Regarding the asthetic variation of Nodes.

As we know, Nodes have 6 total stages of development from Wilderness. Including; Expedition, Encampment, Village, Town, City and Metropolis. We also know that AoC will have a total of 9 playable races, including; Kaelar, Vaelune, Dunir, Nikua, Empyrean, Py'Rai, Vek, Ren'Kai and Tulnar.

As Nodes develop, the race that has contributed the most XP towards the next stage of development is represented in the following stages, architecture, look and feel.

I have a few thoughts, questions and concerns regarding this.

Is this a straightforward "first past the post" type system? If each race contributes between 5/10% of the XP needed to level a node from Expedition to Encampment and the Kaelar (for example) contributes 20%, the Encampment will be a "Kaelar Encampment" correct?

Will there be any sort of mixing and matching due to percentage contributions? My concern is that even if a server has a perfect spread of the player population between races (which won't happen) there will only need to be a single race that is a few percent more popular than the others, to have the majority of settlements take on that race's aesthetic.

Also... Just how different will these settlements actually be from each other? How different will each of the 9 potential "racially augmented" stages of aesthetic variation be? One thing I would love to see in a future dev update would be the 9 potential racial outcomes for the same node at the Expedition level.

This brings me to the question of development resources. Depending on how significantly different racial variations are, is there not a concern that a large amount of time, effort and resources will be put into the creation of something that may never actually even be seen on a server?

With clarification last stream that a fully "maxed-out" server can hold a total of 5 Metrolpoliseseseseis

that could mean that many of the different racial settlements would never actually manifest.
(Of course, empires will rise and fall and can be replaced, I just have concerns that the majority of settlements will feel very similar)

What are your hopes and expectations in regard to aesthetic variety in Nodes? Just how different do you expect a primarily Vek-influenced Town to be, compared to a primarily Vaelune-influenced town? How will nodes developing in different Biomes be taken into consideration? If you have a node being developed in the snowy mountains by the Nikua, will it not be strange to have a tropical-styled town with tropical-styled buildings, materials, flora and fauna pop up in the snowy mountains?

My mind boggles in regards to how they will actually be able to implement some of this stuff.

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Dygz

I think the calculation is made the moment the Node pop to the next stage.
Whichever race contributed the highest percentage of xp.
If I understand your example correctly - definitely, it will be a Kaelar Encampment.

Under the current design, there is never any mixing and matching of NPC population or aesthetics.

Yes. I don't think we've seen a demo of how the same Stage 3 Economic Node would look different with a different dominant race.
In Alpha 1, seemed dominant race was not activated? At least in terms of effect on Architecture. If I recall correctly.

Nodes can be destroyed. And, there's supposed to be quite a bit of variation each time the same Node becomes a Py'Rai Metro, for example.
Depending on the population of each server, yes, it's likely that each server will have at least a couple of races that never have a Metro.

WHIT3ROS3

I wonder then, what buildings will have the full 9 racial reskins? There are 29 different building types listed under the Node building section of the Wiki (which includes apartments that I believe are instanced). There are also lots of other assets that go into the creation of a settlement such as fountains, walkways, decorations, walls etc...

If you take an Armory for example. How many different variations do people expect there to be? 1? 9? more? The game will also need to reflect the different stages in progression so that there is a distinction between a Town, City and Metropolis.

Will there be a set of neutral assets, used by all races, which are then just augmented and given a member of that race as an NPC to differentiate it? Or will it be a more bespoke, ground-up solution?

PS: I also think that Node development should be information freely available to players. With a Pie chart type UI that lasts people know how developed the node is and how much % XP contribution, it has received from each race.

SongRune

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

Is this a straightforward "first past the post" type system? If each race contributes between 5/10% of the XP needed to level a node from Expedition to Encampment and the Kaelar (for example) contributes 20%, the Encampment will be a "Kaelar Encampment" correct?

