The node war looked much more fleshed out and diverse than I expected it to be this early on and it's looking great so far. The objectives are critical to ensuring that the entire war isn't just a zerg of two teams clashing. The fact that it's designed to turn into a zerg at the end is cool since it changes the flow of battle. I would love to see more of these objectives that shake the war up in a way that leads raids to split up and fan out or to gather up and charge together.
This war had a good balance of PVE and PVP and I love the idea of having to gather resources that can be dropped and stolen upon death, but I would hope the amount dropped is only a percentage of what you have rather than entire amount. Limiting the resources that you can obtain in any POI could be a great way to incentivize raids to split up in a way that almost always results in a pvp skirmish since they know that if they don't get to a POI first, than they will completely lose access to them.
It would be great to see a large variety of different war events that could be randomized for each war to keep things fresh. Doing the same objective in the same area every time would get boring pretty quickly.
My biggest concern for wars is it simply being a battle of numbers. The war events themselves ought to have a cap on how many players can participate based on the node's size, otherwise you will just have mega guilds with hundreds of players win wars with sheer numbers rather than any kind of strategy or skill. I've had some very unenjoyable experiences playing BDO where our smaller guild wars would just get completely overrun by larger guilds. Ultimately, quantity was the most important factor in wars in BDO which led to a more stressful playstyle of recruiting as many players as possible to increase our army size, making it more of a job rather than a game. A more healthy playstyle would be guilds only having to recruit for X amount of players and bring in the best of the best rather than grabbing any person they can find off the streets. a cap of 100v100 at the very least, but I think a better war number is 40v40. The average number of expected citizens in any given node should ultimately be what determines these caps. The cap can go up or down depending on the node lvl or number of citizens in it.
Another concern is how allies can participate in wars. BDO had very little restrictions on who could participate in a war, so the larger guilds would ally with other guilds, or pay mercenary groups to participate in their war. It was less politics and more of a snow ball effect where the rich kept getting richer. The top guilds would make a lot of money off the wars and then use that to pump it into their gear, to buy more mercenaries, or to pay their allies to keep themselves on top. Not even a stacking health/damage debuff for consecutive war wins could stop our server's largest guild from maintaining power indefinitely. There should be a limit to how many ally guilds can join a war, preferably 1-2 guilds. This would leave routes open for mercenary guilds to find work while ensuring wars don't become giant zerg battles.
It would be really cool for a game to imitate real life, where some nations have smaller armies, some ally with one another to bolster their army, some hire mercs to fight for them, and for large nations go on to dominate entire continents. However, it's not a fun formula for an MMO. I was apart of a smaller guild BDO and had the largest guild on our server come and absolutely crush us, take our node, and then give it to their ally guild who in return agreed to show up to their largest wars; that was the worst I've ever felt playing video games. I ultimately quit the game after this happened several times. PVP is supposed to be competitive, not a blow out. Imagine playing CS or Overwatch and suddenly being thrown into a pro bracket and just getting annihilated. It's the opposite of fun, and fun is what games should strive to be.
It's important that these fights be as balanced as they possibly can be made to be. There need to be major incentives or complete lock outs that prevent larger guilds from bullying smaller guilds. For example, a guild that owns a tier 6 node should not be able to participate in a tier 1 or 2 node war. A guild with a tier 2 node should not be able to ally with a guild that has a tier 5 node in their tier 2 node war. There need to be effective "brackets" that compartmentalize guilds in a way that they will be more likely to compete against other guilds of the same power. Ultimately if a guild wants to declare war just to flag on another guild to just kill them, size difference doesn't matter and I think that is fine.
It looked much more balanced, with all the back-and-forth. I'm sure some of that was "faked" by Margaret's raid pulling their punches. But I still liked it.
TTK seemed about right. Although, some people (not me) might say that healers looked too... unrestrained? Many of the fights seems to stall-out, which could be concerning. But I think the objective-based gameplay pushes these events to a close one way or another, even if both zergs stay healthy forever. And personally, I enjoy the endless, roiling battle that ebbs and flows the for the entire event.
I also liked the short respawn timers to keep people in the action, as well as the many different objectives pulling people to different locations to fight.
Sorry I've only got feedback for the event, and nothing for the larger-scale systems. I think I need to see how the other systems work in practice before commenting on them. (The mayoral commissions needed to active a war, the open-world flagging between citizens of the warring nodes, the different types of wars and the rewards/incentives for them, etc.) The current plans sound fun, but I don't have any experience with those kinds of player-run political systems and sandbox PvP, to be able to give good feedback beyond that.
In any case, I'm very excited to see the node wars system expanded further, with all the other war types and the different "phases" and "events" that make up a full war.
Love the group dynamics. I wanted to jump in and help my node achieve its goals, and come up with cool new strategic decisions to win the war.
War objectives:
I hope you don't overcomplicate the objectives to the point where it won't be possible for groups to coordinate because everyone will have different plans for how to approach the war. The most essential strategic decisionmaking should be limited to "Where do we go and how large are the groups we split into?", as well as "How many scouts do we need, and what do we do if the enemy shows up?"
Those are already very difficult to coordinate effectively in their own right.
Some of the objectives can be difficult and complex too, but the majority should be fairly straight-forward, and not make it very difficult to decide how to proceed if an enemy shows up trying to steal the objective. Otherwise people will be frustrated by the difficulty of coordinating, and discouraged from participating in wars in the long run.
(Although there is some merit to requiring knowledge of unspoken metas, like never starting certain objectives if you don't know whether an enemy is in the area; it's a balancing act.)
The games I played where strategy was the most straight-forward and still fun were RvR games. You could send scout groups ahead to start attacks shortly after the enemies responded to the first siege and get an easy advantage on the invasion timer threshold. Then you had to decide how many of your troops stationed at the initially captured objectives you'd send off to intercept any relocating enemies, and defend the secondary objectives.
Holding a set combination of minor and major fortresses long enough that a timer runs out and the war is won is a very simple and fun mechanic that shouldn't be slept on.
Frequency / Scale / Alliances:
I think the "PvE & diplomacy shape the world, PvP changes it" principle is nice, but it shouldn't get in the way of engaging gameplay design by dogmatically making PvP a rare, strategic, emotionally loaded device.
The extensive node war design with the different types provides an opportunity for regular PvP that only causes minor changes on the map. I think you should let mercenaries participate in wars that don't threaten to destroy the node.
If player capacity is the concern that caused you to ban non-citizens from participating in the node war, you can limit the amount of non-citizen players that get to enter a node during a war. Split the limit up in 50:50 in allies and enemies of the node to avoid one side flooding the capacity before the war starts.
I'm biased. Mercenary and diplomatic cooperation gameplay is what I hope to constitute the majority of my PvP gameplay in Ashes. I really hope you'll get players enough things to achieve that encourage them to recruit people for their purposes beyond just citizens and vassals cooperating.
What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion?
I'd say in every month, there should be at least one guild war (small territory changes and buff rewards) in about every other node. Sieges that threaten complete node destruction should happen about once every three months per node on average, which might mean once a month in some popular or hostile nodes, and twice a year in more passive nodes far away from the metropoles.
If these numbers sound like a lot, keep in mind that it doesn't mean that those nodes are all constantly at war with the entire server. All it takes is a dispute with a single node in the warring node's vicinity.
I could imagine seeing some nodes that have wars weekly or even twice a week, if they have conflicts with several hostile nodes surrounding them. Alternatively, those hostilities could be fought in proxy wars.
Personally, I love being able to log in several evenings a week and always having a PvP objective to go to. I recognise that Ashes doesn't promise to be the game for that as its core game loop, and I'll gladly replace half of those evenings with PvE activities.
But knowing that there's often PvP of some sort going on that feels meaningful to show up for with my clan, node allies, or the merchant who paid for my protection/support, just makes the server feel alive to me.
Balancing
Other players have mentioned war resource costs for respawns in the war. I didn't catch any of that in the video, but it sounds clever. If such a system exists, players who charge in like monkeys shouldn't be able to soak up the node resources without abandon though, so there should be restricted respawns per player, and every player should be reserved at least one or two respawns worth of resources, if there are enough available in the node's war investment. After exceeding that personal contingent, players should have to wait for resurrection or be forced to spawn outside of the war and be blocked from it and have to do something else until it's over, or something.
As for numbers advantage issues, aside from many of the well-balanced war competition systems you've already thought up, I think one of the best tools to counteract monopolies on power is to enable all sides, and especially the underdogs, to band together with allied factions as effortlessly as possible. Diplomacy tools for asking for reinforcements, strengthening alliances, letting mayors and diplomats debate the state of the power hierarchies on the server in publicly visible discussions, as well as private diplomacy correspondence chat rooms where they can easily invite node ministry members, and exclude individual suspicious players.
I think that should be the level where you really balance the ability for players to cooperate, and rein in nodes and alliances that claim too much of the server power for themselves.
Rewards:
- Advantages for sieges or bigger node wars. Outposts. Buffs.
- Debuffs on the enemy.
- Territory access. (As described in the dev update when you mentioned additional rewards for PvE in the contested/won territory after the war.)
- Mayor mandates.
- Imposing restrictions on mayor leadership powers for the losing node. In particular, blocking specific upgrades for buildings.
- Raiding/burning crops, or soing something that will affect the enemy economy beyond just a debuff. Tangible changes. Perhaps even to make them feel *less* painful to the losers, but still be fun to fight about. Something like half a day's worth of crops that won't actually sting hard, but still demonstrate authority of the winner, and encourage the enemy to strike back or resolve the hostilities through conquest or diplomacy.
- And perhaps there should be some noticable influence on story arcs development for nodes that have been particularly effective or active in wars and sieges.
Spell effects
These have been hotly discussed with the footage from the last 3 dev updates. I know people will comment about it here, and I want to be a positive voice on the subject. My full opinion is phrased out in my response to the thread here.
- I think the skill design shows that the vfx team has clearly stated priorities, and I think that's awesome and shows you don't pander to try and make everyone happy.
- I'd rather have them err on the side of more visual clarity than make everything look aesthetically realistic and subdued, at the cost of being unable to identify abilities by their effects, or even letting them be indistinguishable from the environment. I'm in favour of opacity, contrast, and saturation remaining relatively high.
- Some more muted pastel colours and nuanced darker tones with accents would fix any over-tuned sci-fi look.
Personal concern because I failed to send off my drafted messages in dev forum posts several months in a row, and I'm hoping perhaps there's room for this question. If there's no time to pass it on, I'll try to post it again in the next dev update question thread:
Regarding live events, mini bosses, and things like achievements/checklist quests/battlepasses:
are you making an effort to leave players enough undisturbed time to coordinate and group up for bigger events, and tone down the flashiness of small regional events, so players don't constantly get distracted at every corner from making their own decisions and grouping up for bigger self-directed endeavours like dungeon-farming and overland-map farming/questing on their own group's schedule?
No one but yourself can validate you for all the posts you *didn't* write.
I could spend thousands of words writing about how great the game looks so far, even being in development like it is. I will sum it up with the results of the labor already put in are very apparent.
Honestly, any criticisms would be on assets that you are currently working on.
The node war system is very good, I liked it, I hope they add events from other pvp systems, such as capture the flag, etc.
The world looks good, but graphic aspects need to be improved, more realism, more medieval style.
The pvp is good, but the tab target ruins the sensation, there is more action missing and difficult and frenetic mechanics.
Good job in that regard.
Points for improvement.
Combat: The warrior's melee combat is still not at the level of an mmorpg, is he a swordsman or a berserker? He must give a clear identity to that class, the warrior must be someone with a lot of frenetic movement, something like the character of the berserk manga (Guts). What's the point of moving if the ranger's projectiles arrive yes or yes, what's the point? The magician needs a lot of work, there should be magic specializations (Void, Earth, Fire, etc.) in this class. A druid class is missing and I think they will have to implement it sooner or later. In general, combat is its weak point at the moment.
Graphics: As mentioned above, the graphics have progressed very well, but the environment, lighting, etc. lacks more polish, a more medieval atmosphere is missing, as a reference dark souls I, II, and III. But good job overall.
Another amazing stream, the game just keeps looking better and better. Here are a few things:
Excited:
- I love that the event was designed with both dispersed and zerg combat in mind, it adds variety to gameplay and gives all roles a purpose in the event.
- The level design of the event area allowed for really cool chokepoint battles, especially with the wall ability.
- The mayor abilities and mounts added an interesting strategic element to the battle.
- Fighting in the open world between two nodes makes the wars feel organic and real. Something I really didn't like about GW2's large scale PvP was that it was instanced and there wasn't a sense of high stakes, not to mention it seemed too zergy.
Concerns:
- There will likely be cases where the mayor can't be present or won't be the raid leader for an event. It would be helpful if the mayor could appoint a champion to receive their mayor abilities/mount for an event or war.
- I apologize if I missed it, but I didn't hear anything about when large nodes go to war with small nodes. It seems like it could allow for an exploitive relationship, where the large node drains the resources of the small node while the small node really can't do anything about it. Conflict makes the game interesting, yeah, but only when the conflict can be overcome. I fear a scenario where large nodes effectively gank the smaller ones and are actually rewarded for it.
- An interesting way for small nodes to punch up would be asymmetric events, a guerilla warfare sort of war. Maybe the large node needs to defend several objectives and the small node only needs to take a few of the objectives to win.
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I think ideally events would be consistent in their PvP/E balance, like a 50/50. I'd hate to see a certain event being avoided because it's "the zerg event," for example. What are your ideal expectations when it comes to mass-player battles, and objectives oriented or best fit for small teams?
There's a phenomenon in PvP with large groups where both sides play chicken for imo a frustrating amount of time, where both sides are staring at each other in large clusters not really doing anything. Preferably this would be avoided, maybe with "initiative" mechanics, where one side or the other is heavily encouraged to engage and be decisive, maybe a buff (mayoral buffs might serve this purpose) or objective design where it's advantageous to attack at a certain time in the enemy's progress. What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion? What kind of impact do you want events like these to have on a larger war?
I'm worried that I won't have a chance to participate in these very often if the nodes don't have a reason to fight. At the same time, I wouldn't like always being in a war. If there was a mercenary system where I could join a war when I wanted, not in my home node, then if there was a node war or two going on in the world at all times I would be happy. A mercenary system could also help balance playercounts by limiting which side a mercenary can join. What event rewards do you think would be cool?
Something like a spoils of war system where the reward depends on the wealth of the node would be cool. War trophies to use as decoration in your home or node would be really cool, getting to display a captured banner from the enemy for example. Something that really advertises that Miraleth beat Winstead could encourage a fun rivalry between the nodes. I'm departing from the rewards part, but it would be cool if a war loser unlocked a "War of Vengeance" war type where they reclaimed their banner.
Overall, excellent stream - the node war system demo was solid, and each milestone makes sense from beginning to end.
Positive:
- I love that citizens have to contribute time and material to go to war. It’s not an instant queue. This allows players to actually take ownership and have stake in the node war - and the outcomes are meaningful for citizens. Well thought out.
- The objectives are PvX, and don’t have to be done one way. The ‘catch up’ mechanic is a good addition to keep pressure on the winning team, and not demoralizing the losing team.
- The flow of battle made sense, it’s directionally correct - so keep going.
- Steven had a front and center kill shot on @Fantmx. That made me cackle.
Constructive feedback:
- I’d like mayoral death to have a more detrimental effect on the battle to balance their benefits. Whether it’s a stacking debuff or something similar, it would create another ‘unofficial’ objective for battle leaders to take into consideration: mayor assassination squads, and mayor protection squads.
- The environment needs to play a greater role in battles - mainly to use choke points, elevation, bridges, etc. I know this will be kind of random, but so important to manage a battle.
- Without commenting on any specific UI/UX elements (I know it’s all functional now) - I’d just want to make sure that the overall progress of the battle and the current objective are obvious.
I honestly have very little that I am concerned or critical about to give feedback, I want to say I am happy with what was shown, with the direction, and saw a very positive reception within my community.
The main concern I had was in regards to PvP TTK which was low, but this stream made it look like its fine, so yea as for the siege itself, the mechanics, declaration, the events and phases, the war flow everything is exactly how I hoped for,
all the classes are looking great, good job there, I would like to see a bit more of defensive skills for the Cleric kit tho, maybe some form of proximity CC or a skill that pushed players away, something to keep it alive while running away since casts slow him down,
I love that these Node Wars and Node Sieges give every player the opportunity to participate in Massive PvP, including solo players and small groups, this is great! Everyone should get a chance of participating in meaningful massive pvp content!
However, I do wish and hope that there is Also more organized and focused content made for Guilds, with controlled numbers and players... which I am hoping is meant to be Castle Sieges and Guild Wars, for those, especially castle sieges, I am hoping it is Guild focused, instead of alliance, and for that it should be kept at 250v250 with a 300 member guild max cap, with the total liberty for the GM to pick the participants,
this is my main desire for AoC - Node Sieges are for everyone to participate, but Castle Sieges are for the best Guilds, and there should not be the ability for outsiders to participate or walk in and flag up to assist, they should either be instanced or have some sort of barrier/timer that kills players not signed up,
and just to add that I am fingers crossed that the team has time to add a basic Duel system for the start of A2 so players can PvP both 1v1 or custom numbers without penalties and with no HP recovery needed, would be awesome to be able to fully test the combat, classes and kits in a quick, easy way outside of events and content
EDIT 1: I'd like to add on the topic of PvP, that CC diminishing returns should be an absolute priority for the team, top 1 priority for combat, I think they shouldnt be removing stuns and CCs out of the class kits like apparently happened with the tank wall, there should be CC imunity and diminishing returns implemented for strategic use of those stuns and counterplay, and Im not talking abou a cc break I mean an actual CC diminishing return system,
also, please give more mobility/defense for the healer, a divine blink and a skill that pushes surrounding enemies away would greatly improve its kit
EDIT 2: extra feedback piece: Vaulting should be tied to pressing shift, you shouldn't automatically vault/climb. That can make gameplay clunky when you just want to jump over things, that should only activate when pressing shift or some other keybind that you can customize
Mira Mira on the wall!
