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Commissions - the upcoming February dev stream topic.
Nerror
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
Sorry if I am jumping the gun a little here @Vaknar . I just find the topic interesting. 
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Commissions
My two questions for this topic are:
Node commissions (the system generated ones) are similar to the Mayoral Commissions in some ways, but a crucial difference might be that node commissions don't provide the mayor with Node Mandates. The mandates are like an energy system for mayors they can use on things like policies, adjusting taxes, initiating construction, bypassing policy votes, node wars and more.
Honestly, before the February dev stream next week, I recommend watching the dev stream from August 2023 to give you all some context. If you jump to the 31:46 mark they start talking about mandates and then move on to mayoral commissions and policies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvsXn43Gak0&t=1906s
Going back to the system generated node commissions, in some ways it sounds like a daily quest system. I know many people dislike the D-word, but compared to other games, the difference seems to be that different nodes will have different quests based on the surrounding world state. So there is some variance. Also, instead of just doing them for personal gain, they help the node with XP. I hope they also give other rewards to the node, beyond the XP.
I imagine one of the purposes of the node commission system is to get players involved with the surrounding POIs to trigger one of the local events. This could be a monster invasion, which when defeated spawns a raid boss. Or something completely different.
This way, even if the commissions themselves are akin to simple daily kill or gather quests, they help start interesting events in and around the node.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Commissions
The system generates them based on the state of the POIs and surroundings of the node.Commissions are simple types of system-generated quests with singular objectives that enable characters and nodes to gain XP
My two questions for this topic are:
- What types of quests would you like to see? From the word "simple" it sounds like kill or gather quests.
- Should they provide the node with more than XP? Like temporary node buffs or materials, or better gear sold from NPC merchants, etc. Or is XP enough and anything else should come from mayoral decisions?
Node commissions (the system generated ones) are similar to the Mayoral Commissions in some ways, but a crucial difference might be that node commissions don't provide the mayor with Node Mandates. The mandates are like an energy system for mayors they can use on things like policies, adjusting taxes, initiating construction, bypassing policy votes, node wars and more.
Honestly, before the February dev stream next week, I recommend watching the dev stream from August 2023 to give you all some context. If you jump to the 31:46 mark they start talking about mandates and then move on to mayoral commissions and policies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvsXn43Gak0&t=1906s
Going back to the system generated node commissions, in some ways it sounds like a daily quest system. I know many people dislike the D-word, but compared to other games, the difference seems to be that different nodes will have different quests based on the surrounding world state. So there is some variance. Also, instead of just doing them for personal gain, they help the node with XP. I hope they also give other rewards to the node, beyond the XP.
I imagine one of the purposes of the node commission system is to get players involved with the surrounding POIs to trigger one of the local events. This could be a monster invasion, which when defeated spawns a raid boss. Or something completely different.
This way, even if the commissions themselves are akin to simple daily kill or gather quests, they help start interesting events in and around the node.
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Comments
And that would also be my current preference, cause I want all the other quests to stand out. Commissions should be the very base thing one can do when they got literally nothing else to do.
If the team has been looking into Elite Dangerous BGS to at least try to approach that standard, then I personally expect many good things, but then again it could be the usual 'trying to implement something based on seeing it a few times'.
If they haven't, and this is just 'standard fare' then I expect it to be terrible. Not because Elite does it super well, but moreso because it does a pretty standard job, and not managing to reach that level, would mean it falls apart fairly easily, and ofc it doesn't work as well in a game like Ashes, it would end up more like FF's Campaign Ops or TL's thing that I already forgot the name of.
Or worse yet, just a bunch of rehashed Neverwinter-style quests that barely take the Node status into account at all.
I can see how less prolific RP-ers benefit more from the Neverwinter style, and people like me benefit from the Elite style. I personally think no one benefits from TL's style and it'd be better without them, at that point.
