Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
If the node survives, there will be a cooldown before the node can be sieged again:
Village (30 days).[23]
Town (40 days).[23]
City (50 days).[23]
Metropolis (60 days).[23]
Right now anyone can register to the same siege as attackers (obviously outside of allies of the attacked node). I don't think we've heard anything about whole nodes registering as attackers. You can do that in a war, but not in a siege. Guilds can do that though, so any non-allied guild can register as an attacker.
Mag believes that "registration =/= participation", I believe that it is. Don't think we've heard concrete proof either way.
Even if whole nodes-worth of people register to attack, I doubt that all of those people will definitely come to the siege itself. But I definitely think that servers will be loaded to the fullest during big sieges, because a ton of people might at least try and attend.
If Mag turns out to be right then all of those registered attackers will get royally fucked over and will pretty much never even experience a siege, because participation will be either first-come-firs-serve or some form of random lottery. Both of which I consider stupid
If the node survives, there will be a cooldown before the node can be sieged again:
Village (30 days).[23]
Town (40 days).[23]
City (50 days).[23]
Metropolis (60 days).[23]
This was previously 20, 30, 40, 50 days.[71]
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges#Completing_a_siege
There's a cooldown before the node can be sieged again.
It'll be worth paying a huge mercenary guild to siege and lose, just to save your node for the extra month or two.
I was expecting the declaration period itself to be the "first-come first-served" part, so that as the siege starts, it runs through the list of registered players to find whoever is online and in the right area, before allowing any additional non-registered players to fill the gaps.
Also, unregistered people can't go to sieges, so the siege will start with however many registered.
What if Node A declares siege on Node B, but on the day of the siege, no one from Node A shows up, only individuals from Nodes C, D, and E? In this scenario, the attackers would consist of members from Nodes C, D, and E exclusively? I think that's fine by me.
So, if 2000 folks wanna jump in as attackers, but there are only 500 slots up for grabs, what then? Do they take turns? And say, if 100 of them are from Node A and they show up last minute, do they get first dibs on 100 slots, leaving the rest 400 slots to rotate among the other 2000 who showed up?
Sine anyone who is eligible as defenders and including the automatically signed up as defenders, can they just occupy a slot and remain AFK throughout the siege, simply to witness the destruction of the node so they can plunder later?
Anyone eligible as attacker can subscribe and don't show up for the siege and then later come to plunder if the siege was sucessful?
The wiki provides a lot of information, but it's lacking in the finer details necessary for addressing the complex questions.
This will be the most toxic play in the game
Any player can attack player freeholds. You don't need to be registered to do that. This might change, but it's the case right now.
And Steven has flipflopped on who gets to pillage node ruins as well, so we'll know that only after testing too.
That's because Steven hasn't given that information. You're free to ask for it in monthly Q&As
Until we know whether there's a limit on siege participants - there's no way to tell either way. But neither the siege declarer nor the mayor can prevent people from registering for either side of the siege.
But yes, as we've discussed in this thread, sitting on a hill and watching your parent node burn is one of the possible pleasures.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
My ideal endgame loop will revolve around nodes. After I've maxed out my character, gotten some very decent gear, etc. I hope to be a loyal citizen of some random node someday, and to ride the ups and down of that node's life. I want to watch it grow, defend it from invaders, and attack it's rivals. I want to stick around after a it has fallen to pick up the pieces and start again. I should not have to drop citizenship of my node just to see it grow.
But I just do not see much incentive for players outside of the vassal network I'm apart of to siege down my parent node. There's no way I'd have enough gold to convince a whole merc guild to siege down the highest level node there is. Other Metros would have little need for any of the mats inside of my Metro's storage. Anyone going after Relic Shards can just siege lower level nodes that are easier to take down, honestly they could even just work out a deal with that node's citizens to split the relic shards or the gear made from them. Where is the incentive to siege down a Metro for outsiders?
Citizens inside of the vassal network would have plenty of incentive to shake up their ZOI though. People close together have naturally occurring incentive to compete with one another.
Unless enough people can see enough incentives to throw away all of the resources needed to siege down a Metro, who's ZOI affects them in no way at all, we are going to see some very stagnant worlds. With 5 major cities that rarely ever change, just like every other MMO.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
If that quote from 2018 still holds true, I guess parent nodes just don't need to defend their vassal nodes. They can suck lemons. Sounds like an abusive relationship to me, and that 100% needs to change in Ashes.
