Node alliances should be thought about like factions
Spif
Member
I think this is what IS is already working towards, in light of the how unchanging node structures are going to be. Tthis is going to be very interesting in the first 6 months. There will be a race to build up nodes and alliances. The "land grab" phase of the server start, where nodes are being built up and parent/vassal structures get setup.
There can only be something like 6 alliances total. Maybe a couple more.
Then, after 6-12 month (population dependent) those node alliances structures will be fairly fixed. But, they will be different for every server, rather than being pre-set by the game devs. And these alliances will have grown organically. People in one cluster of nodes will have been playing together (mostly, heh) to build up those nodes.
I think AoC should definitely do more to build on node alliance cohesion, although I'm not sure how that can be built up. Here are some thoughts:
What are some other ideas to make alliances more "allied"? Since you literally can't choose who is a Citizen in your alliance, there need to be some external rules to bring them together.
There can only be something like 6 alliances total. Maybe a couple more.
Then, after 6-12 month (population dependent) those node alliances structures will be fairly fixed. But, they will be different for every server, rather than being pre-set by the game devs. And these alliances will have grown organically. People in one cluster of nodes will have been playing together (mostly, heh) to build up those nodes.
I think AoC should definitely do more to build on node alliance cohesion, although I'm not sure how that can be built up. Here are some thoughts:
- PvP should be disabled between node's citizens for certain node v node pvp-related activities. For example, after the node war demo they talked about a period of enhanced looting in the attacked area for the victors. During that time, I'd think that the winners should not be able to attack each other. This one may be node specific rather than alliance specific.
- During node wars/battle, alliance citizens can only fight for the node in their alliance (no turncoats....they're probably spies anyway)
- Node buffs should be shared within an alliance with other nodes. Not necessarily at full value. Possibly they should stack for extra benefits. A major/minor buff system would work well here. IE, if my node has the buff up for +crafting success (major buff), and my parent node also has the buff up for +crafting success (since it's not my node I get a minor crafting success buff at half value), I can get +1.5x crafting success
- A limited time node project for the top parent node: War assistance. If war is declared by or against one of your nodes the entire alliance flags to the enemy node and that node flags to your alliance. If both sides do it you have alliance vs alliance auto-flagging. Optionally have this as just an alliance setting with a cooldown to change it
- A limited time node project for the top parent node: Pax. All alliance members are unable to fight each other on inside of alliance nodes. Optionally have this as just an alliance setting with a cooldown to change it
- Possibly alliance members are unable to loot each other's corpses unless they are in a party/raid together. I'd say just drop less when killed by an alliance member, but that is abusable in PvE
What are some other ideas to make alliances more "allied"? Since you literally can't choose who is a Citizen in your alliance, there need to be some external rules to bring them together.
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Comments
The 4th point sounds reaaal close to this, so I feel like that's already in
But if you're ok with changing the current design to a choice-based thing - I'm all for that.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Affiliations
That will make large guilds life harder when node structures change and some nodes shift into enemy node chains.
And like with factions, you don't have total control over who is in your alliance, since node membership looks like it will be first-come first-serve. AKA you joined Horde and your current node is the Barrens
The classic guild affiliation is much more PvP related
Also, nodes are not alliances, because, unlike the guild alliances, you can attack your nodemates. This is yet another contradicting point in this design, which also proves that nodes are not factions.
Even with one character, that character might prefer to focus on Node and belong to a Guild that has an Alliance with the TheoryForge Guild affliated with the TheoryForge Community.
And it could be that part of the lore for the TheoryForge Community is that there are some rival in-game Guilds that belong the TheoryForge Community.
In an RPG, character conflicts don't always have to be player conflicts.
Steven's expectation is that Mega-Guilds will have to split into several in-game Guilds, due to membership quota restrictions - and that some of them might find their in-game Guilds have conflicts.
Like most of these kinds of suggestions - I think we should wait to test how allegiances and Node Affiliations and Alliances feel under the current design before we advocate for changes to the design.
