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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Affiliations = open season PVP? ;) ie corruption not as prevalent as you may think
DarkTides
Member
Based on the below information, speculate away.
Don't like that pesky PVE gatherer touching your tree? Just chop his head off for gettin a lil too close to your affiliated node!
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Affiliations
An affiliation tree determines which entities can participate in attacks against other entities within its hierarchy.[1][2]
Corrupted players can be attacked regardless of other affiliations. This is something that will be tested during Alpha-2.[3]
Node citizenship.[1][2]
Alliances.[1][2]
Guilds.[1][2]
Parties.[1][2]
Raids.[1][2]
Family.[1]
Religion.[2]
Society.[2]
Don't like that pesky PVE gatherer touching your tree? Just chop his head off for gettin a lil too close to your affiliated node!
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Affiliations
An affiliation tree determines which entities can participate in attacks against other entities within its hierarchy.[1][2]
Corrupted players can be attacked regardless of other affiliations. This is something that will be tested during Alpha-2.[3]
Node citizenship.[1][2]
Alliances.[1][2]
Guilds.[1][2]
Parties.[1][2]
Raids.[1][2]
Family.[1]
Religion.[2]
Society.[2]
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Comments
If you belong to a node, and your node does not wish to degrade the quality of its land by over-gathering, you would naturally go elsewhere...like a neighbouring node.
That node may already be experiencing land management issues, and Ive already read people claiming they will take 100 gatherers into someone elses land and really do a number on it by overharvesting.
That is an act of aggression that is resolved by not penalizing the citizens of that node for removing encroaching parties from their lands. Possibly achieved by auto-flagging players within their node territory. This also just makes sense.
I don't think any of the "information" we have on it today will ever be relevant.
We haven't heard about a lot of things and until the game is out, everything is subject to change.
Tying in with what we have heard about gathering, I think it provides insight into the initial thought process of when and how pvp might occur, and why you wont turn corrupt when doing so.
Indeed, but with all the talk we have heard from Intrepid in relation to PvP, you would think they would have mentioned the affiliation system if it was a thing they were still planning.
Fact is, it doesn't make much sense.
One thing we can be sure of it that it won't lower the amount of corruption handed out.
However, the way the OP is using affiliations is wrong. The system does not allow players to attack others. It restricts players and groups from attacking specific groups.
Perhaps I should reiterate - the whole thing doesn't make sense.
Parts of it do, for sure. However, parts of it are what many players would consider backwards (though Steven doesn't).
If you are in the same node as someone but in different guilds, if your guilds declare war on each other, the affiliation system says you can't fight.
On the other hand, if you are in a guild with someone in a different node, and your nodes declare war on each other, the affiliation system says you can fight.
Most people would consider this to be backwards.
Where it doesn't make sense is when you start getting lower down. Group/raid, guild and node all make sense, it's the rest of it that doesn't.
Makes perfect sense to me when Steven talks about Node structure as almost nation-like.
From a territory perspective it has ancillary nodes to play with and expand towards that redistricts the map, so that if a metropolis falls there's a significant difference in the layout of the world and the layout of these almost nation-like territories.[56] – Steven Sharif
Maybe he will change the structure, but this has always come off as a Node War game to me, so from that perspective, I don't think so. Couple that with him mentioning, on a stream, that they have no plans on interfering with the prevention of one guild becoming the strongest guild that nobody can compete with, because those guilds will probably fall apart and splinter. Enter Affiliations.
Q: How will you stop big mafia guilds from owning all the good dungeons and world bosses by camping them?
