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You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Question/concern about the military node mayor selection system.
Jxshuwu
Member
I have a concern about the mayor selection system of the military node.
I believe there's going to be a battle royale/arena of sorts to select who the most 'powerful' player is of that node, which in return will become mayor. How will 'peeling' be tackled? If members of the same guild all join this battle, what will stop them from protecting this one singular player and sacrificing themselves till that particular person is the last one standing?
I can already imagine where a powerful guild joins the fight, and they literally surround the one player (prob guildleader) and protect them to make sure they become mayor. You could argue its just another 'tactic' but i don't think this seems very fun.
To me it makes sense that you should only be able to select one person per guild, that way the guilds themselves need to select their ''champion'', although this completely leaves solo players out of the equation.
What is your take on this? Any potential solutions? Or has this already been addressed previously?
Thanks.
I believe there's going to be a battle royale/arena of sorts to select who the most 'powerful' player is of that node, which in return will become mayor. How will 'peeling' be tackled? If members of the same guild all join this battle, what will stop them from protecting this one singular player and sacrificing themselves till that particular person is the last one standing?
I can already imagine where a powerful guild joins the fight, and they literally surround the one player (prob guildleader) and protect them to make sure they become mayor. You could argue its just another 'tactic' but i don't think this seems very fun.
To me it makes sense that you should only be able to select one person per guild, that way the guilds themselves need to select their ''champion'', although this completely leaves solo players out of the equation.
What is your take on this? Any potential solutions? Or has this already been addressed previously?
Thanks.
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Comments
The game becomes less attractive from a solo player perspective but then the game is a MMORPG and not a solo player game.
I don't expect solo players to have much on option, i simply mentioned they're not in the equation.
The devs themselves said its a node of power, and the most powerful player will be the mayor. But in the example i mentioned, the player winning wouldnt be the most powerful at all, it'd be the person who was protected the most. And if anything, it means the mayor would have the most political power even though it isn't a political node.
As stated on the latest stream the developers want the military mayor selection process to be about power and not about politics. A system where politics (your friends) can totally swing the result of mayor selection process is not representative of the military node’s design and vision. If this issue is not addressed, the military node selection process will boil down to a few groups having a selected leader that they will protect to the end. It won’t be a free for all power struggle where the strongest rises (power). It will be about who has the most friends (politics). OP’s concern is valid.
The only way I can see this being resolved is to have many 1v1 battles in a bracket system. And even then you could have people intentionally losing to their friend, but at least each person will eventually have to fight a real opponent.
Edit: a period
that's the best solution to be honest
Look at something like Game of Thrones. There's no doubt Cerci Lanister was one of the most powerful characters on the show, yet she wasn't exactly known for her ability to fight - she was powerful enough to have others do that for her.
If someone in Ashes is powerful enough to have people protect them in an arena until all opposition is dead, and then fight each other until only that one person is left, that person has the power that Intrepid are claiming they want for a military node.
Anonymity makes organization difficult, and makes things like betrayal, infiltration, and chaos easy.
Guild play will still be a thing, but if everybody's anonymous, it's much more likely to still be a "free for all" format, where the guild simply tries to get any one of their members elected through sheer numbers, rather than a chosen leader.
If somebody manages to lead a group through that chaos, then they probably deserve it. like @Noaani said, a "leader of men" can be powerful without doing much of the fighting themselves. Besides, I think a war strategist/general type would be perfect for a militaristic mayor.
Except that we all know that the power you are talking about in GoT would not be represented the same in a video game. People feared for their lives because of Cersei... that's not how video games work. People will help someone become mayor because they're friends IRL or because they got paid IRL. That's not power...
Significantly better than 1v1, and exponentially better than the champion idea Intrepid talked about.
Best solution imo
The reason I pointed it out was to illustrate that 1v1 combat is not a demonstration of power, not even close.
The leader of a large guild has more power on a given server than the best 1v1 player in the game. That kind of power (which is very similar to the kind of power the Lannisters in general have in GoT - even if not exactly the same) ABSOLUTELY is represented in game.
If there is a FFA arena, it wont be people with real life friends or people that have paid others that will win, it will be guilds that are nominating a player from their ranks to attempt to be mayor of the node, and it will be that guild in the arena making sure that happens.
You cant say that kind of power isn't represented in game.