Imagine you are in a scientific metropolis, and nearby there are economic and military city nodes. This scenario could well mean there are no religious nodes past the town stage in the whole greater metropolis region.
If the people of that region (or even just of the metropolis) decide that they actually do want a religion node at city level nearby, the way for them to get it is to destroy one of the other city nodes so that a religious node can level up.
This is something that could be done based on the desires of the bulk of the players in the greater area, but also could be done based on the desires of the players in the metropolis.
A metropolis (or the players therein) being able to make this call and influence the entire region seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Not stupid its called balance. Guilds leading the charge or mayors running the city will be in charge of coordinating attacks / defense.
What is stupid is zerg fest / uncoordinated gameplay and any element of strategy or interesting gameplay removed to just have giant ball vs. ball gameplay.
Quality does not equal fun, if a guild spends the time it takes to attack a node (which has mentioned to be significant) that should not be a ticket to a server gets to zerg a node.
As i mentioned before they already talked about balance with siege and trying to go to 500v500 if they can. Meaning they want fights to be running well and not trash.
I fully expect it to end up slots are filled and the person meaning the war can slot whom they want. With more potential limits be it a certain person has to be from a group of nodes / guilds / alliance of the attackers.
If there is a point where anyone can be in the war and its a zerg fest, and everyone just zergs a node and has 0 chance of it winning that will lead to some terrible gameplay, layered ontop of the real people getting f'd over being those that live int he node losing everything.
Idea you think attackers get's f'd over to have EVEN wars is utterly silly. Paying a subscription to the game does not entitle you to doing end game content for without investment that has major effects on the server and economy just to zerg rush a node to destruction.
Mayor and who ever else leads the city would be designed to pick and choose defenders (game will auto slot people in and they can adjust it. If someone gets removed someone else will be put in to replace them before the war and during if a dc)
I'd expect defenders to take up a % of the total slots and not be able to have 1005 of random mercenaries (war loggers) be fighting every single war on the server.
Attacks same deal based on the guild that attacks their node / vassals / alliance / guild will be most of the attackers most likely a higher % than defenders. And they will pick the people who are int he war with the rest as well being auto slotted. To dec a area it cost some substantial amount of effort to do so.
(if people zerg war dec every area I am sure the games balance is not meant for every city to be destroyed and reduced to lvl 0)
Edit*
To extra highlight this part a group of players from a lvl 6 node dec'ing on a lvl 4 node and bringing 3000 people and sieging 500 defenders since a server decides to zerg. Is not fun or competitive ontop of having large effect on the economy and the players living in the node LOSING all the materials they were holding onto in their STORAGE
There should be a fair chance for defenders and attackers to go at it with similar numbers and the best group being able to win.
Despots get deposed and that's a natural state of things.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
This is very interesting, so the mayor is kind of a coach of the team? Lol? That's quite cool
That would be pretty cool, mayor have a list of all people who subscribed, names, pictures, level, archtypes and he could try to put together the best composition for the bulk of the force.
That would be so cool
Perhaps make a deal? Tell them you get half off from using certain things I dunno. In any case more war = more PVP = more fun.
(I'll take my love in the mail Tenguru)
Knowing a lot fo the information would be great as well and how it should be for when you are selecting people so you can build your team comp, or easier to know other peple in the node that can help you with fights.
With how important node wars will be including the loss that comes with it, it is going ti be a pretty tense time.
WHY must subdued Nodes be able to act rebellious ? To be a Fantasy-Version of what the CUCKED West wishes to be ?
Oops. Sounded political. Am i getting banned ? Not what it would really matter.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Currently no guild !! (o_o)
It just seems natural to me who has the most incentive to see a Parent Node go down, it's vassals. Players who live half a region away won't care what my Parent Node is doing, they won't care about the local economy or politics going on within my vassal network. If they want to siege down a node for Relic Shards, they have plenty of easier targets than a Metro to hit. If they're after mats, chances are they can get the same mats with much less hassle the same way my Parent Node did, with PvE and lifeskilling.
There's no way some rando living in a vassal node is going to have enough gold to pay off an entire guild of mercenaries to take on a Metro. With the way they've talked about sieges, the costs of mats and siege equipment, time, and preparation that is needed would require a huge payout of gold to be worth it.
So where is the incentive to siege down a Metro? I don't see much at all, unless you're talking about citizens of the vassal nodes wanting to see a new Parent Node pop up in it's place.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
A metropolis wouldnt just go destroying vassal nodes without a really good reason - and probably also only with the consent of the bulk of the guilds in the greater metropolis area.
