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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Expand the Node functionality towards PvE hubs, and include more Risk vs Reward towards PvE.
oophus
Member
1. When joining a fresh server, the life on the server should be established within the node system. *1
2. When dying from an NPC, we should risk the same as within PvP. Item loot and reagents/mats are dropped and put in the loot-table for that NPC. *2
3. Monster Coin events are linked to this.
1*. At the start of a server, the game should utilize the excellent and exciting node system to also include NPC's and general life on the server.
The nodes should already florsh with life, but designed in a way that makes sense per location. In the mountains the unlocking of a "node" can be as easy as a creature that have to be defeated to force it to let go of the node. In the forests, the system can be a group of NPC's that have established their own camp already. A group of herbivores that lives off of plants, nuts and berries - et cetera. and is a group that will fight back if their resources are taken by us.
All creatures linked to nodes outside of normal wildlife has a certain amount of IQ, wits, and are able to think. Typical mobs would be human like creatures, and the system would function the same way the node system works for us, where we evolve it up and down in levels. If we starve a creature of its plants or barries near its node, it evolves to fight back harder - trying to cooperate with other NPC's next week if the node it self is not shut down.They evolve to use more skills/abilities, they send harder NPC's to defend its habitat, and the node it self spawns more NPC's.
Lv0 Wilderness Node:
The same as todays system. Not much requirements needed to take it over, and logging trees, picking plants etc gives XP to it to get it over to "our side" and lv1 node.
Lv1 NPC Expedition Node:
The node is unlocked after an area is cleared of trees, rocks, bushes and NPC's.
Lv2 Camp Node:
An already established camp of NPC's have to be defeated. Its node have an area of effect for aggro from this campment if players try to harvest its area. NPC's don't tolerate that we come in and take their livelihood.
Lv3 Village Node:
An already established village of NPC's have to be defeated. Its node have an even bigger area of effect for aggro if players try to intervene and/or harvest its area, and we may expect NPC's to have established guards to travel around the village to keep it safe.
Lv4 Town, Lv5 City or Lv6 Metropolis:
They follow the same logic, but no node is at this stage this early in a new servers life, but if NPC's are left alone, they will grow bigger and bigger into Towns, Cities and even its own versions of Metropolises. Raids and sieges are needed to burn it to the ground and force the native away.
2*: Here is the kicker: NPC's that are big enough to feed on players have an ability to get their loot-tables increased based on players killed by them. Thus PvE comes with the same Risk vs Reward PvP currently has. If you die to an NPC, you may have died to a monster that likes to drag the corpse into its cave before it feasts on you. Thus items, gear, materials etc may be residing in its stomach, or at the location inside the cave. If a player kills this monster, there is a chance some of the items and materials is still left, thus killing random NPC's come with the potential added excitement that it has killed previous players. But its risk is also greater.
The bigger and badder the NPC is, up towards world bosses, the bigger the loot-table may become, and this alone can be linked to procedural quests put to the closest Player Controlled Node. At a certain point a trigger gets released making a quest to track it down, find it and kill it. Example: A sea monster dragged down a ship and killed its entire 8*3=24 player raid which triggers the procedural quest system, where romours starts to spread in the neighbouring nodes. "There is a rumor of a sea monster that sunk an entire ship, and killed its crew of 24 at X location. Go track it down".
This monsters loot-table consists of reagents from its hide, bones, teeth, but also the contents of the stomach. Items from a total of 24 players lies inside it, and Items may be hardened from its acid thus weapons and armor may be better than what they were once they were lost.
With added risk towards PvE, raids in dungeons also becomes more exciting. As previous raids may have tried to go too deep. Increasing the loot contents and its loot-table from previous players. Raids being controlled by gear lost at death, means that raids would need to bring caravans with them to prolong the raid with several tries. If they get killed, they have to re-gear up with the stash from the caravan, which again gets linked to bigger risk vs PvP.