Who is the strongest Node of them all?
WOOT WOOT GO MIRALETH =D
Love the idea of the Node War and how it provides a great sense of camaraderie with your fellow Node citizens. Also am glad that isn't guild dependent. As it is open world, there are still challenges to implementation in order to keep the gameplay fun and interesting given that players often migrate to wherever they can find the greatest reward for the least effort. The systems will need to be designed to create incentives for fun, balanced PVP gameplay, and discourage boring, one-sided or demoralizing gameplay. However, if properly designed, the one sided fights won't be that terrible and the huge epic fights will be well worth it.
Rewards:
There could be participant, citizen, and node rewards/punishments.
Participant Rewards:
Something immediate due to the opportunity cost of what the players could have been gathering, or levelling, or raiding if they weren't fighting the node war. Probably just a bunch of gold/exp/rep based on their participation to the war effort. Something non-droppable. Both winning and losing participants gain.
Citizen Rewards:
Citizens choose between 1 of 5 buffs for 14 days; +5% gather/process/craft speed/amount/material requirement reduction, +5% glint drops/purchasing power, +5% health/armour/spell resist, +5% mana regen/cast times/CD reduction, or +5% ability power.
Node Rewards/Punishments:
5% of Node Contributions leech from the losing Node to the winning Node for 14 days.
Citizen Punishments:
1% stat reduction for citizens of losing Node for 14 days.
Do not give chunks of Node territory exp to the winning Node.
Taking over a chunk of land sounds like a snowball scenario that could be abused and demoralize the losing Node. Messing with Node Borders just seems clunky and full of potential game play pitfalls. Keep the Node borders stable. It will be easier on the dev team and the player base, and I think it gives the Nodes stronger identity.
Thought process:
The citizen/node rewards should be low but long in overall power.
- Low because we don't want to demoralize the losing team and give the winning team too big of advantage. (5% buff in some area)
- Long because it should still have some time to pay itself off, after all it cost resources to start the war in the first place. (14 days)
If a Node can declare a Node War every 3 days (provided they have the resources/scroll), and the buff lasts 14 days, then they can have max 4-5 buffs at a time. Military Nodes could excel at this, and perhaps this is the edge that they get compared to other Node types. Or they can unlock 10% buff instead of 5%...
There may be many wars where there are little to no defenders over the lifespan of each server. Often it may just be one side doing a quick war against some weak node to get a buff, that's fine. A Node War against no defenders should still have a minimum length of 2 days due to objective spawn rates.
We should expect that the warring Node is going to win most of the time. They get to set the conditions of when and who they fight. This is totally fine and acceptable. They spent resources to unlock the war, they should have the odds in their favour to get a return on the investment.
This is also why we shouldn't punish the loser Node too harshly. Maybe they are Religion focused and get way better ROI doing PVE runs in their dungeon than defending from a Node war for the 5% buff. A 1% stat reduction sucks, but can easily be overcome with some other activity.
The big epic Node Wars battles between large Node Networks will still happen when the conditions are right, but we don't need to use threat of punishment as the source of that.
PVE vs PVP and how to organize the battles.
Few things I didn't like:
-War objectives starting as soon as the war was started. There should be a grace period to form teams and prepare for objectives.
-Teams being arbitrarily formed and distributed on either side. This should be locked to an in game UI built for Node War Objective Teams.
-PVP kills adding to war score. Only objective completions should add to war score.
Thought process:
Open World PVP has failed in so many games and typically devolves into boring mass overruns. Unless the game itself prevents this, or creates pressure in other directions, we should expect Open World PVP to devolve to this and rarely errupt in the epic battles we want.
Some really powerful tools in our toolbox are going to be Objectives and Parties.
This is why the Devs should focus on using in game UI to control Party composition with regards to Objective completion. Don't leave it up to the players.
Objective Design:
Objectives should be level bracket and party size based and have mobs packs of equivalent level/party size difficulty defending them. The game doesn't begin at end game, right?
Objectives should be limited in when they are available or have spawn timers so that groups have time to form and get ready for the objective battle.
When a war is declared, X number of objectives of varying party level/size design are spawned based on the stage of the node or citizen population distribution. While the war is on, citizens in the warring Nodes can open up the Node War UI and join a party for one of the objectives.
Party UI Design:
Players can join the Objective Party through a Node War UI and only Party Members can complete the objectives. New objectives become available for more/bigger parties when roughly even team matches are made on open objectives. Only Objective Party Members gain participation rewards for the War after it is over.
Node citizens that aren't in the objective party can still go to the area and do normal PVE/PVP and engage on enemy Node citizens without flagging, but they can't participate in the objective, attack the mob pack, or get any special benefits.
Non-node citizens that aren't part of either Node in the war will be normal greens doing normal PVE, PVP or gathering in the region. So yes, a group of 8 level 50s can go to the area where players are doing level 25-29 Node War objectives and kill the players, but they can't do the objective or attack the objective NPCs.
Example:
War is declared on a Stage 5 Node.
35 Node War Objectives can be spawned with 25 objectives in the level 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-50 brackets (5 for each level bracket), and 10 designed for lvl 50 groups. It starts off with 2 objectives for each level bracket and then adds more as the parties fill up and opposing teams get matched.
One of the objectives in the Node War is a "capture the flag" fight designed to allow 16 level 40-44s to join the objective party. The objective is located in a region of the Node that normally spawns level 40-44 monsters, making some of the PVE already in normal game world, and attracting that level of player base for normal game reasons. For the objective, it is simply a flag spawn for each side with a mob pack designed for a 16 person party to defeat quickly (5 minutes), or a clever/careful 8 person party to defeat slowly (15 minutes). We still want to allow for partial parties to be capable of doing the objective. Maybe another 5 minutes to carry the enemy flag back to the capture location with some kind of slow walk debuff on the flag carrier.
When a player joins one of the teams through the Node War UI they get access to capture the flag, attack the mob pack, see flag locations, see how many players are in the region, and some other benefits that make sense for the objective. This objective allows for parties to form up to 30mins before coming online, and lasts 1 hour. This objective is available to spawn at 6pm, 8pm and 10pm server times.
Once developed, the objective and mob pack could be cut and paste in each of the 85 Nodes at appropriately level based areas.
Also, if the objectives spawn depending on party vs party filling up, 2 teams of 16 in the example above, then the objective capture rate is a function of how many players of both nodes are online and wanting to participate in the Node War rather than just a snowball zerg from one Node capturing all the points at once. The downside is that the players can purposely NOT join objective parties in an effort to slow the war down by lowering the amount of objectives available.
Maybe the solution here is to have another objective spawn when a party is 75% full or something so that you still need to join and help, but the side with bigger numbers is only 1 uncontested objective ahead at any point in time. This way we can throttle the objective capture rate for our 2 day War minimum scenario stated earlier.
It's not a 100% fair and balanced PVP scenario, but it at least helps steer the ship in that direction on the open world while allowing node citizens of all level brackets to participate. And it doesn't require any special "leader" players to be online at the time of the war. Maybe the Mayor can join any group regardless of size constraints or something as a benefit.
Node War Declarations and Vassal Nodes / Node Networks:
It seems like the Node War is a declaration between two Nodes from the showcase, but from the wiki it is more like a Node Network War. This could get tricky to implement. You can have multiple Nodes from the same network trying to declare war on multiple nodes from another network. Does the first Node to declare War then prevent any other Node in their Network from declaring War until their war is over? Because as soon as any Node in your Network is at War, so is your Node?
I would think that it should just be between 2 Nodes of separate Networks, and then other Nodes in your Network can unlock a mayoral commission to join your War. That way it isn't an automatic thing and they have to spend some resource to actually join the war using the same system original war declaration. Easy to implement.
Can also use this feature as another good effect of being a Vassal. It could be easier for a Parent Node to declare a Vassal Node War Defence/Offence Commission, and perhaps get a bonus.
Node Wars are said to be a mechanism for rival nodes to be able to go through disputes between each other. With this being said, the current philosphy talked about during the stream regarding what the winner gains I feel is currently on a good course to be able to serve this purpose. Though I'm sure there are more ideas being discussed behind the scenes.
There are a few items currently I have some conflicting feelings on, that I am hoping the team will continue to discuss. I'm going to try not to bring up anything that isn't related to system design, mainly I don't want to talk about how graphics are still needing work or the UI is not pretty, as these are obviously being constantly worked on, and discussing stuff aside from the overall system direction isn't going to be constructive for this feedback.
First off, I am really conflicted that nodes under the same vassal system will not be able to go to war with each other. Most of the conflicts you will end up having will end up being with the nodes around you. If we are unable to use this system to resolve disputes, then I feel like a lot of this systems purpose ends up being mute for a lot of the conflicts we would want to use it to help settle. I would also imagine that if this was able to be used against other nodes, the race to metro would end up containing a lot more intricacies that a lot of players would have fun with.
Secondly, I currently have concerns regarding the location of these wars, especially when they aren't going to be occuring as much between neighbors. I may've missed how this works, but it seems like it will end up being a huge hassel to try and go to the neighboring node in order to compete in this war. Maybe some time could be taken to clear up how and where the battlefield spawns.
My third concern is the actual content of the war. I was glad to hear that there are different scroll types that can happen to change the content type of the objectives that happen during the battles. However, there are two items I am concerned about with this.
a) Regardless of the scroll type, is there multiple types of battles that can happen throughout the course of a single war? By this I mean do the objectives end up differing between battles. Or is it always going to be Kill X amount of mobs, Collect X amount of gems, then secure the God Spike? If the battles end up differing then this concern will be levied, but if they don't, I am expecting that these will end up feeling really repetitive if they don't have a wide flavor of battle content. I am really hoping that this system ends up with a rotating system of objectives that can appear. For instance lets say we use the standard scroll. The first objectives end up being what we saw during the steam with kill X mobs and collect X gems. The next battle ends up being a large battle over two opposing world bosses, with the first team to kill their boss wins. Another battle being over multiple encampments that your team needs to take control of to farm points to hit a win condition. One battle could also be some VIP based objective, where the goal is to kill the enemy captain X number of times. If the objectives during a war end up rotating it'll add in an element of expectation of what's going to be appearing next, and I truly believe will make it so this system doesn't end up burning out as quickly.
b) I know that it was mentioned that player kills will add toward a total war win condition, but I was a bit disappointed with what felt like a lack of PvP related objectives during the main phase of the battle. Sure the PvE offers a catalyst for PvP to be happening throughout the field, but there didn't seem to be any consequence or straight up gain for dying during this phase. Sure there is the consequence of potentially dying while trying to farm points or protecting those farming points, but I would've liked to see some consequence for death beyond what was shown. Perhaps for having something in the battle itself that gives the enemy team points for killing more of your team or vice versa would be a nice addition. Though I am sure this particular point requires further testing of a more flushed out war system during A2. This was just an initial item I had concerns on that I am hoping is at least being considered when dealing with a system like this.
Not a concern, but a potential expansion to this system, would be how your node treats your ZoI when you are in a state of war. There have been concerns with not being able to manage the resource density around your node with the enemy of the state feature being removed. This system could potentially counteract that, with when you are in war something like Marshal Law could be declare to make the area around your node a permanent pvp zone. Would be a cool addition to this system to alleviate the concerns players have currently with there being no way to do this without protecting your node, and would also add a new element to war that would be interesting to see. Just a thought though that I am not sure how many will agree or disagree with, but wanted to raise it nonetheless.
Overall, I am loving the direction this system looks like it is heading in, and I am proud of how far the dev team has taken this game. I am really excited to try this out in Alpha 2 as we move into it. Thank you all for putting in the work you have been with this.
Another concern is how allies can participate in wars. BDO had very little restrictions on who could participate in a war, so the larger guilds would ally with other guilds, or pay mercenary groups to participate in their war. It was less politics and more of a snow ball effect where the rich kept getting richer. [...]
There should be a limit to how many ally guilds can join a war, preferably 1-2 guilds. This would leave routes open for mercenary guilds to find work while ensuring wars don't become giant zerg battles.
I disagree with the method of restricting ally guilds. That'll just make it feel like a dice roll, and like uniting people under your banner is pointless. I think instead you just have to empower the opposition. Make it easy for guilds/alliances/nodes/metropoles to band together and support each other in overthrowing the power houses. Leave it up to the players to establish the balance and conflict that's fun to most people, just give the underdogs the tools to coordinate against an established power house.
No one but yourself can validate you for all the posts you *didn't* write.
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Visual Aesthetics and UI
Health Bars: The health bars of enemy players and mobs are visually overwhelmingly prominent and dominate the visual space, potentially distracting from the actual mob/player character and detracting from the immersive experience. A more subdued design or an option to customize the transparency and size of health bars would be beneficial.
HUD Elements: The UI appears cluttered with various elements such as the minimap, objective tracker, and player status indicators. They are dominant, take up considerable screen space. Simplifying, consolidating or allowing customization of these elements could improve the overall aesthetic and user experience.
HUD Team: should not need to see all players with the same visual depth. Your personal team should have priority and then other bars for the remainder of the group. Their is little gain by the height.
Combat Scene: The combat scene is vibrant and visually engaging, with distinct spell effects and character animations. However, reducing the visual dominance of health bars alone might go a long way to enhance the visual clarity of these effects.
Different mechanic/pvp mode. There are node wars and there are node sieges. Not mutually exclusive, but a siege isn't declared by a node, but by an individual (who is going to need a lot of backup before they can declare).
Mixed. I was very much looking forward to this stream, but to me it was kind of a bummer in some aspects.
So i like the game mechanics in itself. Very interesting, that you first have to prepare, you habe different commusions, different war types, the mix of PVP and PVE - all very very nice. The gameplay itself then was not so convincing.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
I really like the aspect of building up a community in a node and shape the world with that, also building up relations and rivals. Its exciting to have always some threat during a node war and the planning and tactical aspect of it is quite unique.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Node Wars Preview? (UI, VFX, and performance are things we know need love, and not what we want feedback on currently)
I know that you dont want feedback to visuals, but in that massbattle it was to me honestly shockingly bad.
Besides that i feel like the TTK was way too long. Sometimes Steven or other players where standing alone, putting them in some really bad position and they got focused and should die quickly, but it was like theyre super tanky.
The PVP Gameplay was very chaotic and in the end there was no focus, nor tactic not even reading the enemies group. It was just spamming aoe spells and it felt like there was no need for healing, since the super big flashy aoe effects are not really dealing damage.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
I played alot of Mass PVP, mainly GW2 and Warhammer Online. And i hate zerging. Unfortunately, the gameplay shown looked as if AOC was just about zerging too. There was no tactical or strategic gameplay, it was just spamming aoe spells.
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I guess its important that these ascpects are melting together. That PVP and PVE affecting each other and are not seperated.
What are your ideal expectations when it comes to mass-player battles, and objectives oriented or best fit for small teams?
What was shown was theoretically good, i feel like right now its mostly lacking of propper effects and readability.
Edit: besides that, iam the opinion, that a declared war shouldnt happen instantly, give it some timer, a minute or something is enough - but not instantly!
And one big question:
Between these two nodes, there is the possibility that wars happen all the time. Of course its not possible to create an unlimited number of node war objectives etc. how to avoid exploits? For example positioning before starting the war in the objective zone?
SolunaMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
First of all: I know you said in the stream that the effects are still WIP but I just thought I´d still share some of my thoughts
One thing that doesn´t have to do with the Node Wars but that I´ve noticed in a few streams already is the color intensity of some of the effects, especially in comparison to the environment or the look of these effects in general. I like the environment in it´s current state in Alpha 2 (even though I see potential for improvements as I´ve already mentioned in the feedback thread of one of the last livestreams) but because the environment is more desaturated for the most part, that wall for example looks very cartoonish imo.
The same goes for this spell:
Other effects like the shield bubble look very subtle which I really like.
I feel like the glow on these effects enhances that overall color intensity even more.
When I look at the fighting scenes in the Node Wars it´s like:
Huge strong blue spell here, tons of poison green projectiles flying toward an enemy there, etc.
And I think when you have so many players on the screen at the same time it almost looks like a huge blob of different colors with all those different and very strong colours everywhere.
Maybe desaturating some of them in combination with toning down some of the glow effects could be a good start. In my opinion having a very beautiful environment made with UE5 and then having effects in that environment that look very cartoon-ish is (at least to me) very immersion breaking.
I´ve never played New World but judging by what I can see here in this gameplay video of a mage I really like the look of the spells:
The blue glow on some of the objects of the environment is much more subtle, and also on the weapon of the player. The projectiles and pretty much every other spell (no matter if channeled or cast immediately) are rather desaturated but because of that perfectly match the look of the environment! Torches have a similar and less color intense look just like the spells cast by the mage.
In my opinion, having effects that pefectly match the overall look of the environment and the game in general makes much sense, and I feel like in Ashes the environment currently has one graphic style and the spell effects have a different one (a bit exagerated but you hopefully get what I mean ).
How do you feel about the Node Wars Preview?
