, the node benefits. Also you can only get citizens at node level 3, village, on a bar that you can't see. So this guild would be hard pressed to lock out every spot once citizenship unlocks. they might get a bunch, but all is unlikely. Each advancement point just makes this harder and harder. Also they will be at their highest point of competition in the early areas surrounding the divine gateways. If someone was going to try this, i think they'd hoof it to an area further away.
1) "Vassal nodes cannot declare war on their parent node or any of their vassals." The key word here for your consideration for reading is 'their' on the 2nd half of the quote. This could easily mean one of two things. The current assumption of their being the parent node's vassals which would encompass all of the nodes in a parent cluster OR their could mean only the nodes directly under each dominant vassal /sub cluster. Per the diagram provided earlier in this thread this would mean each level 5 node and the two other vassals under them only. Not related to the entire parent cluster.
If there is a video other other quote that proves the 2nd option above incorrect please provide it. The 2nd option in my humble opinion is the most likely per the node rivalry comment I quoted as it would allow sub clusters to fight for dominance and citizenship/population within a parent node cluster.
2) Why do you think it's doubtful they could be camped? During a siege the guards will need to be killed right? Again unless the siege mechanic changes base stats for guards I do not see why this concept would be doubtful from the lack of knowledge on them now. Again I even stated it would be unlikely at early levels but it shouldn't be that far of a reach to consider this once people start maxing levels and gear, or again if guards scale per node level it could be possible at all stages of the game. You basically call me dumb by suggesting I haven't read anything but you provide points with no merit, even if mine have no merit unless you can prove them baseless than I'm doing nothing other than what this forum is designated for which is discussion.
3) Mayor powers: Declare war on another node and rally citizens to the cause.[21] - Reading 101.
4) Not following what you're trying to teach me on here.
5) Hoofing it to an area further away seems logical if a guild was trying to do what I suggested. It would limit exposure to random people passing through and if the members of the guild were fairly active I see no reason to think they can't get the citizenship first, especially if it's going to cost money to buy/rent real estate. Again think of pooling resource versus just individuals or random guilds. At this point I don't care if no one here agrees with me on the logic of guilds advancing nodes as groups and controlling them. I've already conceded the point above to avoid this discussion moving forward.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
1. Click the reference on that line and you'll see the quote is cannot declare war on their parent, or any of its vassals. This makes perfect sense since the main point of even having a vassal is to take advantage of their excess exp to advance further or stave of atrophy. Why would you want your minions to screw up that flow. In addition, they are locked to the diplomatic states of their parents, so it wouldn't make much sense to be able to declare war on someone your parent is at peace with.
2. It's doubtful they would be EASILY camped. Without knowledge about their exact stats, or connection to node advancement, we can't know for sure, but they exist to try to keep the peace, kill corrupted and defend against monster attacks, so they're going to have to have some ability to do some damage at least.
3. Yes. Which is not siege another node. These are two systems. a Siege razes a node to the ground leaving nothing behind. A war might have you steal relics, control areas, or meet some victory condition to halt the progress of an enemy. An individual from the aggressor node might indeed throw a flag down to start a siege, but that exists independent of the Node War.
4. Read above. I'm informing you that you are conflating two separate systems.
5. It will cost money, but again, you cannot see when the node will advance, and can't control peoples contribution of exp, or lack thereof. So if your active guild tries to lock down a spot that's node level 2, and people start logging off for the night, then in the middle of what would be the work hours for most of the guild a large group comes through and the node advances, but the first guild only has 4 guys online who work off hours, or live in a different time zone, and that new group rolls in and purchases the housing, your whole plan is shafted. This is just one possible scenario.
6. No one disputes your premise, there totally will be guilds that attempt this. It just won't be worth the investment vs the risks. And with those large guilds being at their heart super pragmatic any advantage they can get types, I don't see the guilds that try this being in the successful category. And whether you pool resources or not, if it's feasible for a individual to buy property within the time limit of village, it doesn't matter how much you've pooled. that person/s can only purchase for themselves. So if they aren't on when the flip happens, or they are, but the guildmates they could possibly give money to make new landowners aren't, you again are out of luck.
The reason it was such a big deal in the games you have ecperienced is because players lisr basically everything they and their guild had. This is a massive loss.
In Ashes, when you lose a siege it is almost exclusively a personal loss.
Your guild is still function and as powerful as it was, half of the members of your guild likely won't even be effected by it. You still have your freehold that you have invested in (though it may be a blueprint you need to find a new spot for). You still have your progress in your religion and social organization.
The loss from a siege in Ashes is designed to suck, but not crush.
This is *why* the developers are making the game in a way where guilds won't want to claim ownership of a node, but will instead want to spread their members out over many nodes.