"Faction" is really just a semantic label. Ashes has lots of factions built in already.
(Typically, in an MMORPG, Faction is something you choose at Character Creation and can't be changed afterwards - which Ashes is trying to avoid.)
"There's node citizenship. There's guild. There's alliance. There's party. There's raid. There's family. All of these types of affiliations have a hierarchy. The highest of which is your node affiliation: So your citizenship is your greatest superceding relationship, which means if you were a part of a guild and the guild has multiple nodes in which its members are citizens of, if there was a war between two of those nodes, the members of those nodes would be first and foremost citizens who defend that node, even against their own guild members.[48] – Steven Sharif"
Node alliances are *LIKE* factions. Personally I think that being able to PvP someone in your "faction" (green/purple/red flags still apply) is a great option for dealing with a$$hats that happen to be on your side.
Your node affiliation is above explain by the game designer to be your most important one. And it's a part of your node hierarchy. It's a design decision. I'm just explaining the game mechanics the way I see it. I get that you don't like it as a design decision. I personally think that factions are healthy for a game's longevity, as it gives the more casual a shelter inside a preset group. Once a game only has hardcore elite players (because they've driven everyone else away), it's going to fade fast.
6-8 dynamic factions is even better. A game where a faction can actually win against another via node destruction? That's amazing
Much like the green/purple/red flagging system putting guardrails in to keep a small group of players from ruining the game for many others, the node affiliation/alliance/"faction" system puts guardrails in to keep that from happening at a node level.
A simple opinion to illustrate my point:
I think New World would have been a much better game if they made more effort to make the Factions much more ideologically different, with more clarity about it. I don't just mean flavor either, I mean outcomes, ways they handle things, bonuses, etc.
New World couldn't escape this because its roots are as a PvP game, not a PvX one. I'm used to playing PvE or PvX 'territory control' type MMOs, and the thing that keeps those going is that they are better at making the 'factions' feel properly distinct in how they approach things.
It wouldn't have been as disturbing for New World's servers with their 2000 Concurrent Users to be taken over by one 'Faction', if it really just meant 'everyone on this server prefers the same playstyle'. Because that's fine, it becomes a 'PvE server', sure, but with only 2000 Concurrents, who really cares?
Ashes is too large for that, but I also don't want the usual artificial 'we're supposed to fight because we belong to different Nodes/Nations'. I want there to be something behind that friction. RP-PvPers can use it, Econ players can use it, PvE players can mostly ignore it, and the GM/CM team can build off it.
It adds to the world, for me. If Intrepid makes Node Alliances do most of the things mentioned in the OP, I'd expect only drama/'abuses' of those systems, and a hollow feeling, for me personally.
I do not mind #3, I would expect something like it as part of the Vassal system because it's easier to understand for the 'common man' than economic reports or whatever.
Hands off, we need the pvp for dealing with annoying, toxic, beligerant, etc, all kinds of people. People will fight for the good spots, dungeons, etc, there are many reasons why we need to fight the people around us!
ABSOLUTETY NOT, MY GOOD SIR!!!
What is this? Fascism? Dictatorship? Communist regime?
Where is this fascination in controlling others is comming from
Just no, people should have player based diplomacy only
ABSOLUTETY NOT, MY GOOD SIR!!!
This will just screw everybody, then you do the Pax thing and just forcefully farm the dungeons and bosses and everything else because then nobody can wardec you lol
why this
ABSOLUTETY NOT, MY GOOD SIR!!!
OMG SO BAD!!! So bad so bad
Where is this fascination for controlling stuff is comming from?
Let everybody loot, if your alliance members can't loot then random people will pass by and just scoop everything and everything will be lost omg
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Let them kill and help each other in any way they want and they will sort out who is legit or not
Man, these ideas are extremely opressive and brakes the gameplay, it is a flat NO with capital letters, and I hope that nobody suggests this
I am sorry, but you should come up with ideas about adding violence to the game and not hurdles and barriers
Yeap, agreed on that, restraining gameplay will just hurt the community as a whole
Look, I play factional warfare everyday and the limitations create unecessary drame ingame and almost everyday people ask for a civil war within the faction so we can sort out some stuff
Because we are locked within the faction now I am creating neutral alts so i can kill people from my own faction, they will get hurt bad and it is a chore to me creating more alts and skilling them. Everybody loses like this!!
