I think citizens of a
vassal node should be able to participate in a siege against their parent node. I'd like to start explaining why I feel this way, but first I think it's important to clarify some misconceptions I've seen people have about this topic, myself included. I'd also like to apologize in advance for how long this post is, and also how many assumptions I will make in this post. There will be a TL;DR summary at the bottom.
Node Wars -
Node Wars are
not the same thing as
Node Sieges. I think it's very easy to get these two mechanics confused with one another, but think of a Node War like a Guild War, citizens of Node A are allowed to attack citizens of Node B (and any of Node B's
allies) without corruption affecting them. Node Sieges are when a group of attackers attempt to destroy a node.
Declaration - Node Sieges are not declared by nodes. A siege can be
declared by any player who meets the requirements, at this point that seems to just be a quest line. Other players, and even guilds, may register as attackers or defenders. Once the "siege scroll" from that quest line is brought to the target node and activated, a declaration period starts, and depending on the level of the node, could be between 3 to 6 days until the actual siege begins.
Participants -
Citizens of the target node, as well as any citizens of it's vassal nodes (in this context called "provincial nodes") are
automatically signed up as defenders. Being a citizen of these nodes is not required to register as a defender, however citizens of a node at war (Remember, Node Wars are a different thing) with the target node cannot register as defenders. Citizens of
allied nodes cannot register to attack. This is not necessarily talking about the relationship between vassal and parent node, however at the bottom of this page is a quote from Steven that is very important to this discussion.
So for example, if you have a node that has fallen under your vassal state and you're a citizen of the parent node, then you could participate in a siege against the vassal node but if you're a citizen of the vassal node you could not participate as an attacker against the parent node; so there's a hierarchy, unless you were to renounce your citizenship.–
Steven Sharif
This brings me to the point I'd like to bring up, citizens of a vassal node should be able to declare a siege on their parent node. The main counter-argument I've seen to this is that nodes would always be in a constant cycle of becoming vassalized, declaring a siege on their parent node, becoming the next parent node, then getting sieged by their own vassal, etc. That because of this viscous cycle of sieging each other to be top dog would get in the way of any real progress being made. I'd argue this is where the actual fun in the node system has a chance of really shining and I'll do my best to explain why.
Nodes are the heart of the world, they create the ebb and flow of life. At their core, Nodes are pre-set points in the world, wrapped in a Zone of Influence and surrounded by geographic areas that change over time based upon player participation... As a Node advances, it influences the types of content within itself and the surrounding areas. –
Margaret Krohn
Change - I think Margaret said it best when she said that nodes are the heart of the world. Nodes are what make everything else in Verra change. They have massive effects on their surroundings, having the potential to unlock content that was not available before. The beauty of nodes is that they can change, they can rise and fall, and their surroundings will change right along with them. Which is why I think that a system where parent nodes are safe of the threat of siege from their own vassals will hinder this vision of a constantly changing world. Nodes are the reason Ashes has such a draw, besides Steven being against P2W of course.
Casus Belli - Anyone who's played a Paradox game should already be familiar with what this term means, but if you don't, basically it is a justification for starting a war. What reasons are there for someone to declare a siege on a node? There are many costs associated with declaring and preparing a siege. Sieges are not meant to be something a player can just declare on the spot because they're a little salty, they require time, effort, and a lot of preparations. It's intended for there to be real justifiable reasons someone might want to declare a siege and follow through with it.
I'd argue that besides the loot gained from a successful siege (worth mentioning
relic shards, a mat only obtainable through sieges), there are not many reasons to expect a siege from those outside of your vassal network. Maybe the
ZOI will change a bit, favoring the parent node of a neighboring vassal network, but probably not by much as each network will have it's own limitations of how far their ZOI can reach.
Now when you start talking about your neighboring nodes however, I can see
plenty of reasons neighbors would want to declare a siege. Let's say you are a loyal citizen of Node A, you and your buddies are doing your best to see that Node A reaches the highest level it can, one day maybe even becoming a
Metro. But a few weeks after the server went live, Node B a few nodes down the way has beaten yours to Metro. Because of this, you're now
automatically a vassal under Node B. Just like that. No politics, no war, no dispute at all. How could you be expected to see Node B as an ally and not a rival? To defend Node B anytime it gets sieged. To be friendly with the citizens who blocked you from getting your home node to Metro. You can't.
Being neighbors alone is often enough to give you a handful of reasons to dislike someone. Your neighbors are the ones hogging all of the resources in the area, your neighbors are the ones clogging up the dungeon you want to run through, your neighbors are the ones pillaging your caravan after a hard day's grind, your neighbors are the ones who decided a Jewelry Cutting
crafting station was the best option for it's only Grandmaster Crafting Station slot for it's node. Someone who lives in an entirely different region has no reason to care what your neighbors are doing, and so they have little reason to travel so far just for a bit of loot they could probably grind for themselves with less time and effort.
