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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.
Cap on players for Node Sieges? Sets up for zergs
OlympusBurns
Member
With the nodes stream coming up in a few weeks, I hope they provide some clarity on Node Sieges. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like they're set up completely different than Castle Sieges.
Castle sieges are (for now) 250 v 250. The guild leader who owns the castle (The "King" or "Queen") chooses who defends the castle and the guild who creates the siege scroll decides who will be attacking.
In Node sieges, it seems like it's a free-for-all. The person who laid down the siege scroll doesn't get to decide who attacks and all of the citizens of that node are signed up for it's defense. That could be reaaaaally fun to have some massive numbers fighting, but I wonder if it would end up putting stress on the server and result in poor performance. Anyone know if Steven has mentioned that there will be a cap on people participating in a node siege?
Castle sieges are (for now) 250 v 250. The guild leader who owns the castle (The "King" or "Queen") chooses who defends the castle and the guild who creates the siege scroll decides who will be attacking.
In Node sieges, it seems like it's a free-for-all. The person who laid down the siege scroll doesn't get to decide who attacks and all of the citizens of that node are signed up for it's defense. That could be reaaaaally fun to have some massive numbers fighting, but I wonder if it would end up putting stress on the server and result in poor performance. Anyone know if Steven has mentioned that there will be a cap on people participating in a node siege?
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https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Castle_sieges
maybe whatever you have to do during the war will keep people spread out during the event
To maintain the massive battle feel, you could very well have a single main area meant to focus on higher numbers and just all out slaughter, but you still want several objectives surrounding it to affect that battle in significant ways. Anything like stealth/subterfuge/sabotage objectives, magical channeling/point of interest control objectives, supply objectives, PvE/boss objectives, etc. All of these can be offensive/defensive battles which can prevent or activate things depending on the side, or even mutual objectives that each side is fighting for the same boon.
But yea, just need to make it a sort of requirement to split up enough to succeed.
I can dig it. My issue is that it becomes a numbers game at some point. If there isn't a set number vs a set number, then it becomes an issue of just getting more people on your side and less about skill or strategy.
Alpha 1 Sieges were capped.
They have a few options. On the other hand? If there's THAT much will/manpower to overcome a castle or Node-city, maybe it's just right that the defense is destined to fall?
I would be very surprised if node sieges could have larger battles than castle sieges. Whenever IS has described the number of players in castle sieges, it has clearly been to put the maximum number of players possible on the battlefield.
Also, the current minimum aimed for is 250 vs 250 but IS wants to reach 500 vs 500. This is far ahead of any game like this. Even if there is some other fantasy MMORPG with similar numbers of players on one battlefield (which I don't know of one), the graphics on Ashes will be far beyond anything else in large scale battles.
Starting at 56:30 shows what I mean:
I think there should be a question of whether the cap on node sieges will be lower than castle sieges.
There should be NPC Guards regardless, however, replacing people with AI in a situation where players dictate the future is a shit idea.
With a cap, then the other side can also fill to the cap and have an equal numbers battle. No cap is what makes it likely for a zerg to overwhelm by numbers alone.
It's not reasonable to allow the attackers to outnumber the defenders 500 to 100 unless the defenders have a huge natural advantage. And that would happen, since the only people who have a tangible reason to defend the node are the Citizens of that node and their close friends. Looting after a failed defense is going to draw a lot of people. Even the vassals could easily decide they want their node to shine and join the attack.
Surely, zerg just sleeps and lets other side fill the cap. Surely, building a system based on the fact that the side with the advantage in numbers will not abuse a system that directly works with numbers is a very good method
Yeah exactly. I think it's probably more likely than not going to be capped. The problem is if I lay down the siege scroll, I'm going to be mad if I put in all the effort to do it and somehow my friends don't get on the roster. This will probably need to be addressed in A2.
Rostering for the node wars will likely make "less-PVP-inclined-individuals" (me trying to not to say carebear) mad because they'll get excluded from the rosters. I'm fine with people not getting slotted if they're not good enough.
That makes a lot of sense.
There were no Node Sieges in Alpha One.
The cap is for performance reason.
More than 10k players are supposed to roll through entire regions.
At least 20% of them will be interested to defend their metropolis.
What will happen inside the siege area remains to be seen. And maybe tested. I hope.
I can see people filling the attacker's side and not actively participate, taking a spot to reduce the attacking force. Or other shenanigans of that sort.
And there are legitimate reasons for login off. Emergencies, unexpected events, etc.
Defenders will fill attacker side.
Attackers will fill defender side.
And they both crash their clients.
Steven wins.
If there are enough sieges on the map, the cap will not be reached.
So a player might have the freedom to join wherever he wants.
If there are too few sieges, then hopefully players enjoy the game.
@Neurath
Aye, but it might be a feasible solution to a more-fair fight. Again, I support the perspective that if only 50 defenders sign up while the full 250 attackers sign up, then perhaps it's only fitting the Siege go to the attackers. However, yours truly feels that it might be more-fun or more-entertaining to the 50 defenders if they *perceive* the chance to win, with a reasonable amount of extra NPCs.
There's a great monthly update video from a few months ago that addresses performance issues with sieges. Essentially, they run a game engine preview on how one of their computers runs with 1000 (it might have been 500, I don't have time atm to search for it) unique NPC's, versus the method they're strongly considering: having everyone else's characters look the *same* - to YOU.
The second simulation ran a LOT smoother; When all the attackers and defenders generate visually the same to your perspective and ONLY your character looks unique, the simulation ran significantly faster.
Without having to graphically generate 500 unique characters' items, armaments, character-feature customizations, etc? It's just that much easier on a player's computer - and I highly suspect that this is what we will end up with.
Also, I wouldn't stress the Siege numbers overloading the to-be servers for the game, since it's been communicated that the primary purpose of the Alpha One was to stress-test the capacity of the servers. They did fine.
Then their slot should open up for someone else to fill.
Yeah I thought about this as well, or people joining the defense and not defending on purpose. People will do it if they can, that's why those who are actually willing/most likely to defend should have priority, Node Citizens and Patron Guild members, people who have contributed most to the node. For attackers it could be based on whoever used the siege scrolls associations (guild, alliance, node). There could be a lockout period, say 10-15 minutes, to enter the instance for those groups then open up to the public afterwards.
Grace period for people who's PC crashed, needed to reboot or who got disconnected. Considering these events are meant to happen during prime time, some people could be stuck in a login queue. How long before being kicked out of the roster.
What are you guys thinking about "soft caps". People still able to join the defenders or attackers but, not being on the "official rosters", not getting any of the battlefield buffs, bonus and rewards. Locked out of the use of siege engines or admittance into the instanced parts. That sort of restrictions. Could this be an interesting possibility for sieges of city and metro nodes, where the citizenry could be well over the initial 250 players per side?
I think would be better to restrict the side you can join based on relationship with the nodes.
Players who belong to the same metropolis nation should not be able to siege eachother's nodes.