Overall I think it shows alot of promise, but it does seem to have a lot jagged edges... It was a shame that you couldn't see the score, mainly because the impact of the different stages was very hard to determine. The bandit blood/ruby minning aspect was very hard for the viewer to follow (... mostly because Steven was flying too high and too much all over the place ). It seemed like it could have some potential, but it was a bit hard to follow along.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
PvX systems like the Node Wars system shown in this preview can be alot of fun. Depending on the set-up and different phases you can really mix in a great variety of small skirmish battles, PvE races and large-scale trench-wars between larger groups of players.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Node Wars Preview, and are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
I always have a great deal of concern when it comes to PvX styled events. MMORPG players have a tendency to not do what's "meant to be" or what would be "most fun to do", but instead do the thing that creates the greatest progress in the shortest amount of time. I think if you look to Classic World of Warcraft within recent years, you'll see alot of examples of this... In WoW, the battleground Altarac Valley, was intended as a large-scale 40v40 combat with alot of integrated PvE (i.e the win-condition was actually PvE-based; kill the other teams general.). In the "olden days" of vanilla WoW AV could take the better part of a day to complete, but we saw in Classic WoW that people could end an AV in mere 5-10 minuttes, without ever engaging in PvP battles; because that was the most efficient way to do it. The same happened again with the very recent Season of Discovery WoW Classic, where Blizzard made a brand new Zone-style PvP event - aaand that ended the same way; just a PvE-rush event... PvX requires such a delicate balance, and MMO-players tends to find a way to disrupt that balance, making it very hard on the Dev-team. So all in all I'm worried if you can find the sweet-spot for making an engaging PvX event that draws out the aspects of both PvP and PvE and motivates the player-base to actually just enjoy the event as it is, instead of trying to find all the little short-cuts and most efficient way (because that will destroy the intead of PvX)
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
It has it's uses. It's not as skilled based as smaller 1v1, 3v3, 5v5 battles, so you can perhabs enjoy these events with a bit more leisure, but still get the exiting part of killing your enemies (those big meanies!)
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I've yet to see the perfect balance between PvE and PvP objectives in a single event. I think the only true way to balance it out, would be to section the War into different phases where you make the players do either hardcore PvE or hardcore PvP... you could imagine two teams of 30-40 players, where you have a PvE race for one phase, a more hardcore PvP event (capture the hill, most-kills-in-10-minutes, last-man-standing or w/e) and then perhabs a more mixed PvX event at the end, but where every phase is instanced off so you force the players to focus on the task at hand.
What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion? What kind of impact do you want events like these to have on a larger war?
I think Node Wars, and Node take-overs, are such a massive-impact event that it should be something that takes months to prepare for. Lets say you have 30 Nodes on a server, you would (alliances set aside.) have potentially to ward of 29 other Nodes, and you could easily just go from one war to another war, to a third war, and so on, and then that would take over the game, since you would have to fight nail-and-claw to keep your node progressions, freeholds and so on. In general, I really don't like the idea about total Node take-overs. MMORPG are a very unique genre, because you really become attatched to your character and their progression in the world, and to have to worry about loosing large sums of it in Node Wars are actually more stressful than they're fun imo
What event rewards do you think would be cool?
I'm not sure I fully follow this question. Isn't the whole idea about a Node War that you in the end take over another Node and their progression, freehold slots and so on? (which I still strongly disagree with) I've never thought about Node Wars in AoC as a type of battle that would reward you with items, or currency for which you could buy items... I much prefere that, since that would put more emphasis on rewarding everyone with tangible rewards, instead of actually destroying something other players have spend hours and hours to build up... BUT, I mean, if you really intend to put in item rewards, then go for the classics! special and unqiue mounts, furniture, weapons, pets and so on, and then make it currency based, so that even if you loose you might still get some coins and through tirelessly sucking over and over you can still buy a cool looking mount of fiery weapon of total pwnage or w/e you fancy from the shop.
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Yokai TheaterMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited June 2
With the verbal NDA for the Phoenix Initiative’s test involving the Node Wars being lifted I’ll be adding things to this post not only to give my feedback but also in hopes of giving some context for some things from my own point of view as a tester. I also hope that this helps generate some interesting feedback and discussions.
To Intrepid at this point I must sound like a bit of a broken record (lol) but as with all of my other feedback posts so far I would like to start this off by just saying that the team at Intrepid are looking/asking for feedback, not fishing for compliments. It is ok to have a negative opinion and give constructive criticism, it does AoC no good if we are just yes men (and/or women) white knighting the game. I love Ashes of Creation and I love Intrepid. My feedback may seem harsh in text form or I myself may come off as an overly opinionated loudmouth but I want this game to be the best that it can be and don't want us to settle for just ok or mediocrity. I think that if you love something you should be able to criticize it (not that you are entitled to criticize, but that because you love something you should be even more so able to point out its flaws). I think that the direction that AoC is heading is a good one. I have always been and will always be here to support this project.
I am also well aware that there are a lot of people with the mentality of “it’s too soon”, “I need to wait and see”, or “oh it’s just alpha” as well as quite a few people that feel upset with AoC and Intrepid right now and think that giving feedback is somehow not worth it. To all these people I want to say that Intrepid is asking for feedback based on what we are seeing and experiencing, yes you need to come at it with a mindset of it’s still early, all subject to change, or maybe you just don’t like it, but not giving feedback is the worst thing you can do. By not giving your feedback you are not helping the game grow and/or letting the opinions of others dictate the direction AoC may take.
All that being said, I'm loving seeing and hearing how well the Node Wars are being received by the community as a whole, even if my own opinion does not 100% match up.
How do you feel about the Node Wars Preview?
My overall opinions on Node Wars have not changed very much over the course of my PI testing. I can definitely see and feel the improvements / work that Intrepid has been putting into everything, and I think given the short time frame between each of the tests that the improvements / work / changes that I have seen are phenomenal. It has also felt fun to be testing, just being able to play AoC with people, and to have conversations about AoC. However, I still don’t think that the Node War event itself feels fun or enjoyable.
Even if you look at this event/battle for what it is as just one small part of the much larger whole that is the Node War, being one objective among many, this event (to me at least) is far too simple and boring. After taking part in it once or twice I could see it being viewed as more of a chore to do rather than a fun event to take part in. And that is if there is not just a clear numbers advantage, because if one side out numbers the other I could easily see this become a one sided stomp and go down a very sad path that several other large scale PvX/PvP MMORPGs have gone down before.
Not to say that Intrepid hasn’t taken some very good strides in order to try and attempt to spice up this node war event. (which I will get into)
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
If I had to put it into words I would say that I love the social aspect of Node Wars. I think that there is a ton of potential here for social, political, and economical game play in a MMORPG, something that I think the genre as a whole is sorely low on but also what makes it so good at its peak.
This also has the potential to offer a wide range of different and fun activities, events, objectives, and battlegrounds within the Node Wars system.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Node Wars Preview? (UI, VFX, and performance are things we know need love, and not what we want feedback on currently)
I know you said you don’t want feedback on the performance but I do want to say for people that over the course of our testing the performance has gotten better with each test over a very short time frame. I had consistent 50-60 FPS even with everyone on screen at the same time casting abilities. There was actually a part of the test that I think the masses would love to have seen, where before the recording we had about 100 people all on screen together running around casting large abilities non stop.
Intrepid has made a lot of changes of a relatively short period of time throughout or testing with the Node Wars from the NPCs spawn rates, the points of interest showing on the map, the scholars being added and then also changed to dropping resources, adding the aspect of the dragon for tactical support, buffing, and scouting, it has all felt extremely positive. You are able to both see and feel the work the team has put in trying to fix the problems we have had as well as see our feedback being taken into account (however small incremental changes those may be).
Currently there is a win condition that people didn’t see in the stream of achieving X amount of kills. I personally find it out of place and strongly disagree with / dislike the idea of it for a large-scale open world event setting such as these Node War events/battles. This is something you would find in more of a lobby setting.
Node Wars seem to be being balanced around 50 vs 50, even though there is no actual limit currently for how many can take part in the fight. This seems incredibly small given the size of nodes and the game. We have been repeatedly asked by the Devs if we think that the area that this Node War event takes place in is large enough for 50 vs 50, and I have generally agreed with this for the most part up to this point. However, giving it more thought I now think that once mounts are added to the equation the area of the Node War event gets a lot smaller and not in a good way. Respawn timers are already fairly fast, and nothing within the area of the event is all that far from one another so with the mounts my fear is that you will drastically cut down on response time in a negative way where it takes away from strategic gameplay and devolves the combat into just zombie rushing into fights.
However my biggest concern coming out of these tests was how much of a stun fest the game currently feels like. For a game that talks about meaningful movement when casting spells, the freedom when using skills, having good gap closers for melee, etc. I find it kind of odd with 1: how much you seem to want to take that freedom away from the player and 2: how little you actually play off of your movement. I would think that after all the great reception and feedback you have gotten off of the Ranger and Fighter showcases you would see that your combat needs more movement not less. Not saying that Stuns aren't important, all that movement does need to be put into check but it shouldn’t be an almost constant thing.
For this last part I would suggest looking at how Lost Ark deals with CCs for inspiration. (The reason I like the changes to Fighter so much is that it feels reminiscent of the Lost Ark Berserker class to me.) In Lost Ark the CC cap is 4, after that you have 7 seconds of immunity to CC. And there are three different kinds of CCs in this game. The first is “Staggers” in which there are two kinds of. “Soft” (pretty much only used in PvE), which just interrupts movement, and “Hard”, which interrupts movement and skills, which you would use skills with Super Armor: Paralysis Immunity.
Then you have your Mid CCs like knockups, knockdowns, and knockbacks which interrupt movement, skill usage, and knocks in whatever direction. And with the CC cap set at 4 you are able to get juggled if they layer their CC on top of you. Here the usage of your skills with Super Armor: Push Immunity and optimal usage of your “Get Up” dash is very important which just comes with game knowledge.
Lastly there is Hard CCs which encompasses all of the following, (some of these are PvE exclusive) Faint, Petrification, Fear, Pest, Sleep, Electrocute, Paralysis, Stun, and Freeze* immovable to other attacks (ex: can’t be knocked up). For these uses, you need to use skills with Super Armor: All Immunity, which is usually exclusive to your awakening skills and spacebar dash.
I don’t like how simple Node Wars are currently, they are two extremely simple fetch quests of go get x amount of resources followed by a king of the hill dog-pile on the God Spike. The two fetch quests of rubies and blood are one thing, you have made some very good changes in order to attempt and make them more interesting and PvP focused. I would almost go as far to say that with a few more tweaks I would be ok with the fetch quests. However the last objective of channeling the God Spike hasn’t really seen any improvement and is the worst aspect of the entire event.
The optional objectives of the scholars did see more use in these last few tests and did get a bit of a change by adding the catch-up mechanic of having them drop the needed resources, however I still don’t think they have any meaningful weight to them and it is still better to just flat out ignore them vs just knocking the enemy team off of the god spike. For clarification on this for people, how the God Spike currently works is that once you are done gathering the rubies and blood you rush to the god spike and start to channel it. If the person channeling the God Spike is killed / knocked off then the channel progress is reset to zero. The scholars drop about 10 of each resource as well as increase your enemies channel time by 25% for that channel, and they are very tanky so you are needing to send a good size group to take them down within an acceptable time frame.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
The closest I would say to the intended Node Wars would be Warhammer Online Realm vs Realm Battlefields. I think the ideas are extremely similar with Warhammer Online Battlefields being open world locations within RvR territories where both sides are trying to capture strategic objectives, as well as gaining skirmish rewards for winning fights. By controlling battlefields players gain a set amount of victory points for their realm. These are intended to be major conflict points within the world, where groups of players come together and fight over them.
The individual events/battles in the Node War are a lot like the boon and rift stones in Throne and Liberty. They are scheduled open world points of interest that large groups fight over to take control of by channeling an objective and the winner of these conflicts are rewarded guild activity points and resources.
Conqueror's Blade’s territory wars are scheduled events/battles that define the political landscape of the game. You can attack a settlement in the hope that, when the fight is over, it will become part of your domain. Think of Territory Wars as “open season” for fiefs as a window of opportunity in which to increase your lands collective holdings. Much like how the Node Wars in AoC are meant to function.
EVE Online Sovereignty (Sov) Wars are also fairly similar in concept
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
My feedback so far may give off the suggestion that I don’t like large scale PvP, this could not be further from the truth. I love large scale PvX/PvP MMOs, they give an experience that you can’t get anywhere else. The social and political environment is unlike anything you will find in a PvE MMO. The organization and logistics that go into amassing your forces to go into battle. The strategic gameplay that you can only get when dealing with large numbers. And as a crafter and economic player there is no other place I have seen more meaningful crafting then in a PvX/PvP MMO.
There is also far more potential for group based gameplay and objectives vs small scale PvP or PvE MMOs. You are put in positions where you as a player can’t do everything and need to rely on a group to get things done. It is less about your individual progression and more about working as a group to get things done, because the only way you are going to progress is if everyone works together.
There are also just stories and experiences that you can only get in large scale PvP. People reminiscing about the large conflicts they were a part of, a story made by the players far grander than any PvE MMO’s single player story telling.
I just think that there is a massive difference between good and bad large-scale PvP. Not to say that Zerg vs Zerg can’t be fun, because it is. Just not all the time as a steady diet, it needs to be broken up every so often. Truly good large-scale PvP has strategy, logistics, fighting over several points of interest, multiple ways to approach a situation, etc.
This last bit is an unpopular opinion but it’s my belief that the fantasy of Zerg vs Zerg combat are these large epic fights like something you would hear out of a book or see in a movie, when that’s just not the case. And if we truly want to see those kinds of fights then we are going to need to do something that I know a lot of people are not going to like, by increasing the TTK and adding friendly fire. These are things that Darkfall online did, and in my opinion that was one of the greatest MMOs of all time that was ahead of its time and still is.
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I enjoy PvE objectives in my PvP, it can help break up the fights, be meaningful ways to fuel PvP, and be fun strategic points of interest. However you need to be careful that the PvE does not over shadow the PvP in a War type setting.
This is also true in the reverse, I enjoy PvP fighting over my PvE raids however more often than not, the PvE suffers because of the inclusion of PvP to where the PvE fights are nothing more than boring meat bag objectives to fight over.
What are your ideal expectations when it comes to mass-player battles, and objectives oriented or best fit for small teams?
For small teams it would be things like scouting, back capturing points, running interference, and acting as roaming hit squads. There are a lot of possible strategic game play options for small groups inside of large-scale PvP. Another example would be while the main force is attacking the front gate of the castle/node, a small team is trying to climb the walls or go through sewers in order to open the front gate so that the main force can more easily get inside.
What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion? What kind of impact do you want events like these to have on a larger war?
I think a good sweet spot would be once every other week, or once a month. These Node Wars from what I am led to believe are meant to go on for days, that can be organization and logistics. You don’t want them to feel like they are keeping people from playing the rest of their game, as well as people getting tired of doing them, you don’t want your players getting burned out on them. They need to feel special and like they have weight / meaning when you do them. The rewards for them from the point of view of the node seem fairly large so you don’t want people being able to snowball.
As for impact on a larger war (thinking you mean a siege), I would like to see Node Wars open up and close off strategic options for the nodes. Not being able to field certain siege weapons because the supplies were cut off, oh we can afford to beef up the defenses because we won the rights to the quarry, etc.
I would steer clear of siege wide buffs and the like, as things like this can be overpowering and take away from other siege mechanics.
What event rewards do you think would be cool?
Titles and cosmetics are always good options. You can also do money and Node standing as a way to reward the soldiers for fighting for their node/lord. But I would take it out of the Node’s treasury, as both a way to feed it back into the economy and to act as a limiter on the Wars, because then you have to think if you can afford to fight a war. I think just freely rewarding currency is a dangerous thing, it can affect a game’s economy and snowball players if not thought about properly.
Feedback:
These are things I would like to see or think would be a good change. I do not expect to see these changes any time soon and understand that they will need time to develop should Intrepid choose to take my feedback into consideration. I also want to note that most large scale PvP is a numbers game, these changes don't really help if one Zerg is noticeably bigger than the other, but if that's the case the whole Node War falls apart anyway.
1: As I have said before the biggest and most glaring problem with the Node Wars is the fact that the end objective of channeling the God Spike is a massive Ball vs Ball king of the hill, dog-pile onto the point. If you can fix this then I think Node Wars can be an incredibly enjoyable experience that people look forward to. My recommendation for achieving this would be to add other points of interest at the end for people to do alongside the God Spike. This (if done right) should hopefully break up the balls and add more strategic gameplay. However As I have said above with the scholars, when adding an optional / side objective they need to have weight to them, be important and/or possibly be game changing in order for them to have any real meaning for people to fight over.
Maybe add a trebuchet off to the side of the map that the two sides can fight over for a strategic advantage, and allow the side that has control of it to fire into the enemy.
On the other hand because breaking up the ball is so hard in the end, another recommendation I have is to have more build up to channeling the god spike. Instead of going straight from gathering the resources or whatever the other objectives end up looking like, you would have a 2nd and maybe 3rd layer of objectives that lead into the 4th and final objective of channeling the god spike. I’m not 100% sure but just thinking back to all the large scale PvP games where it was ball vs ball that I have played, the ones that have felt the best is when there was build up to it. It just kind of hits differently.
(Ex: In a good castle siege you have the outer walls, the inner walls, the castle gate, rally / respawn points, etc. that all lead into the final ball vs ball fight over the throne.)
