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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Here is what I am imagining:
First off, I'm thinking the rewards/punishment for nodes/citizens should be low but long. 5% buff for 14 days on the winners, -1% debuff for 14 days on the losers.
Then, we should expect that most Node Wars are going to be 1 sided victories by the aggressors. Why? Because they spent all the time and resources to declare the Node War, and they get to choose the time and place of the Node War. It would be an absolute waste of time to do a Node War if you think there is a 50/50 chance of winning.
OK, now when a Node War starts, we get 2 objectives in each level bracket to open up. Aggressors/Defenders from either size can Queue to join the Objective Party for an objective in their bracket and go complete it when the Objective comes online. If no opposing party shows up then it is just a simple PVE fight against a mob pack designed for their group size. This will likely happen alot... That's fine and should be expected.
However, if groups start to match on both the Aggressor/Defender sides for Objective Parties, then new Objectives for that level bracket open up. This way we have a fluctuating amount of Objectives based on whether or not both Nodes have citizens in various level brackets that want to participate in the Node War.
Maybe we have a Military Node that can declare a Node War every 3 days, and chooses 1 of 5 buffs for 14 days on victory. If they can win a Node war every 3 days, then they can have 4-5 buffs active for their citizens most of the time.
Maybe we have a Religious Vassal Node that doesn't care about -1% debuff and lets the Military Node win the Node War most of the time, because they are getting even more benefit by raiding and farming.
Then one day, the Parent Node of the Religious Vassal Node wants to get the 5% buff for winning the Node War. Great! Maybe they buy a cheaper "Defend the Vassal!" Commission (cheaper than a normal war declaration, no scroll required) which gives an additional 2% buff, and join the Vassal Node Objective Parties and flood the war with their players. Now they just got the 7% buff for winning a war on the cheap, while the Aggressors lose 1% stats for 14 days plus loss of scroll and materials/time for the war declaration.
So we can have a system where Node Wars are happening throughout the world most of the time, and not necessarily that consequential, but then every so often a huge war erupts. I think that sounds like a fun way to implement this system.
I mean we can just make something like this:
For a 30-60 minute Objective:
Level 10-19 Objective: 10 War Score, 10 gold participation bonus, level worth of exp.
Level 20-29 Objective: 15 War Score, 15 gold participation bonus, 75% level worth of exp.
Level 30-39 Objective: 25 War Score, 25 gold participation bonus, 40% level worth of exp.
Level 40-49 Objective: 50 War Score, 50 gold participation bonus, 25% level worth of exp.
Level 50 Objective: 100 War Score, 200 gold participation bonus.
Maybe 1000 War Score to win the Node War, in a Tug of War Score format. Meaning that if one side wins 100 points, and the other side wins 10 points, the total is 90 points to the first side.
If no one joins in the low level brackets its not a big deal. Objectives will fluctuate to meet matching parties, so the system self corrects to wherever the player base is at.
High level players can also just PVP the low level objectives so that neither side can cap it if they don't have any low levellers to compete. But that would only be worth it when there are many low level defenders that are increasing the war score more than the high level defenders.
I like it
well, if one side doesn't have any low levels, what happens then?
the high levels just gonna roll the low levels anyways, or should they auto lose for being high levels? doesn't seem fair if they did
if you arent playing your alt, you arent playing your main. so in a way, it takes away from it (unless its lost ark and you give progression from your alt to your main, which I hated xd)
So people would make alts to do that. And people would start fighting for those locations. And that fighting would require either bringing a highbie char or just better gear than your opponent. And both of those solutions used the stuff you've built on your main. Hence the alt continuing your progress, instead of removing it.
If one side doesnt have low levels then the low level side can capture 10 war score points I guess. But the other side just captured 100 war score points on the high level objective.
Sure they can go camp the lowbies, but they are going to win the war anyways so what would be the point?
The amount of objectives in this system would fluctuate as teams MATCH. So 2 objectives in the level 10-19 bracket with just one sided defenders max out at 20 war score per hour.
Assume 30 level 10-19 bracket Defenders and 0 Aggressors
10-19 Bracket - 10 War Score victory:
Objective 1: Party of 8 (8 vs 0)
Objective 2: Party of 8 (8 vs 0)
The remaining 30-16 = 14 low level defenders can't join an Objective Party and can only help with PVP around the objectives.
