Node racial style depending on race contribution doesn't make sense

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.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Aszkalon

Noaani wrote: »

Why do you NEED to see a huge Dwarf group ?

Because i. NEED. Flavour in RPG Games, Noaani.

And not just me.

People in for Example WoW - made their Dwarf (and Gnome)-Guilds now since WoW Vanilla. Just more or lesser strong depending on Region and Server.

You will never see an awesome, huge Group of Nightelf-Sentinels or Ironforge-styled Dwarf-Troops or Dwarf Clans if you don't organise it.

I am still excited and curious to see if People are in the Mood for an awesome, Viking-styled Kae'lar Node.

In you know ? One of the colder Biomes where Vikings would make more Sense.

we can play our Curse of the Caribbean styled Pirates in the more tropic Biomes anyway.

Lodrig

The only way to really guarantee that minor race archtectures get expressed in the world is to modify the local results based on the global totals.

For example if Tulnar are creating 8% of the global XP then that percentage of all the nodes in the world (7) which have the highest local tulnar percentage get their style even if they are not a majority locally. The maths are a bit complex with multiple minor races but basically you assisgn a 'parity' race to a node such that the disparity is at a global minimum.

This would allow any slight concentration of a minor race to result in that architecture being expressed. It's also possible to blend this with the local majority on a sliding scale, and to introduce an 'inertia' factor that just gives weight to what ever the existing style is.

So a formula like 75% Local XP generated in the last month + 10% existing style + 15% Global parity weighting could be created. Though this no long guarantees minor race styles get expressed it makes it a lot easier for them and the inertia prevents overly frequent style changes as well.

An example, lets say Tulnar are 8% globally and Empyrian elves (which look to be the most popular) are hitting 22% globally, a big imbalance. If spread evenly their would be no Tulnar nodes at all if only local XP were used. But under the mixed formula if the Tulnar start to concentrate themselves just a little and get 10% in node which is currently Empyrian style then the global parity modifier switches to them and we get.

16.5% Empyrian + 7.5% Tulnar + 10% existing Empyrian +15% Parity Tulnar = 26.5% Empyrian, 22.5% Tulnar
So the node remains Empryian in large part due to the inertia factor.

But if Tulnar can reach 16% of the Local node XP (which means they have significantly concentrated to double their normal rate but are still outnumbered by Empryrian by a substantial amount) then...

16.5 Empryian + 12% Tulnar + 10% Existing Empyrian + 15% Parity Tulnar = 26.5 Empyrian, 27% Tulnar and the Node style flipps and will now stick their due to inertia unless the Tulnar drop sustantially.

Caeryl

Lodrig wrote: »

The only way to really guarantee that minor race archtectures get expressed in the world is to modify the local results based on the global totals.

For example if Tulnar are creating 8% of the global XP then that percentage of all the nodes in the world (7) which have the highest local tulnar percentage get their style even if they are not a majority locally. The maths are a bit complex with multiple minor races but basically you assisgn a 'parity' race to a node such that the disparity is at a global minimum.

This would allow any slight concentration of a minor race to result in that architecture being expressed. It's also possible to blend this with the local majority on a sliding scale, and to introduce an 'inertia' factor that just gives weight to what ever the existing style is.

So a formula like 75% Local XP generated in the last month + 10% existing style + 15% Global parity weighting could be created. Though this no long guarantees minor race styles get expressed it makes it a lot easier for them and the inertia prevents overly frequent style changes as well.

An example, lets say Tulnar are 8% globally and Empyrian elves (which look to be the most popular) are hitting 22% globally, a big imbalance. If spread evenly their would be no Tulnar nodes at all if only local XP were used. But under the mixed formula if the Tulnar start to concentrate themselves just a little and get 10% in node which is currently Empyrian style then the global parity modifier switches to them and we get.

16.5% Empyrian + 7.5% Tulnar + 10% existing Empyrian +15% Parity Tulnar = 26.5% Empyrian, 22.5% Tulnar
So the node remains Empryian in large part due to the inertia factor.

