Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
That intent does not match the design in this case. People aren't joining kingdoms to advance their kingdom. They are joining a node to advance their node. With the current design, nodes are most in competition with their parents.
Using this picture from the node simulator, look at this group of red nodes. The competition for resources in this area is between nodes in the same chain. If a parent is taking all the resources and ruining the land management of a vassal, there's nothing that can be done here. Just leave lul.
If pvp is meant to be between kingdoms, then people should be made citizens of the kingdom as a whole, with nodes serving more as pvp objectives. But currently all signs point to nodes being the topmost loyalty to players.
Do people have a problem with that? The main problem people have is parents blocking node advancement and how this system is made automatic and boring with no counterplay.
Which is it? I thought we were trying to oversimplify it?
The system we propose is intuitive, adds a layer of politics and removes frustration from the game. If IS wants the game to be more about kingdoms, then their design should reflect that. I'm fine playing a kingdom builder, but things aren't looking good without new information.
You agreed with this before:
This is exactly it. It's here on the wiki for anyone still curious:
"There's node citizenship. There's guild. There's alliance. There's party. There's raid. There's family. All of these types of affiliations have a hierarchy. The highest of which is your node affiliation"
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Affiliations
Intrepid want your highest priority to be your node. If you're not pushing for the glory of your node, then you're in the minority.
Is the glory of your node to be someone else's bitch forever and for all eternity, unless someone else happens to come along to rescue you?
Or is the glory of your node to make its own path and decide its own future?
The idea of: "Just leave your node if you want to progress it" is just blatantly shit. Why should you have to renounce your Node Citizenship in order to benefit the node that you're no longer a citizen of? If Wales wanted to fight back against England, they wouldn't stop being Welsh until after the war had ended. They'd be fighting because they're Welsh, and because it means something to be Welsh.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
I learned more about design around it as they further developed things and clarify.
You are trying to say it doesn't make when they are designing it that way lol? That does not make a whole not of sense.
Anyone can farm resources that is not exclusive to the parent node, this point doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You are trying to make a statement that a small node needs an entire forest and if other people take it than they are suffering, i highly doubt that will be the case.
Either way it doesn't mean there wont be some friction between the kingdom and players that is all part f politics and creates weakness within groups for other kingdoms to advance or take advantage of.
Yes not all nodes will be maxed and will get blocked its part of the game its like 5 different kingdoms made up of multiple nodes with varying strength. That is what they are designing for varying reasons including pvp.
Please stop tryign to take my words our of context your mid set wants gameplay to be dumbed down to just attack the parent node that is what is simple.
You are trying to raise points that honestly are not effective to muddy the conversation like trying to suggest the parent node is your mayor.
That quote is like 5 years old, as the game grows things change with their aims for designs. Even more so as more designers work and raise issues about the game including PvP and longevity of it on top of other issues and ways they might want to approach things.
The node is also the people there if everyone leaves they are leaving together as a node, peoples attachment is also what makes things more difficult if you want to go against nodes that were part of your kingdom. And like i said its like chess you have to do extra steps to get people to let go of that attachment.
Any other quotes from like 5 years ago you want to reference, this is the part that is always interest me in people don't have a game yet, they are trying to hold onto certain things like it is personal, naïve of active development where they have said multiple times things change.
You won't see me posting quotes from 5 years ago saying they can't do the changes they are doing as long as things follow the original pillars of designs they are going for.
We are not doing the same thing, you are trying to view everything as the "same" in order to say what you want is fine.
Steven keeps asking for feedback on different design decisions because this is an open development and Intrepid want to make a game that incorporates player feedback to some degree. This thread exists as that exact piece of feedback.
You are trying hard to look for a loophole, yes its open development and people can voice what they want. The thing is all your points were akin to smoke with no actual backbone behind any of the reasoning. Boiling down to i want to destroy the metro so i can be the metro. Pushing allt he advanced element of politics that could happen to be more simplified.
There is design they are going with clearly kingdom level while you can't just dec your own kingdom, which would create environments are more focused pvp, as well as keep the economy more stable for players. On top of many other points to support why they are doing things this way and again your points do not counter any of these. You just want to destroy without care of the design elements going into it. And why these points continue to be weaker.
The only decent one you have is parent node can dec on the other nodes and that one is debatable for either side. And most likely will be a last resort thing for them to do as weakening their vassals will most likely make them much more vulnerable to being sieged.
My friend you keep stating our system is both too simple and too complex at the same time but can't explain why.
You do the thing you are accusing us of.
Nobody wants to dumb down the game "just to attack".
Nobody is suggesting the parent node is a vassal's mayor.
Why are you so invested in this? Did you design this system or something?
If you purposefully pick a loser, that is on you.
You are reaching to try to convince yourself you are right as well.
Current system - You can not attack the node as a citizen as a vassal. Which requires you to leave your node (dealing with any restrictions of not being a citizen. Which most likely will require you to live at another node). This extends to your whole group if you are trying to attack it with your node as well. Meaning you are trying to convince most of the people in your node to leave it which comes with more challenges than convincing them to attack without needing to leave the node. On top of convince other nodes to also leave or some people from them to support your cause
What you want - Be able to stay in the node and convince people to attack the metro.