2: The next problem I have with the Node Wars is that it has a king maker system in it, where once a team is ahead they are most likely to stay ahead in the majority of cases. Currently the team that has finished gathering their resources can just all group up on the God Spike and focus all of their efforts on defense, where as the team that is behind on resources collection now needs to split their forces in order to not only slow down / stop the enemy team from channeling the objective but they also need to play catch up to the leading team.
Some people have suggested a system in which once one team finishes the “gathering phase” then both teams would then be able to channel the god spick, potentaly with the team that won the “gathering phase” receiving a buff to assist them in the “channeling phase”. And while this does have potential to fix the overarching issue I personally am not a fan of this idea. I don’t like the thought of just dropping the collection phase once one team is done with it, this just kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but there is also the fear that the play will then be to let the other team do all the work while your team focuses on kills. Even if the team that “wins” the “gathering phase” does get a buff it would still need to be balanced enough to still let the other team have a chance at winning or else you just have the same problem of snowballing the winning team.
Instead I have a few of my own suggestions on what I think would help break up this problem. The first would be one I have already posted, where maybe instead of players channeling the god spike an NPC like the scholars or a priest are the ones that channel it and the teams are feeding the resources we are gathering into them to use in the ritual. This acts as kind of like a furnace system where you're trying to get more resources faster than the other team and feeding them into your channel. This way instead of both sides dog-piling onto the point in a ball vs ball fight, they are roaming and doing the various other objectives or even attempting to slow down the enemy in various ways.
The next would be a kind of “Burn Mechanic”, where once a team channels the God Spike it consumes or “burns” the resources so if you are knocked off of the channel then you will need to go back to gathering resources in order for another attempt. I don’t think you should start back from zero after a channel but instead you are burning resources as the channel is going. This would make it so that both teams could focus on the god spike without worry and once they have the necessary resources they can attempt a channel.
3: While there have been some fairly good improvements made I still feel like the objectives of the Node War are far too simple, being what amounts to two extremely simple fetch quests of go get x amount of resources followed by a king of the hill dog-pile on the God Spike.
I have already said this a few times now but what I would like to see would be that instead of harvesting to mine the rubies ourselves, they are capture points that once owned periodically send out an NPC caravan that transport the needed resource to your base / camp. They should show on the map which team currently owns that location and when they are being captured by the other side. This makes it so that people know where the PvP is, instead of randomly stumbling upon it while doing what is a PvE objective. The NPC caravan also gives groups something to defend as it makes its way to your base. However that is a fairly large change that even if Intrepid were to take my feedback on, would take time to implement.
So if we are just sticking to the rubies being mineable resources, then some of the changes I would like to see are for to be a indicator that someone is carrying rubies on them, be that a pack on their back like in Archeage, a icon above their head showing what they are carrying and how much like in Throne and Liberty, or some kind of aura effect. Another one I would like to see a debuff on people carrying rubies making them move slower the more they are carrying. Next I think it would be a good idea to put hostile NPCs around the ruby nodes (ones that don’t drop blood so to prevent double dipping). With these changes it is my hope that it encourages people to move around in groups more, instead of sending out 1 or two people to mine rubies, and more mobile classes being able to just run away from fights. It also highlights high priority targets in PvP by being able to tell who is carrying what.
4: Just like with the rubies, there has been some good changes around the bandit / highwayman NPCs in an attempt to make them more PvP focused, such as lowering their spawn and spreading them out more. But I’m going to be honest I don’t like that it’s bandit / highwayman NPCs that we are getting the blood from. It makes little sense to me why these guys are the ones dropping the blood, I would much rather see the blood dropping from monsters / animals that have been affected by the god spike or if it has to be humans than make them cultist.
Also just like with the rubies, I would like to see some kind of debuff being applied the more stacks someone has on them. Not the same debuff mind you, I’m thinking something along the lines of a stacking DOT burn damage or something. As well as have some kind of indicator showing that someone is carrying around blood.
And again I have already said this a few times now but what I would like to see would be that instead of bandit NPCs that for some reason are dropping this special blood there should be some other form of resource or if we want to stick with blood maybe have it to where instead of bandit NPCs, the Node’s soldiers that are fighting against each other. This could be where the blood comes from or maybe by getting your soldiers to the enemy base you can slow them down or something. I also think that the addition of NPC soldiers fighting on the battlefield for the node would help make the world feel more populated.
5: This test I did notice that the optional objectives of the scholars did see more use this test due to it’s change of dropping resources, however I still don’t think they have any meaningful weight to them and it is still better to just flat out ignore them vs just knocking the enemy team off of the god spike. The number of resources they drop is only 10 of each kind as well, which given how tanky they are is questionable at best if it’s really worth going after them.
I do really like the idea of bigger badder boss monsters around the map that drop more blood or give buffs, but just like with the bandit / highwayman NPCs, I don’t like the idea of them being humans. I’m thinking like an essence infused Bear or something. It also should not be a simple fight that is just tanky. It needs to have mechanics of some kind and be an interesting fight, but it also can’t be too hard either, as the focus needs to stay on the PvP.
6: There have been very good changes to the map such as showing the resources on the map, as well as UI elements to show when resources are being turned in, and even how close the enemy team is to channeling the god spike. However some Map and UI changes I personally would like to see would be things like when one team has mined the rubies that they pop off of the map until they spawn again. This change serves two purposes, the first is so people aren't wasting time traveling to nodes that have already been mined, and the second is to let people that are paying attention to the map know that an enemy has just mined a node and is in that area.
I also think it would be cool if we could physically see how close the enemy team is to completing their objective. Not with a UI element like what has been added but instead actually sending out scouts to your enemy’s base and seeing maybe a warehouse being stuffed with materials and a liquid vat being filled with the blood.
7: After playing with the raid/party UI a bit more in these last few test, I really liked what I was seeing and that the classes were even color coded. I would like to see these elements taken further with raid leads being able to mark players, Targets, and locations with big visible markers. I would like to see the raid UI color coded as well, instead of everyone just being green.
8: The mounted dragon is fairly new to the wars and while I have a lot of questions about it, I like what I have seen so far. The dragon plays more of a support role rather than a leadership role but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. However I would like to see more added than just the dragon, I have already talked about adding a trebuchet to the map, but I would like to see more added to the game in the way of siege equipment. And by this I am talking something akin to Conqueror's Blade.
Games I would like to see AoC take inspiration from:
Conqueror's Blade: This game has some of the best wars and castle sieges I have experienced in any game
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Dark Age of Camelot: The father of what we know of as large-scale PvP today, almost every PvP game has tried to copy what Dark Age of Camelot did and hasn’t really been able to capture that same kind of success.
Warhammer Online: I think almost everything AoC wants to be was done to some success in Warhammer online, they have very comparable ideas and systems. Warhammer online also has some of the best and most unique class designs of any game I have ever played.
Lost Ark: I think AoC would benefit greatly by taking inspiration from how Lost Ark does its combat, CCs, and Class identity mechanics. A lot of why I think fighter is so good is because it reminds me of Lost Ark’s Berserker. (And while you're at it look at their raids.)
WildStar: Also some of the best combat in recent MMOs, when I saw the Ranger showcase it made me think of Wildstar. It’s not a 1 for 1 but I did see the potential for AoC’s combat to move in a direction that could come close to what Wildstar had.
Darkfall Online: In my opinion the best large-scale fantasy PvP MMORPG that there has ever been, it was ahead of its time and still is. Like with Warhammer Online it shares similar ideas to what AoC is trying to achieve.
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Yokai TheaterMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Also just to add because people keep asking about the classes, I have gotten the chance to play all of them. Keeping in mind that some of them have gone through some twerking over the course of the testing that we are allowed to talk about. However I do want to provide my feedback on what I think about some of the classes from these tests outside of just obvious balance.
Tank:
I have talked quite a bit about the “Tank” class in my past feedback posts over the course of PI’s testing, primarily about the wall skill that it has in its kit, and I would like to say that I really like the changes I have seen made to it. The version that everyone got to see wasn’t the one we were testing with most of the time. The wall was a line of large blue lion shields that rose up out of the ground. In one of the tests you were able to choose if you wanted it to be wider, taller, or see through (so your skills could go through it). I like these options but personally I like the brick wall we see in the livestream over the lion shields (but I would like to see the brick wall instead of just popping in, it pieces together).I feel like its area denial is in a good place for different strategies and use cases. Before the wall also stunned and I think this was too much. I will say that I kind of want the cooldown back the way it was, the cooldown for the stream test was far too long. The Aegis skill kind of works like a Reinhardt shield. (currently I view the tank as kind of like a mix between Mei and Reinhardt in Overwatch with some of our feedback about warhammer online mixed in).
Cleric:
It's in kind of an odd spot, the cleric right now is strong due to its self-sustainability, you also serve a crucial role due to your heals and revives, however even with these facts I think the class is boring (cleric main by the way). I think a simple fix for this would be adding more movement to the class, currently all it was is Wings of Salvation. Cleric has some utility in its kit outside of just healing but It could definitely use more like more shields and auras. It has also been a while but in the past Clerics were described as being masters of both life and death so I would love to see that identity be brought into the clerics design. Right now it has a lot of focus on healing and radiant damage but I would love to see necrotic damage be added to the kit for more build diversity. and lastly, the clerics identity skill is really bland. it has two options and one is just clearly better than the other and even then it's just using your divine power instead of your mana.
Ranger:
I think Ranger is kind of going through an identity problem. It has great movement, the damage was kind of low these last few tests, invisibility, buffs like upping mana regen, CCs, and I’ve already said this but I hate the Ranger’s class identity mechanic.
- Excellent! Loved everything I saw! The complexity of the system is something that really excites me because it will allow everyone a lot of ways to participate. The mix of PVP and PVE is exactly what I am looking for and how it impacts the world is the big incentive for me to participate. The world is it's own character and allowing players to shape and interact with it, truly what I am looking for,
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
- I want to help and organize my node and group of friends for these fights. I want to have the option to contribute however I can, even if I can only play for a few hours a week for example. I also love how the node wars will effect your nodes and allow it to grow in power and influence.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Node Wars Preview? (UI, VFX, and performance are things we know need love, and not what we want feedback on currently)
- I noticed the animations for Steven's characters as being great! Specifically, it seems that when he runs forward and turns, there is an animation transition for that as well. I would love that expanded for mounts so that when they turn its not instant and sharp, but instead has a smooth transition.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
- Nothing comes to mind at the moment!
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
- I like it! Alterac Valley was one of my favourite modes in vanilla WoW. I also played Darkfall which had massive wars and AoC feels right up my alley.
The HP bar thing is killing the game for me If an opponent has 1 percent health, I react differently than if they have 25 percent health. I need to know how close he is to death in order to judge whether it's worth going into battle with a movement ability, firing off a skill and quickly leaving, or whether I'll die because I don't need one , but need 3 or 4 skills, and until then his friends are there. Plus, after a long cast, it's incredibly unsatisfying not even knowing how much damage I've made because the bar doesn't move at all. Whether it's Albion, Archeage, Guild Wars 2 or anything else, I always see the life and impact of my skills everywhere.
Greetings. Just a few pointer as the whole Node War feels very complex (which I like). Stick with mix of pvp and pve elements during Node War. I have really missed that in other games. It appeals to a big group and also requires some decent planning to pull it off.
As someone before typed it felt like a game now. Some sounds effect made it sound like sci-fi game but this is Alpha stage so no big thing there.
Tremendous clever idea with Mayor buffs and mount to make a difference on the battlefield.
Ideas of luck buffs to encourage players to go there in new taken territory which will probably be dangerous to visit. Risk vs Reward.
Perhaps open up many idea on quests after a battlefield because early days there were alot of plundering and loot laying on a battlefield after a big war.
Have you guys consider diseases and/famine events if an area is under constant war events?
That would open up alot of interesting questline and for players to prevent deadly plagues spreading. Just an example.
Overall a very good stream and I really like the joke trashtalk in between devs while playing.
The POI-Event was a very interesting mechanic. Compared to other games I played the size of the Zone felt big.
Curious what the intended numbers of Players active would be?
It is nice to see that Raids/Zergs have their Role but Groups and even Solos can participate and contribute aswell.
Curious what other warmechanics will be available over time, sure there will be a lot of ideas and possibilities.
Can Players flag and third party the Event?
Thanks for showing the system, can’t wait to feel it.
My overall feelings with the Preview is excitement, curiosity, anticipation and desire to know more about and try first hand.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
Excited to see all the different types of node wars and the objectives around them. I am hoping the playstyles differ widely between them. Having the gather/collect mixed the capture point was good to start. Would love to see even more added to that. Multiple capture zones, Multiple stages of gather/kill. As was brought up in the preview, making war leaders have to strategize and lead the group well. You should be able to tell which side has good leadership very quickly. And with the one capture point zerg, it doesn't really bring out good gameplay in my opinion.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with The Node Wars Preview?
Going back on what I stated, I am hoping that there will be a wide variety in these war contracts that promote enticing and strategic gameplay. I really don't want, capture the (X) being the end goal for all these objectives, it's Okay to have that be for some. I would love to see some be kill X things and bring them back to X zone. Almost incorporating the caravan system but doesn't necessarily have to be that. You kind of have that with the first part of the collect quest, But I would love to see it be developed even further. For example, You have a small group kill a tribal leader in the area, who has a War Elephant/Horse/Camel. Once you slay that leader you have to escort it back to your base. And not just one of these going on at a time, say 4 different camps. Then whenever a side has completed it, they can then use that war animal in the war. At the same time of that cap event, you would have a capture zone event, and a kill collect event. I may be asking too much for these since they are just node wars and not castle sieges, but having multiple things go on at once will help small groups/guilds be able to participate. At the same time having multiple events will help prevent the zerging on capture the X.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
I guess the most similar thing I could say I have played would be Large scale PVP in World of Warcraft. Battlegrounds and Open World PVP zones. Such as Battle for Wintergrasp, Alterac Valley, Isle of Conquest and Ashran. Things that I liked were the massive battles and feeling like you were a part of something greater, I know that castle sieges are meant to be more of that scale in Ashes. When playing Wintergrasp there were many strategies you could deploy on both attack and defend, over the years most would find the “Meta”, but for a long time battles there were loads of fun, vehicle combat, defending a keep, attacking workshops and chokepoints. One of my other favorites would have to be Isle of conquest, I think from a design perspective they made an excellent gamemode and map, but alas players would just zerg one point and have that be the “meta.” So I guess in summary you can design a great war map, have good chokepoints and Points of interest. But if you don't incentivise employing each and every aspect of the war, Most will just send an all out zerg.
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
Mass PvP can be great and can be shambles. I know Intrepid is hard at work in many aspects to make it great. I think as far as it goes for the Node vs Node war perspective. I’m going to look at it like this based on the numbers we have been currently given. The server capacity is projected to be 10,000 people. Let's assume that. There are also slated to be 100 nodes on each server. Given those numbers we can project that most nodes will have anywhere from 50 to 200 people per node. With some of the larger guilds having nodes with 500 people. If there is a Node vs Node war going, the objective will only be during primetime, if it were two evenly matched nodes we would have 100 vs 100 battles. That would be awesome gameplay as long as the objectives are plentiful and wide. Then if we had a situation of a Larger node battling a smaller node, Say even 250 vs 50. I don't really even have to say what would happen, they would be slaughtered. No amount of catchup mechanics would allow the undermanned team to be able to win the objective. What It would require is the smaller team to be much more cunning and slay unsuspecting solo players and try to win the war outside of the objectives, if that is even possible. That's what I would strategize as an undermanned node, get every rogue and ranger together, have one cleric run around as bait and a scout, have my rogue and ranger ready to pounce on any poor souls gathering or questing in the warzone.
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I think the perfect balance for a war would be leaning more into PvP objectives, not by much but just enough since PVP is what is supposed to change the world. I would say a 60/40 split when doing node wars. If the objectives for one given wartype was collect/slay boss and get X amount of PVP kills and capture nodes / capture spear. Having 2 objectives be PVE and 3 being PVP would be a good balance. Even throwing in the escorts which can give you the best of both.
What are your ideal expectations when it comes to mass-player battles, and objectives oriented or best fit for small teams?
My expectations when it comes to massive pvp is to feel a sense of anxiety and excitement. I want to be exploring the battlefield completing the PVE objective but also constantly on edge not knowing when the enemy team might ambush me. Having the balance of both is really going to be an artform that will have to be molded and tested over alpha 2 and betas. Given all that I have said I am more of a PVE player, I don't enjoy PVP as much as I used to. But when large scale PVP is done right and feels impactful I know it will excite me to play it more and more. As I have said earlier, try best to mix both and intertwine them at the same time, promote spread soldiers across the entire zone and not to a singular point. Teams that do zerg should actually be at a disadvantage if designed well. For example instead of capturing the one Godspike, Have the point be to capture the Hexaspike. A monumental 6 spiked godspear that could spread across, just far enough to where most players would have mount and walk for a couple seconds before reaching the next point, but small enough to where the mayor could see all points of the battlefield, allowing them command the battle. Overall I want small groups of 8 to feel they can walk around the battlefield and hold their own and contribute to a mass push on an objective. All while I want the mass battles to feel impactful and not zergy.
What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion? What kind of impact do you want events like these to have on a larger war?
I feel that having these Daily would be way too often and weekly might not be enough, somewhere balanced in between that would probably be a good medium. Maybe after the war has completed it would start a 5 day cooldown for both the attacking and defending nodes? I am also not sure how long these node wars are going to last on average. What is the plan for that? Is intrepid planning on these lasting days? Or even a week? Not sure guess we will have to see during A2.