But that’s not the kind of power that the military node and its mayor selection system represents... it’s clearly about combat power... what you’re describing is political power and on the most recent livestream the developers addressed this issue directly and stated that the military node isn’t about political power.
''The leader of a large guild has more power on a given server than the best 1v1 player in the game.''
When intrepid talked about power in their devstream, they didn't talk about influence... they talked about power as in battle power, power of being the strongest fighter. Not as in like, people in the government who have alot of ''power'' but more like MMA fighters who are very powerful.
Making everyone anonymous would cause chaos, but i feel like it could easily be fixed with some proper communication. All the dude who wants to be mayor has to say is ''Im the guy with the red helmet next to the green flag, im jumping, protect me'' and the rest in the arena will know what to do.
I personally agree with the 1v1 solution, it truly brings out the person who is the best fighter on an individual level and deserves the military node mayor title. Someone who is just good at asking people for favors doesn't deserve a place as mayor in a military node, its something meant for a warchief.
Being anonymous in an arena isn't something a little communication won't fix.
I believe you're right to an extent, but that's not what intrepid envisioned.
The devs explained themselves that the military node selection system will be based on who has the most combat power individually, not who has alot of political ''power'' to order people around.
Strength? Sure.
Martial prowess? Absolutely.
Power? Nope, that is a different thing.
The stupid thing is, their champion system flies directly in the face of this notion anyway. We want the best, strongest individual to be leader of military nodes, but you can use a champion in your stead.
What the actual fuck?
I mean, I get it from the perspective of not all classes being balanced for 1v1 combat. The thing is, you then need to drop the notion of if being the character that is strongest being the leader of the node, one way or another, because it is not the character that is doing the fighting. Indeed it could.
And what is more powerful (or more suited to ruling a military node) than someone that can make some semblence of order in such chaos.
This would solve the 1v1 dual imbalance and show that the player has some leadership qualities by having them form a team and lead it to victory.
They could just use a aggregate score from all of a players the different arena team sizes to qualify to determine who is a contender for mayor.
To me having the citizens choose who they think is strongest is kind of a waste for this node type, when we can just use recent match history and things like elo to know for sure who is actually currently a champion. Otherwise we are just going to see two streamers duke it out every time.
Looking at the proposed system as it currently is seems a little less well thought out than other areas of the game. The concept of organized fighting to be mayor is worth putting more thought into to get right. I like the general idea.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Power in this case means combat power. The champion you have fighting for you is their way to help with class balance. You need stop spinning it this way and that way and accept the fact that it’s about one single player’s combat power against all other players. The goal is to not allow political power and teaming up to be a factor in this mayoral selection.
How can you say that it seems less thought out when they haven’t even revealed exactly what they plan to do with it...? They are professional game designers. I’m sorry, but who are you to say based on little tidbits that you’ve heard here and there that the system is not well thought out? We literally do not have the full picture yet. How can you make such an accusation when you don’t yet have all the facts and information?
I can say that it is less well thought out because they say the idea is not complete.
"An idea currently under consideration is to have players build out a champion that they can then fight in the arena, rather then using their regular characters. These champions can be equipped with gear and skills via quests, along with materials and gold to make the champion stronger"
"An idea currently under consideration"
Dose not sound "Well Thought out" to me.
It sounds like they intend to have a system where the best PvP player in the node is the mayor for a little while, but they are still trying to figure out who to best do that.
Read the one of the smallest pages on the wiki if you would like to know more:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Military_nodes
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Because people pointed out that a game where 1v1 balance wasn't planned, but that had 1v1 combat as a means of leadership challenge was a contradiction.
So Steven then decided to make it something that was fought out by champions - proxies of the person that was to be mayor.
Then people pointed out issues with that plan as well.
How can you say this isn't a poorly thought out aspect of this games design?
Like, honestly, how can you say that? Even Intrepid have all but admitted that to be the case.
Stop defending the game for the sake of defending the game. Intrepid get things wrong too, and sometimes we point them out.
You described a system where political power should be taken into account of deciding the leader of a node.
No I didn't.
I pointed out that what Intrepid are talking about is not power, but rather combat strength/ability.
Quote for me this system I supposedly described.
There you go with the contradictions again.
