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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.
Node racial style depending on race contribution doesn't make sense
Garrtok
Member, Alpha Two
Hi,
while in theory it sounds great and logical, that a node gets the style of the most contributing race, its actually not a well thought of system.
In every mmo you have races, that are played much more than others, so a niche race will maybe never or very unlikely see a node in their style.
I guess there should be an alternative system. Maybe the mayor's race or swappable and you need a blue print that is only craftable by the race itself.
while in theory it sounds great and logical, that a node gets the style of the most contributing race, its actually not a well thought of system.
In every mmo you have races, that are played much more than others, so a niche race will maybe never or very unlikely see a node in their style.
I guess there should be an alternative system. Maybe the mayor's race or swappable and you need a blue print that is only craftable by the race itself.
3
Comments
How? It's pretty much statistics.
In wow for example 16% are playing blood elves, while only 3% are playing goblins. In ashes it will be the same. Guess who will contribute more in nearly all cases.
20 years ago yes. Pretty sure that most nodes will be run by streamers or very big guilds
Depeding on the influence of racial perks that will increase this risk. Imbalance between races or popularity of races can barely be controlled, but I also guess that there will be solutions in the future that allow switching node styles to fight against domination of a very popular race.
WoW implemented cross-faction play because of imbalance of races, hard punch lore-wise, necessary solution gameplay-wise. And, WoW started with impactful racial perks and nerfed them completely because min/maxers selected the best race, not the most liked race.
You are correct, and this is why this is almost exclusively an aesthetic mechanic.
There are no meaningful benefits to having a node of your own race.
yeah but also not everybody will be on the same node. less played races might get their node.
Why do you think so? Of course it will happen sometimes, but realistically most nodes will have two - three different skins
so?they are just skins ;3
Yes they are, but it's about the system that is not well designed.
It's just 440 people...
They've already said that there is a diminishing effect if nodes already exist of a certain race - ie a contribution penalty for the other nodes. Less played races might build a node if they work togehter.
Remember - the world is in ruins. It's built up by players returning to Verra through the portals. A small minority of Nikua won't have that much cultural impact on the world unless they all work together in one place.
Players of a race playing together to build a node in their style is very far from the reality of the game
Right, so given that how would a node even form for a culture if the race isn't working together to establish it?
This isn't wow where the races already have established homes. There are ruins of ancient civilization, but it's still the people coming back through the portals that are building it. There is nothing lorewise OR mechanics wise that can justify forcing particular nodes to be a minority race.
why is not well designed? how did you come up with that? just because someone cant get something right away makes it a bad design?
The players will need to concentrate to make the different styles apear. As both the race apearance and the node apearance are asthetic rather then functional this is a group aschetic choice that you engage in by voting with your time.
If players prefer certain astetics over other they will preferentially live in the nodes that match vs thouse that don't match. The only issue I see is if players have a mismatch between their character racial astetics they like and the building asthetics they like.
The logical fix to that is to give players a selector which determines what building astetic their XP generation contributes to a node. Aka you could be a Vek but want to live in a Py Rai node and thus set your selector to Py Rai so your xp gets counted towards that asthetic. By default the selector is obviusly matched to your race but you can change it.
This would be far better then giving the choice to the mayor because it augments the existing design with more player choice and remains a bottom up vote with time. Also Nodes have an astetic BEFORE they have mayors as a mayor comes in only at tier 3 and their needs to be a system to determine what nodes level 1 and 2 look like.
Personally I'm hugely against the removal of the racial perks. It just makes the world building lesser for it when entirely different species are treated exactly the same and ultimately it means you'll see more lopsided aesthetics than if racials perks did exist to influence selection a bit.
that make sense, but throw economy related perks. combat ones are always to much of a head ake.
Combat ones are fine, good even, as long as they're done similar to D&D, so no % increases to stats or damage. Flat values don't make issues for the end-game.
I am most aware we are still Y~EEAARS away from it, but ... ... ...
... ... can i please have my darn Kae'lar Node ? ^.^ -> " INSIDE " one of the Two cold/est Biomes ?
Either being a Fishing Village on the Coast ? Or a well-fortified Node in the snowy Forests or one some Mountain ?
You know ? Something that RESEMBLES the Viking/Nord/Skellige Dream - for a bit.
It won't ever come to pass if People like me who wish for the same don't come together in great Numbers on probably/(hopefully?) the same Server and all Quest with our KAE'LAR Characters in a specific Node Area so we without fail contribute the most to the Node in Question which we want to make into our cool, northern, Viking-like Node.
Yes.
I am indeed that selfish.
If the whole World needs to burn for it, then so be it ! (lol)
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
There could still be a server that is mostly Goblins.
And, in Ashes, there could be a Realm with a Metro led by the Race that has the lowest percentage across all Realms but has the highest percentage in that Metro.
I kind of disagree.
The original system had a small amount of benefit to the appropriate races. That made it a badly designed system.
The fix to that was to remove the benefit and make it an aesthetic only thing.
The difference here should be obvious. We are all generally against microtransactions, but make them aesthetic only and its generally fine. The same is true here - being aesthetic only makes the whole thing generally fine.
I also would like to see racial perks retained, utility abiliites I think are good. Nikua holding their breath underwater longer is flavorful but not unbalanced. Some gathering perks and other misilanious stuff has possibility. Perks can and should be used to try to bring more players to the less popular races which means adjusting them over time based on popularity.