Materials = A small amount of the enemy's node's materials, or whatever that node's most prominent resource is.
Buffs = Increased stats, Experience, gathering speed or luck. All of these will drive more players to want to defend the node. X buff for X amount of time. (Ex 5 to 10% for 1 to 2 hours. )
Tax break = Due to winning the War, all Citizens get reduced Taxes by X amount for X amount of time.
Some or all of these would be great rewards.
Overall really excited to see more and get my hands on Alpha 2. Thanks for the update team and keep on
doing your best!!
* Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Node Wars Preview?
Excited:
-Animations looks better with every live stream
-Most of the spell effects fit well in the pvp environment, even the ball lighning that was so hated at the beginning now looks good and fits well in the battle
-Different node war options let us all dream of the future of pvp
-The environment and the landscape with different heights and depths with sometimes choke points is ideal for tactical combat
Normaly, I belong to the silent community that has been following aoc for many years now. I played the alpha 1 and was very satisfied with the development of the game so far.
But here are my Concerns:
With the current state of the health bar in pvp it seems to be really difficult to get a good hit freedback. The pvp player in my guild hate the current ¼ hp bar in pvp and will not play the a2 in this condition.
For months I thought it only affected my community. (many of them are old school daoc player) Today I heard the same argument from the largest german aoc streamer. Entenburg said the same as our pvp players, if the hp bars in pvp stay that way, he give away his alpha 2 key.
It would be a shame to lose players because of such a small thing. Is there a chance to rethink the hp bar in pvp again to give the player their hit feedback they want?
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FantmxMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Overall, excellent stream - the node war system demo was solid, and each milestone makes sense from beginning to end.
Positive:
- I love that citizens have to contribute time and material to go to war. It’s not an instant queue. This allows players to actually take ownership and have stake in the node war - and the outcomes are meaningful for citizens. Well thought out.
- The objectives are PvX, and don’t have to be done one way. The ‘catch up’ mechanic is a good addition to keep pressure on the winning team, and not demoralizing the losing team.
- The flow of battle made sense, it’s directionally correct - so keep going.
- Steven had a front and center kill shot on @Fantmx. That made me cackle.
Constructive feedback:
- I’d like mayoral death to have a more detrimental effect on the battle to balance their benefits. Whether it’s a stacking debuff or something similar, it would create another ‘unofficial’ objective for battle leaders to take into consideration: mayor assassination squads, and mayor protection squads.
- The environment needs to play a greater role in battles - mainly to use choke points, elevation, bridges, etc. I know this will be kind of random, but so important to manage a battle.
- Without commenting on any specific UI/UX elements (I know it’s all functional now) - I’d just want to make sure that the overall progress of the battle and the current objective are obvious.
I would like to see a battle system more focused on action combat because I saw that most of the players in this last video killed only using the target.
Comments
This war had a good balance of PVE and PVP and I love the idea of having to gather resources that can be dropped and stolen upon death, but I would hope the amount dropped is only a percentage of what you have rather than entire amount. Limiting the resources that you can obtain in any POI could be a great way to incentivize raids to split up in a way that almost always results in a pvp skirmish since they know that if they don't get to a POI first, than they will completely lose access to them.
It would be great to see a large variety of different war events that could be randomized for each war to keep things fresh. Doing the same objective in the same area every time would get boring pretty quickly.
My biggest concern for wars is it simply being a battle of numbers. The war events themselves ought to have a cap on how many players can participate based on the node's size, otherwise you will just have mega guilds with hundreds of players win wars with sheer numbers rather than any kind of strategy or skill. I've had some very unenjoyable experiences playing BDO where our smaller guild wars would just get completely overrun by larger guilds. Ultimately, quantity was the most important factor in wars in BDO which led to a more stressful playstyle of recruiting as many players as possible to increase our army size, making it more of a job rather than a game. A more healthy playstyle would be guilds only having to recruit for X amount of players and bring in the best of the best rather than grabbing any person they can find off the streets. a cap of 100v100 at the very least, but I think a better war number is 40v40. The average number of expected citizens in any given node should ultimately be what determines these caps. The cap can go up or down depending on the node lvl or number of citizens in it.
Another concern is how allies can participate in wars. BDO had very little restrictions on who could participate in a war, so the larger guilds would ally with other guilds, or pay mercenary groups to participate in their war. It was less politics and more of a snow ball effect where the rich kept getting richer. The top guilds would make a lot of money off the wars and then use that to pump it into their gear, to buy more mercenaries, or to pay their allies to keep themselves on top. Not even a stacking health/damage debuff for consecutive war wins could stop our server's largest guild from maintaining power indefinitely. There should be a limit to how many ally guilds can join a war, preferably 1-2 guilds. This would leave routes open for mercenary guilds to find work while ensuring wars don't become giant zerg battles.
It would be really cool for a game to imitate real life, where some nations have smaller armies, some ally with one another to bolster their army, some hire mercs to fight for them, and for large nations go on to dominate entire continents. However, it's not a fun formula for an MMO. I was apart of a smaller guild BDO and had the largest guild on our server come and absolutely crush us, take our node, and then give it to their ally guild who in return agreed to show up to their largest wars; that was the worst I've ever felt playing video games. I ultimately quit the game after this happened several times. PVP is supposed to be competitive, not a blow out. Imagine playing CS or Overwatch and suddenly being thrown into a pro bracket and just getting annihilated. It's the opposite of fun, and fun is what games should strive to be.
It's important that these fights be as balanced as they possibly can be made to be. There need to be major incentives or complete lock outs that prevent larger guilds from bullying smaller guilds. For example, a guild that owns a tier 6 node should not be able to participate in a tier 1 or 2 node war. A guild with a tier 2 node should not be able to ally with a guild that has a tier 5 node in their tier 2 node war. There need to be effective "brackets" that compartmentalize guilds in a way that they will be more likely to compete against other guilds of the same power. Ultimately if a guild wants to declare war just to flag on another guild to just kill them, size difference doesn't matter and I think that is fine.
It looked much more balanced, with all the back-and-forth. I'm sure some of that was "faked" by Margaret's raid pulling their punches.
TTK seemed about right. Although, some people (not me) might say that healers looked too... unrestrained? Many of the fights seems to stall-out, which could be concerning. But I think the objective-based gameplay pushes these events to a close one way or another, even if both zergs stay healthy forever. And personally, I enjoy the endless, roiling battle that ebbs and flows the for the entire event.
I also liked the short respawn timers to keep people in the action, as well as the many different objectives pulling people to different locations to fight.
Sorry I've only got feedback for the event, and nothing for the larger-scale systems. I think I need to see how the other systems work in practice before commenting on them. (The mayoral commissions needed to active a war, the open-world flagging between citizens of the warring nodes, the different types of wars and the rewards/incentives for them, etc.) The current plans sound fun, but I don't have any experience with those kinds of player-run political systems and sandbox PvP, to be able to give good feedback beyond that.
In any case, I'm very excited to see the node wars system expanded further, with all the other war types and the different "phases" and "events" that make up a full war.
War objectives:
I hope you don't overcomplicate the objectives to the point where it won't be possible for groups to coordinate because everyone will have different plans for how to approach the war. The most essential strategic decisionmaking should be limited to "Where do we go and how large are the groups we split into?", as well as "How many scouts do we need, and what do we do if the enemy shows up?"
Those are already very difficult to coordinate effectively in their own right.
Some of the objectives can be difficult and complex too, but the majority should be fairly straight-forward, and not make it very difficult to decide how to proceed if an enemy shows up trying to steal the objective. Otherwise people will be frustrated by the difficulty of coordinating, and discouraged from participating in wars in the long run.
(Although there is some merit to requiring knowledge of unspoken metas, like never starting certain objectives if you don't know whether an enemy is in the area; it's a balancing act.)
The games I played where strategy was the most straight-forward and still fun were RvR games. You could send scout groups ahead to start attacks shortly after the enemies responded to the first siege and get an easy advantage on the invasion timer threshold. Then you had to decide how many of your troops stationed at the initially captured objectives you'd send off to intercept any relocating enemies, and defend the secondary objectives.
Holding a set combination of minor and major fortresses long enough that a timer runs out and the war is won is a very simple and fun mechanic that shouldn't be slept on.
Frequency / Scale / Alliances:
I think the "PvE & diplomacy shape the world, PvP changes it" principle is nice, but it shouldn't get in the way of engaging gameplay design by dogmatically making PvP a rare, strategic, emotionally loaded device.
The extensive node war design with the different types provides an opportunity for regular PvP that only causes minor changes on the map. I think you should let mercenaries participate in wars that don't threaten to destroy the node.
If player capacity is the concern that caused you to ban non-citizens from participating in the node war, you can limit the amount of non-citizen players that get to enter a node during a war. Split the limit up in 50:50 in allies and enemies of the node to avoid one side flooding the capacity before the war starts.
I'm biased. Mercenary and diplomatic cooperation gameplay is what I hope to constitute the majority of my PvP gameplay in Ashes. I really hope you'll get players enough things to achieve that encourage them to recruit people for their purposes beyond just citizens and vassals cooperating.
What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion?
I'd say in every month, there should be at least one guild war (small territory changes and buff rewards) in about every other node.
Sieges that threaten complete node destruction should happen about once every three months per node on average, which might mean once a month in some popular or hostile nodes, and twice a year in more passive nodes far away from the metropoles.
If these numbers sound like a lot, keep in mind that it doesn't mean that those nodes are all constantly at war with the entire server. All it takes is a dispute with a single node in the warring node's vicinity.
I could imagine seeing some nodes that have wars weekly or even twice a week, if they have conflicts with several hostile nodes surrounding them. Alternatively, those hostilities could be fought in proxy wars.
Personally, I love being able to log in several evenings a week and always having a PvP objective to go to. I recognise that Ashes doesn't promise to be the game for that as its core game loop, and I'll gladly replace half of those evenings with PvE activities.
But knowing that there's often PvP of some sort going on that feels meaningful to show up for with my clan, node allies, or the merchant who paid for my protection/support, just makes the server feel alive to me.
Balancing
Other players have mentioned war resource costs for respawns in the war. I didn't catch any of that in the video, but it sounds clever. If such a system exists, players who charge in like monkeys shouldn't be able to soak up the node resources without abandon though, so there should be restricted respawns per player, and every player should be reserved at least one or two respawns worth of resources, if there are enough available in the node's war investment. After exceeding that personal contingent, players should have to wait for resurrection or be forced to spawn outside of the war and be blocked from it and have to do something else until it's over, or something.
As for numbers advantage issues, aside from many of the well-balanced war competition systems you've already thought up, I think one of the best tools to counteract monopolies on power is to enable all sides, and especially the underdogs, to band together with allied factions as effortlessly as possible. Diplomacy tools for asking for reinforcements, strengthening alliances, letting mayors and diplomats debate the state of the power hierarchies on the server in publicly visible discussions, as well as private diplomacy correspondence chat rooms where they can easily invite node ministry members, and exclude individual suspicious players.
I think that should be the level where you really balance the ability for players to cooperate, and rein in nodes and alliances that claim too much of the server power for themselves.
Rewards:
Spell effects
These have been hotly discussed with the footage from the last 3 dev updates. I know people will comment about it here, and I want to be a positive voice on the subject. My full opinion is phrased out in my response to the thread here.
- I think the skill design shows that the vfx team has clearly stated priorities, and I think that's awesome and shows you don't pander to try and make everyone happy.
- I'd rather have them err on the side of more visual clarity than make everything look aesthetically realistic and subdued, at the cost of being unable to identify abilities by their effects, or even letting them be indistinguishable from the environment. I'm in favour of opacity, contrast, and saturation remaining relatively high.
- Some more muted pastel colours and nuanced darker tones with accents would fix any over-tuned sci-fi look.
Personal concern because I failed to send off my drafted messages in dev forum posts several months in a row, and I'm hoping perhaps there's room for this question. If there's no time to pass it on, I'll try to post it again in the next dev update question thread:
Regarding live events, mini bosses, and things like achievements/checklist quests/battlepasses:
are you making an effort to leave players enough undisturbed time to coordinate and group up for bigger events, and tone down the flashiness of small regional events, so players don't constantly get distracted at every corner from making their own decisions and grouping up for bigger self-directed endeavours like dungeon-farming and overland-map farming/questing on their own group's schedule?
Honestly, any criticisms would be on assets that you are currently working on.
The node war system is very good, I liked it, I hope they add events from other pvp systems, such as capture the flag, etc.
The world looks good, but graphic aspects need to be improved, more realism, more medieval style.
The pvp is good, but the tab target ruins the sensation, there is more action missing and difficult and frenetic mechanics.
Good job in that regard.
Points for improvement.
Combat: The warrior's melee combat is still not at the level of an mmorpg, is he a swordsman or a berserker? He must give a clear identity to that class, the warrior must be someone with a lot of frenetic movement, something like the character of the berserk manga (Guts). What's the point of moving if the ranger's projectiles arrive yes or yes, what's the point? The magician needs a lot of work, there should be magic specializations (Void, Earth, Fire, etc.) in this class. A druid class is missing and I think they will have to implement it sooner or later. In general, combat is its weak point at the moment.
Graphics: As mentioned above, the graphics have progressed very well, but the environment, lighting, etc. lacks more polish, a more medieval atmosphere is missing, as a reference dark souls I, II, and III. But good job overall.
Excited:
- I love that the event was designed with both dispersed and zerg combat in mind, it adds variety to gameplay and gives all roles a purpose in the event.
- The level design of the event area allowed for really cool chokepoint battles, especially with the wall ability.
- The mayor abilities and mounts added an interesting strategic element to the battle.
- Fighting in the open world between two nodes makes the wars feel organic and real. Something I really didn't like about GW2's large scale PvP was that it was instanced and there wasn't a sense of high stakes, not to mention it seemed too zergy.
Concerns:
- There will likely be cases where the mayor can't be present or won't be the raid leader for an event. It would be helpful if the mayor could appoint a champion to receive their mayor abilities/mount for an event or war.
- I apologize if I missed it, but I didn't hear anything about when large nodes go to war with small nodes. It seems like it could allow for an exploitive relationship, where the large node drains the resources of the small node while the small node really can't do anything about it. Conflict makes the game interesting, yeah, but only when the conflict can be overcome. I fear a scenario where large nodes effectively gank the smaller ones and are actually rewarded for it.
- An interesting way for small nodes to punch up would be asymmetric events, a guerilla warfare sort of war. Maybe the large node needs to defend several objectives and the small node only needs to take a few of the objectives to win.
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I think ideally events would be consistent in their PvP/E balance, like a 50/50. I'd hate to see a certain event being avoided because it's "the zerg event," for example.
What are your ideal expectations when it comes to mass-player battles, and objectives oriented or best fit for small teams?
There's a phenomenon in PvP with large groups where both sides play chicken for imo a frustrating amount of time, where both sides are staring at each other in large clusters not really doing anything. Preferably this would be avoided, maybe with "initiative" mechanics, where one side or the other is heavily encouraged to engage and be decisive, maybe a buff (mayoral buffs might serve this purpose) or objective design where it's advantageous to attack at a certain time in the enemy's progress.
What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion? What kind of impact do you want events like these to have on a larger war?
I'm worried that I won't have a chance to participate in these very often if the nodes don't have a reason to fight. At the same time, I wouldn't like always being in a war. If there was a mercenary system where I could join a war when I wanted, not in my home node, then if there was a node war or two going on in the world at all times I would be happy. A mercenary system could also help balance playercounts by limiting which side a mercenary can join.
What event rewards do you think would be cool?
Something like a spoils of war system where the reward depends on the wealth of the node would be cool. War trophies to use as decoration in your home or node would be really cool, getting to display a captured banner from the enemy for example. Something that really advertises that Miraleth beat Winstead could encourage a fun rivalry between the nodes. I'm departing from the rewards part, but it would be cool if a war loser unlocked a "War of Vengeance" war type where they reclaimed their banner.
Positive:
- I love that citizens have to contribute time and material to go to war. It’s not an instant queue. This allows players to actually take ownership and have stake in the node war - and the outcomes are meaningful for citizens. Well thought out.
- The objectives are PvX, and don’t have to be done one way. The ‘catch up’ mechanic is a good addition to keep pressure on the winning team, and not demoralizing the losing team.
- The flow of battle made sense, it’s directionally correct - so keep going.
- Steven had a front and center kill shot on @Fantmx. That made me cackle.
Constructive feedback:
- I’d like mayoral death to have a more detrimental effect on the battle to balance their benefits. Whether it’s a stacking debuff or something similar, it would create another ‘unofficial’ objective for battle leaders to take into consideration: mayor assassination squads, and mayor protection squads.
- The environment needs to play a greater role in battles - mainly to use choke points, elevation, bridges, etc. I know this will be kind of random, but so important to manage a battle.
- Without commenting on any specific UI/UX elements (I know it’s all functional now) - I’d just want to make sure that the overall progress of the battle and the current objective are obvious.
Well done, Intrepid.
The main concern I had was in regards to PvP TTK which was low, but this stream made it look like its fine, so yea as for the siege itself, the mechanics, declaration, the events and phases, the war flow everything is exactly how I hoped for,
all the classes are looking great, good job there, I would like to see a bit more of defensive skills for the Cleric kit tho, maybe some form of proximity CC or a skill that pushed players away, something to keep it alive while running away since casts slow him down,
I love that these Node Wars and Node Sieges give every player the opportunity to participate in Massive PvP, including solo players and small groups, this is great! Everyone should get a chance of participating in meaningful massive pvp content!