If you have 250 lvl 50 Aggressors and 120 lvl 50 defenders then maybe you get 7 level 50 objectives:
50 bracket - 100 War Score victory:
Objective 1: Party of 8 level 50s ( 8 vs 8 matched)
Objective 2: Party of 8 level 50s (8 vs 8 matched, when 75% full on both sides unlocks Objective 3)
Objective 3: Party of 16 level 50s (16 vs 16 matched, when 75% full on both sides, unlocks Objective 4)
Objective 4: Party of 16 level 50s (16 vs 16 matched, when 75% full on both sides, unlocks Objective 5)
Objective 5: Party of 40 level 50s (40 vs 40 matched, when 75% full on both sides, unlocks Objective 6)
Objective 6: Party of 40 level 50s (40 vs 32 matched, when 75% full on both sides, unlocks Objective 7)
Objective 7: Party of 40 level 50s (40 vs 0, no more objectives unlocked until this fills up opposing team)
In this scenario, 168 players from Aggressors, and 120 players from the Defenders will be in Objective Parties and obtain Participation Rewards and can increase the War Score.
The remaining 250-168 = 82 players on the Aggressors side can still join in the war by PVPing the other side and zerging the objectives, they just don't get any Participation Rewards and cant PVE the objective mob packs or complete the objectives.
In this case they could get 700 War Score in an hour or two by just zerging the high level Objectives. They don't even need to bother with the lowbies getting 20 War Score on defence.
I didn't at all say people couldn't have alts if they wanted, I said people should never feel that they need to be on an alt for something as important as a node war. There should never be a situation where you need to log in to a lower level character simply because your rival is on a lower level character.
If the rival brings a level 20 and I bring a level 50, sucks to be them. I put the work in to that level 50, I should be able to use it to do what needs to be done - and if what needs to be done is defending my node against a level 20, then that is what I should be able to do.
no no lets say one side has 100 level 50 and the other side has 100 level 50 and 10 low levels. if you want to restrict the number of players, just say 90 and 100. 90 can still beat 100 but its unfair people get punished for leveling up. its like other players are being rewarded for not playing.
I'm okay with something that low level players can do, as long as the high level players arent excluded and can do it as well.
I mean we are talking about open world here. The PVP and stuff is still open world PVP with no flags. You can have hundreds of low levels or high levels or whatever is logged on at the moment. High level players will still be able to affect the war through PVP. They just don't complete Objectives or obtain Participation Rewards unless they are in an Objective Party. That's really the only difference.
Do you have any opinion on the system I outlined to Depraved just above in the thread?
Gearing an alt to the point where he can definitely win also requires work and it's usually additional work, rather than your main avenue of gameplay. So I'd argue that a person with a well-geared lvl20 alt has done more job than you with your lvl50 main.
Same applies to the bigger picture where one side might've just used normal newbies/lowbies and gave them great gear. That side would've worked more on the overall gearing part of the preparation than yours did, if your side only has their mains ready for the fight.
Characters that have had less time and effort put in to them are able to sway the outcome of a war specifically BECAUSE they have less time and effort put in to them than their rival characters.
Surely you wouldn't defend that.
Again, if those characters are doing something that could swing the war, I should be able to deal with that situation on the character I have put the most investment in to.
IMO, give the lower level players on one side an instance, sure - but if the opposing side doesn't have appropriately leveled characters, then they go in with inappropriately leveled characters.
If you are level 20, and all I have on my side is level 50 characters, again, sucks to be you. If I have a handful of level 10, and the lowest you have is level 20, looks like my level 10s are going up against your level 20's.
I try to not have opinions on detailed ideas in games I've not played. This is why I tend to talk generalizations and/or larger picture, and prefer to talk about Intrepids/Stevens intentions, rather than specifics.
I'm sure the dydtem would work just fine, I just wouldn't have an opinion on it until I had played that aspect of Ashes.
yeah so they are excluded for playing the game and leveling up, basically xd
And by well here I mean nicely OEd best gear at that lvl, so that absolute majority of players at the same lvl range couldn't really do anything against you.
This isn't how math works.
If a low level alt takes 100 hours to gear out, my main that I have spent 5000 hours still has more time spent on it.
You don't get to claim that the alt has 5100 hours on it - it has 100 hours.
OK, well the system (as I've described it), doesn't make lowbies more important than high level characters. It just gives them some way to participate, but it is mostly negligible if they are overrun by high level characters anyways. It is also a system that fluctuates based on the available player base at the time of the Node War, so it is adaptive.