(I'm not saying full loot risk, but copy whatever is used for PvP)
3*: Monster coint events would suddenly make sense. Nodes that we have stolen from them is the reason they try to fight back, and if successful they start over with their own node progression system, just like we do if we kill and burn down a player ran node. Too big of a NPC node, hinders the neighbouring nodes progress, thus players have bigger reasons to try and cooperate for those events before they turn on eachother again. With the NPC nodes being dynamic, we shift endgame content per server even more. NPC's being unattained to grow, gives big areas with end game content for farming, and a focused zone(s) towards all players.
Big Data is more and more used to finetune MMORPG's, and this can and should be utilized to further expand on the node system. I'm not asking to have it at launch, but announcing something alongside it for a future expansion/DLC would be huge! Getting the feeling that AI is at work here too, and not only in other games. Server data can be analyzed to alter mobs dynamically, just lik the node system analyses the data from its neighbouring area to get XP.
2. When dying from an NPC, we should risk the same as within PvP. Item loot and reagents/mats are dropped and put in the loot-table for that NPC. *2
3. Monster Coin events are linked to this.
1*. At the start of a server, the game should utilize the excellent and exciting node system to also include NPC's and general life on the server.
The nodes should already florsh with life, but designed in a way that makes sense per location. In the mountains the unlocking of a "node" can be as easy as a creature that have to be defeated to force it to let go of the node. In the forests, the system can be a group of NPC's that have established their own camp already. A group of herbivores that lives off of plants, nuts and berries - et cetera. and is a group that will fight back if their resources are taken by us.
All creatures linked to nodes outside of normal wildlife has a certain amount of IQ, wits, and are able to think. Typical mobs would be human like creatures, and the system would function the same way the node system works for us, where we evolve it up and down in levels. If we starve a creature of its plants or barries near its node, it evolves to fight back harder - trying to cooperate with other NPC's next week if the node it self is not shut down.They evolve to use more skills/abilities, they send harder NPC's to defend its habitat, and the node it self spawns more NPC's.
Lv0 Wilderness Node:
The same as todays system. Not much requirements needed to take it over, and logging trees, picking plants etc gives XP to it to get it over to "our side" and lv1 node.
Lv1 NPC Expedition Node:
The node is unlocked after an area is cleared of trees, rocks, bushes and NPC's.
Lv2 Camp Node:
An already established camp of NPC's have to be defeated. Its node have an area of effect for aggro from this campment if players try to harvest its area. NPC's don't tolerate that we come in and take their livelihood.
Lv3 Village Node:
An already established village of NPC's have to be defeated. Its node have an even bigger area of effect for aggro if players try to intervene and/or harvest its area, and we may expect NPC's to have established guards to travel around the village to keep it safe.
Lv4 Town, Lv5 City or Lv6 Metropolis:
They follow the same logic, but no node is at this stage this early in a new servers life, but if NPC's are left alone, they will grow bigger and bigger into Towns, Cities and even its own versions of Metropolises. Raids and sieges are needed to burn it to the ground and force the native away.
2*: Here is the kicker: NPC's that are big enough to feed on players have an ability to get their loot-tables increased based on players killed by them. Thus PvE comes with the same Risk vs Reward PvP currently has. If you die to an NPC, you may have died to a monster that likes to drag the corpse into its cave before it feasts on you. Thus items, gear, materials etc may be residing in its stomach, or at the location inside the cave. If a player kills this monster, there is a chance some of the items and materials is still left, thus killing random NPC's come with the potential added excitement that it has killed previous players. But its risk is also greater.
The bigger and badder the NPC is, up towards world bosses, the bigger the loot-table may become, and this alone can be linked to procedural quests put to the closest Player Controlled Node. At a certain point a trigger gets released making a quest to track it down, find it and kill it. Example: A sea monster dragged down a ship and killed its entire 8*3=24 player raid which triggers the procedural quest system, where romours starts to spread in the neighbouring nodes. "There is a rumor of a sea monster that sunk an entire ship, and killed its crew of 24 at X location. Go track it down".
