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To what degree will there be "soft" factions?

pgt1027pgt1027 Member
edited July 2023 in General Discussion
I already know that there won't be hard factions like in other MMOs, and I know how "factions" work as it pertains to the PvP system, but I was curious if there's any plans for any kind of system that might encourage birds of a feather to flock together as it were. Like in an in-game, lore friendly kind of way. Such as different races, different religions, "good vs evil," that sort of thing. Broad, server-wide rivalries that are related to the lore and setting in some way. Something more than just guilds I've never heard of before duking it out.

One of the big disappointments for me with EVE Online was that one of your first choices when making a character is picking your race with blurbs about their backstories. They're four different factions that have been competing with each other. There's the good "Federation" that fought a war with a militant religious empire lead by a god-emperor which lead to the defeat of that empire and a mega-corporation and a tribal alliance of their former slaves breaking away from the empire. But things are heating up as the empire gathers its strength once again and the various factions vie for power and territory.

And then you get in the game and learn that literally none of that matters, your "race" is entirely cosmetic and you can take any ships you want (and everyone just uses the metagamed "best" ships so the ships that aren't in the current meta might as well not exist), none of the player-run corporations give a crap about the lore factions and the "biggest MMO battle ever" was literally Something Awful vs Reddit.

I know not everyone is this way, but I find it easier to get engaged with MMO PvP if its related in some way to the setting, rather than just some guilds or websites.

Comments

  • VeeshanVeeshan Member, Alpha Two
    edited July 2023
    Each node to a degree will be a faction tbh it seems, you should be a node to become citizen of and from there you should be looking to level that node up for bonuses however these node are also in competition with eachother dince you cant out level other nodes nearby so if you want to be a citizen of 1 of the 6 metropolist then you wanna make sure other node around dont progress and if they do you can destroy if via node wars.
    im not sure how often u can switch citizenship however they seem to want player to general stick to a node and progress it instead of jumping ship from what ive seen. I think there a limit on how many citizens a node can have at once too based on the buildings the mayor builds i could be wrong though here.

    guild will also have somewhat of there own factions aswell.
  • pgt1027pgt1027 Member
    Veeshan wrote: »
    Each node to a degree will be a faction tbh it seems, you should be a node to become citizen of and from there you should be looking to level that node up for bonuses however these node are also in competition with eachother dince you cant out level other nodes nearby so if you want to be a citizen of 1 of the 6 metropolist then you wanna make sure other node around dont progress and if they do you can destroy if via node wars.
    im not sure how often u can switch citizenship however they seem to want player to general stick to a node and progress it instead of jumping ship from what ive seen. I think there a limit on how many citizens a node can have at once too based on the buildings the mayor builds i could be wrong though here.

    guild will also have somewhat of there own factions aswell.

    I got that, I meant something more like a server-wide rivalry that's related to the setting. Something akin to the "factions" you see in other MMOs, just not strictly enforced. That's what I meant by "soft" faction.

    Like, for instance, dwarf nodes vs elf nodes, good nodes vs evil nodes, commercial nodes vs technology nodes, nodes dedicated to this religion vs nodes dedicated to that religion, etc. That sort of thing.
  • DepravedDepraved Member, Alpha Two
    pgt1027 wrote: »
    Veeshan wrote: »
    Each node to a degree will be a faction tbh it seems, you should be a node to become citizen of and from there you should be looking to level that node up for bonuses however these node are also in competition with eachother dince you cant out level other nodes nearby so if you want to be a citizen of 1 of the 6 metropolist then you wanna make sure other node around dont progress and if they do you can destroy if via node wars.
    im not sure how often u can switch citizenship however they seem to want player to general stick to a node and progress it instead of jumping ship from what ive seen. I think there a limit on how many citizens a node can have at once too based on the buildings the mayor builds i could be wrong though here.

    guild will also have somewhat of there own factions aswell.

    I got that, I meant something more like a server-wide rivalry that's related to the setting. Something akin to the "factions" you see in other MMOs, just not strictly enforced. That's what I meant by "soft" faction.

    Like, for instance, dwarf nodes vs elf nodes, good nodes vs evil nodes, commercial nodes vs technology nodes, nodes dedicated to this religion vs nodes dedicated to that religion, etc. That sort of thing.

    that will be up to the players...

    as of now, you have nodes, guilds and families.
  • pgt1027pgt1027 Member
    Depraved wrote: »
    pgt1027 wrote: »
    Veeshan wrote: »
    Each node to a degree will be a faction tbh it seems, you should be a node to become citizen of and from there you should be looking to level that node up for bonuses however these node are also in competition with eachother dince you cant out level other nodes nearby so if you want to be a citizen of 1 of the 6 metropolist then you wanna make sure other node around dont progress and if they do you can destroy if via node wars.
    im not sure how often u can switch citizenship however they seem to want player to general stick to a node and progress it instead of jumping ship from what ive seen. I think there a limit on how many citizens a node can have at once too based on the buildings the mayor builds i could be wrong though here.

    guild will also have somewhat of there own factions aswell.

    I got that, I meant something more like a server-wide rivalry that's related to the setting. Something akin to the "factions" you see in other MMOs, just not strictly enforced. That's what I meant by "soft" faction.

    Like, for instance, dwarf nodes vs elf nodes, good nodes vs evil nodes, commercial nodes vs technology nodes, nodes dedicated to this religion vs nodes dedicated to that religion, etc. That sort of thing.

    that will be up to the players...

    as of now, you have nodes, guilds and families.

    I was hoping that you might get something to serve as a broader rivalry within the game, because players don't typically bother or, worse, it becomes something like "Something Awful vs Reddit."

