Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Did you see the recent video about asmon reacting to the interview with the lead game designer of WoW? The whole time he speaks about great theories of game design and nice idea ... but the covenant feature it's a mess at the end. Becouse the starting idea is good but the development and design of it in the practical aspects of the game it's a mess ... i see many issues here too ... maybe i'm wrong and they will fix all the issues i have right now, anyway it still offer a wide variety of features and game ideas ... the problem is that too much can lead into a low quality ... the game will be awesome for sure, but it doesn't miss problems. Actually their game design is pretty good for the now low standards of gaming ... but in my eyes there are many things that can be improved...
If you dont think that node types are good, then you dont have to play. But I know that the forums seem to have a balance of players who will choose each one. We dont even know of all of the benefits yet, so dont say it isn't balanced
https://knightsofember.com/forums/members/winner909098.54
I had my motivation to say that it will be unbalanced, so if you didn't understood that, cause of your stupidity or my bad explaining just ask that, i will be happy to explain it better.
I probably didn't had time to explain myself anyway , i will speak more of this in another post
The fact that i will or will not play the game is pointless , i'm speaking about the game features, not my will to play or not . Thz , try to be more coherent
You are saying that it will be unbalanced, yet we only know of two of the four node types. I was just advising you to wait and see, as we dont know what will happen. For all we know, the nodes are imbalanced, or balanced.
https://knightsofember.com/forums/members/winner909098.54
Schroedinger's Nodes!
Lol ya xD what a coincidence! I saw a video about the Schroedinger paradox and all this stupid science yeasterday and now xD
it's a cool way to say: " I don't know, i'm ignorant " ^^
What do you mean with unrelated content? Don't warry , it happens that someone makes some unnecesary comment that is unrelated to the topic xD a bit like you haha , with the shroedinger cat ... i know you hate cats
Fixed it for you @Vyraka
I didn't made any insult to anybody, i didn't even call stupid anybody. What are you refering to? Pls explain to me. thz, maybe if you quote ...
Actually we know a lot about the nodes, of course we have just a general idea of them, so i'm critizing for the most what we know and the general concept of the nodes.
If you didn't read all the Discussion but just a small part i invite you to continue reading ...
Of course as you said we don't know if some feature, like the teleport, will be actually unbalanced or balanced, you are 100% right , expecially becouse it can change. For that reason i'm projecting my thoughts in the future a bit, to give thoughts and ideas. I never said that when the game will be ready is going to be unbalanced ...
Right now, the design is unbalanced.
The only node we know almost nothing is the Divine node ... becouse they (the devs) don't know what to do and how to design it, it seems.
I spoke about the lore and the nodes .. that they don't coincide and fit properly. That a node superpower will be stronger and unbalanced becouse it misses a proper connection or equation ( i probably have to speak about this) .. yea maybe it will change, but for now it's not.
And other problems .. what are you refering too? just the teleport one? ... yes the teleport can be fixed, you are right
Say, if a certain divine node sees a lot of market activities (may be due to its convenient location), it seems natural that it should be able to become a economic node at some point. And if a military node has a large number of resident crafters (e.g. due to that node's proximity to resources), may be it should have the option to switch to a science node.
Although this isn't that big a deal anyway ... there's always node siege, if enough players decide that they want a different type of node at some point.
Actually I suspect that's one of the reasons they made the node types unchangeable - to give players another reason to stage a siege.
Yes sure! You are right.
That's exactly what i'm saying, the static nature of nodes is just bad. Expecially when they promise to us a game where you will create the story and be the story of the game, but if you cannot decide how to build the nodes how can you generate different servers with different story and node compositions?
Something is dynamic sure, like the node advancement.
A commercial node can become a militaristic one cause to his strategic position.
The reason why they made it this way it's becouse they probably assumed it will be unbalance, and then to prevent all the nodes to be Scientific or another type, they made it static.
It probably takes more resources to make a dinamic system and more work maybe ... but it seems they have a lot of time to spend in other useless features, like the racial armor adaptation xD .
If you want a node type and then start a War or conflict to conquest it, it's the same of having a new potential node that you can build as you like, of course it will have some uniqueness such the biome and materials, and it will be already built for a certain politic type, so when you change from militar to economic it needs time. So at the end you still get a node with already built structures and advancement. A good motivation to start a war ... it doesn't matter if it is dinamic or static.
Yep - because nodes are static, the devs only have to design each node 9 ways (1 for each race) x 6 advancement tiers = 54 ways. That includes every NPC, asset, layout, etc. in a metropolis.
If they had to design each node for any type, you quadruple that workload x 4 = 216 designs per node.
If you just look at metropoli alone, across Verra you're telling them to design 3708 metropoli - whereas they already need to design 927 metropoli with static nodes.
imo the idea of completely dynamic nodes is not worth the effort (quadrupled world design) required to implement it. That said, it's possible the Devs will only design a handful of metropoli, and focus on specific metropoli as they monitor which zones are trending on different servers.