The reason they wouldnt do this is simple - a metropolis node needs the xp filtering up from its vassals - it may well not be able to sustain itself without them. The destruction of a large vassal node potentially puts the metropolis at peril - it is risking it's own existence if it destroys one of it's own vassals itself.
In terms of your comment that people in vassals could be making those same decisions - yeah,they could,but only in conjunction with their parent node - just as that parent node can only really make them in conjunction with its vassals.
Once it's gotten to a point where both of those level 5's are max lvl, and only paying their atrophy XP, then their level 4's and so on, you'll get to a point where most of the ZOI under a Metro is feeding XP directly to the Parent Node. This could very well put the Metro in a position of being able to siege down some of it's own vassal nodes without getting a hit to atrophy.
Obviously this is just a guess though. I can see plenty of reasons a node might willingly agree to be sieged down by it's Parent Node, Relic Shards for one, opening up content like dungeons or world bosses, maybe even large scale efforts to manage things like Land Management Score so precious sources of resources don't die out. A siege doesn't always have to be over drama. Which to me is just another reason vassal citizens should be allowed to siege down a Parent Node, for those very same reasons.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
I suspect there are more folk, often than a few who don't have the ability and or skillsets necessary to run nodes properly, so if you happen to get into a metro where many of the people aren't equipped to do their job properly, sometimes democracy isn't always the answer.
Sometimes just breaking the chain yourself is the answer.
What you are talking about now is a point of balance.
You're working on the assumption that Intrepid would set the balance of a metropolis to the point where it gets experience from vassals, but doesn't need that experience to maintain itself.
My assumption is that a metropolis node will need that experience in order for it's citizens to be comfortable. Without that experience from said vassals, that would leave the citizens of the metropolis itself needing to spend more time gaining experience in order to maintain the metropolis and it's buildings and services, meaning they have less time to do what ever they would rather do.
I would potentially agree that a metropolis node shouldn't be able to siege a vassal is your assumption here was true, but if my assumption is true, then it makes sense that they would be able to siege said vassals, but would only do so under very specific circumstances.
If Parent Nodes don't get sieged, their Vassal Nodes won't level up, and neither will their own Vassals, etc. The world will stagnate, and become stale. We will all reach endgame and have nothing to do other than lifeskill and siege a castle once a month.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
Vassal not being able to siege has nothing to do with people not sieging... People again are in for a surprise when they play their first actually pvp mmorpg experience lmao. THere is a reason why corruption as so many draw backs, if you have something fancy someone will want to take it away from you. Even more so when by doing so they get to look everything in the node.
I have 0 idea how you come to the conclusion vassals nodes not being able to attack means 90% of the other players have 0 interest in sieging suddenly.
Citizens within a Metro's vassal network cannot siege down that Metro, which means only non-citizens and citizens of entirely separate vassal networks could siege down that Metro. My question is why would they? What is their incentive to travel so far out of their home region, to come to my Parent Node and knock it down? The cost is huge, the payoff is whatever is in the storage of the node. The majority of the stuff in the node will very likely be things they could have just lifeskilled and grinded in dungeons to get themselves with less hassle. The only unique thing you get from sieges are Relic Shards, but why would you bother sieging down a Metro when you could siege down a Village for some Relic Shards?
In games like EVE when you knocked down someone's stations in a system, you'd then go and claim that system. There was an incentive for outside invaders to come and destroy your home. In Ashes outside invaders won't be gaining any territory, the ZOIs have their limits, and if they knock down some foreign Metro that ZOI will just be handed down to it's level 5 nodes, not to the invaders.
If outsiders lack incentive to knock down Metros, and insiders lack the ability to siege down their Parent Node... who is going to be sieging these Parent Nodes down?
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
If it turns out that nodes aren't being taken down as often as Intrepid would like,they have levers in place they can adjust to better address that.
Steven specifically said that he wants to keep hidden the game rules by which a node grows and ends up dominating others, to prevent players to game the system.
It is OK as it is described now, with 5 castles each taking taxes from most likely 2-3 metropolis owned nodes. There will be enough war to occupy these castles, every weekend.
Metropolises should be more stable and one falling will be an important event.
I assume you're not comparing castle and metro stability here, because castles never change, while metros are supposed to change if we hope to see any shift in player power on the map.