It is factual there is more steps involved with attacking the metro you are a current resident of. Which reduces the elements of politics to a much more simple form of pvp.
Then stop advocating for it because that is what you are doing. You are wanting all other steps removed and having a direct path. Steps that other kingdoms are most likely going to have to take themselves to be able to weaken and defeat other metros.
There were points earlier about parent node mistreating and needing to raise up against them when they don't really control you node so yes that is the vibe that is going on.
"The rest if it" in this case means midgame and endgame. At server start servers will race to first Metro, yes. But after that race is finished, the rest of that server's life will be based on who sieges who, not a race for exp like it was for the few months at server start.
It is the players who make the node a winner or loser, and just because a node may have started off a winner does not mean it always will be.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
Three points - First, actual tyrrany is unlikely. Leaving is absolutely the best option in that scenario because there is no recorded case of a significantly smaller entity gaining independence from a larger tyrant. You are unlikely to be able to even gain the resources to mount a competent (let alone successful) siege if operating under an actual tyrant.
Rather than tyrany, we are mostly discussing people being all butthurt about losing the race - these are people that should not have the option to siege their parent node.
Second point - they could, and realistically they probably will with what is in game now.
Third point - it could be, but the main avenue to resolve it would be to extend siege declaration rules to be account wide rather than character wide (we don't even know if that is the case or not yet). This would mean that abusing this system requires getting someone that is not a member of the parent node or any of it's vassals - which is now a much riskier situation.
If you are looking at joining a node mid-game, siege history should be a part of what you are looking at if you want to be in a node that eventually becomes a metro.
Or you could just become a citizen of a metro.
The entire point here becomes moot once the game has been live long enough for a metro to appear on each server - at that point players should have enough information on hand to make better decisions as opposed to basically luck at the start.
Again, if you make poor decisions when you have information at hand, that is on you. Don't ask for the gmae to be changed to counter your bad decision making.
It has been said both by players and by Intrepid that there may well be reasons for players to want to be in a vassal node.
I can personally see someone wanting to be in a military node for PvP reasons, but wanting that node to be a vassal of a scientific node in order to provide them with fast travel. This is even more true if there is a second scientific metro on the server.
I can see someone wanting to be in a scientific node for the access to recipes, but then wanting that node to be a vassal of an economic metro for greater market access to sell their wares.
The notion that everyone wants to be in a metro is just false.
Node loyalty isn't going to top that.
Steven thinks he can make such a game, but that is only because he has never experienced loyalty as a guild leader.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
Firstly, "more challenges" is not inherently better or more complex. Just throwing it out as such means nothing.
Example:
It would be more politically complex to declare war on a node if you first had to convince every other node on the server to agree with it.
The above is more difficult than the current system, but less fun, and the overall game would end up simpler. Why? Because there would a lot less wars because it would be impossible to get everyone to agree in practice.
Secondly, you still don't understand that having to leave a community to fight for the community is contradictory. If everyone has to leave a community, the community no longer exists, nor are you a part of it anymore!
I don't want to leave my party to level with the party.
I don't want to leave my guild to progress the guild.
I don't want to leave my node to progress the node.
Correct. Notice how you still need to convince your node to help you. There is still a lot of politics involved. A lot of people might still side with the parent if the incentives are enough. Some nodes might even be fully loyal! You need to convince your community to help you, and if you fail, then the parent will retaliate. What's important is that now everyone has a choice other than just giving up.
But the current system has no politics between vassals and masters. With rebellion possible, there would still be politics inside the vassal node when people need to decide which side to support. But additionally, now there will also be politics where masters have to convince their vassals to not rebel, while rival master nodes will try to bribe for revolt.
The current system has objectively less total politics than a system where vassals have options, and the poltics derived from the current system are more boring in nature.
The points about mistreatment relate to how normally if another node is making a dedicated effort to steal all your resources, you can at least declare node war on them to fight back. No such thing between vassal and master. Also, I would be surprised if a master can't make life difficult for a vassal node:
These are not the same as a mayor just like you said, but being dragged into wars and being taxed certainly affect a node.
Im guessing your new to this thread sine a lot of information has already been spoken off and most ignore things they don't want to hear if its against them.
Your points aren't really that strong you are trying to relate node and guild first off in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense. This is really just boating your post, guild and party activates are multiple groups that are going to make up a node. The loop around guilds are not tied to leaving a guild in requirement to attack a node. As the function of guilds and nodes are different and bringing them up to compare does not make any sense.
Other points that make your argument weak is you are trying to use a broad term more complex doesn't make it good. You are using it in such a way you can make this point to anything even if what you are talking about was low level or mid level complex.
To go on towards your idea there will be less wars that is the whole point, there is great change that will happen in AoC but it doesn't mean its going to be turbulent and chaotic constantly. There needs to be a certain amount of stability do to the effect of nodes being destroyed and its effects on players (loss of all the items / that means player items with their materials)
As said multiple times in this post (I get you only looked at 2 post of the 8 pages I'm guessing with the lotr meme) IS can adjust things to increase or decrease the amount of wars they want in their framework by adjusting things.
so with that point being debunked ill move onto the next one.