I see what is messing me up on some of the concepts here.
The words war and siege mean two completely separate things in the game. I've been suggesting that the smaller nodes can SIEGE nodes within their parent cluster and the quotes coming back on that are related to declaring war on other nodes not siege. So by default it made me assume these were the same mechanism in the game.
Now that i've clarified this does it say anywhere that Nodes can not siege their vassals, parent node or other nodes within their respective parent cluster? If it does please share this because I can't find it anywhere.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Dude they’ve linked you the wiki and quoted the exact answer multiple times
No a vassal node cannot siege its parent, nor can it siege any of the other nodes in the cluster.
From the Wiki: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Group_dynamics#Affiliations
Quote by @Steven: There is guild affiliation, there's party affiliation, there's a raid affiliation, alliance affiliation, there's a citizenship affiliation, there's society affiliation, there's religious affiliation. All of these things have some hierarchy; and within that hierarchy there's the ability to participate within certain systems. So for example, if you have a node that has fallen under your vassal state and you're a citizen of the parent node, then you could participate in a siege against the vassal node but if you're a citizen of the vassal node you could not participate as an attacker against the parent node; so there's a hierarchy, unless you were to renounce your citizenship.
Once a siege is declared, guilds and/or players can then opt to join one side or the other, and presumably the leader of each side (the person that declared the siege and the mayor of the target node) have the ability to accept or reject help.
However, if you are a citizen of a node, and the parent of that node (or the grandparent, for that matter) has a siege declared on it, you are automatically listed as a defender, and so can't participate as an attacker on the node without renouncing your citizenship.
It is probable that a citizen of a parent node won't be able to declare a siege on a vassal, but it may be the case that a citizen of a parent node can join the attacker of a siege on a vassal.
However, it is important to remember here that there are no systems in the game that compel an individual to participate in the attack of a node. If you are a large guild in a metropolis node and you organize a siege on a vassal for what ever reason, there is nothing stopping the remaining citizens of the node your guild is based in to decide to assist in defending the node, rather than helping you defeat it.
Also, any citizens of any other nodes in that same cluster are more likely to join the defense side - as if that node loses the siege, the whole cluster is worse off. Any citizens of a node that is a vassal of the target of the siege will also automatically be listed as defenders as well. And since that node is only blocking the progress of these vassal nodes, there is no one that is a citizen of a node that stands to progress further if this target node loses the siege that is also able to participate in the attack.
Further, if a member of your guild is still a citizen of that node, then they will automatically be listed as defenders - thus your siege will be against members of your own guild.
Steven has said in the past that he wants people to consider themselves citizens of their node above being members of their guild, so the notion of a siege with members of a single guild being on both sides perfectly fits in with that.
The way you write your responses makes it sound like sieges are going to be so rare it's not worth discussing which I find hard to believe since it appears to be a core aspect of the game.
And WHAT lol. I've never played a game that was guild oriented in the least where members of the guild were like "yo my bank is in this city sorry I can't let you have it". I see no scenario where the same guild ends up fighting each other over node defense. If that is a reality in this game i'll be completely stunned.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
While a group may well assist in the gathering of whatever materials are needed for the War Dec, it will in the end, be a single person "putting" that declaration down. That's why everyone keeps telling you Sieges are started by the individual. And they are saying that guilds/ mayors may be part of the process, but they are not inherently so. The guild leader or mayor don't have a button on their UI's that says siege this. And once that dec is down, it doesn't say X guild raid. Anyone can come sign on as participants in the attack.
How often sieges occur, especially Metro Sieges, will have to be seen through testing.
And yes, if your guild ends up splitting up between two nodes, and Node A declares war against Node B, your guild will be flagged against itself for as long as they remain citizens of their respective homes. Citizenship is the highest in the hierarchy of affiliations, and supercedes guild connection. And if you are a citizen of a Node you are automatically listed as a defender once it has been targeted by a siege.. So if your guild was mostly made up of people from elsewhere and they showed up for the fight they would be flagged as your enemies. (In practice I'm sure you would renounce your citizenship and leave prior to the war dec if this was the case)
The point I am making is that siege defense is a node thing, but siege attack isn't.
In my opinion, node sieges are going to be initiated mostly by guilds - the rewards for a successful siege will be tempting for them, but so will the change in PvE content.
I will be shocked to see a node siege ever initiated by a mayor. They have other things to focus their time on.
I have never once said or suggested that sieges will be rare. There is likely to be one somewhere on any given server every few days. Successful sieges on a metropolis will be rare, perhaps one or two a year per server.
As to the last point, if you do end up playing Ashes, you probably should prepare to be shocked. Not just about the fact that there will be sieges with members of the same guild on different sides, but also about many other things you think you understand about the game.