But if Tulnar can reach 16% of the Local node XP (which means they have significantly concentrated to double their normal rate but are still outnumbered by Empryrian by a substantial amount) then...

16.5 Empryian + 12% Tulnar + 10% Existing Empyrian + 15% Parity Tulnar = 26.5 Empyrian, 27% Tulnar and the Node style flipps and will now stick their due to inertia unless the Tulnar drop sustantially.

That's a lot of backend dice-loading that's simply not needed. The reason 'majority rule' is the design is because it makes sense narratively and most accurately reflects what players have chosen. If most of the people building up the node are Py'Rai then obviously they'll be building it in their cultural style.

If Tulnar are only 8% of the population, then I wouldn't expect or particularly want there to be Tulnar nodes because they haven't actually had a significant hand in building up the world in that particular server. If they all concentration in one node, then they'd have a decent shot of it, but there's not a need to artificially boost their contribution just because of the aesthetic preferences of a small amount of players.

CROW3

idk - I could see a Military node enforcing their vision of the world through decree, including architecture, instead of reflecting the majority of the people. Plenty of historical examples to draw from there.

Caeryl

CROW3 wrote: »

idk - I could see a Military node enforcing their vision of the world through decree, including architecture, instead of reflecting the majority of the people. Plenty of historical examples to draw from there.

I could see that coming into play, yeah.

Ungohil

Caeryl wrote: »

Your discontent stems from a lack of each race having their style represented, but that's by design and a direct result of player choice.

Well sure, what else?
The point is, that according to player choice, there will be dominating races. Thats the point - and issue, because one can foresee this domination - especially because race choice cant be balanced with racial perks, because they doesnt really matter.

Even if players could pick what type of style they're contributing, you're still not going to see many Tulnar nodes.

But more, because once you offer options, they will be used. So also a human dominated realm will start, just for variety reasons, to use other cultural styles. So no, I disagree, you can, as a developer, control and balance this variety a bit, if you provide additional choices to reduce the same looking (getting boring and redundant) all over the nodes.

Ungohil

Caeryl wrote: »

In both cases it's ok if that happens.

Depends. If 90% of the nodes are human, it‘s boring and repetitive. Intrepid can potentially save lot of development, just reduce efforts in design work of potential under represented races and cultures. Because it doesnt matter, they will not be seen (often). Right? ;-)

Caeryl

Chaliux wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Your discontent stems from a lack of each race having their style represented, but that's by design and a direct result of player choice.

Well sure, what else?
The point is, that according to player choice, there will be dominating races. Thats the point - and issue, because one can foresee this domination - especially because race choice cant be balanced with racial perks, because they doesnt really matter.

Even if players could pick what type of style they're contributing, you're still not going to see many Tulnar nodes.

But more, because once you offer options, they will be used. So also a human dominated realm will start, just for variety reasons, to use other cultural styles. So no, I disagree, you can, as a developer, control and balance this variety a bit, if you provide additional choices to reduce the same looking (getting boring and redundant) all over the nodes.

The choice was provided, already said I'd be fine if players could choose a separate node style preference than their chosen race's default.

I don't see any issue with the majority of nodes being what the majority have picked, either through race choice or specific style choice alongside the race.

They could make it so every single race has a set node in their style, but they shouldn't. They could put a hardcoded cap on how many nodes can be in a particular style, but they shouldn't.

There is no mechanical reason that it should happen, and they shouldn't reduce the impact of player choice because of the minority opinion's aesthetic preferences.

Like sorry, not sorry that you don't like the human architectural styles, but you're genuinely going to have to get over the game not providing you your preferred aesthetics over the preferred aesthetics of the rest of the people living in and providing exp for that node.

Caeryl

Chaliux wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

In both cases it's ok if that happens.