- General killing quests, and other "fill" quests such as repeatable NPC (such as merchant/crafter NPC) escorts, gathering missions. While I absolutely get that a majority of gathering-missions should be Mayor-driven, I feel like the non mayoral commisions has a chance to provide some of that RNG opportunities that can lead to even small groups of players feeling like they make a difference in their node.
As "bread and butter" I'd prefer it if they are similar to the early Event-types in GW2. Small tasks - helping farmers water plants, kill off some local wildlife that is disrupting the node, escort a farmer's wagon from point A to B.... In other words - get the player prepared for the stuff that comes with the Mayoral commissions but with much less flair and importance. But at the same time I think there should be RNG-based small events that are a bit more similar to mayoral commisions that are scaled for about 8 player-ish (aka, a full group). These events grant minor buffs to the node (and/or it's citizens?) that is not enough to make a huge different in any way, but gives a sense of accomplishment to the people who discovered and completed the commission.
2. Should they provide the node with more than XP? Like temporary node buffs or materials, or better gear sold from NPC merchants, etc. Or is XP enough and anything else should come from mayoral decisions?
- I disagree with NiKr and definitely think there should be some rewards to it. Very small, basic rewards for the player - tiny amounts of gold/silver primarily. Potentially something that can be traded for a very simple form of cosmetics (like a farmer's outfit or something). And on those rare occasions mentioned above, a very small buff for the node and/or it's community to encourage people to explore and do these commissions so that they are not just "a thing that nobody does."
(Pardon the inevitable typos in the text, I had to write it in a rush and English is not my primary language. :'] )
Should all bears have asses in Verra? Or only 10% of them, like we see in some other games where you've killed your tenth pig without a liver in a row.
While it has only been mentioned for mayoral commissions, there is a possibility players will get node rep and node currency for doing the node commissions as well. It would make sense. Commissions from the local social organisations and religions are a shoo-in as well, with rewards towards them and possibly also towards the node.
It didn't even occur to me that they might not attempt something like the background simulation in Elite Dangerous. With the world manager and event triggers and all that already planned, it would be a huge disappointment if they don't tie it all together, but just have quests with no effect on the node other than XP.
I guess we'll see in a week or so, but if the system doesn't take it all into account I will be disappointed for sure.
Let gatherers have a higher chance of pristine stuff. Let processers make a normal one into a pristine one, but also require some other material. Let crafters combine several normal ones into a pristine one (but require a recipe from another npc).
I'd really like stuff like that, though obviously this is just a way to make the super basic "bear asses" quest slightly better. Ideally Intrepid would have a better design overall for all the things, but I'd be fine with the bare minimum (pun intended).
Commission will be more complex but I get strong writ vibes. I hope the quests themselves are more complex but I imagine it will be similar fetch and kill quests with dailies that are system generated and weeklies that are mayoral.
I think we should get access to better rep items with growth.
UUU'HHH'RRR'GG !!! Please don't remind me of any " Bring be Bear-Anatomy/Bodyparts "-Quests.
I will be forever slightly traumatized by how goddamn, INSULTINGLY dumb the one Bear-Quest from "Duskwood" from World of WoW-Token Craft is,
like : " Bring me 10 Bear-Brains or so. " - meaning we have to slaughter Bears and then exploit their Corpses for Brains. Jeah, there is actually a messed up Quest like this in WoW.
So.
How many Bears did i have to kill ? Always about " T.H.I.R.T.Y. " !!!
Why ?
Because apparently, only about every Third Bear DROPS a goddamn Brain when being killed.
How is this Nonsense even supposed to be possible ?? It's. a. BRAIN. !!! 😅 . 😅 . 😅
How is the Soul supposed to connect to your Body and form your Mind -> you know that Vessel that IS your Connection between this Water, Flesh, Bones and Blood-Puppet, to your Soul ??
It is scientifically proven - there CAN. BE. NO. LIFE. - inside a Body, without a Brain.