Will there be any sort of mixing and matching due to percentage contributions? My concern is that even if a server has a perfect spread of the player population between races (which won't happen) there will only need to be a single race that is a few percent more popular than the others, to have the majority of settlements take on that race's aesthetic.

Yes. Pure first past the post.

The Wiki wrote:

Race that contributed the highest percentage to the node's advancement will alter the racial appearance of its buildings, NPCs, and props.[98][122][119][115][120][123][124]

Parent races do not combine their cultural influences. For example, Py'Rai and Empyrean count as different cultures. Their parent race, the Pyrian, no longer exists.[125]
This style and culture change happens at every stage.[115]

(ref: Racial influence on nodes)

Statistically, there will be variation in the density of individual races within even a uniform population across the world. There will probably even be a couple player efforts to get less represented races to all focus on a single server to boost its chances. It's reasonable to assume that some aesthetics will not be seen on a given server, but far less reasonable to assume they will not be seen on any server. Similarly, it's guaranteed that you will not see a metropolis from all races on your server, but you may get a reasonable spread of level 3 nodes, etc.

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

Also... Just how different will these settlements actually be from each other? How different will each of the 9 potential "racially augmented" stages of aesthetic variation be? One thing I would love to see in a future dev update would be the 9 potential racial outcomes for the same node at the Expedition level.

You can also check out the wiki for various concept art for each race's building style.

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

This brings me to the question of development resources. Depending on how significantly different racial variations are, is there not a concern that a large amount of time, effort and resources will be put into the creation of something that may never actually even be seen on a server?

I don't feel like this is a terribly significant concern. There will ideally be plenty of servers, and the nodes won't grow up the same on each. Even if this does end up being the case, art is where Intrepid Studios is furthest ahead right now, and you'd honestly be surprised how quickly a good artist with a proper setup and tools can turn out something like a building, particularly with judicious reuse of components.

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

With clarification last stream that a fully "maxed-out" server can hold a total of 5 Metrolpoliseseseseis that could mean that many of the different racial settlements would never actually manifest.
(Of course, empires will rise and fall and can be replaced, I just have concerns that the majority of settlements will feel very similar)

This is a concern that many people share. Despite archetypal self-selection where players gravitate to areas with the architecture style they prefer, and in doing so will tend to bias the area's influence toward the races that they prefer (which theoretically should line up more often than not, at least), it's possible that a large bias toward Kaelar characters on a server as a whole will be represented somewhat 'unfairly' in world architecture. I don't know how they intend to solve this. I think that they do not, and that they intend archetypal self-selection or specific, focused player-driven efforts to handle the issue, which one could reasonably describe as "not actually technically a problem in the first place".

There have been suggestions that players be able to set their architectural racial influence separately from their character race (or even if you don't want Empyrians providing Vek influence, simply be able to set it to "I don't affect the race of nodes I contribute to") which would allow players a bit more freedom to influence nodes the way they prefer, or at least not influence them against their own preference, but Intrepid hasn't acknowledged any of these as yet.

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

What are your hopes and expectations in regard to aesthetic variety in Nodes? Just how different do you expect a primarily Vek-influenced Town to be, compared to a primarily Vaelune-influenced town? How will nodes developing in different Biomes be taken into consideration? If you have a node being developed in the snowy mountains by the Nikua, will it not be strange to have a tropical-styled town with tropical-styled buildings, materials, flora and fauna pop up in the snowy mountains?

The Wiki wrote:

Environment (biome) and location of the node.[14][119][120]

The way that the node system is built is that they can exist across a spread of 18 biomes, but at the same time have to represent the cultural influence of these cultures that are intrinsically a part of a specific biome.[14] – Steven Sharif

(ref: Racial influence on nodes)

They seem to intend (though I don't know how strongly) to design cultural influence types such that they'd work reasonably in any biome, or maybe have biome-related variants of some. We'll see how that goes, but while I somewhat share your feeling about materials (since I'm picky about wood types, as a woodworker), it wouldn't be too strange to have a general architectural design like this Nikuan style in a snowy mountain settlement (particularly if you just 'add doors'):

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

My mind boggles in regards to how they will actually be able to implement some of this stuff.

