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Node system question
blimp
Member
Hi, I was watching Asmon react to Lazypeon's video about AoC talking about nodes and he raised a concern how meta-gaming might influence the game in that people will just gather around the most "efficient" nodes and do that over and over again.
I am just wondering cause I think the same will happen if the developers have thought of this and perhaps if there are ways to make sure this would not ruin what the experience is supposed to do.
Maybe something like diminishing returns on the rewards of a specific node after repeating it so many times or reliant on player density perhaps? I am not sure.
Anyway this is my first post I made an account just to put this here as I am not sure where to put feedback. I hope it is useful
I am just wondering cause I think the same will happen if the developers have thought of this and perhaps if there are ways to make sure this would not ruin what the experience is supposed to do.
Maybe something like diminishing returns on the rewards of a specific node after repeating it so many times or reliant on player density perhaps? I am not sure.
Anyway this is my first post I made an account just to put this here as I am not sure where to put feedback. I hope it is useful
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There will probably be 1+ year worth of Alpha 2 Testing. If any of the node types provide perks, that outweigh all the others on a scale, where people actively want to pursue it, then i'm confident that it will be caught and balanced out before the game is even released.
Minor differences in terms of perks won't matter, as all the other, non comparable aspects will make people choose different nodes to flock to.
All content is unlocked from nodes. So to find out what content is available you will need to level a node, to see what content it provides, and then destroy it and check out the other surrounding nodes.
Gatherables spawn with some rng, and are effected by the weather. And dont necessarily respawn in the same region, area, or node.
Idk what efficient nodes are. But hope that info is akin to what you may be asking.
I suggest starting here https://ashesofcreation.wiki/
Step 1. Ask a question.
Step 2. read the entire wiki so noaani doesnt have to answer your questions.
Everyone starts having interest somewhere.
So the following question would be: which extras do in-land nodes have, to compensate the lack of direct access to sea and naval content?
Are you saying there is something wrong with suggesting someone go out and form their own opinion on a topic rather than essentially watching some watch someone else interpret something that someone else said?
I mean, Asmon isnt exactly clued in to, well, anything at all really (other than how to exploit an impressionable audience). Using him as a source for information is always going to cause problems.
Case in point, the question in the OP doesnt make any sense. I cant answer it at all because it simply doesnt have an answer. This is why I suggested the wiki. The "answer" you gave isnt an answer, because you dont understand the question. You dont understand the question because the OP doesnt understand the question (they are just regurgitating it). In order for you to understand the question, and thus be able to answer it, the OP needs to understand the question first.
Rather than giving the OP a non-answer, as you seem to think is the best course of action here, I thin the best thing to do is send the OP off to work out what the question is that they are trying to ask, so that I actually COULD then answer it for them.
Unlike you, I am not going to attempt to answer a question with bullshit.
I dont necessarily think having access to the sea or naval content as an advantage, that needs to be counter balanced.
With aquatic mounts, vs land mounts. I would assume mounted travel on land with a land mount would be comparable to mounted travel at sea with an aquatic mount.
At sea you have no cover. You are easily spotable. While on land you have terrain to try and hide in.
Moving goods and people at sea you have to do it by force. Present a navy that people wont want to mess with. While by land you can try and sneak caravans through and such.
Its just different. Not necessarily unbalanced.
Also, the access to sea content vs access to the content made by a land locked node... again, just different. Not necessarily unbalanced.
Full section:
(Starts: 8:37)
For people who only want to see the relevant concern in 2mins or less:
(It starts at 10:05 not sure why linking it through the forum fucks up the timestamp)
The difference is understanding someones familiarity with the topic and how you treat them. Im trying to be friendly. I wont speak for you. This is a public forum if you dont want to help someone, dont post in their thread, that would be my take on it. But obviously you go ahead and live your life Noaani.
Asmond mentions how taxes could be ramped up will ruin it for others and how players will min max to get the optimal nodes but the nodes can be balanced to some extent.
What i would like to know is how the game is going to manage how high taxes can go because for me it ruins both Albion and new world. ( also in the video that poen shows - the taxes can go to 100%, I don't have any faith that people wont just it to 100% and ruin it for everyone - this happened in albion and new world already)
@Hatham in Albion and New World, Guilds were able to extract the gold made from Taxes to pocket it themselves.
In AoC, the money that goes into a Node will stay there and is essentially a gold sink designed to take money out of the economy. Its a closed system, that doesn't allow governing players and taxes to extract the money from their own pockets.
In Albion and NW, they had personal incentive to max out the taxes as high taxes == more money for those guilds.
In AoC they do not, as they can not extract the Gold into their own pockets which results in high taxes == less money for those guilds.
The difference is how mayors are elected.
In ashes each type of node has its own election process. So a mayor who doesnt take his job seriously has a different experience for each node.
Science nodes it is by popular vote. Every citizen votes.
Economic nodes it is literally puchased i believe.
Military nodes it is fought for by champions.