If you start at point A and you do a marathon to point B for 5h, but then when you reach the end the organizers say "if you run for another 10 mins to point C, you'll get an additional medal" (and lets say for the sake of this context that you value the medal) - if you run to point C, will you have run for 10 mins from point A or for 5h10m?
This same analogy applies to gearing a lowbie friend or a newbie player. It's not really about the alt char itself, but about the lvl of gear you want to give it. You'd need to find mats, find OE methods for that lvl of gear, find people who might be able to craft even better version of said gear (although usually this is a part of the "5h marathon") - and all of this is either done as purely additional off-prime-time activity or as a replacement of it, if you deem it valuable enough to replace your main's playtime.
And if you say "just do this while you're leveling your main", that usually means that others who didn't do it during that time will have outpaced your main's progression, so they'll beat your lvl50s, which, as I said, brings in more war points. So you'd ultimately lose if you tried gearing your main better at lower stages of progression.
This is why I say that alts require your main's playtime + the additional time spent gearing the alt.
If it takes 10 minutes to go from point B to point C, then it took 10 minutes.
This is because our runner in this scenario first wanted to get to point B - that was the goal. If there was a new goal set after that goal, then that is a new goal, but getting to point B is still the first goal.
In an MMORPG, you get yourself a character to the cap, and that opens up a number of things. One of those things is that it enables you to better gear a low level alt, if you wish.
However, that is not the only thing it opens up. If you opt to make and gear that alt, the only time you are spending on it is the time you spend on working on that character - because you still have that level 50 character there that has all of those other doors open for you.
Your analogy here would only work if you lost that level 50 character when making the alt - since you do not, you are wrong.
No they would be excluded from Participation Rewards for not joining an Objective Party. They can still go open world PVP as much as they want and help their Node win the War.
This is why I say that it's an addition to the whole rather than simply a completely separate thing. Because if you could gear the alt just as well/fast w/o your main's laid out work - it WOULD be a separate thing. But I'd bet that we won't be able to do that.
but didn't you say that they wouldn't get war points from pvping? =_=
I need to re read the whole thing again xd I'm confused now.
well, you could be putting those 100 hours into your main to make it even stronger. only way an alt wouldn't ake time off your main is i your main cant literally become any stronger, or if you can feed your alt progression to your main progression.
In my experience trying to get even just 1% boost at max lvl takes way more effort than getting a few highly OEd items for a lowbie alt.
wait what? so the 100 hours on a main are more valuable than the 100 hours on an alt, therefore the alt (lower value) should have a bigger impact in the event? what what? ok...
i agree that gearing up an alt takes less effort, but it depends on the game. in l2, sure, in games where your gearing Is dependant on dailies, for example, you might not be able to get the reward with both your main and an alt, and gearing up takes the same amount of days for each bracket.
now, lemme ask you, if you have 2 billions in l2, are you gonna use them trying to get an homu or emi +16 for ur alt or ++ your AM or draco for your main?
if you spend them on the alt, your alt gonna kill level 40s for sure but your main gonna get steam rolled by anyone who spent money on their main xd which one is more worth it? killing top players or killing random alts or random lowbies?
You are still wrong about this point - the time it takes to gear an alt is the time you spend on gearing that alt. Can you do it faster if you have a higher income? Yes, but that isn't the point unless you only got hat income specifically and only to gear that alt.
None of this relates back to the point of low level characters in node wars though.
This comes back to what I said before. If you believe that increasing your main's strength will give you enough of a lead over your opponents - cool, do that and disregard the lowbie alts.
If I know that the war objectives give me 20 points for the war and I know that +1-3 on my weapon that takes all the money I have will not provide me those same 20 points (because my opponents are as strong as me, so a few % won't directly lead to a win) - I'll spend a big chunk of my money making sure that my alt can definitely earn those 20 points.
If you remember L2's seven signs festival, there were lvl bracketed instanced arenas with mob waves. On the servers I've played those were usually the battlefield of people who wanted to change the upcoming seven signs allegiance for whatever reason.
And you wanted some well-geared alts, if you planned on outfarming any of your potential contestants.
My point stems directly from my initial statement on this matter. I expect people to put time/money into alts, if they believe that their mains can't win the same amount of points for sure.
And I said that I like that design. You simply disagree and that is fine.
Really? I thought Steven SPECIFICALLY asked us to comment on what we would like to see in Node Wars as far as PVP, PVE, objectives, rewards etc.
I didn't hear him say "OK this is how it will be and we will not change it because we have it all figured out, now go tell us more about the games graphics in the forums because that's what we really need feedback on."