Depends. If 90% of the nodes are human, it‘s boring and repetitive. Intrepid can potentially save lot of development, just reduce efforts in design work of potential under represented races and cultures. Because it doesnt matter, they will not be seen (often). Right? ;-)

The hyperbole is unneeded and unlikely in the first place. I've got zero doubt that there will be plenty of furries rolling Tulnar in Ashes to go along with the thus-far popular Empyrean elves. I'd have bigger worries for the darker human race Vaelune not having a visible presence than the Tulnar.

Ungohil

Caeryl wrote: »

The choice was provided, already said I'd be fine if players could choose a separate node style preference than their chosen race's default.

Ok, fine. Yes, I also would appreciate this, it provides more possibilities, more variety.

I don't see any issue with the majority of nodes being what the majority have picked,

You dont. Others do. Its about sharing different opinions, right? Not about having the „right“ opinion. I personally disagree, its an issue if everything looks equally.

There is no mechanical reason that it should happen, and they shouldn't reduce the impact of player choice because of the minority opinion's aesthetic preferences.

Its no discussion about mechanical reasons at all.
It adds choices and variety, its not about reducing them. If, due to dominant races, it can be foreseen that majority of the nodes of the realms will look the same, just because of the only choice done in the character editor, then its reducing choice for all years afterwards. Not the other way round.

Like sorry, not sorry that you don't like the human architectural styles, but you're genuinely going to have to get over the game not providing you your preferred aesthetics over the preferred aesthetics of the rest of the people living in and providing exp for that node.

Not talking about me personally in terms of humans or whatever, just talking about the topic in general: The more offer and choices, the better. It brings more variety, instead of seeing 80% of the nodes in same style. That will start to be boring and it will question all the desgin efforts from intrepid that they‘ve done during the years. Its a MMO meant for decades. Choice is needed, believe me. It shouldnt be bound to the character creation screen at release day.

As for human: I will play one, so again, its not about me or specific about one race or culture. I thought you already got that?

Caeryl

Chaliux wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

The choice was provided, already said I'd be fine if players could choose a separate node style preference than their chosen race's default.

Ok, fine. Yes, I also would appreciate this, it provides more possibilities, more variety.

I don't see any issue with the majority of nodes being what the majority have picked,

You dont. Others do. Its about sharing different opinions, right? Not about having the „right“ opinion. I personally disagree, its an issue if everything looks equally.

There is no mechanical reason that it should happen, and they shouldn't reduce the impact of player choice because of the minority opinion's aesthetic preferences.

Its no discussion about mechanical reasons at all.
It adds choices and variety, its not about reducing them. If, due to dominant races, it can be foreseen that majority of the nodes of the realms will look the same, just because of the only choice done in the character editor, then its reducing choice for all years afterwards. Not the other way round.

Like sorry, not sorry that you don't like the human architectural styles, but you're genuinely going to have to get over the game not providing you your preferred aesthetics over the preferred aesthetics of the rest of the people living in and providing exp for that node.

Not talking about me personally in terms of humans or whatever, just talking about the topic in general: The more offer and choices, the better. It brings more variety, instead of seeing 80% of the nodes in same style. That will start to be borning and it will question all the desgin efforts from intrepid that they‘ve done during the years.

As for human: I will play one, so again, its not about me or specific about one race or culture. I thought you already got that?

You've already said you don't like majority rule, but the only other option is to ignore what most players chose in favor of what less player chose. You'll never ever please everyone, so it's better to please the most people you can while maintaining the core pillars of the game.

Variety will exist in the world in biomes, dungeons, raids etc. If the player base of every single node in every server overwhelmingly picked one race, then they alone are to blame for the majority of nodes sharing a style.

'A vast population of humans has populated Verra with primarily their settlements' makes perfect sense.

'A wildly varying population of adventures has populated Verra with a variety of settlements' also makes perfect sense.

'A vast population of humans has populated Verra with just as many elven and dwarven settlements as human settlements' does not make sense.

There will be dwarven nodes, and elven nodes, and human nodes if the players want there to be, and making choices to enable that aesthetic preference starts at character select, not with rigging the dice against popular choice.