    It's not any kind of game changer, I just think a broad rivalry based on something in the setting itself makes the PvP element in MMOs easier to follow and get behind.

    But thanks, you answered my question.
  • VeeshanVeeshan Member, Alpha Two
    edited July 2023
    pgt1027 wrote: »
    Veeshan wrote: »
    Each node to a degree will be a faction tbh it seems, you should be a node to become citizen of and from there you should be looking to level that node up for bonuses however these node are also in competition with eachother dince you cant out level other nodes nearby so if you want to be a citizen of 1 of the 6 metropolist then you wanna make sure other node around dont progress and if they do you can destroy if via node wars.
    im not sure how often u can switch citizenship however they seem to want player to general stick to a node and progress it instead of jumping ship from what ive seen. I think there a limit on how many citizens a node can have at once too based on the buildings the mayor builds i could be wrong though here.

    guild will also have somewhat of there own factions aswell.

    I got that, I meant something more like a server-wide rivalry that's related to the setting. Something akin to the "factions" you see in other MMOs, just not strictly enforced. That's what I meant by "soft" faction.

    Like, for instance, dwarf nodes vs elf nodes, good nodes vs evil nodes, commercial nodes vs technology nodes, nodes dedicated to this religion vs nodes dedicated to that religion, etc. That sort of thing.

    you will get that with nodes wont be race base wars like WoW but there will be diplomacy between nodes which causes wars and conflict between eachother for there own gain a t5 node cant progress ti T6 if there a T^ node nearby so they might convince another node to seige it to destroy it so that T5 can progress and the deal between the T5 and the attackers wil benefit them and so on. You will see alliances and rivalries without a doubt.
    Darkfall was a great game in this regard with the guild cities the dynamic of rise and falls of nations can engulf the world of the game.
    there was a darkfall politic map made by players and upated by players that showed the shift in alliances and update when a city fell to the attackers it changed almost daily :D
    https://winterblades.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/DFPoliticalMap-1024x1015.jpg

    Like here a screen shot of the politic map for guild who own city or hamlets, the same colours were allied together, eventually the Hyperium alliance and CoTC alliance went to war and it was basicly half the server vs half the server resulting in hyperium falls.
  • DepravedDepraved Member, Alpha Two
    pgt1027 wrote: »
    Depraved wrote: »
    pgt1027 wrote: »
    Veeshan wrote: »
    Each node to a degree will be a faction tbh it seems, you should be a node to become citizen of and from there you should be looking to level that node up for bonuses however these node are also in competition with eachother dince you cant out level other nodes nearby so if you want to be a citizen of 1 of the 6 metropolist then you wanna make sure other node around dont progress and if they do you can destroy if via node wars.
    im not sure how often u can switch citizenship however they seem to want player to general stick to a node and progress it instead of jumping ship from what ive seen. I think there a limit on how many citizens a node can have at once too based on the buildings the mayor builds i could be wrong though here.

    guild will also have somewhat of there own factions aswell.

    I got that, I meant something more like a server-wide rivalry that's related to the setting. Something akin to the "factions" you see in other MMOs, just not strictly enforced. That's what I meant by "soft" faction.

    Like, for instance, dwarf nodes vs elf nodes, good nodes vs evil nodes, commercial nodes vs technology nodes, nodes dedicated to this religion vs nodes dedicated to that religion, etc. That sort of thing.

    that will be up to the players...

    as of now, you have nodes, guilds and families.

    I was hoping that you might get something to serve as a broader rivalry within the game, because players don't typically bother or, worse, it becomes something like "Something Awful vs Reddit."

    It's not any kind of game changer, I just think a broad rivalry based on something in the setting itself makes the PvP element in MMOs easier to follow and get behind.

    But thanks, you answered my question.

    believe me there will be major rivalries. if l2 taught me something is that it will happen 200%. the difference is the rivalries arent dictated by the game devs, they are created by the players.
  • SolmyrSolmyr Member
    The primary advantages of their current approach are that it doesn't limit the number of possible belligerents involved in any given war, facilitating alliance spirals, world wars, and lots of intrigue. This should generally tilt in-game conflict toward motivations that make sense in the context of the game's lore.

    It also allows players to create every faction from the ground up. Want an all-dwarf kingdom that focuses on trade and hates elves? Go ahead and found it, whether you succeed or fail an interesting story will be generated.

    The downsides to that are obvious, and I think it's what the OP is getting at. Even with the node system in place, wars can become massive tangles of motivations which are mostly rooted in the real world, and cause the geopolitical landscape to make absolutely zero sense in the context of the game world - bad for both immersion and getting new players invested. I'm not sure if there's a good solution to that.

    Also, while the ability to create your own faction sounds great at first, you're not going to get a competent RP guild running the most prominent factions on most servers. It's gonna be a PvP guild called something like Big Dick Bandits vs. the lingering followers of some Twitch streamer who took a few nodes then quit.

    So even if the motivations technically make sense, the names of the factions involved can sometimes stick out like a sore thumb and shatter the illusion. Plus, without being tied to race, gear, location, or really anything at all, you'll be hard-pressed to find any visual cohesion or distinctive identity within most player-run factions.
  • VoeltzVoeltz Member
    Sounds like you're describing affiliations. There are religions and organizations throughout the world which have their own quest lines/backstory.We don't know much about them yet, but I'm sure they will cover it in the next live stream on Nodes. Steven confirmed recently there will be quests that encourage PvP on a past update. He didn't go into detail, but it sounds like there will be times when your affiliation's objectives will contradict others and cause player conflicts.

    Check out the wiki for more info:
    https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Social_organizations
    https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Religions
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