It does seem like something that could take quite a bit work, but they appear to be aiming for the simplest form of it, in all cases,

- No racial blending based on contribution: Everything's from one race.
- No racial blending based on prior stages: Everything is from the latest main race.
- Nodes affect their terrain, rather than are affected by it for the most part: No need to adapt layouts to terrain differences for the most part. (Some allowance may be made for things like "mountainside" it seems.)
- Not designing racial architecture such that it would be out of place
- Designing all architecture so that it can reasonably fit in any climate, with minimal changes (perhaps 'adding glass to the windows').

so it probably won't be terribly unmanageable.

WHIT3ROS3

Even if this does end up being the case, art is where Intrepid Studios is furthest ahead right now, and you'd honestly be surprised how quickly a good artist with a proper setup and tools can turn out something like a building, particularly with judicious reuse of components.

- I'm in Architectural Design IRL, and that's what worries me most.

BaSkA_9x2

I would like to see racial blending in nodes, but unfortunately that won't be the case, even if the race with most contribution only has "1 more point" than the runner-up.

I also believe that the "attrition" mechanic will be quite effective:

There are attrition mechanics that affects experience and influence to curb a single race from dominating the entire world.[116]

There is an attrition and that attrition on experience and influence is heightened based on the performance of the race in the world. So if all these nodes are Orc nodes then their attrition rate is very high to compete with the cultural establishment of new nodes because they have more influence in the world and a popular opinion is against them in their outlying regions that they do not have influence in.[116] – Steven Sharif

So it's very unlikely that there will be 5 Metropolises of the same race and I wouldn't be surprised if it's virtually impossible to have 3 Metropolis of the same race.

SongRune

BaSkA13 wrote: »

I would like to see racial blending in nodes, but unfortunately that won't be the case, even if the race with most contribution only has "1 more point" than the runner-up.

I also believe that the "attrition" mechanic will be quite effective:

There are attrition mechanics that affects experience and influence to curb a single race from dominating the entire world.[116]

There is an attrition and that attrition on experience and influence is heightened based on the performance of the race in the world. So if all these nodes are Orc nodes then their attrition rate is very high to compete with the cultural establishment of new nodes because they have more influence in the world and a popular opinion is against them in their outlying regions that they do not have influence in.[116] – Steven Sharif

So it's very unlikely that there will be 5 Metropolises of the same race and I wouldn't be surprised if it's virtually impossible to have 3 Metropolis of the same race.

I didn't notice that one, and I'm glad they've promised it. Thanks!

Aeskill

Some sort of mixed city would be dope but afaik to complex for the initial release i guess. Just imagine a pirate city with every race mixed into it, like a cultural melting pot on some isolated island.

I am very curious how the node system will play out in alpha 2! cant wait

Asgerr

I had a similar thread a few weeks back. If any of you want to peruse it for extra opinions and ideas:

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/53197/node-development-full-vs-blended-racial-appearance

Dygz

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

I also think that Node development should be information freely available to players. With a Pie chart type UI that lets people know how developed the node is and how much % XP contribution, it has received from each race.

It's not impossible that players might be able to see percentages of racial xp contribution in the UI. Depends what the devs want players to know as they progress the Nodes.
Might be better for potential Sieges if players don't know those details.

WHIT3ROS3

Not entirely sure what advantage/disadvantage would be afforded to those who know the XP % makeup of a node.

My thought process is that if you are a Dunir and you start the game. You will spawn at your selected gate and then venture out into the world. As you explore you come across a Dunir village. You really want to live in a Dunir-influenced Town/City/Metropolis node and want to help contribute XP for that Dunir Village within the nodes ZOI. However, if you don't know the % makeup of the leveling process you would have no idea what the node will look like until it levels. Might be rather frustrating to work towards a Nodes development and then in the following stage it transforms into an Empyrean Town.

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