This monsters loot-table consists of reagents from its hide, bones, teeth, but also the contents of the stomach. Items from a total of 24 players lies inside it, and Items may be hardened from its acid thus weapons and armor may be better than what they were once they were lost.
With added risk towards PvE, raids in dungeons also becomes more exciting. As previous raids may have tried to go too deep. Increasing the loot contents and its loot-table from previous players. Raids being controlled by gear lost at death, means that raids would need to bring caravans with them to prolong the raid with several tries. If they get killed, they have to re-gear up with the stash from the caravan, which again gets linked to bigger risk vs PvP.
(I'm not saying full loot risk, but copy whatever is used for PvP)
3*: Monster coint events would suddenly make sense. Nodes that we have stolen from them is the reason they try to fight back, and if successful they start over with their own node progression system, just like we do if we kill and burn down a player ran node. Too big of a NPC node, hinders the neighbouring nodes progress, thus players have bigger reasons to try and cooperate for those events before they turn on eachother again. With the NPC nodes being dynamic, we shift endgame content per server even more. NPC's being unattained to grow, gives big areas with end game content for farming, and a focused zone(s) towards all players.
Big Data is more and more used to finetune MMORPG's, and this can and should be utilized to further expand on the node system. I'm not asking to have it at launch, but announcing something alongside it for a future expansion/DLC would be huge! Getting the feeling that AI is at work here too, and not only in other games. Server data can be analyzed to alter mobs dynamically, just lik the node system analyses the data from its neighbouring area to get XP.
1
Comments
Was going to add that the Bounty Hunter system could also be fed into this procedurally.
NPC's with:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_death
Which is what the OP suggests should be the same as PvP.
My current assumption is that if we are killed in PvE, we lose a portion of what we have on us that can then be looted by a passer-by. To me, that makes more sense.
A big sea monster would swallow players whole, including armor and backpack. Thus all of it ends up in its loot-table.
A humanoid may drag a corpse towards its cave, thus this is where all of the leftover loot is found. etc.
Only the imagination puts limits on where this could go. The main point is to make the world an even more dynamic world, with loot that follows NPC's in the world from previous fights. Having NPC's that upgrade their armour based on player kills would also be a neat thing to see.
beware of what you ask...if people just drop their items on death even in PvE we will be filled with douchy griefers that will pull large pack of mobs to kill other players without getting corruption and then loot their bodies.
That's already the plan as far as I'm aware. If you die to PvE , you lose the following:
I assume other players can pick that up but I'm honestly unclear on that part. For a while I'd been under the assumption you just lost items to the ether, not that anyone could loot them. But a lot of people think it'll be lootable by other players. So not sure.
Agreed I'm not terribly concerned with aggro. They can do what most games do and make it so if you don't hit a mob (or heal someone hitting it), you don't get aggro.
The big difference between how I'm assuming things to work and how I envision it could work through this suggestion, is to add all that players lose into the NPC/mob's loot-table, and gains.
If we lose XP by dying, then a mob should gain XP to "level" up.
If we get skill and stat dampening by dying, then a mob should gain the opposite and earn them.
Those percentages of carried gatherables and processed goods should if appropriate by "NPC-type" take it and carry it with it. Some of it could be lost to a money-sink for the NPC's to level up their own nodes, while the rest is theirs to increase its loot-table for us to take again.
The environment should be utilized by its habitants, and they should have the same focus we do. We want to chop down trees to level up our nodes and build houses. Humanoid NPC's should do the same thing. If we start to intervene at their areas they get pissed off and start to try and defend it.*
* Chop down a tree within eyesight of a humanoid NPC, and its aggro range increases. Over time if repeated trees fall, you'll get chased by it and have to kill it or flee if its too strong.