It is unlikely that guilds will be involved in initiating a siege against a node that a member is a citizen of (you would siege a node that is in a different cluster, as all nodes in your cluster are making you stronger), but it would be in any guilds best interests to have a plan in place for when someone else initiates a siege in a node in your cluster, and different members of your guild have reason for it to both succeed and fail.
On the other hand, if a guild were dumb enough to siege nodes in their own cluster - that will result in them eventually sieging a node that a guild member is a citizen of. Such guilds won't keep members very long, as there really is generally no need to siege nodes in your own cluster.
Having that plan in place to deal with conflicting interests like this will serve your guild far better than having a plan to attempt day one "ownership" of a node.
None of the wiki pages i've read specify siege restrictions on who can siege whom. Please share this if you see it specifically. Again as I pointed out above since it keeps being quoted the "Can't attacking Parent node or other nodes" is specific to war not siege.
Furthermore they state that removing a mayor through siege is a mechanism they want in the game- who would be doing this than possibly the members of their own Node Sub nodes or neighboring nodes within the same metro cluster etc.
You all keep acting like i'm an idiot and i'm happy to eat my words as I've done multiple times in this thread if you can show me exactly where it says this for sieges.
Thanks.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
If you are a citizen of a vassal node, you will never be able to attack your parent node.
If you’re a citizen of the parent node, you can seige its vassal nodes.
It could not be less vague. “If you’re a citizen of the node or the vassal nodes, you are automatically made a defender in the event of a siege.”
If that somehow really wasn’t obvious enough, that means you will never be able to attack your own node or your parent node in a siege
Node sieges are started by individuals and others can enlist to attack and defend, except for citizens of that node or any of its vassals, which are automatically defenders which obviously means they can’t attack their parent bodes in a siege.
Since Nodes appear to be nothing more than slightly player driven NPC cities I see no reason based on the walls of text provided in this thread to the contrary that .anyone is going to develop some keen level of ownership to a node outside of questing and/or if they are one of the 1-3 primary guilds within the node. Therefore it seems more than reasonable that citizens of nodes will siege their own node or rather the node they've made their own for some period of time, possibly for intelligence gathering prior to a siege.
I'll agree from a point of view that it's unlikely the person who has citizenship within the node will be the same person to initiate the siege but I do find it completely likely they will be participating in the node attack. Yes they will be required to disown a node prior to the siege but it doesn't seem that unreasonable based on the preparation phase in addition to the likely inner planning from a group perspective.
[Content that revolves around alliances specifically and progression within the development of that alliance; and the ability to share some common services between guilds that are part of that alliance. I think that additionally allowing alliances to toggle certain relationships with nodes as an interaction is beneficial. That's going to provide an interesting dynamic for players who are either members of the particular node that has the relationship established or members of the Alliance. So I think that obviously building systems is is about creating the channels by which these players can form bonds and the more layers you have around those you know channels of bonding between the different guilds or players, the more sustainable that relationship.[24] – Steven Sharif]
And below seems like a prime example of what I describe above- siege your own node:
[Node politics
There won't be a civil war mechanic within nodes but there will be scope for internal political conflicts; such as undermining the current leadership and disrupting trade.[60]
The only way to remove an elected mayor prior to the end of their term is by destroying the node.[61]
We want consequences to matter and if that person got elected then you need to work within the means of the mechanics to get them unelected.[61] – Steven Sharif] I.E. Siege own node.
I think the reality here is that based on how the node system is set up it's only inevitable that people are going to be involved in a siege of their own nodes frequently, yes they may have to sell real estate or just move on and if we all want to get into technicality sure you won't siege your own node the exact second it happens but if you've been a citizen of that node for a month and you just have to leave an hour before the siege is initiated does it make the node yours more than not?
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
Almost no one is going to be leaving their node to siege it. Why would they? They don’t gain any benefit in destroying all the services they use. They don’t profit from destroying their own freehold. They don’t benefit from their social organization getting destroyed. They don’t benefit from deleveling the nearby content. They don’t get any benefit from disrupting their neighboring trade routes.
There’s no world in which it’ll ever be commonplace to wreck your own home grounds
Wtf no that’s not what that means, no one with a brain cuts off their nose to spite their face. It means you actually use the governmental system and take steps to get someone better as mayor next time
I mean, you have already removed all assets you have in the node, all infrastructure the node has, everything is gone. Due to the way nodes work, there is almost no chance that your node will be able to reach the same level again, as well.
If you dislike the leader of your node, and can't get rid of them during an election, you wouldn't leave the node to siege it and rejoin it - you would leave the node to join a different node. You may then siege that first node, you just wouldn't wait around to rejoin it.
