Race Representation in a Node's Architecture

Like in any other MMO, some races will be more popular than others. In AoC this will have great repercussions because the number of players of a certain race that are active in a node's zone of influence, will determine that node's architectural style. There are also talks from Intrepid that a node of a certain race will give some kind of benefits to players of that same race. Regardless, the issue remains that certain races will be underrepresented and maybe even completely nonexistent. We might never see a Metropolis of some races.

A solution I would like to suggest to this issue would be to give races a bonus to their representation in a node’s architectural style decision based on the region/biome the node is in.

We know that each race has its starting zone and there are certain biomes that “belong” to certain races. So for example let’s say that we have 40 Dunir dwarves working on a node in their foothills in the northwest and 50 Ren’kai orcs are also working on that node, but the Dunir dwarves get a 50% bonus to their racial representation in that region because those foothills “belong” to their race. The 40 Dunir dwarves would now count as 60 Dunir dwarves and they would win the architectural representation over the 50 Ren’kai orcs.

The numbers would obviously need to be tested.

What are your thoughts on this topic or the proposed solution above?

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Azherae

VmanGman wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

9 races and 5 Metros.
It's very likely some servers will have race that never gets a Metro.
That's one of the great things about Ashes. Servers will be different.
To regain their ancestral homes, they are going to have to "fight" for it with population.
That is a key part of Ashes "PvP" conflict.

Yes, I am aware that some races won't get a metro because there are 9 races and 5 possible metros, but it goes beyond that. We might literally never see a specific race's metro structures, quests, NPCs etc. in game (across all servers) because there are so few players of that race.

Dygz wrote: »

I guess you will just have to play to see for yourself, but...
Those extremes are highly unlikely. That's not the way the numbers work.

That is exactly how these numbers work. Technically, since it is all based on percentages, if the races are spread out evenly, you will only see nodes with the most popular race's architecture. Of course that is an extreme example and it won't happen exactly like that, but it strengthens my point that some races might never be represented architecturally past a certain node level. The developers would literally create content that would simply never have the chance to be seen because a metropolis of a less popular race will never exist.

It's not extreme at all, that's exactly how that works, it's just Search Engine Optimization/YouTube algorithms in 'reverse'.

Personally I'd bet on never seeing Nikua nodes past stage 3, on at least one server.

Merek

It's not going to happen. I'll assume the nodes will have a base aesthetic but due to the cosmetics you can apply inside of nodes, expect them to look weird, if not completely ridiculous.

VmanGman

Merek wrote: »

It's not going to happen. I'll assume the nodes will have a base aesthetic but due to the cosmetics you can apply inside of nodes, expect them to look weird, if not completely ridiculous.

You cannot apply cosmetics to structures inside of nodes. All the structure cosmetics that are for sale are applied to structures on freeholds.

Kurbbie

Cypher wrote: »

Don’t like it. Your solution to “maybe we won’t see a metro with X racial aesthetic” is essentially “we will probably only see X racial aesthetic in this region because it has a disadvantage in the other regions”.

Just leave it alone and keep it totally free-market and unbiased. I guarantee you will see at least one node of each race on a server.

this is an SJW mindset, they only care about races, and their race in particular.

Dygz

Azherae wrote: »

It's not extreme at all, that's exactly how that works, it's just Search Engine Optimization/YouTube algorithms in 'reverse'.

Personally I'd bet on never seeing Nikua nodes past stage 3, on at least one server.

True enough.
I did generalize "city" to village/town/city.
It's not an extreme that one race on a server might never get a city.
That is actually to be expected and is perfectly fine.
One race never getting a village on a server could potentially be problematic but is highly unlikely.

Races will not be spread out evenly across the server.
We will not have the extreme of servers where one race dominates every Node.

Unkempt Foliage

Depends on how unpopular a race is or how popular another race is. Say Nikua are unpopular and only make up 3% of the server.

Races won't spread out evenly but they will spread out. All Nikua would have to concentrate all in the same area to get a village. And that's a monumental task to organize. They might have guildmates or friends that don't like Nikua so then their friends are actively working against a Nikua village.

Then eventually months down the road the starting areas are going to get attacked. And unless the starting areas are completely ignored after that it won't be Nikua anymore because they are spread out and don't have the volume of players necessary to contribute the most to the node.

Then on the other end of the spectrum. I think it's highly likely that you'll see 2-3 metros of the same race because they just contribute the most because of players.

Dygz

Let's say the sun explodes tomorrow...

Unkempt Foliage

I picked 3% because it's the number from the WoW example earlier in the thread. I don't think it is that unreasonable to believe that there is going to be one very unpopular race that is loved by the people who play it but not so much by the general population.