Having champions fight instead of the player characters to help with balance since the game won’t have 1v1 class balance isn’t a contradiction. It’s a deliberate game design decision to allow for the system to work. They can choose to not balance the classes around 1v1 battles and create a different 1v1 system to enable 1v1 battles. That’s not a contradiction. They are still not balancing the classes for 1v1 battles. It would have been a contradiction if they said that they won’t balance the classes around 1v1 battles and then implemented a system where the classes need to engage in 1v1 battles for meaningful rewards.
You can’t say that something is poorly thought out when it’s still being actively designed and when it’s not finished or when you don’t have the full picture and all the information. Do you know exactly how the system will work? You don’t. Then you don’t know if it’s poorly thought out or not... because you don’t know the full extent of how it’s been thought out.
And I’m not defending the game for the sake of defending the game. I’m stating facts... you can’t say that something is poorly thought out when the system is still being actively developed and when you don’t have all the information yet. I’ll be the first to say that Intrepid have mishandled Apocalyspe greatly and that the frequency of their monthly cosmetics for an unreleased game has severely hurt their imagine in the eyes of the MMORPG community at large.
@Vhaeyne When you say that something is not well thought out, you’re implying that the developers have not done a good job at designing the system. Saying that the system is not yet complete is a whole other thing.
During the election period players can stake their claim on the node. Players can then apply to join that players arena team. Winning player becomes the mayor. Winning team forms the nodes government.
As much as I’d like it to be, I think that the election system of military nodes is almost impossible to be perfectly fair without splitting people and an anonymous mode. Splitting and tournaments though could take up a lot of extra time.
Edit: maybe even add some sort of PvP score requirement to lead a team
You are going to tell me what I am implying? You keep putting words in my mouth.
You did this in another thread early today where you tried to say I was arguing something I was not even arguing.
I merely stated that a under construction system is not a well thought out system. It lacks the level of detail and planning that some of the other systems they have put forth. If it was more well thought out they would be more certain about the system themselves. They currently have a general idea of how they want the system to work. A general idea is not as well thought out as a fully planned out system.
In the spirt of having a interesting discussion I put forth my own idea of a design direction they could go in. I don't do this to be disrespectful of the DEVs ideas. I do it because I know the DEVs read the forums, and want our feedback.
As much as I enjoy arguing with the regulars on the forums. I would not be killing time here if I did not know the DEVs valued our feedback. If I thought the system was bad I would say it is bad. To me giving honest feedback is the only way to give feedback. I am not going to ever tip toe around the DEVs feelings and imply things. That would be a waste of my time and theirs.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Yes you can.
An idea that isn't fully formed is - by definition - poorly thought out.
An idea that has been presented and then had holes ripped in it by others can be said to be poorly thought out.
Both of these apply to the current topic.
How can you say the idea is not poorly thought out?
Even after fixing the hole they fixed with champions, there are issues with it. The system no longer represents a players combat ability in the actual game world. Rather, the system is going to be more one of the winner being the player that spends the most time equipping their arena proxy - a task that surves no purpose outside of the mayoral arena.
A better fix for that issue would have been to allow players to contend for mayor under their characters surname which should be unique to your account. This allows players to use what ever class they want to use, and means the ability (not power, power is the wrong word here still) players represent inside the arena is exactly the same as the ability they represent out in the world - and SURELY that is supposed to be the actual point.
There is nothing to stop a solo player challenging the other combatants and learning the capabilities of the 'champion'. In such circumstance, anyone could become proficient and succeed. The major flaw I see in these circumstances would be skill balance. Would we even get to choose whether we have TT or AC majority skills on a champion? If AC does more damage than TT then once again the system would be flawed and lack substantial balance.
@Vhaeyne @Noaani Poorly thought out or not well thought out means that the idea is flawed and that the developers have not done a good job. When we don’t have the full picture because the developers have not revealed the system in its entirety, we cannot in good conscience accuse them of not having done a good job. We don’t know how good of a job they have done because we don’t know all that they have done. You can’t grade a test if you only see half of it and claim that the student only got half of the overall answers correct. Of course only half of the answers can be correct... because that’s all you can see.
You can deny that poorly thought out/not well thought out means that the developers didn’t do a good job, but that is what the statement implies in the English language. Once again, you fellas have a good day. It’s clear we cannot see eye to eye.