Religious nodes it is competed for through religious quests
And on top of that, taxes from the node can only be spent on the node. The mayors themselves do not gain anything due to tax amount. It is castle taxes that binifit the ruler.
And I'm trying to be helpful.
What is more helpful - a bullshit answer to a question that isnt understood, or a link to where understanding can be gained, if desired?
I guess we both have different expectations for how a discussion about a topic goes...
What i expect, i attempt to answer what i beleive them to be asking, and make it known i dont fully understand what they are asking, which invites them to clearify their thoughts and such...
You seem to perfer, question-direct answer. Conversation over. Which is fine. But why continue to try and argue with me if your goal is to be helpful? Surly derailing the thread, which is still trying to discuss topics about nodes, around you isnt helpful.
All you can do is try and convince them that the assumptions they have made are indeed incorrect.
The easiest way to do that is for them to read it for them self - far better reading referenced articles 5han listening to random people on the internet.
I'm more than happy to engage in conversation - I am not interested in trying to convince someone that everything they think they know about the game is wrong. The only assistance I intend to offer the OP is the link to the wiki. If they take that and learn something, cool - maybe there could be a discussion after that.
However.
You tried to call me out, remember? Why are you now complaining that I am attempting to derail the thread when you started this?
I started reflecting about how meta-gaming might affect Ashes many months ago and I think it's going to be fine.
I am of the opinion that meta-gaming doesn't always have to be seen as something bad and evil in gaming. Nobody is forced to meta-game, you can play the game without ever looking at a wiki, even if that means you won't be as "efficient" as other players. Of course, in Ashes case, that might mean your home Node will get slammed because it's not "efficient", but even then I believe that it's just part of the game, and your
Node could be hit for any other reason anyway.
With that said, I don't believe that Alpha 2 and Beta will be enough to make so that every server is meta-gamed out the ass right on launch, only the hardcore servers will. I have no doubt that a handful of servers in every region will be unofficially chosen as the most competitive servers, the streamer servers and the RP servers, so although I agree that one shouldn't have to worry about this, I don't believe it's possible to get rid of this segregation in this day and age. At some point, however, most servers will probably start pivoting towards the most "efficient" Nodes, but I believe that will take quite some time, maybe years.
I'm not sure what you meant by "efficient" in your OP, but what I believe it will mean is:
In any case, I believe that it is possible for Intrepid to design the game in such a way that no Node type will ever be the meta, no specific Node will be so meta that it's "sacred" and never attacked for meta-gaming reasons and, most importantly, if Intrepid can design the game in a way that all the different pieces of BiS gear can only be acquired by beating raids and dungeons that cannot exist at the same time because of Node development (or lack thereof), that will mean no Node is ever safe from people trying to improve their gear via meta-gaming.
Last but not least, if meta-gaming becomes an issue, Intrepid's first big expansion could be a devastating event that "coincidently" changes many things relating to Nodes, fixing any meta-gaming issues or whatever game design issues they detect.
TL;DR: I wouldn't worry about meta-gaming related to Node development in Ashes. Intrepid has the power to make sure meta-gaming won't result in every server looking the same. And I actually think that meta-gaming can even become a part of the game in a good way, similarly to how it makes an old ugly game like OSRS more fun to me.
Obs.: I know that raids/dungeons won't drop gear directly, but they'll drop what's needed to craft it.
Im not trying to be a hypocrite. I know it takes two to argue, and here i am. The difference being just what you said... you are done here. The wiki link is the only thing you intended to provide. Now you are only here to argue. How helpful. Im here to argue, and discuss. Because im bored at work. Im not trying to act like you're wrong or anything. But if every thread was first responded to by a wiki link and nothing else, then what are the forums? These forums really are not welcoming. So i try and be friendly, and only argue with those who seem like they have nothing better to do as well.
Taxes in Ashes will not work the same way they do in New World. The money stolen via taxes can only be used to upgrade the Node itself, so you can't use tax money to buy gear for your guild.
So if a mayor increases taxes to some stupid amount, people will just leave that Node and probably slam it.
Plus, a Metro is one-fifth of the map, so, every Metro should have some ports.
Won't the Ports still belong to the vassal nodes @Dygz ? That would still mean, that resources would have to be transported from the vassal node with the port to the parent node via Caravan.
In order to do something a bit further away, you'd also still have to move between vassal and metro in order to get to the ocean. I do believe, that coastal access will make it easier to get both your goods moved and reduces your travel time to points of interest overall based on the fact, that this has literally been the case with every game that features naval content/parts of the map. (Obviously unconfirmed as our knowledge regarding the sea/naval mechanics is still rather limited)
If that's the case, then i'd hope that Intrepid balances this out with resources being more plentiful in the center of continent. That way both coastal and inner-continental nodes would advantages for themselves.
Bigger question for me is how they make nodes at the edge of the map as viable as central ones.