We should see mobs eating the same plants, berries and kill rabits like we do, and we should fight over the resources to progress through the node system. The node system would have a "minus" state, and a "plus" state. A "plus" state means we the players own it and is progressing with it. A "minus" state means NPC's own it, and is progressing with it. A camp that is destroyed is returned to neutral, and if players chop down trees, and mine rocks its XP is dragged towards our end to "flag" it ours. If we left it unattended, then NPC's that live in its area that feed off of the same mobs, craft of the same resources etc levels it up from 0 to -100 for example to get a level up.
Its not necessary that we "see" NPC's chopping down trees, or humanoids hunt small game to eat, but its in the lore. They get pissed if they see us hunting in their area, and they get pissed if they see us harvesting their food. The more we break their rules, the more they spawn from their camp/node, and the more aggressive they become.
They want to defend their habitat just like we wants to defend ours, both from "Monster Coin events", and other players in PvP. And "Monster Coin" events would suddenly make sense. Its their revenge for us taking their node/home/area and push them back away from it.
Your idea seems to be about creating a breathing (hostile) world that we the players arrive in and struggle to survive. Verra has done just fine for centuries without us, and were intruding on an existing order. Eking out a place in the wilderness is the primary concern, followed by petty grievances.
The vibe I get from Ashes, though, is we kick down the door and arrive in Verra. There are threats, sure, but they can be handled. The real challenge is having to live with our neighbors as old problems reignite and greed/tyranny grows.
Ashes' world is about facilitating player conflicts over terrain, rather than simulating the harshness of living in an unforgiving world. The real threats are ourselves.
That said, I think if any of these sort of mechanics made it in, I think they'd be a lot of fun. Monsters getting stronger as they kill things makes me think of Shadow or Mordor, and that seems like a really cool way to have some super memorable enemies. Something like WoW's Hogger mechanized and made part of the systems of the game.
This again would mean more PvP as some nodes could be easier to take first, since we're all starting at the same time. Taking a L3 Player Node may be easier than a L5 NPC node close by, and that L5 NPC node may be nice for Players to keep, to have easy grind nearby their own Node. So to some extent how this would play out is pretty in the open imo.
I think I bring in incentives for more PvP as well. The procedural quest system spawns Caravants in a quest to track down mobs that have a history of beating players (those may be implemented and placed around the world by Devs them selves, with initial high skill cap to beat them, and even played by them at some events).
And Caravans would be spawned at the neighbouring Player ran Nodes. Its arrival to the area where the NPC's are, would be at the same time. So what happens next? Do the players cooperate? Do they get greedy wanting to kill off the other players first to get all the potential loot them selves?
Agreed! I don't think all of this would be implemented anytime soon, but I would love to see it in the long term goal for the game, even if its added after initial launch. Although I think some of it would be easily implemented.
They could first implement it on only a few sets of humanoid NPC's. They level up as they kill us, get more HP, more gear through us, and evolve just like we do. Seeing them would be a huge guess on what to expect. Are they newly spawned ones? Have they lived there for weeks and thus maybe survived several player encounters? For this types of NPC's I would add that I think it would be exciting to remove any notion of how big in levels they are. Normally in MMORPGS we've got zones for this and zones for that, but these NPC's should exist and potentially turn up everywhere on the map. Seeing them should be a thrill and come with a big question mark on if they should be charged or fleed from.
Honestly that sounds like it would be impossible just from a technical standpoint. How do you create that sort of dynamic loot table where a mob gets player loot added to their table?
Its doing the same thing the game already does through the node system. The server have to keep track of who does what, to give XP to the node, so players are tracked. For NPC nodes its the opposite, which the server already tracks. No players in an area for a while means NPC Node upgrades.
As for the loot-table and the progression of X mob, its also utilizing data that is already known and used by devs to balance content. They just track played deaths to X. Developers already do this between all kinds of combat. Between players to balance skills and abilities, and between mobs to balance content. The difference here is to what extent one would individualize mobs to truly reflect a mob that did X, or if the system picks a mob at random at render-time when X player enters an area where the data log shows that it should have a mob with X player loot in its loot-table.