The idea that people would do that is just... odd.
Well I actually put a lot of stock in the nodes when I started this thread but I've been beat into submission for suggesting they would hold that much substantial value. Outside of the supernode powers I'm not sure at this point what value a node would really have to individuals much above a NPC city if they were not part of the node's IC or primary guild(s).
Furthermore the way nodes have been described here people will freely be able to move between them and find Nodes that best suite their interest(s). It's hard to imagine there will only be a single node capable of this especially at any of the non metro nodes - again per the feedback in this thread.
If people can "rent" for citizenship they would have limited financial ties to the node.
If your guild or alliance was going to siege a node why would you stay? If your guild/alliance wins the siege you will lose your citizenship, items from your stash AND then get the boot from your own guild... seems like the cost to stay and defend it would be higher in the event of a razed node.
Honestly I feel like you you're a true board warrior and i'm not sure if you're responses are more detrimental to me, you or both of us as this continues. I just quoted something Steven said, I didn't make that theory up. However unlikely it is - it does at a minimum prove that you can Siege your own node via individual, guild or alliance if you choose to.
I would venture to guess the concept behind Steven's point is that maybe a rival guild member got elected to the Mayor position and then by virtue is going to add members of his guild to the IC - while it's possible in theory there isn't a TON to be gained by this, I still would like to disagree on the point that having your guild members in control of the node will have more benefits to the guild than not. This could simply just result in the other guild taking that leadership position away by force for spite, greed, jealousy or to prove they are bigger and badder.
Just to add something else to my theory that controlling the nodes will have value to guild members. One of the recent video interviews Steven specifically mentioned that mayors could set "rewards" for specific quests the node needs completed however it was at least noted these rewards would be limited to a sliding scale. However if you consider that a guild could then set specific quests geared around each node they control at prime time of their playerbase so that they can come in and scoop up all those quests and gain financial rewards directly from the Node's gold reserves.
Master Assassin
(Yes same Tyrantor from Shadowbane)
Book suggestions:
Galaxy Outlaws books 1-16.5, Metagamer Chronicles, The Land litrpg series, Ready Player One, Zen in the Martial Arts
You weren't beat up about nodes being important, you were beat up because you suggested a guild would find it easy or worthwhile to try being supreme leaders of a node.
Nodes depend on many players participating in the surrounding area, otherwise it atrophies. Obviously no guild can lock people out then expect the node to thrive due to the basic mechanics of node growth.
A guild could try to control the mayorship, but if people who live in that node hate what they do with that leadership, no one is going to vote for them, and you can be sure people would be willing to sink more funds and more fighters in to avoid a bad mayor. People also may just leave the node when the guild doesn't do what the population wants, which leaves you in the same situation as if you locked people out: risk of node atrophy.
"Furthermore the way nodes have been described here people will freely be able to move between them and find Nodes that best suite their interest(s)."
Yeah as in you don't have to be a citizen to make use of most of the amenities. Citizenship matters more than guild membership, that's a basic heirarchy established by the game. Who'd even know if you defended the area you've set up your housing and storage and crafting systems in? It's not like there's a detailed list with every user who participated in a siege.
Anyone who wants to lead a node HAS TO do what's good for the general population, or else people will leave. If your guild tries to overtake an economic node and starts removing a lot of crafting station to replace them with housing for your guildies, people will be unhappy. If your guild tries to take over a military node, then heavily restricts any bounty quests given out to benefit your guild specifically, people will leave.
You cannot as a guild screw over the rest of the node's population and expect your leadership to do anything but make the community dislike you.
I'm in this thread to make sure there is no outright misinformation left unchallenged - that is my primary reason for posting in this specific thread.
Since I am posting in this thread, a secondary objective here is to attempt to correct you in things you are completely incorrect in, and point out things you are likely incorrect on or things you are making a massive, unfounded assumption on.
For some reason though, you spent a whole lot longer than you should have refusing to believe that you were incorrect in your initial assumptions - and that the fact that those assumptions were incorrect makes the actual question in the OP that you asked essentially obsolete.
By the second time you replied to me in this thread - at the latest - you should have realized how incorrect your assumptions were, and rather than continue to attempt to take developer quotes out of context, you instad should have said something along the lines of... With this one basic post, you would have put yourself in a position to actually learn a thing or two about the current general understandign of the game.
Basically, rather than coming here and telling us what you think, you should have come here and asked us what we think.
Most people would have done that from the very start. Of those that didn't, the vast majority would have pivoted after the 10th poster came in here and pointed out that the basic premise of your question wasn't actually correct.
Maybe you'll get around to that at some point, but I'm not holding my breath.