Dygz

@Unkempt Foliage

Blood Elf 15%
Human 14%
Night Elf 14%
Troll 5%
Zandalari Troll 5%
Void Elf 5%
Orc 5%
Dranei 5%
Tauren 4%
Undead 4%

Those are the top 10 WoW races out of 22 - as of 2019.
That's about 75% of the WoW population which leaves another 25% to be spread out among the rest.
I think 3% is not a reasonable percentage if we're comparing WoW and Ashes.

In Ashes, an even spread would be 11%. And we have 108 Nodes.
5% population is probably enough for a Village, so... it's unlikely that there will be servers with one race that has no Village.
And, even if there were, that's OK.
Every race will have a village somewhere among all the servers.

For certain, each server will have a race that is least popular. That's OK.

Unkempt Foliage

When I say even spread I don't mean race selection screen, like 11% for each race in your example. I mean that 3-5% for unpopular races are spread out over the 100 nodes. Then 15% popular races are also going to spread out over the 100 nodes.

So an even spread would be 15% of each node for the popular races and 3-5% for the less popular races. That means in every node they are out numbered and will never see a village of that race.

Now that's an extreme example and we won't get an even spread in all the nodes. But the longer the server is up the more and more likely unpopular races get wiped village wise.

You would have make first find enough like minded people, make a race guild, then convince that guild to all work in the same area. Even then it won't be a guarantee if others races move to that area too. And that's a monumental task.

The question is. Are people okay with that direction or should there be some sort prevention for that.

Dygz

I doubt they would spread themselves out over 100 Nodes, they would most likely attempt to get at least a Village because there is racial progression via racial quests that would start at the Village stage.

We will be able to filter characters on the server by race, so it will not be at all challenging to find other characters of your race on your server.

It's highly unlikely that a race will not at least have a Village on the server.
The devs will determine if there needs to be prevention for that.

It's unlikely to be in the form of creating multi-racial neighborhoods and/or Mayors choosing the architectural style. The code for that is likely to be to convoluted. Already challenging enough to meet their current design goals.

JustVine

And again, the real problem isn't 'unpopular races.' The real problem is 'my race determines my architecture vote and there is no current way to change that.' There will always be less popular character choices for body type/self expression. That is normal and not problematic. Architecture is less directly about personal representation and more about 'what I find pleasing to have around me.' There could be entire swathes of kaelar who would rather their costal city be Nikua architecture but 'moving to the coast' would just spawn a less desirable city for them.

I am glad they make the architecture lore based and I am glad the current default will lead to some initial diversity in locale and design. However, it's far easier and more free market to have a vote and 'persuade people to vote empyrean or dunir architecture.' Than it is to 'persuade people to play that race.'

Let certain populations be naturally lower or skewed in different servers. That's part of what will make ashes unique. Let's just also hope they come up with a way to 'have a way to vote for ones truely desired architecture.'

Unkempt Foliage

Dygz wrote: »

I doubt they would spread themselves out over 100 Nodes, they would most likely attempt to get at least a Village because there is racial progression via racial quests that would start at the Village stage.

We will be able to filter characters on the server by race, so it will not be at all challenging to find other characters of your race on your server.

It's highly unlikely that a race will not at least have a Village on the server.
The devs will determine if there needs to be prevention for that.

It's unlikely to be in the form of creating multi-racial neighborhoods and/or Mayors choosing the architectural style. The code for that is likely to be to convoluted. Already challenging enough to meet their current design goals.

Why wouldn't people spread out. People are going to want to explore the world that spreads people out naturally. Everyone will want to go to metros eventually and those are guaranteed not going to be least popular race.

Certain guilds will want to develop new region spreading people out. Other guilds will want to take over a region and destroys nodes especially starting nodes. That's spreads people out to weaker nodes.

I agree that creating racial ghettos would be hard and maybe not the solution. But it is a potential problem they will have to look at if they do racial quests. It's a problem they will face when certain races won't be able to do them because there just isn't enough of them on the servers.

JustVine

Dygz wrote: »

I doubt they would spread themselves out over 100 Nodes, they would most likely attempt to get at least a Village because there is racial progression via racial quests that would start at the Village stage.

We will be able to filter characters on the server by race, so it will not be at all challenging to find other characters of your race on your server.

It's highly unlikely that a race will not at least have a Village on the server.
The devs will determine if there needs to be prevention for that.

It's unlikely to be in the form of creating multi-racial neighborhoods and/or Mayors choosing the architectural style. The code for that is likely to be to convoluted. Already challenging enough to meet their current design goals.

Just have a setting where the vote system reads me as x race instead of my 'actual.' This adds various potential bugs, but thats the main challenge for it.

I would figure the democratic vote would be easier to implement and contain bug wise, hence me suggesting it first.

You keep saying 'mayor deciding it.' But I am not suggesting that. I am suggesting 'the mayor issues an election on a specific node issue. Citizens of the node vote on the 8 choices. After the vote is concluded the city changes to that architecture style instead on next server maintenance or whatever is most convenient. To issue this vote costs node resources to initiate the rebuild.' Given their intentions for nodes many of the systems for implementing this will already be needed for other intended features.