Just let me kill and declare war anyone I want
Basically this. Thanks Arya for putting it so clearly.
Trying to have proper interactions within a system that is enforcing random constraints is more of a chore than just working with or against the people around you. For Nodes, where you don't have any control, this is way worse. My neighbors don't get to decide if I am in their Node or not, they basically can't even throw me out of the Node even if I constantly act against the common Node philosophy/goals.
Extending that to Alliances that we are almost definitely not going to get to even vote on (and voting wouldn't be good either) is just a pain-point slog, and worst of all, benefits whoever manages to 'fake' getting along first/the most.
If node affiliations are supposed to be the highest, then why the hell can I pvp nodemates but not party/guild/raid/alliance-mates? How is node the higher loyalty on that list?
Yes, I completely support being able to pvp some asshole from your own node, but don't call that "highest affiliation" then, while lower affiliations somehow prevent you from punching a similar asshole in those groups.
This is the contradiction I'm talking about. Either let us flag on literally anyone, or don't say that people who I can murder are somehow closer to me that those who I can literally not attack.
Which faction game worked like this? Afaik WoW descended into "pick this faction or you won't be able to play normally" relatively quickly. Same was true in NW afaik. Don't remember which other games had factions (I think AA did, but I dunno how its servers turned out in terms of faction sizes), but an example from 20 years ago and one from just 4 years ago kinda imply that faction-based gameplay barely changed throughout the years.
One faction becomes stronger, then all the wealkings go to that faction to join the strong people, which then forces anyone else to join it as well, cause otherwise this now-huge faction simply wins through numbers. This is why I dislike those kinds of games.
And this also doesn't work for casuals, unless said casuals are happy to flip their chosen faction as soon as they realize that they "chose the wrong one, and are in no way protected against pure slaughter of their kind".
It doesn't though, as I said. Your nodemates are still completely free to kill you. Of course they'll ruin their rep, but that's no different from a random PKer doing the same. And if another nodemate and you are in a guild war against each other - their server rep wouldn't even go down. Maybe Steven will try to force the node affiliation to be higher by punishing nodemate kills more severely, but that remains to be seen.
This is exactly my thinking as well.
But a lot of people default to - different faction = KoS. For them, just the fact that another player is in another faction is enough of a excuse to PK them. I guess I'm looking for something more than that.
Early WoW was like that based on what I've seen, as the general setting and lore set up was really about 2 sides going to war against each other.
Archeage in theory was similar, but it just didn't feel like that at all. Besides, you could purple against your own faction, you'd see alliances between different factions, aka one guild turning against another guild from the same faction, while getting support from another guild from a different faction.
Factions are okay, if the general setting of the game, lore, and gameplay elements really emphasize and give you good reasons to PK another faction. In most cases, that's just not the case, and it's just like you mentioned - "fake".
In my latest experience from AA Classic, factions can easily become unbalanced. Here the "devs" allowed certain guilds to transfer, in order to balance it out, but it often came with its own problems (basically it was one server where EU/NA/OCE all played together, so you also had to account for different time zones as well, because East faction would absolutely dominate at NA time zone, but will get steamrolled during EU times, anyways, more complicated than usual).
Also most people will look to transfer to a stronger faction, if the game allows them to, as playing in a weak faction is basically pointless, as you cannot challenge any content, and you get steamrolled. If you cannot transfer, you'd likely quit.
Idk how it worked when they introduced player nations, I think it only got worse, but someone that has actually played during that version can let me know.
You do realize that most things you say "ABSOLUTETY NOT, MY GOOD SIR!!!" (are you sure you didn't want to make that BOLD too?!!!!?!!!) here is what is expected to happen with guilds and alliances of guilds?