Is it worth the extra work load probably not. Seems like it would make this project take another 5 years just for that.
Plus certain nodes unlock certain content. Can't prove it but I'll bet some is story driven and some of the dungeon lore we find in the dungeons relates to the specific node it is tied to.
Yea, a more flexible one. It's what i want and it wil be awesome.
The server customization will be much much better, each story will be Dynamic and different.
I think it's worth the time and maybe money, and as i think, it's not that difficult to make... a proper city design will work fine and easly.
That's not true ... you just need a bit of intelligence and a good plan.
When you make a game you don't put each single blade of grass on the ground, you have intelligent tools to make it easier.
So you don't have to design each city from the start ... putting each time a rock in a different spot, they have powerful tools to do that easly.
Anyway, why they have to design each node for each type? It will change just few buildings, not the whole city. Also the design for the 9 races can be deleted to get a design related to the biomes, that it makes way more sense with the lore. I didn't know that each node will have a race style, where they said that? Pls can you link the video/info to me if you have it? thz
Who is going to choose it then? A city with a mix of all the races living inside is going to get only 1 race style, that's strange ...
Also the advancement it's just a bigger city, it's too much to change minor assets with mino aestetic aspects. Like the 6 different braziers style, it's possible to add it to a crafting profession as a +.
The scientific node type for me can be also deleted as i said, so we the have less work and a more coherent style to the lore we know .. for now. So it's not quadrupled world design, you are inflating the problem too much.
The main thing to design is the Race/Biome aestetic (it depends what they chosen), the others variables change few things.
Anyway you missed that they have to design each node for each type, regardeless of the system if it's static or dinamic, so it changes nothing.
The fact that you can choose to build one of the 4 type of politics in the node is still present for each race and each lvl of the node.
As i said they will not design each node in the world differently one to another, if they are not that crazy. Nobody does that lol ...Classic WoW is massive and it has something like 5/6 major cities (i actually don't know all of them) and maybe 10/20 small one. Immagine if wow had to build thousands of them xD it would take 100 years to compleate a game like this haha .
So they will design the nodes/metro while we play in the servers .. nha don't warry about that. They will not release an unfinished product, i hope.
So your problems are not real, this x4 doesn't exist as i said, and it's also possible change the way each style is designed and it evolves by directly giving the customizable option to the player. this will make everything faster, but maybe less nice for a postcard, but with more diversity and customization ... they just need to make the assets of the building and then add a script to build the node as the player want to.
The only thing it needs is a good planning and game design, but they are probably tired and stressed to do that... ^^
Yes, i think the reason they will not make this possible is what you said, you are right ... becouse it's what they thought, but it's not the right design.
It's easy to fix those game problems .. as the main problem beeing the balance of the node perks. If a node is OP then everyone will build it.
This just need an improvement to the general design.
Yes, usually it's better if different type of nodes are close... wait are they going to group up all the same type of nodes together? Why? that's horrible. What if a region doesn't have the militaristic perk and superpower? I thought the opposite. Anyway there are pros and cons to both solutions. So it's best for the player to choose to focus into an economic region or a mixed one. There are no reasons to prevent customization ... there is no desire to travel in the region then if everything is the same xD . anyway , see you tomorrow...
"It's easy to fix those game problems " Alright, lets hear it. Fix the node system for us. What is the right design?
The system in place is fine. Customization as an individual is one thing, but there has to be a limit at some point. Pretty sure the world itself shouldn't be completely customizable seeing as this isn't minecraft. The ability to choose where you want to level up and having to actually discover a node that suits your interests rather than just picking a spot and deciding which node goes there sounds much more appealing. It promotes exploration and your choices of where you go have more relevance. Some of your wording was difficult to understand your point, but as far as perks go they have a lot of time to balance these. And if they were for some reason even slightly unbalanced, not allowing players to choose a nodes type would keep the "better" node types from overwhelming the world.
Another thing to consider is the possibility of node type specific quests... which if this is a thing, you would have to make 4 times as much content for the possibilities of each node in each zone of influence, assuming you want to keep content fresh and not repetitive between each node throughout the world. For as small of a thing as "I want to choose the nodes type just because" I don't believe it holds enough weight or relevance to be considered as something that could actually be implemented.
TLDR: It isnt as simple as flipping a switch allowing to change each node into a different node type without any consequences to other systems. If you give the players too much power in a game with a narrative, your game will likely fail.
Here:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Architecture
yeah. If i remember corretly, Steven has said they didn't want to reveal everything about the node types
Sorry, as someone who is horrendously obsessive compulsive, I have to stop "metropoli" before it becomes a common thing...
'Metropolis' comes from Greek, so the plural would be "Metropolises". Think: "Meh-tro-poh-liss-is"
Apologies again, I have a problem...
haha - got it.
I just think metropoli sounds cooler
It absolutely does, I agree. It just causes me psychological discomfort! Hahahaha!
I would say, telling someone they are spelling pronouncing something wrong, isn't that bad, if you do it to help. I think it's more about the way one does it