A: The real answer to that is going to be what traditionally happens in a non-faction-based game where politics drive player interaction... Over time you have betrayals in the mafia guild and they splinter off into two groups and join the other side or it's like weird things that can occur in that regard. So I think that's the important way that will solve itself. I don't think the developer necessarily has to step in there and say no, let's railroad this politics or let's hand hold this aspect. I think that any time you have a bully, you're going to have a counter bully and that's something that we try to encourage as part of the politics process.[1] – Steven Sharif
One of the things that I think will naturally combat the the risk that comes with one mega corp or one mega guild owning the server so-to-speak and killing off competition is that Ashes is constantly changing. So the way that nodes spawn and despawn and can be destroyed; and the castles exist to exert pressure; and these world events pop up. It's a massive world and it's constantly changing. Those two things naturally combat the opportunity for mega guilds to claw control over a particular server.[2] – Steven Sharif
Guild size of 300 is currently the maximum cap that can be attained by leveling the guild and selecting the path of size as opposed to the path of guild skills.[6]
Guilds do not control nodes.[105][106] Guild leaders (kings and queens) can become mayors of nodes.[28]
Guilds hold separate roles in the direction of the node than the roles held by private citizens.[19]
Only a certain number of guilds may participate in these roles.[19]
Separate guild roles are reserved for small, medium and large guilds.[19]
I assume there are no player limits on the number of citizens per Node and if Nodes are the main thing to battle over, then the structure he has in place makes sense.
I'm asking you guys to take affiliations, and combine that with node policies and node leadership powers...combine that with land management....combine that with other gathering mechanics.... It only makes sense to have more PVP between Nodes, which means that it is sanctioned PVP and corruption does not matter.
Affiliations doesn't HAVE to enable PVP ITSELF, it's the other systems in place that tie in with Affiliations that will do this, such as marking foreign citizens of OTHER NODES AS ENEMIES. You think people are going to gain corruption if your node marks foreign citizens as enemies? I don't think so. Stay away from our trees! Right? It's the only way to protect your own goods and have more control over your own land managment. Otherwise PVE griefing takes hold.
Government officials have wide-ranging leadership powers.[3]
Mark foreign citizens of other nodes as enemies of the state.[4][5]
Declaring war on another node and rallying citizens to the cause.[6][4]
Nodes have a number of node policies that are proposed by the mayor to be voted on by citizens.[15][6]
Indeed, which is the problem.
World wide, most people have their friends and family as the highest priority, not the nation they happen to live in.
I mean, this isnt the case in places like North Korea and China, but only because that is how they are told to behave.
Your guild and family represent your in game friends and - well - family.
Not saying people wont fight for their nation, but most people wont fight against their friends and family just because their nation tells them to. Not without a gun to their head, at least.
Obviously the game can't really do either of those things (outside of RP), but I do think that private gain can trump "family" connections. I've seen quite a few guilds fall apart due to gear acquisition drama or farming spot rights. Node benefits and those same farming spots could be strong influences on inner guild drama.
Like mafia in movies
This is definitely not a problem. You would rather everyone within the same node kill one another?
While I understand what you mean by having guild and family as priority, it appears that the intent is to bundle together the largest group of players(Nodes), and generate confrontation between those groups, because this is a video game that wants node battles. This is like playing Overwatch and your buddy is on the other team, so you guys both refuse to do anything because you might indirectly kill one another in the game. Its a game that is designed for that purpose.
When your nation(aka Node) goes to War, you can help or you can decide not to help. Maybe the leader of the node will set policies which require players to pvp, and if they dont, they lose node faction, and in time can be deemed enemies of the state, forcing those players to leave and find a new node to call home.
You can change node citizenship...so you arent prevented from waving the same nodal banner.
If you dont want to, you dont necessarily have to be at war with each others node.
It depends what policies are enacted, if a war breaks out, and you can still group with your buddy. No doubt grouping with your pal will remove that purple name until you disband.
You aren't wrong need to be real careful who you trust, few bad people can ruin a guild no matter how powerful you are. Legit experienced it firsthand, then they were confused why there was no guild after, and the discord died.
where did you see this? steven said it works like that for node sieges only.
I always play a caster DPS. I have friends that always play healers, and are right in to playing a games economy. We will be in the same guild, but different nodes, social organizations and religions.
No system in a game like Ashes (that is a drop in the bucket in terms of time we have played together) is going to cause any conflict. If our nodes are at war with each other, we are just going to ignore it. If that war prevents us from participating in guild content, we are going to be pissed off at Intrepid.