For example:
"This will just screw everybody, then you do the Pax thing and just forcefully farm the dungeons and bosses and everything else because then nobody can wardec you lol"
Yes, guild and possibly guild alliances (as I assume they cannot pk/pvp each other out of group/raid?) are going to own dungeons and world bosses because they can zerg them without risk of friendly fire. I think that node Citizens...and keep in mind that the number of Citizens in a node is limited...should share the same benefits that separate guild groups in an area enjoy.
Man, you're just making my point about protection for casual players
ESO has you pick a faction that is active in their very very large PvP lake, and doesn't affect PvE at all. Because a lot of the PvP there is keep-centered, factions make a lot of sense. Three factions are a lot better than two. New world has something similar that is in effect all over but that game allows you un-flag, removing the need for a faction.
Why would you think that faction flipping is going to be easy? In ESO/WoW/DaoC/etc it requires making a new character. In NW it is/was a 90 day cooldown. In Ashes it will require changing citizenship, which I'm pretty sure has a cooldown. You will also have to move all your stuff around when you find a new property to buy/rent in the new node.
In no way will everyone go able to join the largest node-alliance. There are limited Citizen slots. I feel like a lot of people are missing how important Citizenship is going to be. Especially since you can only be a Citizen with one character per account. Very few alts will be Citizens.
When a Faction is a node (or a node cluster of patrons and vassals), you can kill anyone you want just by not being a Citizen. Hell, the way the game is currently you can do it even while being a Citizen of the same node. It's unlikely you would join a node that would declare Pax. Good for you.
You seem to be very caught up in the way other games have permanent allegiance to a faction, and how they can't fight at all. That isn't the case here and it makes a "faction" a lot less restrictive. Example, your group kills it's way to the final dungeon boss. Another group from your node/faction shows up and pulls the boss. When you can't attack them because the game rules won't let you attack someone of the same faction, it's terrible. But Ashes factions have a great PvP based solution.
The way node Citizenship works (tax/craft/vendor/nodebuff/etc benefits), and because travel time is going to very long, you are likely to be spending a LOT of your time in that node or adjacent nodes.
The way node-alliances are going to work, is that alliance is most likely going to be a bunch of nodes right next to each other. And other node-alliances are going to spring up next to you. And friction between those alliances is going to be at the borders. Node wars will likely be at the borders too.
However, node-alliances can't work if a node ends up electing a rabid dog mayor and that vassal actually has the ability to tear an entire alliance down. That what would happen if a vassal can attack a patron.
Shitty faction-based games that promote slaughter and genocide of enemies while preventing you from doing ANYTHING to your own side are shitty, and casuals got nothing to do with that.
Even during the ~50h of me playing WoW classic I had around 10 situations where I wanted to kill someone from my faction, because they were farming in the same location as me and I wanted to clear all the mobs there instead of just some.
Node affiliations will allow me to kill my nodemades, which is simply yet another proof that they are not factions in Ashes. Guilds/alliances are, but they're fully opt-in, so if you feel like you don't wanna share stuff with your guildmates - you're free to leave.
Though, just to make clear, I personally dislike that we can't attack our mates at all. We could in L2 and it was useful for some class mechanics and could be a good thing to use when someone was being extra stupid.
Yes, games that have shitty pvp mechanics and pvp toggles use factions - I'm not surprised
It's exactly BECAUSE flipping is expensive that I dislike factions. And Blizzard's biggest example of that realization was money for faction change, because they realized that people will understand that they've made a mistake by choosing "the wrong faction" and will want to switch.
Also, I'm not sure where you even saw me saying that it'd be easy to do. I just said that people would have to do it if they wanted to play normally.
Don't think we still have a concrete clarification on what "one citizenship per account" means. I do agree with your thought that it's "one char per acc and no other", but quitea few people think it's "all chars are citizens and can use housing, which is why they can't be citizens of other nodes".