Actually, the main limits are developer time, server resources and ease of player understanding - not imagination.
Intrepid has people on staff that have worked on MMO's for almost a combined half mellennia - they are not lacking in either ability of imagination.
A system where players need to look up a wiki to figure out where a basic resource comes from is not ideal - and a system where you need to kill a wolf that has recently killed a player that happened to have a specific resource on them so the wolf can eat some if that resource in order to make another resource absolutely is a system where players would need a wiki.
Relax with the attitude. I meant what this could be used for. Of course more features require more time, but lets assume the game is a success, shall we? That gives more room for time and money for server resources.
As for the rest, I have no clue what you are talking about. I haven't addressed anything that would force you to kill a Wolf to get X resources.
A tree is a tree, and a rock is a rock. Go wack it. NPC's would not spawn differently from originally planned, and adding an effect based on if an item have been in contact with some special stomac acid or not is not complicated. Its buffs would be stated on the item looted. No need for a wiki.
It isn't always possible to just throw more money at a problem. Yes you did. Unless you are suggesting here that stomach acid be an ingredient that we can use ourselves to make this change, in which case it would have nothing at all to do with the wolves that you are talking about.
1. You take stuff out of context. I wasn't talking about money or time, as that is a certain. I was talking about the idea it self. Plus most of the stuff I'm talking about us utilizing systems that is implemented already.
2. Why would you need to chase a wolf for some herbs? Its only added as a bonus in one wolfs loot-table. I suggest you go read the thread over again, as it seams you've missed what it is about.
3. No, I'm not saying that stomach acid to be an ingredient. It was a side comment towards someone else who commented on the main idea, and it touched effects that could be put on items that were introduced within the mobs loot-table after a player died towards it.
Intrepids limitation will never be a lack of imagination, as you seem to suggest. As I said, they have people on staff that have a cumulative amount of experience that is measured in the hundreds of years.
Their limitation is in regards to what they feel is valid to ask of players, and what the servers are able to cope with. While these suggestions may not specifically stretch the servers, I pointed that out because that is the actual limitation, as opposed to imagination as per your suggestion.
The suggestions in this thread do, however, go past what is viable to ask of players. You would chase it because you need the components that it drops. This should be obvious. Yes, I know. I can read.
If there is a component that comes from this, then there will by necessity be players that need this component. If the component is not needed, it should not exist.
If there are players that need this component, there will be players that have to go out and chase this wolf that killed a player and ate something from their inventory.
This is too convoluted, and shouldn't be in the game.
Its meant for both players and developers for players to read and discuss it, and for developers to maybe take whatever in here as feedback and inspiration.
Why would you specifically have to hunt a Wolf for herbs? The herbs would have been dropped from players it had killed if it had it, and players have harvested it from the world like normal. Nothing is changed outside of herbs being in the loot-table of a wolf by X trigger if a player it killed had it...
If you need X reagents, then go hunt for it as normal. No need for Wiki. If that is your beliefs around this suggestion, then I suggest you ask about it, or read it again as you've been mistaken.
Any addition to the loot-table is from us! We take it from the world! Refined or not.
The stomach acid stuff is a side comment for possible additions added to the idea. Its not the core of it. Get killed by a humanoid, and it may loot you just like a Player will in PvP. Kill that player back, and take your stuff back, just the same as vs that NPC.
Side comment or not, you said it, and I disagree with it as being a good idea to add to a game.
The entire premise of your thread here is totally forgetting the fact that players will already drop materials on to the ground when killed in PvE, exactly as they will do when killed in PvP.
You are wanting to try and equate things that are already equal.
With reasons that show you haven't really got the main idea. Ask about it instead so I can explain.
1. No I don't forget the fact that we drop items when dying. I've addressed that, and said previously that the underlying systems is already implemented, which means my addition would not be that time consuming to add. The big difference is the game brings some of those items into the loot-table of the creeps we died for. And the fact they also skill up if they are able to kill players.
