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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.
Comments
As I said in my original post, this is filled with many assumptions. All I can do is go off of what Intrepid has told us about their systems until we can get our hands on these systems ourselves. And from the information they've given, it sounds to me like there won't be that many Metros being sieged down later on in a server's life. And seeing as how the higher level a node is the more it affects the world around them, and as a result the available content available to players, I'd like to see these Metros fall every now and then.
If all of the citizens of a Metro are automatically signed up as defender, and all of the citizens of it's provincial nodes are also automatically signed up as defenders, and they have a 6 day countdown of knowing the siege is coming.. You've got up to a maximum of the entire Metro ZOI's worth of citizens automatically registered as defenders. Add mercenary NPCs, Siege Weapons, Dragons, etc. and you have a huge amount of effort to overcome as an attacker of a Metro. Costs that can be paid for by the defending node's tax money.
That amount of effort is going to require a lot of organization and cost, both in gold and mats and recipes and players who even have the skills to build Siege Weapons or tame Dragons or whatever else will be needed to fight off 1/5 of the citizens in your server.
And what do these attackers get out of all of this? Some gold, mats, gatherables, and Relic Shards. Not much else as far as we've been told. All stuff large organized groups could get themselves with much less effort.
You know what vassal citizens would get out of their Parent Node being knocked down though? The chance to be the next Metro. That sounds like a real incentive to me, an actual reason people would want to throw away all of the costs needed to knock down a Metro. Ignoring of course, the PvP Mindset chads such as yourself, who I assume will be joining in on every Node Siege you can, because I know I will too.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
You wouldn't apply this same logic to other areas of the game:
Someone farming your stuff and griefing your mobs? Just move, players should be forbidden from solving this with pvp.
Since this vassalization system works so well for nodes, maybe dungeons should work the same way! The guild who farms most in the area gets ownership of the dungeon and nobody else can get in. No need to pvp and everyone is happy! Just move to another dungeon
You are unironically saying "betas" in the same sentence where you propose to just "move".
I'm getting serious carebear vibes from your post.
I'd assume those things have benefits for the guild itself, so all of them will be used by the majority of guilds that control the castles, so functionally there won't be that much difference for the plain node citizens.
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men. - Plato
It just needs
Defeatist? How is moving to another node and fighting them them defeatist in any form. Whining saying I don't want to leave my node sounds like someone who doesn't have the balls to take the risk and bring about change with their own hands. Not to mention it makes a better story
Literally aggroing your parent metro onto your little node has a potential to lose way more than just moving and then participating in the siege.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
Not every person is going to be defending the node that is going to get capped. Else attacking nodes is going to be much easier with multiple metros deciding to work together and attack a single person and you will have to be fighting 1-5. And then them saying ok we don't attack each other and we stay in power and if the new person doesn't' agree we gang up on them.
Also why do you keep talking about metros this seems bias as hell which makes me assume you just want to destroy it so you can be a metro. There are a crap ton of nodes, there is going to be constant fights every week from different nodes going to wars fighting and defending. (something that i feel needs to get limited as well so you don't have large nodes bullying every single small node).
I let how you try to reference mats aren't going to be valuable you be default you are assuming their market will be trash. For me im going to assume the market will be good and not trash and all rare mats will be very valuable even more so as people try to find new recipes to make unique gear / repair / ETC. So by my own assuming you are wrong that mats will have 0 value and you can just get any mat anywhere easily.
Effectively you are trying to make a false argument saying there is no scarcity of materials for players without knowing the game or assuming that part will fail.
It is sad this is what it is about you just want to have your own node be a metro, its not really about pvp, its not about the many other node sieges that will be going on. It just boils down to that one thing.
Which I'm glad its not that dumbed down and simple to just get a metro, you actually got to have some ability of politics, foresight, and motivation, power. Not the easy way of ill just destroy them until mine is one lmfao. People out here really wanting to make games extra simple xD
What you are trying to go for
What IS is going for
You want to play checkers but AoC is making you play Chess.