Ungohil

"Caeryl wrote:

You've already said you don't like majority rule, but the only other option is to ignore what most players chose in favor of what less player chose. You'll never ever please everyone, so it's better to please the most people you can while maintaining the core pillars of the game.

No, I like to enhance the choices even for the majority. You stick to the idea that the race selection in the character creation screen is something which dictates the architecture for the upcoming decades. And I disagree with that, you can quote and reply as often as you like, it will not change me view on it. By contrast, I would appreciate options in the game, that allows to change node design (not only during the level stages) although there are dominant races covering the realms (they will also dominate during node leveling with their overwhelming contribution) And that can be foreseen, so this risk can be managed.
Why should intrepid invest so much time into racial designs for nodes?

Variety will exist in the world in biomes, dungeons, raids etc.

And monsters. Weapons. Mounts. Etc.
Just has nothing to do with this topic. Nodes are very central. If from 85 nodes 70 are the same race its just boring. And if a realm is dominated like this, it will not change for decades unless intrepid includes race changing services. So this is reducing variety, diversity and choice. And all three aspects are bad.

Dygz

If things begin to look too boring, that means you need to Siege that City/Metro and allow a different Race to dominate the Metro that replaces it.

Ungohil

Will not happen if the race population is not balanced - same race will rebuild the node, because thats the entire point of domination. Its just a time sink in between, but no racial design change will happen.

Garrtok

Caeryl wrote: »

Chaliux wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

The choice was provided, already said I'd be fine if players could choose a separate node style preference than their chosen race's default.

Ok, fine. Yes, I also would appreciate this, it provides more possibilities, more variety.

I don't see any issue with the majority of nodes being what the majority have picked,

You dont. Others do. Its about sharing different opinions, right? Not about having the „right“ opinion. I personally disagree, its an issue if everything looks equally.

There is no mechanical reason that it should happen, and they shouldn't reduce the impact of player choice because of the minority opinion's aesthetic preferences.

Its no discussion about mechanical reasons at all.
It adds choices and variety, its not about reducing them. If, due to dominant races, it can be foreseen that majority of the nodes of the realms will look the same, just because of the only choice done in the character editor, then its reducing choice for all years afterwards. Not the other way round.

Like sorry, not sorry that you don't like the human architectural styles, but you're genuinely going to have to get over the game not providing you your preferred aesthetics over the preferred aesthetics of the rest of the people living in and providing exp for that node.

Not talking about me personally in terms of humans or whatever, just talking about the topic in general: The more offer and choices, the better. It brings more variety, instead of seeing 80% of the nodes in same style. That will start to be borning and it will question all the desgin efforts from intrepid that they‘ve done during the years.

As for human: I will play one, so again, its not about me or specific about one race or culture. I thought you already got that?

You've already said you don't like majority rule, but the only other option is to ignore what most players chose in favor of what less player chose. You'll never ever please everyone, so it's better to please the most people you can while maintaining the core pillars of the game.

Variety will exist in the world in biomes, dungeons, raids etc. If the player base of every single node in every server overwhelmingly picked one race, then they alone are to blame for the majority of nodes sharing a style.

'A vast population of humans has populated Verra with primarily their settlements' makes perfect sense.

'A wildly varying population of adventures has populated Verra with a variety of settlements' also makes perfect sense.

'A vast population of humans has populated Verra with just as many elven and dwarven settlements as human settlements' does not make sense.

There will be dwarven nodes, and elven nodes, and human nodes if the players want there to be, and making choices to enable that aesthetic preference starts at character select, not with rigging the dice against popular choice.

Why should your choice of race bind you for your entire time with the game to a certain node style ? I don't think that should be the case.

Your "the players are to blame then" only works if you accept the current concept as set into stone with not a nuance of change possible.

Caeryl

Chaliux wrote: »

Why should intrepid invest so much time into racial designs for nodes?

<snipped out all the runaround>

They are designing racial style because those racial styles are going to appear. Demographics are never evenly dispersed, and based purely on the polls for this niche group on the forums, there's gonna be decent variety throughout the world.