2. No, im bringing more risk towards the world, by having NPC's skill up, and become a boss in its entirety if they kill enough players.
Seems a rather arbitrary thing to say, honestly.
As to your points - the very first thing you need to take in to account with your situation is that it would require additional database space for literally every single mob that is ever spawned on each server in the game. In fact, it would probably require a field for each possible resource that each specific mob would be able to take from players, and it would need to hold on to that until that specific mob is killed.
This is not insignificant.
If this were for a major game feature, it may well be worth it. But it isn't. All this is for is taking items that players lose when killed in PvE from being left on the ground exactly as they are in PvP, and placing them instead in the loot table of encounters.
As to your second point, I am not sure how often you expect base population to kill you, but I would expect to kill several hundred thousand of them before any of them get the better of me.
This means the chances of one non-boss mob killing more than one player is extremely low. If there were a system implemented where this could happen though, players would game it by allowing a specific mob to kill them, their alts, and their friends until they become a boss, and then kill said boss.
So, the first part of your suggestion is a bad idea because the return on investment is far too low, and the second part of your suggestion is a bad idea because it opens the game up to players gaming it.
That depends on how it is implemented. Storing some numerical values is not hard or expensive, and Big Data is often analyzed in MMORPG's anyway, so they should have access to most of the data needed for this from before.
There is no need to have every single mob "living" when players are not there. So this data is just stored, just like it is stored in games where you die to a mob, and have to run back to your corpse to pick up your items again. Its the same process. The game notes to which type of mob a player died for, and adds the items lost from the player to the loot-table of the mob. When a new player enters the line of sight for mobs in that area, the server spawns new mobs while making sure one of them have the added loot-table and contents from before.
Its an easy check. If player dies, check conents of loot-table for mob that killed it. Does it have a "player_killed+1"? Then add +1 to end up with +2 for players killed, and add the content that the player dropped. Basic text files that is stored.
What the mob actually takes from players would be based on normal logic. A wolf wouldn't take a chest piece. It would eat the player and maybe some of the contents in the players pockets. If the player had meat in its backpack, then maybe some of the contents in there. How the devs restrict the system is up to them, but storing numerical values for gear, reagents and mats doesn't require much space. Its the same process they use to track player activity while leveling up nodes. Check file for X and add+1 for it, and save.
This would be linked up to the node feature, so it surely is. My addition is making a new state for the node feature, and links creatures, mobs and NPC's to it to where they also "live" in it doing their thing.
A + state for the nodes mean we own them.
A - state for the nodes mean NPC's own them.
Both progress the nodes towards +100 or -100 for example if 100 is used for the upper cap for an upgrade.
The difference is that our state is based on our progress in the area, while for the NPC's its based on the opposite. Our lack of progress and time spent in the area. If we're not around, the NPC's gets +X based on time.
On top of this is the looting system that adds our lost contents to theirs, which makes sure every mob defeated comes with added risk and excitement in case it has killed a player before we approached it. It also are able to roll in an ability list for example, to skill up if it kills enough players to make it harder and harder to get revenge on.
I completely agree for your first point! Mobs are easy targets most of the time, but sometimes a player is AFK and gets killed for example, or he aggros too many mobs at the same time. Videos online already shows some players dying to mobs. So this just adds another layer to mobs, where its loot-table is never 100% certain. Thus it creates excitement for us the players. Maybe not that much in easier mobs, but some places you'll know that some mobs may surprise players and get the best out of them at times.
For the second point, this is up to how its implemented. If the loot-table only increases by player dropped items, it doesn't make sense to exploit it as you would only take back X% of what you lost while dying. Remember that some items will be lost here. Y% is destroyed in combat, and X% is put in the loot-table. So this wouldn't work if implemented correctly.
Only if you jump to conclusions, and assume stuff like you do. Ask questions instead if you think you find problems in the idea.
Cool - have fun with that.
The node system is the actual core of this game, any changes to it are changes to the entire game.