Yes you want a very simple element that is easier, and why i say it is dumbed down politics. Its more challenging and complex (hence the lotr meme) to be leaving your node. It becomes more than ok lets attack and try to win, but requiring stronger commitment from those within the node to be really for doing it. Commitment that is fair do to the effect a metro being destroyed let alone any node on the server in how it affects players in a negative way. Effectively you want the easier path.
You are making up thin air and saying its less when that is not true. You can try as you want to cover your ears and ignore that is literarily is more steps required and the steps are more difficult because it requires everyone to fully leave the node.
It doesn't matter how you try to rework logic so you can be right needing to LEAVE the node is an additional step with multiple implications stop trying to ignore that point.
Then don't support the war its that easy, use politics to talk to the other side or the node if you are that against fighting them. It adds other elements to the game that adds to the soft friction. If you don't want to do all these fights and the pvp is too much for you (suddenly now for some reason) it will be soft friction between the kingdom making it weaker and more easy to be overthrown if everyone is having issues with one another.
Granted this is going to have pvp in it more about meaningful battles so you should already be expecting plenty of wars going on. As i said before do to it being more kingdom based its like the wars of nodes all right beside you but far away nodes.
Just like any single node in the game can have people that take resources from your area, you as well can take resources from other areas. This is a mute point you won't even know how is taking your resources. Unless some dedicated group sends like 100 people and they are all part of that group. It might be the node you live in but to push this idea other people can't get resources from there is a bit silly unless you plan on decing any guild / node that comes near you.
Which to me sounds like you will have much bigger political challenges making enemies of everyone.
I'm still waiting for any reasonable points like i said before you are blowing smoke. Complaining about wars of other kingdom nodes, trying to make a broad argument complex things isn't always good, trying to suggest warring a metro isn't more simple while actually saying it is, trying to suggest extra steps doesn't bring more political challenges.
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes.
In order to be able to maintain an entity.
Nodes are like cells bound together to function as an organism. Players' energy to do actions keeps them alive. They need each-other.
Steven created this relationship so that up to 5 entities with a metropolis can exist.
But could also be instead 85/6=14 entities, each with their max node at level 5.
Or 85/3=28 entities, each with max node of lvl 4.
You are an entity.
Imagine a horror movie where one of your hands tries to suffocate you or poke your eyes.
If such a case could happen in some cases, as a rule imposed by some supreme creator of life, chances are that no advanced entities would evolve.
Yes, you should not bring politics into the discussion.
If you think in terms of modern civilization, nodes are like cities in a nation with a capital, not city states like in the ancient history.
The game model aims to create such nations.
Now of-course nations can fall if bad decisions are being taken.
The game is filled with ways to highlight that it is the players who cause this. And gives the chance to be able to defend against malicious actors.
I appreciate your intention.
Start by identifying malicious actors.
They can be gankers -> be a bounty hunter
They can be bandits -> defend caravans and observe who the attackers are.
They can be mayors -> choose well who you support and try to prevent them winning
It might be challenging to influence decisions of the metropolis but
if you are the mayor of a lvl 5 node, and
if you are skilled, you will find ways to keep your node and your vassals afloat.
If you are not skilled, well... that's how the nations will fall. And that's ok.
You are missing the point everything you want + more is needed. With the rule being you can't siege metro or other nodes connected as a vassal. Which means you all the indirect politic wars that come with it will be of a higher level without dude bro lets just attack them.
Okay I'll make it real simple.
Additional steps != Not always better.
Your entire line of argumentation is "harder is better", when harder in this case is just boring and dumb.
Ah I see you don't read posts and are projecting. Go back to page 3 of this thread and notice how I've already addressed this very point.
Also you clearly can't understand comparisons or wilfully misunderstand.
Best of luck.
I'll make it simple as well you are like its more than 1 step that is too complex.
Broad statements more complex isn't always good with 0 information backing any of the substance while being more for a very simple system doesn't really stand that strong.
To follow your input is not taking into account any of the games designs from pvp elements between wars with kingdoms and reducing as much unwanted pvp all the way to the economy and the effects.
Going to have to solve your problems with the parent with political and non direct pvp ways. Unless you are fully committed to your cause and going to leave node.
This is a good way to explore the idea. Let me add my perspective.
Imagine instead that you are a cell and not the entity. And each and every cell has a mind of their own. The entity wants to get surgery to fix their knee, but in doing so will have to kill a bunch of cells. Now THIS is a horror situation. If every cell thought and had free will, would it be justified for the "person" to get the surgery to fix their knee, but in the process thousands of skin cells would have to die? The rest of the body might benefit, but the skin cells (that can think in this thought experiment) at the knee might want to fight back.
If you apply the same logic to the game, the cells (nodes) are made out of players who might have contradicting wishes from the entity (master node). If only the master's decisions are important, the game is more boring to the vassals.
There is more interesting gameplay if the game isn't structured like entities and cells, but rather kingdoms and city states.