Commission rarity clarification
Nerror
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
At 1:29:25 in the livestream on Twitch, Steven says that higher rep with a node gives players greater access to higher tier (rarity) types of commissions, and provides unique content available to you.
At 48:32 in the same live stream, we hear that players can improve the chances of getting rare commissions in the node depending on how the node is developed. I assume the mayor plays a big role here, and that it's either policy based and/or based on a specific building or social organisation being built in the node.
The way they use the word "dealt" and compared them to cards, and combining that with the information above about unique content, it sounds like the commission board is not the same for all players at any given time, but rather that each individual player sees a random selection of commissions based on a pool of commissions that the node has. Much akin to a deck building card game, where the deck is shared by everyone in the node, but the hands that players are dealt are partially based on random luck and partly on their individual node reputation.
So, for example, a completely new player to the node may see a few higher rarity commissions every 30 minutes if they are lucky, where someone who has been with the node for a year might see a completely different set of much higher rarity commissions, except for perhaps one or two common commissions that are the same as the new player.
If this is how the system works, commission sharing becomes pretty important. I think it's also beneficial for the node overall, as it incentivises players to group up and share and get to know each other, furthering the node community.
But, I don't think a player with high node rep should be able to share a rare commission to a low node rep player, if that low rep player wouldn't be able to pick it up by themselves at the bulletin board. Or, in other words, players should only be able to accept shared commissions if their personal node reputation meets the minimum required level for them.
How do you guys understand the rarity system? Does it track with my take, or do you have a different understanding of it?
At 48:32 in the same live stream, we hear that players can improve the chances of getting rare commissions in the node depending on how the node is developed. I assume the mayor plays a big role here, and that it's either policy based and/or based on a specific building or social organisation being built in the node.
The way they use the word "dealt" and compared them to cards, and combining that with the information above about unique content, it sounds like the commission board is not the same for all players at any given time, but rather that each individual player sees a random selection of commissions based on a pool of commissions that the node has. Much akin to a deck building card game, where the deck is shared by everyone in the node, but the hands that players are dealt are partially based on random luck and partly on their individual node reputation.
So, for example, a completely new player to the node may see a few higher rarity commissions every 30 minutes if they are lucky, where someone who has been with the node for a year might see a completely different set of much higher rarity commissions, except for perhaps one or two common commissions that are the same as the new player.
If this is how the system works, commission sharing becomes pretty important. I think it's also beneficial for the node overall, as it incentivises players to group up and share and get to know each other, furthering the node community.
But, I don't think a player with high node rep should be able to share a rare commission to a low node rep player, if that low rep player wouldn't be able to pick it up by themselves at the bulletin board. Or, in other words, players should only be able to accept shared commissions if their personal node reputation meets the minimum required level for them.
How do you guys understand the rarity system? Does it track with my take, or do you have a different understanding of it?
3
Comments
That or just make it so they need to be the level to accept the quest.
If you have connections in other nodes and you benefit from getting higher end missions that is all the more reason to be social.
So in the back, something like this is happening:
"Faction A and B are at war, Faction A missions are about destroying enemy ships in warzone."
A top rank Ace Pilot gets missions to destroy 45 ships.
A novice Pilot gets a mission to destroy 12 ships.
The 'slot' is the same, maybe even the 'ID' is sorta the same and only when accepted does the 'parameter list' get 'saved' to the player doing it.
You CAN 'bring 3 novices along to help you destroy your 45 ships, but this is fine, you're all getting big rewards'. You can also 'as a top rank Ace', join a Novice's mission to destroy 12, for a lower reward.
FFXI is similar based on your current medal, but not as flexible. There are a few missions where within a category, you just get 'more' because you are closer to a high ranking Captain than a Squad Leader or recruit, and some other things such as infiltration or Espionage/Sabotage missions will have different objectives. The rewards will also be higher or lower.
While this can obviously lead to 'powerleveling' and so on, and I don't want to think about the balance nightmares involved, this is a valid solution in my eyes after years in those games. A more directly 'ranked' board might be better, but code wise, I can't imagine it's too difficult to note 'this player is High Rank, change the investment time and reward of this mission'.
I don't like it in Ashes, though, feels too game-y, as I noted, I'd prefer the 'Rank' boards separate, partially because sometimes you 'only have time to destroy 12 ships'.
I feel like the BDO one does something like this too, but I can't be sure because I didn't enjoy enough of the grind spots in that game to experience more than 8-10 of their 'triggered quests'.
Several of the commissions we saw were either kill a specific boss or go to a specific location. Sure, you can exchange for harder bosses or harder locations of the same level and increase the rarity that way, but it's still going to be very limited what they can do with that due to game-world space constraints.
It's going to be interesting to see how they handle commissions in the metros especially, with potentially thousands of players ranging from lvl 5 to lvl 50 all wanting to do commissions. There is only so much land in the ZOIs and the plan is to have a diverse level-range of content in all of them.
Commissions aren't intended to be the centerpieces of questing, Nerror ... even in the metros where the rewards are scaled higher.
Steven and the guest developers both said in the Livestream that commissions are supposed to be "bite size", "digestible", "grab and go" repeatables.
I'm sure Intrepid will make the commissions fun, have decent rewards, open other quests, and be a relaxing time filler.
However, I would not expect a massive crowd at the metro commissions boards ... because the better rewards will be in the core questing and other Ashes content types.
I agree in the sense that they won't be something that most people will be doing on repeat all day, but unless they really suck, my guess is people will pick up a relevant handful of commissions before leaving the node and venture out. Because why not? They can be finished on the spot, and if you're going that way anyway (to another node, dungeon, worldboss, story arc, etc.) why not grab them? They seem to be an important source for node currency.
My point was more centered around the sheer number of people of different level ranges in the relatively small area that is the immediate ZOI around a metropolis. Perhaps for cities and metros, the commissions can direct people a bit further away than the immediate ZOI, or focus on dungeons where there is content for many different levels at once in the same general area.
Overall I like having different rarities, and I guess we'll see if they are the same for all or much more personalized. I kind of hope they are personalized somewhat.