Convincing everyone else in your little node and then getting help from others, all while trying your best to not let Metro know that it's your node that's going to siege - that's chess.
And yes, Steven wants nodes to be the highest point of loyalty for people, so of fucking course we'd want our node to be a metro. That's the entire fucking point.
That isn't chess that is checkers and one dimensional. You working to get a node destroyed with other nodes while convincing people to move and economy weakening the metro. To come back after and repeat the process until you can own the next metro, while restricting the growth of neighboring nodes so they can't gain xp on you. While your people keep mayorship retrained so you will have a metro that you run with your own hands.
Having a direct path to siege a node is easier than having to deal with extra steps. So simply just being able to attack at your own node is much easier and therefore checkers.
Sounds like you don't want it that badly if you aren't ready to take the risk needed to do that.
People want full free for all but i highly doubt AoC is going to be doing that as it would create more chaotic pvp. Fights are going to be more meaningful and controlled (only outlier is how will guild dec's work). Nodes are going to end up being more empires vrs empires fighting each other not exactly node vrs node. And overtime those empires will fall apart or be defeated in small wars or large ones where who metros fall.
Most likely part of them as well trying to keep the economy in check and not having it crash or be so chaotic which would create a negative impact on players. Ontop of reduction to the amount of content players can do.
And I'm not even asking to change that in this thread, all I'm asking for is the option to say no. They'll probably beat me, obviously they have more people and better organizational skills since they were able to level their node faster in the first place, but at least let me have a chance to fight back.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
The risk is me losing all the shit in my node, because if my attempt to overthrow the upper echelon fails - they'll retaliate and destroy my node. Moving out from the node literally removes that risk. You will risk nothing if you do things the way you're suggesting, exactly because you'd have all the time in the world to prepare for the attack and can move all the things you'd want beforehand.
is not going to happen.
@nikr im about to group you in with his comments since you keep liking this stuff.
You both are trying to suggest all elements of the game and the effects players can have are just boiled down to who levels faster?
Imagine we sat down and discused point by point instead of trying to gloss over the entire system and saying they just leveled faster.
Why did they level faster (where they working together with multiple guilds, recruiting other people to their node, completing special quest, Storylines, transporting a lot of materials, etc)
What can you do to stop them (Pulling people from their node, stopping their material transport, node war to destroy them, general pvp to slow down their growth, steal their resources in their territory, etc)
I'm sure i can think of more but its certainly not just as simple as they got more xp and leveled before us. And i figured it was the metro thing as there are certain types of players that are weaker and want what the best guilds have without the ability to really accomplish it.
to the point of the guild, if that guild is that sweaty and powerful hat you feel in that mind set and you cant complete with them. Why in the 9 hells do you think you would stand a chance in fighting them lmao? Hell if by some miracle you won (which you shouldn't with the uncompetitive mind set) hell even if you weren't the ones to destroy them. And somehow you got a metro, they would just destroy your metro right away.
If your concern that you can't beat them is because they are very sweaty (like some guilds are already planning on being) a metro is out of your league trust me.
I'm making a point that there is more complexity to the current system in you making your node a metro than just directly attacking. Hence checkers and chess.
You have a weird way of defining the word risk and using it to try to push your point in a way that doesn't make sense. If you are trying to have your metro be destroyed and you decide to move to another node to help them attack. Do you just expect that node can't retaliate again you? You are directly creating a conflict and war has consequences. There is plenty of risk that will be involved in fact more since everyone will need to transport there stuff so it is like double the risk if you get dec'd on as well.
Like all im hearing is i want i want, but nothing substantial to back up any kind of argument lol.
The system doesn't change. The complexity doesn't change. Nothing fucking changes except for the fact that we, as a vassal citizen, can now join the attack. That's it. If anything, that's more complexity because the current system doesn't have this feature rn.
Also, you can be a hobo and join the attack, so the metro wouldn't even know where to retaliate, while being a vassal citizen would show up and point them directly at your node (that is if we can see citizenship in the player nameplate, which I hope we do).