Unkempt Foliage

JustVine wrote: »

And again, the real problem isn't 'unpopular races.' The real problem is 'my race determines my architecture vote and there is no current way to change that.' There will always be less popular character choices for body type/self expression. That is normal and not problematic. Architecture is less directly about personal representation and more about 'what I find pleasing to have around me.' There could be entire swathes of kaelar who would rather their costal city be Nikua architecture but 'moving to the coast' would just spawn a less desirable city for them.

I am glad they make the architecture lore based and I am glad the current default will lead to some initial diversity in locale and design. However, it's far easier and more free market to have a vote and 'persuade people to vote empyrean or dunir architecture.' Than it is to 'persuade people to play that race.'

Let certain populations be naturally lower or skewed in different servers. That's part of what will make ashes unique. Let's just also hope they come up with a way to 'have a way to vote for ones truely desired architecture.'

I think choosing which racial theme your node xp goes to, and allowing that theme to be separate form your character race is the least they should do.

Though I think city themes is a potential problem they should keep in mind and test in the later betas when they are ready.

Dygz

I think the least they could do is have separate PvE-Only servers.

Dygz

JustVine wrote: »

You keep saying 'mayor deciding it.' But I am not suggesting that. I am suggesting 'the mayor issues an election on a specific node issue. Citizens of the node vote on the 8 choices. After the vote is concluded the city changes to that architecture style instead on next server maintenance or whatever is most convenient. To issue this vote costs node resources to initiate the rebuild.' Given their intentions for nodes many of the systems for implementing this will already be needed for other intended features.

I keep saying Mayor because it's the Mayors that make those kinds of decisions.
The only Node Type with voting is the Scientific Node. And that is just mayoral election.
Voting for architecture style is not going to happen.

Sathrago

JustVine wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

I doubt they would spread themselves out over 100 Nodes, they would most likely attempt to get at least a Village because there is racial progression via racial quests that would start at the Village stage.

We will be able to filter characters on the server by race, so it will not be at all challenging to find other characters of your race on your server.

It's highly unlikely that a race will not at least have a Village on the server.
The devs will determine if there needs to be prevention for that.

It's unlikely to be in the form of creating multi-racial neighborhoods and/or Mayors choosing the architectural style. The code for that is likely to be to convoluted. Already challenging enough to meet their current design goals.

Just have a setting where the vote system reads me as x race instead of my 'actual.' This adds various potential bugs, but thats the main challenge for it.

I would figure the democratic vote would be easier to implement and contain bug wise, hence me suggesting it first.

You keep saying 'mayor deciding it.' But I am not suggesting that. I am suggesting 'the mayor issues an election on a specific node issue. Citizens of the node vote on the 8 choices. After the vote is concluded the city changes to that architecture style instead on next server maintenance or whatever is most convenient. To issue this vote costs node resources to initiate the rebuild.' Given their intentions for nodes many of the systems for implementing this will already be needed for other intended features.

I don't think they could go that route as players would abuse it to "do all content". Which removes the uniqueness of the different server choices. The best thing they could do is allow for small racial districts within the city where the next three highest race types get a small district in the town.

JustVine

Dygz wrote: »

JustVine wrote: »

You keep saying 'mayor deciding it.' But I am not suggesting that. I am suggesting 'the mayor issues an election on a specific node issue. Citizens of the node vote on the 8 choices. After the vote is concluded the city changes to that architecture style instead on next server maintenance or whatever is most convenient. To issue this vote costs node resources to initiate the rebuild.' Given their intentions for nodes many of the systems for implementing this will already be needed for other intended features.

I keep saying Mayor because it's the Mayors that make those kinds of decisions.
The only Node Type with voting is the Scientific Node. And that is just mayoral election.
Voting for architecture style is not going to happen.

1. An election system will need to be implemented.
2. The mayor will have tasks they can issue that cost node resources
3.This is a self contained feature that can be implemented in a variety of ways depending on their database structure. I am simply providing a framework for the idea. The vote could be a resource donation race exclusive to citizens of the node for example.

Please provide links to your interview with him or others on this exact proposed solution being rejected if you could? If you have not discussed with Steven this exact solution to the issue at hand before do not speak authoritatively.

We are trying to discuss potential solutions. If you don't want to join the discussion then I will just start ignoring you in this thread.

CROW3

The racial districting might be interesting... though I get the feeling that Dwarves will be consistently kicked to the sewers or outside entirely.

I looked it up, my only concern with this thread was the Freehold architecture. It appears that Freeholds will take on the architecture for the plans purchased. I'm guessing the architecture plans will reflect the racial architecture of the node / town it was purchased in. If that's the case (again I'm guessing), that will give extra incentive for folks to spread out and explore other nodes so they can have their freehold reflect their desired look and feel.

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