People join a node based on the benefits of the node. People join a guild because they want to specifically be in that guild with those people.
As such, guild loyalty will always be at the top, and a game attempting to go against that will cause issues - regardless of the reason they have for doing that.
I'm saying that *IF* this is the intent behind the affiliation system, the system is a problem.
If it isn't the intent behind the system, then we have no idea what the intent behind the system is.
Do you intend to be in different node structures, with a parent node that has reached stage 6? Or the vassal nodes that belong to the same parent node?
It is not a bad thing to be vasseled, it is a good thing to be vasseled. It brings many benefits from the Sovereign, which is the the ultimate parent of that vassal network down to the vassal node itself; and it allows that vassal node to even live outside of its normal mechanics. You get to adopt some of the benefits that the node type of your sovereign is, even if your node type as a vassal node isn't the same.[5] – Steven Sharif
Additionally, we don't have a cap per-se that we've announced yet on the citizenship aspect of being in a node, but we do have soft caps. It becomes costlier the higher number of citizens each time one new person wants to join to be part of a node. So, there is sort of a soft cap on how many citizens one node can have and it might be that not all in the guild can participate in that area. So, there's kind of a natural divide: A pseudo faction, so to speak between who is a part of that node and who is not.[6] – Steven Sharif
Only one citizenship may be declared per account, per server.[7][8][9]
Your account is bound to one declared citizenship per server, which means that if you have two alts and your main character on one server you may only be a citizen of one node between those three... If you have an alt on a different server, it could be a citizen of a node as well.[9] – Steven Sharif
Then we have guild alliances, where certain services are shared, so that may inhibit some node wars. So its not all about node wars, but there will be plenty of it.
This is great, because it gives me may options, each week I could play in a different level.
This is absolutely gorgeous!
I always missed being part of secret socities in games because sometimes your friends or people who you see eye to eye belong to other guilds/corporations. But having a society would let people come together to do certain things
My friend will be in an economic nide, with the religion best suited to healers.
If we are both able to be in metropolis level nodes, why wouldn't we?
I dunno, I can't read your mind, you tell me.
Node wars look interesting, and may help with other nodes descending on your node like locusts and destroying land management. But if it has to be a mutual declaration, it won't help with "white gatherers"
As I read it, if it's a mutual war, then citizens of Node A (and it's allies, which are guilds) and Node B+allies are purple to each other everywhere.
Here's a good option for node conflict: Node A can declare war on Node B without the "permission" of Node B. The citizens/allies of Node B start out white to the citizens of Node A everywhere except when they enter Node A. Once citizens of Node B enter Node A, they flag purple to the citizens of Node A. This, gives a territory a method of defending itself from white gatherers. It also opens up things for PvP organizations.
I mean - you're the one that asked if we would be in the same node cluster.
The answer to that is basically - if there are better options, why would we be in the same one?
Node policies that auto flag players for pvp who enter their territory, is a good means of defending against many things. Furthermore, a node policy to flag particular resources as protected would signal to anyone who arrived which resources result in pvp auto flagging and reputation loss with the node.
*edit*
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Reputation
Excessive negative reputation may cause a character to be deemed "enemy of the state" of a node.[1]
Mayors may also declare foreign citizens of other nodes as enemies of the state.[5][6]
The more good aligned or civilization building aligned tasks that you complete, you get higher positive reputation. But if you get low or bad reputation you could be deemed enemy of the state of a node. You could be deemed kind of a bad actor and it might raise prices for you, but it also might open up certain quest lines that the darker, seedier side of the world are interested in.[1] – Steven Sharif
I like the Node war declaring without permission idea. I am not aware of how many nodes you can be at war with simultaneously. If that were limited, it could be a problem, so I think policies that allow for a broader selection of who you can flag for pvp, within your node boundaries, would be more helpful. Especially if you dont really want to be at War with a node, you just dont want anyone stealing your nodes stuff.