Stagnation - I'm sure the beginning of a server's life will be filled with wars and sieges and insane changes to the world over a short period of time, but over the course of a server's life I believe this will die down significantly. You will eventually be on a server with the maximum of 5 Metros, and I believe those 5 Metros will very rarely change. The people who probably have the most reasons to want to see a Metro fall will most likely be citizens of it's vassal nodes. The citizens of other Metros won't see much reason to go and siege down their largest trading partner, or the only source of certain Grandmaster level crafting goods, or the only destination spots for their fancy
airships. They definitely wouldn't want to risk earning the hate of the groups who worked hard to build their Metro up, at least not without something big in return. The King/Queen of the region the Metro is in will also see little reason to go and siege down the largest source of tax income within their region.
There just aren't a lot of reasons to sacrifice all of the costs associated with declaring a siege, especially a siege against a Metro. Because of this I think most servers will stagnate, they will see the same 5 Metros in the same place for long stretches of time. The world will cease changing, content being locked and unlocked behind node progression will stop happening, and one of the few areas where group PvP can happen will not happen nearly as often as I'd like it to. The world will look very much like the static worlds of other MMOs.
Politics - I believe politics work best in a scenario where both parties can threaten each other with violence, and choose not to for various reasons. Nodes will have a limited number of benefits it can offer to it's citizens. The best example of this in my mind are the high level crafting stations, as it stands now a level 5 node can only have 1 Grandmaster level crafting station, while a Metro can have only 2. This fact alone will be enough to see large differences in a region's economy. It'd be very beneficial to many citizens if neighboring nodes could coordinate which crafting stations each of them have. This is a perfect scenario for node politics to come into play, and for alliances between nodes to be made. But what if your neighbors decide they want to be the major source of Weapons in the region, and not you? What options do you have to deter this? You can attack their caravans but how far will that get you when they reply by attacking yours? You can drop your citizenship and change nodes to one closer to your needs, like the rival node. But what you might not be able to do is siege that node because it happens to be your parent node.
The option to siege down a node is possibly the biggest threat you could make against that node. If that node has decided to setup a
Black Market, which resulted in a noticeable increase in bandits attacking your caravans, you'd want to do something about that. If the citizens of your parent node decided they wanted to be a
Divine Node instead of a
Scientific Node which has crafting benefits, you'd probably want to do something about that. Without the option to siege down that parent node, you don't have many impactful options at all. You can packup and leave to a different node, maybe you can move to the parent node and
hope you can influence the voting enough to make the change you want to see sure, but you probably won't succeed. And people like to say you can always just hire some mercenaries to siege down the node, but honestly would you even have enough money to pay for the costs of a siege against a Metro, with enough gold on top to make it a worthwhile endeavour for some mercs? Probably not.
Without the threat of a siege, any politics between a parent node and it's vassals will be one-way. The only thing a parent node risks by making a decision it's vassal might disagree with are those citizens leaving. But if those vassals had the option of banding together and rebelling against the parent node, then you'd see some
real politics. Real politics will lead to real alliances being made, actual coordinated efforts to setup organized trade routes between key nodes. Maybe even two nodes agree to defend each other in sieges. Real politics will also lead to a world you could really feel immersed in, if that's something you care about. Who becomes mayor of this or that node, what buildings are created in nearby nodes, which nodes in your area have a siege declaration timer counting down on them, all of these things will feel important to you.
Emergent Gamplay - Vassal citizens being able to siege their parent node could very well lead to some viscous cycle of constant sieges... But this is where the actually engaging and emergent gameplay is bound to pop up. The vassal networks who can workout some agreement are likely to see the benefits of a stable trade network. The betrayals that shock us all when certain nodes don't hold up their part of a deal, and the resulting drama and sieges because of this. The monumental wave that will be felt by the server when a Metro gets sieged down with a new one rising from it's ashes, and the stories we will get to tell one another about it. These are all the things that will make Ashes fun to play years and years down the line. These are the gameplay loops a maxed out BiS character can still participate in. And these are the stories that will keep new players coming in, wanting to be apart of this ever changing world.
TL;DR and Conclusion - So just to wrap it all up for those who don't want to read an entire novel, I believe there are plenty of reasons vassal node citizens would want to siege down it's parent node. In contrast I believe there are very few reasons players outside of a parent node's vassal network would want to siege it down. Because of this I think worlds will eventually stagnate once the 5 Metros on their server have been decided.
I am asking that citizens of
any node be allowed to declare and participate in a siege. I'm willing to accept some exceptions to this, such as citizens of a node at war with the target node cannot register as defenders, and that citizens of nodes allied with the target node cannot register as attackers. These exceptions make sense to me because those are player driven, political, node government
decisions. Who is a vassal of who has nothing to do with decisions made by players, and happens automatically just based on which node happened to get more experience than the other.