I find it extremely unlikely that there would be any case that 90% of nodes would share an architectural style.

Caeryl

Garrtok wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Chaliux wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

The choice was provided, already said I'd be fine if players could choose a separate node style preference than their chosen race's default.

Ok, fine. Yes, I also would appreciate this, it provides more possibilities, more variety.

I don't see any issue with the majority of nodes being what the majority have picked,

You dont. Others do. Its about sharing different opinions, right? Not about having the „right“ opinion. I personally disagree, its an issue if everything looks equally.

There is no mechanical reason that it should happen, and they shouldn't reduce the impact of player choice because of the minority opinion's aesthetic preferences.

Its no discussion about mechanical reasons at all.
It adds choices and variety, its not about reducing them. If, due to dominant races, it can be foreseen that majority of the nodes of the realms will look the same, just because of the only choice done in the character editor, then its reducing choice for all years afterwards. Not the other way round.

Like sorry, not sorry that you don't like the human architectural styles, but you're genuinely going to have to get over the game not providing you your preferred aesthetics over the preferred aesthetics of the rest of the people living in and providing exp for that node.

Not talking about me personally in terms of humans or whatever, just talking about the topic in general: The more offer and choices, the better. It brings more variety, instead of seeing 80% of the nodes in same style. That will start to be borning and it will question all the desgin efforts from intrepid that they‘ve done during the years.

As for human: I will play one, so again, its not about me or specific about one race or culture. I thought you already got that?

You've already said you don't like majority rule, but the only other option is to ignore what most players chose in favor of what less player chose. You'll never ever please everyone, so it's better to please the most people you can while maintaining the core pillars of the game.

Variety will exist in the world in biomes, dungeons, raids etc. If the player base of every single node in every server overwhelmingly picked one race, then they alone are to blame for the majority of nodes sharing a style.

'A vast population of humans has populated Verra with primarily their settlements' makes perfect sense.

'A wildly varying population of adventures has populated Verra with a variety of settlements' also makes perfect sense.

'A vast population of humans has populated Verra with just as many elven and dwarven settlements as human settlements' does not make sense.

There will be dwarven nodes, and elven nodes, and human nodes if the players want there to be, and making choices to enable that aesthetic preference starts at character select, not with rigging the dice against popular choice.

Why should your choice of race bind you for your entire time with the game to a certain node style ? I don't think that should be the case.

Your "the players are to blame then" only works if you accept the current concept as set into stone with not a nuance of change possible.

Your choice of race doesn't bind you to a style, you can always move nodes if the aesthetic style is a deal breaker for some reason.

What your character contributes to a node is set though because Ashes is an MMORPG and the races actually have an inbuilt culture they're bringing to Verra in this resettlement.

Caeryl

Flanker wrote: »

I guess this helps?

Claim it's 'just' 440 people, but this is the most likely population to stick with ashes here, and it's a healthy population split

Edit: on second thought, reddit is actually a more 'everyman' population than any poll here would be, so it's a better representation

Lodrig

Caeryl wrote: »

That's a lot of backend dice-loading that's simply not needed. The reason 'majority rule' is the design is because it makes sense narratively and most accurately reflects what players have chosen. If most of the people building up the node are Py'Rai then obviously they'll be building it in their cultural style.

If Tulnar are only 8% of the population, then I wouldn't expect or particularly want there to be Tulnar nodes because they haven't actually had a significant hand in building up the world in that particular server. If they all concentration in one node, then they'd have a decent shot of it, but there's not a need to artificially boost their contribution just because of the aesthetic preferences of a small amount of players.

First it is not 'majority' it is PLURAILITY, aka the highest percentage, and it's likely to be no where near a majority in ANY node given that they did away with racial starting gates.

