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Population Density

akabearakabear Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
edited May 2021 in General Discussion
My experience with other MMORPG`s is that they have different level areas.
Players migrate from area to area as they level, so some areas especially beginning areas are often sparse.

In AoC, play appears to be nodal centric, and I would imagine with no fast travel that player activity would be radial to the node they have allegiance to. With high density of population near the node of mixed levels, and gradual density filtering as further away from each node.

Keeping a dense and mixed level of players is something I have not seen discussed.

So something I may have missed, how are mob levels, zoning and difficulty handled?

Comments

  • tautautautau Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    In Alpha, I noticed that mobs increased in level and (usually) density the further you got from a node. So a level 1 node might have level 1-3 mobs close, then level 4-6 somewhat further away. Once the node rose to level 3, there would still be level 1-3 mobs close by, but less of them. There would still be mobs 4-6 a bit further out, but now there would be level 7-10 beyond them. Specific points of interest, like dungeons, might have higher mobs. I also saw a good number of mini-bosses of similar levels to the mobs around them. For example, in the level 3 mob areas where most mobs had 120 HP, there would be a named mob, like "FP the Rat" with level 3 but 2500 HP. I never tangled with one.

    My experience in Alpha was only my own observations, I hope others will weigh in and either agree or disagree with what I saw. I was mostly in a single node area so what I saw may or may not be representative.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    edited May 2021
    So since the outer circles of nodes would be less populated, I hope that they will only be for group gameplay.

    That way we will find many groups in those outer areas to populate them.

    Now I know that we won't have teleports and that is great, but I would like to start a conversation about perhaps something new in mmos.

    How about "group tents"? A group has to have a good amount of non combat related materials such as fabrics wood and nails worth a good sum of gold in the market. The group leader can set up a tent for group players to respawn with a 10min individual cooldown, but no fast travel option. Any player can attack the tent and destroy it.

    The way I imagine this concept is that people prepare to set out on a challenging adventure on the harder areas of a node (outer), by gathering or buying the materials. They set out to reach those hunting zones, look around for other group tents. They can attack them to hinder other adventurers, not knowing if they belong to friends of theirs or not. No corruption gaining for attacking a group tent, but players do turn combatant (purple).

    The leader of a group should carefully place the tent in a hidden location. That way, a cluster of tents will be located at the outer and more challenging layers of a node, populating the area.

    Thoughts? Do you think it breaks the promise of "no instant travel" mentality IS is going for so far?
    I have seen this in a zombie, shooting, survival game called SCUM. I could be good for a solid, open world mmo such as AOC.
  • neuroguyneuroguy Member, Alpha Two
    The higher the level of the node, the more dangerous mobs and world bosses can spawn. A metropolis (max lvl node) will still have low lvl mobs to kill, but also have dungeons and mobs for high level players as well. The example that is often given is that you may find low lvl mobs near the road, higher lvl mobs in the forest and even higher lvl mobs up the mountain (the more you wander into the wilderness of a high lvl node, the stronger the mobs). This will cause density to be high near these high lvl nodes.

    You may be tempted to ask then why would anyone travel anywhere else in the world? Well to start, lots of reasons, like aesthetics, the castles, world bosses, gathering etc will push players to explore. More importantly though the world will not come with metropolises pre-built. It is said that it will take months to get a metropolis from game launch so people will have to invest in whatever node choose and try to out-compete neighboring nodes. By the time metropolises come up, people will have allegiances, built their freeholds, have citizenship somewhere. It doesn't end here though, many players will opt to siege and destroy a metropolis to allow their own node that they've already invested into to grow instead of trying to restart at the metropolis.

    So even if you don't start the game at launch, you will be drawn to metropolises while still having tons of reasons to branch out and will eventually be forced to branch out once the metropolis is eventually sieged and destroyed (either by players or some world boss that players could not handle or cooperate to take down).
  • akabearakabear Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    edited May 2021
    Ah that is interesting. I don`t think I has seen this discussed before.

    Ah Alpha.. I recall watching, I think via twitch, the beta testers for ESO before it went live. A couple of them stated that they had tested/played ESO for so long and in such detail before it was to launch that they were utterly exhausted with the game and were likely not to play when if finally launched. That stuck with me for a long time.

    I hope that does not happen to any testing here, and I wish them the best of luck

    That being said whilst no so interested to get in and test the game, what I spent on L2 & ESO and perhaps even BDO, some of the packages that include lifetime subscription are something likely to pickup sometime as I can see playing this for a good few years.

  • ThexBlackxKnightThexBlackxKnight Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Since the game world will be always changing , each node will most likely have only a fix number of low level mobs around it and the higher level mobs will come and go depending on node development. Dungeons found in the world that are open will have a fix level of mobs as well. The idea is to have no dead leveling areas in the game, a new player will always be around other players from the get go. If one max out developed node gets wipe out in war , other nodes can advance in level that were lock out before and create new content for players to do.
  • KhronusKhronus Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    There will be nothing to do in nodes that are not developed so you are correct. Higher density around higher nodes. Guilds will have to figure out who/when to fight if they want to succeed.

    What this does it opens up the possibility for consistent conflict around node development. The intial grind to level the node up to lvl 5 will be really fun. From there, how long can you keep this node built until a community/guild determines when to begin the siege on that city. At this point, who will be on offense and who will be on defense and how they perform will alter the world uniquely. Sometimes, people may even get bored of that city and decide to destroy it after owning it just to add new areas/mobs/bosses/dungeons/raids/conflict.

    What I REALLY like about this system is the fact that some of the lesser built areas will indeed be very underpopulated. Some guilds may be waiting on the outskirts at the time of the city siege so that when it pops, they will begin grinding to grow their city. So much fun to be had : ).
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