So you object to factions because changing them is monetized by the developer? C'mon, you're moving the argument all over the place. Also, we know this won't be an issue in Ashes.
To try to get over a semantics issue, do you realize that in FFA PvP MMOs that don't have pre-set factions like horde/etc, your guilds/guild alliances are your faction? You can't PvP people in your guild(faction), and you're working together with them to accomplish objectives against other guilds(factions).
And yes, many people will join the winning side when they can. But that applies to guild/guild alliances just as much as it does to node/node alliances in Ashes
i dont like being locked to factions where u dont have options to PK somone (cause they may be an ass) however i also think there should be a bit more safety around people of your node so having corruption penalty higher for killing same node citizens would do both, reduce PvP on same nodes citizens aswell as still allowing it
Yes, I know they are factions. They're also SUPER EASY TO CHANGE ON A WHIM, even if Intrepid decide to put some type of lockout on that action. Changing your node citizenship will be super costly and won't even mean that you're not downshifting when you change it (unless you're an inn bum).
And I've already said that I'd prefer if we could attack our party/guild/raid/alliance-mates, because this allows for a much broader range of player interactions.
Yes, except both guilds and nodes will have limited memberships, which is just yet another point towards them not being factions, because afaik every game that has factions doesn't prevent you from picking a faction even if the entire damn server is already on that faction's side.
So once again, faction-based games are trash. Nodes are not factions, because you can attack your mates freely (even if with consequence). Guilds are as close to factions as it comes, but you can change them waaaay easier than in any other faction-based game and your core gameplay doesn't suffer due to that change. And I will be giving Intrepid feedback that attacking our mates is more than fine, as long as it requires a conscience action and a combo of keys to do it (just as the current flagging action does, but either even more complex or just on a different key combo).
Node and node structures aka vassals and patrons, are going to be similar to guilds and guild alliances. The way you get into them will be a little different (ginvite vs citizenship), and the way they are managed will be a little different (GM vs monthly mayors). Also, patrons and vassals systems will grow, or have their node's growth limited, automatically.
But nodes have a fixed location, and that's going to be important in a game with long travel time. Also, PvE done inside a nodes boundaries will help level the node. So players with any kind of node allegiance are going to mostly stay in their node while doing stuff. Also, citizens get tax breaks when selling/buying, special gear vendors and other really nice stuff if they increase their node rep...which requires being in your node.
High level nodes look like they will have higher citizen limits than guild membership, and since 13 patrons and vassal nodes can be together in a structure, that's going to be bigger than a guild alliance.
I just suggest that a group of patron/vassal nodes are the closest thing to a faction that this game has, and it might help people to understand how important they are if they think of them as being like factions:
Again, you're making my point for me. Nodes are the closest thing to factions that this game has (IE, harder to change). Not guilds. Your OPINION that factions are bad is your own. My opinion that FFA PvP games are trash and fade quickly is mine. We both have our reasons. The middle ground that Ashes is bringing to all of this looks like it will be very good. We will see
Factions in MMO games denote a status that is permantly branded on a character at creation and acts to essentially dictate all their PvP. Such as Alliance/Horde or thouse 3 groups in PlanetSide. The structure we will have is much more like Mega Corp alliance in EVE. Changing conquests will change the territory they control and players can move very fluidly from one to the other which is not the norm in faction based games, because AoC is not faction based.
I personally think the node Vassal/Patron system should be more player driven rather then automatic. Rather then locking a nodes tier from rising when it is vassalized, lock all nodes max tiers to how many vassals they have. Then let nodes fight to forcefully vassalize other nodes that are of less then or equal tier AND allow nodes to voluntarily submit to vassalage (perhapse getting to negotiate their tax rates and benifits as a result). And then let this status change and reshuffle in all kinds of politically driven ways.
That kind of political churn with groups coming and going from 'Kingdoms' is what kept EVE online going for years and what should be replicated.
This is why I said that currently guilds and alliances are the closest to factions based on that mechanic.