Also 8% is not really much of an under representation. 11% is what each race woud be if their were a perfectly equal distribution of picks. If thouse players were evenly spread then 88% of players don't match the node they are in. The survey results I've seen show Empyrian to be the most popular single race at close to 20% (the overall Elf levels are highest because Py Rai are coming in at a respectable 10% so the combined elf totals are close to 30%) which is more then enough to dominate EVERY node in the world even against races which are at or modestly above the 11% mean, and completly shuts out races that drop into the single digits (Ren Kai, Velune and Nikua look to be the least popular) and if players are evenly distributed so we would have a total monoculture of Empyrian architecture and have 80% of players shafted.

That would simply be a total waste of development time in creating all these different archetecture types.
Should minority races need to concentrate in a location to get it to express their architecture, YES, should they need to concentrate SO MUCH that they actualy out number that one race that is most popular on the server, I say no. It is not at all difficult or complex to have a system which boosts the minor racial influence to get them to atleast a few nodes and it is a completly sliding scale for what we want that point to be.

I presented some hypothetical numbers for how to do that. But what ultimatly matters is the final distribution and how far we can get from a monoculture of 1 architecture. I'd be satisfied if the top race could be kept to less then HALF of all nodes and the top 2 races to less then three quarters.

This is for the benifit of ALL players because your game world actually looks different as you travel around it.

Caeryl

Lodrig wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

That's a lot of backend dice-loading that's simply not needed. The reason 'majority rule' is the design is because it makes sense narratively and most accurately reflects what players have chosen. If most of the people building up the node are Py'Rai then obviously they'll be building it in their cultural style.

If Tulnar are only 8% of the population, then I wouldn't expect or particularly want there to be Tulnar nodes because they haven't actually had a significant hand in building up the world in that particular server. If they all concentration in one node, then they'd have a decent shot of it, but there's not a need to artificially boost their contribution just because of the aesthetic preferences of a small amount of players.

First it is not 'majority' it is PLURAILITY, aka the highest percentage, and it's likely to be no where near a majority in ANY node given that they did away with racial starting gates.

Also 8% is not really much of an under representation. 11% is what each race woud be if their were a perfectly equal distribution of picks. If thouse players were evenly spread then 88% of players don't match the node they are in. The survey results I've seen show Empyrian to be the most popular single race at close to 20% (the overall Elf levels are highest because Py Rai are coming in at a respectable 10% so the combined elf totals are close to 30%) which is more then enough to dominate EVERY node in the world even against races which are at or modestly above the 11% mean, and completly shuts out races that drop into the single digits (Ren Kai, Velune and Nikua look to be the least popular) and if players are evenly distributed so we would have a total monoculture of Empyrian architecture and have 80% of players shafted.

The terminology doesn't change that the race that contributes the most exp to the node should be what determines that node's architecture. This is consistent with the narrative of rebuilding Verra and having differing races with differing cultures all competing to do so.

Your scenario is also just doomsaying at the moment.

'Elven' is not a node option. The style is based on sub-races.

Should minority races need to concentrate in a location to get it to express their architecture, YES, should then need to concentrate SO MUCH that they actualy out number a race that is most popular on the server, I say no. It is not at all difficult or complex to have a system which boosts the minor racial influence to get them to atleast a few nodes.

This is for the benifit of ALL players because your game world actually looks different as you travel around it.

Node style is determined by exp contributions, not by population number alone. If 15% of the population is dedicated players using Vaelune characters, that's gonna beat out 20% of the population casually playing Empyrean characters. It isn't needed to outnumber the population of the server-wide common race, it's not even needed they outnumber the local population, just that they contribute more.

If all these players are picking Empyreans, what makes you believe that if given a vote, they'd pick a Tulnar, or a Ren'kai? What makes you believe they would be happy to 'lose' the racial style they chose despite having contributed the most exp to it?

Sure, we'd have no way to know one way or the other if there was a genuine win in the exp contribution contest, but it has no bearing on gameplay even if (and it's a massive, giant, capital I if) somehow 90% of nodes ended up the same.

This is all entirely aesthetic preferences, not driven by gameplay concerns at all, because the artistic style of buildings isn't gameplay, and has no bearing on available content.

Child Item