However, I do wish and hope that there is Also more organized and focused content made for Guilds, with controlled numbers and players... which I am hoping is meant to be Castle Sieges and Guild Wars, for those, especially castle sieges, I am hoping it is Guild focused, instead of alliance, and for that it should be kept at 250v250 with a 300 member guild max cap, with the total liberty for the GM to pick the participants,
this is my main desire for AoC - Node Sieges are for everyone to participate, but Castle Sieges are for the best Guilds, and there should not be the ability for outsiders to participate or walk in and flag up to assist, they should either be instanced or have some sort of barrier/timer that kills players not signed up,
and just to add that I am fingers crossed that the team has time to add a basic Duel system for the start of A2 so players can PvP both 1v1 or custom numbers without penalties and with no HP recovery needed, would be awesome to be able to fully test the combat, classes and kits in a quick, easy way outside of events and content
EDIT 1: I'd like to add on the topic of PvP, that CC diminishing returns should be an absolute priority for the team, top 1 priority for combat, I think they shouldnt be removing stuns and CCs out of the class kits like apparently happened with the tank wall, there should be CC imunity and diminishing returns implemented for strategic use of those stuns and counterplay, and Im not talking abou a cc break I mean an actual CC diminishing return system,
also, please give more mobility/defense for the healer, a divine blink and a skill that pushes surrounding enemies away would greatly improve its kit
EDIT 2: extra feedback piece: Vaulting should be tied to pressing shift, you shouldn't automatically vault/climb. That can make gameplay clunky when you just want to jump over things, that should only activate when pressing shift or some other keybind that you can customize
Who is the strongest Node of them all?
WOOT WOOT GO MIRALETH =D
Love the idea of the Node War and how it provides a great sense of camaraderie with your fellow Node citizens. Also am glad that isn't guild dependent. As it is open world, there are still challenges to implementation in order to keep the gameplay fun and interesting given that players often migrate to wherever they can find the greatest reward for the least effort. The systems will need to be designed to create incentives for fun, balanced PVP gameplay, and discourage boring, one-sided or demoralizing gameplay. However, if properly designed, the one sided fights won't be that terrible and the huge epic fights will be well worth it.
Rewards:
There could be participant, citizen, and node rewards/punishments.
Participant Rewards:
Something immediate due to the opportunity cost of what the players could have been gathering, or levelling, or raiding if they weren't fighting the node war. Probably just a bunch of gold/exp/rep based on their participation to the war effort. Something non-droppable. Both winning and losing participants gain.
Citizen Rewards:
Citizens choose between 1 of 5 buffs for 14 days; +5% gather/process/craft speed/amount/material requirement reduction, +5% glint drops/purchasing power, +5% health/armour/spell resist, +5% mana regen/cast times/CD reduction, or +5% ability power.
Node Rewards/Punishments:
5% of Node Contributions leech from the losing Node to the winning Node for 14 days.
Citizen Punishments:
1% stat reduction for citizens of losing Node for 14 days.
Do not give chunks of Node territory exp to the winning Node.
Taking over a chunk of land sounds like a snowball scenario that could be abused and demoralize the losing Node. Messing with Node Borders just seems clunky and full of potential game play pitfalls. Keep the Node borders stable. It will be easier on the dev team and the player base, and I think it gives the Nodes stronger identity.
Thought process:
The citizen/node rewards should be low but long in overall power.
- Low because we don't want to demoralize the losing team and give the winning team too big of advantage. (5% buff in some area)
- Long because it should still have some time to pay itself off, after all it cost resources to start the war in the first place. (14 days)
If a Node can declare a Node War every 3 days (provided they have the resources/scroll), and the buff lasts 14 days, then they can have max 4-5 buffs at a time. Military Nodes could excel at this, and perhaps this is the edge that they get compared to other Node types. Or they can unlock 10% buff instead of 5%...
There may be many wars where there are little to no defenders over the lifespan of each server. Often it may just be one side doing a quick war against some weak node to get a buff, that's fine. A Node War against no defenders should still have a minimum length of 2 days due to objective spawn rates.
We should expect that the warring Node is going to win most of the time. They get to set the conditions of when and who they fight. This is totally fine and acceptable. They spent resources to unlock the war, they should have the odds in their favour to get a return on the investment.
This is also why we shouldn't punish the loser Node too harshly. Maybe they are Religion focused and get way better ROI doing PVE runs in their dungeon than defending from a Node war for the 5% buff. A 1% stat reduction sucks, but can easily be overcome with some other activity.
The big epic Node Wars battles between large Node Networks will still happen when the conditions are right, but we don't need to use threat of punishment as the source of that.
PVE vs PVP and how to organize the battles.
Few things I didn't like:
-War objectives starting as soon as the war was started. There should be a grace period to form teams and prepare for objectives.
-Teams being arbitrarily formed and distributed on either side. This should be locked to an in game UI built for Node War Objective Teams.
-PVP kills adding to war score. Only objective completions should add to war score.
Thought process:
Open World PVP has failed in so many games and typically devolves into boring mass overruns. Unless the game itself prevents this, or creates pressure in other directions, we should expect Open World PVP to devolve to this and rarely errupt in the epic battles we want.
Some really powerful tools in our toolbox are going to be Objectives and Parties.
This is why the Devs should focus on using in game UI to control Party composition with regards to Objective completion. Don't leave it up to the players.
Objective Design:
Objectives should be level bracket and party size based and have mobs packs of equivalent level/party size difficulty defending them. The game doesn't begin at end game, right?
Objectives should be limited in when they are available or have spawn timers so that groups have time to form and get ready for the objective battle.
When a war is declared, X number of objectives of varying party level/size design are spawned based on the stage of the node or citizen population distribution. While the war is on, citizens in the warring Nodes can open up the Node War UI and join a party for one of the objectives.
Party UI Design:
Players can join the Objective Party through a Node War UI and only Party Members can complete the objectives. New objectives become available for more/bigger parties when roughly even team matches are made on open objectives. Only Objective Party Members gain participation rewards for the War after it is over.
Node citizens that aren't in the objective party can still go to the area and do normal PVE/PVP and engage on enemy Node citizens without flagging, but they can't participate in the objective, attack the mob pack, or get any special benefits.
Non-node citizens that aren't part of either Node in the war will be normal greens doing normal PVE, PVP or gathering in the region. So yes, a group of 8 level 50s can go to the area where players are doing level 25-29 Node War objectives and kill the players, but they can't do the objective or attack the objective NPCs.
Example:
War is declared on a Stage 5 Node.
35 Node War Objectives can be spawned with 25 objectives in the level 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-50 brackets (5 for each level bracket), and 10 designed for lvl 50 groups. It starts off with 2 objectives for each level bracket and then adds more as the parties fill up and opposing teams get matched.
One of the objectives in the Node War is a "capture the flag" fight designed to allow 16 level 40-44s to join the objective party. The objective is located in a region of the Node that normally spawns level 40-44 monsters, making some of the PVE already in normal game world, and attracting that level of player base for normal game reasons. For the objective, it is simply a flag spawn for each side with a mob pack designed for a 16 person party to defeat quickly (5 minutes), or a clever/careful 8 person party to defeat slowly (15 minutes). We still want to allow for partial parties to be capable of doing the objective. Maybe another 5 minutes to carry the enemy flag back to the capture location with some kind of slow walk debuff on the flag carrier.
When a player joins one of the teams through the Node War UI they get access to capture the flag, attack the mob pack, see flag locations, see how many players are in the region, and some other benefits that make sense for the objective. This objective allows for parties to form up to 30mins before coming online, and lasts 1 hour. This objective is available to spawn at 6pm, 8pm and 10pm server times.
Once developed, the objective and mob pack could be cut and paste in each of the 85 Nodes at appropriately level based areas.
Also, if the objectives spawn depending on party vs party filling up, 2 teams of 16 in the example above, then the objective capture rate is a function of how many players of both nodes are online and wanting to participate in the Node War rather than just a snowball zerg from one Node capturing all the points at once. The downside is that the players can purposely NOT join objective parties in an effort to slow the war down by lowering the amount of objectives available.
Maybe the solution here is to have another objective spawn when a party is 75% full or something so that you still need to join and help, but the side with bigger numbers is only 1 uncontested objective ahead at any point in time. This way we can throttle the objective capture rate for our 2 day War minimum scenario stated earlier.
It's not a 100% fair and balanced PVP scenario, but it at least helps steer the ship in that direction on the open world while allowing node citizens of all level brackets to participate. And it doesn't require any special "leader" players to be online at the time of the war. Maybe the Mayor can join any group regardless of size constraints or something as a benefit.
Node War Declarations and Vassal Nodes / Node Networks:
It seems like the Node War is a declaration between two Nodes from the showcase, but from the wiki it is more like a Node Network War. This could get tricky to implement. You can have multiple Nodes from the same network trying to declare war on multiple nodes from another network. Does the first Node to declare War then prevent any other Node in their Network from declaring War until their war is over? Because as soon as any Node in your Network is at War, so is your Node?
I would think that it should just be between 2 Nodes of separate Networks, and then other Nodes in your Network can unlock a mayoral commission to join your War. That way it isn't an automatic thing and they have to spend some resource to actually join the war using the same system original war declaration. Easy to implement.
Can also use this feature as another good effect of being a Vassal. It could be easier for a Parent Node to declare a Vassal Node War Defence/Offence Commission, and perhaps get a bonus.
There are a few items currently I have some conflicting feelings on, that I am hoping the team will continue to discuss. I'm going to try not to bring up anything that isn't related to system design, mainly I don't want to talk about how graphics are still needing work or the UI is not pretty, as these are obviously being constantly worked on, and discussing stuff aside from the overall system direction isn't going to be constructive for this feedback.
First off, I am really conflicted that nodes under the same vassal system will not be able to go to war with each other. Most of the conflicts you will end up having will end up being with the nodes around you. If we are unable to use this system to resolve disputes, then I feel like a lot of this systems purpose ends up being mute for a lot of the conflicts we would want to use it to help settle. I would also imagine that if this was able to be used against other nodes, the race to metro would end up containing a lot more intricacies that a lot of players would have fun with.
Secondly, I currently have concerns regarding the location of these wars, especially when they aren't going to be occuring as much between neighbors. I may've missed how this works, but it seems like it will end up being a huge hassel to try and go to the neighboring node in order to compete in this war. Maybe some time could be taken to clear up how and where the battlefield spawns.
My third concern is the actual content of the war. I was glad to hear that there are different scroll types that can happen to change the content type of the objectives that happen during the battles. However, there are two items I am concerned about with this.
a) Regardless of the scroll type, is there multiple types of battles that can happen throughout the course of a single war? By this I mean do the objectives end up differing between battles. Or is it always going to be Kill X amount of mobs, Collect X amount of gems, then secure the God Spike? If the battles end up differing then this concern will be levied, but if they don't, I am expecting that these will end up feeling really repetitive if they don't have a wide flavor of battle content. I am really hoping that this system ends up with a rotating system of objectives that can appear. For instance lets say we use the standard scroll. The first objectives end up being what we saw during the steam with kill X mobs and collect X gems. The next battle ends up being a large battle over two opposing world bosses, with the first team to kill their boss wins. Another battle being over multiple encampments that your team needs to take control of to farm points to hit a win condition. One battle could also be some VIP based objective, where the goal is to kill the enemy captain X number of times. If the objectives during a war end up rotating it'll add in an element of expectation of what's going to be appearing next, and I truly believe will make it so this system doesn't end up burning out as quickly.
b) I know that it was mentioned that player kills will add toward a total war win condition, but I was a bit disappointed with what felt like a lack of PvP related objectives during the main phase of the battle. Sure the PvE offers a catalyst for PvP to be happening throughout the field, but there didn't seem to be any consequence or straight up gain for dying during this phase. Sure there is the consequence of potentially dying while trying to farm points or protecting those farming points, but I would've liked to see some consequence for death beyond what was shown. Perhaps for having something in the battle itself that gives the enemy team points for killing more of your team or vice versa would be a nice addition. Though I am sure this particular point requires further testing of a more flushed out war system during A2. This was just an initial item I had concerns on that I am hoping is at least being considered when dealing with a system like this.
Not a concern, but a potential expansion to this system, would be how your node treats your ZoI when you are in a state of war. There have been concerns with not being able to manage the resource density around your node with the enemy of the state feature being removed. This system could potentially counteract that, with when you are in war something like Marshal Law could be declare to make the area around your node a permanent pvp zone. Would be a cool addition to this system to alleviate the concerns players have currently with there being no way to do this without protecting your node, and would also add a new element to war that would be interesting to see. Just a thought though that I am not sure how many will agree or disagree with, but wanted to raise it nonetheless.
Overall, I am loving the direction this system looks like it is heading in, and I am proud of how far the dev team has taken this game. I am really excited to try this out in Alpha 2 as we move into it. Thank you all for putting in the work you have been with this.
Health Bars: The health bars of enemy players and mobs are visually overwhelmingly prominent and dominate the visual space, potentially distracting from the actual mob/player character and detracting from the immersive experience. A more subdued design or an option to customize the transparency and size of health bars would be beneficial.
HUD Elements: The UI appears cluttered with various elements such as the minimap, objective tracker, and player status indicators. They are dominant, take up considerable screen space. Simplifying, consolidating or allowing customization of these elements could improve the overall aesthetic and user experience.
HUD Team: should not need to see all players with the same visual depth. Your personal team should have priority and then other bars for the remainder of the group. Their is little gain by the height.
Combat Scene: The combat scene is vibrant and visually engaging, with distinct spell effects and character animations. However, reducing the visual dominance of health bars alone might go a long way to enhance the visual clarity of these effects.
Different mechanic/pvp mode. There are node wars and there are node sieges. Not mutually exclusive, but a siege isn't declared by a node, but by an individual (who is going to need a lot of backup before they can declare).
I thought it was like the Main catalyst for change?
Mixed. I was very much looking forward to this stream, but to me it was kind of a bummer in some aspects.
So i like the game mechanics in itself. Very interesting, that you first have to prepare, you habe different commusions, different war types, the mix of PVP and PVE - all very very nice. The gameplay itself then was not so convincing.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
I really like the aspect of building up a community in a node and shape the world with that, also building up relations and rivals. Its exciting to have always some threat during a node war and the planning and tactical aspect of it is quite unique.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Node Wars Preview? (UI, VFX, and performance are things we know need love, and not what we want feedback on currently)
I know that you dont want feedback to visuals, but in that massbattle it was to me honestly shockingly bad.
Besides that i feel like the TTK was way too long. Sometimes Steven or other players where standing alone, putting them in some really bad position and they got focused and should die quickly, but it was like theyre super tanky.
The PVP Gameplay was very chaotic and in the end there was no focus, nor tactic not even reading the enemies group. It was just spamming aoe spells and it felt like there was no need for healing, since the super big flashy aoe effects are not really dealing damage.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
I played alot of Mass PVP, mainly GW2 and Warhammer Online. And i hate zerging. Unfortunately, the gameplay shown looked as if AOC was just about zerging too. There was no tactical or strategic gameplay, it was just spamming aoe spells.
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I guess its important that these ascpects are melting together. That PVP and PVE affecting each other and are not seperated.
What are your ideal expectations when it comes to mass-player battles, and objectives oriented or best fit for small teams?
What was shown was theoretically good, i feel like right now its mostly lacking of propper effects and readability.
Edit: besides that, iam the opinion, that a declared war shouldnt happen instantly, give it some timer, a minute or something is enough - but not instantly!
And one big question:
Between these two nodes, there is the possibility that wars happen all the time. Of course its not possible to create an unlimited number of node war objectives etc. how to avoid exploits? For example positioning before starting the war in the objective zone?
Node sieges are major catalysts for change to be sure, potentially much more than node wars. It's better if you read the wiki entries tbh.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_wars
One thing that doesn´t have to do with the Node Wars but that I´ve noticed in a few streams already is the color intensity of some of the effects, especially in comparison to the environment or the look of these effects in general. I like the environment in it´s current state in Alpha 2 (even though I see potential for improvements as I´ve already mentioned in the feedback thread of one of the last livestreams) but because the environment is more desaturated for the most part, that wall for example looks very cartoonish imo.
The same goes for this spell:
Other effects like the shield bubble look very subtle which I really like.
I feel like the glow on these effects enhances that overall color intensity even more.
When I look at the fighting scenes in the Node Wars it´s like:
Huge strong blue spell here, tons of poison green projectiles flying toward an enemy there, etc.
And I think when you have so many players on the screen at the same time it almost looks like a huge blob of different colors with all those different and very strong colours everywhere.
Maybe desaturating some of them in combination with toning down some of the glow effects could be a good start. In my opinion having a very beautiful environment made with UE5 and then having effects in that environment that look very cartoon-ish is (at least to me) very immersion breaking.
I´ve never played New World but judging by what I can see here in this gameplay video of a mage I really like the look of the spells:
The blue glow on some of the objects of the environment is much more subtle, and also on the weapon of the player. The projectiles and pretty much every other spell (no matter if channeled or cast immediately) are rather desaturated but because of that perfectly match the look of the environment! Torches have a similar and less color intense look just like the spells cast by the mage.