If People would medically "remove" a Part of their Brain - i don't remember which one it was -> then the "BODY" would no longer be able to react to the Chemistry of "Orders" (Will to Life) from the Mind of it's Owner.
Meaning the Person affected would get more and more and more sleepy over the Time-Window of several Days to Weeks,
then fall into a Coma - and then sleep forever a.k.a. "die", because the Body thinks the Mind - that thing between Soul and Body, is gone.
There is absolutely ZERO Possibility to ever meet any living kind of Mammal, that has no Brain. 🤣
Yes i know.
WoW is a Fantasy Game.
But that one Quest was the one who MOST hurt my I.Q. Points and insulted my Intelligence. 🤣
The problem here is, understanding how to implement something like the BGS into Ashes is a lot of work, and Ashes can't use about 1/3 of its components without effectively throwing random grenades into the economy.
Yet, it'll fall apart without something to fill the gap left by that 1/3, even as 'themebox' as Ashes intends to be. Once again, I do not envy the person(s) who such a job would fall to. Unless they're like me and really enjoy this stuff. Good luck to whoever it is if so!
For the purposes of the topic, things Elite does that Ashes probably can't afford to do:
'Instanced' style generation of (co)missions, because it ruins the node advancement balance even if you only provide Node Currency, not to mention some other related stuff. This is basically true no matter what they are.
'Peaceful counter-operations', because a node doesn't have multiple 'factions' in it, there's no way to 'change the status quo' in the shorter term (i.e. temporarily, which one does in Elite for all sorts of reasons). We might get something like this based on builldings or Social Orgs though, at least.
'Multi-pronged (co)mission completion options', because if they're not instanced, it can cause group A to lock group B out of completing their stuff for random amounts of time. (though idk if Intrepid cares about internal node friction of this type to begin with, it still breaks some other stuff in the econ flow)
'Mass delivery' type (co)missions - This is harder to say with certainty that they shouldn't do, but at minimum, the reason this works in Elite and would be bad in Ashes is that Elite 'warehouses' didn't even exist until late, and have relatively large upkeep costs, and the 'max stockpiled inventory' of a player without one, issometimes only 3x or even 1/3 of the mission request. Basically, even if you prepare ahead of time, the time spent in man/bread hours isn't reduced as much as it could be in Ashes. We've already been shown Mayoral Commissions that fall into this 'trap', but based on Steven's pitch at the time, they might not care about the twisty outcomes of this.
"No (currently known) specific counterforces", but I figure these just haven't been shown yet. If we're getting things like PoI changes, Catacombs, random Field Bosses, etc, then I figure this will be fine, with the only problem relative to these being the 'lack of instancing'.
Yeah it probably is a lot of work, requiring an actual team of several people. I think it's worth it for them to invest into. For example, the social organisations and the religions will likely have some hand-crafted quest lines, but I think we're also getting some system-generated stuff there. There has to be really, especially for Divine Nodes where the mayor is determined by who does the most quests for the node basically.
In other words, it's not just a system they can use for node commissions, it's for all aspects of the node that aren't strictly player driven. And if there isn't that feedback loop where both the actions and inactions of players are constantly visible and tangible and affects the node and ZOI, it's all going to feel really flat and boring.
I want an Ashes simulation running in the background for sure. If the goblins are left alone, they should start taking over some shit, including other NPC camps, affecting everything else. Perhaps they'll do a LOTR style thing where they chop all the trees down for their war machines in order to siege the node, also affecting the local gatherers, and causing before unseen monsters to appear to war with the goblins (and players) to save the trees.
As for rewards, something more than XP for sure. Maybe the node rep and currency is enough, depending on what we can buy with it. And rewards for the node... not sure. Perhaps XP is fine.
I except that players choose from a list and I hope there's many violent choices in there
and the augment system stream when? steven announced it over a year ago along with the tank stream. we got the tank but not the augment system