Especially in a game with limited fast travel and localized storage, being in the corner of the map is a big disadvantage. Maybe through certain, high importance resources, that spawn mostly on the border/edges of the map?
This is a counter intuitive thought.
To add special recources around the edges, now makes being in the middle pointless. Your concern comes from a place assuming you want your goods to go to somewhere far away, but you arent concidering the reasons for why the goods may be needing to be moved. You are just assuming, goods must be moved (lacking purpose) and using ocean to move them must be best (lacking conditions)
Why would i want to move goods out of my home node area?
Why would i want to move goods away from my local metropolis?
If im simply a merchant, trying to get the best deal sure. But if you are a merchant without affiliations or loyalty to any nodes then surly you will just take your goods to who is paying the highest price.... wouldnt it make sense for a land locked node near the edge of the map to be paying damn good money for goods seeing as its out of the way and hard to travel to?
And lets continue this train of thought. Is a nkde in the south west corner of the map, is known to be hard to get goods too and tends to pay a good price. What if a lot of merchants got it in their heads that today is the day to make a few bucks?
Now the node has a surplus of goods. But as a merchant, you understand that this node is hard to bring goods to. So if you wait, the price will surly come back to where you want to sell at. And you know that moving your goods again will take more time, and effort, and risk them being stolen again... so you have the choice. If you really need money now, you cohld surly try and run your goods back somewhere else for a better price. Or you can just wait with your good here and sell them when the market changes.
Its a truly changing economy after all.
Also, living in a more difficult to reach place means less competition over content and gatherables. So it may still attract players to such places.
Also, if this is some form of effect on which nodes people fight more over then some settlements will be sieged less meaning whoever owns them or stores their resources there will see that node as more valuable for that aspect alone.
As for the tax system, as long as you can cancel citizenship then if the mayor ups the taxes too high they will have the risk of players leaving and they wont get the income they want to upgrade the town. Basically creating an economic collapse and a bad reputation. Even if they lower the taxes again players might not be sure if they want to choose that node again under their rule in case they up taxes again. This game will have politics.
So, it's not going to be in the exact same prime location. And then... that Node could be destroyed in a couple months as well. It's not like the Nodes delevel when you lose a Siege. And you can just maintain the same spot and quickly build it back up to its former glory.
I don't know what that's supposed to mean. The vassal Nodes will be a bit further away from the destroyed Node.
We'll have to see if it's the coastal Nodes the absolutely make it easier. It's possible that individual interior Mayors will be able to negotiate stronger, more influential trade routes via land.
A lot of that will depend on how the Mayors and Governments negotiate their trade routes.
Might also depend on the demands of the Monarchs. And will certainly depend on how long a City or Metro can avoid destruction.
More likely, that's going to be up to how well the Mayors govern and how long the City/Metro can avoid destruction.
I know this, because I waited until there were other replies.
He will only be helpful if the help you need is understanding why DPS meters and combat trackers are necessary if not mandatory. For all else read the wiki, yes.
Nah, I'll also help if you need to gain an understanding on the importance of limited instancing in an MMO, the added benefit of also having open world encounters, the evils of automated group forming systems, the issues with the family summons, the fact that the corruption system is fine as it is for now, the subjective opinion that the class name "tank" is fine because that's what people will call them regardless or the need for a reasonable pace of content additions.
I'll also happily offer up an opinion from the perspective of a top end raider, should the situation call for it.
But yeah, other than that, just read the wiki.
Funny thing is, I've had a number of long debates with people on these forums, where it is obvious there is something they are missing - a fact about the game (as we know it) that they have an incorrect assumption about.
The longer this assumption has hold in the person,the harder it is to shake - and the harder it is for them to stick around afterwards.
Now, I dont think anyone here thinks the OP is well informed - I dont even think the OP thinks they are.
As such, the best thing any of us can do for them is to replace that misinformation/false assumptions with accurate information. Thing is, you cant bash someone over the head with facts and expect them to accept them - they need to come to their own realization in their own time.
So, with this in mind, if anyone can suggest anything that is objectively better for the OP other than to show them where they can correct those false assumptions in their own time, should they want to, I'd love to hear it.
Or, you know, just carry on flailing aimlessly in an attempt to bash me for doing the most useful thing for the OP...
Idk man. I assume people alive in 2022 realize wiki's exist. Id expect if someone wanted to read the ashes encyclopedia then they would do so. I imagine people come to the forums over that to have conversation, and socialize as they deepen their understanding of the game. But i can be wrong. Maybe people really dont know that there is a wiki, and strickly come here hoping someone gives them the link.
The have a history of coming here not knowing what they are talking about, and not knowing the wiki exists.
But sure, people do sometimes come here looking for a discussion on something. That's great. That doesnt mean that every reply needs to pander to that, nor does it exclude the possibility that they may want to inform them self for the impending discussion.
There is literally no reason to have a go at someone for suggesting a third party learn a little about a topic they have expressed an interest in.
That is what I did here, and thst is what you did here.