In my opinion, having effects that pefectly match the overall look of the environment and the game in general makes much sense, and I feel like in Ashes the environment currently has one graphic style and the spell effects have a different one (a bit exagerated but you hopefully get what I mean
Overall I think it shows alot of promise, but it does seem to have a lot jagged edges... It was a shame that you couldn't see the score, mainly because the impact of the different stages was very hard to determine. The bandit blood/ruby minning aspect was very hard for the viewer to follow (... mostly because Steven was flying too high and too much all over the place
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
PvX systems like the Node Wars system shown in this preview can be alot of fun. Depending on the set-up and different phases you can really mix in a great variety of small skirmish battles, PvE races and large-scale trench-wars between larger groups of players.
Is there anything in particular you’re concerned about regarding what was shown with the Node Wars Preview, and are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
I always have a great deal of concern when it comes to PvX styled events. MMORPG players have a tendency to not do what's "meant to be" or what would be "most fun to do", but instead do the thing that creates the greatest progress in the shortest amount of time. I think if you look to Classic World of Warcraft within recent years, you'll see alot of examples of this... In WoW, the battleground Altarac Valley, was intended as a large-scale 40v40 combat with alot of integrated PvE (i.e the win-condition was actually PvE-based; kill the other teams general.). In the "olden days" of vanilla WoW AV could take the better part of a day to complete, but we saw in Classic WoW that people could end an AV in mere 5-10 minuttes, without ever engaging in PvP battles; because that was the most efficient way to do it. The same happened again with the very recent Season of Discovery WoW Classic, where Blizzard made a brand new Zone-style PvP event - aaand that ended the same way; just a PvE-rush event... PvX requires such a delicate balance, and MMO-players tends to find a way to disrupt that balance, making it very hard on the Dev-team. So all in all I'm worried if you can find the sweet-spot for making an engaging PvX event that draws out the aspects of both PvP and PvE and motivates the player-base to actually just enjoy the event as it is, instead of trying to find all the little short-cuts and most efficient way (because that will destroy the intead of PvX)
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
It has it's uses. It's not as skilled based as smaller 1v1, 3v3, 5v5 battles, so you can perhabs enjoy these events with a bit more leisure, but still get the exiting part of killing your enemies (those big meanies!)
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I've yet to see the perfect balance between PvE and PvP objectives in a single event. I think the only true way to balance it out, would be to section the War into different phases where you make the players do either hardcore PvE or hardcore PvP... you could imagine two teams of 30-40 players, where you have a PvE race for one phase, a more hardcore PvP event (capture the hill, most-kills-in-10-minutes, last-man-standing or w/e) and then perhabs a more mixed PvX event at the end, but where every phase is instanced off so you force the players to focus on the task at hand.
What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion? What kind of impact do you want events like these to have on a larger war?
I think Node Wars, and Node take-overs, are such a massive-impact event that it should be something that takes months to prepare for. Lets say you have 30 Nodes on a server, you would (alliances set aside.) have potentially to ward of 29 other Nodes, and you could easily just go from one war to another war, to a third war, and so on, and then that would take over the game, since you would have to fight nail-and-claw to keep your node progressions, freeholds and so on. In general, I really don't like the idea about total Node take-overs. MMORPG are a very unique genre, because you really become attatched to your character and their progression in the world, and to have to worry about loosing large sums of it in Node Wars are actually more stressful than they're fun imo
What event rewards do you think would be cool?
I'm not sure I fully follow this question. Isn't the whole idea about a Node War that you in the end take over another Node and their progression, freehold slots and so on? (which I still strongly disagree with) I've never thought about Node Wars in AoC as a type of battle that would reward you with items, or currency for which you could buy items... I much prefere that, since that would put more emphasis on rewarding everyone with tangible rewards, instead of actually destroying something other players have spend hours and hours to build up... BUT, I mean, if you really intend to put in item rewards, then go for the classics! special and unqiue mounts, furniture, weapons, pets and so on, and then make it currency based, so that even if you loose you might still get some coins and through tirelessly sucking over and over you can still buy a cool looking mount of fiery weapon of total pwnage or w/e you fancy from the shop.
To Intrepid at this point I must sound like a bit of a broken record (lol) but as with all of my other feedback posts so far I would like to start this off by just saying that the team at Intrepid are looking/asking for feedback, not fishing for compliments. It is ok to have a negative opinion and give constructive criticism, it does AoC no good if we are just yes men (and/or women) white knighting the game. I love Ashes of Creation and I love Intrepid. My feedback may seem harsh in text form or I myself may come off as an overly opinionated loudmouth but I want this game to be the best that it can be and don't want us to settle for just ok or mediocrity. I think that if you love something you should be able to criticize it (not that you are entitled to criticize, but that because you love something you should be even more so able to point out its flaws). I think that the direction that AoC is heading is a good one. I have always been and will always be here to support this project.
I am also well aware that there are a lot of people with the mentality of “it’s too soon”, “I need to wait and see”, or “oh it’s just alpha” as well as quite a few people that feel upset with AoC and Intrepid right now and think that giving feedback is somehow not worth it. To all these people I want to say that Intrepid is asking for feedback based on what we are seeing and experiencing, yes you need to come at it with a mindset of it’s still early, all subject to change, or maybe you just don’t like it, but not giving feedback is the worst thing you can do. By not giving your feedback you are not helping the game grow and/or letting the opinions of others dictate the direction AoC may take.
All that being said, I'm loving seeing and hearing how well the Node Wars are being received by the community as a whole, even if my own opinion does not 100% match up.
How do you feel about the Node Wars Preview?
My overall opinions on Node Wars have not changed very much over the course of my PI testing. I can definitely see and feel the improvements / work that Intrepid has been putting into everything, and I think given the short time frame between each of the tests that the improvements / work / changes that I have seen are phenomenal. It has also felt fun to be testing, just being able to play AoC with people, and to have conversations about AoC. However, I still don’t think that the Node War event itself feels fun or enjoyable.
Even if you look at this event/battle for what it is as just one small part of the much larger whole that is the Node War, being one objective among many, this event (to me at least) is far too simple and boring. After taking part in it once or twice I could see it being viewed as more of a chore to do rather than a fun event to take part in. And that is if there is not just a clear numbers advantage, because if one side out numbers the other I could easily see this become a one sided stomp and go down a very sad path that several other large scale PvX/PvP MMORPGs have gone down before.
Not to say that Intrepid hasn’t taken some very good strides in order to try and attempt to spice up this node war event. (which I will get into)
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
If I had to put it into words I would say that I love the social aspect of Node Wars. I think that there is a ton of potential here for social, political, and economical game play in a MMORPG, something that I think the genre as a whole is sorely low on but also what makes it so good at its peak.
This also has the potential to offer a wide range of different and fun activities, events, objectives, and battlegrounds within the Node Wars system.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Node Wars Preview? (UI, VFX, and performance are things we know need love, and not what we want feedback on currently)
I know you said you don’t want feedback on the performance but I do want to say for people that over the course of our testing the performance has gotten better with each test over a very short time frame. I had consistent 50-60 FPS even with everyone on screen at the same time casting abilities. There was actually a part of the test that I think the masses would love to have seen, where before the recording we had about 100 people all on screen together running around casting large abilities non stop.
Intrepid has made a lot of changes of a relatively short period of time throughout or testing with the Node Wars from the NPCs spawn rates, the points of interest showing on the map, the scholars being added and then also changed to dropping resources, adding the aspect of the dragon for tactical support, buffing, and scouting, it has all felt extremely positive. You are able to both see and feel the work the team has put in trying to fix the problems we have had as well as see our feedback being taken into account (however small incremental changes those may be).
Currently there is a win condition that people didn’t see in the stream of achieving X amount of kills. I personally find it out of place and strongly disagree with / dislike the idea of it for a large-scale open world event setting such as these Node War events/battles. This is something you would find in more of a lobby setting.
Node Wars seem to be being balanced around 50 vs 50, even though there is no actual limit currently for how many can take part in the fight. This seems incredibly small given the size of nodes and the game. We have been repeatedly asked by the Devs if we think that the area that this Node War event takes place in is large enough for 50 vs 50, and I have generally agreed with this for the most part up to this point. However, giving it more thought I now think that once mounts are added to the equation the area of the Node War event gets a lot smaller and not in a good way. Respawn timers are already fairly fast, and nothing within the area of the event is all that far from one another so with the mounts my fear is that you will drastically cut down on response time in a negative way where it takes away from strategic gameplay and devolves the combat into just zombie rushing into fights.
However my biggest concern coming out of these tests was how much of a stun fest the game currently feels like. For a game that talks about meaningful movement when casting spells, the freedom when using skills, having good gap closers for melee, etc. I find it kind of odd with 1: how much you seem to want to take that freedom away from the player and 2: how little you actually play off of your movement. I would think that after all the great reception and feedback you have gotten off of the Ranger and Fighter showcases you would see that your combat needs more movement not less. Not saying that Stuns aren't important, all that movement does need to be put into check but it shouldn’t be an almost constant thing.
For this last part I would suggest looking at how Lost Ark deals with CCs for inspiration. (The reason I like the changes to Fighter so much is that it feels reminiscent of the Lost Ark Berserker class to me.) In Lost Ark the CC cap is 4, after that you have 7 seconds of immunity to CC. And there are three different kinds of CCs in this game. The first is “Staggers” in which there are two kinds of. “Soft” (pretty much only used in PvE), which just interrupts movement, and “Hard”, which interrupts movement and skills, which you would use skills with Super Armor: Paralysis Immunity.
Then you have your Mid CCs like knockups, knockdowns, and knockbacks which interrupt movement, skill usage, and knocks in whatever direction. And with the CC cap set at 4 you are able to get juggled if they layer their CC on top of you. Here the usage of your skills with Super Armor: Push Immunity and optimal usage of your “Get Up” dash is very important which just comes with game knowledge.
Lastly there is Hard CCs which encompasses all of the following, (some of these are PvE exclusive) Faint, Petrification, Fear, Pest, Sleep, Electrocute, Paralysis, Stun, and Freeze* immovable to other attacks (ex: can’t be knocked up). For these uses, you need to use skills with Super Armor: All Immunity, which is usually exclusive to your awakening skills and spacebar dash.
I don’t like how simple Node Wars are currently, they are two extremely simple fetch quests of go get x amount of resources followed by a king of the hill dog-pile on the God Spike. The two fetch quests of rubies and blood are one thing, you have made some very good changes in order to attempt and make them more interesting and PvP focused. I would almost go as far to say that with a few more tweaks I would be ok with the fetch quests. However the last objective of channeling the God Spike hasn’t really seen any improvement and is the worst aspect of the entire event.
The optional objectives of the scholars did see more use in these last few tests and did get a bit of a change by adding the catch-up mechanic of having them drop the needed resources, however I still don’t think they have any meaningful weight to them and it is still better to just flat out ignore them vs just knocking the enemy team off of the god spike. For clarification on this for people, how the God Spike currently works is that once you are done gathering the rubies and blood you rush to the god spike and start to channel it. If the person channeling the God Spike is killed / knocked off then the channel progress is reset to zero. The scholars drop about 10 of each resource as well as increase your enemies channel time by 25% for that channel, and they are very tanky so you are needing to send a good size group to take them down within an acceptable time frame.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
The closest I would say to the intended Node Wars would be Warhammer Online Realm vs Realm Battlefields. I think the ideas are extremely similar with Warhammer Online Battlefields being open world locations within RvR territories where both sides are trying to capture strategic objectives, as well as gaining skirmish rewards for winning fights. By controlling battlefields players gain a set amount of victory points for their realm. These are intended to be major conflict points within the world, where groups of players come together and fight over them.
The individual events/battles in the Node War are a lot like the boon and rift stones in Throne and Liberty. They are scheduled open world points of interest that large groups fight over to take control of by channeling an objective and the winner of these conflicts are rewarded guild activity points and resources.
Conqueror's Blade’s territory wars are scheduled events/battles that define the political landscape of the game. You can attack a settlement in the hope that, when the fight is over, it will become part of your domain. Think of Territory Wars as “open season” for fiefs as a window of opportunity in which to increase your lands collective holdings. Much like how the Node Wars in AoC are meant to function.
EVE Online Sovereignty (Sov) Wars are also fairly similar in concept
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
My feedback so far may give off the suggestion that I don’t like large scale PvP, this could not be further from the truth. I love large scale PvX/PvP MMOs, they give an experience that you can’t get anywhere else. The social and political environment is unlike anything you will find in a PvE MMO. The organization and logistics that go into amassing your forces to go into battle. The strategic gameplay that you can only get when dealing with large numbers. And as a crafter and economic player there is no other place I have seen more meaningful crafting then in a PvX/PvP MMO.
There is also far more potential for group based gameplay and objectives vs small scale PvP or PvE MMOs. You are put in positions where you as a player can’t do everything and need to rely on a group to get things done. It is less about your individual progression and more about working as a group to get things done, because the only way you are going to progress is if everyone works together.
There are also just stories and experiences that you can only get in large scale PvP. People reminiscing about the large conflicts they were a part of, a story made by the players far grander than any PvE MMO’s single player story telling.
I just think that there is a massive difference between good and bad large-scale PvP. Not to say that Zerg vs Zerg can’t be fun, because it is. Just not all the time as a steady diet, it needs to be broken up every so often. Truly good large-scale PvP has strategy, logistics, fighting over several points of interest, multiple ways to approach a situation, etc.
This last bit is an unpopular opinion but it’s my belief that the fantasy of Zerg vs Zerg combat are these large epic fights like something you would hear out of a book or see in a movie, when that’s just not the case. And if we truly want to see those kinds of fights then we are going to need to do something that I know a lot of people are not going to like, by increasing the TTK and adding friendly fire. These are things that Darkfall online did, and in my opinion that was one of the greatest MMOs of all time that was ahead of its time and still is.
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I enjoy PvE objectives in my PvP, it can help break up the fights, be meaningful ways to fuel PvP, and be fun strategic points of interest. However you need to be careful that the PvE does not over shadow the PvP in a War type setting.
This is also true in the reverse, I enjoy PvP fighting over my PvE raids however more often than not, the PvE suffers because of the inclusion of PvP to where the PvE fights are nothing more than boring meat bag objectives to fight over.
What are your ideal expectations when it comes to mass-player battles, and objectives oriented or best fit for small teams?
For small teams it would be things like scouting, back capturing points, running interference, and acting as roaming hit squads. There are a lot of possible strategic game play options for small groups inside of large-scale PvP. Another example would be while the main force is attacking the front gate of the castle/node, a small team is trying to climb the walls or go through sewers in order to open the front gate so that the main force can more easily get inside.
What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion? What kind of impact do you want events like these to have on a larger war?
I think a good sweet spot would be once every other week, or once a month. These Node Wars from what I am led to believe are meant to go on for days, that can be organization and logistics. You don’t want them to feel like they are keeping people from playing the rest of their game, as well as people getting tired of doing them, you don’t want your players getting burned out on them. They need to feel special and like they have weight / meaning when you do them. The rewards for them from the point of view of the node seem fairly large so you don’t want people being able to snowball.
As for impact on a larger war (thinking you mean a siege), I would like to see Node Wars open up and close off strategic options for the nodes. Not being able to field certain siege weapons because the supplies were cut off, oh we can afford to beef up the defenses because we won the rights to the quarry, etc.
I would steer clear of siege wide buffs and the like, as things like this can be overpowering and take away from other siege mechanics.
What event rewards do you think would be cool?
Titles and cosmetics are always good options. You can also do money and Node standing as a way to reward the soldiers for fighting for their node/lord. But I would take it out of the Node’s treasury, as both a way to feed it back into the economy and to act as a limiter on the Wars, because then you have to think if you can afford to fight a war. I think just freely rewarding currency is a dangerous thing, it can affect a game’s economy and snowball players if not thought about properly.
Feedback:
These are things I would like to see or think would be a good change. I do not expect to see these changes any time soon and understand that they will need time to develop should Intrepid choose to take my feedback into consideration. I also want to note that most large scale PvP is a numbers game, these changes don't really help if one Zerg is noticeably bigger than the other, but if that's the case the whole Node War falls apart anyway.
1: As I have said before the biggest and most glaring problem with the Node Wars is the fact that the end objective of channeling the God Spike is a massive Ball vs Ball king of the hill, dog-pile onto the point. If you can fix this then I think Node Wars can be an incredibly enjoyable experience that people look forward to. My recommendation for achieving this would be to add other points of interest at the end for people to do alongside the God Spike. This (if done right) should hopefully break up the balls and add more strategic gameplay. However As I have said above with the scholars, when adding an optional / side objective they need to have weight to them, be important and/or possibly be game changing in order for them to have any real meaning for people to fight over.
Maybe add a trebuchet off to the side of the map that the two sides can fight over for a strategic advantage, and allow the side that has control of it to fire into the enemy.
On the other hand because breaking up the ball is so hard in the end, another recommendation I have is to have more build up to channeling the god spike. Instead of going straight from gathering the resources or whatever the other objectives end up looking like, you would have a 2nd and maybe 3rd layer of objectives that lead into the 4th and final objective of channeling the god spike. I’m not 100% sure but just thinking back to all the large scale PvP games where it was ball vs ball that I have played, the ones that have felt the best is when there was build up to it. It just kind of hits differently.
(Ex: In a good castle siege you have the outer walls, the inner walls, the castle gate, rally / respawn points, etc. that all lead into the final ball vs ball fight over the throne.)
2: The next problem I have with the Node Wars is that it has a king maker system in it, where once a team is ahead they are most likely to stay ahead in the majority of cases. Currently the team that has finished gathering their resources can just all group up on the God Spike and focus all of their efforts on defense, where as the team that is behind on resources collection now needs to split their forces in order to not only slow down / stop the enemy team from channeling the objective but they also need to play catch up to the leading team.