Not everyone will have the option available to them, I may not have enough people with me to stand a chance, the costs might be too much, etc. Those are the situations I'd choose the other options you've been saying, to move, to be cheesy and drop citizenship and join in on any sieges there might be from others, to go through the voting system of the node itself, attacking their trade caravans hoping to hurt them that way, etc.
All those are great options, I just also want the option to siege them if I did feel like I had the numbers ontop of those other options.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
It does change but I'm sure it is things we will find more about down the load as there are still a lot of blanks. With the cost of becoming a citizen and losing it, the amount of storage you have at a node between a citizen, non citizen and someone with a house.
Once we know the limitations it will help paint a more clear picture. If there are no limits than it will be easy for you to leave and rejoin but i have a feeling that won't be the case. Even looking back tot heir last live stream as it took multiple days to get the mats from the caravan.
At the very least housing is separate from citizenship so you get to keep your house when dropping citizenship which is nice. But like you said, there's a lot of blanks, and a lot of work for them to do. That could easily be changed.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
What is stupid to you is not stupid to me, citizenship should mean something and also give you bonuses as you are paying taxes after all....
What is stupid is a game with 0 limits letting players do anything and have a large impact without any kind of control.
Everything has to do with the economy that is why you have guidelines in place. And a Metro / higher end cities is the tipity top when it comes to economy...
You aren't getting around game mechanics, that is literarily how the mechanic is suppose to work...you don't like your metro don't help them or leave and join another node to destroy it. Either way both have consequences.
you literarily just want to attack them because they are a metro. Which shows to me this system is working as intended. Only attacks on metros should be committed ones not half ass. If you can't commit to leaving your node you do not have the commitment one should have to destroying that metro. Let alone using the attack cooldown on that city.
Tell me, if you're a rich citizen with a full storage, which took you months and months of grinding - do you want to lose a huge part of it because of your node being destroyed? Because you lose your citizenship even before your freehold (if you had it) gets destroyed. So if your suggestion was implemented, people would lose a ton of shit purely because the node got destroyed.
Also, here's the benefits we do know already and storage ain't one of them
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Citizenship#Citizenship_benefits
Being able to store your stuff elsewhere, like in some safe haven that never gets targeted for sieges or whatever just sounds like another form of loophole to me... But that's for another convo.
I'd even ask for more risk when you lose your node, like losing your gear, the stuff that actually matters to an MMO player
If it were up to me, node citizenship would be an even bigger deal than the devs have made it out to be. Longer wait times, larger downsides to not being a citizen, etc. Which is another reason I don't want dropping citizenship to just be the answer to all of my questions here. I'm fine with it being the answer to some situations, but not all of them.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
But I understand that you'd want that kind of thing so we'll just disagree on that point. I'd imagine Mag will agree with you though.
That is the whole point, you lose a ton of stuff because your node got destroyed. So working to protect it is important and why its a BIG thing if it does get destroyed.
That is part of the high risk factor.
That would most likely be under service building part with apartments and housing. As you will have your storages there and most likely ways to get more or hold more space within them do to upgrades int he node, etc. With higher bonus be towards citizens. Anything is possible with that once we get to see more of it working.
I feel its starting to click in how big a deal it will be for node destruction.
edit*
It becomes huge economic destruction, but its a lever they can fine tune as much as they want in limiting how much you can hold in other nodes compared to the one you are a citizen in. They can go lighter or make you straight up fell like a homeless refugee with a grudge to bear to start the flame of the next war.
If you simply need a home to have more storage - that's fine, because having it =/= being a citizen.
But like I said, if citizenship will make it so that your 100 storage slots are 120 instead, and then when you remove your citizenship the 20 items in those slots just poof - that's shit design imo.
Also, this would work against your "huge risks of becoming a hobo". You just move the extra stuff outside of your home to another storage and you're free to do whatever. So even if this IS the design - your point is still weak.