Some people have suggested a system in which once one team finishes the “gathering phase” then both teams would then be able to channel the god spick, potentaly with the team that won the “gathering phase” receiving a buff to assist them in the “channeling phase”. And while this does have potential to fix the overarching issue I personally am not a fan of this idea. I don’t like the thought of just dropping the collection phase once one team is done with it, this just kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but there is also the fear that the play will then be to let the other team do all the work while your team focuses on kills. Even if the team that “wins” the “gathering phase” does get a buff it would still need to be balanced enough to still let the other team have a chance at winning or else you just have the same problem of snowballing the winning team.
Instead I have a few of my own suggestions on what I think would help break up this problem. The first would be one I have already posted, where maybe instead of players channeling the god spike an NPC like the scholars or a priest are the ones that channel it and the teams are feeding the resources we are gathering into them to use in the ritual. This acts as kind of like a furnace system where you're trying to get more resources faster than the other team and feeding them into your channel. This way instead of both sides dog-piling onto the point in a ball vs ball fight, they are roaming and doing the various other objectives or even attempting to slow down the enemy in various ways.
The next would be a kind of “Burn Mechanic”, where once a team channels the God Spike it consumes or “burns” the resources so if you are knocked off of the channel then you will need to go back to gathering resources in order for another attempt. I don’t think you should start back from zero after a channel but instead you are burning resources as the channel is going. This would make it so that both teams could focus on the god spike without worry and once they have the necessary resources they can attempt a channel.
3: While there have been some fairly good improvements made I still feel like the objectives of the Node War are far too simple, being what amounts to two extremely simple fetch quests of go get x amount of resources followed by a king of the hill dog-pile on the God Spike.
I have already said this a few times now but what I would like to see would be that instead of harvesting to mine the rubies ourselves, they are capture points that once owned periodically send out an NPC caravan that transport the needed resource to your base / camp. They should show on the map which team currently owns that location and when they are being captured by the other side. This makes it so that people know where the PvP is, instead of randomly stumbling upon it while doing what is a PvE objective. The NPC caravan also gives groups something to defend as it makes its way to your base. However that is a fairly large change that even if Intrepid were to take my feedback on, would take time to implement.
So if we are just sticking to the rubies being mineable resources, then some of the changes I would like to see are for to be a indicator that someone is carrying rubies on them, be that a pack on their back like in Archeage, a icon above their head showing what they are carrying and how much like in Throne and Liberty, or some kind of aura effect. Another one I would like to see a debuff on people carrying rubies making them move slower the more they are carrying. Next I think it would be a good idea to put hostile NPCs around the ruby nodes (ones that don’t drop blood so to prevent double dipping). With these changes it is my hope that it encourages people to move around in groups more, instead of sending out 1 or two people to mine rubies, and more mobile classes being able to just run away from fights. It also highlights high priority targets in PvP by being able to tell who is carrying what.
4: Just like with the rubies, there has been some good changes around the bandit / highwayman NPCs in an attempt to make them more PvP focused, such as lowering their spawn and spreading them out more. But I’m going to be honest I don’t like that it’s bandit / highwayman NPCs that we are getting the blood from. It makes little sense to me why these guys are the ones dropping the blood, I would much rather see the blood dropping from monsters / animals that have been affected by the god spike or if it has to be humans than make them cultist.
Also just like with the rubies, I would like to see some kind of debuff being applied the more stacks someone has on them. Not the same debuff mind you, I’m thinking something along the lines of a stacking DOT burn damage or something. As well as have some kind of indicator showing that someone is carrying around blood.
And again I have already said this a few times now but what I would like to see would be that instead of bandit NPCs that for some reason are dropping this special blood there should be some other form of resource or if we want to stick with blood maybe have it to where instead of bandit NPCs, the Node’s soldiers that are fighting against each other. This could be where the blood comes from or maybe by getting your soldiers to the enemy base you can slow them down or something. I also think that the addition of NPC soldiers fighting on the battlefield for the node would help make the world feel more populated.
5: This test I did notice that the optional objectives of the scholars did see more use this test due to it’s change of dropping resources, however I still don’t think they have any meaningful weight to them and it is still better to just flat out ignore them vs just knocking the enemy team off of the god spike. The number of resources they drop is only 10 of each kind as well, which given how tanky they are is questionable at best if it’s really worth going after them.
I do really like the idea of bigger badder boss monsters around the map that drop more blood or give buffs, but just like with the bandit / highwayman NPCs, I don’t like the idea of them being humans. I’m thinking like an essence infused Bear or something. It also should not be a simple fight that is just tanky. It needs to have mechanics of some kind and be an interesting fight, but it also can’t be too hard either, as the focus needs to stay on the PvP.
6: There have been very good changes to the map such as showing the resources on the map, as well as UI elements to show when resources are being turned in, and even how close the enemy team is to channeling the god spike. However some Map and UI changes I personally would like to see would be things like when one team has mined the rubies that they pop off of the map until they spawn again. This change serves two purposes, the first is so people aren't wasting time traveling to nodes that have already been mined, and the second is to let people that are paying attention to the map know that an enemy has just mined a node and is in that area.
I also think it would be cool if we could physically see how close the enemy team is to completing their objective. Not with a UI element like what has been added but instead actually sending out scouts to your enemy’s base and seeing maybe a warehouse being stuffed with materials and a liquid vat being filled with the blood.
7: After playing with the raid/party UI a bit more in these last few test, I really liked what I was seeing and that the classes were even color coded. I would like to see these elements taken further with raid leads being able to mark players, Targets, and locations with big visible markers. I would like to see the raid UI color coded as well, instead of everyone just being green.
8: The mounted dragon is fairly new to the wars and while I have a lot of questions about it, I like what I have seen so far. The dragon plays more of a support role rather than a leadership role but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. However I would like to see more added than just the dragon, I have already talked about adding a trebuchet to the map, but I would like to see more added to the game in the way of siege equipment. And by this I am talking something akin to Conqueror's Blade.
Games I would like to see AoC take inspiration from:
Conqueror's Blade: This game has some of the best wars and castle sieges I have experienced in any game
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Dark Age of Camelot: The father of what we know of as large-scale PvP today, almost every PvP game has tried to copy what Dark Age of Camelot did and hasn’t really been able to capture that same kind of success.
Warhammer Online: I think almost everything AoC wants to be was done to some success in Warhammer online, they have very comparable ideas and systems. Warhammer online also has some of the best and most unique class designs of any game I have ever played.
Lost Ark: I think AoC would benefit greatly by taking inspiration from how Lost Ark does its combat, CCs, and Class identity mechanics. A lot of why I think fighter is so good is because it reminds me of Lost Ark’s Berserker. (And while you're at it look at their raids.)
WildStar: Also some of the best combat in recent MMOs, when I saw the Ranger showcase it made me think of Wildstar. It’s not a 1 for 1 but I did see the potential for AoC’s combat to move in a direction that could come close to what Wildstar had.
Darkfall Online: In my opinion the best large-scale fantasy PvP MMORPG that there has ever been, it was ahead of its time and still is. Like with Warhammer Online it shares similar ideas to what AoC is trying to achieve.
Tank:
I have talked quite a bit about the “Tank” class in my past feedback posts over the course of PI’s testing, primarily about the wall skill that it has in its kit, and I would like to say that I really like the changes I have seen made to it. The version that everyone got to see wasn’t the one we were testing with most of the time. The wall was a line of large blue lion shields that rose up out of the ground. In one of the tests you were able to choose if you wanted it to be wider, taller, or see through (so your skills could go through it). I like these options but personally I like the brick wall we see in the livestream over the lion shields (but I would like to see the brick wall instead of just popping in, it pieces together).I feel like its area denial is in a good place for different strategies and use cases. Before the wall also stunned and I think this was too much. I will say that I kind of want the cooldown back the way it was, the cooldown for the stream test was far too long. The Aegis skill kind of works like a Reinhardt shield. (currently I view the tank as kind of like a mix between Mei and Reinhardt in Overwatch with some of our feedback about warhammer online mixed in).
Cleric:
It's in kind of an odd spot, the cleric right now is strong due to its self-sustainability, you also serve a crucial role due to your heals and revives, however even with these facts I think the class is boring (cleric main by the way). I think a simple fix for this would be adding more movement to the class, currently all it was is Wings of Salvation. Cleric has some utility in its kit outside of just healing but It could definitely use more like more shields and auras. It has also been a while but in the past Clerics were described as being masters of both life and death so I would love to see that identity be brought into the clerics design. Right now it has a lot of focus on healing and radiant damage but I would love to see necrotic damage be added to the kit for more build diversity. and lastly, the clerics identity skill is really bland. it has two options and one is just clearly better than the other and even then it's just using your divine power instead of your mana.
Ranger:
I think Ranger is kind of going through an identity problem. It has great movement, the damage was kind of low these last few tests, invisibility, buffs like upping mana regen, CCs, and I’ve already said this but I hate the Ranger’s class identity mechanic.
- Excellent! Loved everything I saw! The complexity of the system is something that really excites me because it will allow everyone a lot of ways to participate. The mix of PVP and PVE is exactly what I am looking for and how it impacts the world is the big incentive for me to participate. The world is it's own character and allowing players to shape and interact with it, truly what I am looking for,
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
- I want to help and organize my node and group of friends for these fights. I want to have the option to contribute however I can, even if I can only play for a few hours a week for example. I also love how the node wars will effect your nodes and allow it to grow in power and influence.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Node Wars Preview? (UI, VFX, and performance are things we know need love, and not what we want feedback on currently)
- I noticed the animations for Steven's characters as being great! Specifically, it seems that when he runs forward and turns, there is an animation transition for that as well. I would love that expanded for mounts so that when they turn its not instant and sharp, but instead has a smooth transition.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
- Nothing comes to mind at the moment!
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
- I like it! Alterac Valley was one of my favourite modes in vanilla WoW. I also played Darkfall which had massive wars and AoC feels right up my alley.
As someone before typed it felt like a game now. Some sounds effect made it sound like sci-fi game but this is Alpha stage so no big thing there.
Tremendous clever idea with Mayor buffs and mount to make a difference on the battlefield.
Ideas of luck buffs to encourage players to go there in new taken territory which will probably be dangerous to visit. Risk vs Reward.
Perhaps open up many idea on quests after a battlefield because early days there were alot of plundering and loot laying on a battlefield after a big war.
Have you guys consider diseases and/famine events if an area is under constant war events?
That would open up alot of interesting questline and for players to prevent deadly plagues spreading. Just an example.
Overall a very good stream and I really like the joke trashtalk in between devs while playing.
Curious what the intended numbers of Players active would be?
It is nice to see that Raids/Zergs have their Role but Groups and even Solos can participate and contribute aswell.
Curious what other warmechanics will be available over time, sure there will be a lot of ideas and possibilities.
Can Players flag and third party the Event?
Thanks for showing the system, can’t wait to feel it.
My overall feelings with the Preview is excitement, curiosity, anticipation and desire to know more about and try first hand.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Node Wars system?
Excited to see all the different types of node wars and the objectives around them. I am hoping the playstyles differ widely between them. Having the gather/collect mixed the capture point was good to start. Would love to see even more added to that. Multiple capture zones, Multiple stages of gather/kill. As was brought up in the preview, making war leaders have to strategize and lead the group well. You should be able to tell which side has good leadership very quickly. And with the one capture point zerg, it doesn't really bring out good gameplay in my opinion.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with The Node Wars Preview?
Going back on what I stated, I am hoping that there will be a wide variety in these war contracts that promote enticing and strategic gameplay. I really don't want, capture the (X) being the end goal for all these objectives, it's Okay to have that be for some. I would love to see some be kill X things and bring them back to X zone. Almost incorporating the caravan system but doesn't necessarily have to be that. You kind of have that with the first part of the collect quest, But I would love to see it be developed even further. For example, You have a small group kill a tribal leader in the area, who has a War Elephant/Horse/Camel. Once you slay that leader you have to escort it back to your base. And not just one of these going on at a time, say 4 different camps. Then whenever a side has completed it, they can then use that war animal in the war. At the same time of that cap event, you would have a capture zone event, and a kill collect event. I may be asking too much for these since they are just node wars and not castle sieges, but having multiple things go on at once will help small groups/guilds be able to participate. At the same time having multiple events will help prevent the zerging on capture the X.
Are there similar systems you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
I guess the most similar thing I could say I have played would be Large scale PVP in World of Warcraft. Battlegrounds and Open World PVP zones. Such as Battle for Wintergrasp, Alterac Valley, Isle of Conquest and Ashran. Things that I liked were the massive battles and feeling like you were a part of something greater, I know that castle sieges are meant to be more of that scale in Ashes. When playing Wintergrasp there were many strategies you could deploy on both attack and defend, over the years most would find the “Meta”, but for a long time battles there were loads of fun, vehicle combat, defending a keep, attacking workshops and chokepoints. One of my other favorites would have to be Isle of conquest, I think from a design perspective they made an excellent gamemode and map, but alas players would just zerg one point and have that be the “meta.” So I guess in summary you can design a great war map, have good chokepoints and Points of interest. But if you don't incentivise employing each and every aspect of the war, Most will just send an all out zerg.
How did you feel about Mass PvP?
Mass PvP can be great and can be shambles. I know Intrepid is hard at work in many aspects to make it great. I think as far as it goes for the Node vs Node war perspective. I’m going to look at it like this based on the numbers we have been currently given. The server capacity is projected to be 10,000 people. Let's assume that. There are also slated to be 100 nodes on each server. Given those numbers we can project that most nodes will have anywhere from 50 to 200 people per node. With some of the larger guilds having nodes with 500 people. If there is a Node vs Node war going, the objective will only be during primetime, if it were two evenly matched nodes we would have 100 vs 100 battles. That would be awesome gameplay as long as the objectives are plentiful and wide. Then if we had a situation of a Larger node battling a smaller node, Say even 250 vs 50. I don't really even have to say what would happen, they would be slaughtered. No amount of catchup mechanics would allow the undermanned team to be able to win the objective. What It would require is the smaller team to be much more cunning and slay unsuspecting solo players and try to win the war outside of the objectives, if that is even possible. That's what I would strategize as an undermanned node, get every rogue and ranger together, have one cleric run around as bait and a scout, have my rogue and ranger ready to pounce on any poor souls gathering or questing in the warzone.
What do you believe the perfect balance to be between PvE and PvP objectives?
I think the perfect balance for a war would be leaning more into PvP objectives, not by much but just enough since PVP is what is supposed to change the world. I would say a 60/40 split when doing node wars. If the objectives for one given wartype was collect/slay boss and get X amount of PVP kills and capture nodes / capture spear. Having 2 objectives be PVE and 3 being PVP would be a good balance. Even throwing in the escorts which can give you the best of both.
What are your ideal expectations when it comes to mass-player battles, and objectives oriented or best fit for small teams?
My expectations when it comes to massive pvp is to feel a sense of anxiety and excitement. I want to be exploring the battlefield completing the PVE objective but also constantly on edge not knowing when the enemy team might ambush me. Having the balance of both is really going to be an artform that will have to be molded and tested over alpha 2 and betas. Given all that I have said I am more of a PVE player, I don't enjoy PVP as much as I used to. But when large scale PVP is done right and feels impactful I know it will excite me to play it more and more. As I have said earlier, try best to mix both and intertwine them at the same time, promote spread soldiers across the entire zone and not to a singular point. Teams that do zerg should actually be at a disadvantage if designed well. For example instead of capturing the one Godspike, Have the point be to capture the Hexaspike. A monumental 6 spiked godspear that could spread across, just far enough to where most players would have mount and walk for a couple seconds before reaching the next point, but small enough to where the mayor could see all points of the battlefield, allowing them command the battle. Overall I want small groups of 8 to feel they can walk around the battlefield and hold their own and contribute to a mass push on an objective. All while I want the mass battles to feel impactful and not zergy.
What would be the ideal frequency for events like Node Wars in your opinion? What kind of impact do you want events like these to have on a larger war?
I feel that having these Daily would be way too often and weekly might not be enough, somewhere balanced in between that would probably be a good medium. Maybe after the war has completed it would start a 5 day cooldown for both the attacking and defending nodes? I am also not sure how long these node wars are going to last on average. What is the plan for that? Is intrepid planning on these lasting days? Or even a week? Not sure guess we will have to see during A2.
What event rewards do you think would be cool?
Overall really excited to see more and get my hands on Alpha 2. Thanks for the update team and keep on
doing your best!!
Excited:
-Animations looks better with every live stream
-Most of the spell effects fit well in the pvp environment, even the ball lighning that was so hated at the beginning now looks good and fits well in the battle
-Different node war options let us all dream of the future of pvp
-The environment and the landscape with different heights and depths with sometimes choke points is ideal for tactical combat
Normaly, I belong to the silent community that has been following aoc for many years now. I played the alpha 1 and was very satisfied with the development of the game so far.
But here are my Concerns:
With the current state of the health bar in pvp it seems to be really difficult to get a good hit freedback. The pvp player in my guild hate the current ¼ hp bar in pvp and will not play the a2 in this condition.
For months I thought it only affected my community. (many of them are old school daoc player) Today I heard the same argument from the largest german aoc streamer. Entenburg said the same as our pvp players, if the hp bars in pvp stay that way, he give away his alpha 2 key.
It would be a shame to lose players because of such a small thing. Is there a chance to rethink the hp bar in pvp again to give the player their hit feedback they want?
Dude
Why is the cleric firing purple shots with a wand? He must shoot yellow (light magic). Is not it so?